ch I carried off before, and some plate, and other things,
I found I could hardly muster up #500; and my condition was very odd,
for though I had no child (I had had one by my gentleman draper, but it
was buried), yet I was a widow bewitched; I had a husband and no
husband, and I could not pretend to marry again, though I knew well
enough my husband would never see England any more, if he lived fifty
years. Thus, I say, I was limited from marriage, what offer might
soever be made me; and I had not one friend to advise with in the
condition I was in, least not one I durst trust the secret of my
circumstances to, for if the commissioners were to have been informed
where I was, I should have been fetched up and examined upon oath, and
all I have saved be taken away from me.

Upon these apprehensions, the first thing I did was to go quite out of
my knowledge, and go by another name. This I did effectually, for I
went into the Mint too, took lodgings in a very private place, dressed
up in the habit of a widow, and called myself Mrs. Flanders.

Here, however, I concealed myself, and though my new acquaintances knew
nothing of me, yet I soon got a great deal of company about me; and
whether it be that women are scarce among the sorts of people that
generally are to be found there, or that some consolations in the
miseries of the place are more requisite than on other occasions, I
soon found an agreeable woman was exceedingly valuable among the sons
of affliction there, and that those that wanted money to pay half a
crown on the pound to their creditors, and that run in debt at the sign
of the Bull for their dinners, would yet find money for a supper, if
they liked the woman.

However, I kept myself safe yet, though I began, like my Lord
Rochester's mistress, that loved his company, but would not admit him
farther, to have the scandal of a whore, without the joy; and upon this
score, tired with the place, and indeed with the company too, I began
to think of removing.

It was indeed a subject of strange reflection to me to see men who were
overwhelmed in perplexed circumstances, who were reduced some degrees
below being ruined, whose families were objects of their own terror and
other people's charity, yet while a penny lasted, nay, even beyond it,
endeavouring to drown themselves, labouring to forget former things,
which now it was the proper time to remember, making more work for
repentance, and sinning on, as a remedy f