g things to a conclusion, and so in about six
weeks' time more we settled all our preliminaries; and, among the rest,
he let me know that he should have the bill for his naturalisation
passed time enough, so that he would be (as he called it) an Englishman
before we married. That was soon perfected, the Parliament being then
sitting, and several other foreigners joining in the said bill to save
the expense.

It was not above three or four days after, but that, without giving me
the least notice that he had so much as been about the patent for
baronet, he brought it me in a fine embroidered bag, and saluting me by
the name of my Lady ---- (joining his own surname to it), presented it
to me with his picture set with diamonds, and at the same time gave me a
breast-jewel worth a thousand pistoles, and the next morning we were
married. Thus I put an end to all the intriguing part of my life--a life
full of prosperous wickedness; the reflections upon which were so much
the more afflicting as the time had been spent in the grossest crimes,
which, the more I looked back upon, the more black and horrid they
appeared, effectually drinking up all the comfort and satisfaction which
I might otherwise have taken in that part of life which was still before
me.

The first satisfaction, however, that I took in the new condition I was
in was in reflecting that at length the life of crime was over, and that
I was like a passenger coming back from the Indies, who, having, after
many years' fatigues and hurry in business, gotten a good estate, with
innumerable difficulties and hazards, is arrived safe at London with all
his effects, and has the pleasure of saying he shall never venture upon
the seas any more.

When we were married we came back immediately to my lodgings (for the
church was but just by), and we were so privately married that none but
Amy and my friend the Quaker was acquainted with it. As soon as we came
into the house he took me in his arms, and kissing me, "Now you are my
own," says he. "Oh that you had been so good to have done this eleven
years ago!" "Then," said I, "you, perhaps, would have been tired of me
long ago; it is much better now, for now all our happy days are to come.
Besides," said I, "I should not have been half so rich;" but that I said
to myself, for there was no letting him into the reason of it. "Oh!"
says he, "I should not have been tired of you; but, besides having the
satisfaction of your company,