MOLL FLANDERSMy true name is so well known in the records or registers at Newgate,and in the Old Bailey, and there are some things of such consequencestill depending there, relating to my particular conduct, that it isnot be expected I should set my name or the account of my family tothis work; perhaps, after my death, it may be better known; at presentit would not be proper, no not though a general pardon should beissued, even without exceptions and reserve of persons or crimes.It is enough to tell you, that as some of my worst comrades, who areout of the way of doing me harm (having gone out of the world by thesteps and the string, as I often expected to go ), knew me by the nameof Moll Flanders, so you may give me leave to speak of myself underthat name till I dare own who I have been, as well as who I am.I have been told that in one of neighbour nations, whether it be inFrance or where else I know not, they have an order from the king, thatwhen any criminal is condemned, either to die, or to the galleys, or tobe transported, if they leave any children, as such are generallyunprovided for, by the poverty or forfeiture of their parents, so theyare immediately taken into the care of the Government, and put into ahospital called the House of Orphans, where they are bred up, clothed,fed, taught, and when fit to go out, are placed out to trades or toservices, so as to be well able to provide for themselves by an honest,industrious behaviour.Had this been the custom in our country, I had not been left a poordesolate girl without friends, without clothes, without help or helperin the world, as was my fate; and by which I was not only exposed tovery great distresses, even before I was capable either ofunderstanding my case or how to amend it, but brought into a course oflife which was not only scandalous in itself, but which in its ordinarycourse tended to the swift destruction both of soul and body.But the case was otherwise here. My mother was convicted of felony fora certain petty theft scarce worth naming, viz. having an opportunityof borrowing three pieces of fine holland of a certain draper inCheapside. The circumstances are too long to repeat, and I have heardthem related so many ways, that I can scarce be certain which is theright account.However it was, this they all agree in, that my mother pleaded herbelly, and being found quick with child, she was respited for aboutseven months; in which time having brought me into the world, and beingabout again, she was called down, as they term it, to her formerjudgment, but obtained the favour of being transported to theplantations, and left me about half a year old; and in bad hands, youmay be sure.This is too near the first hours of my life for me to relate anythingof myself but by hearsay; it is enough to mention, that as I was bornin such an unhappy place, I had no parish to have recourse to for mynourishment in my infancy; nor can I give the least account how I waskept alive, other than that, as I have been told, some relation of mymother's took me away for a while as a nurse, but at whose expense, orby whose direction, I know nothing at all of it.The first account that I can recollect, or could ever learn of myself,was that I had wandered among a crew of those people they call gypsies,or Egyptians; but I believe it was but a very little while that I hadbeen among them, for I had not had my skin discoloured or blackened, asthey do very young to all the children they carry about with them; norcan I tell how I came among them, or how I got from them.It was at Colchester, in Essex, that those people left me; and I have anotion in my head that I left them there (that is, that I hid myselfand would not go any farther with them), but I am not able to beparticular in that account; only this I remember, that being taken upby some of the parish officers of Colchester, I gave an account that Icame into the town with the gypsies, but that I would not go anyfarther with them, and that so they had left me, but whither they weregone that I knew not, nor could they expect it of me; for though theysend round the country to inquire after them, it seems they could notbe found.I was now in a way to be provided for; for though I was not a parishcharge upon this or that part of the town by law, yet as my case cameto be known, and that I was too young to do any work, being not abovethree years old, compassion moved the magistrates of the town to ordersome care to be taken of me, and I became one of their own as much asif I had been born in the place.