Moll Flanders | Page 3

in the remotest parts of the world, and that no case can be so low,
so despicable, or so empty of prospect, but that an unwearied industry will go a great way
to deliver us from it, will in time raise the meanest creature to appear again the world,
and give him a new case for his life.
There are a few of the serious inferences which we are led by the hand to in this book,
and these are fully sufficient to justify any man in recommending it to the world, and
much more to justify the publication of it.
There are two of the most beautiful parts still behind, which this story gives some idea of,
and lets us into the parts of them, but they are either of them too long to be brought into
the same volume, and indeed are, as I may call them, whole volumes of themselves, viz.:
1. The life of her governess, as she calls her, who had run through, it seems, in a few
years, all the eminent degrees of a gentlewoman, a whore, and a bawd; a midwife and a
midwife-keeper, as they are called; a pawnbroker, a childtaker, a receiver of thieves, and
of thieves' purchase, that is to say, of stolen goods; and in a word, herself a thief, a
breeder up of thieves and the like, and yet at last a penitent.
The second is the life of her transported husband, a highwayman, who it seems, lived a
twelve years' life of successful villainy upon the road, and even at last came off so well as
to be a volunteer transport, not a convict; and in whose life there is an incredible variety.
But, as I have said, these are things too long to bring in here, so neither can I make a
promise of the coming out by themselves.
We cannot say, indeed, that this history is carried on quite to the end of the life of this
famous Moll Flanders, as she calls herself, for nobody can write their own life to the full
end of it, unless they can write it after they are dead. But her husband's life, being written
by a third hand, gives a full account of them both, how long they lived together in that
country, and how they both came to England again, after about eight years, in which time

they were grown very rich, and where she lived, it seems, to be very old, but was not so
extraordinary a penitent as she was at first; it seems only that indeed she always spoke
with abhorrence of her former life, and of every part of it.
In her last scene, at Maryland and Virginia, many pleasant things happened, which makes
that part of her life very agreeable, but they are not told with the same elegancy as those
accounted for by herself; so it is still to the more advantage that we break off here.

My 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 consequence still depending there, relating to
my particular conduct, that it is not be expected I should set my name or the account of
my family to this work; perhaps, after my death, it may be better known; at present it
would not be proper, no not though a general pardon should be issued, even without
exceptions and reserve of persons or crimes.
It is enough to tell you, that as some of my worst comrades, who are out of the way of
doing me harm (having gone out of the world by the steps and the string, as I often
expected to go ), knew me by the name of Moll Flanders, so you may give me leave to
speak of myself under that 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 in France or where else I
know not, they have an order from the king, that when any criminal is condemned, either
to die, or to the galleys, or to be transported, if they leave any children, as such are
generally unprovided for, by the poverty or forfeiture of their parents, so they are
immediately taken into the care of the Government, and put into a hospital 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 to services, 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 poor