It was after those adventures in Ireland, and when she was pretty well
known in that country, that she left Dublin and came over to England,
where, the time of her transportation being not expired, she left her
former trade, for fear of falling into bad hands again, for then she
was sure to have gone to wreck. Here she set up the same trade she had
followed in Ireland, in which she soon, by her admirable management and
good tongue, arrived to the height which I have already described, and
indeed began to be rich, though her trade fell off again afterwards, as
I have hinted before.
I mentioned thus much of the history of this woman here, the better to
account for the concern she had in the wicked life I was now leading,
into all the particulars of which she led me, as it were, by the hand,
and gave me such directions, and I so well followed them, that I grew
the greatest artist of my time and worked myself out of every danger
with such dexterity, that when several more of my comrades ran
themselves into Newgate presently, and by that time they had been half
a year at the trade, I had now practised upwards of five years, and the
people at Newgate did not so much as know me; they had heard much of me
indeed, and often expected me there, but I always got off, though many
times in the extremest danger.
One of the greatest dangers I was now in, was that I was too well known
among the trade, and some of them, whose hatred was owing rather to
envy than any injury I had done them, began to be angry that I should
always escape when they were always catched and hurried to Newgate.
These were they that gave me the name of Moll Flanders; for it was no
more of affinity with my real name or with any of the name I had ever
gone by, than black is of kin to white, except that once, as before, I
called myself Mrs. Flanders; when I sheltered myself in the Mint; but
that these rogues never knew, nor could I ever learn how they came to
give me the name, or what the occasion of it was.
I was soon informed that some of these who were gotten fast into
Newgate had vowed to impeach me; and as I knew that two or three of
them were but too able to do it, I was under a great concern about it,
and kept within doors for a good while. But my governess--whom I
always made partner in my success, and who now played a sure game with
me, for that she had a share of the gain and no share in the hazard--I
say, my governess was something impatient of my leading such a useless,
unprofitable life, as she called it; and she laid a new contrivance for
my going abroad, and this was to dress me up in men's clothes, and so
put me into a new kind of practice.