Well, we came to the place in five days' sailing; I think they call it
Philip's Point; and behold, when we came thither, the ship bound to
Carolina was loaded and gone away but three days before. This was a
disappointment; but, however, I, that was to be discouraged with
nothing, told my husband that since we could not get passage to
Caroline, and that the country we was in was very fertile and good, we
would, if he liked of it, see if we could find out anything for our
tune where we was, and that if he liked things we would settle here.
We immediately went on shore, but found no conveniences just at that
place, either for our being on shore or preserving our goods on shore,
but was directed by a very honest Quaker, whom we found there, to go to
a place about sixty miles east; that is to say, nearer the mouth of the
bay, where he said he lived, and where we should be accommodated,
either to plant, or to wait for any other place to plant in that might
be more convenient; and he invited us with so much kindness and simple
honesty, that we agreed to go, and the Quaker himself went with us.
Here we bought us two servants, viz. an English woman-servant just come
on shore from a ship of Liverpool, and a Negro man-servant, things
absolutely necessary for all people that pretended to settle in that
country. This honest Quaker was very helpful to us, and when we came
to the place that he proposed to us, found us out a convenient
storehouse for our goods, and lodging for ourselves and our servants;
and about two months or thereabouts afterwards, by his direction, we
took up a large piece of land from the governor of that country, in
order to form our plantation, and so we laid the thoughts of going to
Caroline wholly aside, having been very well received here, and
accommodated with a convenient lodging till we could prepare things,
and have land enough cleared, and timber and materials provided for
building us a house, all which we managed by the direction of the
Quaker; so that in one year's time we had nearly fifty acres of land
cleared, part of it enclosed, and some of it planted with tabacco,
though not much; besides, we had garden ground and corn sufficient to
help supply our servants with roots and herbs and bread.
And now I persuaded my husband to let me go over the bay again, and
inquire after my friends. He was the willinger to consent to it now,
because he had business upon his hands sufficient to employ him,
besides his gun to divert him, which they call hunting there, and which
he greatly delighted in; and indeed we used to look at one another,
sometimes with a great deal of pleasure, reflecting how much better
that was, not than Newgate only, but than the most prosperous of our
circumstances in the wicked trade that we had been both carrying on.