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
desolate girl without friends, without clothes, without help or helper
in the world, as was my fate; and by which I was not only exposed to
very great distresses, even before I was capable either of
understanding my case or how to amend it, but brought into a course of
life which was not only scandalous in itself, but which in its ordinary
course tended to the swift destruction both of soul and body.
But the case was otherwise here. My mother was convicted of felony for
a certain petty theft scarce worth naming, viz. having an opportunity
of borrowing three pieces of fine holland of a certain draper in
Cheapside. The circumstances are too long to repeat, and I have heard
them related so many ways, that I can scarce be certain which is the
right account.