I should have observed, that she was always made to believe, as
everybody else was, that I was a great fortune, or at least that I had
three or four thousand pounds, if not more, and all in my own hands;
and she was mighty sweet upon me when she thought me inclined in the
least to go into her country. She said she had a sister lived near
Liverpool, that her brother was a considerable gentleman there, and had
a great estate also in Ireland; that she would go down there in about
two months, and if I would give her my company thither, I should be as
welcome as herself for a month or more as I pleased, till I should see
how I liked the country; and if I thought fit to live there, she would
undertake they would take care, though they did not entertain lodgers
themselves, they would recommend me to some agreeable family, where I
should be placed to my content.
If this woman had known my real circumstances, she would never have
laid so many snares, and taken so many weary steps to catch a poor
desolate creature that was good for little when it was caught; and
indeed I, whose case was almost desperate, and thought I could not be
much worse, was not very anxious about what might befall me, provided
they did me no personal injury; so I suffered myself, though not
without a great deal of invitation and great professions of sincere
friendship and real kindness--I say, I suffered myself to be prevailed
upon to go with her, and accordingly I packed up my baggage, and put
myself in a posture for a journey, though I did not absolutely know
whither I was to go.
And now I found myself in great distress; what little I had in the
world was all in money, except as before, a little plate, some linen,
and my clothes; as for my household stuff, I had little or none, for I
had lived always in lodgings; but I had not one friend in the world
with whom to trust that little I had, or to direct me how to dispose of
it, and this perplexed me night and day. I thought of the bank, and of
the other companies in London, but I had no friend to commit the
management of it to, and keep and carry about with me bank bills,
tallies, orders, and such things, I looked upon at as unsafe; that if
they were lost, my money was lost, and then I was undone; and, on the
other hand, I might be robbed and perhaps murdered in a strange place
for them. This perplexed me strangely, and what to do I knew not.