st condition, next to being in want that a
woman can be reduced to: I say a woman, because 'tis evident men can
be their own advisers, and their own directors, and know how to work
themselves out of difficulties and into business better than women; but
if a woman has no friend to communicate her affairs to, and to advise
and assist her, 'tis ten to one but she is undone; nay, and the more
money she has, the more danger she is in of being wronged and deceived;
and this was my case in the affair of the #100 which I left in the
hands of the goldsmith, as above, whose credit, it seems, was upon the
ebb before, but I, that had no knowledge of things and nobody to
consult with, knew nothing of it, and so lost my money.

In the next place, when a woman is thus left desolate and void of
counsel, she is just like a bag of money or a jewel dropped on the
highway, which is a prey to the next comer; if a man of virtue and
upright principles happens to find it, he will have it cried, and the
owner may come to hear of it again; but how many times shall such a
thing fall into hands that will make no scruple of seizing it for their
own, to once that it shall come into good hands?

This was evidently my case, for I was now a loose, unguided creature,
and had no help, no assistance, no guide for my conduct; I knew what I
aimed at and what I wanted, but knew nothing how to pursue the end by
direct means. I wanted to be placed in a settle state of living, and
had I happened to meet with a sober, good husband, I should have been
as faithful and true a wife to him as virtue itself could have formed.
If I had been otherwise, the vice came in always at the door of
necessity, not at the door of inclination; and I understood too well,
by the want of it, what the value of a settled life was, to do anything
to forfeit the felicity of it; nay, I should have made the better wife
for all the difficulties I had passed through, by a great deal; nor did
I in any of the time that I had been a wife give my husbands the least
uneasiness on account of my behaviour.

But all this was nothing; I found no encouraging prospect. I waited; I
lived regularly, and with as much frugality as became my circumstances,
but nothing offered, nothing presented, and the main stock wasted
apace. What to do I knew not; the terror of approaching poverty lay
hard upon my spirits. I had some money, but where to place it I knew
not, nor would the interest of it maintain me