xpedient rendered palatable by the terrors of
want, cooperating with the reflection of the irretrievable loss I had
already sustained. I ask pardon for offending your chaste ears with this
impure confession of my guilt, which, Heaven knows, I then did, and now
do look upon with abhorrence and detestation. I had already forfeited my
innocence, and wanted resolution to encounter misery and death.
Nevertheless, before I could determine to embrace the condition of a
prostitute, I was one day accosted in the Park by an elderly gentleman
who sat down by me upon a bench, and, taking notice of the despondence
which was evident in my countenance, pressed me to make him acquainted
with the nature of my misfortune. So much sympathy and good sense
appeared in his deportment and conversation, that I gratified his
request, and he, in return for my confidence, saved me from the most
horrible part of my prospect, by taking me into his protection, and
reserving me for his own appetite. In this situation I lived a whole
year, until I was deprived of my keeper by an apoplectic fit, and turned
out of doors by his relations, who did not, however, strip me of the
clothes and moveables which I owed to his bounty. Far from being as yet
reconciled to a vicious life, I resolved to renounce the paths of shame,
and, converting my effects into ready money, hired a small shop, and
furnished it with haberdashery ware, intending to earn an honest
livelihood by the sale of these commodities, together with the plain work
in which I hoped to be employed so soon as my talents should be known.
But this scheme did not answer my expectation. The goods spoiled upon my
hands, and, as I was a stranger in the neighbourhood, nobody would
intrust me with any other business. So that, notwithstanding the most
parsimonious economy, I ran in debt to my landlord, who seized my
effects; and an hosier, from whom I had received some parcels upon
credit, took out a writ against me, by virtue of which I was arrested and
imprisoned in the Marshalsea, where I found my first seducer. Good
Heaven! what did I feel at this unexpected meeting, overwhelmed as I was
before with my own distress! I with a loud scream fainted away, and,
when I recovered, found myself in the arms of Mr. Fathom, who wept over
me with great affliction. All his prospects of gaiety had now vanished,
and his heart was softened by his own misfortunes, to a feeling of
another's woe, as well as to a due