till the ship was refitted, which, they said, would
be a fortnight, and then go for Holland, as we intended, and as business
required.

Reason directed that I should go to Holland, for there I had all my
money to receive, and there I had persons of good reputation and
character to apply to, having letters to them from the honest Dutch
merchant at Paris, and they might perhaps give me a recommendation again
to merchants in London, and so I should get acquaintance with some
people of figure, which was what I loved; whereas now I knew not one
creature in the whole city of London, or anywhere else, that I could go
and make myself known to. Upon these considerations, I resolved to go to
Holland, whatever came of it.

But Amy cried and trembled, and was ready to fall into fits, when I did
but mention going upon the sea again, and begged of me not to go, or if
I would go, that I would leave her behind, though I was to send her
a-begging. The people in the inn laughed at her, and jested with her,
asked her if she had any sins to confess that she was ashamed should be
heard of, and that she was troubled with an evil conscience; told her,
if she came to sea, and to be in a storm, if she had lain with her
master, she would certainly tell her mistress of it, and that it was a
common thing for poor maids to confess all the young men they had lain
with; that there was one poor girl that went over with her mistress,
whose husband was a ......r, in ......, in the city of London, who
confessed, in the terror of a storm, that she had lain with her master,
and all the apprentices, so often, and in such-and-such places, and made
the poor mistress, when she returned to London, fly at her husband, and
make such a stir as was indeed the ruin of the whole family. Amy could
bear all that well enough, for though she had indeed lain with her
master, it was with her mistress's knowledge and consent, and, which was
worse, was her mistress's own doing. I record it to the reproach of my
own vice, and to expose the excesses of such wickedness as they deserve
to be exposed.

I thought Amy's fear would have been over by that time the ship would be
gotten ready, but I found the girl was rather worse and worse; and when
I came to the point that we must go on board or lose the passage, Amy
was so terrified that she fell into fits; so the ship went away without
us.

But my going being absolutely necessary, as above, I was obliged to go
in the packet-b