ident put me beside all
my measures, and struck me into the greatest confusion that ever I was
in my life.

I was so near going abroad that my spouse and I had taken measures for
our going off; and because I would be sure not to go too public, but so
as to take away all possibility of being seen, I had made some exception
to my spouse against going in the ordinary public passage boats. My
pretence to him was the promiscuous crowds in those vessels, want of
convenience, and the like. So he took the hint, and found me out an
English merchant-ship, which was bound for Rotterdam, and getting soon
acquainted with the master, he hired his whole ship, that is to say, his
great cabin, for I do not mean his ship for freight, that so we had all
the conveniences possible for our passage; and all things being near
ready, he brought home the captain one day to dinner with him, that I
might see him, and be acquainted a little with him. So we came after
dinner to talk of the ship and the conveniences on board, and the
captain pressed me earnestly to come on board and see the ship,
intimating that he would treat us as well as he could; and in discourse
I happened to say I hoped he had no other passengers. He said no, he had
not; but, he said, his wife had courted him a good while to let her go
over to Holland with him, for he always used that trade, but he never
could think of venturing all he had in one bottom; but if I went with
him he thought to take her and her kinswoman along with him this voyage,
that they might both wait upon me; and so added, that if we would do him
the honour to dine on board the next day, he would bring his wife on
board, the better to make us welcome.

Who now could have believed the devil had any snare at the bottom of all
this? or that I was in any danger on such an occasion, so remote and out
of the way as this was? But the event was the oddest that could be
thought of. As it happened, Amy was not at home when we accepted this
invitation, and so she was left out of the company; but instead of Amy,
we took our honest, good-humoured, never-to-be-omitted friend the
Quaker, one of the best creatures that ever lived, sure; and who,
besides a thousand good qualities unmixed with one bad one, was
particularly excellent for being the best company in the world; though
I think I had carried Amy too, if she had not been engaged in this
unhappy girl's affair. For on a sudden the girl was lost, and no news
was to be