บทที่ บทที่ 14 · 第14章

Besides this, I observed that the men made no scruple to set themselves

out, and to go a-fortunehunting, as they call it, when they had really

no fortune themselves to demand it, or merit to deserve it; and that

they carried it so high, that a woman was scarce allowed to inquire

after the character or estate of the person that pretended to her. This

I had an example of, in a young lady in the next house to me, and with

whom I had contracted an intimacy; she was courted by a young captain,

and though she had near £2000 to her fortune, she did but inquire of

some of his neighbours about his character, his morals, or substance,

and he took occasion at the next visit to let her know, truly, that he

took it very ill, and that he should not give her the trouble of his

visits any more. I heard of it, and I had begun my acquaintance with

her, I went to see her upon it. She entered into a close conversation

with me about it, and unbosomed herself very freely. I perceived

presently that though she thought herself very ill used, yet she had no

power to resent it, and was exceedingly piqued that she had lost him,

and particularly that another of less fortune had gained him.

I fortified her mind against such a meanness, as I called it; I told

her, that as low as I was in the world, I would have despised a man

that should think I ought to take him upon his own recommendation only,

without having the liberty to inform myself of his fortune and of his

character; also I told her, that as she had a good fortune, she had no

need to stoop to the disaster of the time; that it was enough that the

men could insult us that had but little money to recommend us, but if

she suffered such an affront to pass upon her without resenting it, she

would be rendered low-prized upon all occasions, and would be the

contempt of all the women in that part of the town; that a woman can

never want an opportunity to be revenged of a man that has used her

ill, and that there were ways enough to humble such a fellow as that,

or else certainly women were the most unhappy creatures in the world.

I found she was very well pleased with the discourse, and she told me

seriously that she would be very glad to make him sensible of her just

resentment, and either to bring him on again, or have the satisfaction

of her revenge being as public as possible.

I told her, that if she would take my advice, I would tell her how she

should obtain her wishes in both these things; and that I would engage

to bring the man to her door again, and make him beg to be let in. She

smiled at that, and plainly let me see, that if he came to her door,

her resentment was not so great as to give her leave to let him stand

long there.

However, she listened very willingly to my offer of advice; so I told

her that the first thing she ought to do was a piece of justice to

herself, namely, that whereas she had been told by several people that

he had reported among the ladies that he had left her, and pretended to

give the advantage of the negative to himself, she should take care to

have it well spread among the women—which she could not fail of an

opportunity to do in a neighbourhood so addicted to family news as that

she live in was—that she had inquired into his circumstances, and found

he was not the man as to estate he pretended to be. “Let them be told,

madam,” said I, “that you had been well informed that he was not the

man that you expected, and that you thought it was not safe to meddle

with him; that you heard he was of an ill temper, and that he boasted

how he had used the women ill upon many occasions, and that

particularly he was debauched in his morals”, etc. The last of which,

indeed, had some truth in it; but at the same time I did not find that

she seemed to like him much the worse for that part.

As I had put this into her head, she came most readily into it.

Immediately she went to work to find instruments, and she had very

little difficulty in the search, for telling her story in general to a

couple of gossips in the neighbourhood, it was the chat of the

tea-table all over that part of the town, and I met with it wherever I

visited; also, as it was known that I was acquainted with the young

lady herself, my opinion was asked very often, and I confirmed it with

all the necessary aggravations, and set out his character in the

blackest colours; but then as a piece of secret intelligence, I added,

as what the other gossips knew nothing of, viz. that I had heard he was

in very bad circumstances; that he was under a necessity of a fortune

to support his interest with the owners of the ship he commanded; that

his own part was not paid for, and if it was not paid quickly, his

owners would put him out of the ship, and his chief mate was likely to

command it, who offered to buy that part which the captain had promised

to take.

I added, for I confess I was heartily piqued at the rogue, as I called

him, that I had heard a rumour, too, that he had a wife alive at

Plymouth, and another in the West Indies, a thing which they all knew

was not very uncommon for such kind of gentlemen.

This worked as we both desire it, for presently the young lady next

door, who had a father and mother that governed both her and her

fortune, was shut up, and her father forbid him the house. Also in one

place more where he went, the woman had the courage, however strange it

was, to say No; and he could try nowhere but he was reproached with his

pride, and that he pretended not to give the women leave to inquire

into his character, and the like.

Well, by this time he began to be sensible of his mistake; and having

alarmed all the women on that side of the water, he went over to

Ratcliff, and got access to some of the ladies there; but though the

young women there too were, according to the fate of the day, pretty

willing to be asked, yet such was his ill-luck, that his character

followed him over the water and his good name was much the same there

as it was on our side; so that though he might have had wives enough,

yet it did not happen among the women that had good fortunes, which was

what he wanted.

But this was not all; she very ingeniously managed another thing

herself, for she got a young gentleman, who as a relation, and was

indeed a married man, to come and visit her two or three times a week

in a very fine chariot and good liveries, and her two agents, and I

also, presently spread a report all over, that this gentleman came to

court her; that he was a gentleman of a £1000 a year, and that he was

fallen in love with her, and that she was going to her aunt’s in the

city, because it was inconvenient for the gentleman to come to her with

his coach in Redriff, the streets being so narrow and difficult.

This took immediately. The captain was laughed at in all companies, and

was ready to hang himself. He tried all the ways possible to come at

her again, and wrote the most passionate letters to her in the world,

excusing his former rashness; and in short, by great application,

obtained leave to wait on her again, as he said, to clear his

reputation.

At this meeting she had her full revenge of him; for she told him she

wondered what he took her to be, that she should admit any man to a

treaty of so much consequence as that to marriage, without inquiring

very well into his circumstances; that if he thought she was to be

huffed into wedlock, and that she was in the same circumstances which

her neighbours might be in, viz. to take up with the first good

Christian that came, he was mistaken; that, in a word, his character

was really bad, or he was very ill beholden to his neighbours; and that

unless he could clear up some points, in which she had justly been

prejudiced, she had no more to say to him, but to do herself justice,

and give him the satisfaction of knowing that she was not afraid to say

No, either to him or any man else.

With that she told him what she had heard, or rather raised herself by

my means, of his character; his not having paid for the part he

pretended to own of the ship he commanded; of the resolution of his

owners to put him out of the command, and to put his mate in his stead;

and of the scandal raised on his morals; his having been reproached

with such-and-such women, and having a wife at Plymouth and in the West

Indies, and the like; and she asked him whether he could deny that she

had good reason, if these things were not cleared up, to refuse him,

and in the meantime to insist upon having satisfaction in points to

significant as they were.

He was so confounded at her discourse that he could not answer a word,

and she almost began to believe that all was true, by his disorder,

though at the same time she knew that she had been the raiser of all

those reports herself.

After some time he recovered himself a little, and from that time

became the most humble, the most modest, and most importunate man alive

in his courtship.

She carried her jest on a great way. She asked him, if he thought she

was so at her last shift that she could or ought to bear such

treatment, and if he did not see that she did not want those who

thought it worth their while to come farther to her than he did;

meaning the gentleman whom she had brought to visit her by way of sham.

She brought him by these tricks to submit to all possible measures to

satisfy her, as well of his circumstances as of his behaviour. He

brought her undeniable evidence of his having paid for his part of the

ship; he brought her certificates from his owners, that the report of

their intending to remove him from the command of the ship and put his

chief mate in was false and groundless; in short, he was quite the

reverse of what he was before.

Thus I convinced her, that if the men made their advantage of our sex

in the affair of marriage, upon the supposition of there being such

choice to be had, and of the women being so easy, it was only owing to

this, that the women wanted courage to maintain their ground and to

play their part; and that, according to my Lord Rochester,