Page:Pleasing and entertaining history of the famous Moll Flanders.pdf/6

6 some, but I said they were too short, on which she put on one of them over her dress, to convince me it was long enough, when pretending to pull it down, I pinned it with two or three stout pins to her petticoats, and then taking up the rest of the shifts, with a parcel of lace, I ran out of the shop. The unfortunate milliner ran out to the street after me; crying stop thief, and pulling the shift up to throw it off, she fairly lifted up her petticoats, and exposed all she had to the people in the street, who crowded round her, taking her for a mad woman, and so I got away; the poor milliner lost about L50, and was bantered to her dying day.

Soon after this, happening to steal sorne silk from a mercer's shop, I was apprehended, committed to Newgate, tried, and received sentence of death. This sentence was afterwards remitted, and I was ordered to be transported. I was put on board a vessel along with several other convicts, and who should happen to make one of the company but my Lancashire husband, who bad taken to the highway after we had separated; and thus brought himself into my own situation. I contrived to get all my property, which was considerable; conveyed on board, and having purchased materials for the work of planting, we sailed from the Downs on the 15th of April, and arrived safely at Virginia, where I found my own son, and my brother his father, whom I had made my husband twenty years ago; but my mother had been dead some time, having left a considerable plantation to me