a countess in Dutch may make a princess in High Dutch.' Upon the whole, though Amy was in jest, she put the thought into my head, and I resolved that, in short, I would be both of them, which I managed as you shall hear.
First, I seemed to resolve that I would live and settle in England, only with this condition, namely, that I would not live in London, I pretended that it would choke me up; that I wanted breath when I was in London, but that anywhere else I would be satisfied; and then I asked him whether any seaport town in England would not suit him; because I knew, though he seemed to leave off, he would always love to be among business, and conversing with men of business; and I named several places, either nearest for business with France, or with Holland; as Dover, or Southampton, for the first; and Ipswich, or Yarmouth, or Hull for the last; but I took care that we would resolve upon nothing; only by this it seemed to be certain that we should live in England.
It was time now to bring things to a conclusion, and so in about six weeks' time more we settled all our preliminaries; and, among the rest, he let me know that he should have the bill for his naturalisation passed time enough, so that he would be (as he called it) an Englishman before we married. That was soon perfected, the Parliament being then sitting, and several other foreigners joining in the said bill to save the expense.
It was not above three or four days after, but that, without giving me the least notice that he had so much as been about the patent for baronet, he brought it me in a fine embroidered bag, and saluting me by the name of my Lady (joining his own surname to it), presented it to me with his picture set with diamonds, and at the same time gave me a breast-jewel worth a thousand pistoles, and the next morning we were married. Thus I put an end to all the intriguing part of my life—a life full of prosperous wickedness; the reflections upon which were so much the more afflicting as the time had been spent in the grossest crimes, which, the more I looked back upon, the more black and horrid they appeared, effectually drinking up all the comfort and satisfaction which I might otherwise have taken in that part of life which was still before me.
The first satisfaction, however, that I took in the new condition I was in, was in reflecting that at length the life of crime was over, and that I was like a passenger coming back from the Indies, who, having, after many years' fatigues and hurry in business, gotten a good estate, with innumerable difficulties and hazards, is arrived safe at London with all his effects, and has the pleasure of saying he shall never venture upon the seas any more.
When we were married, we came back immediately to my lodgings (for the church was but just by), and we were so privately married, that none but Amy and my friend the Quaker was acquainted with it. As soon as we came into the house he took me in his arms, and kissing me, 'Now you are my own', says he. 'Oh that you had been so good to have done this eleven years ago!' 'Then', said I, 'you, perhaps, would have been tired of me long ago; It is much better now, for now all our happy days are to come. Besides', said I, 'I should not have been half so rich'; but that I said to myself, for there was no letting him into the reason of it. 'Oh!' says he, 'I should not have been tired of you; but, besides having the satisfaction of your company, it had saved me that unlucky blow at Paris, which was a dead loss to me of above eight thousand pistoles, and
