The History and Remarkable Life of the Truly Honourable Colonel Jacque, Commonly Called Colonel JackDefoe, Daniel
General
The History and Remarkable Life of the Truly Honourable Colonel Jacque, Commonly Called Colonel Jack
Defoe, Daniel
Adventure stories, English; England -- Social life and customs -- 18th century -- Fiction; Picaresque fiction
She took the first twenty pistoles, but bade him tell me that I had
wronged her and unjustly charged her, and I ought to do her justice;
and I had ruined her by exposing her in such a manner as I had, having
no proof of my charge or ground for any suspicion; that, as to twenty
pistoles a year, it was a mean allowance to a wife that had travelled
over the world, as she had done with me, and the like; and so
expostulated with him to obtain forty pistoles a year of me, which I
consented to. But she never gave me the trouble of paying above one
year; for after that the marquis was so fond of her again that he took
her away to himself, and, as my friend wrote me word, had settled four
hundred crowns a year on her, and I never heard any more of her.
I was now in London, but was obliged to be very retired and change my
name, letting nobody in the nation know who I was, except my merchant
by whom I corresponded with my people in Virginia; and particularly
with my tutor, who was now become the head manager of my affairs, and
was in very good circumstances himself also by my means. But he
deserved all I did or could do for him, for he was a most faithful
friend as well as servant, as ever man had, in that country at least.
I was not the easiest man alive, in the retired, solitary manner I now
lived in; and I experienced the truth of the text, that “it is not good
for man to be alone,” for I was extremely melancholy and heavy, and
indeed knew not what to do with myself, particularly because I was
under some restraint, that I was too afraid to go abroad. At last I
resolved to go quite away, and go to Virginia again, and there live
retired as I could.
But when I came to consider that part more narrowly, I could not
prevail with myself to live a private life. I had got a wandering kind
of taste, and knowledge of things begat a desire of increasing it, and
an exceeding delight I had in it, though I had nothing to do in the
armies or in war, and did not design ever to meddle with it again. Yet
I could not live in the world and not inquire what was doing in it; nor
could I think of living in Virginia, where I was to hear my news twice
a year, and read the public accounts of what was just then upon the
stocks, as the history of things past.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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