3

Defoe, Daniel.  Moll Flanders.  New York:  Dell, 1963.
Etext #370, Version 1.0. Project Gutenberg, December, 1995


     Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders offers the reader a

glimpse of how an author portrayed the New World in the

early eighteenth centuries.  Although the subject is

sketchily attended in the first parts of the book (more

attention is given in the last section) there are several

issues to consider: the concept of transportation as

punishment, portrayals of America as a promising land for

industrious settlers, the hazards associated with actual

travel and shipment of goods, the nature of exchange in the

New World, and the relation of the English Colonies to

England.

     Moll Flanders opens with Moll's story of her mother's

"transportation" to the English Colonies in America as a

lessening of her death sentence.1  Although this may see

like a profoundly desirable commutation, Defoe refers to

this situation as "the misery

of transportation."2  Although the situation of the

transported is temporarily unpleasant (including some years

of indentured servitude), those with industrious, resilient

(and repentant!) character can quickly build an estate3.

     It is the character of the settler that is the seed

corn in the fertile New World.  Even given Moll's debauched

life she consistently advises fortitude and warns against

depression: "for to sink under trouble is to double the

weight."4  Lowness of spirit may even be fatal, as it was to

Moll's banking husband.5  Repentance for the unrighteous was

doubly important in the novel, both for the author to be

able to claim moral high ground for his bawdy work (wink,

wink) and to illustrate that God was not smiling on active

sinners in the New World.6

     Even for the settler lucky enough to win (or buy)

transportation to the colonies, the actual ship journey was

rather unpleasant, which dangers meteorological and

piratical.7  Although Defoe glosses the details (perhaps to

hide his own ignorance of the details of Transatlantic

voyaging), Moll's initial voyage to the colonies with her

husband/brother is long, terrible, stormy, and subject to

property loss by [French?] pirates and bouts of seasickness.8

Unattended cargo is subject to loss due to weather damage on

partially-destroyed ships.9

     The status of Transatlantic cargo is particularly

critical because of economic peculiarities.  It did no good

to bring money to the colonies "for money in that country is

not of much use where all things are brought for tobacco."10

Tobacco also was a principal exchange commodity back to the

homeland.  Moll's son would generate her income by "he

believed he should be able to send me as much tobacco to

England from it as would yield me about #100 a year,

sometimes more."11  The expectation of such shipments might

be used as collateral in England, as the rumor one had

regular shipment of tobacco would inspire confidence.12

Products useful in the colonies would be shipped from

England, as was the case with Moll's governess sending

linens, wigs, swords, and slaves from funds out of Moll's

stash.13  From these descriptions it seems that tobacco was

exchanged the motherland in return for finished goods for

the colonies; in short, an illustration of (and perhaps

recommendation for) a colonial-mercantile system.

     The mercantilist tie between colony and motherland is

easy enough to see, but there are other, more subtle,

indications of the author's understanding of the imperial

relationship.  Moll's worries about French pirates, for

example, may speak to national anxieties.14  Transported

convicts do not become creolized upon their release, but

rather become Justices of the Peace, Magistrates and "great

men", presumably on the English model.15  Most importantly,

though, Moll (and her husband, somewhat later) return to

England, their estates assured.  Not only will they get to

keep their earnings, but the plantations can continue

earning for them in their absence.16  Seen as a whole, the

brief descriptions of the New World in Moll Flanders present

a land that provides a social outlet for miscreants, reforms

the sinful, and provides economic invigoration to the mother

country, with very little attendant risk to England herself.

jason carr

_______________________________
1Project Gutenberg, line 431.
The Etext is available at:
ftp://ftp.esoterica.pt/pub/mirrors/gutenberg/by-
title/xx1076.html
2 Lines 406-406.
3 For indentured status of transported convicts, see lines
3,562-3,570 :and 12,561-12,567.  For the success of
previously-indentured servants and their new social standing
see lines 3,562-3,598.
4 Lines 7.621-7,622.
5 Lines 7,616-7,629.
6 For the author's protestations of the work's morality see
lines 302-323.
7 For bribery to get transportation, see lines 11,680-
11,682.
8 For Defoe's justification for glossing the details see
lines 3,534-3.536.  The description of the journey follows
to line 3,546.  Seasickness is mentioned on lines 12,647-
12,6479.
A similar sketchy treatment is given to the physical
description of the Americas, although the move to Carolin[a]
is given in decent enough detail for one that had never been
there.  In one particularly amusing section, Moll says her
husband " was a perfect stranger to the country, and had not
yet so much as a geographical knowledge of the situation of
the several places; and I, that, till I wrote this, did not
know what the word geographical signified, had only a
general knowledge from long conversation with people that
came from or went to several places." (Lines 12,916-12,921).
9 Lines 4.320-4,321.
10 Lines 13.260-13,262
11 Lines 13,285-13,287.
12 Lines 4,479-4,480.
13 Lines 13,410-13,438.
14 Lines 4,520-4,521.
15 Lines 3,585-3,588.
16 As her son demonstrates by sending her earnings across the
bay where she lives with her new/old husband.

http://www.mousetrap.net/~mouse/uta/transatlantic/