Chapter XXII: Preface: To Poor Richard, 1746

Who is _Poor Richard_? People oft enquire,
Where lives? What is he? never yet the nigher.
Somewhat to ease your Curiositee,
Take these slight Sketches of my Dame and me.
Thanks to kind Readers and a careful Wife,
With plenty bless'd, I lead an easy Life;
My business Writing; less to drain the Mead,
Or crown the barren Hill with useful Shade;
In the smooth Glebe to see the Plowshare worn,
And fill the Granary with needful Corn.
Press nectareous Cyder from my loaded Trees,
Print the sweet Butter, turn the Drying Cheese.
Some Books we read, tho' few there are that hit
The happy Point where Wisdom joins with Wit;
That set fair Virtue naked to our View,
And teach us what is _decent_, what is _true_.
The Friend sincere, and honest Man, with Joy
Treating or treated oft our Time employ.
Our Table next, Meals temperate; and our Door
Op'ning spontaneous to the bashful Poor.
Free from the bitter Rage of Party Zeal,
All those we love who seek the publick Weal.
Nor blindly follow Superstitious Love,
Which cheats deluded Mankind o'er and o'er,
Not over righteous, quite beyond the Rule,
Conscience perplext by every canting Tool.
Nor yet when Folly hides the dubious Line,
When Good and Bad the blended Colours join:
Rush indiscreetly down the dangerous Steep,
And plunge uncertain in the darksome Deep.
Cautious, if right; if wrong resolv'd to part
The Inmate Snake that folds about the Heart.
Observe the _Mean_, the _Motive_, and the _End_,
Mending ourselves, or striving still to mend.
Our Souls sincere, our Purpose fair and free,
Without Vain Glory or Hypocrisy:
Thankful if well; if ill, we kiss the Rod;
Resign with Hope, and put our Trust in God.

THE SPEECH OF POLLY BAKER[32]

[Printed in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, April, 1747.]

The Speech of Miss Polly Baker before a Court of Judicature, at Connecticut near Boston in New England; where she was prosecuted the fifth time, for having a Bastard Child: Which influenced the Court to dispense with her Punishment, and which induced one of her Judges to marry her the next Day--by whom she had fifteen Children.

"May it please the honourable bench to indulge me in a few
words: I am a poor, unhappy woman, who have no money to fee
lawyers to plead for me, being hard put to it to get a
living. I shall not trouble your honours with long speeches;
for I have not the presumption to expect that you may, by any
means, be prevailed on to deviate in your Sentence from the
law, in my favour. All I humbly hope is, that your honours
would charitably move the governor's goodness on my behalf,
that my fine may be remitted. This is the fifth time,
gentlemen, that I have been dragg'd before your court on the
same account; twice I have paid heavy fines, and twice have
been brought to publick punishment, for want of money to pay
those fines. This may have been agreeable to the laws, and I
don't dispute it; but since laws are sometimes unreasonable
in themselves, and therefore repealed; and others bear too
hard on the subject in particular circumstances, and
therefore there is left a power somewhere to dispense with
the execution of them; I take the liberty to say, that I
think this law, by which I am punished, both unreasonable in
itself, and particularly severe with regard to me, who have
always lived an inoffensive life in the neighbourhood where I
was born, and defy my enemies (if I have any) to say I ever
wrong'd any man, woman, or child. Abstracted from the law, I
cannot conceive (may it please your honours) what the nature
of my offense is. I have brought five fine children into the
world, at the risque of my life; I have maintain'd them well
by my own industry, without burthening the township, and
would have done it better, if it had not been for the heavy
charges and fines I have paid. Can it be a crime (in the
nature of things, I mean) to add to the king's subjects, in a
new country, that really wants people? I own it, I should
think it rather a praiseworthy than a punishable action. I
have debauched no other woman's husband, nor enticed any
other youth; these things I never was charg'd with; nor has
any one the least cause of complaint against me, unless,
perhaps, the ministers of justice, because I have had
children without being married, by which they have missed a
wedding fee. But can this be a fault of mine? I appeal to
your honours. You are pleased to allow I don't want sense;
but I must be stupified to the last degree, not to prefer
the honourable state of wedlock to the condition I have lived
in. I always was, and still am willing to enter into it; and
doubt not my behaving well in it, having all the industry,
frugality, fertility, and skill in economy appertaining to a
good wife's character. I defy any one to say I ever refused
an offer of that sort: on the contrary, I readily consented
to the only proposal of marriage that ever was made me, which
was when I was a virgin, but too easily confiding in the
person's sincerity that made it, I unhappily lost my honour
by trusting to his; for he got me with child, and then
forsook me.

"That very person, you all know, he is now become a
magistrate of this country; and I had hopes he would have
appeared this day on the bench, and have endeavoured to
moderate the Court in my favour; then I should have scorn'd
to have mentioned it; but I must now complain of it, as
unjust and unequal, that my betrayer and undoer, the first
cause of all my faults and miscarriages (if they must be
deemed such), should be advanced to honour and power in this
government that punishes my misfortunes with stripes and
infamy. I should be told, 'tis like, that were there no act
of Assembly in the case, the precepts of religion are
violated by my transgressions. If mine is a religious
offense, leave it to religious punishments. You have already
excluded me from the comforts of your church communion. Is
not that sufficient? You believe I have offended heaven, and
must suffer eternal fire: Will not that be sufficient? What
need is there then of your additional fines and whipping? I
own I do not think as you do, for, if I thought what you call
a sin was really such, I could not presumptuously commit it.
But, how can it be believed that heaven is angry at my having
children, when to the little done by me towards it, God has
been pleased to add his divine skill and admirable
workmanship in the formation of their bodies, and crowned the
whole by furnishing them with rational and immortal souls?

"Forgive me, gentlemen, if I talk a little extravagantly on
these matters; I am no divine, but if you, gentlemen, must be
making laws, do not turn natural and useful actions into
crimes by your prohibitions. But take into your wise
consideration the great and growing number of batchelors in
the country, many of whom, from the mean fear of the expences
of a family, have never sincerely and honourably courted a
woman in their lives; and by their manner of living leave
unproduced (which is little better than murder) hundreds of
their posterity to the thousandth generation. Is not this a
greater offense against the publick good than mine? Compel
them, then, by law, either to marriage, or to pay double the
fine of fornication every year. What must poor young women
do, whom customs and nature forbid to solicit the men, and
who cannot force themselves upon husbands, when the laws take
no care to provide them any, and yet severely punish them if
they do their duty without them; the duty of the first and
great command of nature and nature's God, _encrease and
multiply_; a duty, from the steady performance of which
nothing has been able to deter me, but for its sake I have
hazarded the loss of the publick esteem, and have frequently
endured publick disgrace and punishment; and therefore ought,
in my humble opinion, instead of a whipping, to have a statue
erected to my memory."