THE Maidens Plea: Or, Her DEFENCE, and VINDICATION Of her Self, Against all Objections; Notwithstanding, Mr. Harris's Dying in Bed with her, July the 26th. 1684.  
showing, That she ought not at all to be Condemned, but rather to be much Commended for her Prudent Carriage, and Kindness to that Gentleman.  
TOGETHER, With a word or two to the Wise in behalf of the Sisterhood in General. All in Order to a through Reformation, and setting the Saddle upon the Right Horse.  
And Written by a Person of Qualities.  
LONDON, Printed by G. Croom, for the Author. 1684. 5. Sept.   

THE Maidens Plea.  
Most Worthy, &c.  
I Am brought here before you, under the Accusation of being a most wicked and heinous Malefactor▪ Impudence, Whoredom, and Murder, were the Crimes that those Gotham Witnesses, out of their great love to virtue, and Justice, right or wrong, think it their business, and are not a little proud of the Office to lay upon me. I should be much out of Countenance, were my Guilt equal to their Folly. For, first as to Murder; What can with any show of reason be objected against me? Am I to answer for it, if a Man Dyes in my Company? It is not our Parts Gentlemen to keep men from Death and make them Immortal; that is in their Persons, our business indeed is to make them so another way, that is, in their Posterity; and pray when have I failed of that as often as it lay in my way, or, I had any opportunity? Besides, what should I have got by dispatching him? What do I come into Possession of, What has he left me? I have indeed some Letters where he gives me his Heart, but as to Lands and Tenements, Estate Real, or Personal, there's not a Syllable. But the very Circumstances that accompanied, and were indeed the true cause of this Tragedy do sufficiently acquit me. Consider, I pray, he had been drinking before he came to me. I was no Doctor of physic, nor had any Cordial, or Antidote by me, powerful enough to cure a man of a Pottle of Brandy: besides, you can't but remember how violent hot weather it then was. Heaven burnt the Brandy within him: It was the Dog-days; and if the Dog then reigned was that the Bitches, fault? I was willing I confess to stay and accompany him, That he might drink no more; for I know you Men when you are a little warm, if no discreet body be with you, to persuade and keep you from it, you think you never have enough; and then what mischief are you not exposed both to do and suffer? You Quarrel and Fight one with another; somebody's Head's broken, or goes foremost down Stairs: then the Windows in the Street go to wrack for not being Wine-glasses; and the Watch must be Hectored for kindly offering to led you when you can nether go nor stand. The noise and Tumult increases; the Multitude flock about to Gape at the Bustle together: Then must the Posse Comitatious come hurrying to see whether it ware a Plot, or Pot at Midnight that caused this uproar: besides, how many suits and Actions are daily brought before you by the Vintner, by the Constable, the Shop keeper, nay, by the common injured Passenger in the streets by reason of these Extravagancys. I kept close to him to prevent all this. I saved, our guardian Angells of Horse from Hunting in the Dark to find their Bridles, and Girts; and those of the long Pole and halberd from being called away to Aid and Assist before their Drink was out: I eased yourselves from Hearing, And being pressed with so many Brangles, nay saved the poor Deceased tho not from the hard Fate he met with in Bed: yet from that which he had elf met with of having no Bed at all. And what could his own Wife have done more had she been present? She no doubt is sensible how much she is beholding to me; and I shall have her Thanks as well as I had her Place; for, I was neither Coy nor Careless; and the worst that Malice itself can say of me, is but that I performed her part to him in every thing. And now for this, by a company of snivelling, and Officious Smell-Smocks I am Indicted, and brought myself to be the Sacrifice.  
As to the other part of my Accusation, which intimates that I was his Whore; my Accusers take little notice, and their Hearts are too narrow to conceive what might be: and were, my Generous Intentions: but in Bed with the Gentleman I was; and the Bed also; I disbelieve, makes Oath against me. I confess, when a Bed speaks there's no Denying; an able Modern Civilian has determined the Question, 'tis Legal Evidence. Why truly Gentlemen, the Bed, if it would speak its Conscience, well knows that I lay there as chased as any Vestal Virgin:& for the Gentleman, from the very Moment that I with much ado tossed him into it, he lay as Dead as any Log; you could not have known him from one of the Bed-Posts, but that he lay in the Middle. How could it otherwise be? I know your Worthinesses know what belongs to Drinking. Can any of this good Comyany brag of Complementing their Wives, when they come Home in my departed Friends Condition? 'tis spoken as a Jeer to me sure, not as an Accusation, that I had so decrepit and sorry a Bed-fellow. Upon my Reputation, 8 s. and 6 d. he had in his Belly, in Aquae Mirabilis, and Cherry-Brandy, that he had drank by himself all alone, before ever he set Foot within my Threshold. But you will say, Why did I then at all admit him in? Alas! it was extreme late; I saw that Wine, and Oriental, or hot Weather had much prevailed upon him. Would you have had me let him go away at that Time, and Pickle, to be robbed or knocked on the Head? no truly; I rather thought it was any Honest Womans Duty to persuade him to Stay; nay, and I was fain to make use of my Wits too to do it: for, what Arguments were to be used to a Drunken-Man? Should I have  told him it was Late and Dangerous, he would have scorned I should so far have questioned his Courage, and then nothing would have held him. So I was fain to Study, not what was most Reasonable and Modest, but what was likeliest to Take and Prevail with his Humour under those Circumstances. So with( I must needs say) some Blushes, I  told him, if he would stay he should lie in my Bed, and I would be his Bed fellow. Did you ever observe ●hen a Porridge-pot boils over upon too quick a Fire, if the Maid makes hast to pour in a little could Water, how soon it is C●lmed; just so was he. In short, I pulled off his clothes. I Air'd h●m a Cap, and to Bed I got him. Now I Appeal to your se●ves, whether I did not act like a Parliament, more than like a Baudy-House, in endeavouring so far to provide for the Good and Welfare of the meanest Subject? And whether this Harangue of mine, savoured of being Impudent, and were not rather mere rhetoric and Eloquence?  
But you will say, what need I have gone into the Bed to him still? Gentlemen, if you did not live in so civilized a Country as ours, or had never heard of acts of Humanity, and Goodness, I should not at all Wonder at your Question. Dont you apprehended that this poor Gentleman not being himself, was first no Man, Secondly, Alas! he was not able to Speak, nor Stand, nor Look; his Colour was quiter gone, his Hands Trembled, two or three Vomitings, little or nothing Eased him; he had not Strength to bring up more; his Fore-head was all under a could Sweat. This was a fine time indeed for a Woman to desire his company for a Bed-felliw: I became therefore so Kind to him, out of Mortification, not out of Wantonness. I fore-Considered what might befall him in the Night, if he grew Colder and Colder, and were alone; I had often seen the sad Experience. I made my prognostic, I judged Warmth and Company, could only relieve him: so I put off Preciseness with my petticoat, and went to Bed to him, as his Nurs-keeper, not as his Wench. Had he indeed been amongst Light Women, they would have cried Hang him, let him go, has he any Money in his Poket? But I preferred Charity, and the saving of his Life, before even the hazard of my own Reputation; and nobly I think waved, regarding the Gloss and Letter of the Law, that I might fulfil the Intent and Morality of it; which is not the preserving our Fames, from the Tongues of hypocrites, and Tittle tattle, but of the Lives and Well-being of your Illustrious Comrades, Man-kind And who does not rather Envy him than Blame me, for my so Pious Condescension? And would not some of you be Sick yourselves on purpose, if you were but sure you should be so well Tended?  
Your Worthinesses I hope are satisfied, that I was neither any way accessary to his Death, nor could be so Dull as p hope to be unchaste, with such a carcase. It remains now, ony to show your own great judgement and Uprightness, upon undestanding this most true Narrative and Representation of the Mtter. Neither am I concerned only for myself, but having so reasonable an Opportunity, I crave leave to say a Word or wo in behalf of such other Damsels, as are, or may be my Fellow Sufferers, for the like Kindness. There are many Pretty Women,( who are some Relations to me at a Distance) that are Morningly sent to the Round-House, New-Prison, Bridewell, and such horrid Places, for only doing over Night as if they were Married with some of your Worthinesses own Sex. Truly I am much afflicted at it: If Marriage be Honourable, pray why not the Imitation of it so too? The Threatre, where you Daily flock in throngs, afford no real Princesses nor Heroes, yet are the Players,( who are neither better nor worse then ourselves) admired and extolled by you, for acting so like them. Now we play Marriage; that's all: why then are we alone Discountenanced? But suppose it be a Fault, ought not then both Parties alike to Suffer? else 'tis but the show and shadow of Justice, not the Substance; this is but acting of her: for doth any Woman lie with a Man, and not at the same time a Man lie with a Woman? But where are the Men that are beating of Hemp, for this? Where are the Men that are lead by Constables and Beadles, through the Streets in Triumph? Where are the Work-houses, that they are Feasting upon Bread and Water in? and where may we peep and flear through Prison Grates at them? No, they are no more touched, than if every Whore-master were a Justice himself. And yet we poor Souls too least deserve this Rigor. The Men are Principles, and we but Accessories at most, even in cases of our own failings, and Weakness: for are not the Men the first Aggressors? Don't they preach guineas, Love, Wine, and all that's possible; Haunt, pursue, and watch us like unreclaimed Hawks, till they have turned us into being the prey? Yet we must be blamed, 'tis our faults; the Receiver you say makes the Thief: as if the Honey-pot, made the Wasps and Hornets that flock about it: or as if a Court of admiralty, should adjudge a prise to be the pirate. O Times! O Manners! O Airrea! whether art thou Fled?  
But still, what good is there like to be done by Punishing only us? Will the Men become Saints by your making Women Martyrs? Do you think to reform the Age by Imitating that politic Knight Sir Hudibras, who would wear but one Spur, because for 100th he presumed if he could but make his Jade go on one side, the tother, would not hang— a behind? Thus you will rather be Jockeys then Judges, and Reformation will go on as much as My Horse. No, most philosophic Sages, This will never do; this is not the right Course: the Sympathy betwixt us is at an end as soon as we are out of their Arms. There's no further Motion by Consent of parts; nor, do they place to Church at the same time we are spurred and Ambling to Bridewell: but, if you would have us to be in earnest Righteous, Begin with the men, whip them first. Or( which I fear you had rather be whipped yourselves then do; nor, to speak truth, do we desire it) Give them a Good Example.  
But I will not be longer Tedious to so Apprehensive and Judicious an Auditory: I see the marks of a generous Resentment sit already upon your Fore-Heads; go on then, most worthy Patriots, to be more Impartial in your Censures: Pity at least those whom you pretend to adore; and if you can't afford us Love, allow us Justice. Justice indeed her self, you know is Blind: Now if you can't attain to her Perfection, yet at least, Wink a little, and become as like her as you can; and henceforth, either wholly acquit us, which will be most Great and Manly, or Alien not part of your Native Country, by turning Bridewell into a Region of Amazons, and deprive us of our Loves Society there, where both they best deserve Ours, and we have most need of their Company and Comfort. So shall all such public Spirited Virgins as my self, not Sing, but kiss your Praises. The Men shall fear, and the Women shall Hug you, and shall be called by the Sex that cannot Flatter, The Chancellors of Nature, the Fathers-in-Law of your Country, and the Patrons of the Fair, the Credulous, and the Faithful.  
DIXI.