The Adventures of Roderick Random

A New Path Chosen

The narrator immediately grasps the older woman’s proposal and agrees to the terms, deciding to divide all earnings from the wealthy men the woman introduces to her. Her first act of deception under this new path is targeting a judge, to whom the woman introduces her as an innocent young woman newly arrived from the countryside.

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Miss Williams recounts how she was raised by a strict Presbyterian aunt after her merchant father’s financial ruin, became a freethinker through the influence of a female acquaintance, and was summoned back to her father’s country estate where she was rescued from a drunken squire by the gentleman Lothario, whose resemblance to the narrator particularly struck her. She fell deeply in love, surrendered her virtue based on his promises of marriage, and when he abandoned her for another woman, she traveled to London in a fury, attacked him with a poniard, and then engaged Horatio to kill him in a duel, later learning her father had died of grief, and was ultimately reduced to prostitution by an old gentlewoman, with her first client being a judge.

Early Life and Education

The narrator describes her father as an eminent merchant who suffered considerable losses in trade and retired to a small estate in the country with his wife when she was eight years old. She was left in town with an aunt who was a rigid presbyterian. The aunt confined her closely to religious duties, and she grew weary of these doctrines and developed an aversion to the good books her aunt recommended.

Becoming a Freethinker

As she grew older and became more attractive, she acquired many acquaintances among women her own age. One friend advised her to abandon the prejudices instilled by her aunt and “think for herself” by reading Shaftsbury, Tindal, Hobbes, and other authors noted for deviating from conventional thinking. She followed this advice, studied these writers with pleasure, and soon became a professed freethinker. Proud of her new philosophy, she argued successfully in company and acquired a reputation as a philosopher, with few daring to dispute with her.