can be construed into an amour; besides, his heart was too violently set
on the everlasting charms of his Imoinda, to be shook with those more
faint (in his eye) of a white beauty; and Astrea's relations there
present kept too watchful an eye over her, to permit the frailty of her
youth, if that had been powerful enough.' After this lady's return to
London, she was married to Mr. Behn, a Merchant there, but of Dutch
extraction. This marriage strengthening her interest, and, perhaps,
restoring her character, gave her an opportunity of appearing with
advantage at court. She gave King Charles II. so accurate and agreeable
an account of the colony of Surinam, that he conceived a great opinion
of her abilities, and thought her a proper person to be entrusted with
the management of some important affairs, during the Dutch war; which
occasioned her going into Flanders, and residing at Antwerp. Here, by
her political intrigues, she discovered the design formed by the Dutch,
of sailing up the river Thames, and burning the English ships in their
harbours, which she communicated to the court of England; but her
intelligence, though well grounded, as appeared by the event, being only
laughed at and slighted, she laid aside all other thoughts of state
affairs, and amused herself during her stay at Antwerp with the
gallantries in that city. But as we have mentioned that she discovered
the design of the Dutch to burn our ships, it would be injustice to the
lady, as well as to the reader, not to give some detail of her manner
of doing it. She made this discovery by the intervention of a Dutchman,
whom her life-writer calls by the name of Vander Albert. As an
ambassador, or negociator of her sex could not take the usual means of
intelligence; of mixing with the multitude, and bustling in the cabals
of statesmen, she fell upon another way, perhaps more efficacious, of
working by her eyes. This Vander Albert had been in love with her before
her marriage with Mr. Behn, and no sooner heard of her arrival at
Antwerp, than he paid her a visit; and after a repetition of his former