nies in the West Indies, having been promised a post of some importance in the these dependencies. (Link 38) John Amis died on the voyage out to sea, but his widow and children continued their journey, and upon their arrival were accommodated at St. John's Hill, one of the best houses in the district. Her life and adventures in Surinam Aphra has herself realistically told in that wonderfully vivid narrative, Oroonoko. The writer's bent had already begun to show itself.
             It was upon her return to England at age 26 that Aphra met a Dutch merchant named Behn, and so fascinated him by her wit and beauty that he offered her his hand and fortune. During her married life she is said to have been affluent (New Brunswick 76) and even to have appeared at the gay, licentious Court, attracting the notice of and amusing the King himself by her anecdotes and cleverness of repartee; but when her husband died, probably during the plague of 1665, she found herself helpless, without friends or funds.
             In her distress it was to the Court she applied for assistance; and owing to her cosmopolitan experience and still more to the fact that her name was Dutch, and that she had been by her husband brought into close contact with the Dutch, she was selected as a political agent (New Brunswick 84-86) to visit Holland and there b
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