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husband's prosperity would insist upon such a thing.

This plunged me again, for when I considered the thing
calmly, and took my husband as he really was, a diligent,
careful man in the main work of laying up an estate for his
children, and that he knew nothing of the dreadful circumstances
that he was in, I could not but confess to myself that my
proposal was very unreasonable, and what no wife that had
the good of her family at heart would have desired.

But my discontents were of another nature; I looked upon him
no longer as a husband, but as a near relation, the son of my
own mother, and I resolved somehow or other to be clear of
him, but which way I did not know, nor did it seem possible.

It is said by the ill-natured world, of our sex, that if we are
set on a thing, it is impossible to turn us from our resolutions;
in short, I never ceased poring upon the means to bring to
pass my voyage, and came that length with my husband at last,
as to propose going without him. This provoked him to the
last degree, and he called me not only an unkind wife, but an
unnatural mother, and asked me how I could entertain such a
thought without horror, as that of leaving my two children
(for one was dead) without a mother, and to be brought up by
strangers, and never to see them more. It was true, had things
been right, I should not have done it, but now it was my real
desire never to see them, or him either, any more; and as to the
charge of unnatural, I could easily answer it to myself, while
I knew that the whole relation was unnatural in the highest
degree in the world.

However, it was plain there was no bringing my husband to
anything; he would neither go with me nor let me go without
him, and it was quite out of my power to stir without his
consent, as any one that knows the constitution of the country
I was in, knows very well.

We had many family quarrels about it, and they began in
time to grow up to a dangerous height; for as I was quite
estranged form my husband (as he was called) in affection, so
I took no heed to my words, but sometimes gave him language
that was provoking; and, in short, strove all I could to bring
him to a parting with me, which was what above all things in
the world I desired most.

He took my carriage very ill, and indeed he might well do so,
for at last I refused to bed with him, and carrying on the breach
upon all occasions to extremity, he told me once he thought I
was mad, and if I did not alter my conduct, he would put me
under cure; that is to say, into a madhouse. I told him he
should find I was far enough from mad, and that it was not in

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