For twenty years after his flight from England Joseph Wall remained a fugitive from justice, being an exile for the greater proportion of the time. Paris was his principal abode, where he was able to meet many compatriots, who held commissions in the French army. Yet, although poor and in disgrace, he was never tempted to swerve from his allegiance to his king. To have joined the colours of France would have raised him from comparative poverty to affluence, but he kept loyal, treasuring the hope that some day he would be able to return to his country a free man. There is evidence of his presence in Paris at the time of the flight to Varennes in 1792; but previously he paid a visit to Scotland, and had married the fifth daughter of Baron Fortrose, Frances Mackenzie, who gave birth to a son in 1791. At one time he resided in Italy, where he wandered as far as Naples. All these years his crime lay heavy upon his conscience, and it is said that several times he meditated surrender. There is a legend that once he went as far as Calais with this intention, but, his resolution failing at the last moment, he remained on shore. By a strange chance, the boat in which he should have reached the packet was swamped in the harbour before his eyes--a noteworthy fact, like the drowning-escape of immortal Catherine Hayes, for all who credit the old adage. About the year 1797--so the _European Magazine_ tells us, although the date seems premature by three years--he came over to London incognito, where he lived with his wife in Upper Thornhaugh Street, Bedford Square, under the name of Thompson. One day, while some workmen were painting the house, he happened to express a few words of sympathy for a sickly apprentice lad, who he had been told was in a decline. “Yes, poor little fellow,” observed the foreman; “his father was flogged to death by that inhuman scoundrel, Governor Wall.” Sometimes in real life poetic justice will assert its power. For a long while the outlaw was undecided whether to run the risk of surrender. Under the shield of oblivion he might have continued to live in the metropolis without danger, for his crime was almost forgotten. Yet there were urgent reasons why he should vindicate his character, as his wife was entitled to property which she could not receive unless her husband appeared in person in a court of law. Before such a step could be taken it was necessary for him to stand his trial. In his dilemma he consulted Mr Alley, the famous counsel, who, in the face of his flight from justice, could give him only cold comfort. However, Joseph Wall was not the man to shirk risk in pursuit of a definite object. On the 5th of October 1801 he sent a letter to Lord Pelham, Secretary of State, announcing his presence in England; while on the 2nd of November he appeared before the Privy Council, and was committed to Newgate.