"At length she and her mother came together to me; her mother threatened, if I would not take my wife home again, to arrest me for her board; upon this I urged her bad treatment of me while she was at home, her neglect of her family affairs, and her scandalous attachment to this _John Jones_; and lastly, her voluntary elopement. However we entered into a treaty of pacification, in the course of which, she confessed her intimacy with _Jones_, and the terms on which it had subsisted. It seems their connexion began while I was on my cruize in the _Britannia_ privateer; he promised to marry her if I should not return, and if I did, that he would still continue his kindness to her, and that in case he was to die, to leave her all his goods, and all his interest in the capital of a box-club, of which he was a member. This confession, though it was an odd one for me to hear, yet, as it was accompanied with what appeared to me sincere promises of amendment, I, in an evil hour, agreed to live with her once more. Accordingly I moved my bed into the two pair of stairs room, which one of my lodgers then quitted; this was about nine months before her unhappy death. "When she came home again, though I believe she did not continue her acquaintance with _Jones_, yet her behaviour was otherwise so disorderly as rendered me very unhappy. For at times, when I came from work, expecting my breakfast, dinner, or supper, I frequently found the door locked, and so was drove to the necessity of eating my meals at an alehouse; a very disagreeable resource to a man, who, having a wife and a home, naturally expected the comforts resulting from such seeming advantages. But this was not all; she sometimes coming home in the interim, would seek me through all the public-houses in the neighbourhood, and when she found me, would strike me with whatever lay next her, raving at me for not coming home, and denying her having been out. Once, in particular, having bought a piece of veal for my _Sunday's_ dinner, when the morning came, truly she would not dine at home, she would go to her mother's, though I convinced her that the weather, being hot, would spoil the meat by the next day. I then went to my shoemaker to fetch me a pair of shoes, and they in friendship asked me to eat, as I found them at dinner; I was soon followed by my wife, who, finding me eating, was hardly withheld from stabbing me, first with a knife, and afterward with a fork.