“Being conscious of his innocence, Jackson said he would talk to Robards. What passed between them I do not know. Mrs. Donelson related that Robards became violently angry and abusive, and said that he was determined not to live with Mrs. Robards. Jackson retired from the family and went to live at Mansker’s Station. Captain Robards remained several months with his wife, and then went to Kentucky. Soon after this affair, Mrs. Robards went to live at Colonel Hays’, who married her sister. “Some time in the fall of 1790, there was a report afloat that Captain Robards intended to come down and take his wife to Kentucky. This created great uneasiness both with Mrs. Donelson and her daughter, the latter of whom was much distressed, being convinced after two fair trials, as she said, that it would be impossible to live with Captain Robards; and of this opinion was I, with all those I conversed with, who were acquainted with the circumstances. During the winter of 1791, Mrs. Donelson told me of her daughter’s intention to go down the river to Natchez, to some of their friends, in order to keep out of the way of Captain Robards, as she said he had threatened to haunt her. Knowing, as I did, Captain Robards’ unhappy disposition, and his temper growing out of it, I thought she was right to keep out of the way, though I do not believe that I so expressed myself to the old lady or to any other person. “The whole affair gave Jackson great uneasiness. In his singularly delicate sense of honor, and in what I thought his chivalrous conceptions of the female sex, it occurred to me that he was distinguishable from every other person with whom I was acquainted. About the time of Mrs. Donelson’s communication to me respecting her daughter’s intention of going to Natchez, I perceived in Jackson symptoms of more than usual concern. Wishing to ascertain the cause, he frankly told me that he was the most unhappy of men, in having innocently and unintentionally been the cause of the loss of peace and happiness of Mrs. Robards, whom he believed to be a fine woman. It was not long after this before he communicated to me his intention of going to Natchez with Colonel Stark, with whom Mrs. Robards was to descend the river, saying that she had no friend or relation that would go with her, or assist in preventing Stark and his family and Mrs. Robards from being massacred by the Indians, then in a state of war and exceedingly troublesome. Accordingly, Jackson, in company with Mrs. Robards and Colonel Stark, a venerable and highly esteemed old man and friend of Mrs. Robards, went down the river from Nashville to Natchez, in the winter or early spring of 1791. It was not, however, without the urgent entreaties of Colonel Stark, who wanted protection from the Indians, that Jackson consented to accompany them.