After a safe period has elapsed, Mary is returned from Block Island to New London. Her children are placed with her, somewhere in the town, to give the more effect to her Petition to the General Court, which is presented early in May. It is a long and pathetic document (still to be seen in “Book of Crimes and Misdemeanors,” in the State Library, at Hartford), narrating the manner of her marriage to John Rogers; his taking her home and “ordering his servants to be conformable and obedient” to her; the trouble they had, “especially myself,” on account of the displeasure of John, Jr., at the marriage; a description of her presentment at court for her second child; her compliance with the court’s importunity, although her husband stood there “with it in his arms,” and how the result had made their children “base-born,” by which her “husband” says he is “grossly abused;” since “he took me in his heart and declared me so to be his wife before the world, and so owned by all the neighbors.” She beseeches that the sentence of the court be annulled; so that, “we may live together as husband and wife lawful and orderly,” “that the blessing of God be upon us, and your Honor, for making peace and reconciliation between us, may have an everlasting reward.” Dated in “New London, May 12, 1703.” The court takes no notice of this appeal. Mary is returned to Block Island and the children to Mamacock. Proof will appear, however, that she is not forgotten nor neglected. Even after her marriage to another man, and years after this hopeless separation, she will say nothing but good of him who first called her his wife and acted faithfully towards her a husband’s part. [Miss Caulkins states that, some months before this period, John Rogers “made an almost insane attempt” to regain his former wife Elizabeth, wife of Matthew Beckwith. This statement is founded upon a writ against John Rogers on complaint of Matthew Beckwith (Jan. 1702-3), accusing John Rogers of laying hands on Elizabeth, declaring her to be his wife and that he would have her in spite of Matthew Beckwith. The historian should ever look below the mere face of things. For more than twenty-five years, John Rogers has known that Elizabeth, married or unmarried, would not return to him, pledged as he was to his chosen cause. He is, at this particular date, not yet fully separated from Mary, but holding himself ready to take her back, in case a petition to the General Court should by any possibility result favorably. This and another complaint of Matthew Beckwith—the latter in June, 1703—to the effect that he was “afraid of his life of John Rogers”[97] indicate some dramatic meeting between John Rogers and “Elizabeth, daughter of Matthew Griswold,” in the presence of Matthew Beckwith, the incidents attendant upon which have displeased the latter and led him to resolve that John Rogers shall be publicly punished for assuming to express any ownership in his, Matthew Beckwith’s, wife.