I soon saw that I had made a mistake, but hoped for the best, and, after making extensive arrangements for her comfort, sailed on a voyage which occupied me a year and a half. On returning I found that a daughter had been born to me; but in spite of this I formed such a dislike for my wife that it was with the greatest difficulty I treated her civilly. During the few months I was at home the child became very dear to me, but as my love for it grew, my repugnance for the mother increased so much that I sailed earlier than at first intended (I was captain of the ship by this time) to be out of her company. I had not been at sea a week until I began to dread to return, and often I seriously contemplated drowning, to be rid of it all. But when I thought of the pretty child, I tried to banish the thought for her sake, though I could not do it, and as we neared home on the return trip I dreaded my native town as I dreaded sunken reefs and rocks. The crew counted the days until they could expect to see their wives and sweethearts waving welcome from the shore, but the thought of a meeting with my wife was horrible beyond my ability to relate. I thought of it in a hundred different ways, trying to devise some way to rob the meeting of its terror, but I could never arrange it satisfactorily, and suffered as the damned are said to suffer. On coming home I dreaded most to kiss her, as I was expected to do, and next to that, the first meeting. I cannot explain to you this aversion fully, but it was so strong that I was constantly in the most horrible misery, and the more I thought of it, the more I loathed her. I am crowding the results of several years into a few lines, during which time I came and went, the aversion all the time growing upon me. Sometimes I was at home only a week; at other times a month or more, and the length of the voyages varied in the same manner. I will not worry you with the details; it is enough to say that she was petulant, an invalid, uninviting in person, without charms of any kind, and utterly lacking in what is now known as common sense. It will be said (you will remark it, no doubt) that I should have made these discoveries before I married her, which is true; I should have, but I did not, as others have failed to make vitally important discoveries until it was too late to take advantage of them; hence this candid avowal of my disgraceful history. I wish to say again that I make these statements with all respect to the charity which should be shown the memory of the dead, yet in justification of myself it is necessary to tell the truth, which may be spoken with propriety at any time.