It would be an odious task to relate all the details of Westley Hall’s sad apostasy. Suffice to say, that he, at length, went off to the West Indies with one of his concubines, lived there with her till she died, and then returned to England, where, professing penitential sorrow, he was cordially received by his incomparable wife, who showed him every Christian attention till his death, which took place at Bristol, on January 3, 1776; some of his last words being, “I have injured an angel! an angel that never reproached me!” Wesley writes:—
“1776, January 2—Tuesday. I set out early” from London, “and came just time enough not to see, but to bury poor Mr. Hall, my brother-in-law, who died on Wednesday morning, I trust, in peace; for God had given him deep repentance. Such another monument of Divine mercy, considering how low he had fallen, and from what height of holiness, I have not seen, no, not in seventy years! I had designed to visit him in the morning; but he did not stay for my coming. It is enough, if, after all his wanderings, we meet again in Abraham’s bosom.”
“Requiescat in pace!” And yet, justice demands that a word more be added. The fact cannot be denied, that, in many instances, the faults of husbands may be traced to the tempers, frailties, and follies of their wives. A bad wife often makes a good husband bad. Was this the fact in the case of Westley Hall? Did the man who, at Oxford, was so pre-eminently holy, become a licentious infidel through the misbehaviour of his wife? This is not a memoir of “Patty” Hall; but to be entirely silent concerning her might create suspicion, that, she was not unblamable in her connubial life. Hence, even at the expense of returning to the dunghill of Westley Hall’s disgusting wickedness, a few more facts must be stated.
Assuming Martha Wesley to have been aware, that, Westley Hall had proposed marriage to her sister Kezziah, and had jilted her, it was a huge, seriously censurable imprudence for her to become his wife; but that being said, there is not another fact to be told against her. What was her behaviour to one of the worst of husbands?
The seduction of the seamstress has been already mentioned. Mrs. Hall knew nothing of her husband’s criminality till the poor girl actually fell in labour. Hall had gone from home; his wife instantly ordered her other servants to call in a doctor. The servants refused. She remonstrated with them on their inhumanity. They completed her surprise by telling her the seamstress was in labour through her criminal connection with their master. The poor wife was terribly wounded; but the life of her husband’s paramour was in danger. The servants refused to stir, and she herself had to bring in a midwife. Her purse contained six pounds. Five of these she gave to a neighbour to look after the adulterous young mother; with the other pound, she went off to seek her worthless husband, who had designedly gone to London; mildly told him what had happened, and actually persuaded him to return to Salisbury as soon as the young woman and her child could be removed to another dwelling.
Another instance must be given. One day, Hall had the shameful inhumanity to bring home one of his illegitimate infants, and to order his wife to take charge of it. Will it be believed, that “Patty” actually brought out her cradle, placed the bastard babe in it, and continued to perform for it all that its helplessness required!
Was the woman demented? or a good-tempered silly fool, without any self-respect, and without the least idea of what was due unto herself? Not so; but just the opposite. As a proof of this, the following may be given:—
While nursing the illegitimate child just mentioned, her own charming boy, Wesley Hall, displeased his father, who had as little government of his temper as of his passions. In a rage, the father thrust his son into a dark closet, and locked him up. The poor boy was terrified to distraction. His mother, with her usual calmness, desired her husband to release the child. He refused. She entreated; but he was resolute. “Sir,” said she, at length thoroughly aroused; “Sir, thank the grace of God, that, while my child is thus cruelly treated, suffering to distraction a punishment he has not merited, I had not turned your babe out of the cradle; but now I demand, that you will immediately unlock the closet and release the child, or, if you refuse, I myself will do it.” The miserable poltroon succumbed, and the little prisoner regained his liberty. There was more in this than female firmness. Caitiff as he was, Hall had exercised the authority of a father, and his wife did her utmost not to set aside that authority; wishing, with true philosophy, that the lips which had pronounced the sentence might pronounce also its repeal. The woman, taking and maintaining this position, was the very opposite of a senseless, insipid household drudge, without either mind or manners, a very slave to some selfish brute who unfortunately rules over her.
If “Patty” Wesley,—we are reluctant to call her “Patty” Hall,—erred at all, it was on the side of fidelity to her worthless husband, and of kindness to his wretched mistresses. “How could you give money to your husband’s concubine?” asked her brother Charles. “I knew,” she answered, “that I could obtain what I wanted from many; but she, poor hapless creature, could not. Pity is due to the wicked, the good claim esteem. Besides, I did not act as a woman, but as a Christian.”
Notwithstanding all her bad treatment, this incomparable wife was never heard to speak of her husband but with kindness. Two extracts from her letters will show both her feelings and good sense, under circumstances the most trying to a female mind:—