"We lived for some time after our marriage in ready-furnished lodgings, until my wife's mother persuaded us to come and lodge with her; she lived in Catharine-Wheel Alley, Whitechapel. This we did until I procured some goods of my own. While we lived there, she used to be frequently abroad when I came home from my work. I cannot but take notice in this place, that, however wrong it may be esteemed by others, and however disagreeable to me, to speak ill of the dead; yet the peculiarity of my situation will, I hope, excuse the obligation I am under of declaring the truth, this being now the discharge of a duty I owe to myself. Whenever I asked her mother where she was gone? she would tell me she was gone to see some young women in Spital Fields. When she came home she was often in liquor, and I would then say, 'Sally, what makes you drink so much?' her mother would reply, 'Lord, a little matter gets in her head, for she is a poor drinker.' I then resolved to take a little shop to employ her: I did so, and put her in a little shop in the Minories, to sell pork, greens, and other articles; and she might have done very well there if she had minded her business, and not have gone to see the young women so often as she pretended. At last however I went to see where these young women lived, but they had not seen her a long time. As I was returning back, I saw my wife with Mr. Jones, going before me, whom I followed until I saw they turned into a public-house. On this I went back to her mother, and enquired whether she was returned? she replied, 'Lord, I suppose they will not let her come yet.' With that I said, it is very odd, but I believe I know where she is; I will go and see. When I went back there they were both together. So, said I, this is your going to see Bett Reed! She replied, I am but just come back. Pray, said I, how came Mr. Jones here? She answered, she found him there, and believed he came to see me. I then said, I rather believe he came to see you; I saw you both come in, arm in arm. She was then drunk, which made me send her home. I told him he had no business to keep my wife from me; but if he was a man he would come out, and try who had the best right to her. He would not, but went away.
"When I came home, my wife and her mother and I, quarelled, and I had them both upon me at once: she then ran away, and staid all night. The next day by her mother's persuasions we made it up, and agreed that she should go and mind her shop, and never go into Jones's company more. After this he did not come near us until the next Lord Mayor's Day, when he knew, I suppose, that I was gone to my master's hall. My shopmate and I went to carry my master's great coat; my master gave us a bottle of wine, and we went into the kitchin and got some victuals to it; this we carried home to my wife, thinking to enjoy it quietly there. I asked her mother where Sally was? She said she was gone to the Three Kings, and bid me go and call her. Before I went I heard a noise upon the stairs, and, upon taking a candle to see what was the matter, there stood my wife; and hearing somebody going down to the cellar, there stood John Jones!
"My wife and I had a great quarrel on this occasion; she pretended that he came only to give her some ribbons, as he had been a whiffler in the procession. Perceiving what a loose disposition she was of, I resolved she should keep shop no more; I therefore shut it up. There are people enough in that neighbourhood sufficiently acquainted with these transactions; and with my wife's general behaviour.
"I then thought we should be rather more quiet if I moved her from her mother's, for we were always quarrelling. I got some goods of my own, and my wife and my mother took a room for me in the Little Minories, when for some time we lived more loving than before. However she quickly began her old irregularities again, which occasioned fresh quarrels, to the great uneasiness of our landlady, for the people of the house were very good sort of people. She would often talk to my wife, and give her wholesome advice, but all to no purpose; which determined me to leave her. I again entered on board the Britannia privateer as carpenter's mate, without acquainting any body with my intention, and went down to Greenhithe where the ship lay, to work on board her. Before I had been there many days, to my great surprize down came my wife with John Jones! They staid on board all night, my wife crying bitterly to persuade me to come home again, promising an entire reformation in her conduct. I said I could not come back now, because I had entered myself; but she lamenting and behaving like a mad woman, I was persuaded to return home with her. To do this, I obtained leave of our lieutenant to go to London, to bring my tools down, when my wife prevailed on me to stay at home. I then went to work again in town, and my wife said if I would try her once more, by putting her in a shop, she would be very good. Then it was I took a house, at the corner of Hare Court, Aldersgate Street, where, for some time, she managed very well, but soon returned to her old ways again. By our frequent quarrels the neighbours were at first inclined to think I used her ill, but had they then known how affairs were circumstanced, they would not have blamed me; for her temper grew so unaccountable, that she would frequently come after me, where ever I happened to be at work, or at the alehouse, and abuse me for nothing. When I came home at nights from my work, thinking to pass the evenings comfortably with her, she would constantly find some pretence to quarrel with me, and to render my life uneasy. One time, in particular, when I came home, she threw the pewter quart pot, she had been drinking out of, at my head; and then running out of the house, she, in the violence of her rage, dashed her elbow through the glass window of our shop, and then ran up to my master Archer with her bloody arm, crying out,——'See here what your rogue has done'—Thus she endeavoured to prejudice me in the minds of all my friends and acquaintance; when afterward she confessed to Mr. Moses Owen, a barber in Old Street, who compleated the cure of her arm, that she did it herself purposely.
"Another time, when I worked at St. Mary Axe, she, and one of her acquaintance, having been to Billingsgate to buy oysters for her shop, came to me to the Crown alehouse in Camomile Street, where I was then at dinner with my shopmates: there she wanted me to treat her with drink, which, as I observed her to be already in liquor, I refused, and would have gone back quietly to my work; she then snatched off my hat and wig to detain me, but finding that not to answer her intention, she abused me in a most vile manner, and with a small cod which she had with the oysters, beat me in a most ridiculous manner about my head and face; and, as all my brother journeymen may well remember, obliged me to go back to my labour bareheaded!
"One day, when my business carried me to the other end of the town for the whole day, my wife gave Jones notice of it, and quickly after I was gone dressed herself, shut up her shop, and went out with him to spend the day. He was that day dressed in a new suit of cloaths. At night when I came home, not being able to get into my house, I went to her mother's in Whitechapel, expecting to meet with her there. By the way as I was coming back, who should I see before me but my wife and John Jones! I followed them into an alehouse, where I quarrelled with them both, and in my passion threw some beer in her face, on which she ran out to her mother's. I challenged Jones to fight me, but he would not. But meeting with him afterward, he then challenged me, for reporting the familiarity between him and my wife. On this we stripped, and had two or three blows; he fell against a table, and, as he says, broke two of his ribs, for which he took me up, but I was bailed out by my mistress. As my wife thought proper not to come nigh me, I lett the shop which she kept and lodged at my master's. She continued away about seven weeks, only calling upon me now and then to abuse me; and going home to my house to scold and threaten my lodgers, whom I had admitted upon her deserting me.
"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.
"One Sunday, with a view to entertain her, I took her down to Ilford, that we might spend the day agreeably. We dined at the White-Horse there, and after dinner she drank very freely. When the reckoning came to be paid, she threw herself in a great passion with the landlord, on account of his charge; and I unluckily attempting to moderate matters between them, drew all her rage upon myself. She was so violent in her resentment, that she declared she would not go home with me, but would go with the first person who should ask her, or even with the next man who went by. Just at this time, a man dressed like an officer stopped in a chaise to drink; my wife soon entered into discourse with him, and asked him to let her ride home in his chaise: the man agreed, and away they drove together! This now was a measure she was not under any necessity of taking, because, not believing she would be able to walk home, I had offered her a place in the stage, which was quickly to pass the door.
"Thus abandoned by her, I walked home, and after waiting due time went to bed. About two o'clock in the morning I was roused by a knocking at the door: there was my wife so drunk as hardly to be able to stand, attended by her mother! The mother made what excuses she could for her daughter, to induce me to let her in, pleading, for the lateness of the hour, that, after the man had carried her a long way out of her road on the forest, he, at last, left her to walk home alone. I let her in, but her mother was obliged to stay and put her to bed, as she was entirely incapable of undressing herself.