"Though her intimacy with Jones was discontinued, yet she was not destitute of a gallant: one William Charlton, a man of my own business, was now her paramour; but as he was a married man, I had the additional mortification of having his wife come to scold me for suffering my wife to decoy away her husband! After having been with this Charlton, about a fortnight before her death, she came home very drunk, and abused me sadly. She beat me over the shoulder with a pair of tongs; I wrested them from her, and, as I purpose to speak the truth, I will confess, that, in my passion, as she ran down stairs, I followed her and gave her a blow with them on the head. Upon this she ran directly to Mr. Clark the constable, the same who since apprehended me on the occasion of her death, to get me taken into custody. Mrs. Clark kindly wiped her forehead where the skin was broke, and advised her to go home peaceably, and make up the difference between us. This enraged her so that she gave Mrs. Clark many foul words, so that Mr. Clark came to expostulate with me, not on the blow I had given my wife, but on the ill language she had bestowed on his wife! Mr. Clark and I talked the matter over a tankard of beer, but I saw no more of my wife that night.
"There was also one Stroud, a Smith, in the number of her intimates, but I knew little of their concerns, more than what I understood from his wife, who came frequently to me, enquiring after him, and complaining greatly of my wife, for enticing him away from his family and his work.
"These few instances I have been able to recollect, may, in some measure, serve to give the reader of my unhappy tale, an idea of my wife's character and conduct, which I solemnly declare, I am not solicitous to expose, as the poor creature is dead, more than is absolutely needful, to shew what sort of person she was, and as it may tend to clear me in the opinion of the world. So quarrelsome was she by nature, that we never went out together, but she would find some occasion to abuse either me, some of the company, or even passengers in the street; if any one casually happened to brush her in passing, she would give them a blow in the face, and then call upon me to stand kick and cuff for her, while she having stirred up the mischief, ran away, unconcerned at my fate in the mob: and in our private disputes, I have been beat by her, her mother, and a servant girl of her mother's, all at one time. Nay, she has frequently threatened both to destroy herself, and to murder me. A threat, she has since very nearly accomplished.
"The night before this melancholy accident, I came home, to be sure not entirely sober: where not finding my wife, I went directly to her mother's, where I found her very drunk. It being night, her mother said it would not be proper to attempt taking her home in that condition; and therefore advised me to lie there that night, while she and her girl would go and sleep at my lodging. We did so.
"Being now come to the unlucky day of my wife's death, I propose to be as particular in all my actions that day as recollection will enable me.
"In the morning, after my wife's mother came back, we all breakfasted together at her lodgings. After breakfast, I went to Mr. Clark, Timber Merchant, in St. Mary Axe, to solicit for some India Company's work: from whence I went to the Mansion House alehouse, and drank a pint of beer. I then intended to go to work at Mr. Perry's in Noble-street, but it being near dinner time, I stopped at the Bell, opposite his house, for another pint of beer, where meeting some acquaintance eating beef-stakes, I dined with them. As I was eating, in came my wife and her mother; she at first abused me for being at the alehouse, but they afterward, in great seeming good humour, drank with me, and as they wanted money, I gave my wife two shillings, and lent her mother a six and ninepenny piece, which I had just received in change for half a guinea, from the master of the public house. As the day was now far spent, and as I was pleased with the prospect of working for the East-India Company, I thought it not worth while to begin a day's work so late. I therefore went to Smithfield, to see how the horse-market went. From thence I went to Warwick-lane, to see for a young man, whom I had promised to get to work for the company also. I took him to Mr. Clark, in St. Mary Axe; and afterward went with him to two or three places more, the last place was the Nagg's Head in Hounsditch; and about half an hour after nine o'clock went home.
"When I came there, I went in at the back door, which is under the gateway; and which used to be only on a single latch, for the conveniency of my lodgers: I went up to my room door, but finding it fast, came down stairs again. There was then some disturbance over the way in Aldersgate-street, which I walked over to see the meaning of, imagining my wife might chance to be engaged in it. Not finding her in the croud, I returned, and went up stairs again; while I was on the stairs, I heard my wife cough, by which I knew she was at home. Finding my door still fast, I knocked and called again; still she would not answer. I then said "Sally, I know you are at home, and I desire you would open the door, if you will not I will burst it open." Nobody yet answering, I set my back against the door, and forced it open. Upon this she jumped out of bed; I immediately began to undress me, by slipping off my coat and waistcoat, saying at the same time "Sally, what makes you use me so? you follow me wherever I go to abuse me, and then lock me out of my lodging; I never serve you so." On this she flew upon me, called me a scoundrel dog, said she supposed I had been with some of my whores; and so saying, tore my shirt down from the bosom: on this, I pushed her down. She then ran to the chimney corner, and snatched up several things, which I successively wrested from her: in the skuffle a table and a screen tumbled down. At length she struck me several blows with a hand-brush; and while I was struggling to get it from her, she cried out several times——"Indeed, indeed, I will do so no more."——When I got the brush from her, which I did with some difficulty, I gave her a blow with it, and then concluded she would be easy. She sat down on the floor by the cupboard door, tearing her shift from her back, which had been rent in the skirmish; I sat down on the opposite side of the bed, with my back towards her, preparing to go into it; and seeing her fling the remnants of her shift about in so mad a manner, I said, 'Sally, you are a silly girl, why don't you be easy?' On that she suddenly rose up, and with something gave me a blow on the head, which struck me down. I fell on the bedstead with my head against the folding doors of it. I imagine she was then afraid she had killed me, for I heard her cry two or three times——O save me, save me, save me! How she went out of the window it is impossible for me to say, in the condition she left me in; but from her cries I supposed her gone that way; and in my consternation when I rose, I ran down one pair of stairs, where, not knowing how to behave, I went up again, and sat me down on the bed from whence I rose. In this position Mr. Clark, the constable, and the numbers who followed him, found me. He said, Daniels you have stabbed your wife, and flung her out of the window. I replied, No, Mr. Clark, I have not, she threw herself out. Mr. Clark took a candle, and examined all the room in search of blood, but found none; and lucky it was for me that neither of our noses happened to bleed in the fray, though mine was subject to bleed on any trifling occasion. He then went to the window, where he found a broken piece of a saucer, and asked what it was? I said, I did not know; but recollected afterward, that it was what I fed my squirrel in; though I know not how it came broke; it was whole that day.
"From thence I was taken to the Compter, and the public are already acquainted with the proceedings on my trial: when I was condemned for the supposed fact.
"I am informed that the next morning they found a pair of small watchmaker's plyers bloody in the window, which were then considered as a great proof of my guilt. These plyers were what I have mended my squirrel's chain with whenever he broke loose, which was sometimes the case. How they should be bloody, as God is my Saviour, I cannot answer; but as no wound was perceived on the body, they were not produced as evidence against me. However, when my wife was brought up from the street, it is said she was blooded, and that the bason was put in the window where these plyers were found. It is therefore possible that, in such confusion, a drop or two might accidentally be spilt upon them; more especially when we consider the tumult of a morning's exhibition of the dead body, for penny gratuities, by the unprincipled mother of it.
"In the course of my trial, the coroner laid some stress on the absence of Charles Hilliard, the lodger under my room; but Mr. Hilliard appeared however before the sessions were concluded, to save his recognizances: he then deposed before the judges, all he knew relative to the accident; which being materially the same with the evidence he gave at the coroner's inquest, and as I have no reason to wish it suppressed, I made it my business to request Mr. Hilliard to recollect the whole of it, which he was kind enough to give me in writing; and here it is.