months. At the expiration of that period a circumstance occurred that
induced her to declare it. The French convention, exasperated at the
conduct of the British government, particularly in the affair of Toulon,
formed a decree against the citizens of this country, by one article of
which the English, resident in France, were ordered into prison till the
period of a general peace. Mary had objected to a marriage with Mr.
Imlay, who, at the time their connection was formed, had no property
whatever; because she would not involve him in certain family
embarrassments to which she conceived herself exposed, or make him
answerable for the pecuniary demands that existed against her. She
however considered their engagement as of the most sacred nature; and
they had mutually formed the plan of emigrating to America, as soon as
they should have realized a sum, enabling them to do it in the mode
they desired. The decree however that I have just mentioned, made it
necessary, not that a marriage should actually take place, but that Mary
should take the name of Imlay, which, from the nature of their
connexion, she conceived herself entitled to do, and obtain a
certificate from the American ambassador, as the wife of a native of
that country.

Their engagement being thus avowed, they thought proper to reside under
the same roof, and for that purpose removed to Paris.

Mary was now arrived at the situation, which, for two or three preceding
years, her reason had pointed out to her as affording the most
substantial prospect of happiness. She had been tossed and agitated by
the waves of misfortune. Her childhood, as she often said, had known
few of the endearments, which constitute the principal happiness of
childhood. The temper of her father had early given to her mind a severe
cast of thought, and substituted the inflexibility of resistance for the