legal proceedings were ever taken either against her or myself; but, on
the contrary, amicable arrangements were made.

Perhaps, and no doubt, it will be said by some, that I am an unfeeling,
barefaced offender, thus publicly to blazon forth my own errors. But I
claim the indulgence of my readers to recollect that I have undertaken
to write my own history, and, as I have promised to do it faithfully, no
consideration upon earth shall induce me to conceal from the public my
faults. They, and particularly the Reformers, shall, if I live, know
my character such as it is. It is a duty I owe to them as well as to
myself, and though this is a most painful duty, yet I am determined not
to shrink from the task of performing it with a rigid fidelity. Millions
of the most amiable and the most virtuous, if they cannot altogether
pardon, will know how to make a generous and liberal allowance for the
frailties of human nature. I have a much more difficult labour yet to
accomplish, in narrating the separation that took place between myself
and my wife, in consequence of this fatal step. But as I am quite sure
nothing I ever did in my life can make me appear half so bad as I have
been represented to be, by the venal public press of the country, I
shall proceed deliberately and resolutely to disclose the whole.

The circumstance of our departure from so public a place as Brighton
soon got into all the newspapers, and the intelligence had reached my
home at Chisenbury, long before I got there, whither I was obliged to
return, as it was just in the middle of harvest. I had written to a
friend to meet me there, and to prepare Mrs. Hunt for the interview.
Our meeting I will not attempt to describe; it was most painful for all
parties; I concealed nothing from my wife, and, when she knew the extent
of the evil, with a becoming spirit, she declared her determination not
to share a divided heart. Without going into a detail here, it will be