papers relate to the particulars of a secret marriage, which he says,
in a petition to the Court of Chancery, had taken place between him
and the daughter and heiress of Alexander Davies, of Ebury, the widow
of Sir Thomas Grosvenor; the unusual engagement into which they
entered on the wedding-night; the pretended capture of the lady by the
Algerines; his correspondence with the French Government to procure
her release; the various attempts to violate her person by one
Fordwich; her refusal after her return to England to acknowledge the
Colonel as her husband, and his efforts to effect that recognition.
His wife's letters to him during his imprisonment, which are preserved
in the Harleian MS. 7005, and the account of her efforts to procure
his release, exhibit proofs of the most touching and devoted
affection, and cannot be read without the highest esteem for her
character. She was one of the co-heiresses of the last Lord
Frecheville.] whose mother was widow unto the Lord Strangford: this
gentleman had a sister, who lived with him, as the world said, in too
much love. She married Mr. Porter. This brother and sister being both
atheists, and living a life according to their profession, went in a
frolic into a vault of their ancestors, where, before they returned,
they pulled some of their father's and mother's hairs. Within a very
few days after, Mrs. Porter fell sick and died. Her brother kept her
body in a coffin set up in his buttery, saying it would not be long
before he died, and then they would be both buried together; but from
the night after her death, until the time that we were told the story,
which was three months, they say that a head, as cold as death, with
curled hair like his sister's, did ever lie by him wherever he slept,
notwithstanding he removed to several places and countries to avoid
it; and several persons told us they had felt this apparition.

On Monday, the 7th of September, we went to Gravesend, and from thence