HELMS v. FRANCISCUS, 555

jail of Baltimore county, and so detained there until the 17th of
July, 1821; that during his imprisonment his sufferings were va-
rious and extreme; because one Kugle had detained a trunk of his
clothes, until he should be satisfied a small sum due to him, which
he was unable to pay; because his wife refused to send him his
clothes which she had in possession, and because he was utterly
destitute and pennyless; but that, at length, Merkle, being con-
vinced by the statements made to him by this defendant, that his
wife had deceived him, offered to release this defendant on his
giving his promissory note for the principal and interest of the debt
then due, with the fees, amounting to about $100 30, which he
gave, and was accordingly discharged from jail. That, having
heard of the threats of his wife and her confederates; and that she
intended again to have him imprisoned, he went, on the 14th of
November, 1822, to Pennsylvania, and after some months returned
to get his papers and clothes, and to meet and repel the defama-
tory reports put in circulation by his wife, that he had left her in
poverty, to take up with a lewd woman; that he then made propo-
sitions to her of peace and conjugal association, which were re-
jected; that having again heard of the plans and threats of his
wife and her confederates, to cause him to be again imprisoned,
and being again urged to release all his rights in her property, and
to leave the country, he did, without any intention to relinquish his
claim, yield to the coercion of the circumstances with which he
conceived himself environed, and on the 29th of August, 1823,
signed a certain release or articles of separation, not, however,
without his having some difficulty in finding a magistrate who
could be persuaded by him to take the acknowledgment of such a
writing, they believing it to be illegal and void; that the copy of
this instrument set forth in the bill is spurious, the true copy being
the one left in the hands of Edward P. Roberts; that after exe-
cuting this writing, he obtained some, not all, of his papers and
property from his wife, and left Baltimore for New York, where he
now resides; that soon after reaching the city of New York he
was again, by the instigation of his wife, arrested at the suit of
Merkle, and held to bail; that the threats and conduct of his wife
have been and are such, that he is afraid to return to Baltimore;
that he has always treated her kindly, and is willing to continue
to do so; that so late as November, 1827, he proposed to her
peace, harmony, and re-union which she positively rejected; that
the supplemental bill was filed by her with a hope and expectation