570 HELMS v. FRANCISCUS.

such eases, the wife must shew, either that her husband has been
guilty of adultery, or cruel treatment of her. What is cruelty, it

Agree to cohabit together; and in case of such reconciliation and cohabitation, the
said payment to cease for the time to come, after such reconciliation, agreement, and
cohabitation. And it is further Decreed, that the said Andrew Scott, on or before
the last day of November, in this present year, give good security, to be approved of
by this court, for the payment of the said thirty pounds yearly and every year, as
the same shall become due, to the use and separate maintenance of the said Mary,
the complainant. And it is likewise Ordered, that the defendant pay to the com-
plainant the cost of this suit by her in this cause laid out and expended. —Chancery
Proceedings, lib. J. R. No. 5, fol. 237.

GOVANE'S CASE.—This bill was filed on the 30th day of October, 1750, by Anne
Govane, by Charles Hammond, her father and next friend, against William Govane.
The bill sets forth that the plaintiff, in the year 1740, being possessed of a personal
estate to the value of £700 and upwards, and entitled to dower as the widow of
Thomas Homewood, deceased, in several very valuable tracts of land, married the
defendant, by virtue whereof he possessed himself of her personal estate and dower,
and has thereby greatly increased his fortune. That he is of such a perverse, tur-
bulent, and violent temper, that she has for some years past lived a very uneasy life
with him, not only from the vile and abusive language with which he has treated
her, but from several cruel and unprovoked beatings and whippings she has cause-
lessly received from him; that from the threats he had uttered against her with a
drawn sword, and other such destroying weapons in his hands, she was obliged in
September, 1749, to leave his house; and for the preservation of her life, which she
apprehended to be in great danger from his malice, to swear the peace against him.
Soon after which, by the mediation of friends, and upon his fair promises of kindness
and moderation for the future, she returned to his family, and behaved herself as a
dutiful and obedient wife. But he has since, without the least provocation or cause,
violently abused her, and repeatedly threatened to kill her, and thereby forced her
from his house; and threatens that he will revenge himself of her by selling all his
estate and her dower interest, and carrying the proceeds to Rhode Island, where h e
has declared he very soon intends to go, so as to leave her utterly destitute of any
support or maintenance; that he has warned several storekeepers not to trust her,
with a malicious view of exposing her, contrary to all truth, as an expensive wife,
and thereby offering a pretence for his many acts of cruelty towards her, or of de-
priving her of the common necessaries of life. Whereupon it was prayed, that a
separate maintenance might be awarded to her, suitable to bis circumstances and the
estate she brought him; and that he might, by a ne exeat provinciam, be prevented
from leaving the province without the leave of the court, and to her prejudice. The
plaintiff Ann made an affidavit before a justice of the peace of the truth of the
facts thus set forth in her bill.

The defendant put in his answer, in which he admits their marriage, but avers that
her personal estate was not so valuable as she alleged, and so far from increasing his
fortune from the profits of her estate, the whole, consisting principally of negroes
and her dower, could not be made to clear itself, but had actually brought him annually
in debt; that goon after their marriage he discovered she had an exceedingly jealous
disposition, insomuch so that no woman, even a relation or a white servant, eould
come into his company without exciting her jealousy; in consequence of which he
made it his business to tarry at home, and when called abroad to return at night.
That in April, 1749, in a jocular conversation in the hearing of the plaintiff, between