rd treatment. Scott, she adds, will soon
be free.[13] Even this final appeal obtained no response, and at
length-- well nigh desperate-- Mrs. Behn negotiated in England, from a
certain Edward Butler, a private loan of some L150 which enabled her to
settle her affairs and start for home in January, 1667.

[Footnote 12: There do not appear to be any grounds for the
oft-repeated assertions that Mrs. Behn communicated the
intelligence when the Dutch were planning an attack (afterwards
carried out) on the Thames and Medway squadrons, and that her
warning was scoffed at.]

[Footnote 13: Had he been imprisoned for political reasons it is
impossible that there should have been so speedy a prospect of
release.]

But the chapter of her troubles was by no means ended. Debt weighed like
a millstone round her neck. As the weary months went by and Aphra was
begging in vain for her salary, long overdue, to be paid, Butler,
a harsh, dour man with heart of stone, became impatient and resorted to
drastic measures, eventually flinging her into a debtor's prison. There
are extant three petitions, undated indeed, but which must be referred
to the early autumn of 1668, from Mrs. Behn to Charles II. Sadly
complaining of two years' bitter sufferings, she prays for an order to
Mr. May[14] or Mr. Chiffinch[15] to satisfy Butler, who declares he will
stop at nothing if he is not paid within a week. In a second document
she sets out the reasons for her urgent claim of L150. Both Mr. Halsall
and Mr. Killigrew know how justly it is her due, and she is hourly
threatened with an execution. To this is annexed a letter from the poor
distracted woman to Killigrew, which runs as follows:--

Sr.

if you could guess at the affliction of my soule you would I am sure
Pity me 'tis to morrow that I must submitt my self to a Prison the
time being expird & though I indeauerd all day yesterday to get a
ffew days more I can not because they say they see I am dallied w{th}
all & so they say I shall be for euer: so I can not reuoke my doome
I haue cryd myself dead & could find in my hart to break through all
& get to y{e} king & neuer rise till he weare pleasd to pay this; but
I am sick & weake & vnfitt for yt; or a Prison; I shall go to
morrow: But I will send my mother to y{e} king w{th} a Pitition for I
see euery body are words: & I will not perish in a Prison from
whence he swears I shall not stirr till y{e} uttmost f