id not consider that this right had been in
any way forfeited.

However, the Dutch Governor said otherwise, and, to prevent the
alienation or removal of his property, put it in trust, and then
endeavoured to set his wife against him so that she might refuse to
leave. By some tittle-tattle about a female cousin of Clifford, her
jealousy was aroused, and she petitioned for a divorce on the grounds of
cruelty and adultery. However, when she found out the object of the
traducers of her husband, she asked that her petition be annulled and
made void, because she had been misled and drawn away by the ill advices
of others--now she was sorry, and well satisfied and content with him.
This having been read before the Court of Justice, a council of Dutch
planters, they showed their animus by deciding that Mrs. Clifford was a
weak and silly woman, and that it appeared to them that her husband, to
the prejudice of his wife and that land, had endeavoured to remove his
goods, which they would willingly prevent. They therefore ordered the
plantation to be appraised and put in commission, forbidding either
Clifford or his wife from diminishing, removing, or making away with the
estate, but only to enjoy the interest and produce as long as they lived
and corresponded well with each other. They also wished the wife much
joy of her reconciliation, and condemned her to pay the costs both
present and future. Finally, considering her frowardness and ill-nature,
and for an example to all other like-natured women, they condemned her
to pay a fine of five thousand pounds of sugar.

Clifford, who yet stood by what he considered his right, was now
subjected to a number of petty persecutions. His wife went to England,
leaving him her attorney, and he began to pester the Governor to remove
the illegal arrest on his estate. At last this importunity led to his
arrest, and he was sentenced by this same Court of Justice to be hanged,
as a mutineer and disturber of the public peace. But, being "more
inclined to clemency than to carry things to the utmost rigour of
justice," they commuted this sentence to imprisonment for seven years,
with a fine of a hundred and fifty thousand pounds of sugar.

As may be supposed, this arbitrary judgment only made Clifford more
exasperated. He still went on petitioning and protesting that he was not
a Dutch subject, as he had refused to take the oath of allegiance, and
that therefore he was only standing up for his rig