Rusk: The Adventures of Gilbert Imlay 
23 
was in fact living with another woman, Mary made an 
almost successful attempt to drown herself in the Thames at 
Putney. She was, however, again rescued; and, regaining 
her health thru the care of a physician sent by Imlay, she 
presently became an inmate of the home of the Christies, who 
were now living at Finsbury Square. In November Imlay 
was off to Paris with the woman with whom he was now 
living, and remained there for three months. Not until some 
weeks after his departure did Mary give up the struggle for 
the possession of his affections.®" Even then she was not 
quite sure of herself, as one sees from her behavior when, 
early in the following year — perhaps in February — she met 
him by accident at the Christies’. But when she went shortly 
afterward for a visit in the country, Imlay addressed some 
correspondence to her which caused her, says Godwin, to dis- 
miss him from her mind entirely. This resolution seems to 
have determined her attitude toward him when, not long after 
her return from the country, she met him, again accidentally, 
and for the last time, upon the New Road. At about the same 
time the intimacy between her and Vv^illiam Godwin began a 
regular growth, and with this event there was an end to the 
importance of Imlay in the Memoirs — and the story told by 
the letters had ended at a still earlier date. 
VII 
So much for one side of Imlay’s life during these three 
years. The letters and Memoirs, however, not only omit all 
mention of his political intrigues, but fail to furnish more 
than the most unsatisfactory clues to the nature of his busi- 
ness affairs. And on the latter subject there is little to be 
had from any source in addition to the meager facts furnished 
by Godwin — that he was engaged jointly with some other 
person, or persons, in the shipping of goods®^ and that one 
of his business associates was Thomas Christie.®^ Mary her- 
M “Even at Paris”, she wrote, “my image will haunt you” (letter of November 27) : 
and she sent him another appeal on the eighth of December. The last letter of the 
series must have followed soon with its acceptance of the new order: “I part with you 
in peace.” Reg-arding- Imlay’s relations with other women, I have found no facts beyond 
those contained in the vague statements of Godwin. For the tradition that he at one 
time lived with Helen Maria Williams, see Roger Ingpen’s The Love Letters , of Mary 
W oilstone craft to Gilbert Imlay, p. xv. 
Memoirs, p. 115. 
Ibid., p. 140. For some light on Thomas Christie’s business connections early in 
1793, see a letter from Thomas Paine to an unnamed correspondent in Washington, 
