In addition to other circumstances, there was this remarkable one--that Nathaniel's widow married again and that the furniture and effects were taken to the second husband's house. Among the articles, was an old trunk, which she had never seen opened; but, on its contents being examined one day, among other letters and papers, were found the two certificates of Nicholas Robinson's admission as Attorney to the Courts of Queen's Bench and Common Pleas--and, on the trial, the old master of Nicholas Robinson, alias Nathaniel Richardson, swore to his handwriting, and so the property was discovered.
It has been often remarked that London is about the only place in all Europe where a man, if so desirous, can disappear and live for years unknown in some secure retreat. About the year 1706, a certain Mr. Howe, after he had been married some seven or eight years, rose early one morning, and informed his wife that he was obliged to go to the Tower on special business, and at about noon the same day he sent a note to his wife informing her that business summoned him to Holland, where he would probably have to remain three weeks or a month. But from that day he was absent from his home for seventeen years, during which time his wife neither heard from him, nor of him.
His strange and unaccountable disappearance at the time naturally created comment, but no trace could be found of his whereabouts, or as to whether he had met with foul treatment. And yet the most curious part of the story remains to be told. On leaving his house in Jermyn Street, Piccadilly, Mr. Howe went no further than to a small street in Westminster, where he took a room, for which he paid five or six shillings a week, and changing his name, and disguising himself by wearing a black wig--for he was a fair man--he remained in this locality during the whole time of his absence. At the time he disappeared from his home, Mr. Howe had had two children by his wife, but these both died a few years afterwards. But, being left without the necessary means of subsistence, Mrs. Howe, after waiting two or three years in the hope of her husband's return, was forced to apply for an Act of Parliament to procure an adequate settlement of his estate, and a provision for herself out of it during his absence, as it was uncertain whether he was alive or dead. This act Mr. Howe suffered to be passed, and read the progress of it in a little coffee-house which he frequented.