You may judge of my uneasiness by what your own would be if dear Lady Fanny was lost.
Nothing that ever happened to me has troubled me so much; I can hardly speak or write of it with tolerable temper, and I own it has changed mine to that degree I have a mind to cross the water, to try what effect a new heaven and a new earth will have upon my spirit." Later, Edward ran away again, joining the crew of a ship going to Oporto, and was not discovered in that city until a considerable period had elapsed since his flight.
He capped all his follies by marrying at the age of twenty a woman of no social standing and much older than himself.
His parents were at their wits' end.

It was hopeless to treat him as a rational being.

His wife was induced to accept a pension to leave him, and he himself was put in charge of a keeper.

Several times he had to be kept in close confinement.

He was, however, by no means devoid of brains, and in the autumn of 1741 he had sufficiently recovered to be entered as a student at the University of Leyden.