 | CHAPTER VII. Clarence, or, A tale of our own times |  |
7. CHAPTER VII.
“Are you good men and true?”
Much ado about nothing.
Mr. Clarence, (we shall hereafter call this gentleman
by his rightful name,) as has been stated, transmitted
to his deceased father's agents in England,
such documents as he deemed necessary to establish
his claim. They were admitted as sufficient, and
satisfactory, and the property, amounting to about
ninety thousand pounds sterling, was transferred to
his account, and transmitted to him.
Mr. Winstead Clarence was, at the same time,
apprized of the death of his uncle, and of the fact
that the property, which in case of his uncle's death
without a will, devolved on him as his nearest
blood-relative, was intercepted by an American,
claiming to be Edmund Clarence' son. This, Mr.
Winstead Clarence declared, and perhaps believed
to be, an incredible story. His lawyer
examined the papers, and was of opinion that the
claim might be contested, but as the ability of
the English agents to respond for so large an
amount of property was doubtful, he advised that
the suit should be commenced against the pretended
heir, and prosecuted in the American courts. Accordingly,
Mr. Winstead Clarence wrote to John
Rider, Esq., to institute a suit, and instructed him to
rest its merits on the ground of collusion between
Mr. Carroll and the doctor; and to procure adequate
testimony at any cost. As a sort of insurance
five thousand pounds. He had formerly had some
acquaintance with Rider in the West Indies, and had
had occasion to admire the professional ingenuity
with which he had there managed a very suspicious
business.
Whatever confidence Rider might have had in
his own talent, he was too well aware of his questionable
standing at the bar, to assume the exclusive
conduct of the suit; he therefore associated
with himself a counsellor of the highest reputation
for integrity as well as talent; taking care, of course,
in his statement of the case to this gentleman, to represent
Conolly as a bona fide witness.
The facility with which lawyers persuade themselves
of the righteousness of a cause in which they
have embarked, is often alleged as a proof of the
tendency of the profession to obscure a man's
original perception of right and wrong. Perhaps
no class of men have a deeper sense, or a more ardent
love of justice, but they are of all men best acquainted
with the uncertainty of human testimony,
and most conversant with the dark phases of human
character. In the case in question, the honorable
counsellor was persuaded that Mr. Clarence had
been guilty of deliberate villany. Had he not been
so, nothing would have tempted him to attack and
undermine, by the power of his eloquence, the character
of an innocent and high-minded man.
The cause produced a considerable sensation. It
not only involved a large amount of property,
but the reputation of individuals which had been
hitherto unquestioned. Mrs. Clarence' relationship
with some of the most distinguished families in the
and the cause became a topic in fashionable circles.
The trial before one of the Judges of the Supreme
Court, then holding The Sittings, was announced
in the morning papers. At an early hour the court
room was crowded to overflowing, and notwithstanding
the opinion of certain of our English friends,
that the decorum of judicial proceedings can only
be secured by the necromantic presence of gowns
and wigs, the most silent and respectful attention
was given to the proceedings. Mr. Clarence
sustained himself through the whole cause with unvarying
dignity. Nor even when it assumed an unexpected
and most threatening aspect, did he manifest
any emotion. His manly calmness contrasted
well with the disinterested enthusiasm of a young
friend, who never quitted his side during the trial.
This youth, Gerald Roscoe, with the fervid feeling
of fifteen, confident in his friend's right, and indignant
that it should be contested or delayed,
expressed his feelings with the unreservedness natural
to his age; sometimes by involuntary exclamations,
and then as unequivocally by the flashings of one of
the darkest and most brilliant eyes through which
the soul ever spoke.
Rider's assistant counsel opened the cause for the
plaintiff, and in his behalf appealed to the jury, as
the natural guardians of the rights of a stranger,
a foreigner, and an absent party. He then
proceeded to state, that he rested the cause of
his client on two points, which he expected to
establish: first, that in default of heirs of the
body, he was heir at law and next of kin to the
late Edmund Clarence, Esquire, who had died intestate;
fraud on the part of the defendant, a collusion between
him and his witnesses, by which he had obtained
possession of, and still illegally detained the
property which by the verdict of the jury could alone
be restored to the rightful claimant. He should state
what he could support by adequate testimony if necessary,
but what he presumed would not be controverted,
viz. that the deceased, Edmund Clarence,
after having resided in a sister city for some
months, and his condition having been well known
there, had come to the city of New York, where,
for reasons irrelevant to the present case, he had assumed
the name of Flavel, concealed his real consequence
and fortune under the garb of poverty, and
lived in mean and obscure lodgings. That during
this time he had made an accidental acquaintance
with the child of the defendant; that their acquaintance
and intercourse had been watched and promoted
by the defendant; that all this time Mr.
Clarence' health was manifestly declining, under
the encroachments of a most threatening malady;
that during a frightful attack of this constitutional
malady, he was removed to the house of
the defendant, still personally an utter stranger to
him; that there, with seeming good reason, but certainly
most unfortunately for the cause of his client, he
was secluded from the observation of all but the family
of the defendant, his family physician, (a most
intimate friend,) and a male nurse.
That Mr. Clarence survived his removal to the
house of the defendant about three weeks; that immediately
after his decease, the defendant had forwarded
of his consanguinity and claim to the property of
the deceased. The evidence of this newly discovered
relationship was supported by a written
declaration, assumed to have been wrested from
a dying miser by Mr. Clarence, and by him given
to the defendant—by the testimony of the child of
the defendant—and by the dying declaration of Mr.
Clarence, attested by Dr. Eustace.
He then proceeded to say he should rest the cause
of his client on the powerful, and to him he must
confess irresistible deduction from circumstances,
and on the direct testimony of a single witness. This
witness was the nurse to whom he had already alluded.
In the documents sent to England no mention
had been made of this man, though he presumed
it would not be denied that he was present when the
deceased gave utterance to those startling declarations,
which Dr. Eustace had so fully vouched.
This nurse had gone from the defendant's service to
his own humble walk of life, and had never received
any communication from the defendant; and had first
heard of the present controversy when summoned by
the plaintiff's counsel to appear as a witness on the
trial. He therefore begged the gentlemen would
listen attentively to his testimony, and would give it
the weight it deserved, as coming from a man who
could not possibly have any motive for disguising,
or perverting, or withholding the truth.
Nothing could exceed the astonishment of Mr.
Carroll, his counsel, and his friends, when Conolly
was named as a witness on the part of the plaintiff;
they exchanged looks of inquiry and alarm, and as
at the witness' stand, Doctor Eustace, who had
a grudge against his whole nation, half ejaculated,
“The d—d Irishman!” The words reached
Conolly's ear, and nerved his half-shrinking resolution;
and once having girded on the battle-sword,
he was determined with true blood to fight out the
cause, right or wrong.
After some prefatory and unimportant interrogatories,
the counsel for the plaintiff asked Conolly to
state how he came into the service of the deceased
Mr. Clarence. “You see, gentlemen,” he said, “I
was just leaving service next door to Mr. Carroll's,
a big house it is, where they keep more servants
than they pay; and so they were going to hold back
my dues, and I thought to myself I could not go
astray to take a bit of advice of Mr. Carroll; and
said he to me, `Conolly, is it that you're going
to leave the place?' Indeed, sir, and that am I not,
said I, for I've left it already. And he seemed right
glad of it, and said he'd a bit of a job for me—a sick
man to nurse—and if I would come straight away
to his house, he would spake to my employer, and
he was a very fine gentleman, and sure he was he
would pay me. `Och! Mr. Carroll,' said I, `it
takes more nor a gentleman to know a gentleman.
They don't scruple showing their hands dirty to us
servants—God forgive me, for myself calling me so
here in America.”'
Conolly was interrupted, and told to go straight
to the point. “Well, your honor, I did go straight
to the gentleman's chamber; for gentleman I saw he
was, and no poor body, with the first glance of my eye.”
“How long did he live?”
“Somewhere between three and four weeks, your
honor; but that was nothing to signify, for Mr.
Carroll paid me the full month's wages, like a freehearted
gentleman as he is, any way.”
“How was Mr. Clarence treated by Mr. Carroll
and his family?”
“Trated, your honor! As a good subject would
trate the king, or a good Christian the Pope. He'd
every thing that money could buy for him, and all
that hands could do for him, and Mr. Carroll and
his boy, that's Frank Carroll, were by his bed both
day and night, sure were they.”
“Did Mr. Clarence, a short time previous to his
death, have a confidential, that is to say, a private
conversation with Mr. Carroll?”
“Yes, your honor, that did he, and I dont belie
him in saying so. It was just three days before he
died, and the family had all been about him, and
they'd had a flummery talk about riches, and Mr.
Carroll spoke as if he cared nothing at all about
them, and by the same token ye may know he's
neither rich nor poor, for it's they that have got more
than they want that set store by riches, and we that's
poor that are tempted to sell our souls for them—
God forgive us!”
“Spare your reflections, my good friend, and tell
us what happened after this private conversation?”
“Well, your honor, when the bell rang distracted-like
we all ran up together; the poor old gentleman
was in his fits again, and he'd been making a
clean breast of it, and it seemed a heavy unloading
death struggle.”
“But he revived, and was himself again after
this?”
“Yes was he, but weak and death-like.”
“Did you perceive any change in Mr. Carroll's
manner?”
“That did we; as the doctor will remember for
he said to me, `Conolly,' said he, `I am afraid Mr.
Carroll will go astray of his reason, for he's quite
entirely an altered man, and so was he—his eye was
down-cast, and his cheek flame-like, and I thought
it was watching and wearying with the old gentleman,
and I tried to get him to take rest, but not a
word would he hear of it; he never left him for one
minute day nor night, and for the most time he kept
us all clear of the room, till the morning the doctor
told the old gentleman he'd but scant breathing-time
left, and he asked to see the family, and especially
the boy, that's Frank Carroll, to thank them for all
their kindness to him; and they all come in, and the
boy was on the bed by him and kissed the poor old
gentleman and cried over him, and then he took the
hand of each of them and he gave his blessing to
each and all, and he says to me, `God bless you
Pat,' said he; and that was the last word he spoke.
I think, your honor, he called me Pat for shortness'
sake, and knowing it was all one to me; for when
I first came to his service, Conolly bothered him, and
I told him if it plased him better, he might call me
Pat McCormic, for McCormic was my father's name
and Pat my godfather gave me; but McCormic
bothered him still worse than Conolly, and then I
that was my grandfather's name, that rared me, and
the boys at home called me that just, and it's only
since I came to America that I took the name of
my mother's brother, which is Conolly.”
Here Conolly was interrupted, and told that the
court had no concern whatever with his cognomens.
Conolly's excursiveness was doubtless partly
owing to his natural garrulity, but quite as much to
his desire to get through his testimony as to the last
scene with the least possible quantum of lying. He
had a common superstitious feeling about the superior
obligation to tell the truth of the dying, and he
would have preferred traducing Mr. Clarence'
whole life to misrepresenting his death-bed.—
In reply to some farther questions that were put to
him, as to Mr. Carroll's deportment after Clarence'
death, he testified to his having been closeted a
long time with the doctor.
The plaintiff's counsel then having signified, with
an air of complete satisfaction and even triumph,
that they had completed their examination, Mr.
Carroll's counsel cross-examined the witness, acutely
and ingeniously, but without eliciting the truth.
There was a strange mixture in Conolly's mind, of
malignant resentment towards the doctor, and good
will to Mr. Clarence; of determination to secure
the price of his falsehood, and of desire not to
aggravate the injury he inflicted; a compound of
good-heartedness and absence of all principle, and
that mixture of simplicity and cunning, that characterizes
his excitable and imaginative nation.
During his cross-examination he was questioned
in relation to his exclamation when the fact of Mr.
Clarence' relationship to the Carrolls first flashed
across his mind. He denied it entirely; denied
ever having heard a word indicating such a fact
from any person whatever, till he was summoned to
the trial.
Mr. Carroll's counsel then ably stated his
grounds of defence, which, as they are already well
known, it will not be necessary to recapitulate.
Doctor Eustace, as witness in behalf of the defendant,
was next examined. His calm philosophic
countenance, strongly contrasted with the sanguine
complexion, large open lips, low forehead,
bushy hair, and little, keen, restless gray eye of Conolly,
at another time would have commanded respect
and confidence.
But now, watchful and distrustful eyes were fixed
on him, and by some he was even regarded as deposing
in his own cause. Next to the misery of
conscious guilt, to a delicate mind, is the suffering
of being suspected by honorable persons. Doctor
Eustace was embarrassed; there was neither simplicity
nor clearness in his testimony, and though he
never contradicted himself, yet there was a want of
directness, and of self-possession, that darkened
the cloud gathering over him and his friend.
Frank Carroll was the next witness offered in behalf
of the defendant. His face was the very mirror
of truth. Her seal was stamped on his clear,
open brow. His whole aspect was beautiful, artless,
and engaging, and after a single glance at him, the
testimony. He contended that a child of eleven
years was too young to be disenthralled from his
father's authority—certainly was too flexible a
material to resist his influence—that he would
be merely the passive medium of his dictations.
His objections were strenuously opposed
by the opposite counsel, and overruled by the
court, and Frank was directed to take his station.
He was intimidated by a discussion which he did
not perfectly comprehend, and not aware of the import
of his evidence to his father, and occupied only
with a wish to shrink from public notice, he entreated
Mr. Clarence, so loud as to be overheard, to excuse
him, and permit him to go home. His father endeavoured
to inspirit him, but finding his efforts ineffectual,
he sternly bade him go to the assigned
stand. He obeyed with trembling and hesitation.
After a few unimportant preliminary questions,
to which he replied in scarcely audible monosyllables,
he was asked to state all that he could recollect
of Mr. Clarence' death-bed scene. It requires
far more presence of mind to tell a story than to answer
questions. Poor Frank was abashed. His
manly spirit quailed; he tried to gather courage;
he looked up and looked around; every eye was
fixed on him, and it seemed to him as if every man
were an Argus. His lips quivered, his crimsoned
cheeks deepened to fever heat, and when the judge in
a voice of solemn authority bade him proceed, he
burst into tears.
His father now interposed, and sternly commanded
was more terrible than even the eyes and ears of
the staring and listening crowd, and he at last told
his story, but with down-cast eyes, hesitation, and
blundering.
He was asked to relate all he remembered of Mr.
Clarence' visit to the miser's room, when he (Frank)
was with him. He did so; but he could not be
sure of any particulars. He was sure Mr. Clarence
was very much agitated; but when cross-examined,
he was not at all sure but it might have been the expression
of sympathy at the extreme misery of the famished,
dying old man. He thought he recollected Mr. Clarence
pronouncing the name of Savil; but on the
cross-examination he was not sure he had not
first heard that name from his father. On the whole
his testimony appeared, even to Mr. Carroll's
firmest friends, confused and suspicious. A fatality
seemed to attend his cause. When it was opened,
there was not, on the part of the defendant's
friends, a doubt of its favorable issue; but the most
confident among them now began to fear the result,
and many there were who secretly asked themselves
if it were not possible they had been deceived in
him. His counsel, in this threatening position of
affairs, offered to bring forward any number of
witnesses to the hitherto unimpeached integrity of
his, and of Doctor Eustace' character. The plaintiff's
counsel said they would concede that point to
the fullest extent it could be required.
Nothing then remained but to present before
the court the miser's manuscript. This was objected
to as an isolated, unattested document, and,
The judge, however, remarked that it might throw
some light on the impeached testimony of the defendant's
witnesses, and he overruled the objections
of the plaintiff's counsel.
The document was accordingly read as follows:
“I, Guy Seymour, formerly of England,
since an inhabitant of Jamaica, and now of the
city of New York, United States, do declare that
this writing contains the truth and nothing but the
truth, so help me God. Twenty-seven years ago
this 5th day of August, A. D. 181-, I was sent
from the island of Jamaica by Edmund Clarence,
Esq. with the sum of $10,000, which by me was
to be remitted to England; and with his only son,
Charles Clarence, who was sent on the voyage for
the benefit of his health. The devil tempted me to
abscond with the money. I took the child too to
guard against discovery. I left the vessel in
which I had embarked in the evening, hoping I
should not be missed till it was at sea, and they
would believe I had returned to shore with my
charge. I got on board an American vessel.
When I arrived in New York I heard the English
vessel was lost. Therefore no inquiry was made
about me. I put the child to a decent lodging.
The woman imposed on me, and made me pay a
cruel price for his board, charges for washing besides.
On the 25th day of the following January,
being A. D. 181-, I took him to the city alms-house.
He was then five years old. I marked his
age and the name I had given him, Charles Carroll,
on a card, and sewed it to his sleeve. I did
taken from the alms-house by one Roscoe, and has
since got well up in the world. I now declare, that
when I die he shall be heir to all I possess: eight
thousand dollars in my strong box, besides one
half-jo, one Spanish dollar, three English pennies,
and a silver sixpence, all contained in my knit
purse, which my grandmother (a saving body she
was, God bless her!) knit for me when I was eight
years old. When she gave it to me, `Johnny, son'y,'
said she, `mind ye well these words I have knit
into your purse, and ye'll live to be a rich man.'
The words are there yet, `a penny saved is a penny
gained,'—betimes I think the devil branded them
on my soul. I put my ten thousand dollars in different
banks and insurance companies. They all
failed! I lost all! all but my luck-penny, my
silver sixpence. What I have now, I've earned,
and I've saved all I earned. I have always
meant it should go to Mr. Clarence' son when I
am dead and gone, and I pray he prove no spendthrift
of my hard-gotten gains. All I have got now
I've come by honestly. I never was guilty of but
the one crime, and I was sore—sore tempted. It
is my intention, before I die, to employ an attorney
to draw my will; but it's a great cost, and for
fear of accidents, I have written this paper, and
hereunto I put my name and seal.
“John Savil.
“August, 5th, 181-.”
All the evidence in the case was now before the
court. The defendant's counsel rose to sum up.
He contended that the evidence, on the part of his
necessary to overcome the universal and strong
feeling against alienating property, still remained in
full force. He insisted that it was overthrowing
the basis of human confidence, to withdraw their
faith from men of the age and unimpeached integrity
of his client and his witnesses, and transfer it to an
ignorant unprincipled foreigner, who had no name
and no stake in society. There were thousands of
such men in the city, they could be picked up any
where, from the swarms about the cathedral, to the
dens of Catharine-lane; men who for a few dollars
or shillings, would swear whatever pleased their purchasers.
Was the property and reputation of our
best citizens to be put in jeopardy by such testimony?
`One of the plaintiff's counsel,' (and he glanced
his eye with honest scorn at Rider,) `was a man
familiar with the use of such instruments; he had
been long suspected of practices which should exile
him from the society of honest men; which should
banish him from this honorable tribunal, and that
by their own official sentence.' The counsel
was interrupted, and reminded that such vituperation
was irrelevant and not admissable.
He contended that it was in order, and a necessary
defence against a secret and criminal proceeding,
which could only be exposed by unmasking
the true character of the chief agent, who had sheltered
himself from suspicion behind the unspotted
shield of his able and upright associate. Testimony
brought forward under the auspices of this gentleman
would receive a false value. Advantage had
been taken of his client's conscious integrity, and
he had adduced to support his cause. Conolly
was absent from the city at the time his client
prepared the documents to be sent to England, and
deeming his testimony superfluous, he had taken no
pains to obtain it. For the same reason, and because
he had not before adduced it, he had omitted to
bring him forward on the present occasion. His
client had been betrayed by his confidence in the
truth of his cause. He had not anticipated that
the instrument he thought worthless, could be whetted
to his destruction; he would not believe it
could be so; it would recoil from the armour of
honesty, the `panoply divine,' in which his client
was encased. There had been a dark conspiracy
to defraud and ruin, but `even-handed justice' would
return the ingredients of the poisoned chalice, to
the lips that had dictated, and had borne false witness.
He declared that the evidence for his client,
which he luminously and forcibly recapitulated,
could not be overthrown by a thousand such witnesses
as Conolly. He begged that the jury
would not permit their minds to be warped by
the train of singular circumstances that had led
his client to the discovery of his parent. He admitted
they had been correctly stated by the opposing
counsel; but what then? was not the remark
as true as it was trite, that the romance of real life
exceeded the most ingenious contrivances of fiction?
Who should prescribe, who should limit the mysterious
modes by which Providence brought to
light the secret iniquities of men? He intreated
that gentlemen would allow due weight to that circumstance
the character of his client. The opposite counsel,
coerced by his own sense of justice, had paid it
involuntary tribute, when he conceded all testimony
on that point to be superfluous. The same just
homage had been rendered to the witness, Doctor
Eustace, a man of whom he might say what had
once been as truly said of the political integrity of
an honorable citizen: `The king of England was
not rich enough to buy him.' He then adverted to
the testimony of the child, and asked if it were credible
that the father should be the corrupter of his
son—the destroyer of his innocence?
All these and other arguments were urged
at length, and so ably, that when the counsel
finished, the current seemed to have set in Mr.
Carroll's favor. Animated whispers of encouragement
were heard from his friends, and Rider,
who had hitherto been forward and officious, was
quite silent and crest-fallen, and slunk away as far
as possible from observation.
The counsel for the plaintiff now rose to make
his closing argument. He began by expressing
his deep and unaffected regret that he must be the
instrument of justice in exposing to dishonor and
scorn, the character of two gentlemen who had been
held in esteem by the community. It had become
his painful duty to array circumstances in such a
light that it could no longer be doubted that the defendant's
integrity had been too deeply infected with
human infirmity to resist the solicitations of temptation,
temptation double-faced, alluring him with
offers of fortune, and of rank.
It might seem strange—it was most strange that
man should barter virtue for money. But had not
this base instrument slain its thousands and its tens
of thousands? He would refer those who questioned
whether it were of all agents most powerful in vanquishing
human virtue, to the daily occurrences of
their commercial city, to the records of their courts,
to their own observation, to the page of history, to
its darkest, most affecting page—the story of thirty
pieces of silver.
He would not magnify the crime it was his duty
to unveil. He wished that all the indulgence might
be extended to the defendant which human frailty
claimed; for the sins of our common nature should
be viewed in sorrow rather than in anger.
He should endeavor to show how the unhappy
man had been led astray; how temptation had at
first suggested but a slight departure from the straight
path; but that once left, how her victim had been
darkened, entangled, and lost.
He adverted to Frank Carroll's first accidental
meeting with the deceased. He dwelt on his father
not only having permitted, but encouraged the
child's intercourse with the repulsive stranger.
Subsequently when he was seized with a frightful
disease, and apparently near death, the defendant,
instead of suffering him to receive relief through the
appropriate and adequate channels of public charity—or,
even like a Howard or a man of Ross,
maintaining him in a private lodging suited to his
apparently humble condition—had removed him to
his own house, placed him, not in some attic room,
or homely apartment suited to a mendicant, but in
expensive male nurse, especially provided for him,
and the luxury of medical attendance twice and
thrice a day. It must be remembered that the defendant
was a man, not of wasteful, nor even of free
expenditure, but of very limited means, and living
carefully within his means. It had not been pretended
that the defendant had been led on by the
mysterious instinct of nature—no, the circumstances
remained unexplained, unadverted to by the defendant's
sagacious counsel. Where then was the key to
this extraordinary, this romantic charity? Was it not
possible that the defendant was previously acquainted
with the real condition of his pensionary? His person
was well known in a sister-city—his immense
wealth and peculiarities had been a topic of common
conversation there. The supposition that the
defendant was in possession of this knowledge, and
kept it secret, furnished a complete, and the only
solution to the riddle. He saw a lone old man, on
the verge of life, divorced from his species, without
apparent heirs. Why should he not take innocent
measures to attract his notice, and secure his favor?
It certainly was not an unnatural nor extravagant
hope, that the old man's will, made under the impression
of recent kindness, should render an equivalent
for that kindness. Thus far the defendant's
fraud was not of a deep dye, and probably would not
offend against the standard of most men's virtue.
Win us with honest trifles to betray us
In deepest consequence.”
limits to an aberration from the strict rule of integrity.
Had a voice of prophecy disclosed the
dark future to the still innocent man, would he not
have shrunk with horror from the revelation? But
temptation, fit opportunity, convenient time, assailed
him, and he fell!
He now begged the particular attention of the
jury to a most important circumstance in the testimony,
the private interview which occurred between
the defendant and the deceased, three days before
his death.
The late Mr. Clarence, as the defendant's counsel
had admitted, then disclosed to him the particulars
of his life. The effort of recalling past events,
and living over far-gone griefs, brought on a recurrence
of his disease.
He had revealed, among other events of a clouded
life, one which naturally struck the imagination
of the defendant.
The old man, seven and twenty years before,
had lost a child at sea. The defendant, about the
same time, had been abandoned at the gate of our
city alms-house!
He did not allude to the circumstance as a reproach
to the defendant. He did not unnecessarily
present it before the public; but he would ask what
feeling was more natural, more universal, than a desire
of honorable parentage? He could almost
forgive the defendant for grasping an opportunity
to wash this stain from his family escutcheon. His
family escutcheon! alas, it was a blank! He
dated his existence from the moment when, a deserted,
received under the shelter of public charity!
Is it strange that the project being once conceived
by evil inspiration, of ingrafting himself on the stock
of an honorable family, his invention should have been
quickened to fertility in producing and maturing the
means? The old miser's singular and solitary
death was remembered. The documents in question
might be forged; who should disprove its authenticity?
It might be pretended that it was received
through the hands of the deceased Mr. Clarence!
Still it was an unattested and insufficient document;
and other testimony must be provided—
where was it to be obtained? Where!—Did the enemy
of our souls ever fail to present fit agents to execute
a plotted mischief?
He would only remind the jury of the protracted
and secret interview between the defendant
and the physician, immediately after Mr. Clarence'
death.
He could not raise the protecting curtain of secresy;
he could not paint the first shrinking of the confederate—he
could not calculate the amount of the bribe
—it had been enough for the price of integrity, but
not enough to stifle the voice of conscience, as they
had all witnessed in the consequences of her violated
law, the blundering and confusion of the
testimony given by a man, on all ordinary occasions,
clear-headed and self-possessed. Much had been said
by the opposite counsel on the superior claims of this
medical gentleman to their confidence, over the
humble witness of his client. Did he hear this argument
brought forward in a country of hoasted
was this! that was to monopolize esteem
and confidence, and to disqualify and disfranchise
the poor and humble. Thank God, truth and virtue
grow most sturdily in the lowly bosom of humility!
The opposite counsel had adopted a plausible explanation
of what he no doubt felt to be a very suspicious
circumstance—the neglect of the defendant
to take the testimony of Conolly. He would suggest
the obvious explanation; it had probably already
occurred to them. The defendant had not anticipated
a legal investigation in this country. He had
calculated wisely the amount of proof necessary for
the agents in England. It was certainly prudent to
have as few instruments as possible in a conspiracy
of this dark nature. Conolly, as was apparent, was
of that frank, sociable, communicative disposition,
which characterizes his amiable nation. If it had
been possible to corrupt him, he might, in some convivial
moment, disclose a secret which neither involved
his fortune nor reputation. Fortune, poor
fellow! he had none; and reputation, alas! it had
been seen at what a rate the reputation of a poor
Irishman was valued.
He begged the jury would not be misled by the
relative standing of the witnesses, but in their verdict
would imitate that holy tribunal, that was `no
respecter of persons.'
He had now come to the last point of the evidence.
He would willingly pass it over; he would
for humanity's sake efface it from their memories.
But his duty to his client forbade this exercise of
mercy. He need not tell them he alluded to the
must have stifled the voice of nature—must have
`stopp'd up the access and passage to remorse,' before
he practised on this innocent boy—before he
effaced or blotted the handwriting of the Creator,
still fresh on his beautiful work. But he had not
effaced it. All had witnessed the struggles of Heaven
and truth in that little heart against falsehood,
fear, and authority. All had seen him yield at
last with tears and sobbings to the stern parental
command.
He begged the jury would mark by what apparently
feeble instruments Heaven had thwarted a
well-contrived plot; and finally, he resigned the
cause to them, confident, that guided by the light
which Providence had thrown across their path,
their verdict would establish his client's right.
We have given an imperfect abstract of a powerful
argument, but inadequate as it is, it may show
how ably men may reason on false premises; how
honestly good men may pervert public opinion; and
how hard it is to adjust the balance of human judgment.
The Judge then proceeded to charge the jury.
He told them that the question before them was one
of fact, to be decided by them alone; that they must
perceive that the testimony of the Irishman was utterly
irreconcileable with the truth of the defendant's
witnesses. It was for them to estimate the credibility
of his apparently honest testimony. A great
array of circumstances, favorable to the plaintiff's
claim, had been presented before them. It was for
them to decide what weight should be allowed to
much consideration should be accorded to the hitherto
unassailed reputation of the defendant and his witnesses.
Their good faith established, the defendant's
right to the property was incontestible. Thus he
dismissed them with the unadjusted balance in their
hands; and the court was adjourned to the following
morning.
| CHAPTER VII. Clarence, or, A tale of our own times | |