This document was one of the most important incidents in the history of the case, and upon it, if the cross-examination had been conducted by Mr. Hawkins in Chancery, the case would have been crushed at the outset. It is not my task to show how, but to state what it all came to when the learned counsel left it to the jury to say whether the claimant was the Roger Tichborne he had sworn himself to be, or whether he was Arthur Orton, the butcher of Wapping, whom he swore he was not.
This document forms the subject of the "sealed packet" left with Mr. Gosford, and contained in effect these words: "If God spares me to return and marry my beloved Kate within a year, I promise to build a church and dedicate it to my patron saint."
Till his cross-examination in Chancery he had never heard of this packet, and when he was informed of it his solicitor naturally demanded a copy. Gosford had destroyed the original, and of course there was no end of capital out of it; a concocted original was made, which was to the effect that this gentleman, "so like Roger," had seduced his cousin, and that if she proved to be enceinte, Gosford was to take care of her. Luckily "Kate Doughty" had her original preserved with sacred affection. But such was the memory of this man's early life, contrasted with what would have been the memory of Sir Roger Tichborne.
He did not recollect being "at Stonyhurst, but said positively he was at Winchester, where certainly Roger never was. He did not remember his mother's Christian names, and could not write his own.
He came to England to see his mother, and then would not go to her; she went to see him, and he got on to the bed and turned his face to the wall. She did not see his face, but recognized him by his ears, because they were like his uncle's, then ordered the servant to undo his braces for fear he should choke.
Such a piece as this on the stage would not have lasted one night; in real life it had a run for many years. But then there never was a rogue that some fool would not believe in. How else was it possible that millions believed in this man, who had forgotten the religion he had been brought up in, and was married by a Wesleyan minister at a Wesleyan church, he being, as his mother informed him, a strict Roman Catholic from his birth? However, he did his best to reform his error by getting married again by a Roman priest, although he made another blunder, and forgetting he was Sir Roger Tichborne, married as Arthur Orton, the son of the Wapping butcher. When his dear mother reminded him of his being a Catholic, he wrote and thanked her for the information, and hoped the Blessed Maria would take care of her for evermore, little dreaming that the "Black Maria" would one day take particularly good care of himself.
So that he forgot the place of his birth, the seat of his ancestors, the friends of his youth, the face, features, and form of his mother, his education and religion, his brother officers in the regiment, the regiment itself, and the position he occupied, thinking he had been a private for fifteen days instead of a painstaking, studious, diligent officer, who was beloved by his fellows. He had forgotten all his neighbours, servants, dependants, as well as the family solicitor who made his will and was appointed his executor. He forgot his life in Paris, the village church of his ancestral seat—nay, the ancestral seat itself—and the very road that led to it. He forgot his old friend and historian, who swore he had never altered the least in appearance since Roger left—historian and picture-cleaner to the family. In short, there was not one single thing in the life of Roger that he knew. He forgot what any but a born fool would remember while he was in poverty and bankruptcy for a couple of hundred pounds; the real Roger had written home on hearing of the death of his uncle, from whom he derived his title and estates, saying, "Pray go to Messrs. Glyn's and exchange my letter of credit for £2,000 for three years for one for £3,000."
Imagine a man forgetting he had £3,000 a year and an estate in England worth £30,000, and earning his bread in a slaughter-house and in the Bush, borrowing money from a poor woman and running away with it.
But now another singular thing stamps this fraudulent impostor who makes so many believe in him. He, alleged by his supporters to be Sir Roger Tichborne, recollected all about a place that he had never been to; people he had never heard of, far less seen; events that he could not know and which never happened to him, but did happen to Arthur Orton. He knew Wapping well—every inch of it; Old Charles Orton, the father of Arthur; Charles Orton the brother, the sisters, the people who kept this shop and that; so that when on his return to England he went to the Wapping seat of his ancestors instead of Ashford, he asked all about them, and reminded them so faithfully of the little events of Arthur's boyhood, and resembled that person so much in the face, that they said, "Why, you are Arthur Orton yourself!" True, he paid some of them to swear he was not, but the impression remained.
Mr. Hawkins told the jury how he picked up his second-hand knowledge of the things he spoke about concerning the Tichbornes, for it was necessary to be able to answer a good many questions wherever he went, especially when he went into the witness-box.