There now only remained to sum up the evidence, and impart that consistency and coherence to the story which should carry conviction to the minds of the jury; and this task he performed with a most consummate ability, concluding all with an account of my own visit to the home of my fathers, and the reception which there had met me. The passionate vehemence of his indignation seemed fired by the theme; and, warming as he proceeded, he denounced the infamy of that morning as not only a stain upon the nation, but the age, and called upon the jury, whatever their decision might be in the cause itself,—whether to restore the heir to his own, or send him a beggared wanderer through the world,—to mark by some expression of their own the horror and disgust this act of barbaric cruelty had filled them with.
A burst of applause and indignation commingled saluted the orator as he sat down; nor was it till after repeated efforts of the criers that silence was again restored, and the business of the trial proceeded with.
Mr. M'Clelland, to whom the chief duty of the defence was intrusted, requested permission of the court to defer the reply to the following day, and, the leave being granted, the court arose.
I dined that day with Mr. Fozley. I would fain have been alone. The intense excitement of the scene had made me feverish, and I would gladly have felt myself at ease, and free to give way, in solitude, to the emotions which were almost suffocating me; but he insisted on my presence, and I went. The company included many very distinguished names,—members of both Houses of Parliament, and men of high consideration; and by all of them was I received with more than kindness, and some went so far as to congratulate me on a victory which, if not yet gazetted, was just as certainly achieved.
I dare not trust myself to dwell on this subject; the tremors of hope and fear I then went through threaten even yet to come back in memory. A few more words, and I have done. Would that I could spare myself the pain of these! But it cannot be so; my task must be completed.
I suppose that very few persons have ever formed a rightful estimate of the extent to which the skill and cleverness of an able lawyer have enabled him to wound their feelings and insult their self-love. I conclude this to be the case, not alone from my own brief and unhappy experience, but from reading a vast number of trials and always experiencing a sense of astonishment at the powerful perversity of these men. The cruel insinuation, the imputed meanness, the perversion of meaning, the insinuations of unworthy motive, are all acquired and cultivated, like the feints and parries of an accomplished fencer. The depreciation of a certain testimony, and the exaggerated estimate of some other; the sneering acknowledgment of this, or the triumphant assertion of that; the dark menace of a hidden meaning here, and the subtle insinuation that there was more than met the eye there,—are all studied and practised efforts, as artificial as the stage-trick of the actor. And yet how little does all our conviction of this artifice avail against their influence!
Bad as these are, they are as nothing to the resources in store when the object is to assail the reputation and blacken the character; to hold up some poor fellow-man—frail and erring as he may be—to everlasting shame, and mark him with ignominy forever. Alas for the best and purest! what an alloy of meanness and littleness, what vanity and self-seeking mingle with their very noblest and highest efforts. What need, then, to overwhelm the guilty with more than his guilt, and quote the “Heart” in the indictment as well as the Crime? No, no; if the best be not all good, believe me the worst are not all and hopelessly depraved. I have a right to speak of these things, as one who has felt them. For eight hours and more I listened to such a character of myself as made me sick, to very loathing, at my own identity; I heard a man in a great assembly denounce me as one of the most corrupt and infamous of mankind! I felt the eyes that were turned towards me, I almost thought I overheard the muttered reprobation that surrounded me. A number of the incidents of my changeful life—how learned I know not—were related with every exaggeration and every perversion that malice could invest them with. For a while, a sense of guiltlessness supported me; I knew many of the accusations to be false, others grossly overstated. The scenes in which I was often depicted as an actor had either no existence, or were falsehoods based upon some small germ of truth; and yet I heard them detailed with a semblance of reality, and a degree of coherence as to time and place, that smote me with very terror, since, though I might deny, I could not disprove them.
To stamp me as an impostor, and my claim as a cheat, appeared to be the entire line of the defence. Indeed, he avowed openly that with all the evidence so painstakingly elicited by the opposite counsel, he should not trouble the jury with one remark. “When I tell you,” said he, “who this claimant really is, and how his claim originated, you will forgive me that I have not embarrassed you with details quite irrelevant to this action, since of Walter Carew or of any descendant of his there is no question here! I will produce before you on that table, I will leave him to all the ingenuity of my learned friend to cross-examine, one who shall account to you how the first impulse to this daring imposture was conceived. You will be astounded. It will be, I am aware, a tremendous tax upon your credulity to compass it; but I will show to your entire conviction that the man who aspires to the rank of an Irish gentleman, a vast estate, and an illustrious name, is a foreigner of unknown origin who began life as an emissary of the French revolutionary party. When secret treachery superseded the guillotine, he served as a spy; this trade failing, he fell into the straits and difficulties of the most abject poverty; the materials of that period of his history are, of course, difficult to come at. They who walk in such paths, walk darkly and secretly; but we may be able to display some, at least, of his actions at this time,—one of them, at all events, will exhibit the character of the individual, and at the same time put you in possession of an incident which, in all likelihood, originated this extraordinary action.
“There may be some now present in this court sufficiently familiar with London to remember a certain character well known in the precincts of Charing Cross by the nickname of Gentleman Jack. To those not acquainted with this individual I may mention that he swept a crossing in that locality, and had, by a degree of pretension in his appearance, aided by a natural smartness in repartee, attracted notice from many of the idle loungers of fashion who daily passed and repassed there. I am not able to say if his gifts were in any respect above the common. Indeed, I have heard that it was rather the singular fact that a man in such a station should be remarkable for any claim to notice whatever, which endowed him with the popularity he enjoyed. At all events, he was remarkable enough to be generally, I might say universally, known; and it was the caprice of certain fashionable folk to accord him a recognition as they passed by. This degree of attention was harmless, at least, and had it stopped at that point, might never have called for any reprobation; but modish follies occasionally take an offensive shape, and this man's pretension offered the opportunity to display such.
“You have all heard of Carlton House, gentlemen,—of the society of wits who frequent there, and the charms of a circle in which the chief figure is not more distinguished for his rank than for the gifts which elevate social intercourse. To the freedom which this exalted personage permitted those who approached him thus nearly, there seemed to be scarcely any limit. Admitting them to his friendship, he endowed them with almost equality; and there was not a liberty nor a license which could be practised in ordinary polite intercourse that was not allowed at that hospitable board.