Directly opposite to us, was imprisoned an unfortunate person, who had for years been a close captive, and the sport and subject of those enormities. He was a man once of the highest rank in the Country where now he was a prisoner: for a series of years he had been Governor and sole Manager of the whole province of Bidanore. This was during the reign of the last Rana, or Queen, whose family had been Sovereigns of the Country for time immemorial, till Hyder made a conquest of, and annexed it to his other usurpations. Unfortunately for him, he was supposed to have amassed and secreted enormous treasures, in consequence of which he had already undergone the fiery ordeal of torture several times. He was supposed to have produced, from first to last, about fifteen lacks of pagodas; and then, in the course of eighteen months, was degraded gradually, from the high respect in which he was at first held, down to a most abject state——threatened, flogged, punished in a variety of ways, and, finally, put to the most cruel tortures. I myself saw him treated with the highest degree of respect, and afterwards brought to the lowest stage of misery and humiliation. One thing, however, I must not forget, is the fortitude with which he and all of them bore their punishment: it was truly heroic——indeed, beyond all belief. Nothing could surpass it, except the skill and inventive ingenuity which the barbarians exhibited in striking out new modes of torture. My soul sickened with horror at the sight: the amiable Hall could worse support it than his own miseries, and lost all that fortitude, in his feeling for others’ misfortunes, which he displayed in so unbounded a share in his own: and often, very often, we found the rigour and severity of our own situation utterly forgotten in our anguish and sympathy for the sufferings of others. Never shall I forget it: never shall I think without horror of the accursed policy and wicked tyranny of the Eastern Governments, where every sense of humanity is extinguished, and Man, more merciless than the tiger, riots in the blood of his fellow-creatures without cause.
Mr. Hall, notwithstanding the various sufferings both of mind and body which he had undergone, began to recruit, and get a little better; and this circumstance, of itself, diffused a flow of spirits over me that contributed to my support. We consoled each other by every means we could devise——sometimes indulging in all the luxury of woe——sometimes rallying each other, and, with ill-dissembled sprightliness, calling on the Goddess Euphrosyne to come with her “quirps and cranks, and wreathed smiles:” but, alas! the mountain nymph, sweet Liberty, was far away, and the Goddess shunned our abode. We however began to conceive that we might form a system for our relief, and, by a methodical arrangement, entrench ourselves from the assaults of grief: to this end, we formed several resolutions, and entered into certain engagements——such as, never to repine at our fate, if we could——to draw consolation from the more dreadful lot of others, if we could;——and to encourage hope——hope that comes to all; and, on the whole, to confine our conversation as much as possible to subjects of an agreeable nature: but these, like many other rules which we lay down for the conduct of life, were often broken by necessity, and left us to regret the fallibility of all human precautionary systems.
The youth and strength of Mr. Hall was to the full as adequate as mine to the support of any personal hardship: his intellectual powers were excellent, his temper incomparable, and his fortitude unparalleled; yet could I see, that something more than appeared upon the surface wrought within him, and gnawed his heart with hidden pain. United as we were by sentiment, as well as by parity of suffering, I felt for him too deeply, not to have an interesting curiosity to know what it was that preyed upon his mind: we had now been, months together, fellow-sufferers; and I thought myself not without some claim to his confidence——I told him so, and desired him to impart to me his story; which he, with his accustomed suavity and condescension, agreed to——assuring me that it was not such a story as could requite the trouble of hearing it, or interest any one but himself, or some very warm friend indeed: such, however, he added, he took me to be; and, as such, would tell it to me. I think it, however, worth relating, and will give it to you in his own words; and, though it be very short, must defer the relation to another Letter.
LETTER LI.
Mr. Hall having, as I told you in my last, obligingly agreed to favour me with a relation of his story, I now give it to you as nearly in his own words as 1 can remember them. He proceeded thus:
“Although you are now, my dear friend! a witness to my being the most perfectly wretched of all created beings, yet the time is not long past when fortune smiled upon and gave me promise of as much happiness as Man in this wretched vale of tears is allowed by his circumscribed nature to hope for. I have seen the time, when each revolving sun rose to usher me to a day of joy, and set to consign me to a night of undisturbed repose——when the bounties of Nature, and the productions of Art, were poured with the profusion of fond paternal affection into my lap——when troops of friends hailed my rising prospects——when health and peace made this person their uninterrupted abode——and when the most benignant love that ever blessed a mortal filled up the measure of my bliss. Yes, Campbell! it was once my happiness, though now, alas! the source of poignant misery, to be blessed with the best parents that ever watched over the welfare of a child——with friends, too, who loved me, and whom my heart cherished——and——O God! do I think of her, and yet retain my senses——with the affections of a young lady, than whom Providence, in the fullness of its power and bounty to Mankind, never formed one more lovely, one more angelic in person, more heavenly in disposition, more rich in intellectual endowments. Alas! my friend, will you, can you pardon those warm ebullitions of a fond passion? will you for a moment enter into my feelings, and make allowance for those transports? But how can you? Your friendship and pity may indeed induce you to excuse this interruption; but, to sympathise truly, and feel as I feel, you must have known the charming girl herself.
“My father, though he did not move in the very first walk of life, held the rank of a Gentleman by birth and education, and was respectable, not only as a man of considerable property, but as a person who knew how to turn the gifts of fortune to their best account: he was generous without prodigality, and charitable without ostentation: he was allowed by all who knew him to be the most tender of husbands——the most zealous and sincere of friends; and I can bear witness to his being the best of parents. As long as I can remember to have been able to make a remark, the tenderness of both my father and mother knew no bounds: I seemed to occupy all their thoughts, all their attention; and in a few years, as I thank God I never made an unsuitable return for their affection, it increased to such a degree, that their existence seemed to hang upon mine.
“To make as much of a child so beloved as his natural talents would allow, no expence was spared in my education: from childhood, every instruction that money could purchase, and every allurement to learn that fondness could suggest, were bestowed upon me; while my beloved father, tracing the advances I made with the magnifying eye of affection, would hang over me in rapture, and enjoy by anticipation the fame and honours that, overweening fondness suggested to him, must one day surround me. These prejudices, my dear friend! arising from the excess of natural affection, are excuseable, if not amiable, and deserve a better fate than disappointment. Alas! my honoured father, you little knew——and, oh! may you never know, what sort of fame, what sort of honours, await your child! May the anguish he endures, and his most calamitous fate, never reach your ears!——for, too well I know, ’twould give a deadly wrench to your heart, and precipitate you untimely to your grave.