LETTER XXXVI.
The discovery to which I alluded in my last letter, surprised and grieved me very much; and indeed it astonished me the more, from the manner in which it was communicated.
One day I received a polite message from the British Consul, saying, he wished to speak to me as soon as possible, upon a business of great consequence. I thought at first, that it might be some plan for my proceeding on my journey—perhaps Company’s dispatches that had arrived to go over land; and at intervals, something like apprehensions of the true motive of his sending for me flew across my mind. I however went to him, when, after some little introductory conversation, he told me, that my host Mr. ——- had been with him that morning, laying before him a complaint of a most extraordinary and serious nature, of which, as it immediately concerned me, he thought himself bound to inform me, in order that I might either contradict so gross a calumny if it were untrue, or find means to avoid the obviously necessary result if founded in fact.
He then proceeded to relate to me, that Mr. ——- had informed him of a conspiracy having been meditated against his peace and honour, between his wife and the English gentleman whom he had entertained in his house; that their plan was nothing less than an elopement, and that he did not know how soon it might be carried into execution, if not timely prevented; and finally, that he had demanded the assistance of the Consul and his interest with the Turkish magistrate to prevent it, by granting him an armed force for the protection of his house.
I was much surprised to find that conversations so very guarded as ours were discovered, and more so that the aggrieved person did not think proper to speak to myself, and charge me in person with the offence; never reflecting the while, that all my ideas were military, and his merely commercial: I was also much at a loss to conjecture how he came to make the discovery—but this I found afterwards he owed to a female servant, who had been improvidently intrusted by her mistress with the secret.
Finding, however, that by whatever means he became acquainted with the affair, it was a certain fact that he was apprised of it, I directly acknowledged the whole truth with the utmost candour to the Consul; told him the affair step by step as it arose, assuring him (which I really thought to be the case) that pity for the Lady’s deplorable situation made me listen to such a measure; and that unlawful passion had so little to do with it, that in all our private conferences we had never transgressed the limits of purity; and that her person was, at least respecting me, and I firmly believed all mankind, spotless and inviolate. I added, that great allowances were to be made for a young creature barely eighteen years of age, consigned by the wickedness of avaricious parents to the embraces of a man of sixty-five; who, amiable and worthy though he was, in social intercourse with the world (which I knew him to be), was yet in the most indispensable point of connubial felicity so utterly defective, as necessarily to create disgust and abhorrence in a youthful mind. I remarked to him, that, in the forming of laws, it as plainly appeared on their face, who made them amongst the English, as it does on the face of the Gentoo laws, that they were made by the Bramins: for, as by the latter the penalty of a few puns[[2]] of couries (not value a shilling)[shilling)] is annexed to the perpetration of a crime, for which those of another class lose their lives; so, among us, it appears that our laws are made by the aged, the decrepid, the sensual, and the rich. Else it could never happen that there were in the same code, laws to punish marriage between the young and vigorous, and enable the brutality of a parent to take its full scope, and consign, as in the present instance, youth, beauty, health, and every personal attraction, to the arms of age, infirmity, and impotence. And I concluded by saying, that all parties aiding in such an unnatural confederacy should be punished.
[2]. Couries, a kind of small shells used in India, as a circulating medium in place of coin, in value much below the smallest copper coin—a Pun is a certain number of them.
The Consul fairly acknowledged there was too much truth in what I had said; but remarked withal, that it was rather a hazardous experiment, and he was sure it would be an endless one, to correct all the abuses to which the fallibility of man, and his incompetency to form any thing perfect, necessarily left society and their laws liable—that the law was written, and it was the duty of every individual to obey it—and that in cases of adultery, the offence could be justified on no solid grounds whatever, for, independent of the feelings of the husband, which perhaps were more poignant in old age than youth, the injury to his family was not to be got over, in probably giving to him an heir no way a-kin to him. “It would be right I think,” said he, “to stop such disproportionate matches; yet, once made, they should be as religiously observed inviolate as those of love, among which we almost as frequently, as in those of compulsion, see instances of infidelity. If you doubt this,” said he, “read the records of Doctors’ Commons.”
I agreed to the justice of what he said, at the same time assured him, that my intentions went no farther than wishing the Lady to be rescued from her thraldom, which I told him was dreadful.—“I am sure,” said the Consul, “that Mr. Campbell thinks so, because I am convinced he would not otherwise say so. But may not,” said he, smiling, “may not Mr. C. have deceived himself? these are things in which the passions are strangely apt to hoodwink the understanding. However,” continued he, breaking off pleasantly, “I must give you all the comfort that truth will allow me to do: I am sure that the poor Lady is condemned to great wretchedness; partly from my own observation, partly from public report, and partly from her own mouth: for you must know she has several times complained to me of her husband’s peevishness and tyranny; and even besought me to use my influence and authority to relieve her from her misery. Mr. ————,” continued he, “is a man whom on all other accounts I esteem, and value highly. In this instance he has erred, and I cannot pity him, even though he suffers all the torments of jealousy: and as there are laws for punishing with death premature intercourse with the sex, I cannot see, any more than you, why the sacrificing youth to extreme old age should not be equally punished, for I am sure it is equally unnatural, and still more injurious to a State. These are my sentiments,” continued he; “but let not this declaration induce you to think that I the less disapprove of your intermeddling. You have allowed me the privilege of a friend, and I will not suffer it to be made an empty one. You were more culpable than many young men would be; first, because you are married, and should, upon the common principle of doing as you would be done by, have refrained; and next, because you were enjoying the sweets of hospitality in his house, and should have dashed from his lips, rather than held to them, the deepest cup of bitterness.”