Upon this, I immediately began collecting and reading the various articles and the book, and perceived that the public of this generation were in a way of having false history created, uncontradicted, under their own eyes.
I claim for my country, men and women, our right to true history. For years, the popular literature has held up publicly before our eyes the facts as to this man and this woman, and called on us to praise or condemn. Let us have truth when we are called on to judge. It is our right.
There is no conceivable obligation on a human being greater than that of absolute justice. It is the deepest personal injury to an honourable mind to be made, through misrepresentation, an accomplice in injustice. When a noble name is accused, any person who possesses truth which might clear it, and withholds that truth, is guilty of a sin against human nature and the inalienable rights of justice. I claim that I have not only a right, but an obligation, to bring in my solemn testimony upon this subject.
For years and years, the silence-policy has been tried; and what has it brought forth? As neither word nor deed could be proved against Lady Byron, her silence has been spoken of as a monstrous, unnatural crime, 'a poisonous miasma,' in which she enveloped the name of her husband.
Very well; since silence is the crime, I thought I would tell the world that Lady Byron had spoken.
Christopher North, years ago, when he condemned her for speaking, said that she should speak further,—
'She should speak, or some one for her. One word would suffice.'
That one word has been spoken.