Upon this the whole party, of course, gave three vehement cheers, and at the conclusion of the piece adjourned in a great procession to the "Sir Hugh Middleton," hard by, with the recovered man, elevated on the shoulders of half a dozen friends, in the centre. A crowd of people quickly assembled round the door, and great excitement and curiosity were occasioned as the intelligence ran from mouth to mouth, that a deaf and dumb man had come to speak and hear, all owing to the cleverness of Joey Grimaldi.
The landlady of the tavern, thinking Grimaldi would like to see his patient, told the man, that, if he would call next morning, he should see the actor who had made him laugh so much. Grimaldi, being apprised of the circumstance, repaired to the house at the appointed time, and saw him, accompanied by several of his companions, all of whom still continued to manifest the liveliest interest in the sudden change that had happened to their friend, and kept on cheering, and drinking, and treating everybody in the house, in proof of their gratification. The man, who appeared an intelligent well-behaved fellow, said, that in the early part of his life he could both speak and hear very well; and that he had attributed his deprivation of the two senses to the intense heat of the sun in the quarter of the world to which he had been, and from which he had very recently returned. He added, that on the previous evening he had for a long time felt a powerful anxiety to express his delight at what was passing on the stage; and that, after some feat of Grimaldi's which struck him as being particularly amusing, he had made a strong effort to deliver his thoughts, in which, to his own great astonishment, no less than that of his comrades, he succeeded. Mr. Charles Dibdin, who was present, put several questions to the man; and, from his answers, it appeared to every one present, that he was speaking the truth. Indeed, his story was in some measure confirmed by Captain Harris himself; for one evening, about six months afterwards, as Grimaldi was narrating the circumstance in the green-room at Covent Garden, that gentleman, who chanced to be present, immediately remarked that he had no reason, from the man's behaviour while with him, to suppose him an impostor, and that he had seen him on that day in the full possession of all his senses.
In the month, of August following this circumstance, Grimaldi received a subpœna to attend the trial of Mackintosh, at Stafford. He immediately gave notice to the manager of Sadler's Wells, that he was compelled to absent himself for a few days, and Bradbury, of the Circus, was engaged to supply his place. Mr. Harmer and himself went down together; and on the day following their arrival, a true bill having been found against Mackintosh by the grand jury, the trial came on.
Grimaldi forgets the name of the prosecutor's counsel,[41] and regrets the circumstance very much, observing that the lengthened notice which he bestowed upon him ought to have impressed his name on his memory. If this notice were flattering on account of its length, it certainly was not so in any other respect; inasmuch as the gentleman in question, in the exercise of that licence which many practitioners unaccustomed to briefs assume, was pleased to designate the principal witness for the prisoner, to wit, Mr. Joseph Grimaldi, as a common player, a mountebank-stroller, a man reared in and ever accustomed to vice in its most repulsive and degrading forms—a man who was necessarily a systematic liar—and, in fine, a man upon whose word or oath no thinking person could place any reliance.
[41] The late Mr. Dauncey.
During this exordium, and pending the logical deductions of the ingenious gentleman whose name is unhappily lost to his country, the prisoner eyed his witness with intense anxiety, fearing, no doubt, that in his examination, either by angry words, or by attempting to retort on the counsel, or by volunteering jokes, or by seeking revenge upon himself, against whom he had such just ground of complaint, he might pass the rope round his neck, instead of serving his cause; but his fears were needless. His witness had gone there to discharge what he considered a solemn duty; and, apart from all personal considerations, to give his honest testimony in a case involving a man's life and death. He went there, of course, prepared to give his evidence in the manner best befitting himself and the occasion; and, if he wanted any additional incentive to caution and coolness, he would have found it in the taunts of the opposing counsel, which naturally made him desirous to show, by his behaviour, that the same man who could play the clown upon a public stage could conduct himself with perfect propriety as a private individual—in the same way as many young gentlemen, who are offensive in wigs, become harmless and obscure in social life.
No fewer than nine witnesses were examined for the prosecution, all of whom, to Grimaldi's astonishment and horror, swore positively to the identity of the prisoner. The case for the prosecution being closed, he was immediately put into the box, for the defence; when, after stating that the prisoner was in his company at Woolwich, at the time of the commission of the burglary, he proceeded to detail as briefly as he could all that had happened on the day and night in question. He carefully suppressed any extraneous matter that related to himself or his own feelings, which might have been injurious to the prisoner, and produced the playbill of the night, to prove that there could be no mistake respecting the date. He was then submitted to a very long and vexatious cross-examination, but he never lost his temper for an instant, or faltered in his testimony in any way; and at its conclusion he was well rewarded for his good feeling and impartiality, by the highly flattering terms in which the presiding judge was pleased to express his opinion of the manner in which he had conducted himself.[42]
[42] The gentleman who first revised Grimaldi's reminiscences adds the following note in this stage of the Memoirs: "That Mr. Grimaldi has not unworthily commended his own conduct in this instance, no one who has heard him speak in public will be disposed to believe. His manner was always that of a man who, while he entertained a just respect for himself, properly respected the parties to whom he addressed himself. This was strikingly exemplified whenever, in consequence of the sudden illness of a performer, or some other stage mishap, an apology became necessary; on which occasions he would step forward, and announcing the calamity, claim the kindness of the audience with so much gentlemanly ease, and such an entire absence of all buffoonery or grimace, that, in spite of his grotesque dress and appearance, and the associations which they necessarily awakened, the audience forgot the clown, and only remembered the gentleman."
His wife was the next witness called, and she fully corroborated his evidence. Two more witnesses were examined on the same side, when the judge interposed, putting it to the jury whether they really deemed it necessary to hear any further evidence, and not hesitating to say that the full conviction on his own mind was, that the witnesses for the prosecution were mistaken, and that the prisoner at the bar was innocent of the offence laid to his charge. The jury fully coincided in the learned judge's opinion, and immediately returned a verdict of "Not guilty," after a trial which had already lasted for upwards of nine hours.