Mr. Otway at once opened the business, and told me Hartpole had referred him to me for a statement of his estates and financial situation. On this point I had come fully prepared. Hartpole’s circumstances exceeded rather than fell below Mr. Otway’s expectation.
“I am quite satisfied, my dear sir,” said he to me, with a significant nod; “you know that in Ireland we always make some allowances for the Stratford consanguinity.”
I now found my embarrassment recommence, but determined, at every risk, to free myself from all future responsibility or reproach: I therefore informed Col. Otway explicitly of Hartpole’s marriage, and that no sentence had as yet been pronounced to declare that marriage a nullity, though in point of law it was so.
Having heard me throughout with the greatest complacency, he took me by the hand:—“My dear sir,” said he with a smile which at first surprised me, “I am happy to tell you that I was fully apprised, before I came to Ireland, of every circumstance you have related to me as to that woman, and had taken the opinions of several eminent practitioners on the point, each of whom gave without any hesitation exactly the same opinion you have done: my mind was therefore easy and made up on that subject before I left England, and I do not consider the circumstance any impediment to the present negotiation.”
It is not easy to describe the relief thus afforded me; though, at the same time, I must own I was somewhat astonished at this seeming nonchalance. We parted in excellent humour with each other, and I believe he was my friend to the day of his death.
The negotiation went on: Miss Sleven was no more regarded; and after a deal of discussion, but no difference of opinion, the terms were agreed on, and settlements prepared, for a marriage, in all its results as unfortunate for the young people, and as culpable in the old, as any that ever came within my recollection.
A circumstance of singular and not very auspicious nature occurred on the first step toward the completion of that ill-starred alliance. It was necessary to procure a license from the Prerogative Court for the solemnization of the marriage in the city of Dublin, and Hartpole’s uncle, the Honourable Benjamin O’Neil Stratford (now Earl of Aldborough), attended with George upon Doctor Duigenan, then judge of the prerogative, for that purpose.
The doctor (who when irritated was the most outrageous judge that ever presided in a court of justice) was on the bench officiating upon their arrival. Benjamin conceived that his rank and intimacy with the doctor would have procured him at least common civility; but in this he was egregiously mistaken.
Benjamin O’Neil Stratford, who attended his nephew on that dangerous expedition, was endowed with several good-natured qualities, but, as folks said, rather inclined to the pleasures of litigation. In every family which is not very popular, there is always one, of whom people in general say, “Oh! he is the best of them:” and this was Benjamin’s reputation as to the Stratford family.[[16]]