‘Statement of the Anatomical Inspection of Mr Thomas Holcroft, aged 63.
‘The examination took place twenty-four hours after decease. The body was considerably emaciated, and slightly anasarcous throughout. An extensive cicatrix at the upper part of the sternum, and at the junction of the neck with the breast, indicated some long continued chronic abscesses. The cavity of the abdomen contained about a pint of dropsical water. The stomach, intestines, mesenteric glands, kidneys, and bladder, were free from diseased structure. The liver was about twice the natural bulk, hard and tuberculated on its surfaces. The peritoneal covering of this viscous substance was marked by numerous opake spots, where the membrane was drawn into folds, and this appearance seemed to characterize a series of inflammations. The interior texture of the liver was tuberculated. The gall-bladder was much distended. The outer surface of the spleen had much of the appearance displayed by the liver. The cavities of the thorax contained about two quarts of dropsical water. The lungs were soft, and their air-cells free. The heart was large, and bore the relaxed character which often occurs after a long-continued laborious circulation. The coronary arteries had begun to ossify. The arch of the aorta was dilated, approaching to aneurism, and the texture of its coats had become hard and inelastic. The descending aorta and the primary iliac arteries had become completely ossified in several parts, and were unduly dilated. From the facts here adduced, it may be considered, that the diseased structure of the liver, and of the heart, and its principal arteries, led to the dropsy of the chest, which might be the Immediate cause of death, although in a frame so disorganized, life could not have been much longer protracted. Whether the disease of the liver preceded that of the heart and its vessels, or the contrary, and whether they were distinct diseases, and which of these led most decidedly to the fatal event, are subjects for uncertain speculation.’
LETTERS TO AND FROM THE AUTHOR
LETTER I
To a Friend. 1799
You, and many other of my friends, were informed of my motives for quitting my native country, and residing some few years abroad: till more peaceable times should again render that country to me what it once was; admirable for its general industry, manners, and morality; and undisturbed by the suspicions and persecutions, with which other countries were, and too often still continue to be, afflicted. Nothing but the strange terror which had seized the public mind could have engendered that spirit of individual rancour so foreign to the English character, which suddenly spread through the nation; and nothing but the stupor of mind, under such an impulse, could have made me suspected as one of the heads of the abominable Hydra, to extirpate which every Englishman was summoned. The fear was itself ridiculous: but, in their consequences, such fears have been fatal to many a worthy man.
I cannot recollect these things unmoved: neither can I hear various false reports of my being obliged to quit England, and of my not being suffered to return, without wishing that those who give them credit may be undeceived. My departure from England was voluntary; as is my absence. I cannot live in danger from Laws which I have not violated, or power with which I do not contend. I carefully shun the acrimony of political dispute, and the circles in which it is indulged. To the utmost of the little ability I have, it is my desire to inform, with the hopes of benefiting mankind; and this end cannot be attained by making them angry. In action, heart, and principle, I am, or would become, the friend of man. The only enemy I encounter is error; and that with no weapon but words: my constant theme has been, let it be taught, not whipped.
The letters I mean to address to you are intended for the public; and of these facts I wish the public to be informed and reminded. You must not, therefore, be surprised that I speak of them in this place. Whatever fable may invent, or credulity believe, I pledge my veracity to the world, that what I have above said is literally true: and may the world treat my memory with that ignominy, which a falsehood so solemn and gratuitous would deserve, if I prevaricate.
Avoiding the pursuit of this painful subject, the busy memory recurs to another, equally ungrateful: I did not quit the circle of friends, in whose intercourse I found so much benefit, and took so much delight, but with the bitterness of regret. I could not sit in apathy; and see the few effects I had collected become the scattered prey of brokers and dealers; and chiefly my library, on which so much of my money and time had been bestowed, squandered, twenty and more books in a lot: several of them individually of greater worth than the price paid for the whole. It seemed the dissolution of my social life; and something like the entrance into a wild and savage state. What multitudes of such thoughts did my afflicted heart suffer without giving them utterance! It would but have communicated and increased affliction.
I wish not to dwell on these dark parts of the picture. Who quits the country of his fathers without a sigh? Yet, who journeys forward to lands unexplored without hopes of strange and unexpected pleasures? It is a season full of apprehensive emotions, flutterings of the heart, and hopes and fears too numerous to be defined. At least it is such to those to whom travelling is not become a habit.