pretext for keeping the poor people out of their money, I had written to
Dr. OILY GAMMON R—— to know if _he_ would be my trustee? Not certainly
from choice, as I never have any but Hobson’s choice; but because he was
already _au fait_ to the last Madhouse Conspiracy, and knew all the
_dramatis personæ_. He wrote me back a most oleaginous letter, accepting
the office, and praising Mr. L—— up to the skies, with one of those
double barrelled compliments which professionally he was in the habit of
bestowing upon my lord and my lady—_i.e._, saying “He is a noble fellow,
worthy of the mother who bore him.” No, verily; _she_ is _not_ a coward;
and for all the kingdoms of the earth could neither lie away a person’s
life, repay good with evil, or cringe to infamy in high places; nor
pander to treachery and injustice. Though as FALSTAFF was not only witty
himself, but the cause of wit in others; so Sir EDWARD is not only false,
treacherous, and infamous, but is the cause of falsehood, treachery, and
infamy in others. Yet, thank GOD, neither by bribery nor intimidation,
has he ever, or will he ever, be able to mould me to his purposes; and
hence his implacable persecution, and his poisoned treacherous arrows
that always fly in _darkness_, and from an ambush. When Mr. L—— returned
with his dispatch to C——, he put it into my hand, saying “Will that do?”
It began: “SIR,—Lady B—— L—— having seen in _The Times_,” &c., &c. “No,”
I said, “it will _not_ do; I told you to say my mother having seen, &c.,
&c., that he fully might know that I had a son, and therefore conclude,
however erroneously, that he would protect me.” At this he left the room,
and I felt so angry and heart-stricken, that I wrote him an indignant
note, reproaching him with having lured and springed me abroad, merely
to patch up his father’s character, which, sooth to say, was rather past
mending. Upon the receipt of this, for truth to evil-doers is the most
unpardonable of all crimes, _car ce n’est que la verité qui blesse_,
the young gentleman having of course had his _orders_ (and when did
this pious ÆNEAS ever dare to disobey any order of his loved!!! and
honoured!!! father, “from pitch-and-toss up to manslaughter?”) sent for
post horses and set off to Toulouse, on his return to Paris, leaving
his Mother, now nothing more could be done with her, and the bubble was
beginning to burst, to find her way home as she could. Certainly he did
leave his man FLETCHER to attend upon me, who kept saying to WILLIAMS
(my maid) the whole journey, “’Pon my soul, it’s too, too bad; I did
not think Mr. L—— _could_ have acted so by his Mother—whom I know he
loves—merely from fear of that old villain Sir EDWARD.” When I found Mr.
L—— gone, without a word, without a line, my short dream all shattered
and shimmering about me! and a cold, black, unfathomable abyss before
me,—never shall I forget the first petrifying yet bewildering agony—the
severing, as it were, of body and soul—that I felt, and which I am
certain must be what one feels when the real severing of them by death
comes. For hours I seemed turned to stone, and could not shed a tear,
till I saw, sitting under the trees opposite our windows, in her little
carriage, a poor little lame girl about thirteen, who used to sit there
begging. She had a little, pale, melancholy face, with imploring eyes,
that seemed to say, “_Pour l’amour de Dieu!_” for she never asked in
words. ROBERT had given her a five-franc piece one day, and came into
me with the tears streaming down his cheeks, and said, “Oh, Mother,
can you give me any warm wraps for her? she is so cold and so thinly
clad.” How I loved the poor fellow at that moment—so much good feeling
was so _un_-Bulwerish, and so _un_-Lyttonian. I gave him all he wanted,
and he then flung his arms round my neck, and said, “How good you are
to me, darling; anyone else would have laughed at me.” “Then they must
be thorough wretches if they did,” said I. Upon seeing his poor little
_protegée_ looking up wistfully, that cold, gloomy November day, after he
was gone, I put on my bonnet, and went down to her. Her first question
was for “Monsieur”—for he was her idol; no one, she said, had ever been
so kind, or so gentle to her. When I told her he was gone, and would not
return, she cried bitterly. Her name was JEANNE HESTIER. I said, “JEANNE,
would you like to be taken out of the cold and clothed, and taught, and
live entirely _avec les bonnes sœurs a l’Hospice_?” She clasped her
hands and said, “Oh, that would be too good—but what would my mother
say?” who took all the money people gave her at the baths (and indeed
I had trouble enough with the worthless, grasping mother after). “Oh,
never mind, I’ll settle that,” said I, and I took the pole of her little
carriage and drew her to the convent, where I consigned her to the _Mère
Superieure_, paying the first year in advance, and sufficient besides
for her “_necessaire_”—have done so ever since, and shall do so as long
as I live; and as it is only £20 a year, I hope and trust Mr. —— won’t
leave poor JEANNE to starve when I am dead, as I send the money every six
months, through his old Luchon Doctor, Dr. PEJOT. It is so _pleasant_
to have his inquiries about “_le jeune homme charmant Monsieur votre
fils_.” Oh, what a bitter! bitter! sting, life is to some of us. Well,
when I arrived in Paris, I still made a last effort to save this wretched
young victim from himself. I sent a note to the hotel, where he always
put up, to tell him not, after what _he_ and _he_ alone (for no one else
could have done it) had trapped me into, to let us part in such a manner;
for if he did, nothing should induce me ever to see him again. He came,
but the hideous KATE R—— was in the room, and his manner was cold and
constrained. To get rid of her (for she always stuck to us like a leech),
I sent her off on a wild goose chase to GALIGNANI’S. I then implored him
only to be candid with me, and tell me all, no matter how bad it was, or
what his orders were to do against me; I would not only freely forgive
him, but help him, for, as I said before, I could bear all things;
but to feel _he_ was deceiving me, and I should not at all mind what I
suffered, or even try to get redress for any outrages or insults from
his father, and his father’s tools; if I could be only _certain_ that my
own child was merely playing a part against me, and _not_ doing so in
his own heart; much as I deprecated such expedient duplicity, and which,
to save my life, I could not resort to myself. He flung himself at my
feet, hiding his face in my lap, and in such an agony of hysterical sobs,
that I really was quite frightened. But not one word could I get out of
him. As there is no courage like a coward’s for rashness, when pushed to
desperation, so I suppose there is no obstinacy like a weak vacillator’s,
when they have been pushed to take the Curtius’ leap into the gulf of
determination. At dinner, the Spy being there, he again congealed into
a proper B—— L——ish degree of frigidity, and talked of this, that and
the other, _sachant sans doute, que la bete noire R——, etait la faisant
son courier, et dressant son procès verbal—pour son barbe bleu de pere_.
Then he said how sorry he was to leave beautiful Luchon, which was the
most lovely place he had ever seen. And that poor little lame girl—her
face haunted him—he must send her something, “You need not, at least just
now,” said I, “for I thought you would be glad of it, so I’ve provided
for your child.” “Provided for her! how?” I then told him I had deposited
her with my friends, the Sisters of Charity, at the Hospice, where both
she and her health would be taken care of. At this he drew up, with an
air of pomposity that was almost worthy of “my father,” and said—while
Miss R——’s hideous, toad-like eyes were fixed upon him, “Those sort of
things are all very well, if people have large fortunes.” “Well,” I broke
in, “it will neither come out of your father’s private fortune (whatever
that may really be, it is so magnified to the public, and so contradicted
to his family), nor out of his £5,000 a year as Colonial Secretary; and,
by doing without something else, I have no doubt I shall be able to
manage £20 a year, even out of my splendid income.”
But all my pleasures were still to come! The good people of Taunton,
when they heard I was to return safe and sound, wanted to give me a
triumphal entry from the station. But upon my unhappy son’s account, I
wrote to Mrs. CLARKE to say how grateful I felt, and always should feel,
to them for their great kindness and zeal on my behalf; but that they
would greatly add to their kindness, if they would allow me to return
to them as quietly as possible, as I was far from well. On my return, I
found duplicates of the intercepted letters, which had not reached me
abroad; they were all to the same purport, and in the same strain, viz.,
that it was natural for me to believe in my son, but imploring me not
to _trust_ him; as “the world paints him in the same colours as his
father—black, and very black.” And in confirmation of this, they enclosed
me two infamous letters, tissues of the _grossest_ falsehoods, which had
appeared in _The Times_ on Saturday, July the 17th, 1858, the very day
I was taken from H——’s stronghold, and hurried off without breathing
time to Dover, which letters bore my son’s signature! But knowing the
unscrupulous use his Ruffian of a Father made of his name, I tried to
hope that they were a concoction of his and L——’s, and wrote of course
to JUDAS H——, and my OILY GAMMON of a trustee, Dr. R——, about them. Mr.
H—— of course “very much disapproved” of these letters! but thought
it better—no doubt he was paid for so doing—to let them die away, by
not taking any notice of them! a nice way of defending a client truly!
While Dr. OILY GAMMON “was quite shocked and startled at them, and would
certainly have contradicted every false statement contained in them,
_had he been my trustee at the time(!!!)_ and he had quite dreaded the
effect they would have on me when they came to my knowledge!” Yet the
sneaking toady and loathsome double-dealer, being perfectly cognisant of
them at the time, could, with all his pretended friendship and sympathy!
let me leave England with this mine of cowardly lies exploding after
me, and continue his horrible hypocrisy by writing to me that my son
“was a noble fellow”! _Il parint en ce cas la que, noblesse! n’obligéant
pas!_ I was also sent some Hertford Papers with a letter from that
vile wretch, Miss R——, saying that “she was bound to say (no doubt of
it) that Sir EDWARD —— had never been unkind to me! and that from the
_representations made to him (!!!!!!)_ he could not have done otherwise
than send me to Mr. H——’s _establishment!_ which had been done solely for
the benefit of my health.” The attorney H——, signing himself “Lady BULWER
LYTTON’S Solicitor,” was, of course, _bound_ to tell the same lies. But
the Hertford Papers opened a perfect battery of indignation upon that
vile Miss R——, saying—who could have but the worst opinion of a person
who, for ten days had printed statements in not only the Hertford but
London papers, that _nothing_ could exceed Sir EDWARD ——’s cruelty to,
and persecution of me for years, which she could vouch for before his
culminating Conspiracy of the Madhouse, and that out of Hell there were
not two other such demons as he and L——. And then! in the short space
of half an hour after her first interview with these men, she writes to
say he had never been unkind to me! Why, they _could_ only say that she
was a bribed perjurer, and that if anything _could_ damage Sir EDWARD
more in public opinion, it would be her present sudden and contradictory
statements respecting him. As for Mr. H——! solicitors are a proverb for
_their_ elastic consciences. But it is the old story in all cases of
the wicked strong against the innocent weak. Sir WALTER RALEIGH, it was
arranged _beforehand_, was to be condemned; therefore, vain were his
cloud of witnesses, his legions of facts, and his eloquence of truth.
Just as, of course, Prime Ministers never are, under the most glaring
and palpable of facts, to be found guilty in cases of _crim. con._ Why
should they, with secret service money and unlimited patronage at their
command? I remember that very clever, but intensely unprincipled literary
man, Dr. MAGINN, as most literary men that I have had the misfortune to
know _are_, telling me the clever dirty work he did in Lord MELBOURNE’S
and that vile Mrs. NORTON’S Trial; how _he_ packed the Jury, and how
_he_ invalidated the testimony of the only witness they were afraid
of—a footman, by worming out all his evidence, and sending it to her
Counsel, and making the man so beastly drunk at the eleventh hour at a
public house, “The Chequer’s” at Westminster, that when he was called
into Court it completely invalidated his evidence! And he also gave me
chapters and verses of the _exact_ sums of money—Baronetcies and civil
service appointments—he had had to distribute in the higher quarters; old
MELBOURNE sticking out more about the money than anything, but sending
Sir JOSEPH YORKE to close with his demands at 7 o’clock on the morning of
the Trial. But _because_ MAGINN was a high Tory, the sapient public of
course would never suspect _him_ of doing dirty work for a Whig Premier.
Yet this unscrupulous fellow, dining at my house at Bath at the time,
showed me two articles he had written upon this Trial simultaneously,
one, for the Tory _John Bull_ and _Standard_, making Mrs. NORTON out ten
times more scarlet than the Lady of Babylon; the other for a Whig organ
_proving_ her to be purer than unturned snow! which is the way Literature
and Politics are conducted in this country. And my miserable lot in
life having thrown me chiefly among Political and Literary Magnates, I
have no hesitation in saying that _all_ the misery and crime in this
country (where—despite sermons—schools—refuges and reformatories they
are _ever frightfully on the increase_), originate in the Stygian vices
and blasphemous hypocrisy! of these two great motive powers. And have
we not just been edified with another signal example of English virtue!
and above all, English justice! in high places, in the Trial of “O’KANE
_versus_ O’KANE and PALMERSTON,” where you perceive it was _Mr. O’Kane’s
friends!!_ that negotiated the compromise! as poor dear Lord PALMERSTON
_could_ have no possible interest in the matter!—Oh dear no! so it was
solely for Mr. O’KANE’S interest that he should accept Lord PALMERSTON’S
money, offered by _his_ O’KANE’S friends! and as Mrs. O’KANE had been a
maid of Lady JOCELYN’S, and therefore had the run of Cambridge House,
it’s not likely that a man of Lord PALMERSTON’S Cato-like virtue ever
even looked at her. So the superannuated Joseph came out pure and
spotless! (as most men are) amid the plaudits of a properly crammed
court, dear COCKBURN having no doubt, _sub rosa_, played the manager,
and “animated the whole,” even to inspiring _Mr. O’Kane’s friends_ with
the ways and means to inspire O’KANE with a suitable idea of his own
interests! Verily the force of humbug can no farther go! On my return
to all these agreeable, perhaps not exactly, surprises, I had also the
pleasure of finding that none of my debts of honour were paid, despite
the solemn promises of all concerned that they were to be, before I
crossed the Channel. Only JUDAS H—— had been sent down in hot haste to
Taunton to throw dust in the people’s eyes by paying the _tradespeople_
here, who were in no hurry to be paid, and whom I would much rather have
paid myself on my return, when cordially thanking them all for their
unanimous and active zeal, for they had even felt in their _pockets_ for
me, and told Mrs. CLARKE that two or three thousand pounds, or more,
should be instantly raised if wanted for law expenses. The only person
who had _not_ sent in his bill was a Quaker upholsterer, who was owed £5.
This turned out a very fortunate circumstance for me, as you will hear
presently. After this homœopathic gold-dust throwing at Taunton, Sir LIAR
began _a son ordinaire_, going back from _every_ promise, when he thought
the storm had a little blown over, and what he more particularly stood
out about most resolutely, was insisting that that beggarly £500 a year
should not be settled upon me for my life, but only for _his_. Whereupon
the admirable Mr. E—— J—— told him that if that at least was not done, I
should of course proclaim the whole affair, and bring an action for false
imprisonment, &c., &c. So that it was at the eleventh hour, four days
after my return, that it was at length done; upon which Dr. OILY GAMMON
R——, my valiant trustee, wrote me a most heroic piece of braggadocia,
that he would not leave the room till the deed was executed, signed, and
duly attested. But by this time, not believing one word any of them said,
I sent my copy of this deed to a barrister of my acquaintance, Mr. HENRY
COLE, to know if it were a quibble or a fresh _swindle_. He said no,
it was stringent and _en regle_, and about a month after its execution
JUDAS H—— wrote to me saying Miss R—— and E—— J—— had written, and called
innumerable times on him at his office in Ely-place, to try and make
him give up the original of that document _to them_; no doubt E—— J——
having promised his friend Sir LIAR that if he’d _only_ sign that deed,
to humbug me and the public a little more, he (E—— J——) would swindle H——
out of it in some way or other, under pretence of looking at it, and then
destroy it. And JUDAS H—— made a tremendous merit to me of his fidelity
in not giving it up; to which I wrote him back word: “Clearly not, Mr.
H——; you have got all you were to get for selling me, and for your lies
to the Hertford and other papers about being _bound_ to say that infamous
man, Sir EDWARD H——, had never been unkind to me. And of course you were
not such a fool as to risk being struck off the Rolls for such an overt
breach of trust as the giving up the original of that deed would have
been.” This reminded me to tell Dr. R—— to get my two letters (those two
letters of Sir LIAR’S) from that vile Miss R——. When I told him about my
going abroad in the full belief that Lord SHAFTESBURY was my trustee,
he, who is Lord SHAFTESBURY’S Physician, said that in the first place
he had never been asked, and never got my note, and in the next, if he
had, he would have declined, his horror of Sir EDWARD —— was so great. So
much for his philanthropy. Mr. L—— having returned to England about his
own business with his father, and finding that after solemnly promising
poor Lady BLACKBURNE the interest of the £400 she had generously lent
me when I was starved out at the Revolution of Geneva in 1846, which
interest she never would accept from me, I wrote to Mr. L—— to know if
it were possible that in the teeth of all truth he had written those two
letters, with his signature to them, which had appeared in the _Times_
the day I left England, and which such care was taken I should not see.
And also as he had so solemnly promised that I should appeal to _him_ if
anything went wrong in future; and I found Dr. R—— (as was his bounden
duty), though always more than agreeing with me in everything, never saw,
or insisted upon any compact being fulfilled, and was worse than none as
a trustee. I must depend upon him in common honour and common decency
to see that Lady BLACKBURNE, who had acted so kindly and generously by
me, should be paid the interest of her money, and all my other debts of
honour also _immediately_ paid. To this, the young gentleman, who now
had his papa, and his papa’s cane! to lean over him, and see that he did
his lessons properly (what in mathematics is called a _Crocodile_, I
suppose), boldly replied, that “he _had_ written those letters,—and that
as for Lady BLACKBURNE, she must recollect that in _law!_ she could claim
_nothing_, and must therefore be contented with the principal without the
interest! (though bear in mind the interest had been solemnly promised
to her by _the whole gang_)—and as to taking any proceeding against
his father, if I _had no respect for family ties_ (_this_ from _him_
to _me_), that at all events he hoped that I would at least have some
respect for the name he (Mr. L——) inherited”! To which I wrote back—“GOD
forgive you—you poor unfortunate young man, but as you have every reason
to be heartily ashamed of ‘the name you inherit’! take my advice, and say
as little about it as possible, and try before it is too late to act so
that _your_ children may not have equal cause to be ashamed of the name
_they_ inherit.” You may suppose that by this time I had my quietus! and
could not be more wounded and disgusted. After that contemptible sneak
and double-dealer Dr. R—— had been for _weeks_ writing me lying excuses
about Miss R—— not returning me that cheek-biting and other letter, which
he _knew_ to be lies; I received the following charming effusion from Mr.
L——, and to rejoice my mother’s heart the more it came on New Year’s Day!
and showed me _he_ was still doing his father’s dirty work in concert
with that vile wretch Miss R——, whom I had forbidden to ever again darken
my doors, if she was fifty times turned penniless into the streets of
London, or any other place.
“Dear mother, what is this Miss R—— tells me about some letters of my
father to you? Surely there was a broad understanding that all your
papers(!!) were to be given up to him.” My reply to this disgusting and
too brutal piece of audacity, bearing the stamp of Sir LIAR’S cloven
foot upon every word, was to send a gentleman to town to go to Sir
RICHARD MAYNE, who gave him a police force, with which he went to that
vile wretch, Miss R——, and got the letters at last! while to Mr. L——
I wrote—“As it is not in my nature to love what I could not esteem,
all intercourse must cease between us.”—To get that £1,000, that the
gentleman on the Stock Exchange so kindly lent me, when I had been turned
out of my cottage, _he_ had to send a man with a writ to dear E—— J——,
who had the nominal paying of those debts; because, you see, it would
not do on _my_ account to have lying, swindling, or any other villainy
brought _directly home_ to that great man, Sir LIAR! like the villainous
and atrocious lie worthy of him, or of any of his literary gang—that from
the _representations made_ to him, _he_ could not have done otherwise
than incarcerate me at H——’s. Well, this man, E—— J——, tried to bully,
saying, “No, my good fellow, what can you do? Surely you’d never think of
arresting me, or Sir EDWARD, for a debt, which in law we might dispute.”
“Shouldn’t I, Mr. J——,” said he, pulling the writ out of his pocket,
“you either instantly give me a cheque for £1,000, which I don’t leave
your house _without_, or I instantly serve this writ upon you.” So the
_honourable_ Q.C. preferred giving the cheque to having the writ served
on him! and the gentleman who had lent me the money, kindly returned
me from the Insurance Office some £50 odd, on the policies I had been
paying for seven years,—they being for life although I had only borrowed
the money for ten years. About this time, Dr OILY GAMMON R—— began being
tremendously civil and _prevenant_ to me; he and his wife sending me
Dresden china, and engravings, for which I had no room, my walls being
covered with good pictures. I did not dream at that time that this
smooth-tongued sneaking J——, was actively enlisted to cheat me out of
the copy-right of that book (Sir LIAR’S little bit of _entr’acte_ dirty
work, while I was safely out of the country), for which I have never
received sixpence, or got the slightest redress;—but _more_ injustice,
as you shall hear. But although I did not know this then, yet I am so
fully aware that English people are never commonly civil; and much less
never _give_ even a used postage stamp without some sordid or selfish
motive; that I began to puzzle my brains as to what this sudden civility
could mean? I must say, all the good that is to be found in the English
character, is among the middle class, and this arises more from their
strong commercial instinct, than anything else; they will give an apple,
where they are perfectly sure of getting an orchard, or perhaps two;
but the upper and lower classes, invariably swindle—or at least _try_
to swindle—you out of the orchard, without even giving you an apple-pip
for it. Like a poor fool, I went to town, and made an appointment with
Dr. OILY GAMMON to go to Mr. C——’s in Paternoster-row, at nine in the
morning; despite this matutinal hour, Mr. C—— had had his telegram to
keep out of the way, and he was out. OILY GAMMON then went through the
farce of writing some bosh to C——, telling his substitute in the shop
that he particularly required an answer by the four o’clock post at
latest. At four p.m. OILY GAMMON brought me C——’s reply in triumph! which
was, that he had _my_ authority in my own handwriting, in a note written
to Mr. IRONSIDE two years before, to re-issue my novel of “Cheveley!”
“Cheveley!” who on earth is talking of “Cheveley”? surely Dr. R——, you
would not have made such a ridiculous mistake; when even this morning in
C——’s shop, I was reiterating it to you that it was “Very Successful.”
To say nothing of my having written to you, so _much_ on the subject.
Then _much_ against his will, I made Dr. OILY GAMMON write to C—— to
say this; to which that fellow gave the barefaced lie, that he had Mr.
IRONSIDE’S authority to publish “Very Successful.” _This_ I _know_ to be
a black lie! for when I was abroad, Mr. IRONSIDE was so astonished at
seeing the book advertised in the teeth of his, and my, prohibition, that
he wrote to Mr. H—— to inquire about it, as he was sure I would be very
angry when I heard it. That double distilled rascal, liar, and perjurer,
wrote back word that it was _all right_, as _I myself_ had given C——
permission to re-issue it!!!! Indignant at this, I made Mr. OILY GAMMON
write to Mr. IRONSIDE, that he might state to _him_ again in writing,
what I have just told you, and which he had written a short time before
to another gentleman! which letter _I have_. As my grinding poverty is
always putting spokes in my wheel (and that is _why I have been always
kept poor_), I could not afford to remain in London, either at the houses
of fine friends, or at an hotel, so that I returned here, begging OILY
GAMMON to let me know Mr. IRONSIDE’S answer, which finding he did _not_
do, in the course of five weeks, I wrote to him to know what reply he had
received, and to beg he would send me Mr. IRONSIDE’S letter. To this the
contemptible wretch wrote back word that he had _lost_ Mr. IRONSIDE’S
letter, but that all he (IRONSIDE) had said was, that “really, it was so
long ago (two years), that he could not remember anything about it”!!!
Upon this I made a solicitor of this town write to Dr. R——, saying that
after all the contradictory and palpably false statements that had been
made to me about that book, it was a great pity that instead of sending
_me_ Mr. IRONSIDE’S letter at once, as he was in duty bound, he should
have lost it, and sent me _no reply at all_, till I had written to him on
the subject at the end of five weeks, as both circumstances had a very
awkward appearance for him (Mr. R——). Whereupon Mr. OILY GAMMON (for
weak cowards are invariably _false to all parties_, themselves included)
suddenly and miraculously _found_ Mr. IRONSIDE’S letter, and instead of
its being (as stated by Dr. R——) only two lines, to say it was so long
ago he could not remember, it was a long letter (which I have) of four
sides, crossed, on large old-fashioned Bath post paper, such as was used
in the days of franking. In this letter he recapitulated _all_ he had
previously stated in his former letter, of his surprise at the re-issue
of the book, and his writing to Mr. H——, to inquire about it, and that
lying rascal’s answer, stating that it was “all right,” I myself having
given C—— permission to re-issue it; and Mr. IRONSIDE concluded by saying
that my statement was correct to the letter, and that C—— was such....
Armed with this _fresh_ proof of the fraud that had been practised upon
me, I again went to London, and went to Mr. H—— C——, at his chambers
in Brick-court, showed him all the documents I had on the subject, and
asked him if he could recommend a good sharp solicitor (honest, I feared,
there was none), who would immediately bring an action against C——? That
I was quite aware that, as a married slave, _I_ could not bring one, or
get any redress against my lord and master’s infamy: but that by making
the book over to what one of the law’s charming fictions call “a next
friend,” I could do so. Mr. C—— said it was a most scandalous shame, and
he would recommend me to a clever solicitor, who he thought would settle
it (he did, indeed), a Mr. H—— (which may be considered as the generic
name of the whole tribe), of Regent-street. This fellow was the image of
NAPOLEON the _First_, so I did not doubt his _capacity_—nor, perhaps, his
unscrupulousness. As all London knew of the Madhouse Conspiracy then, Mr.
JOHN H—— (as I told him I wished his name had been TOM, as a Tomahawk was
what I wanted for my enemies) found out many truths about Sir LIAR and
E—— J—— deserving hanging, and was urgent, nay importunate, with me, to
bring an action against H—— and the rest of them (of _course_, for that
would have been a feather in the H——’s cap, or tail, and gold in his
crop), but I told him for my truly unfortunate son’s sake, I could not,
or rather would not; but that he must go to work forthwith about C——.