Ryder(after inspecting them). I do not recognize them.
Prisoner.Will you swear these were not the shoes he had on?
Ryder.How can I swear that? I know nothing about the man's shoes. If you please, my lord, am I to be kept here all day with her foolish, trifling questions?
Judge.All day, and all night too, if Justice requires it. The law is not swift to shed blood.
Prisoner.My lord and the gentlemen of the jury were here before you, and will be kept here after you. Prithee, attend. Look at that drawing of Hernshaw Castle and Hernshaw Mere. Now take this pencil, and mark your bedroom on the drawing.
The pencil was taken from the prisoner, and handed to Ryder. She waited, like a cat, till it came close to her; then recoiled with an admirable scream. "Me handle a thing hot from the hand of a murderess! It makes me tremble all over!"
This cruel stab affected the prisoner visibly. She put her hand to her bosom, and, with tears in her eyes, faltered out a request to the judge that she might sit down a minute.
Judge.To be sure you may. And you, my good woman, must not run before the court. By law a prisoner is innocent till found guilty by his peers. How do you know what evidence she may have in store? At present we have only heard one side. Be more moderate.
The prisoner rose promptly to her feet. "My lord, I welcome the insult that has disgusted your lordship and the gentlemen of the jury, and won me those good words of comfort." To Ryder: "What sort of a night was it?"
Ryder.Very little moon, but a clear, starry night.
Prisoner.Could you see the Mere, and the banks?
Ryder.Nay, but so much of it as faced my window.
Prisoner.Have you marked your window?
Ryder.I have.
Prisoner.Now mark the place where you heard Mr. Gaunt cry for help.
Ryder.'T was about here,—under these trees. And that is why I could not see him: along of the shadow.
Prisoner.Possibly. Did you see me on that side the Mere?
Ryder.No.
Prisoner.What colored dress had I on at that time?
Ryder.White satin.
Prisoner.Then you could have seen me, even among the trees, had I been on that side the Mere?
Ryder.I can't say. However, I never said you were on the very spot where the deed was done; but you were out of doors.
Prisoner.How do you know that?
Ryder.Why, you told me so yourself.
Prisoner.Then, that is my evidence, not yours. Swear to no more than you know. Had my husband, to your knowledge, a reason for absconding suddenly?
Ryder.Yes, he had.
Prisoner.What was it?
Ryder.Fear of you.
Prisoner.Nay, I mean, had he not something to fear, something quite different from that I am charged with?
Ryder.You know best, madam. I would gladly serve you, but I cannot guess what you are driving at.
The prisoner was taken aback by this impudent reply. She hesitated to force her servant to expose a husband, whom she believed to be living: and her hesitation looked like discomfiture; and Ryder was victorious in that encounter.
By this time they were both thoroughly embittered, and it was war to the knife.
Prisoner.You listened to our unhappy quarrel that night?
Ryder.Quarrel! madam, 'twas all on one side.
Prisoner.How did you understand what I said to him about the constables?
Ryder.Constables! I never heard you say the word.
Prisoner.Oh!
Ryder.Neither when you threatened him with your knife to me, nor when you threatened him to his face.
Prisoner.Take care: you forget that Jane Bannister heard me. Was her ear nearer the keyhole than yours?
Ryder.Jane! she is a simpleton. You could make her think she heard anything. I noticed you put the words in her mouth.
Prisoner.God forgive you, you naughty woman. You had better have spoken the truth.
Ryder.My lord, if you please, am I to be miscalled—by a murderess?
Judge.Come, come, this is no place for recrimination.
The prisoner now stooped and examined her papers, and took a distinct line of cross-examination.
Prisoner(with apparent carelessness). At all events, you are a virtuous woman, Mrs. Ryder?
Ryder.Yes, madam, as virtuous as yourself, to say the least.
Prisoner(still more carelessly). Married or single?
Ryder.Single, and like to be.
Prisoner.Yes, if I remember right, I made a point of that before I engaged you as my maid.
Ryder.I believe the question was put.
Prisoner.Here is the answer in your handwriting. Is not that your handwriting?
Ryder(after inspecting it). It is.
Prisoner.You came highly recommended by your last mistress, a certain Mrs. Hamilton. Here isherletter, describing you as a model.
Ryder.Well, madam, hitherto, I have given satisfaction to all my mistresses, Mrs. Hamilton among the rest. My character does not rest on her word only, I hope.
Prisoner.Excuse me; I engaged you on her word alone. Now, who is this Mrs. Hamilton?
Ryder.A worshipful lady I served for eight months before I came to you. She went abroad, or I should be with her now.
Prisoner.Now cast your eye over this paper.
It was the copy of a marriage certificate between Thomas Edwards and Caroline Plunkett.
"Who is this Caroline Plunkett?"
Ryder turned very pale, and made no reply.
"I ask you who is this Caroline Plunkett?"
Ryder(faintly). Myself.
Judge.Why, you said you were single!
Ryder.So I am; as good as single. My husband and me we parted eight years ago, and I have never seen him since.
Prisoner.Was it quite eight years ago?
Ryder.Nearly, 'twas in May, 1739.
Prisoner.But you have lived with him since.
Ryder.Never, upon my soul.
Prisoner.When was your child born?
Ryder.My child! I have none.
Prisoner.In January, 1743, you left a baby at Biggleswade, with a woman called Church,—did you not?
Ryder(panting). Of course I did. It was my sister's.
Prisoner.Do you mean to call God to witness that child was not your's?
Ryder hesitated.
Prisoner.Will you swear Mrs. Church did not see you suckle that child in secret, and weep over it?
At this question the perspiration stood visible on Ryder's brow, her cheeks were ghastly, and her black eyes roved like some wild animal's round the court. She saw her own danger, and had no means of measuring her inquisitor's information.
"My lord, have pity on me. I was betrayed, abandoned. Why am I so tormented?Ihave not committed murder." So, catlike, she squealed and scratched at once.
Prisoner.What! to swear away an innocent life, is not that murder?
Judge.Prisoner, we make allowances for your sex, and your peril, but you must not remark on the evidence at present. Examine as severely as you will, but abstain from comment till you address the jury on your defence.
Sergeant Wiltshire.My lord, I submit that this line of examination is barbarous, and travels out of the case entirely.
Prisoner.Not so, Mr. Sergeant. 'T is done by advice of an able lawyer. My life is in peril, unless I shake this witness's credit. To that end I show you she is incontinent, and practised in falsehood. Unchastity has been held in these courts to disqualify a female witness, hath it not, my lord?
Judge.Hardly. But to disparage her evidence it has. And wisely; for she who loses her virtue enters on a life of deceit; and lying is a habit that spreads from one thing to many. Much wisdom there is in ancient words. Our forefathers taught us to call a virtuous woman an honest woman, and the law does but follow in that track; still, however, leaving much to the discretion of the jury.
Prisoner.I would show her more mercy than she has shown to me. Therefore I leave that matter. Witness, be so good as to examine Mrs. Hamilton's letter, and compare it with your own. The "y's" and the "s's" are peculiar in both, and yet the same. Come, confess, Mrs. Hamilton's is a forgery. You wrote it. Be pleased to hand both letters up to my lord to compare; the disguise is but thin.
Ryder.Forgery there was none. There is no Mrs. Hamilton. (She burst into tears.) I had my child to provide for, and no man to help me! What was I to do? A servant must live.
Prisoner.Then why not let her mistress live, whose bread she has eaten? My lord, shall not this false witness be sent hence to prison for perjury?
Wiltshire.Certainly not. What woman on earth is expected to reveal her own shame upon oath? 'T was not fair nor human to put such questions. Come, madam, leave torturing this poor creature. Show some mercy; you may need it yourself.
Prisoner.Sir, 'tis not mercy I ask, but justice according to law. But since you do me the honor to make me a request, I will comply, and ask her but one question more. Describe my apartment into which you showed Thomas Leicester that night. Begin at the outer door.
Ryder.First there is the anteroom; then the boudoir; then there's your bedchamber.
Prisoner.Into which of those three did you show Thomas Leicester?
Ryder.Into the anteroom.
Prisoner.Then why did you say it was in my chamber I entertained him?
Ryder.Madam, I meant no more than that it was your private apartment up stairs.
Prisoner.You contrived to make the gentlemen think otherwise.
Judge.That you did. 'T is down in my notes that she received the pedler in her bedchamber.
Ryder(sobbing). God is my witness I did not mean to mislead your lordship: and I ask my lady's pardon for not being more exact in that particular.
At this the prisoner bowed to the judge, and sat down with one victorious flash of her gray eye at the witness, who was in an abject condition of fear, and hung all about the witness-box limp as a wet towel.
Sergeant Wiltshire saw she was so thoroughly cowed she would be apt to truckle, and soften her evidence to propitiate the prisoner; so he asked her but one question.
"Were you and the prisoner on good terms?"
Ryder.On the best of terms. She was always a good and liberal mistress to me.
Wiltshire.I will not prolong your sufferings. You may go down.
Judge.But you will not leave the court till this trial is ended. I have grave doubts whether I ought not to commit you.
Unfortunately for the prisoner, Ryder was not the last witness for the crown. The others that followed were so manifestly honest that it would have been impolitic to handle them severely. The prisoner, therefore, put very few questions to them; and, when the last witness went down, the case looked very formidable.
The evidence for the crown being now complete, the judge retired for some refreshment; and the court buzzed like a hum of bees. Mrs. Gaunt's lips and throat were parched and her heart quaked.
A woman of quite the lower order thrust forth a great arm and gave her an orange. Mrs. Gaunt thanked her sweetly; and the juice relieved her throat.
Also this bit of sympathy was of good omen, and did her heart good.
She buried her face in her hands, and collected all her powers for the undertaking before her. She had noted down the exact order of her topics, but no more.
The judge returned; the crier demanded silence; and the prisoner rose, and turned her eyes modestly but steadily upon those who held her life in their hands: and, true to the wisdom of her sex, the first thing she aimed at was—to please.
"My lord, and you gentlemen of the jury, I am now to reply to a charge of murder, founded on a little testimony, and a good deal of false, but, I must needs say, reasonable conjecture.
"I am innocent; but, unlike other innocent persons who have stood here before me, I have no man to complain of.
"The magistrates who committed me proceeded with due caution and humanity; they weighed my hitherto unspotted reputation, and were in no hurry to prejudge me; here, in this court, I have met with much forbearance; the learned counsel for the crown has made megroan under his abilities; that was his duty; but he said from the first he would do nothing hard, and he has kept his word; often he might have stopped me; I saw it in his face. But, being a gentleman and a Christian, as well as a learned lawyer, methinks he said to himself, 'This is a poor gentlewoman pleading for her life; let her have some little advantage.' As for my lord, he has promised to be my counsel, so far as his high station, and duty to the crown, admit; and he has supported and consoled me more than once with words of justice, that would not, I think, have encouraged a guilty person, but have comforted and sustained me beyond expression. So then I stand here, the victim, not of man's injustice, but of deceitful appearances, and of honest, but hasty and loose conjectures.
"These conjectures I shall now sift, and hope to show you how hollow they are.
"Gentlemen, in every disputed matter the best way, I am told, is to begin by settling what both parties are agreed in, and so to narrow the matter. To use that method, then, I do heartily agree with the learned counsel that murder is a heinous crime, and that, black as it is at the best, yet it is still more detestable when 'tis a wife that murders her husband, and robs her child of a parent who can never be replaced.
"I also agree with him that circumstantial evidence is often sufficient to convict a murderer; and, indeed, were it not so, that most monstrous of crimes would go oftenest unpunished; since, of all culprits, murderers do most shun the eyes of men in their dark deeds, and so provide beforehand that direct testimony to their execrable crime there shall be none. Only herein I am advised to take a distinction that escaped the learned sergeant. I say that first of all it ought to be proved directly, and to the naked eye, that a man has been murdered; and then, if none saw the crime done, let circumstances point out the murderer.
"But here, they put the cart before the horse; they find a dead body, with no marks of violence whatever; and labor to prove by circumstantial evidence alone that this mere dead body is a murdered body. This, I am advised, is bad in law, and contrary to general precedents; and the particular precedents for it are not examples, but warnings; since both the prisoners so rashly convicted were proved innocent, after their execution."
(The judge took a note of this distinction.)
"Then, to go from principles to the facts, I agree and admit that, in a moment of anger, I was so transported out of myself as to threaten my husband's life before Caroline Ryder. But afterwards, when I saw him face to face, then, that I threatened him withviolence, that I deny. The fact is, I had just learned that he had committed a capital offence; and what I threatened him with was the law. This was proved by Jane Bannister. She says she heard me say the constables should come for him next morning. For what? to murder him?"
Judge.Give me leave, madam. Shall you prove Mr. Gaunt had committed a capital offence?
Prisoner.I could, my lord; but I am loath to do it. For, if I did, I should cast him into worse trouble than I am in myself.
Judge(shaking his head gravely). Let me advise you to advance nothing you are not able and willing to prove.
Prisoner."Then I confine myself to this: it was proved by a witness for the crown that in the dining-room I threatened my husband to his face with the law. Now this threat, and not that other extravagant threat, which he never heard, you know, was clearly the threat which caused him to abscond that night.
"In the next place, I agree with the learned counsel that I was out of doors at one o'clock that morning. But if he will use me asHIS WITNESSin that matter, then he must not pick and choose and mutilate my testimony. Nay, lethim take the whole truth, and not just so much as he can square with the indictment. Either believe me, that I was out of doors praying, or do not believe me that I was out of doors at all.
"Gentlemen, hear the simple truth. You may see in the map, on the south side of Hernshaw Castle, a grove of large fir-trees. 'T is a reverend place, most fit for prayer and meditation. Here I have prayed a thousand times and more before the 15th of October. Hence 'tis called 'The Dame's Haunt,' as I shall prove, that am the dame 'tis called after.
"Let it not seem incredible to you that I should pray out of doors in my grove, on a fine, clear, starry night. For aught I know, Protestants may pray only by the fireside. But, remember, I am a Catholic. We are not so contracted in our praying. We do not confine it to little comfortable places. Nay, but for seventeen hundred years and more we have prayed out of doors as much as in doors. And this our custom is no fit subject for a shallow sneer. How does the learned sergeant know that, beneath the vault of heaven at night, studded with those angelic eyes, the stars, is an unfit place to bend the knee, and raise the soul in prayer? Has he ever tried it?"
This sudden appeal to a learned and eminent, but by no means devotional sergeant, so tickled the gentlemen of the bar, that they burst out laughing with singular unanimity.
This dashed the prisoner, who had not intended to be funny; and she hesitated, and looked distressed.
Judge.Proceed, madam; these remarks of yours are singular, but quite pertinent, and no fit subject for ridicule. Gentlemen, remember the public looks to you for an example.
Prisoner."My lord, 'twas my fault for making that personal which should be general. But women they are so. 'T is our foible. I pray the good sergeant to excuse me.
"I say, then, generally, that when the sun retires, then earth fades, but heaven comes out in tenfold glory; and I say the starry firmament at night is a temple not built with hands, and the bare sight of it subdues the passions, chastens the heart, and aids the soul in prayer surprisingly. My lord, as I am a Christian woman, 'tis true that my husband had wronged me cruelly and broken the law. 'T is true that I raged against him, and he answered me not again. 'T is true, as that witness said, that my bark is worse than my bite. I cooled, and then felt I had forgotten the wife and the Christian in my wrath. I repented, and, to be more earnest in my penitence, I did go and pray out o' doors beneath those holy eyes of heaven that seemed to look down with chaste reproach on my ungoverned heat. I left my fireside, my velvet cushions, and all the little comforts made by human hands, that adorn our earthly dwellings, but distract our eyes from God."
Some applause followed this piece of eloquence, exquisitely uttered. It was checked, and the prisoner resumed, with an entire change of manner.
"Gentlemen, the case against me is like a piece of rotten wood varnished all over. It looks fair to the eye; but will not bear handling.
"As example of what I say, take three charges on which the learned sergeant greatly relied in opening his case:—
"1st. That I received Thomas Leicester in my bedroom.
"2d. That he went hot from me after Mr. Gaunt.
"3d. That he was seen following Mr. Gaunt with a bloody intent.
"How ugly these three proofs looked at first sight! Well, but when we squeezed the witnesses ever so little, what did those three dwindle down to?
"1st. That I received Thomas Leicester in an anteroom, which leads to a boudoir, and that boudoir leads to my bedroom.
"2d. That Thomas Leicester went from me to the kitchen, and there, for a good half-hour, drank my ale (as it appears), and made love to his old sweetheart, Caroline Ryder, the falsewitness for the crown; and went abroad fresh fromher, and not fromme.
"3d. That he was not (to speak strictly) seen following Mr. Gaunt, but just walking on the same road, drunk, and staggering, and going at such a rate that, as the crown's own witness swore, he could not in the nature of things overtake Mr. Gaunt, who walked quicker, and straighter too, than he.
"So then, even if a murder has been done, they have failed to connect Thomas Leicester with it, or me with Thomas Leicester. Two broken links in a chain of but three.
"And now I come to the more agreeable part of my defence. I do think there has been no murder at all.
"There is no evidence of a murder.
"A body is found with the flesh eaten by fishes, but the bones and the head uninjured. They swear a surgeon, who has examined the body, and certainly he had the presumption to guess it looks like a murdered body. But, being sifted, he was forced to admit that, so far as his experience of murdered bodies goes, it is not like a murdered body; for there is no bone broken, nor bruise on the head.
"Where is the body found? In the water. But water by itself is a sufficient cause of death, and a common cause too; and kills without breaking bones, or bruising the head. O perversity of the wise! For every one creature murdered in England, ten are accidentally drowned; and they find a dead man in the water, which is as much as to say they find the slain in the arms of the slayer; yet they do not once suspect the water, but go about in search of a strange and monstrous crime.
"Mr. Gaunt's cry for help was heardhere, if it was heard at all (which I greatly doubt), here by this clump of trees; the body was found here, hard by the bridge; which is, by measurement, one furlong and sixty paces from that clump of trees, as I shall prove. There is no current in the mere lively enough to move a body, and what there is runs the wrong way. So this disconnects the cry for help, and the dead body. Another broken link!
"And now I come to my third defence.
"I say the body is not the body of Griffith Gaunt.
"The body, mutilated as it was, had two distinguishing marks; a mole on the brow, and a pair of hobnailed shoes on the feet.
"Now the advisers of the crown fix their eyes on that mole; but they turn their heads away from the hobnailed shoes. But why? Articles of raiment found on a body are legal evidence of identity. How often, my lord, in cases of murder, hath the crown relied on such particulars, especially in cases where corruption had obscured the features!
"I shall not imitate this partiality, this obstinate prejudice; I shall not ask you to shut your eyes on the mole, as they do on the shoes, but shall meet the whole truth fairly.
"Mr. Gaunt went from my house that morning with boots on his feet, and with a mole on his brow.
"Thomas Leicester went the same road, with shoes on his feet, and, as I shall prove, with a mole on his brow.
"To be sure, the crown witnesses did not distinctly admit this mole on him; but you will remember, they dared not deny it on their oaths, and so run their heads into an indictment for perjury.
"But, gentlemen, I shall put seven witnesses into the box, who will all swear that they have known Thomas Leicester for years, and that he had a mole upon his left temple.
"One of these witnesses is—the mother that bore him.
"I shall then call witnesses to prove that, on the 15th of October, the bridge over the mere was in bad repair, and a portion of the side rail gone; and that the body was found within a few yards of that defective bridge; and then, as Thomas Leicester went that way, drunk, and staggering from sideto side, you may reasonably infer that he fell into the water in passing the bridge. To show you this is possible, I shall prove the same thing has actually occurred. I shall swear the oldest man in the parish, who will depose to a similar event that happened in his boyhood. He hath said it a thousand times before to-day, and now will swear it. He will tell you that on a certain day, sixty-nine years ago, the parson of Hernshaw, the Rev. Augustus Murthwaite, went to cross this bridge at night, after carousing at Hernshaw Castle with our great-grandfather, my husband's and mine, the then proprietor of Hernshaw, and tumbled into the water; and his body was found gnawed out of the very form of humanity by the fishes, within a yard or two of the spot where poor Tom Leicester was found, that hath cost us all this trouble. So do the same causes bring round the same events in a cycle of years. The only difference is that the parson drank his death in our dining-room, and the pedler in our kitchen.
"No doubt, my lord, you have observed that sometimes a hasty and involuntary inaccuracy gives quite a wrong color to a thing. I assure you I have suffered by this. It is said that the moment Mr. Atkins proposed to drag my mere, I fainted away. In this account there is an omission. I shall prove that Mr. Atkins used these words: 'And underneath that water I undertake to find the remains of Griffith Gaunt.' Now, gentlemen, you shall understand that at this time, and indeed until the moment when I saw the shoes upon that poor corpse's feet, I was in great terror for my husband's life. How could it be otherwise? Caroline Ryder had told me she heard his cry for help. He had disappeared. What was I to think? I feared he had fallen in with robbers. I feared all manner of things. So when the lawyer said so positively he would find his body, I was overpowered. Ah, gentlemen, wedded love survives many wrongs, many angry words; I love my husband still; and when the man told me so brutally that he was certainly dead, I fainted away. I confess it. Shall I be hanged for that?
"But now, thank God, I am full of hope that he is alive, and that good hope has given me the courage to make this great effort to save my own life.
"Hitherto I have been able to contradict my accusers positively; but now I come to a mysterious circumstance that I own puzzles me. Most persons accused of murder could, if they chose, make a clean breast, and tell you the whole matter. But this is not my case. I know shoes from boots, and I know Kate Gaunt from a liar and a murderess. But, when all is said, this is still a dark, mysterious business, and there are things in it I can only deal with as you do, gentlemen, by bringing my wits to bear upon them in reasonable conjecture.
"Caroline Ryder swears she heard Mr. Gaunt cry for help. And Mr. Gaunt has certainly disappeared.
"My accusers have somewhat weakened this by trying to palm off the body of Thomas Leicester on you for the body of Mr. Gaunt. But the original mystery remains, and puzzles me. I might fairly appeal to you to disbelieve the witness. She is proved incontinent, and a practised liar, and she forswore herself in this court, and my lord is in two minds about committing her. But a liar does not always lie, and, to be honest, I think she reallybelievesshe heard Mr. Gaunt cry for help, for she went straight to his bedroom; and that looks as if she really thought she heard his voice. But a liar may be mistaken. Do not forget that. Distance affects the voice; and I think the voice she heard was Thomas Leicester's, and the place it came from higher up the mere.
"This, my notion, will surprise you less when I prove to you that Leicester's voice bore a family likeness to Mr. Gaunt's. I shall call two witnesses who have been out shooting with Mr. Gaunt and Tom Leicester, and have heard Leicester halloo in the wood, and taken it for Mr. Gaunt.
"Must I tell you the whole truth? This Leicester has always passed for an illegitimate son of Mr. Gaunt's father. He resembled my husband in form, stature, and voice: he had the Gaunt mole, and has often spoken of it by that name. My husband forgave him many faults for no other reason—and I bought wares and filled his pack for no other reason—than this; that he was my husband's brother by nature, though not in law. 'Honi soit qui mal y pense.'
"Ah, that is a royal device; yet how often in this business have the advisers of the crown forgotten it?
"My lord, and gentlemen of the jury, I return from these conjectures to the indisputable facts of my defence.
"Mr. Gaunt may be alive, or he may be dead. He was certainly alive on the 15th of October, and it lies on the crown to prove him dead, and not on me to prove him alive. But as for the body that forms the subject of this indictment, it is the body of Thomas Leicester, who was seen on the 16th of October, at one in the morning, drunk and staggering, and making for Hernshaw Bridge, which leads to his mother's house; and on all his former visits to Hernshaw Castle he went on to his mother's, as I shall prove. This time, he never reached her, as I shall prove; but on his way to her did meet his death, by the will of God, and no fault of man or woman, in Hernshaw Mere.
"Call Sarah Leicester."
Judge.I think you say you have several witnesses.
Prisoner.More than twenty, my lord.
Judge.We cannot possibly dispose of them this evening. We will, hear your evidence to-morrow. Prisoner, this will enable you to consult with your legal advisers, and let me urge upon you to prove, if you can, that Mr. Gaunt has a sufficient motive for hiding and not answering Mr. Atkins's invitation to inherit a large estate. Some such proof as this is necessary to complete your defence; and I am sorry to see you have made no mention of it in your address, which was otherwise able.
Prisoner.My lord, I think I can prove my own innocence without casting a slur upon my husband.
Judge.Youthink? when your life is at stake. Be not so mad as to leave so large a hole in your defence, if you can mend it. Take advice.
He said this very solemnly; then rose and left the court.
Mrs. Gaunt was conveyed back to prison, and there was soon prostrated by the depression that follows an unnatural excitement.
Mr. Houseman found her on a sofa, pale and dejected, and clasping the jailer's wife convulsively, who applied hartshorn to her nostrils.
He proved but a Job's comforter. Her defence, creditable as it was to a novice, seemed wordy and weak to him, a lawyer; and he was horrified at the admissions she had made. In her place he would have admitted nothing he could not thoroughly explain.
He came to insist on a change of tactics.
When he saw her sad condition, he tried to begin by consoling and encouraging her. But his own serious misgivings unfitted him for this task, and very soon, notwithstanding the state she was in, he was almost scolding her for being so mad as to withstand the judge, and set herself against his advice. "There," said he, "my lord kept his word, and became counsel for you. 'Close that gap in your defence,' says he, 'and you will very likely be acquitted.' 'Nay,' says you, 'I prefer to chance it.' What madness! what injustice!"
"Injustice! to whom?"
"To whom? why, to yourself."
"What, may I not be unjust to myself?"
"Certainly not; you have no right to be unjust to anybody. Don't deceive yourself; there is no virtue in this; it is mere miserable weakness. What right have you to peril an innocent life merely to screen a malefactor from just obloquy?"
"Alas!" said Mrs. Gaunt, "'tis more than obloquy. They will kill him; they will brand him with a hot iron."
"Not unless he is indicted; and who will indict him? Sir George Neville must be got to muzzle the attorney-general, and the Lancashire jade will not move against him, for you say they are living together."
"Of course they are; and, as you say, why should I screen him? But 't will not serve; who can combat prejudice? If what I have said does not convince them, an angel's voice would not. Sir, I am a Catholic, and they will hang me. I shall die miserably, having exposed my husband, who loved me once, O so dearly! I trifled with his love. I deserve it all."
"You will not die at all, if you will only be good and obedient, and listen to wiser heads. I have subpœnaed Caroline Ryder as your witness, and given her a hint how to escape an indictment for perjury. You will find her supple as a glove."
"Call a rattlesnake for my witness?"
"I have drawn her fangs. You will also call Sir George Neville, to prove he saw Gaunt's picture at the 'Packhorse,' and heard the other wife's tale. Wiltshire will object to this as evidence, and say why don't you produce Mercy Vint herself. Then you will call me to prove I sent the subpœna to Mercy Vint. Come now; I cannot eat or sleep till you promise me."
Mrs. Gaunt sighed deeply. "Spare me," said she, "I am worn out. O that I could die before the trial begins again!"
Houseman saw the signs of yielding, and persisted. "Come, promise now," said he. "Then you will feel better."
"I will do whatever you bid me," said she. "Only, if they let me off, I will go into a convent. No power shall hinder me."
"You shall go where you like, except to the gallows. Enough, 'tis a promise, and I never knew you break one. Now I can eat my supper. You are a good, obedient child, and I am a happy attorney."
"And I am the most miserable woman in all England."
"Child," said the worthy lawyer, "your spirits have given way, because they were strung so high. You need repose. Go to bed now, and sleep twelve hours. Believe me, you will wake another woman."
"Ah! would I could!" cried Mrs. Gaunt, with all the eloquence of despair.
Houseman murmured a few more consoling words, and then left her, after once more exacting a promise that she would receive no more visits, but go to bed directly. She was to send all intruders to him at the "Angel."
Mrs. Gaunt proceeded to obey his orders, and though it was but eight o'clock, she made preparations for bed, and then went to her nightly devotions.
She was in sore trouble, and earthly trouble turns the heart heavenwards. Yet it was not so with her. The deep languor that oppressed her seemed to have reached her inmost soul. Her beads, falling one by one from her hand, denoted the number of her supplications; but, for once, they werepreces sine mente dictæ. Her faith was cold, her belief in Divine justice was shaken for a time. She began to doubt and to despond. That bitter hour, which David has sung so well, and Bunyan, from experience, has described in his biography as well as in his novel, sat heavy upon her, as it had on many a true believer before her. So deep was the gloom, so paralyzing the languor, that at last she gave up all endeavor to utter words of prayer. She placed her crucifix at the foot of the wall, and laid herself down on the ground and kissed His feet, then, drawing back, gazed upon that effigy of the mortal sufferings of our Redeemer.
"O anima Christiana, respice vulnera morientis,pretium redemptionis."
"O anima Christiana, respice vulnera morientis,pretium redemptionis."
She had lain thus a good half-hour, when a gentle tap came to the door.
"Who is that?" said she.
"Mrs. Menteith," the jailer's wife replied, softly, and asked leave to come in.
Now this Mrs. Menteith had been very kind to her, and stoutly maintained her innocence. Mrs. Gaunt rose, and invited her in.
"Madam," said Mrs. Menteith, "what I come for, there is a person below who much desires to see you."
"I beg to be excused," was the reply. "He must go to my solicitor at the 'Angel,' Mr. Houseman."
Mrs. Menteith retired with that message, but in about five minutes returned to say that the young woman declined to go to Mr. Houseman, and begged hard to see Mrs. Gaunt. "And, dame," said she, "if I were you, I'd let her come in; 'tis the honestest face, and the tears in her soft eyes, at you denying her: 'O dear, dear!' said she, 'I cannot tell my errand to any but her.'"
"Well, well," said Mrs. Gaunt; "but what is her business?"
"If you ask me, I think her business is your business. Come, dame, do see the poor thing; she is civil spoken, and she tells me she has come all the way out of Lancashire o' purpose."
Mrs. Gaunt recoiled, as if she had been stung.
"From Lancashire?" said she, faintly.
"Ay, madam," said Mrs. Menteith, "and that is a long road; and a child upon her arm all the way, poor thing!"
"Her name?" said Mrs. Gaunt, sternly.
"O, she is not ashamed of it. She gave it me directly."
"What, has she the effrontery to take my name?"
Mrs. Menteith stared at her with utter amazement. "Yourname?" said she. "'T is a simple, country body, and her name is Vint,—Mercy Vint."
Mrs. Gaunt was very much agitated, and said she felt quite unequal to see a stranger.
"Well, I'm sure I don't know what to do," said Mrs. Menteith. "She says she will lie at your door all night, but she will see you. 'T is the face of a friend. She may know something. It seems hard to thrust her and her child out into the street, after their coming all the way from Lancashire."
Mrs. Gaunt stood silent awhile, and her intelligence had a severe combat with her deep repugnance to be in the same room with Griffith Gaunt's mistress (so she considered her). But a certain curiosity came to the aid of her good sense; and, after all, she was a brave and haughty woman, and her natural courage began to rise. She thought to herself, "What, dares she come to me all this way, and shall I shrink fromher?"
She turned to Mrs. Menteith with a bitter smile, and she said, very slowly, and clenching her white teeth: "Since you desire it, and sheinsistson it, I will receive Mistress Mercy Vint."
Mrs. Menteith went off, and in about five minutes returned, ushering in Mercy Vint, in a hood and travelling-cloak.
Mrs. Gaunt received her standing, and with a very formal courtesy; to which Mercy made a quiet obeisance, and both women looked one another all over in a moment.
Mrs. Menteith lingered, to know what on earth this was all about; but as neither spoke a word, and their eyes were fixed on each other, she divined that her absence was necessary, and so retired, looking very much amazed at both of them.
There are three passions to which public men are especially exposed,—fear, hatred, and ambition. Mr. Johnson is the victim and slave of all; and, unhappily for himself, and unfortunately for the country, there is no ground for hope that he will ever free himself from their malign influence.
It is a common report, and a common report founded upon the statements of those best acquainted with the President, that he lives in continual fear of personal harm, and that he anticipates hostile Congressional action in an attempt to impeach him and deprive him of his office. He best of all men knows whether he is justly liable to impeachment; and he ought to know that Congress cannot proceed to impeach him, unless the offences or misdemeanors charged and proved are of such gravity as to justify the proceeding in the eyes of the country and the world.
There is nothing vindictive or harsh in the American character. The forbearance of the American people is a subject of wonder, if it is not a theme for encomium. They have assented to the pardon of many of the most prominent Rebels; they have seen the authors of the war restored to citizenship, to the possession of their property, and even to the enjoyment of patronage and power in the government; and finally, they have been compelled, through the policy of the President, to submit to the dictation, and in some sense to the control, of the men whom they so recently met and vanquished upon the field of battle. The testimony of Alexander H. Stephens everywhere suggests, and in many particulars exactly expresses, the policy of the President.
Mr. Stephens asserts that the States recently in rebellion were always entitled to representation in the Congress of the United States; and Mr. Johnson must accept the same position; for, if the right were once lost, it is impossible to suggest how or when it was regained. It is also known that, while the Johnston-Sherman negotiations were pending, Mr. Davis received written opinions from two or more persons who were then with him, and acting as members of his Cabinet, upon the very question in dispute between Congress and Mr. Johnson,—the rights of the then rebellious States in the government of the United States. These opinions set up and maintained the doctrine that the Rebel States would be at once entitled to representation in the government of the country, upon the ratification or adoption of the pending negotiations. It may not be just to say that the President borrowed his policy from Richmond; but it is both just and true to say that the leaders of the Rebellion have been incapable of suggesting a public policy more advantageous to themselves than that which he has adopted. The President knows that the people have been quiet and impartial observers of these proceedings; that the House of Representatives has never in public session, nor in any of its caucuses or committees, considered or proposed any measure looking to his impeachment.
The grounds of his fear are known only to himself; but its existence exerts a controlling influence over his private and public conduct.
Associated with this fear, and probably springing from it, is an intense hatred of nearly all the recognized leaders of the party by which he was nominated and elected to office. Evidence upon this point is not needed. He has exhibited it in a manner and to a degree more uncomfortable to his friends than to his enemies, in nearly every speech that he has made, commencing with that delivered on the 22d of February last.
Superadded to these passions, which promise so much of woe to Mr. Johnson and to the country, is an inordinate, unscrupulous, and unreasoning ambition. To one theme the President is always constant,—to one idea he is always true,—"He has filled every office, from that of alderman of a village to the Presidency of the United States." He does not forget, nor does he permit the world to forget, this fact. In some form of language, and in nearly every speech, he assures his countrymen that he either is, or ought to be, satisfied with this measure of success. But have not his own reflections, or some over-kind friend, suggested that he has never been elected President of the United States? and that there yet remains the attainment of this one object of ambition?
Inauguration day, 1865, will be regarded as one of the saddest days in American annals. We pass over its incidents; but it was fraught with an evil suggestion to our enemies, and it must have been followed by a firm conviction in the mind of Mr. Johnson that he could not thereafter enjoy the confidence of the mass of the Republican party of the country. He foresaw that they would abandon him, and he therefore made hot haste to abandon them. And, indeed, it must be confessed that there was scarcely more inconsistency in that course on his part, than there would have been in continuing his connection with the men who had elected him. His nomination for the Vice-Presidency was an enthusiastic tribute to his Union sentiments; beyond a knowledge of these, the Convention neither had nor desired to have any information. Mr. Johnson was and is a Union man; but he was not an anti-slavery man upon principle. He was a Southern State-Rights man. He looked upon the national government as a necessity, and the exercise of any powers on its part as a danger. His political training was peculiar. He had carried on a long war with slaveholders, but he had never made war upon slavery. He belonged to the poor white class. In his own language he was a plebeian. The slaveholders were the patricians. He desired that all the white men of Tennessee, especially, and of the whole South, should be of one class,—all slaveholders,—all patricians, if that were possible; and he himself, for a time became one. Failing in this, he was satisfied when all became non-slaveholders, and the patrician class ceased to exist. Hence, as far as Mr. Johnson's opinions and purposes are concerned, the war has accomplished everything for which it was undertaken. The Union has been preserved, and the patrician class has been broken down.
Naturally, Mr. Johnson is satisfied. On the one hand he has no sympathy with the opinion that the negro is a man and ought to be a citizen, and that he should be endowed with the rights of a man and a citizen; and, on the other hand, he shares not in the desire of the North to limit the representation of the South so that there shall be equality among the white men of the country. He is anxious rather to increase the political strength of the South. He fears the growing power of the North. The same apprehension which drove Calhoun into nullification, and Davis, Stephens, and others into rebellion and civil war, now impels Mr. Johnson to urge the country to adopt his policy, which secures to the old slaveholding States an eighth of the political power of the nation, to which they have no just title whatever. To the North this is a more flagrant political injustice than was even the institution of slavery. He once expressed equal hostility towards Massachusetts and South Carolina, and desired that they should be cut off from the main land and lashed together in the wide ocean. The President appears to be reconciled to South Carolina; but if the hostility he once entertained to the two States had been laid upon Massachusetts alone, he ought to have felt his vengeance satisfied when her representatives entered the Philadelphia Convention arm in armwith the representatives of South Carolina, assuming only, what is not true, that the sentiment of Massachusetts was represented in that Convention. As a perfect illustration of the President's policy, two men from Massachusetts should have been assigned to each member from South Carolina, as foreshowing the future relative power of the white men of the two States in the government of the country. The States of the North and West will receive South Carolina and the other Rebel States as equals in political power and rights, whenever those States are controlled by loyal men; but they are enemies to justice, to equality, and to the peace of the country who demand the recognition of the Rebel States upon the unequal basis of the existing Constitution.
Of these enemies to justice, equality, and the peace of the country, the President is the leader and the chief; and as such leader and chief he is no longer entitled to support, confidence, or even personal respect He has seized upon all the immense patronage of this government, and avowed his purpose to use it for the restoration of the Rebel States to authority, regardless of the rights of the people of the loyal States. He has thus become the ally of the Rebels, and the open enemy of the loyal white men of the country. The President, and those associated with him in this unholy project, cannot but know that the recognition of the ten disloyal States renders futile every attempt to equalize representation in Congress. The assent of three fourths of the States is necessary to the ratification of an amendment to the Constitution. The fifteen old Slave States are largely interested in the present system, and they will not consent voluntarily to a change. The question between the President and Congress is then this: Shall the ten States be at once recognized,—thus securing to the old Slave States thirty Representatives and thirty electoral votes to which they have no title, or shall they be required to accept, as a condition precedent, an amendment to the Constitution which provides an equal system of representation for the whole country? It is not enough, in the estimation of the President, that the loyal people should receive these enemies of the Union and murderers of their sons and brothers as equals, but he demands a recognition of their superiority and permanent rule in the government by a voluntary tender of an eighth of the entire representative force of the republic. When before were such terms ever exacted of the conqueror in behalf of the conquered? If the victorious North had demanded of the vanquished South a surrender of a part of its representative power in the government, as a penalty for its treason, that demand would have been sustained upon the principles of justice, although the proceeding would have been unwise as a measure of public policy. As it is, the victorious North only demands equality for itself, while it offers equality to the vanquished South. Was there ever a policy more just, wise, reasonable, and magnanimous?
Yet the President rejects this policy, deserts the loyal men of the North by whom he was elected, conspires with the traitors in the loyal States and the Rebels of the disloyal States for the humiliation, the degradation, the political enslavement of the loyal people of the country. And this is the second great conspiracy against liberty, against equality, against the peace of the country, against the permanence of the American Union; and of this conspiracy the President is the leader and the chief. Nor can he defend himself by saying that he desires to preserve the Constitution as it was, for he himself has been instrumental in securing an important alteration. "The Constitution as it was" has passed away, and by the aid of Mr. Johnson.
Nor can he say that he is opposed to exacting conditions precedent; for he made the ratification of the anti-slavery amendment a condition precedent to his own recognition of their existence as States clothed with authority. Thus is he wholly without proper excuse forhis conduct. Nor can he assert that the Rebel States are, and ever have been, States of the Union, and always and ever entitled to representation and without conditions; for then is he guilty of impeachable offences in demanding of them the ratification of the constitutional amendment, in dictating a policy to the Southern States, in organizing provisional governments, in inaugurating constitutional conventions, in depriving officers elected or appointed by authority of those States of their offices, and, in fine, in assuming to himself supreme authority over that whole region of country for a long period of time. Thus his only defence of his present policy contains an admission that he has usurped power, that he has violated the Constitution, that he is guilty of offences for which he ought to be impeached. Thus do the suggestions which the President tenders as his defence furnish conclusive evidence that his conduct is wholly indefensible.
While then the President cannot defend his conduct, it is possible for others to explain it.
Its explanation maybe found in some one or in several of the following propositions:—
1. That the Rebel leaders have acquired a control over the President, through the power of some circumstance not known to the public, which enables them to dictate a policy to him.
2. That he fears impeachment, and consequently directs all his efforts to secure more than a third of the Senate, so as to render a conviction impossible.
3. That he seeks a re-election, and purposes to make the South a unit in his favor, as the nucleus around which the Democratic party of the North must gather in 1868.
4. That he desires to reinstate the South as the controlling force in the government of the country.
In reference to the first proposition, we are restricted to the single remark, that it is not easy to imagine the Rebels capable of making any demand upon the Executive which, in his present state of mind, he would not be prepared to grant. He has pardoned many of the leaders and principal men of the Rebellion, and some of them he has appointed to office. He has resisted every attempt on the part of Congress to furnish protection to the loyal men of the South, and he has witnessed and discussed the bloody horrors of Memphis and New Orleans with cold-blooded indifference. Early in his term of office he offered an immense reward for the person of Jefferson Davis; and now that the accused has been in the official custody of the President, as the head of the army, for more than fifteen months, he has neither proclaimed his innocence and set him at liberty, nor subjected him to trial according to the laws of the land. Davis is guilty of the crime of treason. Of this there can be no doubt. He is indicted in one judicial district. The President holds the prisoner by military authority; and the accused cannot be arraigned before the civil tribunals. Davis was charged by the President with complicity in the assassination of Mr. Lincoln. There is much evidence tending to sustain the charge; but the accused is neither subjected to trial by a military commission, nor turned over to the civil tribunals of the country. These acts are offences against justice; they are offences against the natural and legal rights of the accused, however guilty he may be; they are offences against the honor of the American people; they are acts in violation of the Constitution. If the elections of 1866 are favorable to the President, they will be followed by the release of Davis, and the country will see the end of this part of the plot.
Upon any view of the President's case, it is evident that he has thrown himself into the arms of the South, and that his personal and political fortunes are identified with Southern success in the coming contest. He claims to stand upon the Baltimore Platform of 1864, and to follow in the footsteps of President Lincoln. The enemies of President Lincoln are reconciled to this assumption,by the knowledge that Mr. Johnson's counsellors are the Seymours, Vallandigham, Voorhees, and the Woods. Mr. Johnson, under these evil influences of opinion and counsel, has succeeded in producing a division of parties in this country corresponding substantially to the division which Demosthenes says existed in Greece when Philip was engaged in his machinations for the overthrow of the liberties of that country. "All Greece is now divided into two parties;—the one composed of those who desire neither to exercise nor to be subject to arbitrary power, but to enjoy the benefits of liberty, laws, and independence; the other, of those who, while they aim at an absolute command of their fellow-citizens, are themselves the vassals of another person, by whose means they hope to obtain their purposes."
The Republican party desires liberty, independence, and equal laws for all people; the Presidential party seeks to oppress the negro race, to degrade the white race of the North by depriving every man of his due share in the government of the country, and, finally, to subject all the interests of the Republic to the caprice, policy, and passions of its enemies.
The Presidential party is composed of traitors in the South who had the courage to fight, of traitors in the North who had not the courage or opportunity to assail their government, of a small number of persons who would follow the fortunes of any army if they could be permitted to glean the offal of the camp, and a yet smaller number who are led to believe that any system of adjustment is better than a continuance of the contest.
The Presidential party controls the patronage of the government; and it will be used without stint in aid of the scheme to which the President is devoted.
It only remains to be seen whether the courage, capacity, and virtue of the people are adequate to the task of overthrowing and crushing the conspiracy in its new form and under the guidance of its new allies. The Republican party carries on the contest against heavy odds, and with the fortunes of the country staked upon the result.
One hundred and ninety-one men have been recognized as members of the present House of Representatives. There are fifty vacancies from the ten unrecognized States; consequently a full House contains two hundred and forty-one members. One hundred and twenty-one are a majority,—a quorum for business, if every State were represented. Of the present House, it is estimated that forty-six members are supporters of the President's policy. If to these we add the fifty members from the ten States, the Presidential party would number ninety-six, or twenty-five only less than a majority of a full House. No view can be taken of the present House of Representatives more favorable to the Republican party,—possibly the President's force should be increased to forty-eight men. It is worthy of observation that neither the Philadelphia Convention nor the President has breathed the hope that the Republicans can be deprived of a majority of the members from the loyal States. The scheme is to elect seventy-one or more men from the loyal States, and then resort to revolutionary proceedings for consummation of the plot. The practical question—the question on which the fortunes of the country depend—is, Will the people aid in the execution of the plot contrived for their own ruin? Upon the face of things, we should say that it is highly improbable that the new party can make any important gains; indeed, it seems most improbable that the President can survive the effect of his own speeches. But we must remember that he is supported by the whole Democratic party, and that that party cast a large vote in 1864, and that in 1862 the Republican majority in the House was reduced to about twenty.
In the Thirty-eighth Congress the Democratic party had ten or fifteen more votes than are now needed to secure the success of the present plot. To be sure,the elections of 1862 occurred at the darkest period of the war. The young men of the Republican party were in the army, and but a small number of them had an opportunity to vote. There was still hope that a peace could be made through the agency of the Democratic party. These circumstances were all unfavorable to the cause of the patriots.
The Democratic party is now weaker than ever before. Its identity with the Rebellion is better understood. The young men of the country, in the proportion of three to one, unite themselves with the Republican party. As an organization, considered by itself, the Democratic party is utterly powerless and hopeless.
The defection of Mr. Johnson, however, inspires the leaders with fresh courage. It is possible for them to enjoy the patronage of the government for two years at least, and it is barely possible for them to secure the recognition of the ten Rebel States, or, in other equivalent words, the ten Democratic States, to the Union.
This combination is formidable; but its dangerous nature is due to the facts that Mr. Seward's name and means of influence are still powerful in the State of New York, and that he has joined himself to the new party and become an instrument in the hands of designing men for the organization of another rebellion. Outside of New York Mr. Johnson's gains in the elections will be so small that the Union majority will remain substantially as in the present Congress; nor can we conceive that the gains in that State will be adequate to the necessities of the conspirators. It is probable that the undertaking will prove a failure; but it should never be forgotten that the country is in peril; that it is in peril in consequence of the uncertain political character of the State of New York; and that that uncertain character is justly attributable to the conduct of Mr. Seward. If, then, Mr. Johnson succeed in the attempt to change the character of this government by setting aside the Congress of the loyal States, Mr. Seward will be responsible, equally with Mr. Johnson, for the crime.
Reverting to the statement already made, that neither Mr. Johnson nor any of his supporters can even hope to secure a majority of the members elected from the States represented in the present Congress, it only remains for us to consider more specifically the scheme of revolution and usurpation in which these desperate men are engaged. The necessary preliminary condition is the election of seventy-one members of Congress from the twenty-six States. To these will be added fifty persons from the ten unrepresented States, making one hundred and twenty-one, or a majority of Congress if all the States were represented. This accomplished, the way onward is comparatively easy.
When the Thirty-ninth Congress reassembles in December next, Mr. Johnson and his Cabinet may refuse to recognize its existence, or, recognizing it as a matter of form, deny its legitimate authority.
He would summon the members of the Fortieth Congress to assemble in extra session immediately after the 4th of March. Fifty persons would appear claiming seats as representatives from the ten States. The Republicans would deny their right to seats,—the supporters of the President would maintain it. The supporters of the President, aided directly or indirectly by the army and police, would take possession of the hall, remove the Clerk, and organize the assembly by force.
Whether this could be done without bloodshed in Washington and elsewhere in the North remains to be seen; but as far as relates to the organization of the House, there can be no doubt of the success of the undertaking. We should then see a united South with the President at the head, and a divided North;—the army, the navy, the treasury, in the hands of the Rebels. This course is the necessity of Mr. Johnson's opinions and position. It isthe natural result of the logic of the Rebels of the South and of the Democratic party of the North. Mr. Johnson believes that the present Congress intends to impeach him and remove him from office. Admit that this fear is groundless, yet, if he entertains it, he will act as he would act if such were the purpose of the two Houses. Hence he must destroy the authority of Congress. Hence he arraigns its members as traitors. Hence he made the significant, revolutionary, and startling remark, in his reply to Reverdy Johnson as the organ of the Philadelphia Convention: "We have seen hanging upon the verge of the government, as it were, a body called, or which assumed to be, the Congress of the United States, but in fact a Congress of only a part of the States." This is a distinct, specific denial of the right of Congress to exist, to act, to legislate for the country. It is an impeachment of all our public doings since the opening of the war,—of all our legislation since the departure of Davis and his associates from Washington. It is an admission of the doctrine of Secession; for if the departure of Davis and his associates rendered null and void the authority of Congress, then the government, and of course the Union, ceased to exist. The constitutional amendment abolishing slavery is void; the loan-acts and the tax-acts are without authority; every fine collected of an offender was robbery; and every penalty inflicted upon a criminal was itself a crime. The President may console himself with the reflection that upon these points he is fully supported by Alexander H. Stephens, late Vice-President of the so-called Confederacy.
We quote from the report of his examination before the Committee on Reconstruction.