Read Ebook: Beyond These Voices by Braddon M E Mary Elizabeth

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With respect to the navy, I shall only say that this country is so highly indebted to Sir Edward Hawke, that no expense should be spared to secure him an honorable and affluent retreat.

The pure and impartial administration of justice is perhaps the firmest bond to secure a cheerful submission of the people, and to engage their affections to government. It is not sufficient that questions of private right or wrong are justly decided, nor that judges are superior to the vileness of pecuniary corruption. Jeffries himself, when the court had no interest, was an upright judge. A court of justice may be subject to another sort of bias, more important and pernicious, as it reaches beyond the interest of individuals and affects the whole community. A judge, under the influence of government, may be honest enough in the decision of private causes, yet a traitor to the public. When a victim is marked out by the ministry, this judge will offer himself to perform the sacrifice. He will not scruple to prostitute his dignity, and betray the sanctity of his office, whenever an arbitrary point is to be carried for government, or the resentment of a court to be gratified.

These principles and proceedings, odious and contemptible as they are, in effect are no less injudicious. A wise and generous people are roused by every appearance of oppressive, unconstitutional measures, whether those measures are supported openly by the power of government, or masked under the forms of a court of justice. Prudence and self-preservation will oblige the most moderate dispositions to make common cause, even with a man whose conduct they censure, if they see him persecuted in a way which the real spirit of the laws will not justify. The facts on which these remarks are founded are too notorious to require an application.

This, sir, is the detail. In one view, behold a nation overwhelmed with debt; her revenues wasted; her trade declining; the affections of her colonies alienated; the duty of the magistrate transferred to the soldiery; a gallant army, which never fought unwillingly but against their fellow-subjects, moldering away for want of the direction of a man of common abilities and spirit; and, in the last instance, the administration of justice become odious and suspected to the whole body of the people. This deplorable scene admits of but one addition--that we are governed by counsels, from which a reasonable man can expect no remedy but poison, no relief but death. If, by the immediate interposition of Providence, it were possible for us to escape a crisis so full of terror and despair, posterity will not believe the history of the present times. They will either conclude that our distresses were imaginary, or that we had the good fortune to be governed by men of acknowledged integrity and wisdom. They will not believe it possible that their ancestors could have survived or recovered from so desperate a condition, while a Duke of Grafton was Prime Minister, a Lord North Chancellor of the Exchequer, a Weymouth and a Hillsborough Secretaries of State, a Granby Commander-in-chief, and a Mansfield chief criminal judge of the kingdom.

JUNIUS.

DOCTORS NOTES:

All this, of course, is greatly exaggerated. Severe measures did seem indispensable to suppress the mobs of that day, and, whoever stood forth to direct them, must of necessity incur the popular indignation. Still, it was a question among the most candid men, whether milder means might not have been effectual.

COMMENTS ON THE DOCTOR'S NOTES.

Here again is an error. Rockingham and Chatham led the two wings of the minority. The former was in favor of septennial, the latter of triennial parliaments.--Let. 52. Herein Junius agreed with Chatham, and hence could not be a partisan of Rockingham.--Let. 53. But because Junius eulogized Chatham, he was said to be a partisan of Chatham, which he afterwards contradicts when he compiled his letters, in a note to the name of Mr. Pitt in his first letter, and is as follows: "And yet Junius has been called the partisan of Lord Chatham." In Letter 53, Junius denies partisanship to both. Neither did he agree with Lord Camden, and mildly censures him for his action.--Let. 59. Junius was never a partisan, as will be fully proven hereafter. This shows how limited a knowledge the doctor had of Junius, and also how unfit to comment on these matters of fact. He had not even caught the design or spirit of Junius. He was advocating the cause of the people and not the cause of any party or faction.

ESTIMATE OF JUNIUS, BY MR. BURKE.

FOOTNOTES:

From a speech delivered in the House of Commons.

Sir Fletcher Norton, Speaker of the House, was distinguished for the largeness of his overhanging eyebrows.

SOCIAL POSITION.

Now, from the above facts, and the method of elimination, it may be affirmed, Junius was not prominent before the English nation. He was not a peer, nor member of the House of Commons. He could not have been an army officer. He was not a collegian, nor a lawyer. What, then, was he? Just what he says himself to be: "one of the common people, with a healthy, sanguine constitution," but by no means without genius, education, and practical knowledge.

JUNIUS NOT A PARTISAN.

But let us continue the method of elimination till we find his true position. Because we can not safely affirm what he was, till we know in some particulars, what he was not; and it is thus the spirit and object of Junius may be made visible. I affirm, therefore, Junius was not a partisan. In proof of which I submit the following, from Let. 58, to the study of the reader:

In the above Junius places himself on the side of the people, and clearly above all party or faction. But he continues:

"I have too much respect for the abilities of Mr. Horne, to flatter myself that these gentlemen will ever be cordially re-united. It is not, however, unreasonable to expect, that each of them should act his separate part with honor and integrity to the public. As for differences of opinion upon speculative questions, if we wait until they are reconciled, the action of human affairs must be suspended forever. But neither are we to look for perfection in any one man, nor for agreement among many. When Lord Chatham affirms that the authority of the British legislature is not supreme over the colonies in the same sense in which it is supreme over Great Britain; when Lord Camden supposes a necessity , and, founded upon that necessity, attributes to the crown a legal power to suspend the operation of an act of the legislature, I listen to them both, with diffidence and respect, but without the smallest degree of conviction or assent. Yet I doubt not they delivered their real sentiments, nor ought they to be hastily condemned.... I mean only to illustrate one useful proposition, which it is the intention of this paper to inculcate, 'That we should not generally reject the friendship or services of any man because he differs from us in a particular opinion.' This will not appear a superfluous caution, if we observe the ordinary conduct of mankind. In public affairs, there is the least chance of a perfect concurrence of sentiment or inclination; yet every man is able to contribute something to the common stock, and no man's contribution should be rejected. If individuals have no virtues, their vices may be of use to us. I care not with what principle the new-born patriot is animated, if the measures he supports are beneficial to the community. The nation is interested in his conduct. His motives are his own. The properties of a patriot are perishable in the individual; but there is a quick succession of subjects, and the breed is worth preserving. The spirit of the Americans may be an useful example to us. Our dogs and horses are only English upon English ground; but patriotism, it seems, may be improved by transplanting. I will not reject a bill which tends to confine parliamentary privilege within reasonable bounds, though it should be stolen from the house of Cavendish, and introduced by Mr. Onslow. The features of the infant are a proof of the descent, and vindicate the noble birth from the baseness of the adoption. I will willingly accept a sarcasm from Colonel Barr?, or a simile from Mr. Burke. Even the silent vote of Mr. Calcraft is worth reckoning in a division. What though he riots in the plunder of the army, and has only determined to be a patriot when he could not be a peer? Let us profit by the assistance of such men while they are with us, and place them, if it be possible, in the post of danger to prevent desertion. The wary Wedderburne, the pompous Suffolk, never threw away the scabbard, nor ever went upon a forlorn hope. They always treated the king's servants as men with whom, some time oras reclining among her pillows with closed eyes, Vera saw the profound melancholy in the father's face, and realised the effort and agony of every day in which he had to maintain an appearance of cheerfulness. These pilgrimages to exquisite scenes, under a smiling sky, were to him a kind of martyrdom, knowing all that lay before him, counting the hours that remained before the inevitable parting.

Vera knew what was coming. Dr. Wilmot had told her that the end could not be far off. The most famous physician in Rome had come to San Marco one afternoon. Passing through on his way to a patient at Nice, Provana had told his daughter, and coming casually to take his luncheon at the hotel--and the great man had confirmed Wilmot's worst augury. The end was near.

But even after this Giulia rallied, and the picnics in romantic places were gayer than ever, though Dr. Wilmot went with them, armed with restoratives for his patient, and pretending to be frivolous.

It was on the morning after a jaunt that had seamed especially delightful to Giulia that Lidcott came into Vera's room, with a dismal countenance, yet a sort of lugubrious satisfaction in being the first to impart melancholy news.

"I'm afraid it's all over with your poor young friend, Miss. She was taken suddenly bad at ten o'clock last night--with an haemorrhage. Dr. Wilmot was here all night. I saw the day-nurse for a minute just now, as she was taking up her own breakfast tray--they're always short-handed in this house, Signor Canincio being that mean--and the nurse says her young lady's a little better this morning--but she'll never leave her bed again. She's quite sensible, and she doesn't think she's dangerously ill, even now, and all her thought is to prevent her father worrying about her. Worrying! Nurse says he sits near her bedroom door, with his face hidden in his hands, listening and waiting, as still as if he were made of stone."

"Would they let me see her?" Vera asked.

"I think not, Miss. She's to be kept very quiet, and not to be allowed to speak."

She had been sitting there nearly an hour when Signor Provana came out with a packet of letters for the post. He had been obliged to answer the business letters of the morning. The machinery of his life could not be stopped for an hour, for any reason, not even if his only child were dying. There was a look in his face that froze Vera's heart. What the nurse had said of him was true. He was like a man turned to stone.

He took no notice of Vera. He did not see her, though he passed close to her, as he went downstairs to post his letters--a matter too important to be trusted to a servant.

Vera was standing at the end of the corridor when he came back, and this time he saw her, and stopped to speak. "Ah, Miss Davis, the hour I have foreseen for a long time has come. I have thought of it every day of my life, and I have dreamt of it a hundred times; but the reality is worse than my worst dream."

He was passing her, and turned back.

"We dare not let her speak--every breath is precious. To-day she must see no one but her nurse--not even me; but if she should be a shade better to-morrow, will you come to her? I know she will want to see you."

"I will come at any hour, night or day. I hope you know how dearly I love her," Vera answered, and then broke down completely and sobbed aloud.

When she uncovered her face Provana was gone, and she went slowly back to the upper floor, where Grannie was waiting for her to sympathise with her indignation at certain offensive--or supposed to be offensive--remarks in the letters of a sister-in-law, a niece, and a dear friend.

"Not meant? What could it mean but a sneer at my poverty?"

"I know Aunt Mildred wouldn't knowingly wound you."

Lady Felicia had remained in the dull H?tel des Anglais six weeks beyond her original idea--six weeks longer than the London doctor had insisted upon; she had stayed into the celestial light of an Italian April, to the delight of Vera, who had thus enjoyed a new life with her new friend. She was not frivolous in her attachments, or ready to fall in love with new faces; but, in sober truth, she had never before had the chance of such a friendship--a girl of her own age, highly cultivated, attractive, and sympathetically eager to give her the affection of a sister. It would have been too cruel if Grannie's predetermination to leave Italy in the first week of March had cut short that lovely friendship.

Happily Grannie had found out that March in London might be more perilous for her bronchial tubes than December; and had made a good bargain with the rapacious Canincio, since several of his spinsters and widows were leaving him.

It was the third day after Giulia's fatal attack that Miss Thompson came to the upper floor to summon Vera to the sick room.

"The dear child has been pining to see you ever since yesterday morning, when she rallied a little. She has written your name on her slate again and again, but the doctor was afraid she would excite herself, and perhaps try to talk. She has promised to be quite calm, and not to speak--and you must be very, very quiet, dear, and make no fuss. You can just sit by her bedside for a little while and hold her hand; but above all you must not cry--any agitation might be fatal."

"Is there no hope--no hope?" Vera asked piteously.

"No, my dear. It is a question of hours."

Giulia gazed at her friend with those too-brilliant eyes, and touched her lips with a pale and wasted hand, as a sign that she must not speak, and then she wrote on her slate eagerly:

"I have wanted to see you so long, so long, and now this may be the last time. I did not know I was so ill, but I know now. Oh, who will care take of my father when he is old; who will love him as I have done? I thought I should always be there, always his dearest friend. You must be his friend, Vera. He will be fond of you for my sake. You will find my place by and by."

"Never, darling. No one can fill your place," Vera said, in a quiet voice, full of calm tenderness.

A strange, suppressed sound, half sigh, half sob, startled her, and looking at the window she saw Signor Provana sitting on the balcony, motionless and watchful.

Again Giulia's tremulous hand wrote:

"Don't go till they send you away. Sit by me, and let me look at you. Oh, what happy days we have had--among the lovely hills. You will think of me in years to come, when you are in Italy."

"Always, always, I shall think of you and remember you, wherever I am. And now I won't talk any more, but I will stay till Miss Thompson takes me away."

Miss Thompson came very soon, and Vera bent over the dying girl and kissed the cold brow.

She left the bedside with that word of hope, the luminous eyes following her to the door. The dogs did not stir, nor the figure in the balcony. Miss Thompson and the nurse sat silent and motionless. A stillness so intense seemed strange in a sunlit room, gay with flowers.

It was late next morning when Vera fell into a troubled sleep, filled with cruel dreams--dreams that mocked her with visions of Giulia well and joyous--in one of those romantic scenes where they had been happy together, in hours that were so bright that Vera had forgotten the shadow that followed them.

Lidcott came with the morning tea, and there was a letter on the tray.

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