Sir Jasper Carew: His Life and Experience

I suppose that very few persons have ever formed a rightful estimate of the extent to which the skill and cleverness of an able lawyer have enabled him to wound their feelings and insult their self-love. I conclude this to be the case, not alone from my own brief and unhappy experience, but from reading a vast number of trials and always experiencing a sense of astonishment at the powerful perversity of these men. The cruel insinuation, the imputed meanness, the perversion of meaning, the insinuations of unworthy motive, are all acquired and cultivated, like the feints and parries of an accomplished fencer. The depreciation of a certain testimony, and the exaggerated estimate of some other; the sneering acknowledgment of this, or the triumphant assertion of that; the dark menace of a hidden meaning here, and the subtle insinuation that there was more than met the eye there, – are all studied and practised efforts, as artificial as the stage-trick of the actor. And yet how little does all our conviction of this artifice avail against their influence!

Bad as these are, they are as nothing to the resources in store when the object is to assail the reputation and blacken the character; to hold up some poor fellow-man – frail and erring as he may be – to everlasting shame, and mark him with ignominy forever. Alas for the best and purest! what an alloy of meanness and littleness, what vanity and self-seeking mingle with their very noblest and highest efforts. What need, then, to overwhelm the guilty with more than his guilt, and quote the “Heart” in the indictment as well as the Crime? No, no; if the best be not all good, believe me the worst are not all and hopelessly depraved. I have a right to speak of these things, as one who has felt them. For eight hours and more I listened to such a character of myself as made me sick, to very loathing, at my own identity; I heard a man in a great assembly denounce me as one of the most corrupt and infamous of mankind! I felt the eyes that were turned towards me, I almost thought I overheard the muttered reprobation that surrounded me. A number of the incidents of my changeful life – how learned I know not – were related with every exaggeration and every perversion that malice could invest them with. For a while, a sense of guiltlessness supported me; I knew many of the accusations to be false, others grossly overstated. The scenes in which I was often depicted as an actor had either no existence, or were falsehoods based upon some small germ of truth; and yet I heard them detailed with a semblance of reality, and a degree of coherence as to time and place, that smote me with very terror, since, though I might deny, I could not disprove them.

To stamp me as an impostor, and my claim as a cheat, appeared to be the entire line of the defence. Indeed, he avowed openly that with all the evidence so painstakingly elicited by the opposite counsel, he should not trouble the jury with one remark. “When I tell you,” said he, “who this claimant really is, and how his claim originated, you will forgive me that I have not embarrassed you with details quite irrelevant to this action, since of Walter Carew or of any descendant of his there is no question here! I will produce before you on that table, I will leave him to all the ingenuity of my learned friend to cross-examine, one who shall account to you how the first impulse to this daring imposture was conceived. You will be astounded. It will be, I am aware, a tremendous tax upon your credulity to compass it; but I will show to your entire conviction that the man who aspires to the rank of an Irish gentleman, a vast estate, and an illustrious name, is a foreigner of unknown origin who began life as an emissary of the French revolutionary party. When secret treachery superseded the guillotine, he served as a spy; this trade failing, he fell into the straits and difficulties of the most abject poverty; the materials of that period of his history are, of course, difficult to come at. They who walk in such paths, walk darkly and secretly; but we may be able to display some, at least, of his actions at this time, – one of them, at all events, will exhibit the character of the individual, and at the same time put you in possession of an incident which, in all likelihood, originated this extraordinary action.

“There may be some now present in this court sufficiently familiar with London to remember a certain character well known in the precincts of Charing Cross by the nickname of Gentleman Jack. To those not acquainted with this individual I may mention that he swept a crossing in that locality, and had, by a degree of pretension in his appearance, aided by a natural smartness in repartee, attracted notice from many of the idle loungers of fashion who daily passed and repassed there. I am not able to say if his gifts were in any respect above the common. Indeed, I have heard that it was rather the singular fact that a man in such a station should be remarkable for any claim to notice whatever, which endowed him with the popularity he enjoyed. At all events, he was remarkable enough to be generally, I might say universally, known; and it was the caprice of certain fashionable folk to accord him a recognition as they passed by. This degree of attention was harmless, at least, and had it stopped at that point, might never have called for any reprobation; but modish follies occasionally take an offensive shape, and this man’s pretension offered the opportunity to display such.

“You have all heard of Carlton House, gentlemen, – of the society of wits who frequent there, and the charms of a circle in which the chief figure is not more distinguished for his rank than for the gifts which elevate social intercourse. To the freedom which this exalted personage permitted those who approached him thus nearly, there seemed to be scarcely any limit. Admitting them to his friendship, he endowed them with almost equality; and there was not a liberty nor a license which could be practised in ordinary polite intercourse that was not allowed at that hospitable board.

“You might imagine that men who enjoyed such a privilege would have been guardedly careful against abusing it; you might fancy that even worldly motives might have rendered them cautious about imperilling the princely favor! Not so; they would seem to have lost every consciousness of propriety in the intoxication of this same flattery; and they actually dared to take a liberty with this Prince which had been more than hazardous if ventured upon with a gentleman of private station.

“The story goes that, offended by his Royal Highness having pronounced marked eulogium on the manners and breeding of an individual who was not of their set either in politics or society, one of the party – I am not disposed to give his name, if it can be avoided – dared to make a wager that he would take a fellow off the streets, give him ruffles and a dress-coat, and pass him off on the Prince as one of the most accomplished and well-bred men in Europe.

“Gentlemen, you may fancy that in this anecdote which I have taken the liberty to relate to you, I am endeavoring to compete with the very marvellous histories which my learned brother on the opposite side addressed to your notice. I beg most distinctly to disclaim all such rivalry. My story has none of those stirring incidents with which his abounded. The characters and the scene are all of home growth. It has neither remoteness in point of time, nor distance in country, to lend it attraction. It has, however, one merit which my learned friend might reasonably envy, and this is, that it is true. Yes, gentlemen, every particular I have stated is a fact. I will prove it by a witness whose evidence will be beyond gainsay. The wager was accepted, and for a considerable sum too, and a dinnerparty arranged as the occasion by which to test it. The secrecy which I wish to observe as to the actors in this most unpardonable piece of levity will prevent my mentioning the names of those most deeply implicated. One who does not stand in this unenviable category is now in court, and I will call him before you.”

Colonel Whyte Morris was now called to appear, and, after a brief delay, a tall, soldier-like, and handsome man, somewhat advanced in life, ascended the witness-table. I had no recollection of ever having seen him before; but it is needless to say with what anxiety I followed every word he uttered.

The ordinary preliminaries over, he was asked if he remembered a certain dinner-party, of which he was a guest, on a certain day in the autumn of the year.

He remembered it perfectly, and recounted that it was not easily to be forgotten, since it took place to decide a very extraordinary wager, the circumstances of which he briefly related.

“Gentleman Jack was the individual selected by a friend of mine,” said he, “and who should succeed in winning his Royal Highnesses good opinion, so as to obtain a flattering estimate of his manners and good-breeding. To what precise extent the praise was to go was not specified. There was nothing beyond a gentleman-like understanding that if Jack passed muster as a man of fashion and ton, his backer was to have won; if, on the contrary, the Prince should detect any anomalies in his breeding, so as to throw suspicion upon his real rank, then the wager was lost.

“I was present,” said the Colonel, “when the ceremony of presenting him to the Prince took place; I did not know the man myself, nor had I the slightest suspicion of any trick being practised. I had recently returned from foreign service, and was almost a stranger to all the company. Standing close beside Colonel O’Kelly, however, I overheard what passed, and as the words were really very remarkable, under the circumstances, I have not forgotten them.” Being asked to relate the incident, he went on:

“There was a doubt in what manner – I mean rather by what name – the stranger should be presented to his Royal Highness: some suggesting one name, – others, a different one; and O’Kelly grew impatient, almost angry, at the delay, and said, ‘D – n it all him something: what shall it be, Sheridan?’ ‘The King of the Beggars, say I,’ cried Sheridan, and in a voice, as I thought, to be easily heard all around. ‘Who was he?’ asked O’Kelly. ‘Bamfield Moore Carew,’ answered the other. ‘So be it, then,’ said O’Kelly. ‘Your Royal Highness will permit me to present a very distinguished friend of mine, recently arrived in England, and who, like every true Englishman, feels that his first homage is due to the Prince who rules in all our hearts.’ – ‘Your friend’s name?’ – ‘Carew, your Royal Highness; but being a wanderer and a vagabond, he has gone by half-a-dozen names.’ The Prince laughed, and turned to hear the remainder of a story that some one at his side was relating. Meanwhile the stranger had gone through his introduction, and as Mr. Carew was in succession presented to the other members of the company – ”

“Was he never addressed by any other designation, Colonel?” asked the lawyer.

“Certainly not, – on that evening, at least.”

“Were you acquainted with his real name?” “No; O’Kelly told me, the day after the dinner, that the fellow had made his escape from London, doubtless dreading the consequences of his freak, and all trace of him was lost.”

“Should you be able to recognize him were you to see him again, Colonel Morris?”

“Unquestionably; his features were very marked, and I took especial notice of him as he sat at the card-table.”

“Will you cast your eyes about you through the court, and inform us if you see him here at present?”

The Colonel turned, and, putting his glass to his eye, scanned the faces in the gallery and along the crowded ranks beneath it. He then surveyed the body of the court, and at length fixed his glance on the inner bar, where, seated beside Mr. Foxley, I sat, pale and almost breathless with terror. “There he is! that man next but one to the pillar; that is the man!”

It was the second time that I had stood beneath the concentrated stare of a vast crowd of people; but oh, how differently this from the last time! No longer with aspects of compassionate interest and kind feeling, every glance now was the triumphant sparkle over detected iniquity, the haughty look of insolent condemnation.

“Tell me of this – what does this mean?” wrote my adviser, on a slip of paper, and handed it, unperceived, to me.

“It is true!” whispered I, in an accent that almost rent my heart to utter.

The commotion in the court was now great; the intense anxiety to catch a sight of me, added to the expressions of astonishment making up a degree of tumult that the officers essayed vainly to suppress. That the evidence thus delivered had been a great shock to my advisers was easily seen; and though Foxley proceeded to cross-examine the Colonel, the statement was not to be shaken.

“We purpose to afford my learned friend a further exercise for his ingenuity,” said M’Clelland; “for we shall now summon to the table a gentleman who has known the plaintiff long and intimately; who knew him in his real character of secret political agent abroad; and who will be able not alone to give a correct history of the individual, but also to inform the jury by what circumstances the first notion of this most audacious fraud was first suggested, and how it occurred to him to assume the character and name he had dared to preface this suit by taking. Before the witness shall leave that table I pledge myself to establish, beyond the possibility of a cavil, one of the most daring, most outrageous, and consummate pieces of rascality that has ever come before the notice of a jury. It is needless that I should say one word to exonerate my learned friends opposite, – they could, of course, know nothing of the evidence we shall produce here this day; the worst that can be alleged against them will be, the insufficiency of their own searches, and the inadequacy of the proofs on which they began this suit I can afford to reflect, however, upon their professional skill, as the recompense for not aspersing their reputation; and I will say that a more baseless, unsupported action never was introduced into a court of justice. Call Count Anatole Ysaffich!”

I shall not attempt to describe a scene, the humiliation of which no vindication of my honor can ever erase. For nearly three hours I listened to such details, not one of which I could boldly deny, and yet not one of which was the pure truth, that actually made me feel a perfect monster of treachery and corruption. Of that life which my own lawyer had given such a picturesque account, a new version was now to be heard; the history of my birth I had once given to Ysafflch was all related circumstantially.

He tracked me as the “adventurer” through every event and incident of my career, – ever aiming at fortune, ever failing; the hired spy of a party, the corrupt partisan of the press, – a fellow, in fact, without family, friends, or country, and just as bereft of every principle of honor.

Ysafflch went on to say that, having shown me Raper’s letters and memoranda on one occasion, I had, on reading them, originated the notion of this suit, suggesting my own obscure birth and origin as sufficient to defy all inquiry or investigation. He represented me as stating that such actions were constantly brought, and as constantly successful; and even where the best grounds of defence existed, they who were in possession frequently preferred to compromise a claim rather than to contest it in open litigation. Though the Count always endeavored to screen himself behind his ignorance of English law and justice, he made no scruple of avowing his own complicity in the scheme. He detailed all the earliest steps of the venture, – where the family crest had been obtained; by whom it had been ‘engraved on my visiting-cards. He mentioned, with strict accuracy, the very date I had first assumed the name of Carew; he actually exhibited a letter written by me on the evening before, and in which I signed myself “Paul Gervois.” With these matters of fact he mixed up other details, totally untrue, – such as a mock certificate of my father’s marriage at a small town in Normandy, and which I had never seen nor heard of till that moment. He convulsed the court with laughter by describing the way in which I used to rehearse the part of heir and descendant of Walter Carew before him; and after a vast variety of details, either wholly or partially untrue, he produced my written promise to pay him an enormous sum, in the event of the success of the present action. Truly had the lawyer said, “Such an exposure was never before witnessed in a court of justice.” And now for above an hour did he continue to accumulate evidences of fraud and deception, – in the allegations made by me before officials of the court; affidavits sworn to; documents attested before consuls in Holland; inaccuracies of expression; faults even of spelling, – not very difficult to account for in one whose education and life for the most part had been spent abroad, – were all quoted and adduced, as showing the actual insolence of presumption which had marked every step of this imposture.

The Court interrupted the counsel at this conjuncture by an observation which I could not hear, to which the lawyer replied, “It shall be as your Lordship suggests; though, were I permitted a choice, I should infinitely prefer to probe this foul wound to its last depth. I would far rather display this consummate impostor to the world, less as a punishment to himself than as a warning and a terror to others.”

Here my counsel rose, and said that he had conferred with his learned friends in the case as to the course he ought to pursue. He could not express the emotions which he felt at the exposures they had just witnessed; nor did he deem it necessary to say for himself and his brother-barristers, as well as for the respectable solicitors employed, that the revelations then made had come upon them entirely by surprise. Well weighing the responsible position they occupied towards the plaintiff, whose advocates they were, they still felt, after the appalling exhibition they had witnessed, – an exposure unparalleled in a court of justice, – it would be unbefitting their station as gentlemen, and unworthy of their duty as barristers, any longer to continue this contest.

A low murmur of approbation ran through the court as the words were concluded, and the Judge solemnly added, “You have shown a very wise discretion, sir, and which completely exonerates you from any foreknowledge of this fraud.”

The defendant’s counsel then requested that the Court would not permit the plaintiff to leave.

“We intend to prefer charges of forgery and perjury against him, my Lord,” said he; “and meanwhile I desire that the various documents we have seen may be impounded.”

On an order from the Judge, the plaintiff was now taken into custody; and after, as it appeared, one or two vain efforts to address the Court, in which his voice utterly failed him, he was removed.

Mr. M’Clelland could not take his farewell of the case without expressing his full concurrence in the opinion expressed by the Court regarding his learned friends opposite, whose ability during the contest was only to be equalled by the integrity with which they guided their conduct when defence had become worse than hopeless.

The defence of this remarkable suit will cost Mr. Curtis, it is said, upwards of seven thousand pounds.

A very few words will now complete this history. Let him who writes them be permitted to derive them from the public journals of the time, since it is no longer without deep humiliation he can venture to speak of himself. Alas and alas! too true is it, the penalties of crime are as stigmatizing as crime itself! The stripes upon the back, the brand upon the brow, are more enduring than the other memories of vice. Be innocent of all offence, appeal to your own heart with conscious rectitude, yet say, if the chain has galled your ankle, and the iron bar has divided the sunlight that streamed into your cell, – say, if you can, that self-esteem came out intact and unwounded, after such indignity.

I speak this with no malice to my fellow-men – I bear no grudge against those who sentenced me; too deeply conscious am I of my many offences against the world to assume even to myself the pretension of martyr; but I do assert that vindication of character, restitution to fair fame, comes late when once the terrible ordeal of public condemnation has been passed. The very pity men extend to you humiliates – their compassion savors of mercy; and mercy is the attribute of One alone!

The “Morning Advertiser” informed its readers, amidst its paragraphs of events, “That, on Wednesday last, Paul Gervois, the celebrated claimant to the estates of the late Walter Carew, was forwarded to Cork, previous to embarking on board the transport-ship ‘Craven Castle,’ in pursuance of the sentence passed upon him last assizes, of banishment beyond the seas for the term of his natural life. The wretched man, who since the discovery that marked the concluding scene of his trial, has scarcely uttered a word, declined all defence, and while obstinately rejecting any assistance from counsel, still persisted in pleading not guilty, to the last.

“It is asserted, we know not with what authority, that the eminent leader of the Western Circuit is fully persuaded not only of Gervois’ innocence, but actually of his right to the vast property to which he pretended to be the heir; and had it not been for a severe attack of gout, Mr. Hanchett would have defended him on his late trial.”

Amidst the fashionable intelligence of the same day, we read that “a very large and brilliant company are passing the Easter holidays at the hospitable seat of Joseph Curtis, Castle Carew, amongst whom we recognized Lord and Lady Ogletown, Sir Massy Digby, the Right Hon. Francis Malone, Major-General Count Ysaffich, Knight of various orders, and Augustus Clifford, etc.”

I was on board of a convict hulk in Cork harbor from March till the latter end of November, not knowing, nor indeed caring, why my sentence of transportation had not been carried out. The shock under which I had fallen still stunned me. Life was become a dreary, monotonous dream, but I had no wish to awake from it; on the contrary, the only acute suffering I can trace to that period was, when the unhappy fate which attached to me excited sentiments of either compassion or curiosity in others. Prison discipline had not, at the time I speak of, received the development it has since attained; greater freedom of action was permitted to those in charge of prisoners, who, provided that their safety was assured, were suffered to treat them with any degree of severity or harshness that they fancied.

The extraordinary features of the trial in which I had figured – the “outrageous daring of my pretensions,” as the newspapers styled it – attracted towards me some of that half-morbid interest which, somehow, attaches to any remarkable crime. Scarcely a week passed without some visitor or other desiring to see me; and I was ordered to come up on deck, or to “walk aft on the poop,” to be stared at and surveyed, as though I had been some newly discovered animal of the woods.

These were very mortifying moments to me, and as I well knew that their humiliation formed no part of my sentence, I felt disposed to rebel against this infliction. The resolution required more energy, however, than I possessed, nor was it till after long and painful endurance that I resolved finally to resist. As I could not refuse to walk up on deck when ordered, the only resistance in my power was to maintain silence, and not reply to a single question of those whose vulgar and heartless curiosity prompted them to make an amusement of my suffering.

“The fellow won’t speak, gentlemen,” said the superintendent one morning to a very numerous party, who, in all the joyousness of life and liberty, came to heighten their zest for pleasure by the sight of sorrow and pain. “He was never very communicative about himself, but latterly he refuses to utter a word.”

“He still persists in asserting his innocence?” asked one of the strangers, but in a voice easily overheard by me.

“Not to any of us, sir,” replied the turnkey, gruffly; “he may do so with his fellows below in the hold, but he knows better than to try on that gammon with us.”

“I must say,” said one, in a half-whisper, “that, even in that dress, he has the look of a gentleman about him.”

“Good heavens!” exclaimed another, “if his story were to be true!”