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 Br 0. NORTON. 
 
 It was a saying of Jeremy Bentham's, that, "if the 
 Poor had more Justice, they would need less Cfharity •"— 
 If womSn had more Justice, they would have no need of 
 appeals to sympathy. 
 
 LONDON : — MDCCCLIV. 
 
K/E2 
 
 ^ '%OfOl'^ ^ 
 
 LONDON: 
 PEINTED BY J. -WEILTHEIMEE AND CO., 
 CIKCUS PLACE, FINSBUKT CIKCUS, 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 It has been remarked to me, that if there were no other 
 reason why a very reluctant attention should be granted to 
 this Pamphletj there woiildbe "no time" to notice a discussion 
 of the LaWj arising out of affairs purely personal, at a period 
 when subjects of momentous public importance occupy the 
 minds of all men. In answer to that remark, I can only say, 
 that I have never yet seen the public mind in a state of such 
 undivided attention. I have no doubt, that in the present 
 Session, as in aU others, there will be "time" for aU usual 
 employments; time for assemblies, operas, and balls j time for 
 races, club-dinners, and feteSj- time for reading works of 
 science, and works of fiction; for the most abstract study, and 
 for the most frivolous gossip; time to discuss whether the 
 arms of Scotland are properly quartered with the arms of 
 England, as well as to debate whether the Emperor of Russia 
 is to make war upon the world. It would be paying 
 Englishmen a poor compliment to suppose that the one 
 subject they are determined not to find time for, is the 
 reform of some of their own laws; a reform confidently alluded 
 to by the Lord Chancellor, in his speech of the 14th February 
 last year; and formally introduced as one of the topics of the 
 Queen's Speech at the opening of Parliament. 
 
 Lord Campbell — in his brUliant and interesting work, "The 
 Lives of the Chancellors" — tells us that in the session of 1758 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 reference was made to the Judges on the motion of Ex-Chan- 
 cellor Hardwicke, respecting a bili for amendiag the law of 
 Habeas Corpus; and it was proposed to introduce a new bill 
 in the ensuing session. " But I am sorry to say," — observes 
 Lord Campbell, — "that when the next session arrived, nothing 
 was thought of except the taking of Quebec; and the subject 
 was not again resumed, till the very close of the reign of 
 George III." 
 
 Now it is certainly possible, that in like manner the Law- 
 reforms so confidently promised for this session, may be set 
 aside; and some future writer of Chancellors' Lives, may ex- 
 press his regret, that " in the Session of 1854 little was 
 thought of except the taking of Sebastopol." 
 
 But, if another half century should glide away without re- 
 form in our Ecclesiastical and other Courts (as more than half a 
 century elapsed, between the motion of Ex-Chancellor Hard- 
 wicke and the amendment of the Habeas Corpus Act) shall 
 we set it aU down to the overwhelming interest taken in 
 Quebec and Sebastopol? 
 
 Shall we not rather look for the solution of these delays, in 
 a certain supineness on the part of those who work the ma- 
 chiaery of justice? and in the fact (also stated by Lord Camp- 
 bell) that "it is very difficult to draw the notice of the repre- 
 sentatives of the people to measures for the Amendment of 
 the Law." Difficult to draw attention to such measures; 
 not difficult to find " time," either for their discussion, or the 
 consideration of any examples which may prove the necessity 
 of change. 
 
ENGLISH LAWS FOR WOMEN. 
 
 [" It won't do to have Tkuth and Justice on our side; 
 We must have Law and Lawtees."*] 
 
 CHABLES DICKENS. 
 
 I take those words as my text. In consequence of the im- 
 perfect state of the law, I have suffered bitterly, and for a 
 number of years : I have lately been insulted, defrauded, and 
 libelled : and as the law is constituted, I find redress impossible. 
 
 To publish comments on my own case for the sake of 
 obtaining sympathy ; to prove merely that my husband has 
 been unjust, and my fate a hard one, would be a very poor and 
 barren ambition. I aspire to a different object. I desire to 
 prove, not my suffering or his injustice, but that the present 
 law of England cannot prevent any such suffering, or control 
 any such injustice. I write in the hope that the law may be 
 amended ; and that those who are at present so ill-provided 
 as to have only " Truth and Justice" on their side, may here- 
 after have the benefit of "Law and Lawyers." 
 
 I know all that can be said on my interference with such a 
 subject; all the prejudice and contempt with which men wiU 
 receive arguments from a woman, and a woman personally in- 
 terested. But it is of more importance that the law should be 
 altered, than that I should be approved. Many a woman may 
 
 * Bleak House, page 529, 
 
lire to thank Heaven that I had courage and energy left, to 
 attempt the task: and, since no one can foretel the future, 
 even men may pause ere they fling down my pamphlet with 
 masculine scorn ; for a day may come, — however improbable 
 to some one of my readers, when he would give his right hand, 
 for the sake of sister, daughter, or friend, that the law were in 
 such a condition as to afford a chance of justice; without the 
 pain of a protracted struggle, or the disgrace of a public brawl. 
 What I write, is written in no spirit of rebellion ; it puts 
 forward no absurd claim of equality; it is simply an appeal for 
 protection. Such protection, in degree, as is accorded to ser- 
 vants, to apprentices, to the sailor on the high seas, to all 
 whom the law admits to be in a subordinate and helpless 
 position. Such protection, in degree, as has lately been ex- 
 tended to women in the lower classes, by the more stringent 
 laws enacted in their behalf. 
 
 In arguing my case from my own example, I am not igno- 
 rant that there are persons who think such argument blameable 
 on other grounds; who deem a husband's right so indefeasible, 
 and his title so sacred, that even a wronged wife should keep 
 silence. How far wiU they carry that principle? A few years 
 ago, a French nobleman, the Due de Praslin, assassinated his 
 wife in the midst of her slumbering household. When morning 
 broke, she was dead; but many a proof remained of the despe- 
 rate resistance, and agonized efforts to escape, made by that 
 wretched woman before her doom was completed. Do the ad- 
 vocates of the doctrine of non-resistance consider that her duty 
 would have been to submit tranquilly to the fate pre-deter- 
 mined for her? If not, let them waive judgment in my case ; 
 for if choice were allowed me, I would rather be murdered 
 and remembered by friends and children with love and re- 
 gret, than have the slanders believed which my husband 
 has invented of me. It is he, who has made silence impos- 
 sible. With HIM rests the breaking of those seals which keep 
 the history of each man's home sacred from indifferent eyes. 
 
He has declared himself my deadliest foe, whose dagger has 
 
 too near an aim to miss my heart and, of the two, I hold 
 
 his stab to be worse than that of the Due de Praslin, for he 
 would assassinate eyen my memory. 
 
 I resist. 
 
 For the shallower rebuke, that mine is an exceptional case ; 
 that the law need scarcely be disturbed to meet a solitary 
 instance of tyranny, there is a ready and reasonable answer. 
 All cases requiring legal interference are exceptional cases ; 
 and it wiU scarcely be argued that a balance must first be 
 struck in numbers, and instances of wrong be reckoned by the 
 dozen or the gross, before justice wiU condescend to weigh the 
 scales. But it does not follow that mine is a solitary example 
 of injustice, because it may possibly happen, from a combi- 
 nation of peculiar circumstances, to be the instance which shall 
 call attention to the state of the law. Hundreds of women are 
 suffering at this moment, whose cases are not less hard, but 
 more obscure : audit consists with all experience, that although 
 wrong and oppression may be repeated tiU. they become almost 
 of daily occurrence, they strike at last on some heart that re- 
 volts instead of enduring ; or are witnessed by men whose in- 
 dignant sympathy works out reform and redress. In either 
 case, oppression is brought to a halt, not by a multitude of 
 instances, but by some single example ; which example may be 
 neither more nor less important than others, though it be made 
 the argument and opportunity of change. We are not told 
 that any extraordinary perfection marked for defence the pea- 
 sant child of WiUiam Tell; nor Watt Tyler's daughter; nor 
 even that virgin girl of B-ome, for whom her sire chose death 
 rather than degradation; the doom had fallen, perhaps, on 
 other victims quite as worthy. But it was resisted for them 
 by hearts that beat high in defence of honest right ; and there- 
 fore (and not for the value of the victims) we read in the re- 
 cords of history, of a pagan father who took his child's life ; 
 of Christian fathers who perilled their own; and of those 
 B 2 
 
convulsions, dianges, and tumults, which, had their proximate 
 and apparent cause in the desire to avenge a tyrannous act done 
 
 to a peasant's son to punish insult offered to a craftsman s 
 
 daughter to keep from defilement one weak girl, claimed 
 
 by a despotic ruler, in the market-place of superb Rome ; — 
 but whose root was in this established certainty ; that in all 
 human societies, great general injustice shall be checked, 
 sooner or later, by individual resistance. 
 
 If, as I have said, it does not necessarily follow that the ex- 
 ample of resistance is also the example of crowning wrong ; so 
 neither does it follow that there is tyranny greater than usual 
 Enacted, when the benefactor arises, whose chivalrous nature 
 sees cause for exertion, where other men saw none. Not even 
 then, in the merit of the sufferers, or the degree of their 
 suffering, lies the prospect of change ; but" in the spirit of 
 him who will not tamely contemplate any misery he thinks 
 he might relieve. He follows in the track of those who 
 have all "passed hy on the other side;" but he differs from 
 them in this, that he pauses to know what wounded and 
 moaning thing is flung across his path, and forthwith accepts 
 as his business, that task of rescue which more selfish and 
 careless men have declined. The good Samaritan in Scripture 
 addressed himself to no peculiar case ; he lifted no bleeding 
 hero from a disastrous battle-field; nor king writhing under 
 the assassin's stroke. A man lay groaning who had fallen 
 among thieves. That is all we shall ever know of the example 
 of help, given as a lesson of charity eighteen hundred years 
 ago, to the fleeting generations of the world ! 
 
 In these later days of more complicated social wrong j when 
 Howard rose amongst us, apostle of compassion to sufferers 
 barred out of sight ; our prisons were no worse than they had 
 been, nor our prisoners better men; their dungeons were not 
 darker, nor their food more scant, nor their sighing louder, nor 
 their case more pitiful, than theirs who had gone before. 
 Circumstance was the same, but the hazard of help had arrived. 
 
The sighing was heard, the darkness was perceived, the hunger 
 for human pity was satisfied, not for the sake of those especial 
 prisoners, hut because Howard was come. So in Erskine's 
 time ,■ the laws were not more oppressive, nor their operation 
 more unequal, than in a generation foregone ; nor were the men 
 who had to abide by the legal decisions of the day, unusually 
 notable and important. They were the common clients of 
 common causes, suffering under common and established griev- 
 ances, arising from those defects in our patched-up system,which 
 no one yethad cared to examine, or had found sufHcient energy 
 to correct. ButERSKiNE came; and when men told him that 
 such defects were part of the law " before he was born," he 
 answered, that it was " because he was not born, that it was 
 law," for that he would see it altered before he died. 
 
 So with RoMiLLY : it was no new thing that roused his 
 earnest nature to struggle for reforms in the science of that 
 profession which he at once adorned and detested. Many a 
 prisoner without counsel, had stood wistfully at the bar before 
 Romilly's time ; listening to learned accusations dimly under- 
 stood, destitute of defence. Many a long-standing blur and 
 blot lay unremoved on the great scroU of our national code ; 
 when his warm eloquence, enlarged views, profound thought, 
 and keen comparison with the universal law of nations, worked 
 together for its amendment. He did not plead (for he could 
 not so have pleaded) that the men of his day who found no 
 help from that code, were peculiar martyrs; of higher desert, 
 with more atrocious injuries to redress, and with less chance of 
 redressing them, thanheretofore. He knew that this was notthe 
 case. AH was common, usual, inevitable; and because being 
 common, usual, and inevitable, it was also unjust, and not for 
 merit in the sufferers, or excess in any one case of suffer- 
 ing, he strove for change, and effected it. 
 
 We need the heart of a Eomilly amongst us now. That 
 strenuous heart, whose energetic pity made no compromise 
 with custom; nor ever flagged or fainted in the life-long effort 
 
to serve his fello-w-men, till, in an hour of delirious regret, 
 its strong pulse was stiQed for ever.* 
 
 If HE were here ^if he were here, who so valued the wedded 
 
 companion of his own home, that when she died he sank, 
 scathed by her loss as by lightning,_he would not answer with 
 contented apathy, « it is the law," when women complain 
 of injustice! He would stand for the right now, as he stood 
 in those other days, when he nobly strove, and patiently 
 planned, to make Law what it should be, a means of protection, 
 not an engine of oppression, to the, weak. Is there no one 
 with heart great enough to fill his place? 
 
 It is the law. Can anything be more curious than the 
 crabbed obstinacy or despairing sigh with which this reply is 
 made? as though we had for our guidance the edicts of the 
 Medes and Persians, ofwhich.it was fabled that they involved 
 no principle of change. Yet changes are perpetually made in 
 the most stringent edicts we have. That which was law 
 to the generation of yesterday, is not law to us ; and that 
 whichislaw to us, may be reversed for the generation of to- 
 morrow ; whyshouldunjustlawsfor women be more permanent 
 than other unjust laws ? We know that Law was mapped and 
 planned among civilised nations as the great Highway to Jus- 
 tice. Where the road leads astray ,it should be mended or 
 altered : and it is one of the boasts of our ever-boastful Eng- 
 land,, that she does this. Not indeed of a sudden, with the 
 stroke, of some magic wand ; but after fitful struggle and delay, 
 as all things are done on this travailiag earth ; a delay propor- 
 tioned to the strength of ancient prejudices, the jealousy of 
 contending interests, the energy or slackness of the hands that 
 do the work. 
 
 Neither my space nor my bounded knowledge ^wiQper- 
 
 * Sir Samuel Eomilly lost his wife, after a long and happy union, on 
 the 29th October, 1818. After four days and nights of excessive anguish 
 and grieving, his mind became disturbed, and he committed self-de- 
 struction. 
 
mit that I should foUo-w, in detail, even the most recent of those 
 changes ; but take such instance as the hazard of memory, or 
 -the very shallowest chance-reference can supply j take them 
 entirely from among facts within the cognizance of living men; 
 and you shall crowd into a few pages, such reversal of mercan- 
 tile, political, social, and religious rights, as have altered the 
 destinies of the entire population of England. Our children 
 are born to the tranquil inheritance of privileges that were 
 struggled for in our time, with fury, ferment, and heart-break. 
 They stand on conquered ground ; ground that was inch by 
 inch a battle-field to their fathers. They exchange among 
 themselves as current and common coin, those treasures of 
 Liberty that freighted our argosies in stormier days ; when 
 they who watched the doubtful chance, knew not if they should 
 witness the sinking of the wreck, or cheer our entrance to 
 the haven. Some of the captains of those days are at rest ; 
 but some are yet among us ; witnesses of the foUy of those who 
 would set a changeless limit, to that which of aU things is 
 most susceptible of change in the onward progress of a na- 
 tion — the code by which its social interests are governed. 
 
 Where is the great question of Roman Catholic Emancipa- 
 tions ? Where are the restrictions on trade ? The first, already 
 seems to our children almost a matter of History; yet there are 
 living men who heard Canning give Brougham the lie direct 
 in the English Senate, when that question trembled in the 
 balance ; and the brilliant Advocate of many causes, in the keen 
 anxiety of the hour, taunted the new Minister with exchanging 
 for the triumphs of office the support he had previously afibrd- 
 ed it. The other is a change of yesterday. Fresh, in the 
 mourning memory of friends, is the death of that leader who 
 moored the vessel of the State in an untried anchorage, with 
 the scornful words that he refused to direct its course " hy ob- 
 servations taken in 1842," and that he would feel less humi- 
 liated by the charge of inconsistency, than by any supposed 
 fear of acknowledging that he had altered his opinions. 
 
"Whether it be contended that our rulers were enlightened or 
 
 Struck blind when they projected such changes the changes 
 
 "were made : every portion of those two systems remains for 
 our children, a law reversed or a barrier broken do'wn. 
 
 "Where are the grosser corruptions of our Parliamentary re- 
 presentation ? Swept away one morning in a storm of cheers. 
 Yet it is not so long since Lord John EusseU attempted to sow 
 the first fragile seed of the Reform Bill, by proposing that 
 rotten boroughs should be purchased by the nation ; their 
 owners to receive compensation from an indebted country, for 
 the extinguished right of selling shares in what is supposed to 
 be the aggregate Voice of the People. It is not so long since the 
 same Minister of Liberty urged the claim of those great capitals 
 of mercantile interest, Manchester, Birmingham, and Leeds, 
 to be represented in the lower house, and urged that claim in 
 vain : since he complained of national apathy on the subject 
 which afterwards shook England to its centre ; and beheld 
 that great measure of Reform which, like the burden of 
 -Sisyphus, he had heaved up so often only to see it roll back 
 to its former position allowed at length to rest in the Eng- 
 lish Senate by favour of a majority of one. 
 
 These are changes, affecting political rights ; struggled for 
 by political men ; opposed or upheld by the whole mass of the 
 people : but there are others, affecting sections of the commu- 
 nity, in which an equal or even greater amount of alteration, 
 has been effected, and in which the value and power of indivi- 
 dual effort is more distinctly visible. Our Schools, our Prisons, 
 and our Mad-houses, are all under Government supervision. 
 Their occupants form classes set apart — by helplessness of age, 
 by error of conduct, and by the visitation of God — from those 
 that have free control of their destiny; and we point with pride 
 to the model regularity of system and of architecture which we 
 have recently introduced for the better management of their 
 interests. How was it before the change could be effected ? 
 How was it, first, with the most miserable of those classses, the 
 
insane? Obscure struggles, half measures, renewed efforts, 
 mark the progress from 1763 till, in the year 1788. Mason the 
 Poet wrote a pamphlet, finding bitter fault with the manage- 
 ment of the York Asylum. The tone of his pamphlet was 
 condemned. There is nothing society resents so much, as 
 having the duckweed on the still pond of its surface disturbed 
 by the under-current of struggling lives. Society did not want 
 to hear about such horrors ; society was of opinion they could 
 not be helped. Mr Mason was loudly blamed for his inter- 
 ference ; and he and his pamphlet were thrust aside. About 
 three years afterwards, the relatives of an insane Quaker being 
 discontented with the regulations of the same Asylum, renewed 
 the complaints Mason had made ; and followed them up with 
 considerable perseverance. Little was done, however, except 
 that the "Eetreat"atYork was established by the Quakers them- 
 selves. Every sort of obstacle was thrown in the way of public 
 inquiry. At length (with praiseworthy ingenuity), thirteen 
 gentlemen qualified as Governors of the York Asylum by pay- 
 ing twenty guineas each, for the express purpose of getting a 
 committee of the House of Commons appointed to examine 
 into this matter. They did get the Committee appointed ; the 
 expenses of most of the witnesses being paid by a subscription 
 raised among the ladies of York ; and thus began that inter- 
 ference with a monstrous evil, which is now a matter of regu- 
 lar government control. In the particular instance of the York 
 Asylum, the most horrible abuses were discovered. There 
 were but two servants to one hundred and twenty male 
 patients ; the funds had been misapplied ; the books and regis- 
 tries burned ; the grossest immorality practised; and in the re- 
 port of deaths, 144 out of 365 had been suppressed. As the 
 inquiry spread to other asylums, more and more horrors were 
 made known. When Mr Wakefield visited Bethlem, among 
 countless other instances of cruelty one man was found with 
 an iron ring round his neck, an iron bar round his waist, and 
 iron pinions on his arms, fastened to the wallj and this had 
 
10 
 
 endured twelve years at the pleasure of one of the keepers. 
 In the House of Correction at Kendal a man had been in soli- 
 tary confinement ten years, though he had intervals of sanity 
 of nine and ten months' duration. As to the condition of insane 
 women, it was one to shudder at, not to speak of. In private 
 mad-houses (in spite of an act passed in 1774*) matters were as 
 bad, or worse ; and one of the visiting physicians declared he 
 was ill with the atmosphere of their filth, " although accus- 
 tomed to the dissecting-room." At length, in 1816 a bill 
 passed the Commons (and was lost in the Lords) " for the 
 better Regulation of Mad-houses;" and gradually that came 
 to be a public and redressed wrong, which had been an ob- 
 scure grievance. 
 
 Of our prison discipline, much the same history may be told. 
 Long after Howard's time (who declared in 1773, that so 
 miserably ofi" were these kennelled suflferers, that " to rot in 
 jaU," was an exact and not a figurative expression, and that 
 more persons perished thus, than by public execution), our 
 prisons remained, for the most part, dens of corruption, disease 
 and torture. In 1804, Mr Neild, a magistrate of Aylesbury, 
 (Secretary to a Society for the relief and discharge of poor 
 Debtors), published, inthe" Gentleman's Magazine," observa- 
 tions on Chelmsford and Colchester Bridewells. He afterwards 
 published an account of aU the jails in this island; which he 
 had visited unauthorised and unaided, Government doing no- 
 thing to help him in his self-imposed task ; and obstacles having 
 been thrown in his way which would have wearied out any less 
 benevolent patience. From 1804 to 1812, he appears to have 
 been ceaseless in his endeavours to procure some amendment; 
 and though, when FoweU Buxton followed in 1818, and when 
 Mrs Fry devoted herself to the female prisoners of Newgate, 
 very little general improvement was perceptible; yet much 
 
 * Brought under the notice of Parliament ten years previously. 
 
11 
 
 was done in Neild's time to make progress almost certain, and 
 a retrograde movement impossible. The jail of Aylesbury 
 (with, which he was more immediately connected), and other 
 prisons, controlled in their management by men Hke himself, 
 became what it is the cant term of the day to call " Model 
 Prisons." The abuses of those he coidd not control, were 
 exposed by him. It became known that in the Borough 
 Compter prison the debtors lay upon boards; in filth, damp, 
 and discomfort; felons and debtors all huddled together; no 
 classification, no comfort, no decency. That in Ayr jail, the 
 prisoners lay on straw, till Mr NeUd supplied blankets from his 
 own private charity. That in Edinburgh jail, the same miseries 
 and even greater were endured ; no employment was per- 
 mitted ; and felons (with an enlightened regard for the state of 
 their souls) were absolutely excluded by rule,_/rom attendance 
 on divine service. In the privileged prison of Dover Castle, 
 when its warder was the great Miaister Lord Liver- 
 pool (who had been preceded by Mr Pitt), the prison- 
 fees were so enormous that prisoners might remain twenty 
 months in the Castle at the suit of the Crown, {oi sums totally 
 irrespective of the real debt for which they were incarcerated. 
 The prison was in a state of shameful dilapidation ; and a 
 Quaker gentleman gave 800?. in the three per cents, to pave 
 the courtyard of this royal jail, and make permanent provision 
 to aid the poorer debtors in obtaining their release. These 
 were merely samples of the condition of most of the prisons in 
 Great Britain. In FoweU Buxton's time the Borough Compter 
 was little altered; dirt, confusion, and misery; cold, sickness, 
 and gambling ; and twenty prisoners sleeping on eight straw 
 beds. This, again, a mere sample of the condition of other 
 jails. In Mrs Fry's time, Newgate, which was buUt to hold 
 480, held from 800 to 1200; no classification, no employment, 
 no instruction ; filth that sickened and turned the heart faint ; 
 instances of debtors actually starving in jail; the accused and 
 convicted, sick and well, abandoned women, and children 
 
12 
 
 young enough to be in the nursery, all huddled together ; 
 prisoners employed in gambling, and complaining that they 
 had nothing else to do. Idleness, contamination, riot, sick- 
 ness and blasphemy; no rest by night, and no peace by day; 
 only corruption, mental and physical, hourly leavening among 
 neglected swarms of feUow-creatures, with bodies to care for 
 and souls to be saved. 
 
 To the efforts, first of one earnest individual, and then of 
 another, must be attributed the attention slowly granted 
 by successive Governments to these great abuses ; until at 
 length the greater part of our prisons have become a triumph 
 and a show ; from the regulations of which it needs only that 
 some future NeUd should expunge the barbarous mistake of 
 prolonged solitary confinen;ent, to make them as perfect as 
 places of the kind can be. 
 
 To the efibrts of earnest individuals, must also be attributed 
 that control now exercised over the education of the poor. 
 Where was England in this respect fifty or sixty years since ? 
 In 1798, a Mr Lancaster opened a school in the Borough road, 
 which in seven years became a free school for one thousand 
 children. The expenses of Mr Lancaster's plan outran his 
 means ; and a Mr Joseph Fox gave biUs for 3,600^. to take the 
 school out of debt, risking this sum without any very clear 
 prospect of repayment, for the sake of the cause. Other gene- 
 rous and public-spirited men then came forward, and Mr Lan- 
 caster travelled through the country giving lectures and ex- 
 plaining his scheme. In consequence of those lectures, 
 forty five schools, educating 11,300 children were established; 
 in the year 1809, fifty schools, educating 14,200 children, 
 were organised; and at length, at a meeting held at the Free- 
 mason's Tavern on the 11th of May, 1811 — two Eoyal Prin- 
 ces (the Duke of York and the Duie of Sussex), moved and 
 seconded a resolution, that Mr Lancaster deserved the thanks 
 and support of all England, for that in four years he had been 
 the means of causing 25,000 children to be educated ; and 
 
13 
 
 Mr Francis Horner at the same meeting declared, that of the 
 7,000 children educated in Lancaster's own school in the 
 Borough road, not one had ever been charged in a court of 
 justice with any criminal offence. 
 
 With the great educational movement which afterwards took 
 place, and the endeavour to make the state in some degree 
 responsible for the training of the people, I^ord Bbougham's 
 name must for ever be nobly associated. With him (one of 
 the most scientifically educated men of his day), rested the task 
 of arguing away the absurd prejudice, that if the lower classes 
 were instructed, they would disdain to work; with him 
 rested the long struggle against the abuses of charitable trusts, 
 and bequests for educational purposes; the sacredness of which 
 was so little understood, that Lord Kenyon remarked of the 
 grammar schools, that " everything was neglected except the 
 receipt of salaries and emoluments ;" and Lord Eldon, that "all 
 over the Kingdom, charity estates were dealt with in a manner 
 amounting to the most direct hreach of Trust." There was no 
 such tranquil admission on all sides as exists to-day, that the 
 State is bound to watch over and secure to its poorer millions 
 the inestimable blessing of education. Lord Brougham was 
 flouted and opposed ; and in nothing did he encounter more 
 opposition or greuter odium, than in his attempt to prevent 
 this embezzlement of the property of the poor. With most 
 pertinacious energy he made himself their pioneer to knowledge; 
 and most assuredly, when the balance of usefulness is struck 
 in his dazzling and eccentric career, the triumph can never be 
 denied him of having been a main means of securing to future 
 generations of Englishmen, the first of life's blessings both in 
 date and degree; that early and orderly training which lifts a 
 toiling man above the level of a toiling brute ; which teaches 
 him to use the powers of his scftil in addition to the powers of 
 the body ; which makes slumber and food no longer the sole 
 refreshment of the intelligent artisan, and throws a light into 
 the labourer's cottage beyond the common light of day. 
 
 It is not because I undervalue the help thus given at a later 
 
14 
 
 stage of the cause, that I endeavoured to mark the moment 
 when national progress was set on foot by individual energy. 
 I know that when Lancaster's theory was made public, the 
 Duke of Bedford and Lord Somerville became eager sup- 
 porters of his scheme ; that the King and all the Royal Family 
 warmly assisted him (as they afterwards did his some-time 
 rival, Dr Bell) ; and that in process of time, the libera- 
 lity of the public became so general, that the Lancas- 
 trian schools seemed supported rather by the levying of 
 a national tribute, than by the payment of collected sub- 
 scriptions. But that which I insist upon, is the small 
 beginning from which these great results were evolved. Not 
 by national acclamation of an all-pervading plan, but by the 
 resolute and patient struggle of a private individual — that great 
 scheme of National Instruction was begun! When it appeared 
 likely to fail for want of funds, a private individual (Mr Joseph 
 
 *,In 17,87 — ^thatwhich Mr Lancaster achieved many years afterwards 
 for Englaud, was attempted for Ireland by Mr Thomas Sheridan, son 
 of Dr Sheridan (the friend of Swift), and the father of R. B. Sheridan. 
 Though not a scholar by profession — as Dr Sheridan was — he had great 
 classical attainments, and the degree of Master of Arts was conferred 
 on him both at Oxford and Cambridge. He wrote much on practical 
 education; the necessity of learning " common things ;" and the foUy 
 of confining instruction so much to the study of the dead languages. 
 He had long planned a National Establishment for Ireland ; funds for 
 which he believed might in the first instance be raised, by putting down 
 free schools where, from gradual abuse, no duty was done. When his 
 two sons, Charles and Eichard Brinsley, were in conspicuous public 
 situations — Charles as Secretary-of-War in Ireland, and the younger, 
 and more distinguished, in the zenith of his fame in England — ^Mr T. 
 Sheridan reckoned on obtaining the notice and support of Government 
 for his educational schemes, more especially as Mr Orde (Secretary to 
 the Duke of Rutland), took an eager interest in them. The death, how- 
 ever, ot the Duke, and the removal of Mr Orde, checked his projects ; 
 nor was it hkely he would at that time obtain much encouragement. 
 The then Ministry was far too busy with the intrigues of a divided Court 
 — ^the impeachment of the Governor-General of India— the payment of 
 the Crown Prince's debts— and the disputes whether Fox had or had 
 ■not mocked the English Senate with a deliberate falsehood, sealed with 
 that Prince's word, relative to the marriage with Mrs Ktzherbert — ^to 
 have time to spare for a sanguine Irishman's plans for educating hia 
 countrymen ; and in the ensuing year Mr Sheridan died. 
 
15 
 
 Fox), risked his 3,600/. to save it from evil chance. To him 
 joiued five other private gentlemen (Mr Jackson, Mr Allen, 
 Mr CoESTON, Mr Sturge, and Mr Foster), who subscribed 
 and obtained subscriptions "from others, and formed themselves 
 into a committee to manage Mr. Lancaster's affairs. When that 
 brilliant meeting of the 11th of May 1811, was held, it was 
 rather to applaud what had been achieved, than to rouse to 
 action : to congratulate on foregone victories ; and to obtain fresh 
 subsidies for the successful general who had carried on the 
 battle against ignorance with an army of volunteers. Before 
 those Royal Princes the Duke of Kent and Duke of Sussex, — 
 or the Chancellor of the Prince Regent,— or the Duke of Bed- 
 ford, Marquis of Lansdowne, Lord Keith, Francis Hor- 
 ner, and Henry Brougham, — proposed resolutions at the 
 Freemason's Tavern as '' Friends of the Royal Lancasterian 
 System for the Education of thfe Poor," — Mr Lancaster had 
 laboured in. his vocation /or thirteen years. When his school 
 was first opened in the Borough road, probably his very name 
 was unknown to most of these great personages, and many a 
 name, less notable and less remembered, had given substantial 
 aid to the cause, before they became its patrons. 
 
 And now let me ask, — is there any reason why attention 
 should not be called to the defective state of Laws for Women 
 in England, as attention has been called to other subjects; — 
 namely, by individual effort ? Is there any reason why (at- 
 tention being so called to the subject) Women alone, of the 
 more helpless classes, — the classes set apart as not having free 
 control of their own destinies, — shoidd be denied the protec- 
 tion which in other cases supplies and balances such absence 
 of free control? Are we to believe that the gentlemen of 
 Great Britain are so jealous of their privilege of irresponsible 
 power in this one respect, that they would rather know redress 
 impossible in cases which they themselves admit to be instances 
 of the grossest cruelty and baseness, than frame laws of control* 
 for themselves, such as they are willing to frame for others ? 
 
16 
 
 Will they eagerly restrict the labourer or mechanic from vio 
 lence and brutality in his wretched home, and yet, insist on 
 their own right of ill-usage as a luxury fairly belonging (like 
 the possibility of divorce) to the superior and wealthy classes ? 
 Is there, — in the disposition of those who are to legislate, — an 
 insurmountable barrier to fair legislation on this subject? and 
 if not, is there any reason why (to plead the cause of the in- 
 ferior sex as humbly as possible) the laws and enactments for 
 their protection should not undergo as much revision, with as 
 fair a chance of beneficial alteration, as the regulations affecting 
 the management of pauper children, — insane patients, — and 
 the tried and untried prisoners who occupy our gaols ? 
 
 I forget J I might plead yet more humbly; I might drop 
 yet one great step in the social scale, to find a more exact 
 parallel with the legal position of women in this country. 
 
 England has lately made a sort of ovation to an American 
 lady, whose graphic and "impassioned appeal on the anti- 
 slavery question, reached Europe in the guise of a romance; a 
 romance which has since been translated into most modern 
 languages, — so that "Uncle Tom's Cabin" has become every- 
 where a " household word." Had I been in England at the 
 time Mrs Beecher Stowe visited us, I too, would have con- 
 sidered it a privilege and joy to see one whose genius glorified 
 that solemn and gloomy argument, and sent it amongst us 
 clothed in light. I wish her success. I desire heartily for her 
 that her name may hereafter be remembered with a blessing, 
 among the names of those who were early labourers in a day 
 now dawning, that shall bring help to the helpless. I hold 
 her task to be a holy one, and slavery an accursed thing. 
 
 But,meanwhile,'it may not be uninteresting to those Ameri- 
 cans who are of a contrary opinion, and who have felt wounded 
 at the manner in which we have called across the Atlantic to 
 bid America renounce the error of her way, — to look back to 
 the time, — when so new and unwelcome was our conversion to 
 the creed of mercy, in our own colonies, that Lord Seaforth 
 
17 
 
 wrote home to Ministers in 1802, to say he had offended 
 the whole island of Barbadoes by endeavouring to persuade 
 them that the wilful murder of a slave should be made felony, 
 instead of being compounded for by a fine of 11/. 4s. The 
 time when Wilberforce was a struggling enthusiast in an 
 uncertain cause; when our King, Prince of Wales, and the 
 whole of the Royal Family (with the single exception of the 
 Duke of Gloucester), were opposed to the Abolition Bill; 
 when Pitt despaired of carrying that measure, and it was a hot 
 angry war among Englishmen whether it should pass or not. 
 A war which continued through years of debating and 
 pamphleteering, before the victory was won by our Abolitionists. 
 It may not be uninteresting to Americans to know, also, that 
 if they will examine the reports of our House of Commons, — • 
 after that struggle was fairly ended, and the new law had been 
 passed, — they will find the prototype of " Legree" in the 
 person of " Arthur Hodge, Esq., one of the Members of his 
 Majesty's Council for the Virgin Islands," — who, in the year 
 1811, was brought to trial and condemned for the murder of a 
 slave named Prosper on his estate in the island of Tortola, — '• 
 when his countless cruelties were exposed, in sworn depositions 
 preserved in those records. There, Americans may find the 
 original of Uncle Tom, in " Tom Boiler, a stout, hale, hearty 
 man," who, in the year 1807, was laid down and flogged without 
 intermission for more than an hour by order of HoDGE, and 
 being unable to rise after the fl.ogging, was carried to 
 the sick-house; lingered a few days; and then died. There, 
 they will find it computed that sixty of Hodge's slaves had 
 perished in three years from severity of punishment, and 
 not more than three, in that period, had died a natural death. 
 About a dozen of these wretched victims are named in the 
 affidavits reported to our house of Commons ; among whom are 
 women and children: one child of ten years old, named- 
 Tamsen, having been dipped (hy order) into a copper of boil- 
 ing liquor, and two of the women having had boiling watei* 
 
 c 
 
18 
 
 poured- down their throats. Yet when this subject of King. 
 George of England was tried, it was pleaded for him in open, 
 court that a negro being property, it was no greater offence, 
 i;i law for his owner to kill him than to kill a dog : the jury,, 
 though they returned a verdict of "guilty," by a majority, 
 of their number, recommended Hodge to mercy: a,nd Gover-. 
 nor Elliott wrote home in his despatches, that he was obliged to 
 be present, as Commander-in-chief, — to call out the militia, — r 
 and to proclaim martial law, — in order to secure the exe-. 
 cution of the sentence. It is a remarkable additional, fact, 
 and shows the state of feeling at thafc time, that although these 
 and a thousand other horrors were perfectly well known, 
 Arthtjk Hodge, Esq., was well received, in the society of 
 the island,, and retained his rank as *' one of the Members of 
 his Majesty^s Council" up to the day of his arrest, 
 
 Bijt these are things of the past : horrible shadows,, remem- 
 bered like bad dreams: events that never can occur again 
 where England's law has sway. For England is just and mer- 
 oiful; and if she is also a little proud and preaching, it is no 
 more than all converts to, good causes are apt to be, in the- 
 fresh earnestness of their desire that truths lately brought 
 Ijpme to themselves, should be brought home to others ;^ 
 and if she finds fault with the laws, that permit oppression in 
 the code of other countries, it is that she has no l^w which- 
 permits oppression in her own. 
 
 I beg the attention of both my, American and , English; reader^ 
 to a case 1 find copied, from, a report in a " Cincinnati Gazette," 
 into the columns of our own " Times" newspaper, in the month 
 of November, 1853. It was a case tried in the Covington Cir- 
 cuit Court; and, by the report it appears, that a, slave named; 
 Sam Norris, belonging to a Mr J. N. Pattpn, of Yirginia^ 
 had been permitted to work in Covington, on condition of 
 paying each year a certain sum to his master; which sum was 
 accordingly paid: that two years ago, Mr Pattpn proposed 
 that the. slave should purchase his freed.om by the payment of 
 
19 
 
 a certain additional sum, wbich sum was nearly paid up when 
 Mr Patton changed his mind, rescinded the contract, and 
 claimed Sam Norrls as his slave. The case was argued with 
 much ^ility; but at the close of the argument the judge 
 decided for Mr Patton against Sam Norris, on this principle, 
 that by the law of Kentucky, " a slave cannot make a contract, 
 nor can he have monies of his own." The contract, therefore, 
 was null and void ; and the money, though received and ex- 
 pended by the master, could not be held legally to have been' 
 paid. The report concludes with this consolatory admission, 
 that the Hon. Judge Pryor, before whom the case was tried, 
 " characterised it as one of great hardship and cruelty; and 
 every one in the court-room seemed to sympathise deeply with 
 the poor negro." In that sympathy I most truly share; but> 
 the case has besides a peculiar interest for me, — inasmuch as 
 I find, in the slave law of Kentucky, an exact parallel of the 
 law of England for its married women ; and in this passage in 
 the life of the poor slave Sam Noiris, an exact counterpart of 
 what has lately occurred in my own. 
 
 I, too, had a contract. My husband being desirous to raise 
 money settled on me and my sons, to employ on his separate 
 estate, and requiring my consent in writing before that could 
 be done, gave me in exchange for such consent a wmtten con- 
 tract drawn up by a lawyer, and signed by that lawyer and 
 himself. When he had obtained and employed the money he 
 was desirous to raise, like Mr Patton of Virginia he resolved 
 to "rescind the contract." When I, like the slave Norris, 
 endeavoured to struggle against this gross breach of faith, — I 
 was informed that by the law of England, " a married woman 
 could not make a contract, or have monies of her own." When 
 I complained of it, — I was punished by a flood of libellous ac- 
 cusations, published in all the English newspapers;- libels for 
 which, though ^r-owerf falsehoods, I could obtain no redress^ 
 because they were published by my husband. The circum- 
 stance that Mr Norton, like Mr Patton, had obtained all the 
 
 c 2 
 
20 
 
 advantage he sought when he went through the formality and 
 pretence of making a contract with me, made no difference ; 
 and as to money, even that which I earned by literature was 
 subject to the claim of my husband, as the manual labour of the 
 slave was subject to the claim of his master,— because a married 
 woman is, by the code of England (as Sam Norris by the code 
 of Kentucky), non-existent in law. It is fit that I should add, in 
 behalf of English hearts and English love of justice, that when 
 I stood, with that vain contract in my hand, in the Westmin- 
 ster County Court (I, an intelligent educated woman, grand- 
 daughter of a man sufficiently distinguished to have obtained 
 sepulture in Westminster Abbey, hard by), and when the law 
 was shown to be, for me, what it is for the slave in Kentucky, 
 there was, in the court-room of the Westminster County Court, 
 as there was in the court-room of the Covington Circuit Court, 
 evidence of strong sympathy. My case — which opened up a 
 history of wrong, treachery, libel, and injustice endured for 
 years without redress — was evidently considered like that of 
 Norris, to be " one of great hardship and cruelty," and the con- 
 cluding words with which Mr Norton vehemently attempted 
 to address the court, were drowned in the groans and hooting 
 of an excited crowd. But sympathy could do no more for me 
 than for Mr Pat'ton's slave. It could not force open for me the 
 iron gates of the Law which barred out justice. It could not 
 prevent libel, and torment, and fraud; the ripping up of old 
 wounds, or the infliction of new. The Law alone could do 
 that, if fit laws of protection existed for women. That they 
 do not exist, is my complaint. 
 
 That they do not exist, might point a scornful answer from 
 nations we imperiously lecture on the internal economy of 
 their own governments. We have rebuked America, taunted 
 Naples, complained of Sweden, remonstrated with Tuscany, 
 condemned Portugal, and positively shuddered at Austria (in 
 the person of Haynau), because slavery in the one, the treat- 
 ment of political prisoners in another, religious intolerance in a 
 
21 
 
 third, and, above all, the treatment of women in the last, 
 offends our very souls. Is England then incapable of any but a 
 BoEKiOBOOLA mission? Is she for ever to prefer making a sort 
 of " Sterne's Sentimental Journey " into other countries, to 
 fulfilling her duties at home? The foreigners we are so fond 
 of reproving, see with disgust and abhorrence our own method 
 of dealing with certain laws. To them, our mercantile and 
 uncertain speculation of " damages," — the wonderful indecency 
 of our divorce trials, — the incredible fact that the woman accused 
 is allowed no direct defence, and cannot appear by counsel on 
 such occasions — the loth and reluctant admission (and that of 
 very recent date) of the right of a mother to her infant children, 
 — are alike odious and incomprehensible. I will venture to 
 say that in no country in Europe, is there, in fact, so little pro- 
 tection of women as in England. England the fault-finder; 
 England the universal lecturer; England — where to add to the 
 absurd anomaly of this state of things, the Salique law is con- 
 sidered a barbarism, and offence against a female Sovereign is 
 treason. The contrast between that which we permit, and that 
 which we disallow, borders almost on the burlesque. If Mr 
 Norton, a magistrate and member of the aristocracy, had 
 cheated at a game of cards played by a few idlers in one of the 
 clubs of London, all England would have been in a ferment. 
 Accusers would have risen; friends would have hung their 
 heads; and for the sake of some dandy's purse, the invocation 
 to justice would have been made in such a stern universal shout, 
 as would have sent an echo all through Europe. Or if I, while 
 visiting foreign lands, had invested myself with the dignity of 
 a self-appointed messenger of God; if I had broken down the 
 fence that guards other men's consciences, and trespassed there 
 to sow what I considered " the good seed;" if I had forced on 
 reluctant Koman Catholics, tracts of instruction in my own 
 form of faith, and had been arrested for that trespass, — then 
 indeed, I might hope to attract the attention of the Government 
 of my own country, and my case might be warmly advocated at 
 
22 
 
 some such meeting as stood advertised in tlie English newspapers 
 for Nov. 29, 1853, headed. " Persecuting Laws in Portugal, 
 Tuscany, and Malta; the Earl of Shaftesbury in the chair." 
 But in the English laws which wreck a woman's whole destiny ; 
 in the law which permits the most indecent and atrocious libel 
 against her, without a chance of legal defence, — in the law which 
 countenances and upholds far worse than cheating at cards, 
 and renders null and void a contract signed by a magistrate, 
 because that contract was made with his wife, — in the law which 
 gives a woman's earnings even by literary copyright, to her 
 husband,— in the whole framework, in short, of those laws by 
 which her existence is merged in the existence of another (let 
 what will be the circumstances of her case) ; and by which Justice 
 in fact divests herself of all control and responsibility in the 
 matter — England sees nothing worthy of remark. 
 
 With what a scornful retort might the nations we undertake 
 to lecture, answer our busy-body meddling ! " Protect your own 
 women. Look at home for instances of tyranny, persecution, 
 and unavailing appeals for justice. Do not trouble yourselves 
 yet, about the denial of social rights to slaves, or those laws of 
 Kentucky which seem in such harmony with your own; do 
 not even pretend to shudder at the disgraceful chastisement 
 inflicted on Austrian women, for what in their land is treason. 
 Come to us when your magistrates do not make a profit of the 
 law they administer; when your aristocracy are not guilty of 
 violence and brutality to their wives, which they excuse by 
 libels in your gazettes; when the daughters of your statesmen 
 do not stand in your courts of law, ignobly baited for asserting 
 just claims. That such things should occur, in your vain- 
 glorious land, may be only a private and individual wrong; 
 but that such things should occur, with impunity, — ^uncontrolled 
 and unpunished by law, — is no longer a private wrong, but a 
 national disgrace." 
 
 I shall now give a narrative of my own case, as an example 
 of what can be done under the English law of 1853. If the 
 
23 
 
 ^utlioation fail to draw any permanent attention to the law 
 itself, at least it will remain a curious record of injustice, in a 
 country especially boastful of its liberal and magnanimous enact- 
 ments. If the record appear unimportant as the mere history 
 of a woman's wrongs, it may have interest as involving a 
 passage in the life of one of England's Prime Ministers. 
 
 I have endeavoured to make the narrative as clear as possible, 
 by dividing into three outlines, — 1 st, the strange mutual position 
 of Mr Norton and myself with respect to money matters, both 
 before and after our Separation, — 2dly, the treatment I received 
 as a wife ; taken from the papers submitted at the time to lawyers 
 employed for me — and, — 3dly, Lord Melbourne's opinion of the 
 affairs in which his name was involved ; copied word for word 
 from his own letters. I have had that, and all other correspon- 
 dence, printed in Italics ; that the interruptions may be more - 
 distinct, and that such persons as are already familiar with some 
 of the letters, may omit them at pleasure and continue the nar- 
 rative. I have taken counsel of no one ; and no one is responsible 
 for the mention of names, or of the part taken by friends in these 
 miserable affairs. If any see cause to regret what I have done, 
 let them blame the Law. This pamphlet addresses itself, not 
 to private sympathy, but to English justice: it is an attempt (, 
 to argue the reform which ought to be, from the abuse that 
 has been : — a complaint of the exercise of irresponsible power^ 
 to the source of power : — an appeal from The Law, as it stands, 
 to the Legislature which frames and alters laws. 
 
 I begin by an explanation of our mutual position as to money- 
 matters; because Mr Norton has brought our disputes to a crisis 
 on a pecuniary claim; because he has falsified the whole 
 history of those matters ; and because, from the first, our posi- 
 tion in this respect was extraordinary and anomalous; inas- 
 much as instead of Mr Norton being, either by the exercise of 
 his profession or patrimonial property, what Germans call the 
 
24 
 
 -" Breddfinder" it was on my literary taleiits and the interest 
 of my family, that our support almost entirely depended, while 
 I still had a home. 
 
 Mr Norton has lately spoken (in the fabulous histories he 
 has given to the public through the medium of the newspapers) 
 of the profound and patient attachment he entertained for me 
 previous to our union. I do most solemnly declare that at the 
 time he first demanded me of my mother in marriage, I had not 
 exchanged six sentences with him on any subject whatever. 
 Mr Norton was brother to Lord Grantley; and the governess 
 to whose care I was confided, happening to be sister to Lord 
 Grantley's agent, the female members of the Norton family, 
 from courtesy t'o this lady, invited her and such of her pupils 
 as she chose to accompany her, to Lord Grantley's house. 
 A sister of Mr. Norton's, an eccentric person who afiected 
 masculine habits and played a little on the violin, amused 
 herself with my early verses and my love of music, and 
 took more notice of me than of my companions. The 
 occasions on which I saw this lady were not frequent; 
 and still more rare were the occasions on which I had 
 also seen her brother; it was therefore with a feeling of 
 mere astonishment, that I received from my governess the 
 intelligence that she thought it right to refuse me the indul- 
 gence of accompanying her again to Lord Grantley's till she 
 had heard from my mother; as Mr Norton had professed his 
 intention of asking me in marriage. This lady is still living, 
 and can answer for the exact truth of my statement. 
 
 Almost the first step Mr Norton took, after he had 
 made my mother's acquaintance, was to beg her interest 
 with a .member of the royal family, whose good word 
 with the Chancellor Eldon was to procure him a small legal 
 appointment; and from the day we were married, he never 
 ceased impressing upon me, that as I brought him no present 
 fortune (my portion being only payable on my mother's death), 
 I was bound to use every effort with the political friends of my 
 
25 
 
 grandfather, to get him lucrative promotion in his profession. 
 I found this more difScult than I expected. The memory of 
 Mr Sheridan among the Whig party, was not held in that 
 affection which in my inexperience I had fancied; and if it 
 had been, I do not know that it would have been a sufficient 
 plea for serving Mr Norton, who could put forward no personal 
 claims for employment. I did, however, what my husband re^ 
 quested. I besieged, with variously worded letters of impor- 
 tunity, the friends whom I knew as the great names linked with 
 the career of my grandfather ; and while waiting the result of 
 the petitions I had sown on so wide a field, I turned my literary 
 ability to account,, by selling the copyright of my first poem to 
 Messrs. Ebers of Bond street. It is not without a certain 
 degree of romantic pride that I look back, and know, that the 
 first expenses of my son's life were defrayed from the price of 
 that first creation of my brain ; and before that child was two • 
 years old, I had procured for my husband, — (for the husband 
 who has lately overwhelmed me, my sons, and his dead patron 
 with slander, rather than yield a miserable annuity) — a place 
 ■worth a thousand a year ; the arduous duty of which 
 consisted in attending three days in the week, for five hours, to 
 hear causes tried in the simplest forms of law. From that 
 day to the present, my husband has always considered that 
 I ought to assist him — instead of his supporting we. The 
 dcpendance upon my literary efforts for all extra resources, runs, 
 as a matter of course, through all the letters 1 received from 
 him during our union. The names of my publishers occur as 
 if they were Mr Norton's bankers. If Murray of Albemarle 
 street will not accept a poem, — if Bull of Holies street does 
 not continue a magazine, — if Heath does not offer the 
 editorship of an Annual, — if Saunders and Otley do not buy 
 the MS. of a novel, — if Colburn's agreement is not satis- 
 factory and sufficient, — if Power delays payment for a set 
 of ballads, — if, in short, the wife has no earnings to produce, 
 the HUSBAND professes himself to be " quite at a loss to. know" 
 
26 
 
 how the next difficulty of payment is to be got over. On one 
 occasion, when I had been employed to write words to Spanish 
 music, by an officer of some distinction, and was extremely 
 loth to express to this gentleman the opinion Mr Norton 
 wished conveyed to him, — namely, that payment was too long 
 •delayed, — Mr Norton himself undertook the task of dunning 
 faim, for the stijJukted sum by which he was to profit. I 
 ■worked hard, and was proud of my success. I brought to my 
 many tasks all the energy which youth, high spirits, ambition, 
 good health, and the triumph of usefulness could inspire ; joined 
 to a wish for literary fame, so eager, that I sometimes look back 
 and wonder if I was punished for it, by unenviable and addi- 
 tional notoiietyi. 
 
 I believe that foreigaesfs,— and even our own mercantile 
 classes,— have little idea of the very narrow provision 
 which the iisual "Eight of the Eldest Son" leaves for the 
 younger members ^i noble English houses. The rule is ex- 
 cellent, as a means of perpetuating a powerful and wealthy 
 Aristocracy; the chief never being impoverished by that per- 
 petual subdivision which takes place in other countries. But 
 one result is, that the younger brothers and sons of Peers, 
 (the habits of -whose childhood and youth naturally were to 
 enjoy an equality of luxury with the Heir,) are often embar- 
 rassed by the slenderness of their means : and this was our 
 case. Luckily for me, light serial literature was the express 
 fashion of the day. Nor did the greatest authors we had, dis- 
 dain to contribute their share to the ephemeral "Annuals" and 
 Periodicals, which formed the staple commodity of the book- 
 sellers at that time. 
 
 I rejoiced then, at finding, — woman though I was, — a career 
 in which / could earn that which my husband's profession had 
 never brought him. Out of our stormy quarrels I rose undis- 
 couraged, and worked again to help him and forward the inte- 
 rests of my children. I have sat up all night, — even at times 
 when I have had a young infant to nurse, — to finish tasks for 
 
27 
 
 some publisher. I made in one year a sum of 1,400/. by my 
 pen; and I have a letter from Mr Norton's own brother, prov- 
 ing that even when we were on terms of estrangement, I still 
 provided, without grudging, money that was to be spent on 
 his pleasures. 
 
 As time went on, Mr Norton, still unsatisfied, urged upon 
 me the task of obtaining for him, something more valuable than 
 his magistracy, and of which the duties should be more agree- 
 able. The petitioning recommenced; Lord Lyndhurst became 
 Chancellor, and the hope of a legal appointment was again in- 
 dulged. Nothing, however, was yet obtained; when a woman, 
 to whose interference about my children our final quarrel was 
 owing, began to rule entirely in my home. She has since left 
 Mr Norton two thousand a year; and he openly entreated my 
 patience with her, on account of her money. Lord Melbourne, 
 for whose interest we had again applied, showed great reluc- 
 tance to use it on Mr Norton's behalf; and had already ex- 
 pressed, in no measured terms, his regret at having made the 
 former appointment. Undaunted by this fact, Mr Norton 
 merely observed that if Lord Melbourne would not obtain a 
 place, he could privately oblige him ; and he applied accord- 
 ingly to the patron he has lately reviled, for the loan of 1,500/. 
 
 Mr Norton considered that this loan was declined. Lord Mel- 
 bourne told me that he merely demurred, as he doubted whether 
 in reality it would be a loan. The condition of our aifairs was 
 not exactly known to me until that time ; though the irritation 
 arising fiwrn non-success was visited upon me. One of the 
 bitter quarrels which blighted our home arose. Its record 
 will be found with others; the present outline being confined 
 to pecuniary matters. After that quarrel was made up, and I 
 had returned to Mr Norton, he entered more fully upon a state- 
 ment of his afiairs ; urging upon me most strenuously, to endea- 
 vour, as I had done before, to assist him, either by getting a more 
 lucrative appointment or a loan of money. I expressed my asto- 
 nishment that his own patrimonial resources never seemed to 
 
28 
 
 yield us anything ; and received the information that there were 
 no proceeds forthcoming from the hereditary estates. I doubted 
 the correctness of this assertion; but wrote the very unwelcome 
 intelligence, both to my mother and to one of the trustees of my 
 marriage settlement. From my mother I received a letter con- 
 taining the following passage : — 
 
 " Hampton Court Palace. 
 " Nothing could be more painful and surprising to me, than 
 your statement of Norton's money-affairs. Had not D. K. 
 vouched for the respectability of Mr P., and consequently 
 for the fidelity of his statement of the property destined for the 
 younga- brothers and sisters of Lord Grantley, I never should 
 have suffered you to marry N. He ( Mr P) distinctly stated that 
 property to be land, to the value of 30,000/., and if I get his 
 direction from you, I will expostulate with him on the monstrous 
 untruth then advanced; which may perhaps induce him, in his 
 ovm vindication, to show how you have been cheated; which it is 
 evident you have been. If Charles and James Norton join you, 
 this affair might be cleared g, little, and it is a manifest duty that 
 you should exert yourself, for your poor children." 
 
 Exert myself, God knows I did; both to understand, and 
 
 to avert, the mismanagement (or worse) that was taking place. 
 
 The letter I addressed to my trustee, produced the following 
 
 reply. 
 
 " Zlst August, m^5. 
 
 " As I was on the point of leaving London, Norton applied 
 to me for my consent to raise a portion of the trust fund 
 and to place the principal at his disposal. I told him I 
 could do nothing of this kind without legal advice, and 1 could 
 ffive no consent without the previous sanction of my solicitors. 
 'About a fortnight ago he applied to me to sign an order on 
 Coutts and Co. with reference to this same trust fund. I re- 
 turned it unexecuted, to await the sanction of those in whose legal 
 advice I could confide. . Your statement of the present circum- 
 
29 
 
 stances of the case, proves the precaution to have been necessary. \ 
 As relates to Norton's power of raising money, he is clearly re- \ 
 strained by the terms of his own marriage settlement ; and no 
 personal debts of his, incurred subsequently to that settlement, can 
 defeat rights which were vested by it ; in other words, his CHii,- 
 DEEN have a better claim than his creditoi'-s to the principal sum \ 
 secured under his marriage settlement." 
 
 I beg attention to the date of these letters; which were 
 written but six months before our final separation, followed by 
 the trial, attributed by Lord Melbourne (as will be seen in his 
 correspondence) to another pecuniary endeavour on Mr ' 
 Norton's part. I was already the mother of three children ; 
 and it must be confessed that our prospects were rendered dis- 
 couraging by the extreme reluctance of powerful friends to do 
 anything more for Mr Norton ; and by the total and scornful 
 alienation from him of all the male members of my family. I 
 explained our position very fully to one of the kindest friends 
 I had, — the Right Honourable Edward Ellicej and he drew 
 out a paper of conditions, in which it was expressly Stipulated 
 that, if the difficulties in which Mr Norton found himself could 
 be lightened, and any arrangement come to, our current income 
 in future, and the whole management of our affairs, should be 
 left in my hands; a stipulation significant enough as to Mr 
 Norton's conduct in money-matters. 
 
 Our separation took place a few months after these discus- 
 sions. Mr Norton did not at first speculate on divorcing me; he 
 notified to me that my family might support me, or that I might 
 write for my bread; and that my children were by law at his sole 
 disposal. Colonel Leicester Stanhope (now Earl of Harrington), 
 who was commissioned, as a mutual friend, to announce this 
 determination, appended to it the following comment: — 
 " N's proposal about your income is too bad, too shabby, too 
 mean, too base ; he grafts you on your brother." And the 
 trustee I had previously consulted, observed : — " The pr<y)osi- 
 
30 
 
 tions {which I retwrn) are no less absurd, than conten^tible ; 
 and you could not hesitate one instant in rejecting them. They 
 must think you have lost your brains, when they call on you to 
 subsist by them, if they think you are fool enough to be gulled or 
 bullied into such terms." Mr Norton, however, soon proved 
 what measures are. atan English husband's disposal, whose wife; 
 demurs to any terms he chooses to impose. Those who. saw 
 their own advantage in our quarrel, advised him to make Lord 
 Melbourne an object of attack; and under our mercantile law 
 of "Damages," Mr Norton saw his advantage in adopting the- 
 suggestion... Lord Erskine; in one of his divorce cases, had 
 obtained a verdict of 7000/. ; (a sum which, in that particular 
 case, waS) said to involve the whole fortune of the defendant) 
 and Sir W. FoUetfr did his, best to emulate Lord Erskine, in: 
 urging this main, object on the jury. He repeated in every; 
 form, his argument for aggravated compensation to his client,. 
 Sometimes he put it as a simple and; inevitable legai result, — 
 "■Ifyouiare satisfied {as satisfied. J think you must be, of the' 
 facts stated), it remains for you to consider what DAMAGES you. 
 will give." Sometimes with a skilful and' business-like allusiom 
 to the wealth which made a large sum- a natural and proper.' 
 award,- — " Of course," he says. Of course, the position of the 
 parties in this, case, the rank of one of the parties, and the mode 
 in which they lived- being considered, it is for you. Gentlemen,, 
 under all circumstances, to say what may appear to you a proper- 
 amount of DAMAGES." Sometimes, as an evidence of the 
 wrong sustained, and the degree of that wrong, — -" TTie amount- 
 of DAMAGES, — though not as a personal compensation, — must 
 be considered in the result"' Sometimes, as an appeal to the 
 passions and sympaAies of the jurymen; saying of Lord- 
 Melbourne, — " His rank is an aggravation — his age is aw 
 aggravation— rand the hollow pretence of his being a friend of 
 the plaintiff, is a still greater aggravation. . . . It is then for' 
 you to say what DAMAGES you will yive." Sometimes, with a 
 sort of admonition to the jury to prove their own strictness of 
 
31 
 
 principle, by the amount of the penalty enforced, — " 1 call upon 
 you to. mark by your verdict, — in the. only way in which the law. 
 allows, — your sense of the conduct of the defendant." Nothing 
 ■was omitted to be urged that could be urged, on this point; and 
 no doubt,: — if the accusation had been believed, — very heavy 
 damages would have been; awarded; buj; the jury pronounced 
 against Mr Norton, without even retiring to discuss their ver- 
 dict, and the speculation failed; both as regarded political. and 
 pecuniary interests. • 
 
 When the woman died, to whom my children had been sent, 
 Mr Norton proposed to me to " forgive" the publia trial, and 
 return to him. After that, he proposed we should submit to 
 referees; to whom he gave a written promise that he would 
 abide by their decisions, and then reftised to, be bound. 
 Then he, advertised me as a, run-away in the. public papers; 
 and he has, I believe, the unenviable distinction of being the 
 only English gentleman who ever resorted to such an.expedient;; 
 on which even my solicitor remarked,: . " There are few men in 
 Mr Norton's rank of life, or in stations much under it, who will 
 not know what to think of the measure" For two years I re^. 
 tnained without one farthing of support from the husband who 
 had owed to me the greater portion of his income. He then 
 made what compulsory allowance he pleased; till in the year 
 1848, being desirous of employing the trust-fund settled on 
 me and my children, in improving the estate left him by the 
 woman to whom he first sacrificed us, he entered, into the 
 written contract with me, to which I have already alluded. 
 The history of the breach of that contract will be found in my 
 general narration, and I here close that portion which, relates 
 exclusively topecuniary affairs. 
 
 The treatment I received as a Wife, would be incredible if, 
 fortunately (or unfortunately), there were not witnesses who 
 can prove it on oath. We had been married but a few weeks 
 
32 
 
 when I found tliat part of my lot was that which generally 
 belongs to a lower sphere — and that, when angry, Mr Norton 
 resorted to personal violence. 
 
 After our honeymoon, we lived for a short time in chambers 
 Mr Norton had occupied as a bachelor, in Garden Court, 
 Temple; and, on the first occasion of dispute, after some high 
 and violent words, he flung the ink-stand, and most of the law- 
 books, which might have served a better purpose, at the head 
 of his bride. We had no servants there, but an old woman, 
 who had taken care of these chambers for some years, and 
 who offered me the acceptable consolation, that her master was 
 not " sober," — and would regret it " by-and-bye." 
 
 After this happy beginning, I accompanied my husband to 
 Scotland. We had been married about two months, when, 
 one evening, after we had all withdrawn to our apart- 
 ments, we were discussing some opinion he had expressed ; I 
 said (very uncivilly), that "I thought I had never heard so silly 
 or ridiculous a conclusion." This remark was punished by a 
 sudden and violent kick ; the blow reached my side ; it caused 
 great pain for many days, and being afraid to remain with 
 him, I sat up the whole night in another apartment. 
 
 Four or five months afterwards, when we were settled in Lon- 
 don, we had xeturned home from a ball; I had then no 
 personal dispute with Mr Norton, but he indulged in bitter 
 and coarse remarks respecting a young relative of mine, who, 
 though married, continued to dance, — a practice, Mr Norton 
 said, no husband ought to permit. I defended the lady spoken 
 of, and then stood silently looking out of the window at the 
 quiet light of dawn, by way of contrast. Mr Norton desired 
 I would " cease my contemplations," and retire to rest, as he 
 had already done; and this mandate producing no result, he 
 suddenly sprang from the bed, seized me by the nape of the 
 neck, and dashed me down on the floor. The sound of my 
 fall awakened my sister and brother-in-law, who slept in a room 
 below, and they ran up to my door. Mr Norton locked it, and 
 
33 
 
 stood over me, declaring no one should enter. I could not 
 speak, — I only moaned. My brother-in-law burst the door 
 open, and carried me down stairs. I had a swelling on my 
 head for many days afterwards, and the shock made my sister 
 exceedingly ill. 
 
 On another occasion, when I was writing to my mother, Mr 
 Norton (who was sipping spirits and water, while he smoked his 
 cigar) said he was sure '* from the expression of my counten- 
 ance," that I was " complaining." I answered, that " I seldom 
 could do anything else." Irritated by the reply, Mr Norton 
 said I should not write at all, and tore the letter up. I took 
 another sheet of paper, and recommenced. After watching and 
 smoking for a few minutes, he rose, took one of the allumettes 
 I had placed for his cigar, lit it, poured some of the spirits that 
 stood by him over my writing book, and, in a moment, set the 
 whole in a blaze. But Mr Norton vouchsafed no other notice 
 of my alarm, than that it would "teach me not to brave him." 
 
 On another occasion, some time before the birth of my 
 youngest son, I being at breakfast, and my eldest child playing 
 about the room, Mr Norton entered; he desired me to rise 
 and leave the place I was sitting in, as it faced the park, and 
 it amused him to see the people pass by. I demurred, and said 
 1 was not well, and that he should have come down 
 earlier if he had any fancy or choice about places. We had 
 no other word of dispute. Mr Norton then deliberately took 
 the tea-kettle, and set it down upon my hand; I started up 
 from the pain, and was both burnt and scalded. I ran up to 
 the nursery, and the nurse got the surgeon, who lived next door, 
 to come in and dress my hand, which remained bound up and 
 useless for days. When this was over, I enquired where Mr 
 Norton was? and received for reply, that after I had been 
 hurt, he had simply desired the servant to " brush the crumbs 
 away," in the place he had desired me to yield ; had then sat 
 down there and breakfasted ; and had since gone out — without 
 one word of apology or enquiry. 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 About the same period, a dispute having arisen after dinner, 
 I said I really was weary of my life with the perpetual wran- 
 glings; that I had a great deal to do, and would sit no longer 
 with him, but go to the drawing-room and write for a Perio- 
 dical, of which I then had the editorship; that I only asked 
 him to Stay where he was, and smoke there, instead of upstairs. 
 He answered that the house was his, — not mine; — that he 
 should sit in what room he pleased ; and that I should find I 
 could not carry things with such a high hand as I desired to 
 do. I left him ; called my maid, desired her to bring her 
 work and remain in the room, as I did not feel well, and, lock- 
 ing the door of the drawing-room for further security, prepared 
 to write. Mr Norton came and demanded admittance. I 
 refused, and said I was undressing. After repeating his de- 
 mand, and saying, if the door was not instantly opened he 
 ■would break it open, he was as good as his word. He forced 
 in the door, forcing away the framework with it, and rushed 
 forward. He stopped short on seeing my maid, and desired 
 her instantly to leave the room. I said she must stay, for I 
 was afraid of being left alone with him. Mr Norton then gave 
 Way to the most frantic rage, blew out the candles, flung the 
 furniture about, and seized my maid to turn her out of the 
 room by force. I clung to her, and being extremely frightened, 
 and naturally at that time less strong than usual, I became 
 very faint, and some of the other servants entering, Mr Norton 
 desisted. He then lighted a taper, examined the door, asked 
 where the carpenter lived, and left the room. I thought the 
 worst was over; but I was mistaken. Mr Norton returned 
 almost immediately, and seizing me, forced me out of the room 
 and down on the stairs, I really feared for my life; I shrieked 
 for help, and said I was sure Mr Norton was "gone mad." 
 The man-servant held back his arm while he was struggling 
 with the maid, who was terrified to death, — and at length, 
 assisted by the servants, I retired once again to the nursery, 
 and slept with the nurse ; leaving Mr Norton master of the 
 
35 
 
 room he had broken into, and my literary tasks and the furniture 
 scattered over the ground. 
 
 I intended to have left my home in the morning : but when 
 morning oame, I was too ill. I saw no more of Mr Norton till 
 the evening of that day. I was sitting with my two little chil- 
 dren in the same room. He did not speak to me, — he spoke 
 to one of the children and went away again. I had written to 
 my brother to state all that had occurred. I said that for the 
 sake of those children and the one unborn, I should be loth to 
 part from my husband ; that I bore him no ill-will, but that 
 unless he would undertake to be " gentlemanlike" in his con- 
 duct towards me, I must leave him. My brother forwarded a 
 copy of my statement to my husband, — told him there could 
 be but one opinion of his cruel and violent assault, and that 
 unless he received, within twenty-four hours, a written expres- 
 sion of contrition and promises for the future, he would expose 
 Mr Norton. To that letter I owe the miserable satisfaction of 
 holding, under Mr Norton's own hand-writing, proof of every 
 circumstance of this scene; for he undertook to justify himself 
 to my brother ; he admitted all the facts ; he admitted that I 
 had withdrawn to write for my publishers, and had told him 
 so, but said he broke open the door "on principle; thinking 
 it necessary, as a husband, to resist such extravagant and dis- 
 respectful proceedings" as locking him out of any room in the 
 house. That he blew out the candles to prevent my maid 
 remaining and working in the apartment ; and that I had not 
 seemed at all angry when I left him in the dining-room. 
 Eecently, Mr Norton has spoken of this scene in one of his 
 letters to the 'Times' newspaper, as a '■^frivolous quarrel." 
 I leave to others to determine what the notions of general con- 
 duct towards a woman were likely to be, in the person whose 
 ideas of "frivolous" disputes are thus exemplified. My 
 brother's interference availed, however, for that time. Mr. 
 Norton apologised, adjured me to pardon him, and wrote 
 triumphantly to my brother to say that we " were all right 
 
 D 2 
 
36 
 
 again," and that lie hoped my brother also would " forget and 
 forgive." 
 
 On occasions that really were " frivolous," he was not less 
 tyrannical. His sister came to stay with us for three or four 
 months, in London; and he notified to me that I should go 
 nowhere unless she was invited with us. I pleaded that her 
 eccentricities prevented my friends from inviting her; that she 
 dressed differently to other ladies; wearing a sort of Bloomer 
 costume, a short dress with trowsers, and her hair cropped 
 like a man's; and altogether affected masculine singularities, 
 which astonished and repelled persons who had the usual habits 
 of society. Mr. Norton, however, held firm to his determination, 
 and declared he would sooner " cut the traces of the carriage" 
 than allow me to go without her. 
 
 The year after the scene of breaking open the door, my 
 sisters, brother-in-law, and brother, planned a tour in Germany, 
 and I was very anxious to be of the party. Mr Norton con- 
 sented, provided that I would defray the expense of the 
 tour. I provided for it, by an agreement with Messrs. Saun- 
 ders and Otley, for a novel called " The Wife and Woman's 
 Eeward," and we set out and joined my family at Antwerp. 
 We proceeded, however, no further than Aix la Chapelle, 
 when Mr Norton became ill with a lameness which made him 
 unwilling to travel, and the others went on without us. I defy 
 any wife to have shown more unselfish or devoted attention to 
 a husband, than I did to Mr Norton under these circumstances, 
 although assured that there was not the slightest cause for 
 anxiety in his indisposition. We were without servants, — the 
 courier and lady's maid having accompanied the main party. 
 Mr Norton would scarcely permit any attendance from the 
 domestics of the hotel, — he spoke no foreign language, and the 
 misunderstandings irritated him. I combined therefore in my 
 own person, by his desire, the functions of sick-nurse, valet, 
 and chambermaid. I solemnly declare that there was no task, 
 liowever menial or laborious, that I was not expected to per- 
 
37 
 
 form, and did not perform. I was never allowed to go out, 
 even for a walk. 1 was permitted, OGcasionally, to dine at the 
 table d'h6te ; and sent for, more than once, in the midst of my 
 dinner, to be told that the meal was inconceivably long ; or to 
 be desired to put leeches that had been used, into fresh water. 
 More than one person in the hotel expressed doubts as to my 
 being really Mr Norton's wife, in consequence of his strange 
 treatment of me; and, at length, after some explanations with 
 me, the German doctor volunteered to remonstrate with my 
 husband. He told him that I was ill from over-exertion and 
 want of fresh air; that some of the tasks imposed upon me 
 were not only too fatiguing but positively injurious ; he advised 
 Mr Norton to employ a " gar9on des bains" to wait on him 
 instead of me, and asked permission for me to visit his wife and 
 sister, and walk with them. I wrote to " complain," as usual, 
 to my family, and my brother came back to me. It will 
 scarcely be believed that, after all this, I having, as I have 
 stated, acted as Mr Norton's servant; having defrayed the 
 whole expence of the dreary residence which was substituted 
 for our tour; and being quite ill and worn out at last, with the 
 way in which my days had passed ; he took the first oppor- 
 tunity of again resorting to personal violence. I objected to 
 his smoking in our little travelling carriage, especially as he 
 smoked a hookah. I was irritated and sufibcated by the 
 volume of tobacco in so confined a space. I begged Mr Norton 
 several times to wait till we arrived at the hotel. He did not 
 answer or desist. At length I impatiently snatched at the 
 pipe, and flung the mouth-piece out of the window. The 
 carriage was then slowly ascending a hill, and Mr. Norton 
 alighted and recovered the missing portion of the pipe. He 
 then seized me by the throat, and pinned me back with a fierce 
 oath against the hood of the carriage. I thought then, and 
 I think now, that I should have been strangled in a minute or 
 two more, but that I struggled from his grasp, and without 
 even attempting to have the carriage stopped, slipped down 
 
38 
 
 through the door, (which he had not closed,) into the road. I 
 ran after the other carriages, and entreated some one of my 
 family to travel with us to protect me, which was accordingly 
 done. The marks of his fingers were in bruises on my throat ; 
 and from the date of this foreign tour there existed an alien- 
 ation from my husband on the part of my family, which his 
 subsequent conduct completed. 
 
 Early in the ensuing summer, the quarrel, which divided 
 him from them for ever, took place. On this occasion I left 
 Mr jSTorton, and withdrew to the house of my brother-in-law; 
 and my husband desiring my return, my brother sent a friend 
 to arrange conditions for that return, in writing; stating that 
 till that was done he refused to enter into any correspondence 
 whatever with Mr Norton, nor was it to be thought that any 
 brother would permit his sister to receive the treatment I did. 
 I was warned and earnestly advised not to go back, after all 
 that had occurred; and if I had taken that advice, — if I had 
 had more resolution and less credulity, — I should not now be 
 summing up the evidence of seventeen years of torment, 
 sorrow, and shame. But it would not have suited Mr Norton 
 so to let me escape. He gave the written pledge of good treat- 
 ment to the friend my brother had sent. He said he was 
 willing to " make any sacrifice, provided I returned to my 
 home." He wrote to me, entreating me not to let others 
 divide us. He wrote to my family in the extremest and most 
 exaggerated terms of submission. He said he was glad they 
 had avenged me and scorned him, and he vowed to treat me 
 kindly for tke future. 
 
 To me, his letters were couched in terms of the most pas- 
 sionate adjuration for pity and forgiveness. They were letters 
 it was impossible to read without being touched — they were 
 letters which drew me home again. In spite of past deceiving, 
 past broken promises, past ill-usage — in spite of the advice to 
 "hold firm," and not return, which I received from almost 
 every friend I had. I was safe ; I was out of his power : my 
 
39 
 
 reputation was unsullied. I was with my sister; and I re- 
 turned, in answer to his imploring prayers, only to be rewarded 
 with attempted ruin and disgrace ! He said " no woris could 
 prove his remorse." He said, " As there is a God above us, 
 who will judge our actions, I think I have a right to ask you 
 to trust to me for the future. If I cannot make you happy, 
 let us then quietly and rationally separate, I declaring to the 
 world that the cause of it was not any imputation on you." He 
 implored me by all that was dear and holy to grant a " com- 
 plete'' forgiveness — a "real" pardon — to write it the moment 
 I had read his letter — to seal and send it by postj and not to 
 let any one see it, for fear they should advise against it. He 
 said, "You shall never repent of this; you shall not — you 
 shall not." He adjured me not to " crush " him, and he ended 
 his letter with the words, " I go on my knees to you ! Have 
 pity — ^have compassion on me !" I answered him : I pitied 
 him : I went '^back to him : I believed then that he really 
 repented, and grieved to lose me; I am convinced now, that 
 it was part of a scheme: of a determination, at least, that if we 
 loere to part, he would make me rue the day on my own 
 account. After my return, he treated me as he had done 
 before. As to the conditions, they were broken before I had 
 been two days in my home: and during a very severe illness 
 which followed the agitation and misery to which I had been 
 exposed, and in which I prematurely lost my infant, he 
 behaved with the utmost harshness and neglect, leaving me to 
 be nursed by my brother, and refusing to be answerable for 
 the expenses incurred. Scarce a month after his last penitent 
 and touching letter to me, my brother was again compelled to 
 remind him that he appeared to have forgotten the reasons that 
 made " interference on my behalf a duty," and that totally 
 prevented his presuming to question the authority by which 
 my brother interfered. This was in August, 1835. Things 
 were fast driving to ruin. My family remained on the most 
 formal and distant terms with Mr Norton, the male members 
 
40 
 
 of it scarcely acknowledging his acquaintance. I can call them 
 to witness that, after our reconciliation, I pleaded for him ; but 
 it was not only on my account, that they chose to withdraw 
 from his intimacy. I saw less of him than usual, during the 
 few months that intervened before our final separation. He 
 went alone for the shooting season to Scotland, as I was not 
 well enough to travel, and after his return he spent nearly all 
 the time he could command with Miss Vaughan, through 
 whom he hoped at least to right the disorder in his pecuniary 
 affairs. Lord Melbourne declined to make any attempt to 
 obtain a better appointment than the one he had already 
 bestowed ; and while I was with my sister in the country, wrote 
 to complain of a strange attempt on Mr Norton's part to 
 interfere as to the appointment of another magistrate (in which 
 I afterwards found he was to have a personal advantage). I 
 returned to town when matters were in this condition; my 
 stay there was to have been brief, for I had settled to pass the 
 Easter with my children at my brother's house in Dorsetshu-e. 
 I was then on perfectly friendly terms with Mr Norton, in spite 
 of his discontent in other matters. He had written me coaxing 
 and flattering letters, urging me to try, both with Lord Mel- 
 bourne and Lord John Eussell, to get this appointment given 
 to his friend, and praising " Lord M.'s kindness on all occa- 
 sions." Pie never opposed in any way my plans for the 
 Easter, but, on the contrary, urged me, now we were friends, 
 to over-rule my brother's objections to receive him, and get 
 him also invited — in which attempt I did not succeed. On 
 the day previous to that on which I was to leave town, I 
 returned from my drive, and found Miss Vaughan had called 
 in my absence, and remained closeted with my husband for 
 some time. Lord Melbourne was with him when I came in, 
 and they were talking together. After Lord M. left, Mr 
 Norton talked discontentedly of the appointment, and angrily 
 of my not getting that and pecuniary interests arranged for 
 him. He also said Miss Vaughan had told him, if he himself 
 
41 
 
 was not noticed by my brother, he ought not to Submit to my 
 going to his house with my children. I said nothing should 
 prevent my going to my brother; that it was Mr Norton's 
 own fault he was 'not on terms with my family; that the 
 doctor had ordered change of air for the elder child, who was 
 recovering from scarlatina ; and that I should give my servants 
 orders to refuse Miss Vaughan admittance to my house, as she 
 laboured always for mischief, in spite of my patience with her. 
 We parted angrily — Mr Norton to dine with the chief magis- 
 trate, Sir Frederic Eoe, and" I to dine with Lady Mary Fox. 
 We spent the evening together at a party at Lord Harring- 
 ton's, and returned home together. The dispute was then 
 renewed, whether under the circumstances I should go to my 
 brother's. Mr Norton's last words were — " Well, the children 
 shall not, that I have determined;" and as he entered the 
 house he desired the servant to unpack the carriage (which had 
 been prepared for starting), and take the children's things out, 
 for that they were not going. He then went up to the 
 nursery, and repeated the order to the nurse. It was admitted 
 at the trial that the sole observation I made on this occasion, 
 when the nurse asked me "what she was to do?" was, that 
 ^^ Mr. Norton's orders must be obeyed." I neither braved him 
 with useless words, nor complained. I waited till the morning, 
 and then went to my sister's, to consult with her what was to 
 be done. 
 
 While I was with my sister, my children were kidnapped 
 and taken possession of by Miss Vaughan ; as I doubt not had 
 been agreed upon the day before. The man-servant came to 
 my sister's, and said "something was going wrong at home;" 
 that the children, with their things, had been put into a 
 hackney-coach and taken away, he did not know where. I 
 had the children traced to Miss Vaughan's house, and followed 
 them. Anything like the bitter insolence of this woman — who 
 thought she had baffled and conquered me for life — I never 
 experienced. She gave vent to the most violent and indecent 
 
42 
 
 answers to my reproaches, and said that if I troubled her 
 further she would give me into the hands of the police. I left 
 her, and went alone to my brother's house in the country. I 
 wished him to return immediately to town with me; and so 
 far from having intended, previous to this outrage, to leave my 
 home, or having made any preparation whatever for such an 
 event, I left everything that belonged to me (even my wearing 
 apparel) in Mr Norton's house; and he, who afterwards 
 advertised me as a run-away, thought it so probable that I 
 should re-appear next day with my brother, that he gave this 
 order in writing to the man-servant, dated the morning after 
 my departure: — 
 
 " In case Mrs Norton or her brother should return to toion, 
 and call at Storey's Gate, this is my written authority to you, 
 to refuse admittance, and to open the house-door only with 
 the chain across. G. C. Norton." 
 
 It was thought best that I should not return, and I therefore 
 escaped the disgraceful reception with the chain across the 
 door of my home, which my husband had prepared for me. 
 I wrote to Mr Norton's mother, to inform her of what had 
 occurred, and to say that I must part from him; and Mr 
 Norton, on his side, requested Lord Harrington to write to my 
 family to say he would part from me, — but make no provision 
 for me,-; — nor suffer me to have my children. I did not, at 
 first, know that a mother had no legal claim to her children, 
 and I answered by defying this injustice. My mother, my 
 brother, and my brother-in-law, also wrote to Lord Harrington, 
 explaining to him the truth, and disclosing to him, — with very 
 severe comments on Mr Norton's character, — the circumstances 
 of our former disputes. Lord Harrington communicated to 
 Mr Norton the substance of these replies (which contained 
 proofs, extracted from Mr Norton's own letters), and told him 
 that I utterly refused to accede to his terms. Mr Norton then 
 said he would not part from me quietly, but endeavour publicly 
 to disgrace me; that he had put the affair in the hands of 
 
43 
 
 lawyers, pledged himself not to interfere, and was not allowed 
 to mention what they thought of doing ; that my family had 
 conspired against him, and they should maintain me; that 
 he was occupied with enquiries into my conduct towards my 
 male acquaintance in general, and would " try for a divorce/' 
 if a case could be made out. 
 
 In one of the attempts to " make out" a case, Mr Norton 
 resorted to the strange ruse of engaging the cab-boy of the 
 gentleman he desired to entrap, and sending the lad to try and 
 get his master's letters from the Club; an act of which Lord 
 Harrington observed, that " if attempted at the Post-office, it 
 would have been felony." 
 
 Having reported to Lord Harrington all that could be said 
 to my detriment, Lord H. wrote to Mr Norton as follows : — 
 
 " I have told Mrs N. all the hose calumnies uttered against 
 her. I will do the same by you. They say that you kept a 
 mistress. They say that you wanted to borrow 1,4:001. from 
 
 Lord Melbourne ; that you, accepted favors from Lord , 
 
 after professing jealousy of him. That you pledged your word 
 of honour to a falsehood. That your wife made by her writing 
 a sum more than sufficient to pay all your debts. That you have 
 yourself denied her to visitors, and even to members of her own 
 family, when Lord Melbourne has been with her. That you have 
 often used personal violence to your wife. Unless you can 
 disprove these accusations, you are lost in the estimation of the 
 world." 
 
 Lord Harrington then wrote to me, as follows: — 
 
 " / called next day. I was received by a Mr Maclean ; a 
 lawyer and friend. Mr Maclean said, it was agreed that 
 Norton should see no one. I talked over these ' accusations' 
 with Mr M. I challenged him to answer them. He said, 
 ' This is not the time, and you are not the person.' T said, 
 ' You cannot answer them.' I wrote afterwards to Norton 
 as follows: — '/ now see clearly that you are surrounded by a 
 
44 
 
 clique of lawyers and friends, and under their influence, who 
 keep your person and your mind imprisoned. Put your jailors 
 to the test. Let them answer the accusations in my letter, and 
 let them answer this additional charge. You are accused {not by 
 me) of having intended to procure a Magistracy for a gentleman 
 for a compensation in money. Ask your lawyers and the friends 
 who influence them, if this charge were proved, whether you would 
 be allowed to sit on the judgment seat.^ 
 
 " L. S." 
 
 To these adjurations Lord Harrington Received no more 
 satisfactory reply from Mr Norton, than the following careless 
 allusion in a letter on the general subject of our quarrel. 
 
 " As regards the * on dits,' stated in yours, this does not appear 
 to be the time to enter upon that refutation of them which I should 
 otherwise court an opportunity of obtaining. 
 
 '■'■Ever yours, 
 
 "G.C. Norton." 
 April, Uth, 1836. 
 
 Mr Norton did not, however, seem to build with certainty 
 on the chance of refutation ; for his next step was to request an 
 interview with Sir James Graham (who was related to me by 
 my mother's side), and inform him that he admitted his law- 
 yers could prove nothing amiss in my conduct, and that, there- 
 fore, he was willing to come to such terms of separation as 
 could be agreed upon. Sir James Graham demanded, as a 
 preliminary to all negociation, a written retractation of the 
 slanders against me. What was Mr Norton's reply ? That he 
 believed them ? No : but that " if he retracted what was said of 
 me, would my family contradict what was said of him, as other- 
 wise he would be left in his wif^s power ?" 
 
 Sir James Graham would not discuss this conditionj but left 
 Mr Norton to his reflections, promising to see him again. The 
 painful scandal was supposed to be ended, and Lord Harring- 
 ton wrote thus to congratulate me : — 
 
45 
 
 "2-2nd April, 1836. 
 
 " Thank God your persecutors have terminated their labours. 
 Their object was not truth or justice ; not to examine into your 
 character, but solely to criminate you. It has ended in your 
 honour and their disgrace. iV's conduct is really disreputable ; 
 but far less so than those who have hunted him on." 
 
 Most premature were these congratulations ! At the very 
 time when Mr Norton was angiily wavering between the 
 dread of exposure for himself, and the desire of vengeance, 
 certain personages, who saw in our quarrel an opportunity for 
 a stroke in politics, persuaded him to attack Lord Melbourne. 
 
 I know Mr Norton has denied that he was thus advised ; 
 especially by his friend and guardian Lord Wynford. I know 
 that he made the incredible assertion, that his sole-adviser was 
 a stable-helper, whom he himself had formerly discharged for 
 drunkenness, and who was, at the time of this quarrel, a rag- 
 seller in Monmouth-street ; that this man suddenly appeared, 
 and told him a gross and strange story, on the strength of 
 which he made up his mind to prosecute the Prime Minister of 
 England. Let those believe this history who can; it is 
 certainly possible that all that was said of the interference of 
 political leaders, was as false as what they said of me; but, 
 meanwhile, I know that the late King considered it a political 
 plot; that Lord Melbourne himself thought so; that some of 
 the witnesses affirmed they had been examined in Lord 
 Wynford's house; and that, at all events, the impression of 
 some such interference obtained sufficiently to make the 
 Duke of Cumberland anxious to deny it on behalf of the 
 Tory party, as Lord Melbourne's letters wiU prove. In 
 the preceding year the Whigs had been turned out; Sir 
 Robert Peel had been sent for in all haste from Italy, to 
 form a Tory administration ; and the new Government had been 
 immediately outvoted on Lord John Russell's Church Tempo- 
 ralities Bill. In May, Lord Melbourne reconstructed a Whig 
 
46 
 
 Cabinet, and the Ministry of a moment found themselves again 
 in the ranks of the opposition; an opposition notoriously in 
 possession of the sympathy of the Court. In the letters lately 
 published by Mr Norton, he has himself branded the conduct 
 of the case got up against the unwelcome Whig Minister, by 
 revealing the minutes of his own lawyer's consultation with Sir 
 William Follett. By these minutes it is shown, that Sir W. F. 
 considered the character of the witnesses so bad, that he 
 doubted the probability of a verdict being obtained; but that, 
 nevertheless, they thought it worth while to proceed at all 
 hazards, /or the sake of the exposure. It is made perfectly clear 
 that some of those concerned in this business, were careless 
 what might be the result, so long as there was an overwhelm- 
 ing public scandal; and as to Mr Norton himself, his conduct 
 was infinitely less rash and unreasonable than the event would 
 make it appear; since he has over and over again admitted, 
 that he had a secret reliance the case would not be defended at 
 all. He, — who alone knew how miserable my home had been, 
 — how often I had threatened to leave him, — how but a very 
 few months before, I had put that threat into execution by 
 withdrawing to my sister's house, and had only been lured 
 home again, by his exaggerated protestations of repentance 
 and despair, — he believed, that I would not unwillingly 
 renounce that bitter union, and existence of perpetual struggle, 
 to become the wife of Lord Melbourne. He thought he saw a 
 golden path out of all his difficulties; freedom from the marriage 
 tie; pecuniary damages from the Prime Minister; and the power 
 of avenging, by ray disgrace, the scorn formerly shewn him by 
 my family. Those who had instigated him, came to the trial 
 doubtful of the result, but confident of the scandal; Mr Norton 
 came to it, careless of the scandal, and confident of the result. 
 He miscalculated his chances, only because the trial was 
 defended. The mockery of accusation was gone through; 
 Mr Norton was represented as an amiable, injured, deceived 
 
47 
 
 husband; Lord Melbourne as a profligate impostor; and I 
 myself as a painted wanton. The time which had been 
 spent in reading translations of JEschylus — listening to 
 explanations of the unknown theories of politics, — 
 
 " And search of deep philosophy, 
 Wit, eloquence, and poesy." 
 
 was represented to have been passed in a manner which 
 amazed me less by the falsehood than the coarseness of the 
 invention. The groora-ragseller came into court dead-drunk:* 
 other witnesses were proved to be lost characters: cross- 
 examination elicited that they had received money, and had 
 actually resided till the time of trial at the country seat of 
 Lord Grantley. The whole evidence stopped short three years 
 before the actual period of trial, as they dared not call any but 
 these witnesses. The jury listened with open incredulity and 
 disgust to the evidence, and without requiring to hear a 
 single witness for Lord Melbourne, or leaving the jury-box, 
 they instantly gave their verdict against Mr Norton : a verdict 
 which was received with cheers which the Judge vainly 
 attempted to suppress. The impression generally made on the 
 public mind, I give from the letter of Mr David Leahy to 
 Mr Power, who sent it to my younger brother : — 
 
 ''As I was present during the whole exhibition, I can take it 
 upon me as an impartial spectator to say, that a more infamous 
 case on the part of the plaintiff, never came before a court of 
 justice. All the world — whatever their politics may be, or 
 whatever their opinions about the discretion of the behaviour of 
 all or either of the three principal parties, — must acknowledge 
 that the principal witnesses were perjured and suborned. I 
 have spoken with almost every person present, and there exists a 
 perfect unanimity upon this point. The jury, upon the close of 
 the plaintiff's case, intimated, in a manner perfectly intelligible 
 to the initiated, that it was a mere superfluity to set up any 
 
 * See Appendix. 
 
48 
 
 defence. They shewed the greatest impatience during the 
 Attorney-General's speech, and made several attempts to 
 interrupt the Judge's charge; and at last, when it came to their 
 own turn to take the business in hand, they exclaimed unani- 
 mously, without a quarter of a minute's consultation or deliber- 
 ation, that they found for the defendant. 
 
 The case presented altogether a combination of ridiculous 
 driftless futility, with atrocious and incredible perjury, which 
 cannot, I think, be paralleled (in their combination) in the 
 annals of criminal jurisprudence." 
 
 The printed law reports of the day give the result thus: — 
 
 The Learned Judge summed up at considerable length, and the 
 Jury having turned round, in a moment the Foreman said — "My Lord, 
 we are all agreed — ^we find for the Defendant." 
 
 There was a loud and general burst of applause at the announcement 
 of the verdict, which was instantly checked by the court. 
 
 The news was communicated outside, and was followed by loud and 
 general cheering from the anxious crowds assembled. 
 
 And in another paper: — 
 
 The Learned Judge summed up at some length. 
 
 The Jury having turned round, and conferred u few seconds, — the 
 Foreman said,—" My Lord, we are agreed,^it is my duty to say that 
 our verdict is for the Defendant." 
 
 The announcement was received with loud bursts of applause ; an 
 expression of feeling which was promptly re-echoed by shouts from the 
 mob without the doors. The tumult having been partially suppressed, 
 the Lord Chief Justice said " he was surprised to hear a verdict 
 received in a court of justice in so disgraceful a manner." 
 
 The court was then cleared. 
 
 That impression availed — for Lord Melbourne. For him, 
 the ordeal was happily and triumphantly over; the sympathy 
 of friends, the enthusiasm of the public, greeted his acquittal 
 from the false charge which was to "wreck him. He continued 
 Minister to the King, and the dawn of another reign saw him 
 confirmed in his position, with the added distinction of seeming 
 almost the guide and guardian of the youthful Sovereign who 
 was to receive from him her first initiation into the cares and 
 tasks of government. 
 
49 
 
 My humbler destiny was not so easily set right. Previous 
 to the trial, I had been strenuously urged, by some of the 
 truest friends I had, to be beforehand with Mr Norton ; and, 
 knowing what my home had been, to attempt to divorce Mm 
 while he was preparing to accuse me. Others, equally anxious 
 for my welfare, earnestly counselled the exact contrary: to 
 wait, — to have patience, — to depend on the truth being shown 
 on the trial, and my justification being then made complete. 
 The case being submitted to Dr Lushington, he advised 
 that I should remain passive, and I did so ; sore against my 
 will. 
 
 After the trial was over, I consulted whether a divorce " by 
 reason of cruelty" might not be pleaded for me ; and I laid before 
 my lawyers the many instances of violence, injustice, and iU- 
 usage, of which the trial was but the crowning example. I 
 was then told that no divorce / could obtain would break 
 my marriage; that I could not plead cruelty which I had 
 forgiven; that by returning to Mr Norton I had *' condoned" 
 all I complained of. I learnt, too, the Law as to my 
 children — that the right was with the father; that neither 
 my innocence nor his guilt could alter it; that not even 
 his giving them into the hands of a mistress, would give 
 me any claim to their custody. The eldest was but six years 
 old, the second four, the youngest two and a half, when we 
 were parted. I wrote, therefore, a,nd petitioned the father and 
 husband, in whose power I was, for leave to see them — for 
 leave to keep them, till they were a little older. Mr Norton's 
 answer was, that I should not have them ; that if I wanted to 
 see them, I might have an interview with them at the chambers 
 of his attorney. I refused, and wrote as follows to my solicitor, 
 who had conveyed his decision to me : — 
 
 " However bitter it may he to me, I must decline seeing my 
 children in the manner proposed. I say nothing of the harshness, 
 the inhumanity of telling me I must either see them at the 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 ehainbers of his solicitor, or not at all; hut I say it is not 
 
 DECENT that the father of those children should force me, their 
 
 mother, out of the very tenderness I bear them, to visit them at 
 
 the chambers of the attorney who collected the evidence, examined 
 
 the tvitnesses, and conducted the proceedings for the intended 
 
 divorce. I say it is not decent — nay, that even if I were guilty, 
 
 it would not be decent to make me such a proposal. But I am 
 
 innocent. — / have been pronounced innocent by a jury of my 
 
 countrymen — / have been solemnly and publicly declared innocent 
 
 hy- the nobleman' against whom that ill-advised action was 
 
 brought. Why, then, are my children kept from me ? — from me 
 
 whom even their own witnesses proved to be a careful and devoted 
 
 mothers' Mr Norton says, the Law gives him my children. I 
 
 know it does, but the Law does no more ; it does not compel me 
 
 to endure more than separation from them; and sooner than 
 
 allow them to connect my visits in their memory with secresy and 
 
 shame, I would submit never again to behold them till they were 
 
 of an age to visit me without asking permission of any human 
 
 More than once, Mr Norton's advisers have shown' more 
 feeling for me than my husband himself; and on this occasion 
 his solicitor wrote:— "ilir Norton has made the appointment to 
 see the children here — / cannot but regret it." 
 
 Eventually, the children were permitted to come to my 
 brother's house; Mr Norton expressly limiting the time of their 
 stay to one half-hour, and sending them with two of the women 
 who had been witnesses on the trial, who stated that their 
 *' orders" were to remain in the room with me. I was not 
 allowed even to see my baby of two years old without these 
 *^ witnesses." 
 
 What I suffered on my children's account, none will ever 
 know or measure. " The heart knoweth its own bitterness," 
 and God knew mine ! The days and nights of tears and 
 anguish, that grew into the struggle of years — it is even now 
 
51 
 
 a pain to me to look back upon : even now, the hof agony of 
 resentment and grief rises in my mind, when I think of the 
 needless tyranny I endured in this respect. Mr Norton held 
 my children as hostages; he felt that while he had them, he 
 still had a power over me that nothing could control. Baffled 
 in the matter of the trial and damages, he had still the power 
 to do more than punish — to torture — the wife who had been 
 so anxious to part from him. I never saw them; I seldom 
 knew where they were. Once, when I wrote to ask after 
 them in illness, my letter to the nurse (which contained no 
 syllable of offence, or beyond the subject of my inquiry) was 
 turned inside out, and franked back to me. Miss Vaughan 
 was dead, and I appealed to my mother-in-law (with whom I 
 heard my husband meant to place them), entreating her to 
 refuse to take them; which she promised to do, and heard me 
 with tears of sympathy. But my husband's sister. Lady 
 Menzies decided differently: to her, on payment of so much 
 a head, my three children were consigned; and removed to 
 Scotland, where neither their father nor I could be with 
 them. There, with one whom I knew to be haughty and 
 intemperate, those children were left, who had hitherto been 
 so gently and tenderly treated; and the eldest of whom 
 was delicate in health, sensitive in disposition, and just 
 recovering from illness. The first step she made in their 
 education, was to flog this very child (a child of six years old) 
 for merely receiving and reading a letter from me (I being in 
 England and he in Scotland), to " impress on his memory" 
 that he was not to receive letters from me. Having occasion 
 to correct one still younger, she stripped it naked, tied it to 
 the bed-post, and chastised it with a riding-whip. She was a 
 fit sister and colleague to Mr Norton; and I have lived to see 
 the day when her disputes for money, with her own sons, have 
 come to Scotch law-pleadings; as Mr Norton has brought t0 
 English law-pleadings the like disputes with us. 
 
 These boys having been the gleam of happiness and com- 
 
 E 2 
 
52 
 
 pensation in myhome, it was not to be supposed I would give 
 them up without a struggle, because it was so " written in the 
 bond" of the English law. Ceaselessly, restlessly, persever- 
 ingly, I strove; and, fortunately for me, other cases of hardship 
 had already drawn attention to the necessity of some reform on 
 this subject; especially the case of a Mrs Greenhill, in which 
 Serjeant Talfourd (now Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd) had been 
 professionally concerned. A new " Infant Custody Bill" was 
 brought forward by the learned Serjeant; and passed, after a 
 struggle of three years, by a majority of four to one. As soon 
 as it had passed, I prepared affidavits to lay before the Chan- 
 cellor; and again Mr Norton narrowly escaped exposure. 
 Among the persons on whom I depended as a witness of past 
 events was the Eight Hon. Edward Ellice. When he was 
 applied to for an affidavit, he thought it a merciful wisdom to 
 warn Mr Norton of what he could prove, and to endeavour to 
 prevent the raking-up of affairs which had begun to be for- 
 gotten by the public. Mr Norton answered boldly : — 
 
 " Police Court, Whitechapel, Nov. 27, 1841. 
 
 * * * -J?- * " / have long looked to the threatened pro- 
 ceedings as the only mode of attaining a settlement, and of 
 -unmasking the repeated unwarrantable and hitherto unresisted 
 attacks which have been perseveringly made on my character for 
 some years" 
 
 But when he had had an interview with Mr Ellice; and had 
 learned what that friend was expected to prove, he hastily re- 
 tracted; and signified to me through his lawyers that it was 
 unnecessary for me to present a petition on affidavit, as he 
 yielded the point, and would not defend himself. 
 
 He yielded, — simply so far as the law would have compelled 
 him, and as was necessary to save himself from the threatened 
 and certain exposure which my appeal under the new law 
 would have entailed. I saw my children in the most formal 
 and comfortless manner. There was no mercy or generosity. 
 I expected none, He even made it a personal quarrel with 
 
53 
 
 his colleague and fellow magistrate, Mr Hardwicke, after this, 
 that Mr H. had permitted me one evening to he in his hox at 
 the play, with my children. He locked the children them- 
 selves up for a whole day; to punish them; and "impress 
 upon their memories" (after the fashion of his sister), that they 
 were not to be seen with me at any public place. Their inter- 
 views with me, were to be in private; that no one might 
 know or guess he had been compelled to yield. The insane 
 injustice of punishing the children, or quarrelling with the 
 friend who had catered for their amusement, when no one in- 
 tended to offend him, never seems to have occurred to him. 
 He feared only the truth being known; our appearance in 
 public, was a contradiction of his assertions in private. 
 
 His cruel carelessness was afterwards proved, on a most 
 miserable occasion. My youngest child, then a boy of eight 
 years old, left without care or overlooking, rode out with a 
 brother but little older than himself, was thrown, carried to 
 the house of a country neighbour, and died there of lock-jaw, 
 consequent on the accident. Mr Norton allowed the child to 
 lie ill for a week — indeed to be at death's door — before he sent 
 to inform me. Sir Fitzroy and Lady Kelly were staying with 
 Mr Norton in the country. Lady Kelly (who was an utter 
 stranger to me) met me at the railway station. I said — " I 
 am here, — is my boy better?" " No," she said — " he is not 
 better — he is dead." And I found, instead of my child, a 
 corpse already coffined. 
 
 Mr Norton asked my forgiveness then, as he had asked it 
 often before; he sent his elder child to plead for him, — for 
 well he knew what my children were to me; he humbled 
 himself, and grieved for an hour, till he changed into pity the 
 horror and repugnance I had expressed at the idea of seeing 
 him ; — and then he buried our child, and forgot both his sorrow 
 and his penitence. 
 
54 
 
 During the years over which my separation from these 
 children extended, several attempts were made by Mr Norton 
 either to compel me to his own terms, or to bring about a re- 
 conciliation. In the Spring immediately following the Trial 
 (after ray first efibrts to obtain my children had been rejected) 
 I suddenly received from him a most extraordinary note, say- 
 ing, that he considered our differences " capable of adjustment," 
 and hoped I would meet him alone, in an empty house, No. 1 
 Berkeley street, where he would wait for me. I received this 
 communication with doubt and distrust ; increased rather than 
 diminished by the impatience shown by Mr Norton to obtain 
 an answer, for which he sent twice in the course of the after- 
 noon. He then wrote to say, that " nothing could be effected 
 without mutual confidence," and as he could not come to my 
 uncle's house (whore I lived) he hoped I would come to his 
 own residence. This I consented to do. We had a long 
 wretched interview. He besought me once more, to " forget 
 the past" and return home. He laid the blame of all that had 
 happened, on his friends and advisers; said the trial was 
 against his will and judgment, and that he longed to " take 
 me to his heart again." He complained of the coldness with 
 which I received these proposals; but I did not refuse. He 
 recalled ray poor children from Scotland; and sent notes 
 almost daily to my house. Those letters began, " My Carry," 
 "My dear Carry," and were signed, "Yours affectionately." 
 Two of them (in allusion to my fear of meeting him) bore 
 the playful signature of " Gkeenacke," — the name of a man 
 who had been recently hung, for enticing a woman to his 
 house by promising marriage, and then murdering and cutting 
 her into pieces. 
 
 After a month of this strange correspondence, I received a 
 note from him, to say that his sister had arrived to stay 
 with him. A dispute followed, as to what I had or had not 
 said to this lady. Mr Norton complained that I had stated to 
 her I did not intend " honestly" to return to him; but " to re- 
 
55 
 
 turn for the sake of my children and my reputation;" and tliat 
 I had. said, " I never would live with him again." Our recon- 
 ciliation was broken off; my children were sent back to Scot- 
 land; and the next notice taken of my existence, by the hus- 
 band who had wooed my return, — who had begged me to 
 meet him in an empty house, assuring me nothing could be 
 effected " without mutual confidence;" — who had signed him- 
 self Gkeenacre, in familiar and caressing letters, jesting upon 
 my fears and doubts as to trusting myself alone at that meet- 
 ing ; — and who had, in the first instance, desired his servant 
 the day after my departure, to open the door of my home 
 " with the chain across;" — the next step, I say, taken by the 
 husband whose real story was so little known to the public, 
 was to impose on that public by an advertisement respecting 
 his legal liability for me, commencing, — ■ 
 
 " Whereas on ZQth March, 1836, my wife, Caroline Elizabeth 
 Sarah, left me, her family, and home, and hath from thenceforth 
 continued to liv? separate and apart from me," &c. 
 
 Angry, and full of scorn, I consulted my solicitor whether 
 I was compelled to bear this fresh outrage. I showed him the 
 letters Mr N. had written, just before this pretence of being a 
 forsaken husband: — " Have I no remedy?" — " No remedy in 
 LAW. The LAW can do nothing for you : your case is one of 
 singular, of incredible hardship ; but there is no possible way 
 in which the LAW could assist you." My brother did aU that 
 could be done — he desired his solicitors to publish a letter 
 stating that " the whole of the statements contained in Mr 
 Norton's advertisement were false" — an imputation which re- 
 mains on it to this day. After the insult of the advertisement, 
 there was a pause of some weeks; and then Mr Norton wrote 
 to say he wished an arbitration in our affairs; the arbitrator he 
 named was Sir John Bayley ; and as the history of the reference 
 is given later, I do not here enter into it; further than to say, 
 that Mr Norton, after solemnly pledging himself in writirig, to 
 
56 
 
 abide by whatever decision might be come to, utterly refused 
 to be bound; quarrelled with his arbitrator; and broke off the 
 negotiation. A year and a half afterwards, he requested Sir 
 Frederick Thesiger to act as referee ; whose opinion I give in 
 his own words: — " The accommodation proposed by Norton is 
 one in which you are to give way upon every subject, and he is 
 not to recede upon one ; and it seems to me to be ridicuhus to 
 
 talk of conciliation upon such a footing^' 
 
 ^^ Itis impossible not to be struck with the vacillating and vexatious 
 course which Norton has pursued; exciting hopes only to disap- 
 point them, and making promises apparently for the opportu- 
 nity of breaking them." Friends mediated; men of business 
 wasted their time in vain ; Mr Norton's promises were ropes of 
 sand. 
 
 In 1842 — two years after Mr Norton had evaded the chance 
 of exposure by declining to defend my petition under the 
 Infant Custody Bill — he once more asked me to be " recon- 
 ciled" to him, and to return and live with him. Though this 
 was not arranged, yet from that time there was a degree of 
 peace and friendliness established, which, for the sake of my 
 sons (of whom I had already lost one), I was more than 
 willing — I was anxious — to maintain. Mr Norton's letters 
 again became caressing and flattering; he visited me at the 
 house of my uncle Mr C. Sheridan, and after Mr Sheridan's 
 death, at my own. When I wrote to him from abroad, in 1848, 
 he sent one of my letters triumphantly to my mother, to prove 
 to her what good terras we were on. He followed me to 
 'Germany, and said he did not think I ought to '' travel alone." 
 ■Down to the time of my mother's death, and the dispute 
 respecting her annuity, — whatever under- current of bitter- 
 ness and distrust there might be on my part, or of caprice on 
 his — we remained on familiar and friendly terms; and he re-i 
 lapsed into the old habit of entreating my interference for his 
 interests, with such of my family or friends as. had political 
 
57 
 
 influence ; as lie had done when we lived together in one 
 home. 
 
 The history of the contract — in the dispute about which^ 
 after my mother's death, this state of things was broken up — 
 I have given separately; but before I conclude those pages 
 which treat of the past instead of the present, I think it is fit 
 to show, by the evidence of Lord Melbourne's own letters^ the 
 opinion he entertained of those affairs, in which his name has 
 been once more introduced by Mr Norton as an opportunity 
 for falsehood. 
 
 The first letter I shall quote of Lord Melbourne's, is one 
 written only three months after he had given Mr Norton his 
 magistracy ; when already he was disturbed at the conduct of 
 his nominee. Mr Norton inaugurated his appointment by 
 quarrelling with his colleague. I endeavoured to justify my 
 husband; and blamed the other magistrate. Lord Melbourne 
 replied thus; in a letter dated July 19, 1831; and 1 print it, 
 because it is a curious prophetic comment on Mr Norton's late 
 letters in the 'Times.' 
 
 "■Home Office, July I9th, 1831. 
 
 " T. W., as you say, does what he has not the least right to do ; 
 and the worst is, he is not only foolish himself, but is the cause of 
 folly in others. I had the greatest difficulty in preventing Norton 
 from replying to him in the ^Times! I was much alarmed at 
 the notion of his doing this, especially as I found him thoroughly 
 impressed with the opinion that he could do it with great clever- 
 ness and dexterity. Now I know very well that a man of that 
 description who is fully persuaded that he is about to do a thing 
 extremely well, is on the very point of committing some irre- 
 trievable error, or falling into some most ridiculous absurdity 
 
 . . I hate the magistrates writing to the newspapers . . 
 besides, 'people will be sure to say to me, — if the magistrates get 
 
58 
 
 squabbling in public, why do you not clear the bench of these fellows 
 altogether ? A question to which I should not well know what to 
 reply. They tell me also, that Norton does not go to his office 
 early enough. I should be annoyed at having a complaint made 
 upon this subject. Pray dissuade him, gently, from any public 
 exhibitions in the newspapers; and urge him gently to a little 
 more activity in the morning. He might surely without difficulty 
 get there by twelve o'clock. This is a disagreeable lecturing 
 letter, but still upon matters to which it is necessary to pay some 
 attention." 
 
 Good natured and familiar as was this expression of dissatis- 
 factionj I felt that Lord Melbourne was beginning to perceive 
 the character of the husband for whom I had successfully peti- 
 tioned; and I warned — and warned in vain. To the last, how- 
 ever, Mr Norton relied on Lord Melbourne's kindness ; and 
 the next note I shall give, is a curious and explicit answer to 
 the assertions of my husband, as to his jealoiisy and unhappi-v/ 
 ness ; for it is dated only eight weeks before our final separa- 
 tion, and discusses the appointment Mr Norton had agreed to 
 endeavour to obtain; (his pertinacity about which appears to 
 have puzzled the Home Office.) 
 
 "Downing street, January 27th, 1836. 
 
 " Norton plagues me to death about the successor to Walker. 
 He seems to think that he and H. have almost a right to make 
 the appointment. He has just brought me a letter, strongly re- 
 commending a Mr , and seemed to be struck as with a new 
 
 idea, when I told him that he had better let me mention the 
 name to Lord John as from myself; inasmuch as he and H. 
 interfering, would rather be against the candidate, than for him. 
 He seems to think that everything is to give way to the consi- 
 deration of giving him a pleasant companion. He says the 
 Bench used with Walker to be like a pleasant club, and that he 
 must have an agreeable fellow to walk to and fro ivith. Now 
 do not try to stop him, nor give him any notion of what I have 
 
59 
 
 said. I wrote to you yesterday about F. I am told hy those 
 who know him that he certainly loould not accept it. Adieu, 
 
 Yours, Melbourne." 
 
 Two months afterwards, Mr Norton and I were parted; 
 LordMelbourne passed the Easter atBroeke and Panshanger ; 
 and as / never dreamed that he would himseK be made the 
 pretence of our quarrel, I wrote to tell him what had happened, 
 I quote four of his letters written at that time. Living, he 
 justified himself by his simple word of honour ; and dead, I 
 justify him with lines written by a hand cold in the grave. 
 However deservedly severe his language may be with respect 
 to Mr Norton, I leave those who read, to judge whether these 
 are the letters of a treacherous seducer, — or even of a lover. 
 
 " Panshanger, April 6th, 1836. 
 
 " / hardly know what to write to you, or 
 
 what comfort to offer. You know, as well as I do, that the best 
 course is to keep yourself tranquil, and not to give way to feel- 
 ings and passions which Heaven knows are too natural to b? 
 easily resisted. This conduct upon his part seems perfectly un- 
 accountable; and depend upon it, being, as you ai'c, in the 
 right, it will be made ultimately to appear, whatever tempo- 
 rary misrepresentations may prevail. You cannot have better 
 or more affectionate advisers than you have with you upon the 
 spot, who are well acquainted toith the circumstances of the case, 
 and loith the characters of those with whom they liave to deal. 
 You know that I have always counselled you to bear everything, 
 and remain to the last. Itlwughtitforthebest. I am afraid 
 it is no longer possible. Open breaches of this kind are always 
 to be lamented; but you have the consolation that you have done 
 your utmost to stave this extremity off as long as possible. In 
 all diff cutties you may always depend upoti me, and believe me, 
 
 Yours Melbourne." 
 " Panshanger, April 8, 1836. 
 
 " It is in vain to rail, otherwise Icould 
 
 do so too; but it was at all times easy to see that it was the most 
 
60 
 
 dangerous and ill-conditioned creature possible, and that there 
 was nothing that might not he expected from such a mixture of 
 folly and malignity. I am very glad C. is gone down. You 
 have now real friends about you. You describe me very truly 
 when you say that I am always more annoyed that there is a row 
 than sorry for the persons engaged in it. But, after all, you 
 know you can count upon me. I wonder that you should think it 
 possible that I should communicate your letters to any one else ; 
 I have heard no one mention the subject. Lord Holland did, in 
 one of his letters, and I answered him exactly to the effect you 
 told me, and as I must have done without being told, namely, 
 that I had seen you with Norton the day before you left tovm, 
 and that I knew that he was perfectly well acquainted with your 
 intention of going into the country,* because he, in my hearing, 
 suggested putting it off from Wednesday, I believe, until 
 Saturday. I have also seen one paragraph relating to the 
 matter in one of the newspapers ^ and this is all that has reached 
 me. I shall be in town again on Monday. Adieu. 
 
 " Yours, Melbourne." 
 
 " Panshanger, April \()th, 1836. 
 
 " / have Just received your letter, with Leicester Stanhope^ 
 
 enclosed, with which I am much pleased. He could not have 
 
 acted better, nor with more discretion. Never, to be sure, was 
 
 there such conduct! To set on foot that sort of enquiry without 
 
 the slightest real ground for it ! But it does not surprise me. 
 
 I have always known that there was there a mixture of folly 
 
 and violence whichmight lead to any absurdity or any injustice. 
 
 You know so well my opinion, that it is unnecessary for me to 
 
 repeat it. I have always told you that a woman should never 
 
 part from her hus land whilst she can remain with him. If this 
 
 is generally the case, it is particularly so in such a case as 
 
 yours : that is, in the case of a young handsome woman, of 
 
 * There was a report that I had eloped, sedulously circulated by Mr 
 Norton's frieuds. 
 
61 
 
 lively imagination, fond of company and conversation, and 
 whose celebrity and superiority have necessarily created many 
 enemies. Depend upon it, if a reconciliation is feasible, there 
 can be no doubt of the prudence of it. It is so evident that it is 
 unnecessary to expatiate upon it. Lord Holland, who is almost 
 the only person who has mentioned the subject to me, is entirely 
 of that opinion. " Yours, Melbourne." 
 
 " South street, April 1836. 
 
 ,...." If , for the sake of your children, you think 
 you can endure to return to him, you certainly will act most 
 msely and prudently for yourself in doing so. I advise you, 
 however, to take no step of yourself without the advice of Sey- 
 mour and Graham ; and if you determine upon writing to Mr 
 Barlow, send your letter open to them, giving them a discre- 
 tionary power either to send or to withhold it. 
 
 "Keep up your spirits ; agitate yourself as little as possible; 
 do not be too anxious about rumours and the opinion of ' the 
 World/ being (as you are) innocent and in the right, you will, 
 in the end, bring everything round. " Yours, Melbourne," 
 
 These four letters were all written tefore it occurred to Mr 
 Norton, or had been suggested to him, to speculate on the ad- 
 vantage of making Lord Melbourne Aj'mse?/" appear the cause 
 of our quarrel, by bringing an action against him. The 
 chances were all favourable ; for either large damages would 
 be given, if successful, or, if the scandal was one the Prime 
 Minister dared not face, probably a large sum might be given 
 as a compromise to prevent the suit being brought at all. The 
 astounding intelligence having been communicated to Lord 
 Melbourne ; I received from him the following note. 
 
 "South street, April 23rd, 1836. 
 
 " I send you a letter which I wrote yesterday with the inten- 
 tion of sending it. I hope you will not take it ill, if I implore 
 you to try, at least, to be calm under these trials. You know 
 that what is alleged (if it be alleged) is utterly false, and what 
 
 IS FALSE CAN RARELY BE MADE TO APPEAR TRUE. The 
 
e2 
 
 steps which it will be prudent to take, it will he impossible to de- 
 termine until we know more certainly the course that is intended 
 to be pursued. If any svervant of mine, or any one that has left 
 within the last six years had been interrogated, I think I should 
 have heard of it. But, whoever my be interrogated, no one can 
 depose anything which can affect you or me. 
 
 " Yours, Melbourne" 
 " South street, June 9, 1836. 
 
 "T have received your letter, and have given such instructio7is 
 as I trust will be for the best. I do not wonder at the impression 
 made upon you.* I knew it would be so; and therefore I was 
 almost unwilling to have the interview take place. All the 
 attorneys that I have ever seen, have all the same manner; hard, 
 cold, incredulous, distrustful, sarcastic, and sneering. They are 
 accustomed to be conversant with the worst part of human 
 nature, and with the most discreditable transactions. They 
 have so many falsehoods told them, that they place confidence 
 in none. 
 
 " I have sent your note, having read it. T dare say you think 
 me unfeeling; but I declare that since I first heard I was to be 
 proceeded against, Ihave sufferedmore intensely than lever did 
 in my life. I had neither sleep nor appetite, and I attribute the 
 whole of my illness (at least of the severity of if) to the uneasi- 
 ness of my mind. Now what is this uneasiness for ? Not for my 
 own character, because, as you justly say, the imputation upon 
 me is as nothing. It is not for the political consequences to 
 myself, although I deeply feel the consequences which my indis- 
 cretion may bring upon those who are attached to me and follow 
 my fortunes. The real and principal object of my anxiety and 
 
 * I had written to complain of tlie manner of Mr Vizard, Lord Mel- 
 borne's solicitor, who came to question me, and did not appear to believe 
 me, when I asserted my innocence. I said the accusation was nothing 
 against Lord M. (according to the views taken in society of the conduct of 
 men ;) but that it was life and death to me, as a woman ; and that I would 
 not see Mr Vizard at all, if he insulted me by expressions of incredulity. 
 
63 
 
 solicitude is you, and the situation in which you have been so 
 unjustly placed, hy the circumstances which have taken place" 
 
 Lord Melbourne was right, so far that what was " false " 
 was not made to " appear true : and that the drunken and 
 worthless witnesses were discredited by the Jury. The very 
 fact, however, of the utter disbelief with which the evidence 
 was received, saved Mr Norton from any furher exposure 
 than that of having brought forward a story it was obvious 
 even he himself could not have believed. For — as it was not 
 thought necessary to call any witnesses to rebut the coarse in- 
 vention of the accuser — our real history remained unknown 
 as before. 
 
 The next steps taken, prove only how heartily ashamed 
 every one was of being supposed to have had any share in 
 the transaction. The papers of the day were filled with severe 
 comments and counter comments. Lord Wynford denied 
 having had any hand in the business. Lord Grantiey (who at 
 least had the excuse for interference that he was Mr Norton's 
 brother) partly denied it. Sir W. Follett hastened to intrench 
 himself within the narrowest limit of professional and compul- 
 sory assistance, and published a denial of having advised the 
 trial, in the 'Times ■' and Lord Melbourne had already written 
 to me, as follows, of the denial of the Duke of Cumberland. 
 
 « South street. 
 . . . . " What I wanted to tell you was this : that a 
 few days ago the Duke of Cumberland came up to me in one of 
 the lobbies of the House of Lords, and said — "Have you seen 
 Wynford? He wishes to speak to you; and it is in order to 
 assure you, upon his honour, that he has had nothing to do with 
 this affair. Nor indeed a.'sy of us. We would do nothing so 
 ungentlemanlike. The moment I heard he was charged with it, I 
 went to him, and asked him, and he solemnly denied it." I re- 
 plied that 'I never believed mere rumours and reports ; that I 
 had never thought it, and that His Royal Highness' s declaration 
 was of course, perfectly satisfactory.' When I went into the 
 
64 
 
 Hou&e of Lords, Lord Wynford sent one of the Messengers to 
 ask me to come over to him, as, being lame, he could not come 
 tome. I went, and he then repeated the disclaimer already made 
 hy the Duke of Cumberland ; and added, that he 'had never 
 heard of the action until four days after it had been commenced, 
 and that as to that unfortunate young man' — (as he tmmed 
 Norton"), who he said had been his ward, — he had not seen him 
 for these two or three years (I will not he certain of the precise 
 time he mentioned, hut it was a long one). I, of course, declared 
 myself 'perfectly satisfied.' " 
 
 Of course. A gentleman, called upon to accept the 
 disclaiper of other gentlemen, one of them a Prince of the 
 blood Royal, could do no less ; and of all men, the two in 
 question might feel sympathy for persons struggling against 
 accusation ; for the Duke of Cumberland had himself been 
 the theme of resisted obloquy, in that strange history of the 
 murder of his servant ; and Lord Wynford's justice, as 
 Judge Best, had "been impugned by Lord Denman in the 
 House of Lords, for brow -beating and unfairly fining a pri- 
 soner ; not to mention other scandals, less publicly ar- 
 raigned. 
 
 Lord Melbourne then, had to profess himself "satisfied," as 
 a matter of course ; but / was not satisfied. In the first place 
 I knew it was not true that Lord Wynford had not seen Mr 
 Norton for three years; and I was assured that some of the 
 witnesses had been examined at his house. As to the denial 
 of the Duke of Cumberland, — both Princes and Kings may be 
 eagerly served, without accepting the responsibility of their 
 words; and the trivial task of breaking up a Ministry, need not 
 weigh on the conscience like the riddance of St Thomas 
 ^ Beckett. His Eoyal Highness's dissatisfaction at the 
 success of the Whig party, and his dislike of its leader, were 
 patent and unconcealed. Even those who were friends and 
 adherents of that party, were involved in the evidence of that 
 dislike. I well remember, when I attended the Court 
 
65 
 
 receptions, even before the event of the Mock-Trial, when it 
 was merely sujmised that I had influence with the Whig 
 Premier, that the Duke of Cumberland was the only Eoyal 
 personage who refused to acknowledge, by the slightest salute, 
 the curtsey I made to him, as to others in the Royal circle. 
 I mentioned it to Lord Melbourne. He said, " You take these 
 slights to yourself, but they are not put upon you." 
 
 It so happened, by some strange hazard, that in. the list of the 
 jury on the trial, the name of Sir Robert Peel was called;* and 
 SirW. FoUett took the opportunity of alluding to that circum- 
 stance in his address : he said, — 
 
 " He cared not for the political sentiments of those he ad- 
 dressed — he would as soon have twelve political opponents as 
 twelve supporters of his nohle client, as he was sure they would 
 do justice to both parties. There was left on the Jury the leader 
 of the political party opposed to his client, hut he would as soon 
 have seen Sir Robert Peel in that box, as any other gentleman ; 
 and neither Lord Melbourne nor those who advised him, ever 
 thought of objecting to that gentleman." 
 
 Certainly not ; but between impeaching a leader whose 
 honour never was attacked, and utterly acquitting all mem- 
 bers of the Tory party, there is a wide gulf; and after the 
 denials, more or less angry, and more or less positive, made 
 publicly by persons at the time, thenewspapers still debated the 
 subject; and still boldly put the question, — « Who then is the 
 man behind the screen? " The very wording of the Duke of 
 Cumberland's denial, — the very expression, "nor indeed ant 
 OF us,"— assumed that Lord Melbourne suspected some of the 
 Tory party were the real movers in the extraordinary, 
 unexpected, and unfair attack made upon him. I repeat that I 
 know the late King thought so ; and as for Lord Melbourne 
 and myself, how could it seem otherwise than a plot? He 
 
 * Lords Grantley, Lichfield, and Lucan were seated on the bench. Sir 
 E. Peel and Mr P. Baring, M.P., whose names were on the Jury list, were 
 called, but did not answer. — Law Report, 1836. 
 
 P 
 
66 
 
 knew, and I knew (however deceived the puhlic might be), 
 that he was not the cause of the domestic repture which had 
 taken place. He knew, and I knew, that to the very last day 
 and hour of my stay under my husband's roof, he had been, not 
 only a welcome, but a peculiarly courted guest of Mr Norton's; 
 that, to the last, favours had been begged of him, and friend- 
 liness sustained; that for years his portrait had lain, un- 
 challenged, the principal ornament of our drawing-room table, 
 and that I had never imagined it necessary to conceal from my 
 husband, or any one else, the profound enthusiasm and regard 
 I felt for that gifted and intellectual friend, — who was of 
 my father's generation, not mine. 
 
 Lord Melbourne himself laid much stress on the admission 
 of the witnesses, that they had received a weekly stipend, from 
 an agent. He always considered they had been suborned, and 
 in one of his notes alludes thus to the man Fluke ;* — 
 
 "July 3, 1836. 
 " We are told that the witness' Fluke,' made the most of the 
 advantages of his situation whilst it lasted, and tyrannized over 
 his employers unmercifully. He would not leave Guildford 
 until he had had both chicken and duckling for his breakfast, 
 and insisted upon coming up in a chaise and four. It is a 
 pity that we did not knoiv these circumstances upon the day 
 of trial. " Ymirs , Melbourne." 
 
 Who the " employers" were, — was the only doubt ; and it 
 was that doubt which the Duke of Cumberland endeavoured 
 to clear away, — ^when he denied, on behalf of the whole Tory 
 party, any undue or ungentlemanlike interference in the affair. 
 Nevertheless, when, after the Mock-Trial, I re-appeared at the 
 English Court (which was not without express sanction, and 
 subsequent to Her Majesty's marriage), my re-appearance was 
 
 * I have thouglit it wortli while to re-print, in an Appendix, at the end 
 of this pamphlet, part of the swornevidence of this man ; let those who 
 read it judge for themselves of the case so supported. 
 
67 
 
 made a party question ; and one or two of the Tory ladies, 
 known to be on especial terms of familiar friendship with the 
 DukeofCumberland (then King of Hanover), openly boasted, 
 that in their own little set of Royal and Political personages, 
 they would treat the jury verdict of twelve untitled English 
 gentlemen, as " non avenu;" that the Whig ladies, and such 
 personal friends as I might have on the Tory side, might do 
 what they pleased; but that even if the Court itself supported 
 the verdict of acquittal, it would require only a little time and 
 patience (on the principle laid down by Sir R. Peel, that those 
 who could personally approach the Queen must necessarily 
 influence Her Majesty), to bring about a change. I know this 
 boast was especially made by a lady, whose husband has since 
 held Court appointments, and who sedulously cultivated many 
 Royal friendships. And that such assumption was not con- 
 sidered — among her own party, at least — "the baseless fabric 
 of a vision," is certainly proved by the stress laid, in May 
 1839, on the privilege of dismissing all the Queen's ladies, 
 except such as were under the rank of Ladies of the Bed- 
 chamber. The Royal decision was afterwards made public. — 
 
 " Buckingham Palace, May 10th, 1839. 
 " The Queen hating considered the proposal made to her 
 yesterday hy Sir Robert Peel to remove the Ladies of her Bed- 
 chamber, cannot consent to adopt a course which she conceives to 
 he contrary to usage, and which is repugnant to her feelings." — 
 
 Sir Robert's reply was a respectfully worded refusal to take 
 office with that restriction. In the Ministerial explanation 
 of May 13th, 1839, he expressly stated, that— "wo question 
 arose as to the formation of the administration, or as to the 
 principles on which the Government was to he formed or con- 
 ducted. The difficulty related exclusively to that portion of 
 the household which is filled hy the ladies in Her Majesty's 
 service. Her Majesty concededwhat could he wished or expected, 
 
 F 2 
 
68 
 
 with respect to that part of the household which is filled hy no- 
 blemen or gentlemen holding seats in either House of Parlia- 
 ment. The difficulty arose with respect to certain portions of that 
 part of the establishment which is filled by the ladies of the 
 household." 
 
 The influence whicli tlie Tory ladies expected to exercise, 
 may be judged of by this circumstance; "which the Tory Leader 
 held to be of sufficient importance to decide his non-acceptance 
 of ministerial power. When I complained to Lord Melbourne 
 that the lady expectant I have alluded to, took an active part 
 against me : — his answer was, — " Not against you — none of 
 them care about you ; it is against me, — and she, in particular, 
 has always hated me like poison." 
 
 From him. I learned, that when on one occasion, whilst her 
 Majesty's carriages were passing over the race-ground at 
 Ascot, some of the Tory Ladies hissed (which caused great 
 scandal), those ladies excused themselves by sajdng, they "in- 
 tended no disrespect to the Queen, for tliat they had hissed, 
 not Her Majesty, but her Majesty's Minister Lord Melbourne.'"' 
 From him I learned, also, many speeches and sentiments from 
 other ladies, which I should not else have known: and I con- 
 fess that the conduct of some of these female Politicians — their 
 capacity for bitter partisanship, and incapacity for common jus- 
 tice — amazed me. I was young enough then, to expect the 
 sympathy of all women; and I was astonished at finding ladies 
 whose children were my contemporaries, looking upon me 
 not only without pity, but with anger, as something that was 
 to have wrecked the Whig Prime Minister, and had failed to 
 accomplish that object. Fortunately for me, kindness was the 
 rule, and harshness the exception. If misfortune taught me 
 some bitter lessons, it also taught me the nobleness of hearts 
 on which I had no claim. Fortunately also for me, I had true 
 and generous sisters, — and a family whose love and protection 
 almost annulled the bitterness of these events ! 
 
69 
 
 But neither family nor friends could help me to redeem those 
 hostages — ^my children ; and not yet seeing my way to the 
 struggle a new law afterwards enabled me to make, I suppli- 
 cated incessantly, and in vain. I thought of nothing, day or 
 night, hut my children. Lord Melbourne wrote to me, sur- 
 prised at my silence after the trial; and I told him I was 
 broken-hearted on this point, and had written to petition my 
 husband for mercy respecting them. I TiTote bitterly and des- 
 pondingly ; and Lord Melbourne's replies were certainly not 
 cheering or comforting. His anger against Mr Norton for 
 having submitted to be employed, to injure not only him but 
 his party — « tliose who are attached to me and follow my 
 fortunes" — was mixed with something like reproach to me, for 
 not having more keenly and severely judged and foreseen the 
 conduct of the husband I had toiled and asked favours for. 
 I had not the "lover" attributed to me; but I had a friend, 
 deeply wounded, and whom I grieved to wound ; and these 
 are his letters; — 
 
 « South Street, July 2nd, 1836. 
 
 « Well, come what may, I will never again, from silence or 
 any other symptom, think that you can mean anything unkind or 
 adverse to me. I have already told you that most of the bitter- 
 ness which I have felt during this affair, was upon your account. 
 
 / do not think your application to Norton was 
 
 judicious. From the beginning, your anxiety to prevent publicity 
 has induced you to apply to him too much. Every communi- 
 cation elates him, and encourages him to persevere in his brutality. 
 You ought to know him better than I do, and must do so. But 
 you seem to me to be hardly aware what a gnome he is: how 
 perfectly earthy and bestial. He is possessed of a devil y and 
 that themeanest and basest fiend that disgraces the infernal re- 
 gions. In my opinion he has somehow or other made this whole 
 matter subservient to his pecuniary interest. Hehas got money 
 
 by it, from or some one else. I should feel certain of 
 
 this, if it were not for his folly, which is so excessive as to ren- 
 der him incapable even of forwarding his own low designs." 
 
70 
 
 " South street, My \9th, 1836. 
 " There is no knowing what that man may do, now that he ts 
 left to the guidance of his own feelings ,andhis own understand- 
 ing ; and to the advice of those about him. You hneiv the state 
 of your own domestic affairs better than I did. I only knew what 
 you told me; but it appeared to me, that by living with him you 
 had grown less alive to his real character by being accustomed to 
 it, and also that you were so used to manage him and to prevent 
 his follies, that you relied too much on being able always to do it. 
 Recollect when you were with him, how stupidly and brutally 
 he continually behaved; particularly, for instance, to Helen. 
 His conduct there, always struck me as showing a violence which 
 was likely afterwards to break out. Now that he has nobody 
 to advise, control, or soothe him, what follies or what abomina- 
 ble conduct he may pursue, it is impossible to conjecture. I 
 pity you about the children. It is most melancholy not to know 
 where they are, or with whom." 
 
 « South street, July M, 1836. 
 "Isendyou back the copies.* I agree very much in all you say 
 in your letter. The amount of allowance makes a great differ- 
 ence. If you could get 300/. or 400?. {I think you ought to 
 have the latter sum), the arrangement might do tolerably well. 
 But they are very advantageous terms for him, and should not 
 he agreed to, except for something approaching to an equivalent. 
 I think he should secure your income beyond his own life, upon 
 any property which he may have. I have never mentioned money 
 to you, and I hardly like to do it now : your feelings have been 
 so galled that they have naturally become very sore and sensitive, 
 and I knew not how you might take it. I have had at times a 
 great mind to send you some, but I feared to do so. As I trust 
 we are now upon terms of confidential and affectionate friendship, 
 J venture to say, that you have nothing to do but to express a 
 wish, and it shall be instantly complied with. I miss you. I 
 
 * Of Mr. Norton's propositions. 
 
71 
 
 miss your society and conversation every day at the hours at 
 which I was accustomed to enjoy them, and when you say that 
 your place can he easily supplied, you indulge in a little vanity 
 and self-conceit. You know well enough that there is nobody 
 who can fill your place. I have been reading ' The Wife,' and 
 have finished the second volume. It is full of most excellent 
 
 things. ' Lionel' is too d d a beast, and ' Mary' maJtes a 
 
 great deal too much sacrifice for him; but it is not unnatural. 
 Many people have acted as amiably, as romantically, and as 
 foolishly. I think, in order to take advantage of what you have 
 observed in other people' s character s,youhave put into his, what 
 did not belong to it. For instance, his being so disagreeable 
 upon the journey, calculating the currency and admiring nothing 
 fine or beautiful either in Nature or Art, is what has struck 
 you in others, and you have grafted it upon him ; in whom, 
 being a man of genius and feeling, it is not natural. 
 
 " I saw Brinsley and his wife the other night at Lord Hert- 
 ford's. I thought him rather cold. None of them seem really 
 glad to see me, except Charlie. But there is no reason they 
 should be. If they went upon my principle (or rather my prac- 
 tice') of disliking those who cause me trouble, uneasiness, vex- 
 ation, without considering why they do it, they certainly would 
 not rejoice in my presence. 
 
 " You are quite right, and it shows your good sense, tobearin 
 mind that it may be of permanent disadvantage to your children 
 to he Separated and estranged from their father's family , upon 
 whom they must principally depend. I expect that some day 
 or another you will have them all thrown upon you, — Adieu, 
 
 " Yours, Melbourne'' 
 
 "South street, January 1th, 1837. 
 
 . ... "Do you know tells me, that from all he 
 
 can hear, he believes that Norton has really got three thousand 
 a year; and ten thousand pounds down." . , . . 
 
72 
 
 "South street, January \%th, 1837. 
 . . , . . I ham been told to-day that Norton has been 
 trying to make a bargain to give up his office in favour of a Mr 
 
 for a thousand pounds* It is just like him. I said to 
 
 the person who gave me the intelligence, 'if you find it out, stop 
 the bargain, and stop the appointment; but say as little as 
 possible about it — for at least half the disgrace of the trans- 
 action will fall upon me, who appointed him.' Adieu, 
 
 " Yours, Melbourne." 
 
 This, then, is the husband, who to evade a pecuniary con- 
 tract, has lately subjected me to the last extreme of obloquy: 
 these are the letters of the man he proceeded against, in an 
 English Court of "Justice," for damages : and such are the 
 opinions, in despite of which Mr Norton dares to revive 
 the slur he threw upon my name in the mad vengeance of 
 the hour, — when Sir James Graham declined his condition 
 that if he retracted what had been said of me, we were to con- 
 tradict all that was said of him. Lord Melbourne's letters are 
 in themselves evidence that / spared Mr Norton. The man 
 my husband accused as my lover, writes to me as to one not 
 even thoroughly aware of that husband's mercenary nature. 
 " You ought to know him — but you seem to be hardly aware 
 what a GNOME he is. . . I only knew what you told me, 
 but it appeared to me that by living with him you had grown less 
 alive to his real character, by being accustomed to it." . , 
 "Recollect how he behaved," 8fc. . . 
 
 Phrases which prove, that to the last, / had spared him, to 
 those who could serve him — and to those who could not. And 
 if it be asked why, having spared him so long, I expose him 
 now, — I answer that 7 am the judge, — not others, — ^where en- 
 
 * At the time it was supposed that Mr Norton would be unable, 
 after the trial, to brave public opinion by continuing to hold the place 
 Lord Melbourne had given him. 
 
73 
 
 durance merged in exasperation : and that the boundary line 
 was reached, the day Mr Norton met me in the County Court; 
 the day that, to evade a just claim, he unburied all the 
 falsehoods of the past; endeavoured to disgrace me (in 1853, 
 as he had done in 1836) for the sake of money; and in cold 
 blood re-published, to the grieving of my grown up sons, 
 the slanders which had blighted my youth in their infancy. 
 But for that day in the County Courts Mr Norton might 
 have gone to his grave in seeming respectability; our history 
 known only to a few friends. Struggle and warfare were over 
 with me. Much of the bitterness I had felt, had faded with 
 time ; much had vanished when I recovered my sons. While 
 that bitterness was yet fresh, and circumstances, from time to 
 time, roused me to desire a more public justification, — Lord 
 Melbourne himself was the first to preach lessons of patience. 
 He spoke to me of the " nine days' wonder " my story 
 would be; of the perfect conviction of the real cncumstances 
 of my case, entertained by those whose opinion I valued; 
 of my youth, and the likelihood that in a few years I would 
 have "lived down" all temporary scandal; of the embarrass- 
 ment it would be to him, — as the minister of a young un- 
 married Sovereign, — to have such a history re-opened; — of 
 the disloyal selfishness he conceived such a struggle on my 
 part would evince; of the awkwardness, in particular, of any 
 attempt to prove interference on the part of those Personages 
 who had denied it to him; of the certainty that when the 
 Queen was married, and the Court more established, I would 
 find, in the earnest support of those whose faithful minister he 
 had been, an upholding that would make me forget the dis- 
 grace I had endured in his name. He was my friend, though 
 not my lover; and the resolves of many an angry day and 
 hour subsided under his influence. In later years there had 
 been no need for such arguments for silence. I had long 
 relinquished the idea of warfare with Mr Norton; and was 
 quietly making the best of a bad destiny. All last winter 
 
74 
 
 I was residing in Italy with my two sons; occupied in com- 
 pleting a work to be published by Messrs Hurst and Blackett, 
 the profits of which were devoted to the Oxford expenses of 
 the youngest. I had just nursed him through one of those 
 tedious Neapolitan fevers, from which he had suffered for nine 
 weeks, — I had myself been confined to my room for five 
 weeks, — and this was the time chosen by Mr Norton, as hus- 
 band and father, for a vain battling correspondence, compelling 
 my return to England, to debate at law the contract I thought 
 had been settled for life. This was the time chosen, — by sub- 
 pcenaing my publisherSj and claiming to reckon my literary 
 gains as his own personal relief, — to establish his legal right 
 to annul even the service I could render my son : and to revive 
 libels he himself had a thousand times admitted to be false : by 
 which he once more put me in the same position, as to the 
 repelling of accusation, that I had been in when our separation 
 took place, in 1836. 
 
 In the same position, only as to that one point. Lord Mel- 
 bourne is dead ; my children are^ grown up ; I have no second 
 youth, to wear away in the fond hope of " living down " Mr 
 Norton's slanders, and making friendships and companionships 
 among my own sex without the sorrowful embarrassment of a 
 " story" to explain. I have no second youth, I say, to spend in a 
 semi-justification against these foul slanders. Therefore, once for 
 all, I deny them : I defy them : I disprove them : and I regret 
 only that I did not do, years ago, that which I do this day. 
 As to writing, I will never again write, while my copyrights 
 are held to be Mr Norton's; except on this single subject of 
 the state of the Laws of Protection for Women.* My youth 
 has gone by in struggle and vexation ; much of it in bitter 
 sorrow : the youth of other women may be saved from such 
 
 * It is my intention to foHow this pamphlet by a selection of such 
 cases as appear to me most remarkable among decisions in the Courts 
 of Law ; bearing on the general point of this want of protection. 
 
^ "5 
 
 suffering by changes in the law; and my writing on that 
 topic, while the law is admitted to be in a state of transition, 
 may (without over-rating my own power) have as much in- 
 fluence, as other individuals have had in the gradual remedy 
 of other defective laws. Such a hope has a certain degree of 
 happiness attached to it; even if the law be remedied too late 
 for me personally to profit much by the change. 
 
 I come now to the history of the contract, in the attempt to 
 evade which, Mr Norton revived scandal, and braved this 
 defence. 
 
 In July 1848j my husband — who had for years allotted me 
 precisely what he pleased — desired once more to attempt 
 to raise the Trust- fund alluded to at page 28, that being 
 the provision made on my marriage, for me and my sons. To 
 raise this money, it was necessary for him to obtain my written 
 consent. He applied to me accordingly: and I requested him, 
 in exchange, to execute a deed of separation, and secure me an 
 income of 600/. a-year (which I had been assured was the 
 minimum of allowance that would have been granted, if I had 
 been in a position to sue for alimony). 
 
 Mr Norton's reply was merely haggling as to terms: he 
 would not give 600/. but he would give 500/. : and I must 
 give my consent at once to raise the Trust-fund. He em- 
 ployed my invalid son, who had just returned on leave from 
 Lisbon, to press this upon me; and to explain that he wanted 
 the money immediately, to improve the estate left him by 
 Miss Vaughan. As soon as my son interfered, I made haste 
 to yield: I wrote to Mr Leman, who acted as solicitor for my 
 trustees, to say that I consented to all Mr Norton proposed, — 
 " mainly because it is intolerable to me to have my son talk over 
 matters of this kind from his father.^' But I entered on the 
 arrangement with a distrust which subsequent events have 
 
76 ^ 
 
 proved to be most amply justified. I could not but remember 
 the numerous occasions on wbicb Mr Norton bad sbown tbat 
 no possible reliance could be placed on his word; and I shocked 
 Mr Leman by expectations openly and repeatedly expressed, that 
 my husband would " cheat " me. Every one of the letters I 
 wrote on this business, contained that truly prophetic warning. 
 The first hitch occurred, from Mr Norton insisting that the 
 deed which was to be only prospective, for me, should be 
 guaranteed retrospectively (for a period of no less than ten 
 years), as far as his own pecuniary advantage was concerned. 
 This was utterly refused, and the guarantee I had named, de- 
 clined to act. Mr Leman told me that, without a guarantee, the 
 deed of separation he had prepared, would be informal. I 
 answered, that if I could not obtain a legal separation, I sup- 
 posed some other kind of deed or bond could be executed; by 
 which Mr Norton could be " BOUND:" and that I was to see a 
 legal friend whom I would consult on the subject. 
 
 That legal friend was Sir Frederick Thesiger; who con- 
 sented, at my earnest request, to receive Mr Norton at his 
 chambers. Having seen him, Sir F. Thesiger wrote to me that 
 my husband would execute a deed of separation : that he did 
 not require guarantees, but insisted on my acceding to the 
 condition of his retrospective advantage ; which no guarantee 
 would have acceded to, but which he declared I, personally, 
 had promised him. Sir F. Thesiger then added, — "if he is 
 correct in this statement" — " assuming the accuracy of Norton's 
 assertion," — " I should venture to recommend you not to aim 
 "at any alteration of the terms, but to embrace the offer now 
 "made, of giving you the security of a deed of separation; 
 " which you have so long earnestly desired, and which I trust, 
 " will have the effect of placing you in a situation of more 
 " complete tranquillity than it has been your lot to enjoy for 
 "many years." 
 
 I did, then, what I was advised ; I yielded the point of re- 
 trospective protection. I agreed, that for ten years past, and 
 
77 
 
 for all years to come, Mr Norton should never be troubled 
 with any debt of mine ; he agreeing in future to pay 500/. a 
 year. I told Mr Leman I would be content with such a deed, 
 signed by Mr Norton and witnessed by Sir F. Thesiger; and 
 1 left town on a visit to Lord Eutherford, the then Lord Ad- 
 vocate of Scotland. The new deed was sent to Scotland for 
 me to sign. I obeyed; and returned it by post. It never oc- 
 curred to me as possible, that the instrument was valueless. If 
 I had thought so, I would not have gone through the ridicu- 
 lous farce of signing it. I received it as the valid substitute for 
 the unexecuted deed previously thrown aside ; and as a settle- 
 ment/or life. Mr Norton, in his published letter, says that he 
 knew at the time, it was invalid. If so, he was guilty of de- 
 liberate fraud : for the deed pretended to make permanent con- 
 ditions, and included the contingency of his succeeding to 
 the peerage by surviving his brother. Even the lately dis- 
 puted chance of my providing for debt beyond the allowance 
 so secured— by literary or other resources — had been duly con- 
 templated : Sir F. Thesiger had written to Mr Leman to guard 
 against Mr Norton's interference in such a case, in these 
 terms: — " I foresee the germs of endless differences if it were 
 to be permitted . . . The spirit of the agreement I un- 
 " derstand to be, that a certain provision should be secured to 
 "Mrs Norton; that Mr Norton should be discharged from 
 " liability for her debts, and that neither should trouble or in- 
 " terfere with the other." That was also my exact understand- 
 ing of the case ; and Mr Norton hastened to give this earnest 
 assurance in reply. " I can have no wish to interfere with Mrs 
 " Norton's affairs : stiU less with her debts : you may bind 
 " me as stringently as you please not to interfere with her 
 " affairs. I shall pay her allowance under the deed, wiih the 
 " same regularity I have paid her previous allowance." I had 
 yet to learn how easily I had been outwitted ! On the strength 
 of the momentary value of my signature, Mr Norton instantly 
 
raised the money he wanted ; and left me to ascertain at leisure 
 what was the value of his signature. 
 
 Late in the same autumn I received news from Lisbon, that 
 my son was considered by the physicians there, to be dying : 
 and I hurriedly proceeded to London to make preparations for 
 going out to join him. While I was thus anxiously occupied, 
 intelligence reached me of the dangerous illness of Lord Mel- 
 bourne, and he died about a fortnight before I sailed for Por- 
 tugal. I returned the ensuing year to England. My son was 
 better, and accompanied me home: my mother was then ill, 
 but she rallied and temporarily recovered. I went with my 
 son to Germany and Belgium ; returned again to England ; and 
 in June, 1851, my mother died. 
 
 At her death, Mr Norton inherited the life-interest of my 
 portion from my father, which had not been secured to me in 
 any way: and I inherited, — secured to me most carefully, 
 guarded from the rapacity of my husband, by every expression 
 in my mother's will — an income for life of 480/. As soon as 
 Mr Norton found I had this legacy, and six months before I 
 received one farthing of it, he wrote that he could no longer 
 pay me the sum secured (as I imagined) by the deed of agree- 
 ment we had both signed ; and he begged to inquire what de- 
 duction I myself would propose in my allowance, — " such de- 
 duction to commence from the time that I should receive any 
 money under my mothers will." I replied, that I could propose 
 no deduction; that my mother's bequest was expressly in- 
 tended as an addition, to eke out the meagre allowance he 
 made me, and not as a substitute for such allowance ; that years 
 of litigation, dispute, and debt, the illness of my son, and my 
 constant journeys and residences abroad in consequence of such- 
 illness, had crippled my means ; that my mother's assistance 
 was intended for me and for my sons (not for the husband 
 who had ruined and wronged me in the days of my youth, 
 when all the love of my family, and all the law of England, 
 
79 
 
 failed to protect me against him). Mr Norton rejoined, that 
 ■what I would not yield, he would take ; that I should either 
 consent to his deducting 200/. a year as his advantage from 
 the 4801. left to me^ or he would not give me anything; that I 
 could not compel him ; that as to the agreement Mr Leman had 
 drawn up, he defied me to prove it valid, " as, by law, Man 
 "and Wife were one, and could not contract with each other; 
 " and the deed was therefore good for nothing." 
 
 I reminded him that the deed was in fact a matter of bargain, 
 as he had expressly urged its being drawn up, in order to ob- 
 tain my signature to raise the trust-money he wanted — that he 
 had had his advantage, and that it was most dishonourable to 
 evade the covenant as regarded me. Mr Norton laughed at 
 the argument, and stood to the fact, that in law I could not 
 help myselfj and that the deed was valueless. 
 
 I inquired whether this was true, and was informed that Mr 
 Norton probably could evade the performance of his covenant ; 
 — because the fiction of the law was^ that "man and wife are 
 one," — and not two contracting parties — that he was not 
 bound therefore " in law," only " in honour." 
 
 I asked what I could do under the circumstances ; and was 
 told that I might refer the creditors I could not pay^ to Mr 
 Norton, and so take the chance of its being decided that he was 
 liable, upon their suing him. I was extremely loth and un- 
 willing to do anything. I did not believe that the deed could 
 be proved null ; or, if it could, that Mr Norton would brave 
 the shame of publicly asserting his own signature, set to an 
 instrument drawn up by a lawyer, under his own directions, 
 to be worthless. A gentleman, a barrister, a magistrate : I de- 
 cided in my own mind that it was impossible : that it was an 
 empty threat, to induce me to share the legacy with him. I 
 thought I would give him time. I was anxious about my 
 second son, who had hitherto been robust, but who had been 
 suffering a good deal. I wanted to take him away to join my 
 pther son at Naples : to have one of the gleamg of peace in my 
 
80 
 
 tormented life, whioli I can at least enjoy witli them. I could 
 not go away, if I entered on lawsuits with Mr Norton. I 
 therefore merely attempted to draw my usual allowance at Mr 
 Norton's banker's according to the contract; was refused; 
 borrowed from my own bankers, under my brother's secixrity, 
 a sum of money for my journey, — and left England. 
 
 I certainly gave Mr Norton ample time to consider whether 
 he would act honestly or not; I gave him nearly a year and a 
 half; from March 1852 (when he balanced my receipt of my 
 mother's legacy by stopping my allowance), till August 1853; 
 when I was compelled to appear in the County Court. 
 Neither during that time, nor since, has he paid one farthing. 
 The Law has enabled him alike to defraud the dead and the 
 living; and my mother might just as well have left the money 
 unsecured, which he thus seizes by deduction. Even the 
 statement that he would pay a minor sum, turned out to be 
 false ; I tested it, by giving a cheque to Sir A. D. Gordon for 
 the whole amount, and afterwards to Mr Thrupp (the creditor 
 who lost his cause), for a small proportion of the amount; and 
 both those cheques were returned unpaid upon my hands. 
 
 When I returned to England, I had still hoped and endea- 
 voured to avoid any public law struggle with Mr Norton. I 
 sent for his cousin, Mr Norton of Elton, and explained the 
 case to him ; desiring him to advise Mr Norton. I once more 
 appealed to the wearied-out patience of Sir Frederick 
 Thesiger. He heard me with more indulgence perhaps than 
 I deserved, considering the irritation under which I was 
 labouring at the position of affairs; unable to pay what I 
 owed; frustrated in my efforts to assist either my sons or 
 myself; and defied by Mr Norton as to the deed which I 
 believed had closed for life all discussions between me and 
 my husband. But though Sir Frederick heard me patiently, 
 he declined seeing Mr. Norton; to whom, he said, he had 
 become a total stranger; that it was very long since he had 
 met him, and then not in society. I wrote, after that, to 
 
81 
 
 Mr Norton's own solicitor, in the forlorn hope that he might 
 be acting against advice. I settled the first action brought 
 against Mr Norton by promising to pay it rayselfj with all 
 expenses, so soon as that should be possible. I had been 
 subpoenaed as witness, in that and other cases; and I must 
 observe (for many persons misunderstand this), that attend- 
 ance on subpoena is compulsory, not voluntary. Mr Norton, 
 in the subsequent case that came into court, subpoenaed a 
 person who had been my maid; subpoenaed my bankers; 
 compelled them to produce their books, and sent his attorney 
 to make extracts at their bank, of all sums entered in my 
 private account. He also subpoenaed my publishers; to com- 
 pel them to declare what were the copyrights they held of me, 
 and what sums they had paid me. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that these gentlemen had any pleasure 
 in coming forward ; or volunteered to uphold a defence grounded 
 on a disgraceful quibble. They attended, — as I attended, — 
 on subpoena; a legal summons, the punishment for disobeying 
 which is a fine, or imprisonment for contempt. Subpoenaed 
 again, — in a fresh action, — my last effort, through the solicitor, 
 was to warn Mr Norton that I was already in debt to my banker, 
 and could pay no other creditor. I received for answer merely 
 that he " declined all discussion on the subject.'' I then made 
 up my mind to bear what must be borne, and went into court 
 (as I imagined), merely to answer a few formal questions, the 
 pain of which consisted in being obliged to prove, thus publicly, 
 that my husband had cheated me. I expected to have to prove 
 the contract; to prove his signature; to hear Mr Leraan (who 
 was also subpoenaed) prove the circumstances under which it 
 was drawn out; to admit the debt; to show that I had no fund 
 but this withheld allowance to pay it with ; and then to hear 
 it decided, either that Mr Norton was legally liable, or that he 
 was not. I had the opinion of an able solicitor that he would 
 be held liable. I had the opinion of the distinguished Queen's 
 counsel who accompanied me into court, that he would not; 
 
 G 
 
82 
 
 and I was prepared for the possibility of an adverse legal 
 decision. What I was not prepared for, was the scene that 
 followed. 
 
 My husband had resolved how to fight this battle. He 
 entered the court attended by counsel. (I believe counsel had 
 not been thought necessary on the other side, which was con- 
 ducted by Mr Dod, Solicitor to the Society for the Protection 
 of Trade.) When I first saw my husband, my courage sank; 
 the horrible strangeness of my position oppressed me with 
 anger and shame ; my heart beat ; the crowd of people swam 
 before my eyes; and the answers I had begun to make, and the 
 declarations I had intended to struggle through, choked in my 
 throat, which felt as if it were full of dust. It would have been 
 well for Mr Norton if he had not then eagerly seized an 
 imaginary advantage. He rose, gathered up his papers, and 
 saying with a sneer — " TFhat does the witness say ? Let her 
 speak up; I cannot hear her;" he came and seated himself 
 close to me; there was only the skirting board that divided 
 the court between us. 
 
 The witness heard him. That which he did still further 
 to abash and intimidate me, had precisely the contrary effect. 
 I knew, as I listened, that he had come, with the resolution 
 to crush me at all hazards. I felt, as I looked for an instant 
 towards him, that he saw in me neither a woman to be spared 
 public insult, nor a mother to be spared shameful sorrow, 
 — ^but simply a claimant to be non-suited; a creditor to be 
 be evaded ; a pecuniary incumbrance he was determined to be 
 rid of. More than one of the professional gentlemen present 
 appealed to the Judge, whether he should be " permitted " to 
 sit where he had placed himself; but there he continued to 
 sit ; instructing his counsel in an under- tone what questions to 
 put to me, — making written notes on the case, — and occasion- 
 ally peremptorily addressing me himself. In my heart, scorn 
 and desperation took the place of fear. The case was a 
 claim for 47/., for repairs of a little carriage in use for 
 
83 
 
 twelve- years. I was examined; and began by stating, " that 
 I had already stopped one case against my husband at my 
 own expence; that I appeared in court against my will, 
 subpoenaed by the creditor, whose account 1 had paid in part, 
 and would have paid entirely, if Mr Norton had not stopped 
 my allowance." Mr Norton's counsel, Mr Needham, endea- 
 voured to prevent this statement. He then cross-examined 
 me (assisted by Mr Norton); apparently to try and prove that 
 I was extravagant. I was questioned how many servants I 
 kept; whether they were of an expensive class; whether I 
 ever ventured to ask my friends to dinner; and what I need- 
 lessly spent on the education of a poor orphan girl, confided to 
 my care by the clergyman of her parish (brother-in-law to the 
 minister of the chapel Mr Norton and I attended in Westmin- 
 ster). This charity seemed especially to irritate Mr Norton. 
 I was cross-examined about it, with the most sneering severity ; 
 it seemed as if I could have no right, either to the pleasures of 
 hospitality, — or the luxury of doing good; but that every 
 farthing not absolutely necessary to put a meal into my own 
 mouth, ought to have been saved up and made over as a free 
 gift to the husband who had blighted my whole existence. In 
 vain I assured Mr Needham that the orphan was going out to 
 service, and that teaching her to write and read, had not been 
 expensive : a charity which did not come out of the poor's-box 
 in the magistrate's court, was incomprehensible to Mr Norton; 
 and in daring to perform it, I had wronged and robbed him. 
 It never seemed to occur, either to Mr Norton or to Mr Need- 
 ham, that whatever I had expended, was mine to expend; that 
 I did not owe a penny I could not have paid, but for my 
 husband's dishonesty; that whether my money was disbursed 
 for charity — or hospitality — or even luxury (if they could 
 have proved such a thingi^, — instead of being principally 
 expended in travelling with an invalid son; and whether it 
 was the result of legacies, or literary industry; it was my own 
 current income; 500/. a year of which, being seized by Mr 
 
 G 2 
 
84 
 
 Norton, alone created for mo any difficulty. It never -seemed 
 to occur to them, that the question was not whether my 
 hushand should provide for me; but whether he should cheat 
 me of a covenanted debt, on the quibble that he could not con- 
 tract with his WIFE. That if he had contracted to pay this 
 money to the Duke of Bedford, — instead of to me, — ^he could 
 not have disputed the debt on the ground that the Duke was 
 already so well off, that it was unnecessary to pay him ; even 
 on proof of all the large hospitalities of Woburn. As a matter 
 of justice, the ground taken was simply ridiculous; and 
 perhaps they felt it to be so; for, after vainly arguing that I 
 ought to have spent less, (and so made a sort of nest-egg and 
 provision against the event of my being defrauded); that 
 ground was shifted, and the sources of my income examined 
 into, Mr Norton, who left me, when we first parted, without 
 any provision at all for two years, — who had insisted, at the 
 time of our contract, on a retrospective advantage for him- 
 self, through the whole period of our separation, — and who 
 still holds property of mine, which no referee could persuade 
 him to give back ; — took, not an average of the past, but such 
 selected years as he pleased, from the banker's books; adding 
 in (as income') the money, still unpaid, which I had borrowed 
 of them; while Mr Needham, not being familiar perhaps with, 
 
 the lines, — 
 
 " Lieto nido — esca doloe — aura cortese 
 Bramano i cigni ; e non si va in Parnaso 
 Con le cure mordaci ;" 
 
 or not being of the poet's opinion as to the fate of — 
 
 " Chi pur sempre 
 Col sue destin garrisce e col disagio— " 
 
 bravely added, that I must make at least 500Z. a year by my 
 •writings ! 
 
 All this I could have borne; a«ui almost smiled at it; false 
 and foolish as it was; and wide of the real question, whether 
 Mr Norton should break his written bond or not. But I was not 
 so to be released. " The children of darkness are wiser in their 
 
85 
 
 generation than the children of light;" and those who had to 
 defend fraud, felt that so it would be but ill-defended; and 
 that the clear light would fall on a gross breach of faith. Mr 
 Norton has had more than half a century's experience of this 
 world ; and he knew better how to evade its judgment. He 
 knew what the introduction and revival of the old scandals 
 about Lord Melbourne^ would be worth in such a case. He 
 knew how instantly attention would be called off the real ques- 
 tion of our contract, to animated disputes whether the verdict 
 given in that memorable trial had or had not been a just one; 
 whether I was or was not a wanton ; whether I had or had not 
 done well in accepting any legacy from the defendant in that 
 action. He knew what clouds of dust would rise with that 
 old story, to confuse the eyes that might otherwise see clearly ; 
 and he — whose own income consisted of — 
 
 1. A place of a thousand a year given by LOKD Mel 
 
 BOURNE : — 
 
 2. An Estate in Yorkshire left him by the woman whose 
 
 seizure of my children caused our last quarrel : — 
 ,3. The Trust-fund from which he had borrowed, by means of 
 my signature to the very contract disputed in Court : — 
 ' 4. The portion bequeathed me by my Father: — 
 5. The Recordership of Guildford; a salary for sitting in 
 
 judgment on other men : — (.') 
 He came forward in Court, to affect a scrupulous delicacy, 
 — that the wife on whom he had closed the door of her home 
 "with the chain across :" — whom he had prosecuted for divorce 
 and then wooed to return to him : — whom he himself had en- 
 deavoured to make the wife of Lord Melbourne, by criminating 
 evidence totally unfit for belief; — should accept assistance 
 from that dead friend's family, to half the amount he himself 
 still drew, from the place Lord Melbourne had given him ! 
 
 Greater hypocrisy than the pretence, surely never existed: 
 and a greater falsehood than that by which the pretence was 
 supported, certainly never was told ; for Mr Norton coolly 
 
86 
 
 asserted that he never would have made the allowance in the 
 contract, if I had not " given him the most solemn assurance 
 that I would receive nothing from Lord Melbourne." 
 
 I made a brief emphatic answer, to this deliberate misrepre- 
 sentation. I said : — 
 
 " I stand here on my OATH, — and I say that that is false." 
 For a moment, I was bitterly tempted to add these further words : 
 »' Will Mr Norton also consent to be SWORN ?" But I refrained. 
 I appealed to Mr Leman's testimony, whose evidence was 
 taken on oath as a witness in the case — and who accordingly 
 deposed that no such stipulation ever was made ; and that he 
 himself had drawn up the contract with all its conditions, at Mr 
 Norton's own request. Mr Leman added — with much emphasis 
 and feeling — that though, legally, he considered the agreement 
 might not stand, he certainly expected it would have bound 
 Mr Norton ^' as a man of honour." 
 
 From the moment the questioning began about Lord Mel- 
 bourne, I lost all self-possession. Not because I was ashamed 
 of having accepted his bequest; if I had thought there was 
 shame in it, I should not have taken it : — but because I then 
 saw all the cruel baseness of Mr Norton's intention. All flashed 
 upon me at once. I felt that I no longer stood in that Court 
 to struggle for an income — but to struggle against infamy. I 
 knew by sudden instinct, that the husband who had so often, to 
 me and to others, asserted that the trial was the work of "Ad- 
 visers" was now about to pretend he believed the charge brought 
 against Lord Melbourne in 1836. The wild exasperation came 
 over me, which seemed so inexplicable to those who did not 
 know our real story. He, who had falsely accused me long 
 ago, — ^he who had taken my young children, and let one of 
 them die without even sending for me, till too late, — he who 
 had embittered and clouded my whole existence, — who was 
 now in my presence only to cheat me (as I had foretold he 
 would do), — he was once more going to brand me before the 
 world ! I felt giddy ; the faces of the people grew indis- 
 
87 
 
 tinct; my sentences became a confused alternation of angry 
 loudness, and husky attempts to speak. I saw nothing — but 
 the husband of whose mercenary nature Lord Melbourne him- 
 self had warned me I judged too leniently; nothing but the 
 Gnome, — proceeding again to dig away, for the sake of 
 money, what remnant of peace, happiness, and reputation, 
 might have rested on the future years of my life. Turning up 
 as he dug — dead sorrows, and buried shames, a^d miserable 
 recollections — and careless who was hurt by them, so long as 
 he evaded payment of a disputed annuity, and stamped his 
 own signature as worthless ! 
 
 I tried, at first confusedly enough (as the broken sentences 
 in the reports showed) , but afterwards as connectedly- as I 
 could, to explain that Lord Melbourne had left me nothing in 
 his will ; that I believed he could not, his property being 
 strictly entailed; that I had never been his mistress; that I 
 was young enough, and more than young enough, to be his 
 daughter^ and that he had never treated me otherwise than as 
 a friend: that the trial of 1836 was based on a false accusa- 
 tion ; and that Lord Melbourne had given his word of honour 
 when living, to that effect : that, dying, he had left nothing 
 but a letter solemnly repeating that denial ; recommending me 
 to the generosity of his brother, and stating the amount of 
 provision he wished made for me: that his brother and his 
 sister had abided by and fulfilled his intentions, because his 
 memory was dear to them; and none but my husband had 
 ever accused him of baseness. That I received what he had 
 wished me to receive, but that / held no legal security to 
 oblige any one to pay it; "»io/ even such a security as the 
 contract Mr Norton had mocked me with; drawn up by a 
 lawyer and signed by that lawyer and my husband " : that Lord 
 Melbourne had relied on his family showing me this kindness 
 after he was gone, on account of the disgrace and misery I had 
 most unjustly endured in his name ; and that they had done 
 so. And certainly (if I may add to the acknowledgment of 
 
88 
 
 that kindness, one selfish comment), I think never woman had 
 fairer claim on kindness; for if it had not been for the scheme 
 to oust Lord Melbourne as Minister, my quarrel with my hus- 
 band would have been arranged — as other disputes had been; 
 Mr Norton having already owned to Sir James Graham, that 
 he was ready, conditionally, to retract what he had said against 
 me. And if it had not been for Lord Melbourne's position 
 afterwards, as Minister, — and above all, the embarrassment of 
 his being Minister to a young Queen, at the time when I was 
 most eager to institute some suit against Mr Norton that might 
 lead to my public justification, — I could long ago have made 
 my husband's weapons of slander recoil upon himself, as I do 
 this day; and the trial of 1836 would have received that ex- 
 planation which even now I have given within the limits of a 
 certain discretion, JLiord Melbourne repeatedly thanked me, 
 for not moving in this matter; and for him, and for his in- 
 terests, I bore much which I certainly need not have borne. 
 
 When Mr Norton's counsel had received answers to the 
 questions he put, relative to the supposed bequest, he paused ; 
 and then proceeded to cross-examine me, as though he believed 
 I had perjured myself. This gentleman's manner of question- 
 ing, was so insolent and offensive, that at one time Mr Hay- 
 ward appealed to the Judge on my behalf; and I was obliged 
 to remind him that I was answering him " upon oath." He 
 insisted that there had been some stipulation with Mr Norton 
 about this money. He endeavoured to show (in spite of my 
 denials), that it was secured^ and was a legacy. He said — as 
 if to confound me by proof — " You received a certain sum in 
 January, and an equal sum in July. Do you not know that 
 the difference between those two sums and the income Lord 
 Melbourne left you, is made up by the Legacy Duty?" I said 
 I did not know what the difference was made up by; all I 
 knew was, that the payment depended on the pleasure (or the 
 " charity," if he pleased) of Lady Palmerston ; and not on 
 Jegal securities. Mr Leman then explained that the difference 
 
89 
 
 was made up by the Income Tax. In proportion as Mr Nee d- 
 ham was baffled in what he had intended to prove, he became 
 irritated and uncivil : he said to me in so many words, speak- 
 ing of Mr Norton, — " You know you ran away from him;" 
 and, at another time, " It is not nis fault you stand in the de- 
 graded position you do." And it was against the insult of 
 this phrase, that Mr Hayward rose and appealed. The feeling 
 in Court began to show itself in a strong and obvious sym- 
 pathy for me; and the case became more like a vehement de- 
 bate, than a judicial inquiry. Mr Needham lost even the form 
 and pretence of adhering to the subject before the Court {i. e, 
 the debt and contract) , and put question after question about 
 Lord Melbourne ; what had become of his letters — what had 
 occurred with respect to him in 1836? Whether I had got 
 my maid's husband appointed a police usher through Lord 
 Melbourne (as if that was a wrong); and when I said " No," 
 again adopted the manner of disbelieving my reply. In utter 
 exasperation, I alluded to the circumstances of the attempted, 
 divorce ; to the letters signed Greenacre, &c. ; and said^-" If 
 Mr Norton thought me unfaithful to him, why did he' write and 
 adjure me to return?" Mr Needham replied, — " Pray confine 
 yourself to my questions ;" and I retorted, " I told you to be^ 
 ware of your questions if you were afraid of my answers : for 
 seventeen years I have concealed these matters, and Toy force 
 their revelation this day" I then added, that it was quite unne- 
 cessary to continue the debate about my means ; that now that I 
 knew the contract could be disputed, and I and my creditors de- 
 fraudedj I should alter the scale of my expenses to a narrower 
 economy. Mr Dod examined me, to show that the annuity 
 from my mother, was the real occasion of Mr Norton's breach 
 of contract; Mr Leman was examined to prove that there had 
 been no condition whatever, respecting Lord Melbourne, either 
 written or verbal: and the Judge decided (not on the validity 
 of the contract, but on the point that the allowance had not 
 been stopped when this particular debt was incurred), that the 
 
90 
 
 creditor skould be nonsuited. Mr Norton then vehemently 
 addressed me — the Judge — the reporters for the press:— he 
 said I had told the grossest falsehoods (I having been examined 
 on oath): that he only regretted he had no opportunity at pre- 
 sent—that he hoped at some future opportunity, to " give the 
 contradiction that from his heart and soul he could give." He 
 moved still nearer to me; clenched his hand, and spoke in a 
 threatening manner; but the groaning, and utter confusion 
 in Court, made it difficult, even for me, to gather exactly what 
 his threats were, except that they had reference to the hope 
 of some fresh occasion for debate. The Judge ordered the 
 Court to be cleared, and the next cause called on: and so 
 ended this disgraceful scene. 
 
 In Mr Norton's memorable letter to the " Times" (which I 
 ■shall presently give), he sneers at the evidence of my distress 
 and agitation that day, as a piece of " acting." Having him- 
 self experienced no touch of pity, tenderness, or honourable 
 sense of degradation, — the reverse was a mystery he could not 
 solve. It could only be acting. What was there to feel any 
 distress about? What? 
 
 In the sudden echo of the shame-struck and grieving days 
 of the trial, long ago (when at least life lay before me); 
 and in the consciousness that I had, as I have said, no second 
 youth to wear away in a sort of struggling hope; but that all 
 was now over /or ever. In the memory of the frank friend, 
 whose attempt to aid me was made the vile pretence of 
 this dispute: who was dead: who could no longer give 
 his word of honour in my defence, nor listen patiently 
 to my complaining, and speak cheerful prophecies of my 
 "living down" slander. In the recollections knitted with 
 the time of his death: the voyage to Lisbon: the lone- 
 some residence there, away from all friends: the refusal of 
 my husband, even when I was returning with a son pro- 
 nounced dying by the Portuguese physicians, to bear his 
 share in any unusual expense, — to pay his passage home, or 
 
91 
 
 even to refund a trifling debt borrowed of the British Minister. 
 What was there in all this? and yet this was the time 
 when Lord Melbourne's brother placed that legacy to my 
 account ! truly I was not thinking then of proud and 
 fastidious scruples: I was thinking where we should have 
 to go next: to Madeira, or the Cape of Good Hope; to 
 see my son die where my father had died. I had already 
 lost my uncle, who was generous to me, and with whom, 
 I had found a home after the trial: the literary tasks, on 
 which so much stress was laid by Mr Norton's counsel, were 
 ■utterly suspended : and I was simply glad — (let those sneer at 
 it who please) — that with such a husband, and such a destiny 
 of never-ending troubles, the family of the man in whose name 
 I had suffered so much, were willing to prove, not for my sake 
 but for his, that his kindness to me outlived him. 
 
 In the consciousness, then, of being made once more a sub- 
 ject of hateful annoyance to that family, to whom I would fain 
 have been welcome ; and especially of pain to Lord Melbourne's 
 sister ; who at the very time Mr Norton was bandying questions 
 about her fulfilment of his privately expressed wishes, — and 
 making her adherence to them a theme for public scandal,—; 
 was in deep mourning for the last of her three brothers. 
 
 And a more tender, affectionate, and devoted, sister and 
 friend, I verily believe no brothers ever had. 
 
 In meeting the husband from whom I was separated, as a 
 FOE, in open Court; he himself a barrister, instructing 
 counsel before my face, how best to attack me; I having 
 no counsel, and never having stood in a Court of Justice 
 before; in hearing my husband hooted and groaned at by the 
 crowd, when the case was explained; in hearing his assertion 
 respecting his breach of contract proved false, by evidence 
 tendered on oath ; in hearing the solicitor to my trustees tell 
 him, — a magistrate, a peer's brother, — the father of my sons, 
 — that it was expected the signed contract would have bound 
 him " as a man of honour;" or, in other words, that he was_ 
 
92 
 
 ■not a man of honour; and seeing him shrink silently, unable 
 to repel this insult; in the stinging, maddening thought of 
 what the report of that morning's unexpected flood of slander 
 would he to my sons; whose first information of it would 
 probably be (as indeed it was), from the English newspapers; 
 they being then at Naples -.—and in the knowledge of what it 
 must be to all my own family, who had upheld me so earnestly 
 through previous defamation and sorrow: — 
 
 In the regret (too late regret!) that I had not borrowed 
 money from any friend who would lend it, to pay my credi- 
 tors ; and allowed Mr Norton to seize all he coveted ; instead 
 of believing that the fear of exposure would prevent his dis- 
 puting the contract (as it prevented his disputing my petition 
 under the Infant Custody Bill), and that at the eleventh hour 
 he would decently pay what as a " Man of Honour " he was 
 bound to pay — so that I should not have to come into Court at 
 all:— 
 
 In the grating, hopeless knowledge, that every fraction of all 
 he had ever said in his moods of desire for reconciliation, was 
 false as the rest : and that there he sate, who had written me 
 such caressing letters, — making notes of accusation; and re- 
 peating, — for the sake of money, — slanders he had solemnly 
 declared he did not believe, sixteen years before: — 
 
 In the horrible gulf of difference, between reading the evi- 
 dence of a drunken groom, in those vanished miserable times, 
 and in hearing my own husband now echo that groom's voice; 
 — seeing him cower, like that groom, before the proof of truth, 
 and the jeers of the crowd; — knowing he yet hoped, like that 
 groom, that his slander would be stronger than my struggle 
 against it: — 
 
 In the bitter thought, that I might (the destiny is not so 
 rare among women) I might have been married to some one 
 with the heart of a man, and the mind of a gentleman, who 
 would have loved and sheltered me; — or even if he had quar- 
 relled with me, would have made warfare decent; — instead 
 
93 
 
 of standing, as I did that day, shamed and slandered by my 
 husband in person, — before a wonderingj curious cro-wd, — who 
 no doubt, many of them, blessed Heaven, that their humbler 
 homes were more "respectable" than that of this Lord's bro- 
 ther, and his insulted wife : — 
 
 In the insolence of the cross-examining counsel; accustomed 
 as I have ever been to a most indulgent and high-bred cour- 
 tesy, from men immeasurably Mr Needham's superiors ; and to 
 insult from none ; except from those who have been fee'd for 
 the task by the husband. who swore at God's altar to "protect 
 me'' : — 
 
 In all this, what was there to excite — to grieve — to render 
 desperate — to wring the hearty and bewilder the brain? 
 
 Nothing. It could only be ACTING. 
 
 So Mr Norton affirmed. Whether his counsel also was of 
 that opinion, I do not know; but it is impossible for me to 
 quit this part of my subject, without making some brief com- 
 ments on what is termed the " licence of the Bar." 
 
 In this same year of 1853, much scandal was excited by a case 
 in which a barrister having to defend a man for burglariously en- 
 tering a house by night, suggested in behalf of his burglar, that 
 he might perhaps have had a love-appointment with the lady of 
 the house! This extraordinary insult being complained of 
 the barrister pleaded "licence of the Bar."* Mr Needham 
 
 * The instance here referred to, is a remarkable illustration of what 
 lawyers thiuk permitted to them as advocates. I give the case from a 
 brief note in one of the papers of the day : — " The Moeautt ov the 
 Bar. — In the Central Criminal Court, on Monday, a man named John 
 Richards, aged twenty-two, was indicted for feloniously breaking and 
 entering the dwelling-house of John Crossley, with intent to steal his 
 goods. The prisoner was seen to loiter about the house, and to open 
 the door with a latch-key. An alarm was instantly given, so that - he 
 had no opportunity to take anything ; and he was tracked and found iu 
 the bedroom of a lady-lodger. On being asked to account for his being 
 in the house, he said that he expected to meet a gentleman. Mr. Sleigh 
 [we quote the words of the report], in his address to the jury for the 
 prisoner, insinuated that he had gone into the room by appointment 
 
94 
 
 copied this gentleman's fashion of defence; and laboured hard to 
 prove it was somehow my fault and my shame, that I had 
 been cheated. When the case was over, he tendered me a sort 
 of apology, saying, that " however impertinent I might con- 
 sider his questions, they were within the limit of his legal in- 
 structions." 
 
 Those instructions proceeding from Mr Norton, I am wil- 
 ling to believe the truth of this assertion : but I will venture to 
 tell Mr Needham, that a lawyer who has the soul of a gentle- 
 man, does not consider he pawns it for the day, when he takes 
 his barrister's fee; or that donning his wig and gown^ trans- 
 forms him into a creature taken out hunting in a leash, to let 
 slip upon the prey at the will of his employer. Kefinement of 
 manner depends upon the society a man happens to live in ; 
 but refinement of mind depends on those high instincts of 
 honour and delicacy which belong to no class, but to the 
 truest nobility of nature. The hired soldier is bound to draw 
 his sword against the foe, but no man can compel him to 
 mangle the wounded. The "hired Masters of the Tongue- 
 fence" — as Milton calls lawyers — should do their trade more 
 nobly. I depended that day, as to the legal decision, on a 
 legal quibble: but for the manner in which that quibble was 
 sustained, I depended on the courtesy of the English Bar; in 
 the person of whoever represented it for the hour; I hold 
 therefore, that Mr Needham insulted, not me, but his brethren 
 
 vdth the lady who was the occupier of it ; and on that ground lie called 
 upon them to acquit him. The Recorder, in his charge, told the jury 
 that there did not appear in evidence the slightest foimdation for such 
 an imputation ; and the verdict of guilty was at once pronounced. A 
 certificate of a former conviction for felony was then put in ; whereon 
 Mr Sleigh intimated that, if he had been aware of the existence of a 
 previous conviction, he should not have suggested the defence he did 
 to the jury. The Recorder expressed his opinion that the defence was 
 most unjustifiable. The prisoner said ' it was not suggested in his brief.' 
 Mr Sleigh admitted that the defence was not suggested to him in his 
 brief, but said that it occurred to him as a legitimate one to offer to 
 the jury upon the facts of the case !" 
 
95 
 
 of the bar, and the brilliant profession to which he belongs 
 (a profession which has produced more distinguished men than 
 any other in England), — when, by his lame apology, he im- 
 plied, that while he pleaded as a 4awyer, he was obliged to 
 forget he was a gentleman. 
 
 After the proceedings were ended ; and when we were dis- 
 cussing the extraordinary defence falsely set up ; it was sug- 
 gested to me, that the comparative dates of Lord Melbourne's 
 death, and the drawing up of the contract, would prove at 
 once the impossibility of what Mr Norton had asserted. I re- 
 gretted that I had not had those dates in Court: and after 
 reading the evidence next morning, I addressed the following 
 letter to the papers : — 
 
 To the Editor, 
 
 Sir, — I ask your patience for this letter, in con- 
 sequence of the unexpected falsehood by which Mr Norton 
 yesterday upheld his non-liability to my creditors in the County 
 Court, Mr Norton there declared that his stipulation with 
 me was, that he should be liable only " If I received no aid 
 from the late Lord Melbourne's family." 
 
 The solicitor who drew up the agreement contradicted him 
 on oath — on oath he stated that there was no such stipu- 
 lation, 
 
 I contradict him on facts, which are stronger than oaths. 
 Our agreement was signed in September, 1848, and Lord 
 Melbourne was then still alive; therefore it is impossible 
 that any stipulation should have been made as to his supposed 
 bequests. To save himself from the payment of £500 a year 
 — due to my creditors on a formal covenant — Mr Norton has 
 uttered this falsehood, and raked up, from the ashes of the 
 past, an old refuted slander, on which, for two hours yesterday, 
 he himself in person, and the counsel he employed, examined 
 
96 
 
 and cross-examined me, on topics which had nothing to do 
 with the case, but which were to imply degradation and 
 shame ! 
 
 Once for all, I did nUt part from, my husband on Lord 
 Melbourne s account; nor had Lord Melbourne anything what- 
 ever to do with our quarrel. I parted from Mr Norton 
 because I persisted in an intention to take my children 
 to' my brother's house, where my husband, on account of his 
 own conduct, was not received. My husband sent my chil- 
 dren to a woman with whom he was intimate, and who has 
 since left him an estate in Yorkshire ; and we separated upon 
 that. I had no other ground of dispute with my husband. 
 The slanders repecting Lord Melbourne were an after- 
 thought. 
 
 So it was yesterday. Mr Norton did not make any such 
 stipulation with me as he says he did. There was then no 
 question of bequests from Lord Melbourne — for Lord Mel- 
 bourne was not dead. Mr Norton broke his covenant, 
 according to his own letter, because my mother left me 
 an annuity. Tliere is not a syllable in his letter of any 
 other cause. He introduced Lord Melbourne's name yesterday 
 to pain and insult me, and also to draw off public attention 
 from, the fact of the positive fraud committed on my creditors 
 by his withholding the sum due to than. The year after the 
 action against Lord Melbourne, he besought my return home, 
 and my forgiveness, in the most endearing terms. He threw 
 the blame of the trial on Lord Grantley, Lord Wynford, and 
 the political party to which they belonged. Tf he believed the 
 slander, he was base to torite caressing letters to persuade me 
 to return to him ; if (as is the fact) he did NOT believe that 
 slander, he is doubly base to invoke the name of the dead 
 against the mother of his grown-up sons, in a public court, by 
 way of excusing his violation of a solemn covenant. 
 
 All this, though it is life and death to me, may not interest 
 the public. But what does interest the public is the state of 
 
97 
 
 the law. By the law as it stands, if Mr Norton can evade his 
 covenant (as he does, by stating that it is null because it was a 
 contract with ME, and " a man cannot contract with his own 
 toife") he can defraud the creditor, for if a creditor sues me, 
 I have only to plead " coverture," plead that I am a married 
 woman, and the creditor who could not recover against Mr 
 Norton is equally unable to recover against me. Between the 
 facts, that because I am Mr Norton's wife he can cheat me, 
 and because I am, Mr Norton's wife I can cheat others, the 
 tradesmen who have supplied me would (by the laio of Eng- 
 land) utterly lose their money.* This does interest the public, 
 and is a state of the law which certainly requires amending* 
 The case yesterday, was technically decided on this point, viz., 
 that at the time this particular bill was incurred, the allowance 
 had not been stopped. The validity of the covenant Mr 
 Norton is attempting to break was not called in question; 
 and it does interest the public and the bar — whether it CAN 
 be called in question — lohether, if not a contract with me, 
 is not a contract with my creditors — a written and stamped 
 agreement with THEM, made by a magistrate and barrister ; 
 because, as I have stated, if it is not a valid contract, the 
 creditor may be utterly cheated of his money — if (which God 
 forbid), copying the example of Mr Norton, I also should 
 fling off, by quibble of the law, my personal liability. 
 
 Mr Norton, after a pause of a day or two, published an 
 " answer" of extraordinary length; premising, especially, that 
 he did so — ^less in his private, than his public capacity; his 
 private character being " safe in the hands of those who knew 
 
 * A case in point has been lately decided; January 21, 1854, in the 
 Court of Exchequer. A married woman, representing herself to be 
 single, executed a promissory note for one Brassey, and thereby induced 
 the Liverpool Adelphi Loan Association to lend him 30?. It was ruled' 
 by the Chief Baron, that as a married woman could not bind herself by 
 a contract, no action could lie against her, or her husband, for the 
 breach of such contract ; nor could she, or her husband, be sued for 
 the fraud on the association. How are the lenders to recover their 
 money 1 ^ 
 
 H 
 
98 
 
 him.") That it was, in short, as the person appointed — by 
 Lord Melbourne — to the Metropolitan Magistracy, that he pro- 
 ceeded to accuse Lord Melbourne (now dead, and unable to 
 contradict him) of every degree of turpitude; from the se- 
 duction of his wife, to the appointing of a Treasury Mes- 
 senger " as a reward" for treacherously purloining his own 
 compromising and inculpating letters from Mr Norton's house. 
 
 But I will permit Mr Norton to speak for himself; and give 
 his letter, as he published it. He says, then: — 
 
 "Zi5 is as a MAGlSTEATE^aw administrator of Justice 
 (according to my ability) — tJiat I co'me forward in the present 
 matter with a plain statement of facts, to prove that I have 
 striven to be as just in my private affairs as it is my aim and 
 desire to be in my public capacity ! It is with pain that I 
 feel myself compelled to break that silence which the forbearance 
 of seventeen long years has made habitual to me; but I feel I 
 must now speak out, and that it would be treason to my character 
 and fair fam,e to leave all these accusations unansioered. I was 
 subpoenaed on Thursday last by the Messrs. Thrupp, and when 
 Mrs Norton had concluded her evidence, I begged their solicitor 
 to call me as a witness. He refused me that favour, and, as the 
 advocate of my opponent, I cannot quarrel with his discretion ; 
 and perhaps it was better that the opportunity was not afforded 
 me, for in the distraction of the moment I might have been 
 tempted to reveal matters with which, for the happiness of others, 
 it is much better the public should remain unacquainted. My 
 counsel was refused, even by statem,ent, to contradict the gross 
 falsehoods which had been most illegally and improperly intro- 
 duced into the case. The question was one simply of liability; 
 and the moment that Mrs Norton admitted she was living apart 
 from me by her own wish (and which she did so admit at the 
 beginning of her examination), there was an end of the case, and 
 all proceedings should have terminated. Unhappily, the judge, 
 and every one engaged for or against her in the cause, seemed 
 overpowered by Mrs Norton's demeanour; and those who had a 
 
99 
 
 turn for the drama (of wJwm, unfortunately, my own solicitor 
 was one), were suspended in breathless, helpless inaction. None 
 who witnessed that scene can forget it to their lives end — all 
 must remember it as the most splendid piece of acting ever 
 exhibited ; however much the sober m,ind of England must revolt 
 against the disgrace of a court of justice being turned into the 
 stage of Drury-lane. 
 
 My denials shall be as few as possible and as brief. 
 
 First. The agreement, or rather the memorandum, of 1848 
 was not a binding one. Mrs Norton knew this as well as I did 
 — at least, her own solicitor told me it was not at the tim,e we 
 signed it; moreover, she did try then to make the contemplated 
 arrangement between us a binding document, by finding trus- 
 tees, but failed to do so, as not one of her relations or friends 
 would become her surety. 
 
 One of Mrs Norton's stipulations in the memorandum was not 
 observed from, the very first, for constant applications have been 
 made to my solicitor and myself for payment of her debts. Never- 
 theless, had our relative circumstances remained as they were 
 when we entered into it, I should have continued to pay her 
 £500 per annum. She was quite correct in court when she 
 swore that her non-reception of the annuity from Lord Mel- 
 bourne formed no part of the conditions upon which that agree- 
 ment was come to. I never said it did. Lord Melbourne was 
 then alive, and I had no tangible grounds for then raising the 
 question ; but some short time afterwards I was informed by a 
 person, who shall be nam,eless, after the oath that was given on 
 Thursday (but I speak from recollection only, not having re- 
 freshedmy memory with the correspondence which passed between 
 us at the time) that Lord Melbourne had left a sealed letter for 
 his brother, stating that he (Lord Melbourne) might have given 
 her an annuity upon the lands he had himself acquired, but that 
 he preferred leaving it to the convenience of his brother to secure 
 her in an annuity of £G00 per annum,, or some other sum, and 
 he (the person alluded to) added, that I might depend on this 
 
 h2 
 
100 
 
 information, as he had it from one of the executors. I was sur- 
 prised and disgusted, and immediately wrote to Mrs Norton to 
 inquire if she did receive that annuity. Her answer was emphati- 
 cally in the negative, and at that period she spoke the truth; for 
 I afterwards was informed that a difference had arisen between 
 herself and the representatives of Lord Melbourne as to giving 
 up his letters, and which letters, as I was informed, it was 
 insisted should be given up before the annuity was granted. 
 
 I think it was not till the close o/1851, or in 1852, that I was 
 informed that she certainly did receive the annuity, lohen I 
 again required her written denial of the fact. She answered by 
 saying that I insulted her by repeating the question ; but, not 
 being quite satisfied with the reply, I requested my son Fletcher 
 to speak to her on the subject, and assure her that no insult was 
 intended by the question, and that I insisted on an explicit 
 answer to it. 
 
 She then did explicitly assure my son that she received no 
 annuity of any kind from Lord Melbourne, and Fletcher added, 
 from himself, that he was fully persuaded, from her manner 
 and words, as to the truth of her assertion. This must have been 
 in 1853, or in this very year. Judge then, of my SUKPKISE, 
 when my solicitor ascertained, ONLY TWO OE three weeks 
 AGO, that she had been in the receipt of that annuity ever since 
 1849 ! I was not permitted at the trial to enter into any expla- 
 nation lohatever on this or any other point; but the few and 
 hurried observations I did make, had reference to the continu- 
 ance of my allowance to her one hour, after such a fact had 
 been clearly brought to my knowledge. The confusion that pre- 
 vailed at the trial rendered it impossible for me even to explain 
 the matter to my counsel; and hence arose that part of the 
 cross-examination, which implied that a pledge had been given 
 before the signing of the memorandum. 
 
 It is true, that in 1837 we contemplated a re-union. She had 
 assured me that she had taken the sacrament in attestation of her 
 
101 
 
 innocence of all criminality ; thai assurance and other circum- 
 stances induced me to believe her innocent of the last offence; but 
 of the impropriety of her conduct and total disregard of out- 
 ward appearance, by which alone society can form its opinion, 
 no one who moved in our circle could doubt. My own conduct, 
 I admit, at that time was weak and vacillating in the extreme. 
 I had loved her to madness for three or four years before I 
 married her, and after we were united she had all power over 
 me. But all idea of re-union was abruptly broken off when cer- 
 tain tidings reached me of her sejour in the Isle of Wight. 
 From that moment my honour was outraged, and our re-union 
 rendered impossible. Judge, then, of my surprise within the 
 last three or four years to receive hints from her as to our living 
 again together: one of these I can distinctly remember. My 
 son Fletcher was seriously ill at her house, and I went there to 
 see him. I was remarking to him that I was about taking a new 
 lease of my house, when she said, " What nonsense, when there's 
 a room for you here." Would any one believe that in 1849 such 
 a proposal could have come from the person who, on Thursday 
 last, denounced me in the way she did? 
 
 But to return to our money differences. When we first 
 separated I divided my income — then only 800/. or 9001. per 
 annum, into three portions. One I paid into Messrs Ranson's 
 for her support, the second I allotted for payment of our debts, 
 and the third for the three children and myself; and, after pay- 
 ing their expenses, I had not more than 5*. per day for myself 
 to live upon in town, having to attend to my police court. In 
 1838, my cousins, Mr Vaughan and his sister, fulfilled their 
 deceased mother's wishes, by leaving me their Yorkshire estates, 
 and I immediately increased Mrs Norton's allowance to 400/. 
 per annum, exclusive of her pension. She declined at first re- 
 ceiving it; she preferred furnishing houses and disposing of 
 them, and leaving the tradesmen to bring their action in the su- 
 perior courts. At least thirty suits were instituted against me 
 
102 
 
 fur debts of her contracting. In two cases only were the opinions 
 of juries taken, and in both the verdicts were for me.* 
 
 But the expense of defending myself against such ruination 
 was very heavy ; and I had to borrow, if I recollect, 5,OO0Z. or 
 6,000Z. in Scotland and elsewhere to meet it. In 1848 it was 
 suggested that it would be a saving of interest to borrow that 
 money of the trustees out of my patrimony, and notice was given 
 ■"o the bondholders in Scotland that they would he paid at a cer- 
 tain time. Mr Leman prepared the mortgage deed for the trus- 
 tees over my Yorkshire estates; but after the preparation of the 
 mortgage had proceeded near-ly to completion, and much expence 
 incurred therein, he told me he had discovered, what he ought 
 from the first to have known — that the trustees could not lend the 
 trust-money without the permission of Mrs Norton and myself 
 in writing, and he informed me, further, that she would not give 
 her permission, unless I consented to give her an addition of 
 lOOl. to her allowance, making it 5001. instead of 400/. / was 
 driven into a corner by this unexpected discovery, and I had to 
 submit to the addition. In 1851, my younger son's expenses at 
 Oxford increasing, and my own expenses in Yorkshire being 
 greater to keep up the rents in the then depressed state of agri- 
 culture, I learnt that Mrs Norton had been left 5001. per annum 
 by her mother, from whom I was not aware that she had any 
 expectations. I then proposed to her a reduction of her allow- 
 ance, which she would not accede to ; and, after she had received 
 her mother's legacy and for some time enjoyed it, I did reduce it 
 to 300/. per annum, but which she has never accepted. 
 
 Now, as to her access to the three children^ My first idea 
 upon her leaving me, was to place them with herself, and I never 
 denied her reasonable access to them ; but she made three dif- 
 ferent attempts to carry them off— from Storey's gate, from 
 
 * See the strange boast in a subsequent letter, of the rejection of 
 Sir John Baykys evidence by Lord Abinger, which produced this 
 result. 
 
103 
 
 Byde, and from Wonersh ; and she resolutely refused to 
 guarantee me against similar attempts, her object evidently being 
 by every means and pretence to excite public sympathy on the 
 subject of the children, and for which I gave her no grounds. 
 I was responsible for their maintenance and education, and I 
 dreaded her intention of taking them abroad. I therefore ulti- 
 mately sent them to my sister's, Lady Mensies, in Scotland, 
 providing them with a tutor ; they were thence sent to Dr Buck- 
 land, at Laleham ; thence the two eldest went to Eton ; and the 
 poor youngest died of lock-jaw, resulting from a mere scratch on 
 the bone of his elbow by a fall from his pony. He died at 
 Kettlethorp, my place in Yorkshire, and the moment the first 
 symptoms of lock-jaw and of danger were discovered, I sent im- 
 mediately for Mrs Norton, but she arrived not until after he had 
 expired. 
 
 Both my elder sons stayed some years at Eton, and then 
 Fletcher went to Lisbon as attache, with an outfit that cost me 
 upwards of 400/. and an allowance of 3001. per annum, which 
 he enjoys up to this moment. Fletcher was ill at Lisbon, and 
 Mrs Norton took Brinsley out there, removing him from Eton 
 against the advice of Mr Coleridge, Ms tutor, and myself. I 
 had much difficulty in getting him back to England, when I 
 placed him with a private tutor, Mr Heatly, to whom I paid 
 200/. per annum to prepare him for college. He then went to 
 University College, Oxford, and, although I gave him an outfit, 
 and allowed him 2501. per annum, the utmost sum Dr Plumtre 
 advised, and which sum was afterwards increased, he got into 
 such difficulties that he is living abroad, and I am now at an 
 expense for his support and maintenance there. In addition to 
 these allowances, I have sent money at various times to Lisbon, 
 Germany, and Italy, for the support of my sons. My house 
 has always been open to receive them ; and they have not unfre- 
 quently availed themselves of it as a home. During their whole 
 lives I have paid for their clothing, schooling, and support, with 
 the exception of their viands at those periods when they have 
 
104 
 
 lived with their mother, and it was one of my many astonishments 
 on Thursday to hear her unblushingly state that all I had done 
 for them was to pay for their education. 
 
 The history of the action against Lord Melbourne was shortly 
 this: — I had observed from the time of their close intimacy, Mrs 
 Norton had taken less interest in our then only child and in 
 myself. On one occasion, I had seen her arm round his neck, 
 and when I remonstrated with her, she said, " Well, and what if 
 I had my Melly round the neck — what was it ?" I was jealous, 
 and mentioned the subject to Mrs Sheridan, who quite lulled my 
 suspicion by telling me that he had been her fathers friend, and 
 other circumstances ; and on the morning of the 'dOth of March, 
 1835, I had no suspicion whatever that their intimacy was any- 
 thing more than Platonic. On that morning Mrs Norton left her 
 home, leaving her letter-bureau, by accident, open, and I saw piles 
 of Lord Melbourne's letters lying in it. She never showed me 
 his letters, saying letters were not meant for two ; and, knowing 
 her particularity about her letters, without looking at one, I 
 locked the door of the room in which they were, and giving my 
 servant. Fitness, the key, gave him: the most positive orders that no 
 one should enter the room until Mrs Norton returned, in order 
 that she might see that they were untouched, and just as she had 
 left them. I then took my children to the country, but the next 
 day was surprised to receive' a letter from Fitness, to say that 
 Mr Charles Sheridan, Mrs Norton's brother, had come at six 
 o'clock in the morning, and asked for some papers out of the 
 bureau for a publication Mrs Norton was then engaged on, and 
 that he had permitted him to take them. 
 
 I came to town immediately, and found that the bureau had 
 been emptied of its contents, I then for the first time suspected 
 something wrong. I searched about, and found a small writing- 
 desk in the room which had escaped observation. I opened it, 
 and found tlie two or three letters of Lord Melbourne which were 
 produced at the trial, and one or two letters and papers of a 
 more suspicious character written by a gentleman at Eastbourne. 
 
105 
 
 / scolded Fitness for his disobedience of orders. He said he had 
 told Mr Charles Sheridan of the strict orders I had given him ; 
 but Mr Charles Sheridan said Mrs Norton must have her 
 writings for the publication she was then engaged on, and he then 
 allowed him to go into the room and take them away. He also 
 admitted that money had been promised, to induce him to give 
 them up ; and I well remember my observation, that he had better 
 give it to a hospital or some charity, for it would never do him 
 good. 
 
 Mr Charles Sheridan was subpoenaed at the trial to prove the 
 abstraction of the letters ; and why he was not called I never 
 knew.* 
 
 This very Fitness soon afterwards was appointed a messenger 
 at the Treasury as a reward for his treachery. ( /) 
 
 Sir W. Follett was a stranger to me ; but in my emergency I 
 showed the documents found in the writing-desk to him, and by 
 HIS advice 1 was guided in all that followed. By his direction 
 inquiries were first made respecting the gentleman who had occa- 
 sioned our immediate quarrel, and who had been seen with her 
 that morning, and then respecting one or two others, but no suffi- 
 cient evidence was found. Then a negotiation for a separation 
 was entered upon ; and it was not for some weeks that the evidence 
 of a man that had been in my service some time previous came to 
 my knowledge. That evidence was discarded at the trial; 
 but circumstances have since come to my knowledge which 
 compel me to believe that he was the witness of TRUTH, 
 It suited the defendants counsel in that action to give 
 it a political complexion ; but I solemnly declare, upon my 
 honour, that not a single person of the Tory or any other party 
 persuaded me to bring it ; and no communication whatever had I 
 
 * He was not called, because lie could have proved this plausible 
 story to be a most wicked fabrication.' No one was called who could 
 have proved the truth. 
 
106 
 
 with Lord Wynford or any other person connected with politics 
 about it until after the trial was over. Mr Currie, my solicitor 
 for the action, will vouch for this ; and he is also aware of certain 
 solicitations made by both parties in politics that I would not 
 proceed with the action ; he is aware hovj my witnesses were mo- 
 lested and tampered with in town, and that it was at their own 
 request some of them were sent to the country, where they were 
 nevertheless followed and persecuted. 
 
 I find, from the report, that Mrs Norton said on Thursday 
 that I had claimed the copyrights of her works from her pub- 
 lishers ; this statement I have to deny in the most distinct and 
 emphatic terms. I have never, directly or indirectly, made any 
 claim whatever to her copyrights, the benefit of which she has 
 always been allowed by me to enjoy without let or hindrance ; and, 
 until I was preparing for this trial,! never even enquired as to 
 the amount of them. What did occur with regard to her copy- 
 rights was, that my solicitor, to prove that her income has ex- 
 ceeded 1,500Z. per annum, did institute an inquiry among her 
 publishers, several of whom were subptmaed to attend. I heard 
 her refer to her copyrights, but did not hear her use the word 
 " claim." I thought she referred to the inquiries my solicitor 
 had. made, and consequently used the words, " My solicitor did." 
 Had the word " claimed" actually reached my ears, I should 
 have doubted their accuracy in conveying to my mind so great a 
 falsehood. 
 
 A most absurd and false impression wasgivenby Mrs Norton 
 as to my signature of"Greenacre." The joke involved in such a 
 signature was but a poor one; but she forgets to state that it 
 oi'iginated with herself, by her adopting, in her letters to me, 
 the name of " Hannah Brown. " With regard to another matter, 
 
 Mrs Norton, in her letter to the "Times," uses these words : 
 
 "Because as I have stated, if it is not a valid contract, the cre- 
 ditor may be utterly cheated of his money, if (which God for- 
 bid!) I should copy Mr Norton, and also fling off, by a quibble 
 of the law, my liability to them." Mrs Norton, in this quota- 
 
107 
 
 tion, refers to the plea of her coverture ; now it so happens that 
 within the last few weeks a poor man, Peter Dooladdy, came to 
 and showed me a notice that he had received from the West- 
 minster County Court, informing him that Mrs Norton would 
 plead coverture in an action which he had there brought against 
 her for wages due to him, and I understood that she has given 
 a similar notice to several others of her creditors. 
 
 Lord Melbourne promised me the appointment of police ma- 
 gistrate before he visited at our house, or before, I believe, he 
 even knew Mrs Norton (!) 
 
 Lord Eldon had appointed me Commissioner of Bankrupts 
 in 1827j and when such appointment was abolished by the con- 
 struction of the Bankruptcy Court in 1830 or 1831, 7 consir 
 dered that I had some claim on the Home Secretary, having re- 
 ceived no compensation for the loss of my situation. I must 
 add, the acceptance of the police magistracy necessarily in- \ 
 volved the relinquishment of my profession. 
 
 Mr Trail, the receiver of my rents, proved on Thursday that 
 my income from every source did not average 2,400?. per year. 
 
 It is true, therefore, that the agreement of 1848, to allow 
 5001. a year was not conditional upon the relinquishment of an 
 allowanve from Lord Melbourne's estate. It is not true that I 
 ever said or suggested the contrary. It is true that after 
 Lord Melbourne's death, and when I was informed of such 
 an allowance, I required Mrs Norton's solemn assurance that 
 she had never received, and would not receive, an income from 
 such a source ; that at one time that solemn assurance was given; 
 that at another the bare suggestion that any such benefaction 
 from Lord Melbourne had been accepted was treated as an 
 insult, and that nevertheless, upon obtaining access to her bankers' 
 books, I ascertained that she had actually received that allow- 
 ance from Lord Melbourne's estate from 1849. 
 
 Itis not true that I refused to perform the agreement of 1848, 
 because it was made between man and wife ; but it is true, that 
 the agreement, having been of a temporary and not of a per- 
 
108 
 
 manent nature, and the amount allowed under it being necessarily 
 dependent upon the amounts of our respective incomes, I did, 
 in 1851, upon, Mrs Norton's income being increased by 500?. 
 a year upon her mother's death, while mine was, from various 
 causes, diminished, propose to reduce the 500Z. to 300, which 
 I was afterwards willing to iucrease to 400?. 
 
 It is also true, that down to March in the last year (1852), 
 since when, and from the year previous, the amount of the 
 allowances has been the subject of discussion, I allowed to Mrs 
 Norton the undiminished sum of 5001. a year ; that, consequently, 
 for several years she has, — and that even by her own admission 
 — been in the receipt of an income of at least 1,500Z. a year, 
 und always has had an income far larger in proportion than 
 mine ,• and yet she has incessantly contracted debts with nu- 
 merous honest creditors, very many of whom are at this moment 
 'unpaid, and instead of applying her abundant means to the 
 payment of these debts, has driven the creditors to resort to me, 
 oppressing me with litigation* and costs, and impairing my al- 
 ready crippled means, which should have been applied to the 
 maintenance of myself and my two sons, both of them just 
 entering life. It is under these circumstances that I ash, on 
 whom it is that the coarse and serious charge of cheating cre- 
 ditors may be truly made ? 
 
 I am, Sir, your obedient, humble servant, 
 10, Wilton place, Aug. 23. G. C. Norton. 
 
 The first public notice of this astonishing series of fabrica- 
 tions, came from Mr Leman. Having pointed out the utter 
 inaccuracy of the portion that came within his own knowledge, 
 namely, the drawing up of the contract, he very courteously 
 proposed that it should be corrected by Mr Norton himself. 
 That not being complied with, Mr Leman addressed the 
 
 * The litigation being solely and entirely caused, by Mr Norton's re- 
 fusal to be bound by his own signature to a legal document. 
 
109 
 
 editor of the " Times," — briefly stating, that with the excep- 
 tion that he had prepared the mortgage, — " the entire para- 
 graph was untrue." Mr Norton's solicitor having attempted 
 some explanation in reply, Mr Leman published a complete 
 statement of the drawing out of the contract, together with 
 the contract itself; and concluded his letter by requesting 
 those who might read it, to decide for themselves, whether 
 the entire paragraph, with the exception made, was or or was 
 not " untrue." 
 
 It was then my turn to repel the accusations published by 
 my husband. I might have answered, (as my brother's 
 solicitor had answered Mr Norton's advertisement in 1837;) 
 " the whole of it is false"; for, to contradict every falsehood, 
 would have been to contradict every line. I left much un- 
 noticed. My object was to keep clearly and steadily to this 
 broad general contradiction: — that neither our quarrel in 1836 
 nor our dispute in 1854, had anything whatever to do with 
 Lord Melbourne. I left unheeded, then, the cold and stupid 
 sneer which stamped my distress in the county court as 
 " acting"; and the observations (made in a like spirit) as to my 
 grief at first parting with my children, being " a pretence to 
 excite public sympathy;" though in the very same sentence, 
 Mr Norton relates the lamentable death of the youngest 
 under circumstances that might well wring the hardest heart. 
 I left unnoticed the whole fable of the seizure of Lord Mel- 
 bourne's letters, and the wicked inventions respecting mv 
 Mother and Brother, both deceased. I left to the common 
 sense of those who might read Mr N6rton's letter, very many 
 of his manifest self-contradictions; such as calling on his 
 readers to "judge of his surprise'' on finding, " orily two or 
 three weeks ago" that I had the annuity from Lord Melbourne's 
 family, and of his disinclination to continue my allowance " for 
 one hour" after he knew that fact; not perceiving, in his 
 blind effort to prove me base, instead of himself, — that his own 
 data confounded him : — that the simplest of his readers might 
 
no 
 
 ask, " How came that wlich you say you had only known 
 three weeks, to be your reason for breach of faith more than a 
 year and a half ago'? How comes the date of your breach of 
 faith to be,— not the knowledge of that fact, but the knowledge 
 of your wife s legacy from her mother? How came you 
 prominently to bring forward this matter of Lord Melbourne's 
 unsecured annuity, as the cause of your conduct in March, 
 1852, when you now assure us, you only became aware of it 
 while examining your wife's private account at her bankers, in 
 August, 1853 ? You examined that account in order to defend 
 actions brought by your wife's creditors? You were then 
 already disputing the contract at law with her? On what 
 plea? Certainly not on the plea of Lord Melbourne's annuity; 
 for you say you did not know she had it. You were preparing 
 your defence without that fact? You learned it, — in addition, 
 — only two or three weeks before the action? That is your 
 statement. And that being your statement, is it possible you 
 do not see, that you have proved your wife's case? That you 
 have proved, that the Melbourne annuity was not your reason 
 (if, indeed, any reason could justify dishonesty); that her 
 mother's legacy was your reason; and that being justly 
 conscious of the shame your real defence would entail upon 
 you, you substituted a fictitious defence, which you thought 
 might throw shame upon her, and prevent, by its confused 
 details, that public condemnation of your fraud, which you 
 felt it must otherwise incur." 
 
 There are fifty other such discrepancies; but I will not enter 
 into them ; I will not answer Mr Norton's letter twice. I 
 solemnly declare his assertions respecting Lord Melbourne, my 
 mother, my brother, and my sons, to be all, altogether, and 
 equally, untrue ; and as my sons cannot be expected publicly 
 to contradict him, I can only hope that what is said respecting 
 them, will be weighed in the scale with all that is said (and 
 utterly disproved), of others. I will not discuss his cruel 
 mention of them; bitter as the temptation is. I give my 
 
Ill 
 
 answer to Mr Norton's letter as it appeared in tlie papers at 
 the time. It contains so much repetition of what has been 
 already more fully recorded in this pamphlet, that I print it 
 rather as a record of what my answer was, — than from the 
 necessity of its delaying the reader in this place. I would 
 merely call attention to the passage marked with three 
 asterisks *^*, page 118 (disproving Mr Norton's astonishing 
 assertion, that Lord Melbourne gave him his Magistracy before 
 he was acquainted with me); and t would beg especial notice 
 of the letters which immediately follow mine. 
 
 " To the Editor of the 'Times.' 
 
 " Sir, — On Wednesday, the 24th ult., a long letter from Mr 
 " Norton appeared in the columns of the ' Times. I did not expect 
 " ever to feel thankful for anything Mr Norton would say of me ; but I 
 " do feel most deeply thankful that he wrote and published that letter. 
 " He has now deliberately given to the world, on his own authority, and 
 " under his own signature, that history which I have always refrained 
 " from giving, beyond the circle of my own friends ; and he has thus 
 " given me an opportunity of refuting slander, of which I should sooner 
 " have availed myself, but that to do so completely, I have been obliged 
 " to look through a mass of papers and correspondence ; and I have been 
 " too ill, since the day I had to appear in the County Court, to make 
 " the requisite exertion. 
 
 " I pass over the charge brought against me, there and in Mr Norton's 
 " letter, of extravagance in my arrangements for a home for my sons and 
 " myself. The charge comes ill from one who owes me 6871., and who 
 " does not even deny the debt, but merely says he cannot be compelled 
 " to pay it, because, as was stated in Court, he is not bound by law, but 
 " only ' as a man of honour.' I pass the ludicrous attempt to fix my 
 " fluctuating income at 1,500?. a year, by 'setting' my literary gains at a 
 " permanent 500?. annually. Will Mr Norton and his counsel pay it, as 
 " well as ' set ' it ? Will they ensure me health, strength, leisure, and 
 " the frame of mind fit for so calm an occupation ? Will they state 
 " what they think my income from literary labour for the present year 
 " is likely to be, in the turmoil, distress, and scandal they have brought 
 " upon me ? I pass the manifest mis-statement of Mr Norton's own 
 " income, which I could prove, by my marriage settlements, a statement 
 " of his former receiver of rents, his own letters, and my own knowledge, 
 " to be nearly double what he asserted it was. With aU that ' the world' 
 " has nothing to do ; and if Mr Norton had confined himself to our 
 " pecuniary dispute, there would have been no necessity for public com- 
 " plaint or private sorrow. 
 
112 
 
 "The charge I publicly bring against Mr Norton (who has brought so 
 " many against me) is a far graver charge than any injustice in pecu- 
 " niary matters. I complain, that twice in my life he has endeavoured, 
 " on a false pretence, to rob me of m.y reputation. 
 
 " In ] 836, I had a quarrel with my husband. Our cause of quarrel 
 " was, whether I should, or should not, take my children to the house of 
 " my brother, who would not receive my husband. 1 persisted. My 
 " husband baffled me, by sending my children to the woman who has 
 " since left him her property; who threatened to give me into the hands 
 " of the police when I went to claim them, and I left town alone 
 " for my brother's country seat. Such being our real quarrel, I charge 
 " Mr Norton with contriving that the whole world should beUeve (as 
 " they did believe) that my misoonduct had broken up our home, that I 
 " was an imfaithful wife, and that my lover was Lord Melbourne. He 
 " brought an action against Lord Melbourne. The witnesses for that 
 " action were proved, on trial, to be of the lowest and most degraded 
 •' class. The chief witness was a drunken discarded groom, who was 
 " then a rag-seller in Monmouth-street : both he and others were proved 
 " to have been sent down to Lord Grantle/s place, and to have received 
 " a weekly stipend from his agent while there. The trial was brought in 
 " 1836 ; nevertheless, no evidence was offered after the year 1833 ; the 
 " servants living with us at the time were not called; nothing was heard 
 " but the witnessing of the rag-seller and his companions, who admitted 
 " in Court that they had received money. In spite of all which strange 
 " advantages, and the fact that a woman is not allowed to defend herself 
 " in these actions, the verdict went against Mr Norton. 
 
 " In this present year of 1853 I have a quarrel with my husband. Our 
 " quarrel is, whether I shall, or shall not, be compelled to cede a portion 
 " of my mother's bequest. I refuse. Mr Norton insists. I rashly count 
 " on being certain to obtain a compulsory fulfilment of our agreement j 
 " which I imagined to be binding. I find myself, on my return to Eng- 
 " land, without funds to meet my English creditors. I stop one action 
 " against my husband at my own expense. I write to Mr Norton's own 
 " solicitor, in the forlorn hope that Mr Norton is acting against ad idee. 
 " I come into Court against my wUl, upon subpcBna, compelled to appear, 
 " to prove the debt and agreement. Mr Norton meets me there, in 
 " person, and by counsel, once more to raise the ghost of that departed 
 " slander, and to contrive that the whole world shall believe (as they do 
 " believe), that Lord Melbourne was again the subject of our quarrel : 
 " that some pledge, stipulation, or promise, was made and broken by me, 
 " and that that is Mr Norton's excuse for his breach of covenant. I 
 " rebut that imputation on oath, and by proved facts ; and Mr Norton 
 " publishes, in the " Times '' newspaper, two columns of abuse of , the 
 " dead and living, including coarse anecdotes of the mother of his grown 
 " up sons, which, even if true (which they are not), he himself dates back 
 
113 
 
 " to the time when we had ' an only child,' — ^that is, twenty years ago. 
 " Shall the verdict not once more be against him ? 
 
 " I was young when this slander was first raised ; my children were 
 " infants. I was one of a numerous and affectionate family ; I had kind 
 " friends and a good cause. I struggled like a drowning person against 
 " disgrace, and reached the shore. Already these miserable affairs were 
 " half forgotten by the world ; and in literary occupation, devotion to 
 " my sons, and the firm friendship of those who knew my real story, I 
 " thought to have spent the future of a stormy past. Mr Norton has 
 " not permitted this. Once more he has dragged me into shameful 
 " publicity ; but on his own letter I will rest my justification, now and 
 " for ever ! 
 
 " Mr Norton says, he comes forward ' as a magistrate, and an adminis- 
 " trator of justice,' to prove he has been just also, in his private affairs. 
 ■' In that capacity, and with that view, he proceeds to make the foUow- 
 " ing admissions : he admits that we did not part on Lord Melbourne's 
 " account ; and that before he ever made Lord Melbourne defendant in 
 " the action in 1836, he had already endeavoured to establish a case, 
 "first against one gentleman, and then — I give Mr Norton's own 
 " printed words : — 
 
 " 'And then, respecting one or two others; hut no sufficient evidence was 
 " 'found. Then a negotiation for a separation was entered upon.^ 
 
 " In all that followed, he says he was guided by the advice of Sir W. 
 " Follett. Sir W. Follett is dead ; but, fortunately, has left on record 
 " his contradiction of this falsehood, as any one may ascertain by re- 
 " ferenoe to the ' Times ' of June 25, 1836, where it is contradicted, on 
 " authority, by Messrs Currie and Woodgate. I have also a private 
 " letter from SirW. Follett (whom I wrote to reproach), expressly repu- 
 " diating the idea of having advised my husband. ' I was his counsel^ 
 "he says, 'not his adviser.' Perhaps nothing can better mark the 
 " opinion of the trial of 1836, than the anxiety shown by all parties to 
 " disavow their share in it. 
 
 " Mr Norton admits that — (after this public trial, and these private 
 " efforts to establish cases against ' one or two others') — 'It is true that in 
 " 1837 we contemplated a reunion,' and that the miserable jest between 
 " us was (on account of my having feared to meet him in an empty 
 " house, as he had proposed), that we adopted in our correspondence the 
 " signatures of a man and woman, the former of whom had been hung, 
 " for luring the latter to his house, and there murdering her. He feels 
 " that this requires a little explanation, and proceeds to say : — 
 
 " ' My own conduct, I admit, at that time was weak and vacillating in 
 " ' the extreme. I had loved her to madness for three or four years before 
 " ' I married her, and after we were united she had all power over me." 
 
 " I was a very young girl at school, when Mr Norton proposed for me, 
 " I was always maltreated by him from the earliest period of oxn mar- 
 
 I 
 
114 
 
 "riage. I parted from hiiii in 1833, and in 1835, as my family can 
 " witness, for violence such as is brought before police-courts ; and I 
 " returned to him on his own passionate entreaty that I would not 
 " ' crush ' but ' forgive him,' and that he ' went on his knees to me for 
 " ' pardon.' I was safe out of his power, and my reputation unsullied, 
 « when he made this prayer ; I returned, and five months after this 
 " letter we were again definitively parted. That parting was followed by 
 " the attempt publicly to disgrace me. After that public disgrace, he 
 " did, as he admits, ask me to return to him. But that is not, as he 
 " would have the world believe, his only 'vacillating' attempt at recon- 
 " ciliation. My husband, who pretends to have loved me so tenderly, 
 " and thrown me off so completely, did neither one nor the other. He 
 " maltreated me while with him ; and he has been in almost constant 
 " correspondence with me, and occasionally a visitor at my house, down 
 "to the winter of the year of 1850. Would any one believe that two 
 " years after 'our reunion was rendered impossible,' he wrote letter after 
 " letter endeavouring to arrange for our living together again, and speaks 
 " of ' shielding me in a husband's arms V That at the time he alludes 
 " to, he was endeavouring to resist my petition to the Chancellor to re- 
 " gain possession of my children; that he then gave his solemn word of 
 " honour to Mr Hardwicke, a brother magistrate, that he had not been 
 " raising a fresh scandal against me ; that he never ventured to defend 
 " my petition to the Chancellor ; that in his letters, two years subse- 
 " quently, he begs me, with coaxing expressions, to call in all copies of a 
 ■ " pamphlet containing our strange correspondence ; and in one of these 
 " letters, of 1842, speaks of himself as ' your Geordie of former and 
 " happier years !' That not only then, but in all years since, I can pro- 
 " duce letters more or less friendly and affectionate ; asking services of 
 " me ; thanking me for serving him ; announcing the marriage of his 
 " sister ; full of phrases of jesting and affection; many beginning 'Dear 
 " ' Carry' and ' Dearest Carry ;' anxious about me ; compUmentiag me ; 
 " asking ' how my travelling alone can be obviated ;' finally (for I weary 
 "over these instances of caprice), in April, 1846, he begins :— 'Your 
 " ' kind letter, written in the good old spirit, which should never have been 
 
 " 'broken ;' and on Christmas-day, 1846, exactly ten years and six 
 
 " months after the trial, and six years after my petition to the Chancellor, 
 " he hopes my health is ' crisp like the frost ' — praises my brother — > 
 " signs himself ' Yours ever' — and in another letter begs I will embrace 
 " the boys ' for absent me, as well as for yourself !' Is it possible to 
 " conceive, that in the face of all this, Mr Norton can so depend on my 
 " not answering him, as to venture to print such mis-statements ? Is it 
 " possible he does not see that they leave him in this position : either 
 " he disbelieves these calumnies, which nevertheless he reiterates to my 
 " injury when it suits him ; or, believing me to be a bad woman, he 
 " wishes me to return home 1 It is indeed difficult to choose which 
 " alternative shall save his honour ! 
 
115 
 
 "The admissions he makes respecting the late proceedings in the 
 " County Court are as extraordinary as his assertions. No one can read 
 " the evidence and not conclude, that Mr Norton broke faith with me, 
 " because I broke some stipulation made with him, and that that stipu- 
 "lation was respecting money from Lord Melbourne. I was cross- 
 " examined on this point in a manner impossible to endure, by Mr 
 " Norton's counsel, who put the question to me five times with little 
 " variation, and when for the fifth time I had answered, on my oath, that 
 " there was no such stipulation, said sneeringly, " Well, I am bound to 
 " take your answer." Now read Mr Norton's admission in his letter to 
 " the ' Times':— 
 
 " ' SJie was quite correct in Court when she swore that her non-reception 
 " 'of the annuity from Lord Melbourne formed no part of the conditions 
 
 "' upon which that agreement was come to. I never said it did" 
 
 "'It is true, therefore, that the agreement of 1848, to allow £500 a year 
 " ' was not conditional upon the relinquishment of an allowance from Lord 
 " ' Melbourne's estate. It is not true that I ever said or suggested the con- 
 
 " ' trary.' The confusion that prevailed at the trial rendered it 
 
 " ' impossible for me to explain the matter to my counsel; and hence arose 
 " ' that part of the cross-examination which implied thai a pledge had been 
 " 'given before the signing of the memorandum.' 
 
 "Mr Norton is unlucky in his choice of legal assistance. When I 
 " said that my copyrights had been claimed — ^the ' benefit of which,' he 
 "says, 'she has always been allowed by me to enjoy' — he threw the 
 " blame on his solicitor, who had subpoenaed the publishers ; and when 
 " I complain of being all but accused of perjury, he says it was the 
 " mistake of his counsel, to whom he could not explain the matter — 
 " though he sat by his side, and suggested in an under-tone almost every 
 " question that was asked me in Court. Nevertheless, it is certain Mr 
 " Norton did make this assertion, which he now says he did not make. 
 " Here is the printed report as given in the papers : — 
 
 " ' Mr Norton — The annuity of £500 was given by me only on this basis. 
 " ' I woidd not have given this sum, or one farthing, if she had not given 
 "'me the most solemn assurance that she would not receive one shilling 
 " 'from Lord Melbourne.' 
 
 " ' Mrs Norton — I stand here on my oath, and I say that that is false.' 
 
 "The reports may be, and are, in many respects, verbally inaccurate ; 
 " but that Mr Norton made the assertion in Court which he now denies 
 " having made ; that the whole cross-examination turned upon it ; that 
 " all public comment and opinion has turned upon it ; that it stood as 
 " his excuse for breaking his covenant ; that it was at once his answer 
 " and accusation, in reply to any claim upon him, is incontrovertible ; 
 " and I so clearly understood it (as every one else understood it) to be 
 " his answer to the charge of breaking the agreement, that as soon as I 
 "had read over the evidence next morning, I sent a letter to the 
 
 I 2 
 
116 
 
 '"Times,' proving that, as Lord Melbourne was not dead at the time 
 " the agreement was made, the stipulation could not have existed. Mr 
 " Norton, now says he never ' said or suggested the contrary.' I 'was 
 " cruelly and insultingly cross-examined upon it, but that was only 
 " on account of counsel knowing nothing of the matter. Now, read Mr 
 " Norton's own account of the drawing up of this disputed agreement. 
 " He ADMETS, that being desirous of borrowing the trust-fund settled on 
 " me and my sons in case of my widowhood, he found — 
 
 " ' That the trustees could not lend the trust-monetf without the permission 
 " ' of Mrs Norton and myself in writing ; and further, that she would not 
 " 'give her 'permission unless I consented to give her an addition of lOOZ. to 
 " ' her allowance, making it 500?., instead of 400?. / was driven into a 
 " ' corner by this unexpected discovery, and I had to submit to the 
 " '.addition: — 
 
 "What addition ? if as, he afl&rms in the next breath, he knew the agree- 
 " ment ' was not binding,' and that he could break it at pleasure? And 
 " if it could be broken at pleasure, and bound no one, why did we sign 
 " it 1 He himself establishes the reason why ; and proves by his own 
 " statement, just given, that instead of its being an agreement based on 
 " the stipulation that I should have no other resources, it was a matter 
 " of bargain for his own interest ; and so great did he consider the ad- 
 " vantage to himself, that he was willing to give for it (or to seem to 
 " give for it) an extra 100?. a year for life ! In making this apparent 
 " concession, however, he says he knew, even at the time, that it was only 
 " apparent. He says that I certainly wished to make it ' a binding 
 " document, by finding trustees, but failed to do so, as not one of her 
 " relations or friends would become her surety.' I beg, on behalf of 
 " 'relations and friends,' tocontradict this. I signed without sureties, 
 " because I received from Sir F. Thesiger (who, at my earnest request, 
 "consented to see Mr Norton at his chambers on this business), a letter 
 " dated 8th August, 1 848, in which he stated that Mr Norton would give 
 "me a deed, 'without requiring guarantees.' Nor had I previously 
 "named, or thought of naming, any but one member of my family, 
 " whom I had not even consulted as to his willingness to be mixed up 
 " with Mr Norton's affairs. 
 
 " Having given his account of the making of the covenant, Mr Norton 
 " thus gives his account of the breaking it : — 
 
 " 'Ilearnt that Mrs Norton had been left 500?. per annum by her mother, 
 " 'from whom I was not aware that she had any expectations. I then pro- 
 " 'posed to her a reduction of her allowance, which she would not accede to, 
 " ' and after she had received her mothei's legacy and for some time enjoyed 
 
 "' it, 1 did reduce it: ' I did, in 1851, upon Mrs Norton's 
 
 " ' income being increased by 5001. a^year upon her mother's death, while 
 "'mine was, from various causes, dip,inished, propose to reduce it. 
 " By his own admission, then, no stipulation respecting Lord Melbourne 
 
117 
 
 " was made ; and no mention of himwas made in Mr Norton's letter to 
 " me ; whicli letter distinctly states, that my brother's solicitor having 
 " informed him I had my mother's legacy, therefore he will break the 
 " agreement. He does not say, ' you have had money given you by Lord 
 " Melbourne's family, therefore I stop your allowance.' He says, ' you 
 " have got a legacy from your mother ; share it with me, or I will force 
 ''you to share it, by non-payment of what I owe you;' nor was it 
 " ' after I had enjoyed it some time,' but on the contrary, at the exact 
 " date of receipt of my mother's property, that Mr Norton fulfilled his 
 " threat : as he expressly says that he did not know, tiU he saw my 
 "bankers' account, that I had Lord Melbourne's bequest — he admits 
 " that my mother's annuity was his only reason. 
 
 " Now this agreement, about which so much has been said, was based 
 " on the single stipulation, not that I should be richer, but that he 
 " should be poorer ; poorer by one thousand a/-year, being the value of 
 " the of&ce to which he was named by Lord Melbourne. My being 
 " richer certainly did not make him poorer ; on the contrary, at my 
 " mother's death, the small portion I derived from my father went to 
 " him, and not to me. He gives his own account of my previous con- 
 " duct in money matters, most plausibly, and most falsely ; the exact 
 " and witnessed truth being, that during the two years 1836 and 1837, 
 " I had not one single farthing from Mr Norton ; that he then employed 
 " Sir John Bayley, who had been his counsel, to arbitrate as to my allow- 
 " ance and all other matters ; that he would not abide by the arbitration ; 
 " made what allowance he pleased ; and advertised me (to guard himself 
 " from further liability) in the pubUo papers — being I believe the only 
 " person of his own rank in life who ever adopted such a measure. I 
 " copy two sentences from a declaration with which Sir John Bayley 
 " has lately furnished me, in contradiction at once of the whole fabri- 
 " cation respecting my conduct in these matters : — 
 
 " ' / was appointed arbitrator on Mr Norton's behalf, in ihe year 1837, 
 ■' ' having been counsel for him ; and thus became intimaidy acquainted 
 " ' with the circumstance of these disputes. Mr Norton gave wie at that 
 " ' time a written promise to abide by my decision. He broke his promise, 
 " ' and refused to hold himself bound by the pledges given' • ■ • • '7 
 " ' consider Mr Norton's conduct to his wife, so far as it has come under 
 " ' my knowledge and cognisance, to have been marked with the grossest 
 " ' cruelty, injustice, and inconsistency.' 
 
 " It is with pain I approach that portion of Mr Norton's letter, in 
 "which he has chosen to make reference to our son. I think my 
 " sons' names should have been held sacred in this dreary quarrel ; which 
 " began in their childhood, and which their manhood finds unreconciled ! 
 " My son is not yet in England ; nor was he in England at the time 
 " Mr Norton states he had these communications with him. I utterly 
 " deny that I ever made him the channel of a falsehood to his father; 
 
118 
 
 " and I deuy that I ever said or implied that it was ' an insult' to be 
 " supposed to be aided by Lord Melbourne's family. I did say (and 
 " perhaps others will agree with me) that it was the coarsest of insults 
 " when Mr Norton talked of these affairs to my son ; that I refused to 
 " discuss them with him ; that I denied Mr Norton's right to question 
 " me, he having bound himself ' stringently,' in writing to my solicitor, 
 " never more to interfere in my affairs from the date of the agreement ; 
 " and Mr Leman has a letter from me written at that time, stating that 
 " I consent to Mr Norton's proposals — ' mainly because it is intolerable 
 " to me to have my son talk over matters from his father.' That Mr 
 " Norton protested afterwards, — either respecting a bequest from Lord 
 " Melbourne, or my mother's legacy, — only proves the truth of my wam- 
 " ing to Mr Leman, that if it were possible for Mr Norton to find an 
 " excuse for breaking his word, he would break it ; as he had done to 
 " Sir John Bayley. 
 
 " With respect to Lord Melbourne, — ^three years after the date Mr 
 " Norton himself assigns to the anecdote he has thought fit to publish, 
 " he writes thus, speaking of the woman who afterwards left him the 
 " Yorkshire property, and who had invited him to dine : — 
 ■ " ' / sent her a civil excuse, which was answered by a thorough love-letter ; 
 " 'indeed it is high tiTne that I should sanction, to a remarking world, 
 " 'your penchant for old men, by suffering this antique faux-pas^ 
 
 "The post-mark of that letter is August 8, 1834. I do not know if 
 " Mr Norton will persist that it is the remark of a jealous husband. 
 "In January, and in February, 1836 (that is, one month before our 
 "final separation), Mr Norton speaks of the 'unparalleled kindness of 
 " Lord Melbourne ;' and strenuously urges me to write to him to press 
 " the appointment of a friend. I will not enter into the fabulous history 
 " of the letters ; Mr Norton forgets that as he was then, by his'o-wn, 
 " admission, occupied on ' one or two other ' names, it could not be 
 " foreseen that these notes from Lord Melbourne would be important : and 
 " the whole of that statement is false. With the exception of myself, 
 " most of the persons Mr Norton maligns are dead, and cannot answer 
 " him. Lord Melbourne is no longer here to give his word of honour, 
 " that the man he served when hving, has stated that which is untrue 
 " of his memory ; but I can very clearly contradict Mr Norton as to 
 " one statement, and I do so to show what credence may be given to 
 " others. Becoming apparently uneasy as to any remarks which may be 
 " made on the affectation of looking with abhorrence on my acceptance 
 " of aid, while he himself receives one thousand a year from Lord Mel- 
 " bourne's appointment, Mr Norton asserts as follows : *,* 
 
 "■'Lord Melbourne promised me the appointment of police magistrate 
 "'before he visited at our house, or before, I believe, he even knew Mrs 
 "'Norton: (!) 
 
 " And he gives this very plausible reason ; — 
 
119 
 
 "'Lord Eldon had appointed me Commissioner of Bankrupts in 1827, 
 " ' and when such appointment was abolished hy the construction of the 
 " ' Bankruptcy Court in 1830 or 1831, 1 considered that I had some claim 
 " ' on the Home Secretary, having received no compensaiion for the loss of 
 " ' my situation.' 
 
 " Both these sentences are directly contrary to the real facts. 
 
 "By Mr Norton's express wish and desire, I wrote at that time, not 
 " only to Lord Melbourne, but to all those friends I thought might serve 
 " us. I wrote to Lord Holland, Lord Lansdowne, the Duke of Devon- 
 " shire, and others, to make interest with Lord Brougham (then Lord 
 " Chancellor) to get Mr Norton a legal appointment. This not appearing 
 " probable, we asked for a Commissionership of Excise or Customs. 
 " We did not succeed in this second request any more than the first ; 
 " but when Mr Wyatt, a police magistrate, died, Lord Melbourne wrote 
 "to me to offer the vacant magistracy. On the 18th April, 1831, Lord 
 " Melbourne wrote me word, that the Chancellor had sent his secretary 
 " to inquire respecting this matter ; and had intimated that he should 
 " expect Mr Norton to resign his Commissionership of Bankrupts ; Lord 
 " Melbourne added, ' this is not so agreeable, but stiU was to be expected, 
 " and is perhaps not unfair in these reforming times ; and I mention it 
 " that you may not be surprised when you receive the intelligence.' 
 
 " Mr Norton was disappointed, and demurred ; he desired to hold both 
 " appointments ; I wrote again to Lord Melbourne to state this, and re- 
 " ceived in reply the following note : — 
 
 "'House of Lords, Quarter-past Five. 
 
 " ' Take my advice, and make Norton write a line immediately to the 
 " ' Lord Chancellor, giving up his Commissionership. What you cannot 
 " ' keep, it is always best to give up with a good grace. 
 
 " ' Tours faithfully, ' Melbourne.^ 
 
 " The statement, therefore, made by Mr Norton, is entirely fictitious ; 
 " and if I notice it, it is to ask what reliance can be placed on all the 
 " other mis-statements in which blind wrath, imperfect memory, and 
 " utter irresolution have involved him ] Mr Norton calls his published 
 " letter a ' Vindication ' : a man of keener moral perceptions would 
 " have felt, when he wrote it, that he was not writing his defence — but 
 
 " his CONFESSION. 
 
 " From beginning to end it is a tissue of degrading admissions, or 
 " incorrect assertions : of which the contradiction, I am thankful to say, 
 " does not rest on my helpless denial, but on the clearest disproof 
 
 "Mr Norton admits that we did not part on Lord Melbourne's account 
 " in 1836 ; but that he took then, as he takes now, any slander he could 
 " find, to involve me in undeserved shame and disgrace. He admits that 
 " he solicited my return after the trial, in a famiUar, jesting, and caressing 
 " correspondence, — even while he repeats as true the gross slanders of 
 "17 years ago ! He admits that he had no stipulation whatever with 
 
120 
 
 « me about Lord Melbourne, on this disputed agreement ; and he denies 
 "that he ever 'said or suggested ' that he had any such stipulation 
 " Such are his admissions ! I turn to his assertions. 
 
 "Mr Norton's appointment was not given or promised by Lord Mel- 
 " bourne, before he knew me or visited at our house, but, on the contrary, 
 " after correspondence and intimacy ; and it was not given as compen- 
 " sation for the loss of his Commissionership of Bankruptcy ; on the 
 " contrary, the Chancellor insisted on controlling his own patronage, 
 " and gave notice that Mr Norton should not be permitted to hold both 
 " appointments. 
 
 " I did NOT put my husband to needless torment and expense by ex- 
 " travagance and actions from my tradespeople ; on the contrary, he 
 " broke his solemn written pledge with his own referee. Sir John Bayley, 
 " and advertised me in the newspapers, as Sir John Bayley can prove. 
 " Sir W. FoUett did not advise the trial, or the measures taken by 
 " Mr Norton ; on the contrary, he publicly disavowed him as soon as 
 " the trial was over, as the letter of Messrs Currie and Woodgate is 
 " extant to prove. Mr Norton has not proved by his letter that he has 
 " been 'just in his private affairs ' ; but, on the contrary, he Las proved 
 "himself as cruelly unjust as any man ever was, by meeting a true claim 
 " with a series of libellous accusations, raked up from the past, to slander 
 " the living and the dead. 
 
 " I am content that those accusations should be taken at their worth ; 
 
 " Mr Norton's word has been too recklessly pledged on matters easy of dis- 
 
 " proof, to be trusted where evidence is wanting, and nothing possible but 
 
 " denial. I say again, that henceforth and for ever, I rest my justifica- 
 
 " tion on this published confession of Mr Norton's ; on its glaring con- 
 
 " traductions in all matters to which it refers ; on its strange admissions 
 
 " as regards his conduct towards me. Even on the showing of that con- 
 
 " fiisid letter, our story stands thus : — that after bringing a divorce trial 
 
 " in which he himself so little believed, that he wooed me home again 
 
 " the next year, he revives the slander which an English jury, the pledged 
 
 "word of the deceased, and his own recal had refuted, with the bitterest 
 
 " expressions and false accusations, both against his wife and his dead 
 
 " patron. That he has done this, in the course of defence to a common 
 
 " action for debt ; the simple question being, whether he was or was not 
 
 " bound to provide and set apart for a body of tradesmen the sum of 
 
 " 687^., the security for such sum being an agreement drawn out formally 
 
 " by a solicitor ; at his own urgent request ; to procure an arrangement 
 
 " he desired ; signed by his own hand ; and witnessed by two other per- 
 
 " sons. That he cannot assert that he had any stipulations whatever 
 
 " with me, respecting Lord Melbourne, my expectations from my mother, 
 
 " or my literary resources (all three of which he gave as his excuse) ; 
 
 " neither can he deny, that as the agreement embraced the contingency 
 
 " of his becoming Lord Grantley, it was intended to be permanent. I 
 
121 
 
 " complain that the original simple question has been cunningly lost and 
 " covered, by the overwhelming scandal of Mr Norton's false defence. I 
 " resent, — ^not his treachery about the broken agreement, but his attempt 
 " to raise the laid ghost of a dead slander to shame me. I resisted it 
 " with passionate despair, because, let a woman struggle as she will, fair 
 " fame is blotted, and fair name is lost, not by the fact, but the aocu- 
 " sation ; and I feel it more now, even than in 1836, because then my 
 " children were infants and it could not grieve them. Those who have 
 " commented on the exasperation with which I answered in Court, would 
 " do well to remember, that I stood there, answering questions on oath 
 " which had no possible bearing on the case ; well knowing those ques- 
 " tions to be put with the express view and purpose of defaming me ; 
 " knowing the charges implied by those questions to be false ; knowing 
 " (the most despairing knowledge of all) that Mr Norton Kiraw they 
 " were false, even while he put them ; and that, instead of being allowed 
 " to prove the debt and agreement, I was once more being insulted with 
 " the echo of the trial of 1836, with as little just cause for the insult. 
 
 " It is said, why all this scandal for a miserable matter of a few 
 " hundred pounds ? Better any sacrifice than such a struggle. Very 
 " true ; but when this petty struggle was undertaken, no human being 
 " could have foreseen the falsehood with which it was to be met, and 
 " out of which this scandal was to grow. Others, judging where none 
 " can judge who do not know our history, wonder I did not quietly take 
 " what Mr Norton asserts he offered. For that, I can only appeal to 
 •' Sir John Bayley, and to the evidence of Mr Norton's present conduct. 
 " If Mr Norton would not be bound by his written pledge given to 
 " Sir John Bayley in 1837, nor by the formal document drawn up by 
 " Mr Leman in 1848, is it credible that he would be bound by a mere 
 " assertion, that he would or would not place such and such sums ? 
 
 " I have done. There will always be those to whom a slander is 
 " precious ; and who cannot bear to have it refuted. There are also 
 " those in whose eyes the accusation of a woman is her condemnation, 
 " and who care Uttle whether the story be false or true, so long as there 
 " is or was a story against her. But juster minds, who will pause and 
 " review the circumstances Mr Norton himself has published, wiU per- 
 " haps think the fate of that woman a hard one, — whom neither the 
 " verdict of a jury, nor the solemn denial of a voice from the dead, nor 
 " the petition of her husband for a reconciliation and oblivion of the 
 " past, can clear from a charge always and utterly untrue. I did not 
 " deserve the scandal of 1836, and I do not deserve the scandal of 1853. 
 " Lord Melbourne did not tempt me then to break my wedded faith ; 
 " and his name has not now been the ground of a broken stipulation. 
 " On Mr Norton's own letter 1 am content that people should judge us 
 " both. Many friends have wished me to pass over that letter in dis- 
 " dainful silence, as refuting itself ; and perhaps, if I were happy enough 
 
123 
 
 " to be obscure and unknown, that would be my course. But I bave a 
 " position separate from my woman's destiny ; I am known as a writer ; 
 " and I will not permit tbat Mr Norton's letter sball remain on tbe 
 "journals of Great Britain, as tbe uncontradicted record of my actions. 
 " I will, as far as I am able, defend a name whicb migbt have been only 
 " favourably known, but whicb my husband has rendered notorious. The 
 " little world of my chance-readers may say of me after I am dead and 
 " gone, and my struggles over and forgotten — 'The woman who wrote 
 "this book had an unhappy history;' but they shall not say — 'The 
 " woman who wrote this book was a profligate and mercenary hypocrite.' 
 " Since my one gift of writing gives me friends among strangers, I 
 " appeal to the opinion of strangers as well as that of friends. Since, in 
 " however bounded and narrow a degree, there is a chance that I may be 
 " remembered after death, I wiU not have my whole life misrepresented. 
 " Let those women who have the true woman's lot, of being unknown 
 " out of the circle of their homes, thank God for that blessing : it is a 
 " blessing ; but for me, publicity is no longer a matter of choice. De- 
 " fence is possible to me — not silence. And I must remind those who 
 " think the right of a husband so indefeasible, that a wife ought rather 
 " to submit to the martyrdom of her reputation, than be justified at his 
 " expense, that I have refrained. All I state now, I might have stated at 
 " any time during the past unhappy years ; and I never did publicly 
 " state it till now — now, when I fijid Mr Norton slandering the mother of 
 " his sons, by coarse anecdotes signed with his name and published by 
 " his authority ; endeavouring thus to overwhelm me with infamy, for 
 " no offence but thatof having rashly asserted a claim upon Mm, which 
 " was found not to be valid in law, but only binding on him ' as a man 
 " of honour.' Caroline Norton." 
 
 Mr Norton answered that letter. He answered it by admit- 
 ting fwhat indeed he would not deny) the falsehood respect- 
 ing the appointment Lord Melbourne gave him, which I 
 had disproved by Lord Melbourne's own letters ; he called 
 that bold, cunning, and deliberate explanation of his accep- 
 tance of favours, a " mistake." He said : — " / had not, at 
 the time of my writing my former letter, refreshed my memxiry 
 by reference to documents connected with this point, and in 
 writing aiout a transaction which happened upwards of 22 
 years ago, I was led into this most unintentional mistake." 
 But he reiterated other " mistakes " about other transactions, 
 which happened not so many years ago. He published (to 
 prove that he had brought the action against Lord Melbourne 
 
123 
 
 by Sir W. Follett's advice) minutes of a consultation noted 
 by his solicitor, Mr Currie ; in which Mr Currie admitted, 
 that Sir W. Follett said, he doubted much if a verdict could 
 be got, as witnesses of the description Mr Norton had pro- 
 cured, " were so likely to break down on cross-examination"; 
 that it would be " important to prove by a better class of 
 witnesses," the extreme intimacy with Lord Melbourne ; 
 and that a conference had been afterwards held, as to the 
 necessity of talcing some step, rather than admit (by not 
 proceeding) that the charge was groundless. On so slender 
 a chance did that mock -trial turn ! 
 
 Mr Norton also published the opinion and letters of Sir 
 John Bayley, at and after the trial; to prove, as he said, 
 that Sir John's opinion was then at variance with the one 
 recently expressed in my favour. Sir John was in Scotland 
 when this second batch of slanders appeared ; I therefore 
 wrote to him ; and, after briefly commenting, myself, on Mr 
 Norton's fresh attack ; I re-printed this public denial made 
 at the time, to disprove Sir W. Pollett's share in a transac- 
 tion he had expressly disclaimed. 
 
 Extract from the « Times " of June 25th, 1836 : — 
 
 « To the Editor of the ' Times.' 
 
 " Sir, — Having seen in the ' Times ' of this morning that the 
 " action of ' Norton v. Lord Melbourne ' was advised ' by the able and 
 " upright counsel who conducted it,' we think it is due to Sir William 
 " Follett to state, that the action was not brought under his advice ; 
 " and that although he was retained so far back as the 25th of April last 
 " the evidence was not in complete state for his brief to be delivered to 
 " him until the 14th of June inst., and when no course was open to the 
 " parties but to proceed with the trial of the cause, which had been 
 " fixed for the present sittings. 
 
 " We are, Sir, your most obedient servants, 
 
 (Signed) " Currie and Woodgate." 
 
 " Lincoln's Lm, June 25, 1836." 
 
 Sir John Bayley answered my appeal to him, as I hoped 
 and expected ; he came forward and publicly contradicted, 
 in his own person, the tissue of mis-statements by which 
 
124 
 
 Mr Norton sought to crush me ; and I consider that I owe 
 to that manly and frank upholding, the only approach to 
 justice I have ever been able to obtain. 1 give his letter, 
 as it appeared ia the journals of the day. 
 
 "To the Editor. 
 
 " Sir,— Absence from London, and a severe private sorrow, have 
 " prevented my sooner noticing certain letters which have lately appeared 
 " in the pubHc journals, in which my name has been most improperly 
 " introduced by Mr Norton, who has thought fit to publish his copy of 
 " a case laid before me for my opinion, in 1836, and a letter of mine to 
 " his solicitor, dated 9th Jan., 1837. He pubhshes these documents to 
 " prove, that my opinion then was at variance with one which I have 
 "more recently expressed ; namely, that his conduct to his wife 'has 
 " been marked with the grossest cruelty, injustice, and inconsistency.' If 
 " Mr Norton's remarks on the alteration in my opinions, had been merely 
 " intended to impeach my judgment, I should not have condescended to 
 " notice them ; but as he intends the public to infer, that Mrs Norton 
 " may be unworthy of the later opinion which circumstances have led 
 " me to form, and he himself undeserving of the censure I passed upon 
 " his conduct towards her, I consider I should be acting the part of a 
 " coward, if I refrained from coming forward to state the truth, however 
 " disagreeable this enforced publicity may be, — nay, must be, — to any 
 " man who has merely endeavoured to do his duty fairly and fearlessly, 
 " as a gentleman and a man of honour, between parties utterly \mcon- 
 " nected with him. 
 
 " If Mr Norton's object in publishing my letter and opinion had been 
 " the development of truth, he would not have left unstated, facts which 
 " clearly account for my change of opinion. As he has thought fit to 
 " suppress those facts, I will supply them. 
 
 " When this opinion of the 3rd October, 1836, and the letter of the 
 " 9th January, 1837, were written by me, I was acting as his Counsel; 
 " and on his em parte statements, in the firm belief that every assertion 
 " he made to me was true, and capable of proof, I wrote that letter and 
 " I gave that opinion. 
 
 "Some time in the year 1837, and subsequently to my letter to Mr 
 " Cnrrie, my position was changed. I ceased to be Mr Norton's Counsel, 
 " and all previous attempts at reconciliation or arrangement between him 
 " and Mrs Norton having failed, I, at Mr Norton's own earnest solicitation, 
 " took upon myself the arduous and thankless office of arbitrator, pro- 
 " viding that Mrs Norton would permit me to act in that capacity on 
 " her behalf. I did not expect that she would ever consent to this, from 
 " the position I had held as Counsel for her husband, and the impression 
 " she necessarily must have entertained, that I was prejudiced against 
 
125 
 
 " her. To her honour and credit, however, she at once acceded to Mr 
 " Norton's request. I received both, from her and her husband, written 
 " assurances that they would abide by my decision, whatever it might 
 " be ; and on these terms I entered on my difficult task. I then, for the 
 " first time, learnt Mrs Norton's side of the question. I found (not from 
 " her assertions, but by the documentary proofs in her possession) that 
 " I had been advising Mr Norton, not on his real case, but on a series of 
 " invented fables which he had strung together and consulted me upon. 
 " Nearly every statement he had made to me, turned out to be untrue. I 
 " found Mrs Norton anxious only on one point, and nearly broken-hearted 
 " about it ; namely, the restoration of her children. She treated her pecu- 
 " niary affairs as a matter of perfect indifference, and left me to arrange 
 " them with Mr Norton as I thought fit. I found her husband, on the con- 
 " trary, anxious only about the pecuniary part of the arrangement, and so 
 " obviously making the love of the mother for her offspring, a means of 
 " barter and bargain, that I wrote to him I could be ' no party to any 
 " arrangement which made money the price of Mrs Norton's fair and 
 " honourable access to her children.' I found his history of her expenses 
 " and extravagance, to be untrue ; and that even while he made that com- 
 " plaint, he had detained all her wardrobe, jewellery, and books, in short, 
 " every article of her personal property, ujider threat of selling them. 
 " I advised that these things should be given up; but Mr Norton would 
 " not consent to do so. I told him frankly, I did not think he ought 
 " ever to have retained them. I found Mrs Norton had offered to pay 
 " her own bills, and that Mr Norton's solicitor had replied, that there 
 " was no undertaking, even if she did pay her bUls, that her property 
 " should be returned to her. I found, under Mr Norton's own hand- 
 " writing, confessions of the grossest personal violence towards his wife ; 
 " and that on one occasion he had kicked the drawing-room door from 
 " its hinges, and dragged her out of the room by force — she being then 
 " enceinte of her youngest son. I wrote to him to say, that, in spite of 
 " these injuries (supported by the clearest proof under his own hand- 
 " writing) I found Mrs Norton 'reasonable' — 'tractable' — 'very forbear- 
 " ing, indeed, in her expressions towards him,' — anxious to satisfy him, 
 " 'for the children's sake'; writing to me, instead of abusing him, that 
 " she desired ' heartily, vainly, and sorrowfully, to be at peace with her 
 " children's father.' I found that the taking away of those children, had 
 " been the real ground of quarrel ; and that not only Mr Norton threw 
 " the blame of the subsequent trial on his advisers, and declared that 
 " the trial was brought ' against his judgment^ but that one of his angriest 
 " grounds of complaint against his wife was, that she had said she 'never 
 " would return to him'; that, as he expressed it, she did not ' honestly 
 " intend to return to him,' when he asked her ; that his sister and other 
 " friends had told him so : in answer to which complaint I wrote him 
 " word, that Mrs Norton did intend to have returned, but admitted she 
 
126 
 
 "had said to Ms sister, 'It would he for her children's sake.' I found, even 
 " while making this angry complaint, and while endeavouring to come to 
 " terms, he retained certain pocket-books, and MS. memoranda of Mrs 
 " Norton's, in case, if the negotiation went off, he might find in these 
 "journals something on which to ground some accusation against her, in 
 " the ecclesiastical or other courts ! I read with amazement the series 
 " of letters which Mr Norton had previously addressed to his wife, and 
 " in which he signs himself ' Greenacre.' I showed those letters to the 
 " late Lord Wynford. I said, if Mrs Norton had been my sister, I would 
 " have made them public : and I consider she showed great forbearance 
 " and consideration in not making them public, when Mr Norton ad- 
 " vertised her in the papers. Mr Norton admitted to me his firm belief 
 " of his wife's innocence of the charge he had brought against her and 
 " Lord Melbourne ; and these letters of his, expressly exculpated her 
 " from all blame, and endearingly entreated her to return and live with 
 " him again. I then certainly changed my opinion. I thought Mr Norton 
 " had done Ms wife the most cruel injury a man could inflict, and that 
 " he was bound to make every sacrifice and reparation in his power. I 
 " saw no earthly reason why her children should be withheld from her, 
 " and required him to write immediately to Scotland (where the cMldren 
 " then were) to have them sent to London forthwith. In my presence, 
 " and at my dictation, he wrote a letter to that effect and sealed it. I 
 " posted it myself, and thought all was settled, as the sole stipulation 
 " made by Mrs Norton was the return of her children ; but Mr Norton 
 "'was base enough to write a second letter, unknown to me, to forbid 
 " their coming ; an come they did not. As soon as I discovered 
 "this act of treachery and breach of faith, I threw up my ofi&ce 
 " of mediator. I remonstrated in severe terms with Mr Norton, and 
 " my intercourse with him ceased. The question of Mrs Norton's 
 " allowance was not entered upon, as my interference terminated at this 
 " point. I deem it, however, the simplest justice to Mrs Norton to say, 
 "that I found her frank and straightforward throughout; acting 
 " strictly up to this sentence in her first letter to me — ' Heartily, and 
 " as God is my judge, I desire to make what peace is possible between 
 " me and my husband, in spite of the past.' She left her interests en- 
 " tirely in my hands ; threw no obstacle in my path ; and never once 
 " swerved from the promise to abide by whatever terms I should lay 
 " down. With Mr Norton (though he had appointed me to act) I found 
 " the exact reverse. He abused his wife and Ms wife's family ; he 
 " shuffled about the mis-statements he could not deny ; he would be 
 " bound neither by his verbal promise nor his written pledge ; and after 
 " a correspondence, which began in November, and did not end till Jan- 
 " uary, all efltort at arrangement was given up. On a calm review of these 
 " circumstances, it can scarcely be wondered at, that I utterly changed 
 " my opinion, and that the advice I gave 'to the writer of the Greenacre 
 
127 
 
 " letters in 1837 was not the same advice I had given to the supposed 
 " injured husband of 1836. I gave Mr Norton, on the fancy case he 
 " submitted to counsel, good, sound, honest advice, to the best of my 
 " ability ; and I gave him the like advice when his real case became 
 " known to me. If he had abided by that advice, and by his written 
 " pledge, the curiosity of the world would not now be gratified by details 
 " of his private afiairs, which he compels others to publish piecemeal for 
 " their own justification. I am sorry, for his sake, that such publication 
 " ever took place ; and I am glad for Mrs Norton's sake ; because I con- 
 "sider there never was a more deeply-injured woman, and that his 
 " conduct to her certainly has been marked by ' the grossest cruelty, 
 " iujustice, and inconsistency,' that ever any man displayed. Mr Norton 
 " may attack me with impunity : I shall not answer him ; but I will not 
 " allow him to persuade the public that there is any inconsistency in an 
 " opinion formed on a thorough knowledge of his case ; which opinion, 
 " now that all the circumstances of that case are more generally known, 
 " he will, I think, find to be universal. 
 
 "13th September, 1853. "John Baylby. 
 
 "Philorth House, Fraserburgh, N.B." 
 
 This letter vras considered, when it appeared, to be " unan- 
 swerable '' ; but Mr Norton's struggle was not yet over. On 
 the 24th September, — eight days after Sir John had thus 
 declared the true circumstances of our story, — Mr Norton 
 re-appeared in print. He began by saying, that he had 
 " delayed his answer for a few days, and during the interval 
 consulted counsel upon his power to file a criminal information 
 ao-ainst Sir John Bayley; but that course (he was advised) 
 was no longer open to him, ' inasmuch as all parties had already 
 resorted to the newspapers.' " 
 
 Any lawyer would know this excuse to be a false one ; and 
 that it was perfectly competent to Mr Norton (if he could have 
 dared the result), to take other legal measures against Sii' John 
 Bayley. Declining refutation of the general charges, Mr 
 Norton commented on two only: the breaking open of the 
 doors, and the surreptitious letter privately sent, contradicting 
 that which he affected to write and send at his referee's dicta- 
 tion. He admitted that he burst the doors open; called it a 
 "frivolous quarrel"; and with that mania about money and 
 money's worth, which made him deem such an excuse the 
 
128 
 
 best justificatiou te could invent,— gave to the public, as the 
 reason of this scene of uproar and assault, that his wife had 
 bought " expensive velvets." 
 
 He then proceeded to Sir John's "charge of baseness," — and 
 asserted, — not that he did not so act, but that Sir John 
 did not tell him at the time, that he was "base"; that they 
 corresponded afterwards; and that, says Mr Norton: — 
 
 " The period of my withdrawing my confidence from my sole Ugai 
 " adviser after the tried, and as I firmly believed my friend, was when I 
 "found that he had become completely infatuated by a beautiful and 
 " talented woman, whose performance of her part of a contemplated ar- 
 " rangement he positively refused to answer for, although he at the same 
 " time insisted upon my performing my part, and placing myself at her 
 " mercy, by withdrawing my children from, Scotland." 
 
 My husband is fond of paying me the melancholy compli- 
 ment, that to my personal charms, and not to the justice of my 
 cause, I owe, that all concerned in these wretched affairs take 
 my part against him, so soon as they have any explanation 
 with me ! Now, it would certainly have been strictly probable 
 that any man, — especially a man of Sir John Bayley's nature ; 
 blunt, kindly, and vehement; — ^would, — on finding instead of 
 the painted wanton he expected to find, prepared to struggle 
 for her "rights" and her "interests," — a miserable, sobbing, 
 worn-out young woman, appealing to him for nothing but the 
 mercy of getting back her children (those dear children, the 
 loss of whose pattering steps and sweet occasional voices made 
 the silence of her new home intolerable as the anguish of 
 death), — I say it is more than probable, that being but man, 
 and not the angel of justice, he might have leaned most 
 unfairly, unduly, and compassionately, to the person whose 
 bitter grief, and single, simple stipulation, came upon him by 
 surprise; and that so he might not have dealt as impartially, 
 as good faith with Mr Norton required. 
 
 I thank heaven it was not so. This assertion must with- 
 draw and take its rank among all my husband's other asser- 
 tions. To no weak leaning of any man, but to the sympathy 
 
129 
 
 of a true and gentle looman, I owe any further negotiation; 
 with Mr Norton after that surreptitious letter was sent. 
 
 Sir John did tell him, in the interview they had on the sub- 
 ject, how base he considered his conduct ; and dismissed him 
 with such violent and contemptuous reproaches, that all 
 acquaintance appeared ended between them. Then, in my 
 despair, learning the wondrous treachery of the double part' 
 Mr Norton had played, and the end of all my hopes about my 
 children, Sir John Bayley's wife took pity upon me. She 
 did not know me ; I was, to her, nothing but a slandered 
 stranger : but she came to see me and comfort me. Pure- 
 hearted, high-minded, and herself a mother, — she strove to 
 stand between me and my bitter disappointment. She didj 
 what her husband was too full of just anger and scorn to do — 
 SHE wrote to Mr Norton, — she pleaded for those children, — 
 who did not live with him, who were no pleasure to him, 
 who were merely his imprisoned hostages for power; she dug 
 for pity in that sterile heart; and wrote, and strove, and wasted, 
 kindness and time for my sake. Mr Norton availed himself, 
 of her interference, to renew the correspondence, — I have 
 his answer to all those letters, — and his bitterest complaint 
 is, that I had said " I would not return to him! " 
 
 Sir John Bayley refused to notice Mr Norton's comments 
 on his published letter ; or these and other facts might have 
 been stated. He scorned to reply to the taunts showered 
 upon him for venturing to make the truth known; taunts 
 so bitter, that it would seem as if, instead of an English 
 gentleman acting as referee, he had been a Eoman Catholic 
 priest breaking the seal of the confessional, or an accom- 
 plice turning King's evidence. To be known, is, with Mr 
 Norton, sjmonymous with being betrayed. The bugbear 
 of his life is the terrible motto, "Magna est Veritas et 
 prevalent ! " Sir John had no right to ruin his character, 
 — and his character was ruined in proportion as his conduct 
 was made public. And this brings me to certain passages 
 
 K 
 
130 
 
 in Mr Norton's published letter, respecting Lord Abinger ; 
 containing, I think, as strange a boast of protection as ever 
 was made by an English magistrate, with respect to an English 
 judge. Sir John Bayley had been subpoenaed as a witness in 
 1838, by one of my creditors; after having become acquainted 
 as referee, with the real circumstances of our story : and this 
 is Mr Norton's printed boast j taken from the "Times" news- 
 paper of the 24th September, 1853 : 
 
 "Lord Abinger, who tried the cause, upon a suggestion of my counsd" 
 (Sir Fitzroy Kelly), "that Sir John Bayley had been my advocate and 
 "referee, refdsed to hear his evidence. 
 
 " Lord Abinger, in his summing up, alluding to one of the letters then 
 "produced, says, 'How that bears upon the present case I reaUy cannot 
 "see. I myself must say, as a gentleman, I do not think that letter ought 
 '? to have been put in evidence.' " 
 
 And finally, Mr Norton terms his quondam counsel and 
 referee — 
 
 " That advocate, who ought to have learnt his duty by having been 
 " REJECTED by Lord Abinger, as a witness in a Court of Law, in respect of 
 " the very matter which in a perverted state he now makes himsdf a party 
 " to publish." 
 
 I beg the attention of my readers to the circumstances 
 preceding that rejection of evidence. When the letters signed 
 "Greenacre," and others, were shown by Sir John Bayley to 
 Lord Wynford, the latter expressed himself in the strongest 
 and most contemptuous terms with respect to his former ward; 
 and finally — ^for the express purpose of being shown to Mr 
 Norton, — he wrote the following note ; the original of which 
 is in my possession. 
 "My Dear Sayley, 
 
 "I have been thinking of the correspondence you read to me this 
 " morning. I am convinced that George Norton can have no defence to 
 " the actions, and that his defending them will be attended with loss of 
 " CHARACTER, as well as great expense. He should agree to the arrangement 
 " thai you propose, or any other that can be made. I will write to Qramtley 
 " to teU him that I have advised a settlement on ant term^. 
 
 " Faithfully yours, 
 
 " Wynford. 
 "Leesons, December 20 1837. 
 
131 
 
 Here then is Mr. Norton, armed with the knowledge of 
 Lord Wynford's opinion, that the production of the evidence 
 Sir John Bay ley could give, would be attended with " loss of 
 character," and prove fatal to his defence. Lord Wynford's 
 advice was to surrender at discretion. " Don't attempt to de- 
 fend the actions; the evidence will ruin you." But Mr. Norton 
 (himself brought up to the law) thought differently. " Defend 
 the actions; the evidence that would ruin you csm he sup- 
 pressed." Two of the ablest men the English bar could boast 
 — Lord Abinger and Sir Fitzroy Kelly — might surely steer him 
 past that dreadful shoal, with this one skilful stroke of the oar ! 
 So Hope whispered ; and so the event proved. Lord Abinger 
 "refused" the evidence which Lord Wynford had warned 
 Lord Grantley would be fatal. Lord Abinger " rejected the 
 advocate," whose dangerous testimony was to turn the scales. 
 Let the foreigners, whose methods of jurisprudence we criticise, 
 read what can happen in an English Court of Justice — and be 
 boasted of afterwards by an English Magistrate ! 
 
 Sir Fitzroy Kelly (who, for the use he then made of his 
 skill and eloquence, may plead, like Mr. Needham, and the 
 defender of the burglary case, duty to his client and " licence 
 of the bar") represented Mr. Norton in pathetic terms, as a 
 high-minded and excellent man, whose extravagant and profli- 
 gate wife was endeavouring to ruin him by a succession of 
 luxurious debts ; a wife utterly unworthy, though the verdict 
 in the trial against Lord Melbourne left her still with some 
 legal claims on that injured and deceived husband, who vainly 
 strove, with mingled economy and generosity, to provide for 
 her and his children ! 
 
 To contradict this Romance of the Bar, there was in Court, 
 at that hour, a gentleman of unimpeachable integrity, subpoenaed 
 to give testimony ON oath, by the creditor who was suing 
 for his debt. He could have proved all that Lord Wynford 
 dreaded — all that has since been declared in Sir John Bayley'a 
 letter to the T^mes ; and had he been permitted tp speak, the 
 
 K 2 
 
132 
 
 verdict must, according to Lord "Wynford, have gone against 
 Mr. Norton, with the addition of " loss of character and great 
 expense." Sir Fitzroy Kelly settled the matter. His expe- 
 rienced skill saved Mr. Norton. He knew that it is easier 
 to suppress evidence than to refute it; and on his suggestion 
 (as Mr. Norton has now published to the world). Lord 
 Abinger decided what to do. He simply refused to hear 
 anything Sir John Bayley had to say ! That this decision 
 was optional, and not the result of a legal necessity, we 
 may safely presume; since Lord Wynford did not antici- 
 pate such a road out of the difficulty; but had advised "a 
 settlement on any terms" rather than run the risk of the 
 actions. That risk was triumphantly avoided, by the refusal 
 of an English judge, in open Court, to receive sworn testi- 
 mony in behalf of a party unjustly accused and not represented 
 by Counsel ! The result was a verdict for Mr. Norton ; and 
 he was satisfied. 
 
 But / was not satisfied. I naturally said to myself, " Here 
 is the truth suppressed, and evidence refused which would 
 have decided that case precisely the other way; I have it on 
 Lord Wynford's authority. He advised Mr. Norton to yield, 
 to save him from exposure; these other lawyers have saved 
 him from exposure by a superior trick of skill. It seems then, 
 that he is to be protected At all hazards. Why ? Can any 
 one believe that nothing more is at stake than a simple ad- 
 mission of liability for a wife's debts, when such strange 
 means are resorted to? Lord Wynford, in spite of his de- 
 nial — of the Duke of Cumberland's denial — in spite of his re- 
 pudiation of Mr. Norton and his concerns — was nevertheless 
 the person appointed immediately after the trial to discuss 
 terms. Lord Wynford, on Mr. Norton's behalf, — and no other, 
 met Dr. Lushington on my behalf, as soon as the action 
 against Lord Melbourne was over ! Are we to believe that he 
 suddenly renewed his intimacy with Mr. Norton only for the 
 purpose of rendering him that service? Now, here were two 
 
133 
 
 more of the chief men of the Tory party, contriving (by 
 the refusal of sworn evidence) that the accuser of the Whig 
 Premier should escape scot-free from the imminent peril of 
 our real story becoming known. Sir Fitzroy Kelly is counsel, 
 and Lord Abinger is judge — Lord Abinger, who began lif^ 
 as a Whig, warmed into a convert-Tory, and on whom (during 
 the brief moment Lord Melbourne had been ousted to make 
 way for the Peel-Wellington cabinet) so many Tory favours 
 had been showered. What was I to think? Memoirs enough 
 have been lately edited and published by ministers and the sons 
 of ministers, to show the under-current of relation in which pub- 
 lic men may stand to each other. If such are the jealousies and 
 animosities of friends, what may not be expected from foes? 
 TTnforgotten by me were Lord Melbourne's own words: — 
 "You take these slights to yourself; but they are not put 
 upon YOU." My justification or condemnation, personally, 
 was as nothing. But fatal (not only to Mr. Norton) would 
 that sworn testimony have been, which proved that the 
 plaintiff in the action against Lord Melbourne had declared 
 that it was the work of others; that it was against his judg- 
 ment ; that he utterly disbelieved the accusation it involved ; 
 that he had entreated his wife to forgive it; to return tq 
 her home ; and had put forward as one of his bitterest com- 
 plaints, that she said she never would live with him again ! 
 That evidence was suppressed. But I tell Mr. Norton, on 
 this printed page, that he himself does not know by what a 
 double chance the risk of exposure was avoided; that even 
 Lord Abinger's protection would have failed to shelter him, 
 when I angrily resolved (as I did) to publish then the whole 
 account of our case, and leave him to his remedy ; but that Lord 
 Melbourne dissuaded me from doing so. It so happened that 
 this petty cause, — pleaded by Sir Fitzroy Kelly, and decided by 
 Lord Abinger ; in which nothing more important than a woman's 
 fame and a woman's interests were at stake, — was tried at the 
 exact moment (June, 1838), when, in the first year of a young 
 
134 
 
 Queen's reign, the Whig government was overwhelmed with 
 business, even more troublesome than that which the cares of 
 office usually involve. "What was my poor destiny, in a 
 session in which a new coinage and a coronation — ^the revolts 
 in Canada — the attempt to repeal the corn-laws — the conduct 
 of O'Connell — the King of Hanover's claim for his English 
 income^the Irish Church Bill — the first general arrangement 
 of mails by railroad — the visit of Marshal Soult — the creation 
 of a new batch of Peers — the passing of the Irish poor-law — 
 and a hundred other subjects of varying importance, em- 
 ployed Lord Melbourne's attention? What could my sobbing, 
 moaning, and complaining, be, but a bore, to this man who was 
 not my lover? What could my passionate printed justification 
 be, but a plague and embarrassment to him, already justified, 
 and at the pinnacle of fortune? Let no one say Lord 
 Melbourne's family should not hold me in kind remembrance : 
 for then — young, childless, defamed, sorrowful, and rash,— there 
 never was the day that I did not admit his destiny to be the 
 one thing thought of; there never was the day that I rebelled 
 against his advice, or gave him annoyance that I could 
 possibly avoid. I did not even persist — " this can only be a 
 temporary embarrassment by revival of painful gossip, to you; 
 it is my life— my future — the strongest temptation of my heart 
 to justify myself." I listened then, as at other times, to the 
 ever- ready argument, that I would be justified without these 
 means; that they would be beyond measure vexatious and 
 embarrassing to him; that I might " rest assured," that no 
 patience I shewed would be forgotten, either by him, or those 
 above him. I gave up what I had prepared (though it would 
 have been as easy for me to prove all by Sir John Bayley's 
 and other testimony, then, as in this present year), and 
 nothing was published but a feeble anonymous denial, in a 
 morning paper, of the general thread of Sir Fitzroy Kelly's 
 remarks ; giving two or three letters from the solicitors on both 
 sides, with even those names left blank.. 
 
135 
 
 Mr. Norton may say, that since that occasion of desperate re- 
 solve — I have been frequently on friendly terms with him. That 
 charge I will not refute. I am but a woman, and not even a very 
 resolute woman. My husband is welcome to the triumph of 
 knowing^ that, through the long years of our separation (es- 
 pecially during the first four years of our separation), I wavered 
 and wept; that pride and bitter anger have not always been 
 uppermost; that there have been hundreds of dreary evenings, 
 and hopeless mornings, when even his home seemed to me 
 better than no home — even his protection better than no pro- 
 tection— and all the thorns that can cumber a woman's na- 
 tural destiny, better than the unnatural position of a separated 
 wife. He is welcome to the triumph of knowing, that it is 
 impossible to have felt more keenly than I did, the confused de* 
 gradation of my position; not in the society where I am received 
 (least there, because there my story was best known), but in 
 other classes, which I have said I do not less respect. I was too 
 unlike his picture of me, to be otherwise than often miserable; 
 often willing to make a raft out of the wreck, and so drift back, 
 even to a comfortless haven. There were moments, too, when 
 I pitied him ; when I believed his story of loneliness and re- 
 pentance; and forgave without reservation, as I had forgiven 
 before; there were times of family deaths; times when, — as he 
 represents in his cruel letter, — we met by the sick-bed of a 
 dear son, when I thought little of myself and my own wrongs, 
 and yearned to make their lives happier who owed their exis- 
 tence to this broken marriage. It is quite true that I would 
 sometimes willingly have returned to my husband; that my 
 son desired it; and till that day in the County Court, friendli- 
 ness of some sort (if not that return), remained both possible — 
 and welcome. 
 
 But on that day, when in cold blood, for the sake of 
 money, Mr. Norton repeated that which he knew to be false ; 
 the waters of Marah, by which he sought to whelm my soul, 
 made the great gulf that shall divide us for ever ! In that 
 
136 
 
 day, — when he met me face to face, shivering with the frenzy 
 of mingled anger, shame, and fear, (which he sneered at as 
 " acting ") — in that little court where I stood 'apparently help- 
 less, mortified, and degraded — in that bitterest of many bitter 
 hours in my life, — I judged and sentenced him. I annulled the 
 skill of his Tory lawyer's suggestion to a Tory judge. I 
 over-ruled the decision of Lord Abinger in that obscure and 
 forgotten cause, which iipheld him against justice. I sen- 
 tenced Mr. Norton to be KNOWN ; which he justly considers 
 as the deepest condemnation. All secresy — all forbearance — 
 were over, with his false defence. Though I certainly did 
 not anticipate, that, in addition to abuse of the dead and 
 of all family ties, he would, in his reckless anger against 
 Sir John Bayley, himself ruin his own cause by shewing the 
 way in which it had been protected — and slur the very friends 
 who had protected him, by such revelations. " What you 
 state may be true; but, sixteen years ago, Lord Abinger 
 jdecided that you should never make it known." That is the 
 abridgenient of Mr Norton's taunts to Sir John Bayley ! 
 
 And here I will pause to comment on Mr. Norton's angry 
 deprecation of the means by which these things are not only 
 made known, but proved beyond the possibility of doubt. He 
 says, that neither Sir John Bayley nor even I (who am the 
 suiFerer for life by his duplicity), have any right to shew the 
 real truth by reference to his " private letters.'' Why not? 
 Can there be a greater climax of absurdity, than that any man 
 should come forward and say: " This is a printed, published 
 lie; but you shall not contradict it with my private letters; 
 -the lie is public, — but my letters are ' confidential.' You 
 -shall for ever hold the proof, but never use it: the openness of 
 an extreme publicity is to attend what I say; but the most 
 profound secresy is to be observed with respect to what I have 
 •done." Truly " there is but one step from the sublime to the 
 .ridiculous;" and the argument which has dignity in it (that 
 .private confidence should not be broken) sinks into the bur- 
 
137 
 
 lesque, when its reasoning sequel must be, — " because thereby 
 the TRUTH will be revealed, to my discredit." 
 
 These letters — of a mere reference to which Mr Norton 
 complains so bitterly; the contents of which Lord Wyn- 
 ford considered would ruin his character; the explana- 
 tion of which Lord Abinger prevented, by refusal of 
 evidence, — rise before Mr Norton, the spectre -witnesses of past 
 wrong ! They are my justification. In this year of 1853, my 
 husband affects to believe the slanders of 1836. Is Sir John 
 Bayley, on my earnest appeal, not to be permitted to say^ 
 " I saw those letters signed ' Greenacre,' written by Mr Norton 
 to the wife he now maligns; I myself received his declaration, 
 that he disbelieved the facts stated on the trial?" Can there 
 be more absurd language held by one gentleman to another, 
 than the strange rebuke: — " Be silent — you have no right to 
 speak ; for you were my ' Keferee.' I choose to gull the public 
 with a false story; you shall not shew the real story — ^Lord 
 Abinger protected me from you once before — I depend on the 
 truth never being revealed, and I consider you are a traitor for 
 jevealing it." 
 
 If Sir John Bayley be a traitor to Mr Norton, many other 
 gentlemen must share that title. Sir John is not the only 
 person who has placed letters from Mr Norton in my hands; 
 nor is he the only person who wrote in strong condemnation 
 of his conduct. Mr Norton persists, that those who have 
 blamed hinij were deluded by me into that opinion. This is 
 a poor compliment, either to the understanding or principle of 
 the friends who from time to time have been concerned in 
 these miserable affairs. In that deluded group must stand. 
 Lord Harrington, Mr Edward Ellice, Sir James Graham, 
 .Sir Frederick Thesiger, Mr Barlow, Sir John Bayley, and 
 Mr Norton's colleague, Mr Hard wi eke; of these gentlemen, 
 no less than five, have given up one, or several, of Mr Norton's 
 " private letters." Apparently all felt, that the extraordinary 
 circumstances of the case justified extraordinary measures ; all 
 
138 
 
 considered that they were authorized to prove the truth, by 
 exposure of Mr Norton's inaccuracies. The letters so given 
 up, have been in my possession for a period varying from ten 
 to sixteen years; and I have never made any use of them till 
 these proceedings in the County Court. Will others, reading 
 these pages, be able to say as much? Will they be able to say, 
 they bore for sixteen years every species of misconstruction, 
 vexation, and slander, with such proof in their hands — and 
 never used it? Is there any lawyer, clergyman, officer, political 
 or mercantile man, into whose hands chance may throw these 
 pages, who would bear loss of character as patiently? Why 
 should /bear it only because I am a woman? In what way is 
 it more advantageous to public morality, that the False Accuser 
 should be shielded by perpetual suppression of evidence ; and 
 shame be left to rest, not only on my name, but on the name 
 of a distinguished nobleman, a true servant of the Crown, 
 and Prime Minister of a great and free country? Mr Norton 
 comes forward (in his capacity of Magistrate), and he ac- 
 cuses this deceased Minister, not only of private immorality 
 as a man, but of the meanest malversation in his public office. 
 He accuses Lord Melbourne, in so many words — in the Times 
 newspaper — of giving one of the subordinate situations in the 
 Treasury, ^^ as a reward" for the subtraction from Mr Norton's 
 house, of letters written to Mr Norton's wife ! Is this to be 
 borne, from any man; least of all. from a man who himself 
 holds an office by Lord Melbourne's appointment? 
 
 At the beginning of this Session, idle rumours and unjust 
 aspersions respecting the interference of Prince Albert with 
 public affairs, found their way from conversational gossip into 
 print, and were made a subject of discussion by various organs 
 of the press. When Parliament met, the most direct con- 
 tradiction, the clearest disproof, the most lofty and resolute 
 defence, shattered the attempt to render unpopular, a Prince 
 for whom England has every reason to feel both respect and 
 gratitude. On that occasion. Lord Melbourne's name was 
 
139 
 
 brought prominently forward. Lord Aberdeen in the House 
 of Lords, and Lord John Russell in the House of Commons, 
 read aloud, to eager and attentive members, a brief frank note, 
 written by that deceased Minister to the Queen, expressive of 
 his favorable opinion of the discretion, ability, and excellence, 
 of her Royal Consort; and of the guarantee those qualities 
 gave, of safe and intelligent guidance, of pure and irre- 
 proachable motives, in all advice that might be tendered to 
 the crowned Ruler of England. It could not be otherwise 
 than a proud and 'touching thought, to those who loved and 
 remembered Lord Melbourne in life; that even after hia 
 death, — past the silence of the grave and the semi-oblivion of 
 a closed career, — his words had still power publicly to serve 
 his Sovereign on a subject nearest to her heart. His letter was 
 held to be of sufficient authority, to define the position, and 
 to declare the character, of the Consort of the Sovereign. 
 What gave those words their value? The profound conviction 
 in those who listened, that Lord Melbourne had written precisely 
 what he thought. That with the capacity of judging, he joined 
 the conscience of the judge; that in the sincerity of an 
 honest heart, and not for intrigue or court favor, he penned 
 those lines. His surviving influence, was in the undoubting 
 belief that he had been frank, true, and loyal, — as minister, 
 statesman, and counsellor: from the hour when, with the 
 rays of a morning sun in June shining bright on her golden 
 hair, men saw Victoria mount the steps of her hereditary 
 throne, leaning on his hand, — to that in which, having faded 
 out of life in the lingering seclusion of illness, — no longer 
 the busy statesman, but the helpless friend, — news was brought 
 to the Palace, in the gloom of a November day, that he was 
 DEAD, whose voice first hailed her accession: he was dead, 
 whose counsels, while he was able to give them, never wavered 
 for the sake of selfish ambition, nor swerved beneath the rivalry 
 of faction ; but kept the compass true to a single star, — Duty 
 to his country and his Queen. 
 
140 
 
 I say it was the firm trust in his honour, that alone gave Lord 
 Melbourne's letter power : without which reliance, these acclama- 
 tions of a British Parliament must be considered more senseless 
 than the riot of schoolboy applause. Yet this minister, so trusted 
 for wisdom and for honesty, — this authority in matters of the 
 deepest moment to England's welfare — is the same man whom 
 one of your metropolitan magistrates has accused of the most 
 wondrous baseness : and the same pen that defames him, de- 
 fames me. Are those slanders believed or disbelieved? If 
 believed, where is the confidence and enthusiasm of that burst 
 of cheering, that spoke trust in the minister, and respect for 
 his memory? If disbelieved, where is MY shame? Why am 
 I hunted and haunted through life, with a scandal involving 
 two persons, but seemingly admitting of but one acquittal? If 
 the story had been true, and palliation were possible for sin, the 
 palliation might rather seem to be on the side of the weaker 
 party. But it was not true. He said It was false. I say it was false. 
 I cannot come down and read, amid cheers and acclamation, 
 his letters for me: but what then? Am I to believe that I am 
 too insignificant — that any one in England is too insignificant, 
 for justice? Is it only for princes and politicians that defence 
 can avail? Is justification an appanage of position, and en- 
 durance measured by degrees in the Herald^s office? I hope 
 not. I think not^ — if this is England, as England boasts her- 
 self to be. 
 
 I say again, — I do not petition for sympathy; I claim 
 Justice. If even my defence offend, — blame the Law. If 
 the Law of Divorce were differently constituted, the scandal 
 never could have taken place, of a trial against the Premier of 
 Englandj which that minister affirmed he believed to be 
 brought for a pecuniary advantage, and to be supported by 
 suborned witnesses. If the laws of protection for women were 
 differently constituted, the struggle about a broken contract 
 could not have taken place. If the absurd anomalies in the 
 law which regulates claims on. the husband, did not exist, 
 
141 
 
 Mr Norton could not have subpoenaed my publishers in the 
 County Court, to annul my right even to my own soul and 
 brains. Had there been no such proceedings, — then, instead 
 of this pamphlet, the work I was occupied upon, would have 
 appeared ; harmlessly to amuse those who had leisure to read it. 
 I give them, in lieu of such a work, this "Story of Keal Life;" 
 taking place among the English aristocracy ; with perfect 
 impunity on the part of the wrong-doer ! I invite Mr Norton 
 to disprove it. He cannot. If he had merely been unfaithful, 
 I would have forgiven it. If he had merely defrauded me, I 
 would have confined myself to the formal struggle against 
 that fraud; but he has publicly LIBELLED me; and against 
 that public libel, repeated after an interval of sixteen years, I will 
 make my final stand. It is not in human nature to bear, without 
 the deepest resentment, the last attack made upon me. I do feel 
 the deepest resentment ; and I consider this especial time, when 
 the marriage laws are said to be under consideration, a fit 
 opportunity for shewing what can be done under the laws as 
 they are. Whether those laws are amended or not, hence- 
 forward those who malign me, will do so in the face of proved 
 evidence against them : — henceforward those who have loved 
 and upheld me, shall not merely say, — " We believed her," — 
 but shall be able to assert, — " these are the facts: and on these, 
 we upheld her." 
 
 Mr Phillimore, in a bill brought forward this session, for a 
 very different legal improvement,* — observed that the object cf 
 the bill was " to withdraw from the spheri of private ani- 
 mosity, caprice, and revenge, that which never ought to be left 
 to private animosity, caprice, and revenge ; and to see that 
 justice was properly administered." There is no question that 
 the principle is a sound one for all legal control ; and there is no 
 reason why such control should be in abeyance for one particu- 
 lar class of persons, or class of cases. The law compels the poor 
 man to be responsible to the community at large, for the mal- 
 * Ttte .establishment of a Public Prosecutor. 
 
142 
 
 treatment of his wife; by a new law (the necessity for which has 
 been abundantly proved by the daily police reports). Why 
 should it seem grievous and shocking to make new laws of 
 restraint for gentlemen, as well as for poor men? We have 
 an idol; our idol is traditionary custom; and great is that 
 Diana of the Britons ! If we make legal changes, it is rare 
 that we make them boldly. We seldom supersede. We add 
 and we take away. Refusing to reform, we endeavour to 
 compel men to hold that sacred, being imperfect — which, 
 reformed and perfected, would be held sacred without any 
 compulsion at all. It is not authority that oflFends; but 
 anomaly ; a patch- work in the raiment of Justice, so that when 
 men would cling to her robe it gives way in their hand. Now, 
 if there is one law men are naturally more jealous of altering 
 than another, it is the law between husband and wife; yet 
 surely the power of protection is the proudest privilege of 
 Superiority; and in these modern and enlightened days, that 
 privilege may be better defined, than in the phraseology of the 
 ancient law of Baron and Feme, which I have seen thus 
 naively laid do^wn — " Now the Baron shall have remedie 
 against one that beateth his Feme — for she is his Chattel.^' 
 
 The amount of anomaly in the law on this subject, is 
 startling; but I confine myself to the notice of points afi"ecting 
 positions like my own. 
 
 We will take then, first, the law as to divorce. 
 
 The Eoman Catholics have one clear unvarying rule on this 
 subject. They make marriage a sacrament. They have laws 
 that apply to cases of dispute, — " separation de corps et de 
 biens," — provision for the wife, — award as to children, — but 
 the marriage itself is simply indissoluble; lasting, as the words 
 of the Church ceremony imply, " till death do us part." 
 
 We do not make marriage a sacrament. It is difiS.cult to 
 say what we hold it to be. Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Act, 
 of 1754, declared null, all marriages not celebrated by a priest 
 in orders; and made it indispensable that the ceremony should 
 
143 
 
 take place in some parish churchj or public chapel, unless by 
 special licence from the Archbishop of Canterbury. Lord 
 John Russell's Act, of 1836, permits persons, on the contrary, 
 to be married according to any form they choose; not sacer- 
 dotally; merely by repairing to the Registrar, and giving 
 certain notices, and procuring certain certificates; so as to 
 acquire a right to have the. ceremony performed, in places 
 registered and appropriated for the purpose. Marriage there- 
 fore, in England, is a religious ceremony or a mere civil con- 
 tract, at the pleasure of the parties : thus meeting the requi- 
 sitions of all sects of the Protestant Church. It is besides, — 
 practically, — a sacrament for the poor, and a civil contract for 
 the rich: as the rich break it by application to Parliament; 
 and the poor are put frequently on their trial for bigamy, from 
 not being able to go through that expensive form. It is, — 
 practically, — a sacrament for the wife, and a civil contract for 
 the husband ; the husband can break it almost as a matter of 
 course, on proof of the wife's infidelity; the wife, though 
 nominally able to apply for a divorce, seldom or ever obtains 
 one : I believe there are but three cases on record in the House 
 of Lords, of marriages broken on the wife's petition. The 
 law of Scotland and the law of England are utterly different. 
 
 In Scotland, the right of the wife to divorce, is equal to that 
 of the husband; and a Scotch lady in Scotland can divorce 
 her husband a vinculo, so as to marry again. It is notorious, 
 that the heads of two of our noblest families made a residence 
 in Scotland the preliminary of a divorce of this nature, which 
 set both parties free; proceedings being taken, in one of the 
 instances, by the wife against the husband. 
 
 In Scotland, marriage legitimatizes children bom before wed- 
 lock : it does not legitimatize them in England : so that the same 
 man, — inheriting property in both countries, — would succeed 
 as heir to his father north of the Tweed, and be debarred as 
 a bastard south of that boundary. In Scotland, a mere 
 declaration of marriage before witnesses, the mere addressing 
 
144 
 
 a letter as if to a wife, was held sufficient to establish a mar- 
 riage: and hence those rapid flights to Gretna, which puzzle 
 foreigners; Gretna, not being of itself a city sacred to Hymen, 
 hut the nearest village across the boundary of England, that 
 could be reached by enamoured couples. The parties were 
 made " one" by David Paisley, a blacksmith by trade. He 
 kept no regular registry. John Linton, the landlord of 
 Gretna Hall, succeeded David . Paisley. He kept no exact 
 registry, but remembered the elopement of Lord Erskine 
 (afterwards Lord Chancellor), who arrived, disguised as an old 
 woman, with a veil and grey cloak : that of Lord Westmore- 
 land with the daughter and heiress of Mr Childe, the banker; 
 that of Lord Eldoh (another Chancellor); of one of the Laws, 
 brother of Lord Chief Justice Ellenborough ; and of a clergy- 
 maUj the Rev. Thomas Cator; besides a host of less remarkable, 
 and equally remarkable, cases. These Gretna marriages held 
 good ; but the ceremony was, nevertheless, generally repeated 
 according to more regular forms, as soon as opportunity 
 permitted. They took place in great numbers, and it is only 
 very recently that legislation has been appealed to on the 
 subject of their prohibition. The law, the church, and the 
 nobility, thus owe to David Paisley the blacksmith, and John 
 ■Linton the innkeeper, many of the marriages of their most 
 illustrious and distinguished families. Assuredly, marriage is 
 not a sacrament In Scotland ! Indeed, so many strange con- 
 fusions have taken place in consequence of the laxity of the 
 law In that country, that it was humorously asserted in the 
 House of Lords, during an appeal on a Scotch case, that no 
 Scotch gentleman could feel positively sure whether he were 
 ■married or a bachelor, the knot was so easily tied. 
 
 In Scotland, the property, personalty, and rights of the 
 wife, are far more strictly protected than In England : and In 
 divorce cases, she has the advantage over the English wife. In 
 the fact, that the first step Is to Inquire Into the truth of the 
 allegations against her. The English wife, In an action for 
 
145 
 
 " damages," brouglit as a first step towards divorce, by her 
 husband against her lover, is not considered as a party in the 
 suit; cannot have counsel; and can only benefit by such 
 chance circumstances in her favour as belong to the defence 
 made by i]\e man against whom the action is laid. Lord 
 Brougham, in 1838, mentioned a case in the House of Lords, 
 in which not only the man proceeded against, was not in truth 
 the woman's lover, but not even an acquaintance; and the 
 action was an agreed plot between him and the husband, who 
 desired so be rid of his wife ! 
 
 But we have only to look back to the origin of divorce in 
 England, to comprehend, that the protection of the woman 
 was the last thing considered in the framing of its laws. 
 Whether we ought to adopt the view taken by Eoman Ca- 
 tholics, and consider marriage as a sacrament, or whether (as 
 Milton bitterly wrote, — when arguing his right to get rid of the 
 wife who was no " help-mate" to him) persons once wedded 
 should be compelled, " in spight of antipathy, to fadge together 
 and combine as they may, to their unspeakable wearisomeness ; 
 — forced to draw in that yoke, an unmerciful day's work of 
 sorrow, till death unharness them/' — is no longer an argument 
 in Protestant England. Divorce, in its fullest interpretation ; — 
 divorce, which breaks the marriage utterly, and allows of a 
 new choice ; the children of which new choice shall be as legi- 
 timate and as capable of inheriting by succession, as the chil- 
 dren of any other marriages, — is the established law of our land. 
 Divorce parliamentary, and divorce ecclesiastical : Bishops vote 
 in the House of Lords, and therefore it is to be presumed, 
 they vote on divorce cases : and divorced parties are re-married 
 before the Church, and by the ministers of that Church, pre- 
 cisely as they were before, by a ceremony that never con- 
 templated divorce; a startling anomaly, but not greater 
 than all our other discrepancies on this subject. Our 
 marriage ceremony belongs to the compilation of our li- 
 turgy; and our liturgy was compiled, not by angels, but by 
 
 L 
 
146 
 
 men: pious and wise men, -whose task was performed with 
 reverence, and should be held in reverence; but they 
 themselves prefaced it with the declaration, that it had been 
 compiled as far as possible to reconcile two contending parties 
 in the Church. Two, if not three, of the compilers, were 
 Eoman Catholics. Much of the phraseology, and some of the 
 services retained, are Roman Catholic. The phraseology of 
 the marriage service belongs to that creed. The community 
 of goods, referred to in that ceremony, does not exist with us : 
 and the simplest reader must perceive a great contradiction 
 between the Church form and the Protestant law : between the 
 power vested in the Legislature to break marriages on a decree 
 made by assembled peers; and the phraseology of a ceremonial, 
 declared to be " symbolical of the mystery of Christ's union 
 with the Church;" — which pronounce the parties man and 
 wife " in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
 Ghost," — and dismisses them with the blessing, " What God 
 hath joined; let not man put asunder." Is it the ceremony 
 that makes marriage, — or the law that breaks marriage, — that is 
 wrong? They do not agree; and solemn and true is the sen- 
 tence which first meets our eyes in the preface to the Church 
 Service: " There was never anything hy the wit of man so well 
 devised, or so sure established, which in continuance of time hath 
 not been corrupted." And that because the wit of man (such 
 as it is), is perpetually swayed by the passions of man. 
 
 Now, divorce in England, we owe to Henry VIII. To that 
 monarch, — profanely styled the Father of the Reformation, 
 Defender of the Faith, Supreme Governor of the Church, — 
 to that King, remarkable in youth for inordinate vanity, in 
 manhood for inordinate sensuality, in declining life for inor- 
 dinate tyranny, we owe the great chasm which divides the 
 interpreted sense of such language, from the reality of its 
 binding effect: — 
 
 " And Gospel light first shone from Boleyn's eyes," 
 
147 
 
 to enable a false-hearted sensualist to rid himself of his legiti- 
 mate wife. Bishops were executed for objecting to his contem- 
 plated divorce ; the laws of earth and heaven were confused in 
 the struggle of one wild and reckless will; Rome was altern- 
 ately appealed to and defied ; till on a Sabbath day in Septem- 
 ber 1532, at Windsor Castle, — ^while Katharine was yet his 
 nominal Queen and nominal wife, — a sort of rehearsal of a 
 future coronation was made, by creating Anne Boleyn, Mar- 
 chioness of Pembroke. The Defender of the Faith himself 
 put the demi-circular coronet on that lovely head, which was 
 so soon to usurp the crown ; so soon to be severed by the axe ! 
 The Duke of Norfolk's daughter carried her mantle and 
 coronet; the Countesses of Rutland and Sussex waited upon 
 her; the Bishop of Winchester read aloud her letters patent 
 of new nobility; and from that day she was attended upon 
 with royal state, like a princess. From that day, for how 
 long? For one, — two, — three months, or more? Historians 
 cannot tell. They dispute the date of Henry's unhallowed 
 union ; and this fact only appears clear, that he married Anne 
 Boleyn BEFORE the sentence of divorce from Katharine was 
 actually pronounced by Cranmer. 
 
 Retribution was in store. Soon, too soon, that fair Aurora 
 of the Reformation, — that woman with such generous im- 
 pulses, such strong ambition, such passionate attachments, 
 such universal fascination, — was to perish as a victim, where 
 she had reigned as sovereign. Vain were her appeals to the 
 tyrant-heart, whose flame of lust being burned out, held no 
 other light to read a woman's prayer by. The echo of the same 
 call which had once insulted her mistress, predecessor, and 
 superseded Queen, — "Catharine, come into Court!" 
 was repeated for Anne Boleyn. She, too, came into Court — 
 to be tried and condemned. The lover who wooed her in girl- 
 hood, — Percy, Duke of Northumberland, — saw her stand that 
 trial: her condemnation he did not hear: he pleaded illness 
 and withdrew, before the close of the proceedings; taking with 
 
 L 2 
 
148 
 
 him the one gleam of faint-hearted pity, to which, perhaps, 
 that struggling despairing woman had looked for help. She 
 was condemned; by those who did not believe her criminal; 
 for crimes which nature revolted at; for crimes she never com- 
 mitted. She died her death of just expiation on a false plea; 
 she left the child of her brief day of love and triumph to 
 reign gloriously over England as Queen Elizabeth; and she left 
 the rescue of her blotted name, to the yearning regret of her 
 poet-admirer Wiatt, and the skill of contending historians. 
 
 The day she perished, Henry took another queen. The 
 cannon which boomed from the Tower, when with patient 
 dignity that forsaken creature laid her head on the block, 
 brought to the king's ear a double signal; of death and re- 
 joicing. He had thrown off the bondage of a second mar- 
 riage, and he joyously contracted a third. Every circumstance 
 attending that sudden freedom, should have surrounded it 
 with a grave horror. He had executed his wife, — the mother 
 of his child and our future sovereign, — on theaccusation of being 
 paramour to divers men, amongst whom was her own brother. 
 He had himself asserted that he had lived in intimate relations 
 with her sister. Her mother had been slandered for his sake: 
 and Dr Bayley in his Life of Bishop Fislier (one of Henry's 
 victims), alludes to the belief entertained by some persons 
 that Anne Boleyn was the king's own daughter. He had 
 sought to bastardize the legitimate offspring of his first queen, 
 and afterwards of his second. He had slaughtered churchmen 
 for interfering with the gratification of his passions, and he 
 now slaughtered the woman who had been his temptation. 
 
 Out of that mass of sin, misery, struggle, and lawless con- 
 fusion of rights, sprung the germ of our English form of 
 divorce. From that date, the power of the sacerdotal blessing 
 stood in direct conflict with the right of the civil law to annul 
 it: and man was pronounced perfectly capable of putting 
 asunder those who had been joined before God. The consent 
 of the Church was asked to that divorce; the pleas held to be 
 
149 
 
 sufficient to annul marriage, were set before the Church; but 
 the historical result was, that Henry set himself above the 
 Church; that the primary power remained vested in Parlia- 
 ment, and the secondary power in sacerdotal forms. Law and 
 religion were both called in, but it was to help the lawless and 
 irreligious. The shadow of justice wandered, in the courts 
 where queens pleaded in vain — in the Parliament where nobles 
 bowed their hearts, as they bowed their heads, before the tyrant 
 of England — and presided over the vain consultations of 
 yielding bishops; but its reality was wanting. 
 
 Since the days of King Henry, divorce has remained an 
 indulgence sacred to the aristocracy of England. The poorer 
 classes have no form of divorce amongst them. Marriage is 
 for them, — as I have said, — practically, a sacrament. 
 
 The rich man makes a new marriage, having divorced his 
 wife in the House of Lords: his new marriage is legal; his 
 children are legitimate; his bride (if she be not the divorced 
 partner of his sin, but simply his elected choice in his new 
 condition of freedom), occupies, in all respects, the same social 
 position, as if he had never previously been wedded. The 
 poor man makes a new marriage, not having divorced his wife 
 in the House of Lords; his new marriage is null; his children 
 are bastards; and he himself is liable to be put on his trial for 
 bigamy: the allotted punishment of which crime, at one time 
 was hanging, and is now imprisonment. Meanwhile, nothing 
 can exceed the ignorance of the poorer classes on this subject. 
 They believe a magistrate can divorce them ; that an absence 
 of seven years constitutes a nullity of the marriage tie ; that 
 they can give and receive reciprocal permission to divorce, and 
 take a more suitable partner; and among some of our rural 
 populations, the grosser belief prevails, that a man may 
 legally sell his wife, and so break the bond of union. They 
 believe anything, rather than what is the fact, that they 
 cannot do legally that which they know is done legally in the 
 classes above them ; that they cannot consecrate the new tie, or 
 
150 
 
 get tlie old one annulled; but must be content to live, paired 
 together, in the only way that remains possible, — or run the 
 risk of being tried at the bar of justice ! Nor is this confined 
 to the lower classes: persons in respectable and educated 
 positions, from ignorance of the exact law, or in the hope of 
 escaping its notice, run the same risk. We have only to turn 
 to the newspapers, and take the first case at hazard, as an 
 illustration. 1 find] one tried before Mr Russell Gurney; 
 so lately as December 3, 1853. I find, in that brief report, 
 a story revealed, which resembles the romance of "Jane Eyre," 
 (except that romance always appears to excite deeper interest 
 than reality). The couple whose misfortunes thus flashed for 
 a moment on public attention, were Mr E. Gray and Mary 
 Adams : the evidence, shewed that Mr Gray had a wife ; living 
 and undivorced; and was therefore guilty of bigamy. Mary 
 Adams deposed that he had courted her for six years ; had no 
 money with her; on the contrary, supplied her with money 
 since his apprehension ; had always been very kind ; and that 
 they had a child of his, residing with them. The undivorced 
 wife was living with an omnibus man, and had been in a 
 lunatic asylum ! Mr Eussell Gurney, in deciding the case, 
 observed, with epigrammatic truth, that " this was one of those 
 unfortunate cases, in which, in the present state of the law, 
 if a man was not possessed of wealth, he had no power to remedy 
 his situation." Now, if instead of plain Mr Gray and obscure 
 Mary Adams, the parties had been Lord Grayton and Lady 
 Mary, we should simply have had " Grayton's Divorce Bill" 
 going quietly through the House of Lords, previous to receiving 
 the royal assent; and Lady Mary, innocently looking forward 
 to making that forsaken home happy, by replacing the mad 
 bad wife, who could no longer be a " help-mate" to her 
 husband. Not being persons of wealth and station, we have 
 a trial for bigamy, and this illegal attempt at happiness 
 rooted up by the stern hand of justice, which pronounces such 
 unions to be tares among the permitted grain, of marriages 
 
151 
 
 " dissolved by Act of Parliament." Such an anomaly in the 
 administration of equal laws, is scarcely credible; but it 
 exists; and is murmured against — by the obscure. 
 
 This difficulty, — which exists for the poor, on account of 
 the expense of our form of divorce, exists also for women, 
 from the reluctance to allow a divorce on their petition. The 
 first instance of a divorce bill passed in England on the petition 
 of the Wife, was in the year 1801, in the case of Mr Addison, 
 who had lived with the sister of his wife. The late king, 
 (then Duke of Clarence), moved the rejection of the bill; on 
 the ground that marriage in this country never had been, and 
 never ought to be, dissolved, unless for the adultery of the 
 Wife, which alone for ever frustrated the purposes for which 
 marriage had been instituted. Lord Eldon was then Chan- 
 cellor; but the speaker who answered the Duke of Clarence 
 was the ex-Chancellor Lord Thurlow; who was listened to 
 with rapt attention. Lord Thurlow said, that he had been 
 excited by the bill to examine the whole subject of divorce, 
 and that he was of opinion the remedy was not confined to the 
 husband. He laid this down as the principle that should decide 
 judgment in such cases: namely, — whether the parties can 
 properly live together as man and wife? He said — " Common 
 law and statute law are silent upon the subject, and this is the 
 rule laid down by reason, by morality, and by religion. Why do 
 you grant to the husband a divorce for the adultery of the wife ? 
 Because he ought not to forgive her ; and separation is inevitable. 
 Where the wife cannot forgive, — and separation is inevitable by 
 reason of the crime of the husband, — the wife is entitled to the like 
 remedy. In this instance, reconciliation is impossible — the wife 
 cannot forgive the husband and return to his house, without herself 
 being guilty of incest. Do such of your Lordships as oppose the 
 bill for the sake of morality, wish or propose that she should? 
 No. You allow that she can never live with him again, as her 
 husband ; and is she — innocent, and a model of virtue, — to be 
 condemned, for his crime, to spend the rest of her days in the 
 unheard-of situation, of being neither virgin, wife, nor widow f" 
 
152 
 
 The speech of Lord Thurlow converted Lord Chancellor 
 Eldon, who declared that until he heard it, he had intended to 
 oppose the measure ; and ex-Chancellor Lord Eosslyn also gave 
 his vote on the principle so laid down ; namely, the impossibility 
 of a reconciliation; on account of the peculiar atrocity of the 
 case, which left no ground for pardon, as common inconstancy 
 might have done. The bill passed both houses, and received 
 the royal assent ; that miserable marriage was broken ; and the 
 opinion of Lord Thurlow so far obtained^ that in one or two 
 cases of enormity, a divorce a vinculo has since been granted 
 by Parliament on the wife's petition. 
 
 Very jealously, however, has the privilege been guarded; 
 and the strange contrast between the laws in two countries which 
 form but one kingdom, — (England and Scotland), — is in no- 
 thing more salient than in this; divorce in Scotland, being, as 
 I have said, granted at the wife's suit as a matter of usual and 
 undisputed justice. In what a different spirit the English law 
 contemplates the fact of a husband's inconstancy, we may 
 judge by the recommendation of the commissioners appointed 
 two years sincCj to examine and report upon law reform. In 
 the report made, they recommended, — amongst other "im- 
 provements,'' — that even the nominal right of petition should 
 be taken away from the woman: that the husband should 
 retain his right to divorce his wife on proof of her infidelity, 
 — but that the wife should not, under any circumstances, have 
 a right to claim divorce a vinculo: that in short, instead of 
 justice being, as at present (as it always is for women), merely 
 improbable, it shall be impossible ; and that all the gentlemea 
 in England who are so inclined, shall live in legalized infidelity 
 to their wives; the, slender remedy left to the wife, beiag that 
 she may obtain permission to " live apart" from her unfaithful 
 husband. " But the crime of the man is nothing, in com- 
 parison with the crime of the woman;" say the objectors. 
 Why? Because— (and here we come to England's merchant 
 spirit again, — property, not morality, being the thing held 
 sacred), "because the wife's adultery may give the husband 
 
153 
 
 a spurious son to inherit !" Truly : and the husband's adul- 
 tery may give his friend, — into whose house he has crept 
 like a thief, to steal faith and honor, — a spurious son 
 to inherit. Or it may give some wretched victim of his 
 seduction, a spurious son to drown or strangle. Or it may 
 give him a spurious son, by some wanton, on whom he la- 
 vishes the patrimony of his legitimate sons. No matter ! 
 The wrong done by him cannot be measured by equal weight 
 with the wrong done to him : for he is a man, and claims his 
 right of exemption, by natural superiority. As Peers cannot 
 be hung, but must be beheaded, — as members of the House ol 
 Commons cannot be arrested for debt, — so men cannot be 
 arrested in sin, on equal grounds with an inferior party. 
 
 Now it is consistent with all the discretion of justice, tha'- 
 far greater leniency should be practically extended, to a sex 
 whose passions, habits of life, and greater laxity of opinions, 
 make their temptations greater and their resistance less, than 
 is the case among women ; and a proportionate severity may 
 well be shewn to that other sex, whose purity is of infinitely 
 greater importance. But to say that divorce, — if permitted at 
 all, — should be permitted to one party only ; that Lord Chancellor 
 Thurlow's principle, — that each case should depend on its own 
 peculiar circumstances for decision, and, on the moral impossi- 
 bility of actual reunion, — should be superseded by the doctrine 
 that only one party can be wronged sufficiently to deserve the 
 extreme remedy, is surely so obvious an absurdity, that it will 
 scarce bear arguing upon : and would be only adding one 
 more anomaly to laws, in which already the jealous and exclusive 
 guarding of masculine rights, is often the foundation of most 
 preposterous wrong. 
 
 Called upon to give assent to such a law, even Majesty 
 might feel something of the helplessness of sex : and muse on 
 that accident of regal birth, which has invested her with sacred 
 and irrevocable rights, in a country where women have nc 
 rights. The one Englishwoman in England whom injury anc 
 
154 
 
 injustice cannot reach: protected from it for ever: protected, 
 not as Woman, but as Queen : as England's Symbol of Royalty : 
 and called upon in that capacity, by the law officers of the 
 Crown and " faithful lieges in Parliament assembled," to com- 
 plete and perfect by her consent, the power of men's laws. 
 Sign manual, and royal assent, necessary for perfecting and 
 completing laws, under a female reign, — in a country where 
 the signatures of married women are legally worthless; in a 
 country where they cannot lay claim to the simplest article* 
 of personal property, — cannot make a will, — or sign a lease, 
 and are held to be non-existent in law ! 
 
 Too Utopian would be the dream, that instead of retrograding 
 in the degree of protection afforded by the present code, — 
 better and juster laws for women might be made in the reign 
 of Queen Victoria ! That in the exercise of the functions of 
 sovereignty, and the fulfilment of Parliamentary forms, heb 
 royal assent might be recorded, as affixed to those measures of 
 increased protection of the weaker sex, which are the dis- 
 tinctive marks of progressive civilization, as the contrary is 
 the recognised feature of barbarism. The same reign in which 
 the pen of a Mac AD lay has defended the intelligent capacity 
 of Englishwomen, might surely see changed, a treatment 
 based on the ancient laws of " Baron and Feme." And the 
 Queen who has won England's love — in addition to her here- 
 ditary right to England's loyalty — and who has shown, on 
 more than one occasion, that the sagacity of Elizabeth, and 
 the courage of Cceur de Lion, are not incompatible with the 
 most feminine devotion as Wife and Mother — might well 
 resist, for her women-subjects, that contempt of womanhood, 
 which our unequal laws imply. Leaving, in the blessing of 
 better laws on this subject, a brighter track of light, than all 
 the boasted progress of the " Golden Age," ruled over by 
 the daughter of murdered Anne Boleyn. 
 
 In the form of our divorce, (since divorce" there is), surely 
 the first step should be first cancelled and altered ! Our 
 
155 
 
 method of proceeding is, — that the husband shall bring an 
 action for "damages" against the lover of his wife; — then 
 apply to the Ecclesiastical Courts for the limited divorce in 
 their power; — then to Parliament to break the marriage alto- 
 gether. By a singular form, if the damages fall below a certain 
 sum (forty shillings), though it does not acquit the parties, it 
 implies so much disapproval of the circumstances of the case 
 — where there is, for instance, proved connivance or worth- 
 lessness on the part of the husband, or known vileness in the 
 wife — that a divorce would not be granted. It is scarcely pos- 
 sible to conceive a more pernicious system than these actions 
 for " damages." That the form is not inevitable as a preliminary 
 step, is proved by the divorce of one of our peers being lately 
 obtained without it. That it can be no proper mode of testing 
 the truth, is proved by Lord Brougham's history of the hus- 
 band who made his compact with a supposed lover to bring 
 such an action. That it may be a base temptation to needy 
 and unprincipled men, has been proved by examples. That it 
 renders the woman's chance of clearing her character more 
 desperate, (she being already denied counsel or defence in the 
 action, to which she is no party), is shown in the fact that it is 
 reckoned " ungentleman-like " in the supposed lover, to cast 
 aspersions on the husband, which would merely reduce " da- 
 mages"; and the defence is therefore generally limited to dis- 
 proval and denial of guilt. So that how the wife has been 
 treated, rarely appears in evidence. In principle, the award of 
 " damages " is absurd. If the husband be really high-minded, 
 honorable, and injured, — it is a mockery to pay him for such 
 injury; if he be not honorable, but base and grasping, it is a 
 strong temptation to him to threaten such an action, or even to 
 speculate on bringing one, without any real belief in the ac- 
 cusation : for a small sum may tempt some poverty-stricken 
 wretch to tell a tale, which, if believed by the jury, would 
 bring thousands of pounds " damages." That it is a shame- 
 ful mode of assessing loss of honor, can hardly be denied. 
 
156 
 
 We criticise the custom of Eastern nations, the wives and 
 mothers in whose harems have been bought, perhaps, while 
 yet pure — in the slave-market ! They might, in turn, criticise 
 our habit of taking compensation in money for the wives of 
 English gentlemen, — when they are guilty. It is a shameless and ■ 
 barbarous form ; revolting alike to delicacy and common sense. 
 I know that it is in the usual spirit of the English law, as 
 to injury sustained. If a man is falsely imprisoned — "damages"; 
 if he is libelled — " damages"; if he breaks a limb by falling 
 down your unprotected area — "damages"; if his daughter is 
 seduced — " damages"; if he is deceived into buying a bad 
 bargain — " damages" ! But in many of these instances, the 
 mercantile award seems a reasonable thing. The man whose 
 limb is broken, has paid a surgeon's bill and been laid up help- 
 less; the deceived speculator has suffered actual pecuniary 
 loss; the man unjustly arrested, and incarcerated by mistake, 
 has been injured in credit and prevented from earning his 
 dally bread: in all these cases remuneration is both proper 
 and satisfactory. But the English gentleman whose home Is 
 broken up, and who receives money from the other gentleman 
 who has carried off his wife, stands in a position at once pain- 
 ful and ridiculous. And the Englishwoman-^ whose fame, 
 happiness, and future, are at stake on the accusation on -which 
 such an action must be based; and who Is nevertheless 
 told that " legally" she can make no defence — that she is no 
 party to the suit — that she may not have counsel in court — 
 that she is not permitted to state either the circumstances of 
 her separation from her husband, or his previous treatment of 
 her — stands in a position which would be farcical, if misery 
 did not Invest it with a bitter solemnity ! What a mockery 
 in a case like mine — where all my family and friends could 
 have come forward, and proved on oath the real circumstances 
 of my story — must it have seemed to be told, that I was " no 
 party to the cause" ! That Lord Melbourne's defence, and the 
 verdict in his favour, must content me ! Leaving the whole 
 
157 
 
 world to suppose te Kad been tlie cause of my quarrel with 
 my husband; and Sir "William FoUett's representation of Mr 
 Norton, as a fond, faithful, and injured husband, to stand as 
 uncontradicted as Sir Fitzroy Kelly's echo of that description, 
 in the cause decided by Lord Abinger when Sir John Bay- 
 ley's evidence was refused. The first step should be the step 
 taken in the Scotch courts. Let the wife be'capable of defence, 
 and let the husband be untempted by " damages." 
 
 I turn from the subject of divorce, to the subject of 
 divorceless separation; full of the same difficulty of obtaining 
 justice. 
 
 The Legislature, which very properly discourages and dis- 
 countenances separation between man and wife, acknowledges 
 no legal change in the position of an undivorced woman. To 
 stand the brunt of a vile and indecent action at law, and 
 afterwards reside apart from her husband for ten, fifteen, 
 twenty years, — with every human circumstance, except death, 
 that can put division between them, — does not affect the legal 
 fictisn which assumes that a married couple are ONE. The 
 husband retains all his rights over her and her property. If 
 he please, he can bring an action for restitution of conjugal 
 lights; and he may seize her even by force, when "harboured" 
 against his will, by friends or relations. He retains the right 
 of bringing an action for divorce, even in a case like mine. 
 Mr Norton had precisely the same right to divorce me, (if he 
 could obtain a verdict), after the mock-trial against Lord 
 Melbourne, that he had before ; and it may be observed in Sir 
 John Bayley's letter, that, on my application for some books 
 and journals left at home, he stipulated with Sir John {even 
 while making amicable arrangements), that, if those arrangements 
 failed, he should have the journals returned to him, " in case 
 they mifht be of use to him in the Ecclesiastical or other 
 Courts" — this stipulation and implied threat, being within 
 three months after writing the " Greenacre" letters ! So that 
 I was to be divorced, or taken home again; whichever turned 
 
158 
 
 out most convenient and feasible. I refused to receive tlie 
 journals and MS. I applied for, on that insulting alternative; 
 and they remain till this day in Mr Norton's possession. So 
 does much of my personal property; including the gifts made 
 by relations and friends on my ill-omened marriage. The law 
 does not countenance the idea of separate property. All that 
 belongs to the wife is the husband's — even her clothes and 
 trinkets: that is the law of England. Her earnings are his. 
 The copyrights of my works are his, by law. When we first 
 separated, he offered me, as sole provision, a small pension, 
 paid by Government to each of my father's children ; reckoning 
 that pension as his. The principle of the law is, that the 
 woman's separate existence is not acknowledged; it is merged 
 in the husband's existence ; hence the difficulty in the matter 
 of the contract. The husband cannot legally contract with his 
 wife: she is a part of himself. It is boasted, on the other 
 hand, as an immense concession to the wife, that, in con- 
 sequence of this merging of her existence, — this nonentity in 
 law, — she cannot be arrested or sued for debt. She does not 
 exist: her husband exists; and if the debt be recoverable, it 
 must be from him. I have already shewn, by the curious case 
 at page 96, that it may happen, on this principle, that the 
 creditor may lose his money altogether. In France, married 
 women can be arrested for debt; and it would be infinitely more 
 just to the separated wife, and to the tradesmen who trusted her, 
 that she should be responsible to the law, and liable to a civil 
 action ; and that a husband should not be able to evade the 
 payment of a contract under his own signature, on the plea of 
 the " non-existence " of the defrauded party with whom it was 
 made. "It may be law; but it isrUt justice,^' is a common 
 phrase among the poor : it is a phrase of which I have learned 
 to appreciate the sound and exact truth. The argument that 
 the husband may be bound by sureties, is useless. Suppose 
 what Mr Norton affirmed, were true, and that the woman could 
 not get a surety ? Suppose a case different from mine, who am 
 
159 
 
 struggling against a great wrong, with good friends, and clear 
 intelligence; Suppose her, friendless, helpless, foolish, ignorant, 
 and obscure ; is she, therefore, to be cheated, by the visionary 
 supposition that she is one with the husband, whose only 
 assertion of a husband's right is to defraud and oppress her? 
 
 A feature in that " oneness" which occurred in my case, 
 (and I think there is scarcely any result of this anomalous 
 position, that I have not learned by personal and grievous ex- 
 perience), is, that a married woman (being non-existent) can- 
 not prosecute for libel. Her husband must prosecute. When 
 the first attempt was made by me to recover my children, I 
 wrote two pamphlets on the law as it then stood. One of 
 these pamphlets was entitled, " Separation of Mother and 
 Child, by the Law of Custody of Infants, considered": and 
 the other, " A Plain Letter to the Lord Chancellor, by Pearce 
 Stevenson." The British and Foreign Quarterly Eeview 
 published a long and vehement article against any change in 
 the law. In the course of that article, they undertook to 
 notice my pamphlet and my story; and to prove that 
 it was entirely for me, (and most unfairly, for me), that 
 any such change had been planned. The article was full 
 of distorted inventions, which formed a curious contrast 
 with the grandiloquent motto in the title-page of the book : — 
 "/ft primisque hominis est propria veri inquisitio at que investi- 
 gatio." The whole history of my conduct, and the conduct of 
 others, was falsified. I was condemned in the most vehement 
 and unsparing terms. The fact that the Lord Chancellor, Lord 
 Lyndhurst, Lord Denman, Sir William Follett, and a host of 
 other great authorities, were earnestly in favour of a change in 
 the law, was entirely overlooked, in the desire to prove a 
 vicious influence on my part. And finally, attributing to me, 
 with the most astonishing audacity, an anonymous paper in 
 the Metropolitan Magazine, on the Grievances of Woman, 
 (which I had never seen, — which I had never even heard of), 
 and boldly setting mt name as the author in their own index, — 
 
160 
 
 tKey proceeded in language strange, rabid, and virulent, to 
 abuse the writer; calling her a "she-devil" and a "she- 
 beast," speaking of her " non-convicted gallantries," and 
 pouring out vials of wrath in words of excessive coarseness. 
 No less than one hundred and forty-two pages were devoted 
 to the nominal task of opposing the Infant Custody Bill, and 
 in reality to abusing me. I read the article with amazement; 
 with curiosity; and finally with exultation. I thought I saw 
 at last, a chance of triumphantly justifying myself. I sent for 
 my solicitor. I said — " You have told me that I cannot plead 
 for a divorce by reason of cruelty, having condoned all I 
 complained of: that I cannot sue for alimony, because that 
 must arise out of a suit for divorce: that there was no possi- 
 bility, on the trial, of saying more in my defence than was 
 said, — because I was no party to that suit. Now, thank 
 Heaven, here is a fair opportunity of making my story clear to 
 the world. I did not write the " Grievances of Woman" which 
 is thus insolently attributed to me, and indecently reviewed; 
 and as for all the circumstances in the previous portion of the 
 article, you yourself know that they are a series of mis-state- 
 ments. I request, therefore, that you will instantly commence 
 a prosecution for libel at my suit against the editor, and in the 
 course of that suit, and the proving all his attack upon me 
 unjustifiable, I shall obtain a complete acquittal in public 
 opinion, and clear up all that was left doubtful and untouched 
 in the trial, where I personally could have no defence." 
 
 My solicitor answered this eager and hopeful oration, in a 
 few brief words. He informed me that being a married 
 woman and therefore " non-existent" in law, I could not prose- 
 cute of myself; that my husband must prosecute: my husr 
 band — who had himself assailed me with every libel in his 
 power — who, for ought I knew, might himself have furnished 
 to the editor, the extraordinary version of his affairs which 
 appeared in the review ! Certainly my husband would be too 
 glad of this powerful and rancorous abuse of me: certainly he 
 
161 
 
 ■would not prosecute ! Then there could be no prosecution. 
 I could not institute a suit. I must submit; and the editor 
 must slander me with impunity ; sending out into the world, 
 according to the circulation of the British and Foreign Quar- 
 terly, a bold falsehood, embroidered with bitter comments, 
 invented of a woman utterly helpless, and already sorrowfully 
 struggling against defamation undeserved. 
 
 I did submit. I had no choice. I was " non-existent," 
 except for the purpose of suffering, as far as the law was con- 
 cerned : it' could oppress, but never help me. And the grotesque 
 anomaly of being considered one with the husband whose 
 previous libel was the cause and foundation of this subsequent 
 libel — of having my defence made necessary, and made im- 
 possible, by the same person; that person still my nominal and 
 legal protector, in spite of the changed circumstances of our 
 mutual relations with each other— remained a subject for 
 leisurely contemplation, and helpless complaint. 
 
 The law-forms respecting property, followed the same rules 
 as the law-forms respecting prosecution for libel. Anxious 
 to make arrangements for a future home, less expensively than 
 in furnished houses, I propose to take a lease ; and am told, 
 that being " non-existent" in law, my signature is worthless. 
 Anxious to recover property left at home, gifts from my 
 mother and my family, I am informed, that being " non- 
 existent" in law, I can claim nothing, and that my husband 
 intends to sell them. Anxious to leave what little I have 
 through the generosity of my family, or the gifts of friends — 
 my furniture, trinkets, books, etc., to my two sons, I am 
 informed, that, being " non-existent" in law, it would be a 
 mere farce my attempting to make a will ; that a married 
 woman can bequeath nothing, as she can possess nothing; and 
 that my property is the property of the husband with whom 1 
 am still legally " one," after seventeen years of separation ! 
 Anxious to end the apparently ceaseless disputes respecting a 
 provision for me in this state of separation, I accept Mr. 
 
 M 
 
162 
 
 Norton's own terms, after demanding others; I sign a contract, 
 dictated, corrected^ and prepared under his instructions ; which 
 I never even saw except for the purpose of affixing my signa- 
 ture to it; and I am informed, that being " non-existent" in 
 law, I have signed that which binds him to nothing. 
 
 A mock-trial, in which I do not "exist" for defence; a 
 gross libel, in which I do not " exist" for prosecution; a dis- 
 position of property, in which I do not " exist" either for my 
 own rights or those of my children ; a power of benefiting 
 myself by literary labour, in which I do not " exist" for the 
 claim in my own copyrights: — that is the negative and 
 neutralizing law, for married women in England. 
 
 Now, that married persons should be ONE, in the holy and 
 blessed bond which unites them under a common roof, with 
 common interests, and in the common position of protection 
 on the one side, and affection and womanly allegiance on the 
 other — is just, fit, and natural; consistent with social order and 
 religious belief But that married persons should be still con- 
 sidered ONE, without the possibility of interference on the 
 part of justice, when living alienated and in a state of sepa- 
 ration — is unjust, unfit, and unnatural ; and can be productive 
 only of social disorder and scandalous struggle. In the first 
 and more happy position^ of things, the husband is the ad- 
 ministrator and exponent of the law, for he stands in his 
 natural capacity of protector of his wife; that which is an 
 injury or insult to her, is injury and insult to him; and their 
 expenditure is a matter of mutual interest. In the other 
 miserable position, he stands in the Mwnatural capacity of op- 
 pressor of his wife; injury and insult to her, are no longer a 
 wrong to him ; he is no longer the administrator and exponent 
 of the law/ but its direct opponent; (for the intention of the 
 law certainly is, that the woman shall be protected; and that 
 he shall be her protector.) Their expenditure is no longer a 
 matter of mutual interest; she is a pecuniary burden ; pro- 
 vided for with grudging, at a compulsory minimum, on an 
 
163 
 
 alien and extra claim, apart from his houseliold government 
 or family care. 
 
 That this is a desperate position for a woman to be in ; that 
 if she has voluntarily incurred it, she deserves much suffering; 
 that by every possible means, separation between married per- 
 sons should be discouraged — are all incontrovertible truths. 
 But it is also an incontrovertible truth that justice should be 
 made possible for her, even in this false position. That, failing 
 her natural protector, the law should have power to protect. 
 That some direct court of appeal should exist, in which (accord- 
 ing to Lord Thurlow's principle in graver cases) the circum- 
 stances of each case should guide its result, and the law 
 exercise remedial control. It is vain to say, "Let the woman 
 find sureties." Suppose her friendless ; suppose her without 
 sureties; suppose the husband to refuse all agreement. It is 
 equally vain to say, " Let her sue for alimony ;" she may not 
 be in a position to sue for alimony: — or to say, " Let her 
 institute proceedings for divorce against her husband ;" that 
 also may be impossible. What remains (failing these) is the 
 doubtful claim of the creditor against the husband; which is, 
 in fact, a side-winded means of establishing the wife^s claim. 
 It is an indirect and imperfect mode of legislating for her 
 anomalous position, instead of a direct and perfect mode ; which 
 might exist — in a court authorized to decide on the circum- 
 stances, and award an allowance — and might exist in the shape 
 of private appeals (as many other matters relating to property 
 are already decided) . The present method of establishing the 
 wife's claim, through the claim of the creditor, is public, odious, 
 scandalous, and uncertain; unjust to the creditor, and unjust to 
 the wife. The other method might be private, decent, and 
 decisive; and make the wife herself, responsible to the creditor, 
 after making the husband responsible to her. It would be, as 
 Mr Phillimore said on that other matter — taking out of the 
 sphere of private animosity, caprice, or revenge, that which never 
 ought to be left to private animosity, caprice, or revenge — and 
 
 M 2 
 
164 
 
 effacing tliat anomaly in law, by which it assumes power of 
 control over the poor, and for corporeal injury inflicted on 
 their wives, but forbears power of control over the rich, and for 
 injuries of a different nature. 
 
 It IS astonishing to watch the carelessness and reluctance 
 with which inquiry on this one subject is pursued, and con- 
 trast it with our eagerness on other topics. In the Parlia- 
 mentary debates of this busy opening session (March 1, 1854), 
 no less than twelve closely printed columns of the " Times" 
 newspaper, are filled with eager, credulous, kindly, or bitter, 
 speeches from various members, relative to an inquiry into the 
 treatment of Eoman Catholic ladies in the conventual estab- 
 lishments of their religion ! Because 2,500 ladies live in a 
 state of religious seclusion or relegation — of which number 
 (though the majority obviously must have adopted that life 
 from free choice), a small minority are believed by us to be 
 enduring mental constraint and bodily penance — the House of 
 Commons votes, with eager cheers, for an inquiry into the whole 
 system; for the purpose of checking injustice and oppression, 
 should it be found to exist. What an impulse to humanity is 
 an adverse creed ! How easy to see that oppression in others 
 which we deny to exist among ourselves ! Here are the gen- 
 tlemen of England, mustering three hundred strong, in the 
 senate of their country ; and nearly two-thirds of that number 
 vote with enthusiastic acclamation for inquiry — into what ? 
 Into the treatment of women not of their own religion, many 
 not even their own country-women — while those very men 
 scout the notion of altering the laws, or of even making 
 serious inquiry into the laws, affecting the interests of their 
 own wives, sisters, and daughters ! The beam and the mote 
 of Scripture were visible in that warm debate ; and if the 
 heads of Catholic houses should think it worth while to return 
 the compliment paid them, by inquiry into the treatment of 
 women living undet secular authority in their own homes in 
 England, I will undertake to supply — not from the vague 
 
165 
 
 gossip of angry complaint, but from recorded decisions in law- 
 books, printed as precedents for future guidance — such numerous 
 cases of strange injustice, as shall satisfy all inquirers that 
 oppression belongs to no sect and to no condition; but to the 
 passions of men when uncontrolled by the laws which we 
 frame, in a faint and imperfect copy of that serene and un- 
 swerving justice, which belongs to another world — not to this ! 
 
 I speak bitterly I I feel bitterly: I have suifered bitterly. Is 
 it, or is it not, a grating thought, that in a country so eager 
 for justice^ the last to benefit by that eagerness , are its own 
 women? Is it, or is it not, a grating thought, that differences 
 of religious opinion should give such interest to individual 
 cases of hardship, that the letters of two young ladies, put into 
 a Eoman Catholic convent for education, by a Koman Catholic 
 father, should be read to three hundred members of Parlia- 
 ment as a means of convincing, and arousing their minds to 
 the consideration of one species of wrong; and that other 
 wrongs, touching English justice so much more nearly, should 
 be without even a possibility of remedy, by the provisions of 
 English law? 
 
 Is it, or is it not, natural, that all the scandal of my own 
 wrongs being revived — and my character resting on the 
 directly contrary opinions of two men — I should seek to uphold 
 my argument of legal injustice, by shewing the facts on 
 which these scandals (by that injustice) arose? 
 
 One of these men, is the Prime Minister of England : high- 
 minded, honourable, and intellectual — still quoted as au- 
 thority by his colleagues, still remembered and lamented by 
 his friends. He comforts me in the quarrel which einded in 
 a separation between me and my husband, by bidding me 
 remember, " That I had done everythinff to stave off that 
 extremity as long as possible ;" that I ought " not to be too anxious 
 about rumours and the opinions of the world, for, being inno- 
 cent and in the right, I must, in the end" (when is the end?), 
 bring everything round f — and that " it is vanity in me to say 
 
166 
 
 that my place can be easily supplied, for that no one can fill my 
 place." 
 
 The other is — Mr Norton. He reviles me in the news- 
 papers; he slanders my dead brother,- my mother, and my 
 sons; he heaps indecent accusations upon me. At one time 
 he orders " the chain to be fastened across the door" of my 
 home, should I attempt to return to it : at another (by his own 
 printed and published admission), he kicks the door from its 
 hinges, to force his way to my presence, for the purpose of 
 expelling me ! Shall the name of husband shield from con- 
 demnation one who has thus dealt by me? One in whom 
 years have wrought no change; who reiterates in cold blood 
 at this present time, coarse and virulent attacks, once again to 
 sting me — me only — for they cannot vex the dead. I stand 
 alone now, to receive them ; and alone I make my defence. 
 
 If, as I have said, my defence be disapproved, blame the 
 LAW ; which left me the task of defending, instead of the 
 possibility of being defended. Or, if you still blame me, 
 yet amend the law ! What have my faults to do with the 
 real subject-matter? I shall die and be dust; but the laws of 
 my country will survive me. It is very fit and fair that ther 
 should be repugnance and distrust, when women meddle in 
 these matters : yet no one can feel them like a woman. It is 
 a rule you do not apply to other subordinate groups. The 
 petition of Spitalfields sUk- weavers would not be rejected, 
 because they are silk-weavers: on the contrary, each class 
 seeking protection, is supposed to be the best exponent of 
 its own interests. Petitioning does not imply assertion of 
 equality. The wild and stupid theories advanced by a 
 few women, of "equal rights" and "equal intelligence" are 
 not the opinions of their sex. I, for one (I, with millions 
 more), believe in the natural superiority of man, as I do in 
 the existence of a God. I hold it to be proved, by aU that 
 ever has been attempted by human intelligence, in science and 
 in art; even in those pursuits in which no natural or educational 
 
167 
 
 impediment would have prevented the success of women, had 
 they been equally capable of success. I cannot conceive dis- 
 puting the general fact, because exceptional instances arise, 
 in which individual women are superior to individual men. 
 As well might it be argued, because a clever child of ten, in 
 a school class, took down his rivals and seniors in every 
 answer, that all children of ten, were cleverer than lads of 
 fifteen. Masculine superiority is incontestable; and with the 
 superiority should come protection. To refuse it because 
 some women exist, who talk of " women's rights," of " women's 
 equality," is to say that John Mitchell's exaggerated orations 
 for Ireland, or the Chartist and Kebecca riots in Wales, or 
 Swing fires in the rural districts in England, would have been 
 a sound and sufficient reason for refusing justice to all the 
 Queen's other subjects in the United Kingdom. The rebellion 
 of a group, against legitimate authority, is not to deprive the 
 general subject-party of general protection. Women have 
 one EIGHT (perhaps only that one). They have a right — 
 founded on nature, equity, and religion — to the protection 
 of man. Power is on the side of men — power of body, 
 power of mindj power of position. With that power should 
 come, not only the fact, but the instinct of protection. Even 
 the poor dumb animal will defend its companion and its 
 young. Even the tiny bird, that pants to death in a child's 
 hand, will resist, to the extent of its fragile force, an attack 
 upon its nestlings and its mate. Power, in its purer form, 
 is protection. Power, in its corrupt form, is oppression. 
 What is the meaning of that sympathy with the heroic, which 
 shews itself in all classes and on all occasions? Why does 
 a blow struck, or a sword drawn, in behalf of the helpless, 
 seem to make a hero of the peasant and a warrior of the Prince ? 
 Because the deep instinct of protection which lies in the human 
 heart, applauds, as the noblest and most natural exercise of 
 power, the resolution to defend: — whether it be home, 
 country, the honour of woman, or the safety of infancy and 
 age. 
 
168 
 
 Ahl how often, in tlie course of this session — in the course 
 of this year, — will the same men, who read this appeal with a 
 strong adverse prejudice, he roused by some thought in a favorite 
 author; struck by some noble anecdote; touched. by some beau- 
 tiful pageant of human feeling, seen among glittering lights 
 from a side-box ; chaunted perhaps in a foreign tongue ! And 
 yet I have an advantage over these — for my history is real. 
 I know there is no poetry in it to attract you. In the last 
 act of this weary life of defamation, I went down in a hack- 
 cab — to take part in an ignoble struggle — in a dingy little 
 court of justice — where I was insulted by a vulgar lawyer — 
 with questions framed to imply every species of degradation. 
 There was none of the " pomp and circumstance " of those 
 woes that aifect you, when some faultless and impossible 
 heroine makes you dream of righting all the wrongs in the 
 world ! But faulty as I may be — and prosaic and unsympa- 
 thised with, as my position might then be — it was UNJUST ; 
 and unjust because your laws prevent justice ! Let that 
 thought haunt you, through the music of your Somnambulas 
 and Desdemonas, and be with you in your readings of histories 
 and romances, and your criticisms on the jurisprudence of 
 countries less free than our own. I really wept and suffered in 
 my early youth — for wrong done, not by me, but to me — and 
 the ghost of whose scandal is raised against me this day. I 
 really suffered the extremity of earthly shame without deserving 
 it (whatever chastisement my other faults may have deserved 
 from heaven). I really lost my young children — craved for 
 them, struggled for them, was barred from them, — and came 
 too late to see one who had died a painful and convulsive 
 death, except in his coffin. I really have gone through much 
 that, if it were invented, would move you, — but being of your 
 every-day world, you are willing it should sweep past like a 
 heap of dead leaves on the stream of time, and take its place 
 with other things that have gone drifting down, — 
 
 " Oh va la feuille de Rose 
 Et la feuille du Laurier!" 
 
169 
 
 Will none of you aid the cause I advocate, and forget that 
 it was advocated by me ? It concerns you all. It is a mis- 
 take to think that the Laws depend only on " the Law-lords" 
 for their passing; few among you are lawyers, but all are 
 lawgivers. It is the business of the law-giving majority to 
 pass the laws ; of the lawyer-minority, to see that they are 
 fitly framed for passing. I quote words that carry with them 
 more authority than mine, — words of the late Lord Holland, 
 — to shew the freedom with which an English senator may 
 criticise the opinions of those, whose minds, from legal training, 
 are apt to narrow the consideration of such subjects, to a single 
 point of view. 
 
 Lord Holland says, then, in a note addressed to me, — dated 
 10th May, 1839, — and speaking of one of the Law-lords (in 
 reference to a measure already alluded to in these pages) : — 
 
 " Nothing could be worse in logick and feeling fhan his speech 
 on the bill of last year. It was, that several legal hardships 
 being of necessity inflicted on women, therefore we should 
 not relieve them from those which were not necessary, although 
 repugnant to the feelings of our rmture, and indeed to nature 
 itself. 
 
 " Whenever, andwhence-ever, Lyndhurst proposes his bill—from 
 woolsack or benches — he will find me on the seat fate may assign 
 me, ready to support it. I honor him for not sacrificing his 
 feelings on this occasion, either to the pedantry of law or the 
 convenience of politicks; and I heartily wish him success in 
 the bill. Yours, 
 
 " Vassall Holland." 
 
 Those are Lord Holland's words; and certainly justice is' 
 not a thing to sacrifice, either to " the convenience of politicks 
 or the pedantry of the law." If this pamphlet he an appeal 
 to English justice, it ought not to be disregarded because it 
 is a woman's appeal; or because it is MT appeal. On justice 
 
170 
 
 only, let It rest. Think, if the smallest right be infringed 
 for men, — if the rent of a paddock remain unpaid, or a 
 few angry words of libel be spoken, how instantly the 
 whole machinery of the law is set in motion to crush out 
 compensation; and think what it must be, to spend all one's 
 youth, as I have spent mine, in a series of vain struggles to 
 obtain any legal justice ! Or, do not think at all about me; 
 forget by whose story this appeal was illustrated (I can bring 
 you others, from your own English law books) ; and let my 
 part in this, be only as a voice borne by the wind — a cry 
 coming over the waves from a shipwreck, to where you stand 
 safe on the shore — and which you turn and listen to, not for 
 the sake of those who call — you do not know them, — but 
 because it is a cry for help. 
 
 I add, in an appendix, a portion of the examination of 
 John Fluke, principal witness against Lord Melbourne, in 
 the trial of 1836 : indeed, the only witness who ventured to 
 depose to anything criminal in our relations. And I repeat 
 that I leave to the unbiassed judgement of those who read, the 
 amount of value to be set upon such testimony. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 SlE William Follett, — who afterwards, in a private letter to me, and 
 publicly in the " Times " newspaper, disavowed all share in advising 
 the trial (though compelled to fulfil his duty as counsel, by conducting 
 it), — early in his opening statement, made the following declaration to 
 the jury : — 
 
 " I beUeve I shall be able to call before you every servant who has 
 lived in the house during the time ; who will tell you that, however 
 much their suspicions might have been excited, they never did commu- 
 nicate to Mr Norton any of the facts or grounds of their suspicion, 
 until inquiry was made, and they were compelled to disclose the truth. 
 Mrs Norton was a kind and indulgent mistress ; they had no wish to 
 say anything that would injure her ; they did not ; and Mr Norton 
 had no reason for suspicion until Mrs Norton had left his house in 
 March." 
 
 The ONLY witness, nevertheless, who deposed to a sinful intimacy, 
 was a groom of the name of John Fluke ; who had been discharged 
 two or three years before, — by Mr Norton himself, — for drunkenness and 
 street-riot, on the occasion detailed in his evidence. I give those por- 
 tions of his cross-examination which decided the case : (as far as his 
 credibnity was concerned). He was cross-examined by Sir Frederick 
 Thesiger at great length : I give extracts — 
 
 " Are you a married man 1" " I am.'' 
 
 " Have you any children 1" " Three living out of ten." 
 
 "They lived, then, over the stables in Fleece-yard and Bell-yard?"' 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Where did you remove to ?" " To Monmouth-street." 
 
 "What did you do there ?" " I sold second-hand shirts and gowns." 
 
 " Then you kept an old-clothes shop f " Yes." 
 
 " Had you the whole house ? " No." 
 
 " You Uved in the cellar V " Yes " 
 
 " Hive you lived there with your wife ever since V " Ever since, 
 tiU lately." 
 
 " Mending shoes ? " Yes ; and dealing in women's old appaxeL" 
 
 " Have you been in good circumstances 1" " I earn my bread by my 
 own honest industry." 
 
 " Have you been embarrassed ?" " I was, when in Mr Norton's ser- 
 vice, before I left." 
 
 " Hive you ceased to be in embarrassed circumstances 1" " It has 
 not been in my power to pay my creditors aU I owe them ; but I have 
 paid them as &r as I was able." 
 
 " When were you found out as a witness in this case V " I believe 
 about six weeks ago." 
 
172 
 
 " You were then living in the cellar in Monmouth-street, carrying on 
 this business of yours ?" "Yes." 
 
 " Have you continued to live in that cellar 2" " No." 
 
 "Have you given up your business?" "lean return to it again: 
 I have been to the country." 
 
 "Have you carried on any business since you have been to the coun- 
 try ?" "No." 
 
 " Have you been to see your friends in the country ?" " I went to 
 
 WONEESH." 
 
 " What took you there f " I went down by the coach." 
 
 " Is that your answer 1" "I went down with my wife and children." 
 
 " Bag and baggage T " Yes." (Laughter.) 
 
 " Have you been living at Wonersh since 1" " Oh, yes." 
 
 "Have you been examined about this matter by any one?" "By 
 
 the attorney." 
 
 " By Mr Norton ?" "By Mh Norton, before the attorney." 
 
 « "Where ?" " In Lincoln's-inn Fields." 
 
 " And having examined you, they sent you down to Wonersh ?" " fes." 
 
 " Does Lord Grantley live there ? " " Yes." 
 
 " Is Lord Grantley in Court 1" " Yes, on the bench." 
 
 "How far from Wonersh does Lord Grantley live ?" "Hehves at 
 
 Wonersh." 
 
 " You have not been living at his house, I presume ?" '^No." 
 
 " At a public-house 1" " For a little time." 
 
 " And your wife and children ?" " Yes." 
 
 " Who paid for you ?" " I paid myself." 
 
 " Who gave you the money ?" " The solicitor gave me money to 
 
 pay my fare." 
 
 " How much money ?" " About JIO." ( The "far^' is from London 
 
 to Guildford.) 
 
 " Did he give you the £10 before you went to Wonersh ?" " Yes." 
 
 " Has he not given you any since ?" " No." 
 
 " You are sure of it ?" " Yes." 
 
 " You gave up your business and went to Wonersh ?" " Yes." 
 
 " When did you leave Wonersh ? " " Last night." 
 
 " How long did you live at the public-house ?" "About a week." 
 
 " What public-house ?" « The Grantley Arms." 
 
 "Did you carry on any business at Wonersh ?" " No." 
 
 " And you hved ia that lodging up to last night ?" "Yes." 
 
 " How have you been employed ?" "I amused myself as well as J could." 
 
 " Did you go out fishing or shooting ?" " I ha/ve gone out fishing." 
 
 (Laughter.) 
 
 " How else did you amuse yourself ?" " I walked about and exerted 
 
 myself as well as I could." 
 " Did you ever see Lord Grantley ?" " Twice while I was there, and 
 
 spoke to him once." 
 
 * :lp it^ * * i^ itf 
 
173 
 
 " Have you not said that you were under examination for nine 
 days ?" "I did not say under examination ; but I went to the solicitor's 
 chambers every day; sometimes I wasexamined,and sometimes I was not." 
 
 " But have you not said that you were under examination for nine 
 days ?" " Not to my recollection." 
 
 " Will you swear you have not said so ? " Not to my recollection. 
 
 " Try to recollect." " I cannot ; I might have said so, but I cannot 
 
 RECOIiECT." 
 
 " Have you not said that Lord Wynford examined you 1" " Never in 
 my life ; I do not know Lord Wynford," 
 
 « « 4c « * * * 
 
 " I ask you upon your oath, have you not said, that although Lord 
 Wynford examined you, he did not know what you would say 1" "I 
 do not BEOOLLBCT anything of the kind, or that I did say anything of 
 the kind." 
 
 " Will you swear positively that you did not say so f "I cannot 
 say, but I cannot RECOiiBor." 
 
 " I will once more put the question about the 500?. or 6001. WiU you 
 swear that you have not said that after the trial was done you would 
 get 5001.1" "How coxild I say such a thing 1" 
 
 " Will you swear that you have not said so 1" " I never eecollbct 
 of having said it." 
 
 "Will you swear that you have not said so f "I never recollect 
 saying so." 
 
 " From whom did you buy that cab, and the fly, and the gig 1" 
 " One from one man, the other from another." 
 
 " From whom did you get the cab ?" "A man of the name of Saun- 
 ders built my cab." 
 
 " Have you paid him for it 1" " There was a settlement between 
 us. I really don't know how I stand." 
 
 " You don't know ! Have you paid for the gig t" " The gig was in- 
 cluded in the account to me for the cab." 
 
 "From whom did you buy the fly 1" " I bought the fly from a man 
 of the name of Crook.'' 
 
 " Have you paid him ?" " I paid him part, and I owe him part." 
 
 " Well, then, you have sold the cab, and the gig, and the fly ; wiU you 
 swear that you have paid for any of them t" " I have paid part." 
 
 " Have not you said that after the trial was over, you would get 500?. 
 or 600?. a-year 1" " Oh dear ! Sir, I only wish I may get enough to eat 
 or drink, much less 500?." 
 
 "But I ask you if you have said so ?" "Oh no. I came forward with 
 a free good will, and to speak the truth." 
 
 " No doubt ; but I asked you if you had not said that after the trial 
 you would get 500?. V "I do not recollect anything of the kind." 
 
 By the Court.—" Do you wish to say that you did not say so, or that 
 you do not recoUect having said so i" "1 do not recollect ever saying 
 it. I might have said it, but I am sure I could not have said it." 
 
174 
 
 "How could you not have said it ?" "Oh I am not acquainted with 
 the law. I don't know what gentlemen give. I dont know anything. 
 I don't know what is given. I don't know anything about it." 
 
 "Have you not said to Sly that you were employed to fish out evi- 
 dence ?" "I might have said I was going after a feUow-servant." 
 
 " I give you the very words : did you not say you were employed to 
 fish for evidence 1" "I might have said I was going after a witness 
 for Mr Norton." 
 
 "I will have my words answered, if you please." " I do not think I 
 said, to fish up aM the evidence. I might have said I was employed 
 to go after my fellow-servants." 
 
 "You have said you sometimes went a-fishing. Probably this was the 
 kind of fishing you liked best ? " "I did not say I was employed to 
 fish up the evidence. I deny the expression. I say, I might say I 
 was going after my fellow-servant as a witness." 
 
 " Might you not have said you were employed to fish up evidence, 
 although you do not recoUeot it V " No, I do not BECOiiiBCT it." 
 
 " But you might have said so ? " "I might have said so ; but I do 
 not think I have said so." 
 
 "Did you not say to Sly, that you had been suffering a good deal of 
 late years, and that you thought this matter would make you amends t " 
 " No ; I only said I had been out of place two years. I was obhged to 
 work at mending shoes. Of course a man must work if he means to 
 get a bit of bread. I always did work, and very laboriously too." 
 
 " Well, did you say you had been out of place, and that this matter 
 would make amends to you i " "No. I might have done ; but I do not 
 eecoMjBCT saying so." 
 
 " But you might have done it ?" "I do not recollect saying so. "What 
 I recollect I will answer, and what I don't recollect I cannot answer." 
 
 " Will you swear that you did not say to Sly, that this business would 
 make you amends ?" "I cannot swear that I did not say so, and 
 cannot swear that I did. The fact is, about making amends, I do not 
 understand at all myself, what amends a man can have for speaking 
 the truth." 
 
 " Did you not say to Sly, that you intended to take care of yourself 1 " 
 " To take care of myself! I hope I shall always take care of myself" 
 (laughter). 
 
 " Very well Therefore it is not unUkely you did say you intended to 
 take care of yourself 1 " " If I had not looked more to others than to 
 myself, I should not be so badly off." 
 
 " Did not you say, that most likely you would be able to leave Lon- 
 don, and retire to the country after this triaU" "No." 
 
 " No, upon your oath V "I have already said, I cannot say I said so, 
 since I do not recollect that I ever said so." 
 
 By the Ooubt : " You were asked if you did not say you would most 
 probably be able to retire to the country after this trial ?" "I do not 
 eecollect, and how can I say what I do not recollect 2" 
 
175 
 
 " Will you SWBAH you did not say so 1" "1 think I might have been 
 able to go down to the country, for I was getting on very well in Mon- 
 mouth-street." 
 
 " You were going on very comfortably in the cellar ?" "I was paying 
 my way." 
 
 "Will you swEAE that you have not said, that after the trial was over 
 you would get 5001. or 6001., and would retire to Scotland, and would 
 not care for anything V "I don't recollect anything of the kind. I 
 cannot swear I may not have said so. I do not believe I ever said 
 anything of the kind, but 1 can't swear. I have sworn already to speak 
 the truth, but I do not eecollbct anything of the kind." 
 
 " Now, sir, again upon your solemn oathj I ask, have you not used these 
 words, or words to this effect — that, if all went on right, you would 
 have 5001. or 6001., and retire to Scotland, and not care for anybody ?" 
 "Never, to mt knowledge.'' 
 
 " Never, to your knowledge ? That is the only answer you can give 
 me?" "Never, to my knowledge." 
 
 "Have not you said so within the last fortnight ?" " Never, to my 
 knowledge." 
 
 "Have you said so within a week ?" "Never, to my knowledge." 
 
 " Have you said so within the last 48 hours 1 " " Never, to my know- 
 ledge.'' 
 
 "Have you said so within the last 24 hours V "Not to my know- 
 ledge." 
 
 « How was it that you left Mr Norton's f ' "To tell the truth, I got a 
 drop too much (laughter). It was a Court-day, and we generally have 
 a drop at such a time. Mr and Mrs Norton fell out in the carriage, 
 and of course they put the spite upon me, and so I was discharged " 
 (laughter). 
 
 " Then you had got a drop too much 1" " Why, I like to speak the 
 truth, and I confess I had (laughter). Mrs Norton was very cross, and 
 you could not please her very easily. She was cross because the black 
 horse happened to gallop, and I could not get him into a trot ; horses 
 will break sometimes, you can't help it" (laughter). 
 
 "And they put the spite on you ?" "Oh, it is not the first time I 
 have had it like that." 
 
 "You like to speak the truth sometimes ; you took a drop too much, 
 eh ?" " I don't know who does not at times. We are all alike for that, 
 masters and servants " (great laughter). 
 
 "Did not Mrs Norton complain that you had drunk too much V 
 " Mrs Norton never complained of that, because I was a good servant, 
 though I did take a drop too much ; a very good servant, and you 
 know gentlemen do the same sometimes." 
 
 " Have you not had a sabre cut in your head !" " No, thank God ; 
 but I had a touch on my hip at Waterloo." 
 
 " How often did you take a drop too much, while in Mr Norton's 
 
176 
 
 service?" " What, Sir, during the four years ? (great laughter). You 
 have put a very heavy question." 
 
 " But on a moderate computation V " Why, some people carry a lit- 
 tle so well, that you can't tell when they've got a drop too much. I can't 
 answer your question." 
 
 "Did it not happen generally in the afternoon ?" "I was not drunk. 
 Sir, every day" (laughter). 
 " But pretty often ?" " Middling ; as we generally all are." 
 "Did it ever happen that iyou had taken too much when driving 
 Mr and Mrs Norton to the^Queen's ball ? " "I was sober going to the 
 Queen's baU ; but when* going to the Marquis of Lansdowne's in the 
 evening I certainly got a drop too much ; and then the black horse 
 began to gallop. Mr Norton got out of the coach, and mounted the 
 box in his opera-hat, and I did not think he looked well driving in that 
 fashion" (laughter). 
 
 " You were so drunk that it was necessary for Mr Norton to get on the 
 coach-box with his opera-hat to drive t" " Fll tell you the whole. Sir. 
 When Mrs Norton wanted Mr Norton to do anything, he was so fond 
 of her he would do it, let it be what it might. So he got upon the 
 box, and I, being a goodish sort of a coachman, did not wish to see my 
 master make a fool of himself in a crowd ; so I said, ' If you will drive 
 you miist drive by yourself.' I had one of my own, and one of my 
 master's horses, in the ca,rriage, and I did not like to see my own horse 
 doing all the work, so I preferred walking ; a pretty good proof that I 
 was not very drunk (laughter). When I got to the Marquis of Lans- 
 downe's I expected to see the carriage at the door ; but instead of that 
 I saw a parcel of fellows cutting at my horse. I then said to my 
 master, 'Let me drive, and I will soon get you up. The truth is,' 
 says I, ' you look rather foolish ;' but he refused to give up the reins, 
 and I then said, ' If you wiU be obstinate, I must take my horse out ' 
 (roars of laughter). So I went to take my horse out, and Mr Norton 
 said, 'John, John, don't do that — policeman, take John away' (great 
 laughter). I did not take the horse out, but a policeman came up and 
 said that I must go along with him. I said, ' I am very willing to go 
 with you, my good fellow ; I will go with all the pleasure in the world.' 
 So he took me to the watchhouse." 
 
 " Poor John ! And so there you were locked up aU night V "I was." 
 
 " Did you not make an oflfer to release him then ? " "I wanted to 
 take hold of the reins, to get him out of the crowd." 
 
 " Did Mr Norton contrive to get the carriage up, driving with his 
 opera hat on 1" " So I tmderstood the next morning." 
 
 "And then you were discharged ?" "I was fined 5s. for being intoxi- 
 cated at the of&ce, though I was then as sober as I am now.'' 
 
 "Who was the magistrate who fined you 5s. 1" "Mr Norton seemed 
 to know him, for they talked together a long whUe.'' 
 
 "Then you think your sentence was a very unjust one V "1 don't 
 think I was well used." 
 
V 
 
 " You were not drunk ?" " No, when I went away with the police- 
 man, no more than I am now.'' 
 
 "It was very unjust, then, that you were turned off?" "Oh, Sir, 
 when Mrs Norton told master to do anything, he must do it." 
 
 "It was her fault, then, was it not?" "Rather more her's than 
 master's." 
 
 ■' Now, did you not say that that d — d b — h, Mrs Norton, had got you 
 discharged ?" "I do not recollect whether I did or not, but I may 
 have said it. I had had my wife confined, I lost my business, and it 
 was enough to make any man angry, and speak what he did not mean." 
 
 "Did not you say that you would be revenged on her, or something 
 of that sort ? " "No, never, never." 
 
 " What, never ?" "I did not." 
 
 " Have you not said that you were the principal witness against the 
 Premier of England ?" "No. I might have said I was one of them, 
 but there was a good many of them." 
 
 "But you might have said you were the principal witness against the 
 Premier?" " The Premier of England ! I never did." 
 
 " Have you not said they forced you to leave your shop in Monmouth- 
 street, ^.nd go to Wonersh ?" "I did not say there was any forcing 
 in it." 
 
 " Have you not said they took you away at a moment's notice ?" "I 
 don't think I have." 
 
 " Did you not say you were to remain at Wonersh, and not to come 
 to London till the trial came on ?" "I did stop there. I remained 
 there till last night." 
 
 Another witness having also deposed to receiving money, and re- 
 maining resident, with all her family, at Wonersh, for some weeks 
 before the trial, the Attorney-General commented on these extra- 
 ordinary admissions in his reply. He said — 
 
 " His learned friend (Sir Wilham FoUett) had promised the jury to 
 " call before them all the persons who had been in the service of Mr 
 
 " and Mrs Norton. But had he performed that promise 1 All 
 
 " the witnesses had not been called ; the evidence had been garbled ; 
 " and those witnesses alone had been called, who had previously been 
 " tutored as to the evidence they were to give." 
 
 " The witness Fluke, was the one who boasted he was the principal 
 " witness against the Premier of England, and said, ' if all went well he 
 " ' should make 600Z., and spend the rest of his days in ease in Scotland.' 
 " It seemed he had been a soldier, and fought at Waterloo. When he 
 " came into the service of Mr Norton he had a cab, a gig, and a fly. He 
 " acknowledged he had been often drunk. He left the plaintift's service 
 " in debt, and swindled several people. He bought the fly from Saunders 
 " to turn it into money, for he sold it. He had a colt to break in, which 
 " he sold for 20?., and no part of the money did he pay to the owner of 
 
 N 
 
8 
 
 " the colt. He then went to Sloane-street, sold the cab, and then took a 
 " cellai> in Monmouth-street, where he set up as a dealer in old clothes, 
 " where he remained until he was ready to sell himself as a witness ; and 
 " a glorious day it was for him when he was discovered. From such 
 " evidence as this, was the plaintiff's case made up ! Fluke said he ex- 
 " pected to be paid, because 'does not every man expect to he paid?' He 
 " (the Attorney-General) had a great curiosity to know if he did not 
 " expect 600?. or 600?., and repeatedly asked him. All he said was ' I do 
 " ' not HECOLLECT,' (' non mi ricordo^) repeated at least ten times. He 
 " (the Attorney-General) asked him if he had not, within the last 48 
 " hours, said that he expected to make 500?. 1 He would only say he 
 " ' could not RECOLLECT." He did recollect that; he got so drunk on 
 " taking Mr and Mrs Norton to Lansdowne house, that Mr Norton got 
 " on the box and drove the carriage ; whereupon he (Fluke) ran to 
 " Lansdowne house, and endeavoured to unharness and take away one of 
 " the horses, which he said was his own ; and his behaviour was so 
 " violent that he was taken to the watch house! Would the jury act 
 " upon the testimony of such a man — would they hang a dog upon it ? 
 ?' If he had not said ' that if there was a verdict he should get SOO?.,' he 
 " would immediately and positively have denied that he had ever used 
 " such words ; but he did not dare to give a direct denial ; he merely 
 " said he ' did not recollect,' and it was not possible to call witnesses 
 " to contradict such testimony. He took care to avoid the possibility 
 " of being contradicted, or of being indicted for perjury. This was the 
 " expedient of a deceitful and artful witness ; but he would ask the jury 
 " if they had any doubt that he did say so ; aye, twenty times ! Coupling 
 " this answer, 'that he did not recollect,' with his swindling, drunken- 
 " ness, and history, could the jury place the smallest reliance on his 
 " testimony 1 Why did they send him to Wonersh % For six weeks he 
 " had been disporting himself at Wonersh, fishing, and talking over his 
 " evidence with Mrs Comyns, and considering how he should secure ease 
 
 " for the remainder of his Ufe Why were not those witnesses who 
 
 " were living in the service when the separation took place, produced 
 " before the jury % Not only were they not produced, but those who 
 " had been in the service during the years 1834, 1835, and 1836, were 
 " kept back. All those persons had been examined out of court ; but it 
 " appeared that only those who would answer the whip, and had such 
 " convenient memories as to be able to recoUeot things which were said 
 " to have taken place years ago, — ^but had forgot what had occurred 
 
 " within the last 48 hours, — ^were selected 
 
 " There was a charge against two parties, and they should bear this 
 " in mind, that neither of them could be called as witnesses. Lord 
 " Melbourne could not, because he was the defendant — Mrs Norton 
 " could not, because she was the wife of the plaintiff. Therefore it was 
 " impossible, if any witness could come forward and say that he had seen 
 " a fact, when no persons except those two were present, that that wit- 
 
" ness could be contradicted. They could only, in such a case, look to 
 "the character of the witness, the probability of the story, and the credit 
 " to which it was entitled. If a charge of want of chastity was brought 
 " against the purest of women, and that no one but the accuser was 
 " said to be present, she must rest her defence on her own innocence, 
 " the improbability of the story, and the character of the accuser .... 
 " .... In the Ecclesiastical Court, time, and place, and circumstance, 
 " must be proved ; but here, there was nothing definitive ; the evidence 
 " ranging over a period of four or five years, and excluding all evidence 
 
 " of what occurred within the last two or three years What 
 
 " family, he would ask, could be safe, if at the distance of years, dis- 
 " carded servants could com^ forward and make such statements, con- 
 " oealed for so long a period, and which they themselves admit excited 
 " no suspicion while the circumstances were recent, and while they were 
 " there to make their observations 1 If they were to be brought forward 
 " at the end of years, — excited with the hopes of reward, and of making 
 " their fortunes, — what safety could there be, what protection for inno- 
 " cent persons ? He could not approve of the manner in which the 
 " witnesses had been carried off from their homes to Wonersh. He 
 " cared not who was offended, but he would say, that the system of 
 " carrying off the witnesses, such as had been detailed that day — of 
 " giving them large sums of money — of exciting these extravagant 
 " expectations, that had been detailed, if their evidence proved successful 
 " — was one which could not be defended, and was a mode of conducting 
 " a case, reflecting very little credit on those resorting to it. No case 
 
 " had ever been conducted as the present had been It was the 
 
 " duty of the plaintiff to have laid before them the circumstances under 
 " which the quarrel and separation had taken place between Mr and Mrs 
 " Norton ; when it might have been seen to demonstration, that Lord 
 " Melbourne had no more concern in the matter than any indifferent 
 " bystander then in Court; that bringing such a charge against Lord Mel- 
 " bourne was a mere after-thought ; that it was what had never entered 
 " into the head of Mr Norton himself, but was put into his head by 
 " others ; he would not say who, — ^he would not insinuate who, — ^but it 
 " must have been some insinuating rogue who had devised the slander. 
 "It had been asserted that every servant in the service of Sir Norton 
 " would be produced : but Mrs Gulliver, whose testimony was most 
 " material, had been withheld. If truth only was the object of the other 
 " party, why had she not been produced ? And why had not Fitness 
 " been called, who was at ' hat moment living at Storey's Gate ? They 
 " had not dared to call him, because he was there at the time of the 
 " separation ; and if it had not been that Mrs Morris had been called to 
 " prove the handwriting of Mrs Norton, the circumstances which led to 
 " the separation would have remained a secret and a mystery.' Nay, it 
 " would have been left for them to surmise, that Mr Norton had actually 
 " separated from his wife in consequence of discovering her intimacy 
 
10 
 
 " with Lord Melbourne. But what was the fact, as it now appeared from 
 " the questions he had put to the witness Mrs Morris 1 Why, that a 
 " quarrel had taken place between them on account of the proposed 
 " visit to Frampton ; and that in consequence of that, Mr Norton gave 
 ■' orders that the children should be kept at home, and then sent them 
 " first to Berkeley-street, and afterwards to Wonersh ; and Mrs Norton 
 " was thrown into the deepest consternation, and almost into a state of- 
 " distraction, at iinding that her children were to be thus separated 
 " from her. She pursued them all over the town, until she found them 
 " in Berkeley-street — where her tears and entreaties to see them were 
 " unavailing. . . . But it is quite clear that some persons have made 
 " Mr Norton a tool — an instrument of shanie — ^he has been persuaded to 
 " allow his name to be used ; and used merely for party and political 
 " purposes. Before I sit down, gentlemen, I think it right, in the name 
 " of Lord Melbourne, to declare, as he instructed me to do — ^in the most 
 " CLEAR, EMPHATIC, and SOLEMN MANNER — that he never had criminal 
 " intercourse with Mrs Norton, nor did he ever do anything in the slight- 
 " est degree to abuse the confidence which her husband reposed in him. 
 " I allow that you must find your verdict according to the evidence, and 
 " that you must not allow yourselves to be swayed by the solemn decla^ 
 " ration of Lord Melbourne. You must look to the evidence — I wish 
 " you to do so — ^but looking at the evidence, I say that it is impossible 
 " to find a verdict for the Plaintifi'." .... 
 
 The Learned Judge summed up at some length. 
 
 The Jury having turned round, and conferred a few seconds. 
 
 The foreman said, — " My lord, we are agreed ; it is my duty to say 
 that our verdict is for the Defendant." 
 
 The announcement was received with loud bursts of applause. 
 
 A few days afterwards. Sir W. Pollett thus deprecated the notion that 
 he had countenanced the proceedings which he conducted as counsel : 
 and thus pubHcly disowned Mr Norton's cause. So much for the great 
 scandals by which a woman's whole destiny may be darkened and 
 wrecked ! — See p. 123. 
 
 J. WERTHEIMEB AND CO., FRINIEBS, PINSBTTET CIRCT7S. 
 
Extract from the " Times" of June 25th, 1836:— 
 
 "To the Editor of the 'Times.' 
 
 " Sir, — Having seen in the ' Times ' of tliis mormng that the 
 action of 'Norton ». Lord Melhoume' was advised 'hy the ahle and 
 upright counsel who conducted it,' we think it is due to Sir William 
 Follett to state, that the action was not brought under his advice ; 
 and that although he was retained so far back as the 25th of AprU last, 
 the evidence was not in complete state for his brief to be dehvered to 
 him until the 14th of Jime inst., and when no course was open to tlie 
 parties but to proceed with the trial of the cause, which had been 
 fixed for the present sittings. 
 
 " We are. Sir, your most obedient Servants, 
 
 (Signed) " C0rrib and Woodqate." 
 
 "Lincoln's Inn, June 25, 1836."