Part 92 (1/2)

The following precis, though imperfect, will give some idea of the correspondence:

1. The Board wrote to Thomas Hardie, letting him know the result of the Special Commission, and requesting him to discharge his nephew.

Thomas quaked. Richard smiled, and advised Thomas to take no notice. By this a week was gained to Injustice, and lost to Justice.

2. The Board pointed out Thomas Hardie's inadvertence in not answering No. 1; enclosed copy of it, and pressed for a reply.

Thomas quaked, Richard smiled.

3. Thomas Hardie to the Board. From what he had heard, it would be premature to discharge Alfred. Should prefer to wait a month or two.

4. Board to Alfred, conveying this in other terms.

5. Alfred to Board, warning them against this proposal. To postpone justice was to refuse justice, certainly for a time, probably for ever.

6. The Board to Thomas Hardie, suggesting that if not released immediately Alfred ought to have a trial--_i.e.,_ be allowed to go into the world with a keeper.

7. Alfred to the Board, begging that Dr. Sampson, an honest independent physician, might be allowed to visit him and report to them.

8. The Board to Alfred, declining this, for the present as unadvisable, they being in correspondence with the person who had signed the order--with a view to his liberation.

9. T. Hardie to the Board, shuffling, and requesting time to make further inquiries.

10. The Board, suggesting there should be some reasonable limit to delay.

11. T. Hardie, asking for a month to see about it.

12. The Board, suggesting a week.

13. Alfred Hardie, asking permission to be visited by a solicitor with a view to protection of his liberty and property.

14. The Board, declining this, pending their correspondence with other parties; but asking him for the names and addresses of all his trustees.

15. Thomas Hardie, informing the Board he had now learned Alfred had threatened to kill his father as soon as ever he should get out, and leaving the Board to discharge him on their own responsibility if they chose after this warning: but declining peremptorily to do so himself.

16, 17, 18. The Board, by advice of Mr. Abbott, to Alfred's trustees, warning them against any alienation of Alfred's money under the notion that he was legally a lunatic; and saying that a public inquiry appeared inevitable, owing to Mr. T. Hardie's unwillingness to enter into their views.

19. To Alfred, inquiring whether he wished to encounter the expense of Chancery proceedings to establish his sanity.

20. Alfred to the Board, imploring them to use their powers and discharge him without further delay, and a.s.suring them he meditated no violence on his liberation, but should proceed against all parties under legal advice.

21. The Board to T. Hardie, warning him that he must in future pay Alfred's maintenance in Asylum out of his own pocket, and pressing him either to discharge the young man, or else to apply to the Lord Chancellor for a Commission de Lunatico Inquirendo, and enclosing copy of a letter from Wycherley saying the patient was harmless.

22. T. Hardie respectfully declining to do either, but reminding the Commissioners that the matter could be thrown into Chancery without his consent; only the expense, which would be tremendous, would fall on the lunatic's estate, which might hereafter be regretted by the party himself. He concluded by promising to come to town and visit Alfred with his family physician, and write further in a week.

Having thus thrown dust in the eyes of the Board, Thomas Hardie and Richard consulted with a notoriously unscrupulous madhouse keeper in the suburbs of London, and effected a masterstroke; whereof anon.

The correspondence had already occupied three months, and kept Alfred in a fever of the mind; of all the maddening things with which he had been hara.s.sed by the pretended curers of insanity, this tried him hardest. To see a dozen honest gentlemen wis.h.i.+ng to do justice, able to do justice by one manly stroke of the pen, yet forego their vantage-ground, and descend to coax an able rogue to do their duty and undo his own interest and rascality! To see a strong cause turned into a weak one by the timidity of champions clad by law in complete steel; and a rotten cause, against which Law and Power, as well as Truth, Justice, and Common Sense, had now declared, turned into a strong one by the pluck and cunning of his one unarmed enemy! The ancients feigned that the ingenious G.o.ds tortured Tantalus in h.e.l.l by ever-present thirst, and water flowing to just the outside of his lips. A Briton can thirst for liberty as hard as Tantalus or hunted deer can thirst for cooling springs and this soul-gnawing correspondence brought liberty, and citizenhood, and love, and happiness, to the lips of Alfred's burning, pining, aching heart, again, and again, and again; then carried them away from him in mockery. Oh, the sickening anguish of Hope deferred, and deferred:

”The h.e.l.l it is in suing long to bide.”

But indeed his hopes began to sicken for good when he found that the Board would not allow any honest independent physician to visit him, or any solicitor to see him. At first, indeed, they refused it because Mr.