Edward Gibbon Wakefield : the colonization of South Australia and New Zealand
Chapter II
Chapter II.
The Turner Abduction—Wakefield's Trial—His Imprisonment and its Results—Letters from Gaol
On 7th March 1826, a carriage appeared at the door of Miss Daulby, a schoolmistress near Liverpool, and a servant presented a letter to that lady purporting to come from a Dr Ainsworth, stating that the mother of one of her pupils, Miss Ellen Turner, daughter of Mr William Turner of Shrigley, a wealthy manufacturer in the county of Cheshire, and at the time sheriff for the county, had been suddenly attacked with paralysis, and desired her daughter to come to her immediately. Miss Turner was not to be told of the cause of the summons, a crafty precaution which prevented the discovery that no Dr Ainsworth existed. The schoolmistress, completely deceived, allowed the young lady to depart. She was met on the road by Edward Gibbon Wakefield and his brother William, who on various pretexts allured her to Carlisle, where she was informed that her father's affairs were in a desperate condition, and that the only way to retrieve them was to consent to marry Edward Gibbon Wakefield.
page 301 They took off her ring,' he says, 'and gave it to me, I shall preserve it carefully. They should have thrown it away.'
After tedious preliminary proceedings, beginning with Wakefield's committal to Lancaster Castle in May, and frequently interrupted and resumed, the case was tried at Lancaster Assizes on 23d March 1827. Serjeant Cross and Brougham were counsel for the prosecution, the conduct of the case chiefly falling upon the latter. The Wakefields had secured Scarlett, the ablest advocate of the day, but there could be no defence upon the merits of the case. The legal questions involved were a different matter, and the problem whether, under the law of Scotland, Miss Turner was or was not Mrs Wakefield, was so obscure that it was found necessary to set it at rest by a special Act of Parliament annulling the marriage. The evidence abundantly established that no force or intimidation had been resorted to; it was equally clear that fraud had been employed, and there could be no doubt of the verdict as concerned the principal defendants. The judge summed up favourably for Frances Wakefield, and the jury deliberated over her case for an hour, but eventually found her guilty. She was not, however, called up for judgment, and ought to have been acquitted, for, suspicious as her conduct had been, page 32Wakefield's subsequent declaration established her innocence. Many yet remember her in her old age as a lady of charming manners, and remarkable for her beneficence. Wakefield appeared to receive sentence on 14th May. In his plea for mitigation, he stated that the legal proceedings had cost him £6000, and that half this amount had been raised by the sale of a reversionary interest of £1500 a year. Further he could not go without sacrificing the interests of his children under their mother's settlement. This he was resolved never to do; a fine, therefore, would be equivalent to a sentence of perpetual imprisonment, and he prayed that this might not be imposed upon him. The court took him at his word, and awarded three years' confinement in Newgate, a sentence unanimously ratified by public opinion. William Wakefield, although the lesser offender, received a similar term in Lancaster Castle, probably because the costs of the trial had fallen entirely upon Edward. The latter was heard once more when pleading against the dissolution of his marriage before the House of Lords; he spoke ably, said all he could, but what could he say?1
1 Ellen Turner married in 1829 Mr Legh, representative of one of the first Cheshire families, and died in childbirth in 1831.
1 Miss Bathurst, it should be said, had reason for her regard for Wakefield. Her deceased sister had been attached to his intimate friend, Percy. 'Percy's mare,' Wakefield wrote to his father in 1824, 'must be kept without work of any sort. It is a point which Percy has at heart, and he depends upon me in preference to other friends to secure the comfortable existence of the animal which was the favourite pet of Miss Bathurst.'
The change from the society of Paris to the society of Newgate, however mitigated by transition through intermediate regions peopled by judges and lawyers, can be no slight test of the virtue of fortitude. Persons of Wakefield's sanguine temper and effervescent spirits are frequently liable to extreme dejection in adversity. It was not so with him. Hope, he says in the Letter from Sydney, if you know how to indulge it, is more grateful than reality. In Newgate, as will be seen, he found consolation not merely in the studies and observations which were to make him a power in the English world, but in the exercise of the domestic affections which he cherished with such singular intensity. The following letters, dating from an earlier period of his tribulation, are perhaps even more conclusive proofs of the buoyancy and intrepidity of his spirit, written while he was page 36still agitated by hope and fear, and oppressed by the galling consciousness that the dexterity and astuteness on which he valued himself had proved downright folly. All are addressed to his stepmother, Frances Wakefield:—
Lancaster Castle, May 26.'I think it more than probable that I shall remain here till the Assizes. I have many reasons for preferring a sojourn here to the doubtful attempt to procure admittance to bail. I do not say doubtful as to the fact of my being admitted to bail, for that I take for granted, but doubtful as to the wisdom of injuring my defence in making the application. I am very well lodged and treated in this castle. You ought to know how little I care for personal luxuries. Air, exercise, water, privacy and books are all-sufficient for any man of common sense and courage. I have all these, so I give you my word that, could I forget what others feel for me, I should at this time be as much at my ease as I ever was in my life.'
May 30.'I have got to myself a room twenty-four feet square and a yard fifty feet long. I have a fire, a table, two chairs, plenty of water, which to me is the same as plenty of air, plenty of books, pens and paper. I am locked into my cell at seven, but have candles, and I am obliged to attend chapel every day; when, page 37however, at my own request, I sit alone, unseen, in the condemned pew. [Ominous!] My confinement is solitary at my own request, but I and myself could always make company. At present we walk, talk and laugh together, without a moment's lassitude during the day.'
page 38June 5.'I am pretty fully occupied in preparing my defence, and corresponding with lawyers with a view to it. Half an hour a day to read letters from named and nameless correspondents, one of which, by the way, has produced me the most important article of evidence that I shall have to produce. Some of my unknown correspondents write law to me, some consolation, some love, and one an offer of marriage! Without something to love I should be very unhappy, so I have a cat, with one woolly draggle of a kitten, and a root of grass which grows in a hole in a wall, and which I watch and nurse as if it were a cutting from the Tree of Life. My fellow prisoners are a stout Wigan engineer, confined for three years unjustly, a Manchester thief, and a miserable Irishman, one Patrick Blake, who, "Plase your honour and long life to your honour," expects to be hanged for a violent highway robbery. The magistrates come to stare at me, so I compel them, by standing and staring formally with my hat on, to be regularly introduced by the turnkey.'
Newgate must have been a less tolerable house of detention than Lancaster Castle, but on the other hand a brighter sunbeam visited the shady place. No trace remains to show at what period of his imprisonment Wakefield began to study the question of criminal reform, but it probably must have been as soon as he had become in any measure accustomed to his new and repulsive society. Colonial subjects, it is almost certain, did not occupy him until a later period of his incarceration. For a while a nearer and deeper interest absorbed him—his children. With him, on a superficial view, the intellectual and animal souls seemed incongruously mated. By so much as the former was crafty and aggressive, by so much was the latter affectionate and self-denying. Tender solicitude was no new thing with him. A letter of 1822 has escaped the wreck of his correspondence, encyclopædic in its directions for the weal of his little Nina, in whom he beheld the image of her mother, and to whom he felt himself father and mother too. 'Let her have a sufficiency of strong and thin shoes, and let some of the latter be of silk or jane, with sandal-like strings to tie crosswise round her ankles—teach the nurse how to tie them and how to put on and adjust all her clothes neatly and prettily. This may be done in half a dozen dressings and undressings, and they will be a good trial of my soul's patience, a virtue which she must practise against her will very often before it becomes habitual.' Then page 39follow directions about pomatum, calomel, knitting needles and similar matters, expressed with as minute care as if he were freighting a ship to found a colony. It may be imagined how one who could write thus while leading a life of amusement would feel when his child seemed all that was left to him.
Feb. 27, 1828.'My dear Grandmother,—
I received yesterday your kind letter with the inclosures for my children; and to-day arrived the books from Darton's. My boy, upon reading your letter, became very red, sprang towards me and exclaimed, "Why, great-grandmamma wants me to be a sloth, and I want to be a general or a prime minister or something of that kind!" So, you see, he is of an aspiring nature, considering that he is only seven years old. Nina, on the contrary, quite approved your peaceable sentiments, but then she is a little old woman in good sense; and, to speak quite seriously, she has the tenderest heart in the world. They will write to you immediately.
'My confinement is in some respects very advan tageous to them, as I have nothing to do but to attend to their education, which is proceeding to my heart's content. Their progress during the last six months surprises even me, who am bound to think my own children prodigies.
'Your list of Catherine's children is enough to brighten one; but I know you think a numerous page 40family a great advantage; that is, I believe, the only opinion of yours in which I cannot agree with you. What should I do, for instance, with six? Why, they must eat each other, for I could not keep them. But, to show you that I do not altogether disagree with you, I will add that I should like to have forty daughters with as many thousands a year to divide amongst them at my death, or their marriages. I know you would quote the bundle of sticks, but if all the sticks are rotten, that is, poor, what becomes of the argument?
'Both my children are learning to draw, and are as fond of it as I used to be when I scrawled upon everything in your Tottenham house. What a number of recollections that word brings to my mind! among which your incessant care and kindness hold the highest place. Mrs Fry came to see me the other day, and made me think of you and the old house, and that pond which you used to dread so much. You do not remember, I daresay, so I will tell you that she and her husband being on a visit to you, he gave me half a crown and told me to throw it into that same pond. I, being six years old, thought him a very honest man, and concluded that the money was bad, and that he wished it to be thrown away. Away I threw it, therefore, and came back from the pond, quite proud of my share in so honest an action. What I had done coming out, Mr Fry gave me another half-crown, which I kept. And at night, as if there could be no page 41good without evil in this world, I went to sleep chuckling over the idea that I had got five shillings out of my father's enemies, as from something I heard during the day I imagined our cousins Fry to be. What do you think of that for a recollection?
'I hope you heard of Torlesse's visit to me for the sole purpose of advising me to send my daughter abroad, upon which subject he didn't open his mouth. His silence did him honour; and I hope he was not blamed for the fruitlessness of his journey. If he were, it was unfairly, for had he talked till now he must still have gone back to report no progress. If anyone were to ask me for my teeth or half my limbs, I might perhaps part with them, but my daughter! What could have put it into their heads?
'I have never told you of what I am sure you will be glad to hear, that I have learned to regard my uncle1 with affection, to say nothing of gratitude. His disinterested, generous, and most friendly, I may say more than paternal, conduct in all my late troubles is far above my praise. I shall be grateful to him as long as I live, and afterwards, if we remember thispage 42world in the next. I never, I am sorry to say, gave him any cause to wish me well. Yet when I was in need he chose to become my friend; he risked much for himself, and nothing could check his generous ardour, not even the earnest persuasion of some who, whilst I flourished, thought they could never do enough for me. I rejoice to add that he has not suffered by his kindness to me. On the contrary, having lost nothing, he has gained the good opinion of many who before regarded him with indifference. This is a fact, whatever you may have heard to the contrary. I need not apologise for thus singing his praises to so partial an audience as yourself.1 The Daniel Wakefield already mentioned, who, after a course of pamphleteering and private secretaryships, became an eminent Chancery barrister and Q.C. He shared the sanguine, enterprising temper of his brother and nephew. He must have possessed one professional quality— assurance—if there be truth in an anecdote told by his nephew that, being pressed by Pitt to write a pamphlet: 'No,' he said, 'I can't write myself, but if you will sit down and write, I will dictate to you!' He died in 1846, in embarrassed circumstances,' says the Morning Post, 'owing to his benevolence, having often been known to refuse fees from needy clients.'
'You will please my children very much by writing to them. They are taught to be proud of a letter from you, and to look forward with pleasure to going to see you when I can take them. Of course you will see Arthur. He will give you a pleasing account of Sierra Leone.
'I am ashamed quite to fill this monstrous sheet, and therefore wish you good night.—Ever yours affectionately,
E. G. W.
An enormously long letter to his sister, Catherine Torlesse, commenced on 1st September 1828, begins with the most particular details of the health and disposition of his son, and continues:—
Tuesday Night.'I have been in a fever all day with the anxiety of page 43expecting and the joy of receiving dear Nina. She reached me at five, and has been with me till just now (nine). Edward and she met in tears, and were both speechless for some time. He, to my surprise, was pale and almost faint with emotion. I took no notice of them, and after a time Edward left us. She then talked at a great rate; but I observed that her spirits were artificial. At length, about seven o'clock, in the midst of an indifferent conversation, she burst into tears and threw herself into my arms, saying, or rather sobbing, "I didn't half take leave of aunt, we parted in such a hurry!" I consoled her as well as I could. She said that she very nearly cried at getting into the coach, but that, fearing the strangers, she conquered herself till she got to Nayland, where she put her face into the corner of the coach and cried heartily. She said that she liked Stoke much better than she expected, and that she loved aunt more than she expected, and that she could not believe in the pain she suffered in coming away. After that, every mention of you or your children set her off again, and I was obliged to cut the subject. But nothing would make her cheerful again, though she became calm enough to thank me for having her here alone this evening, in order to have her cry out in comfort. Were I an ass I should say you have stolen her heart; but I rejoice at the feelings of affection for you which have been renewed and strengthened by this visit; and I well know that she does not love me a bit the page 44less for loving you so much. In fact, I know her tears and sobs were caused by a double excitement, that of losing you and finding me. What a beautiful, yet what a dangerous character! I have sent her home with directions that she may go to bed immediately, and now I am Tom Fool enough to cry myself.'
Such excessive sensitiveness might well excite Wakefield's fear for his child, and justify the minute directions he gives his sister to communicate to the lady then in charge of Nina—themselves only a portion of an infinity of similar directions most touching in their thoughtful tenderness, but far too voluminous for our pages.
'I would mention' [in writing to Mrs A.], 'having been struck by Nina's great sensitiveness, which amounts almost to a disease, and say that it requires the utmost care and judgment in those who surround her, but more especially in Mrs A. and her father, from either of whom a word or a frown is as bad as a blow to most other children. That Nina's disposition is so affectionate, even to excess, as to cause her a great deal of pain, and that though for the world you would not destroy so beautiful an attribute, you think that her father (this has been the case) excites it too much, that you think all questions of feeling should be avoided, and that reason only should be employed in the management of her. That you are satisfied she is injured every time she feels strongly, either joyfully or sorrowfully; page 45that every tear she sheds, be the occasion glad or melancholy, is a mischief done; that occasions which excite in her tears of joy have just the same tendency to increase her too great sensibility as occasions which excite tears of sorrow. That in order to aid Mrs A.'s endeavours you wish to mention the subjects or points which most readily excite Nina's feelings. 1. Anything like a doubt of her affection for those whom she likes. 2. Any reproach which conveys a reflection on her truth or honour. 3. The belief that she has hurt the feelings of those whom she likes. 4. Seeing anyone whom she likes offended with her. 5. And most particularly, any lasting but silent (if you can otherwise express "sulky" without being offensive, do so) displeasure in her father or Mrs A., or indeed anyone to whom she is much attached.'
The letter concludes:—
page 46'I feel very, very much obliged to you for your great attention to Nina, more than I can well express. Her visit has been as a short time of sunshine coming in the midst of a dreary season. Your basket was very acceptable to some of the liquorish mouths that surround me, and as its contents were distributed in Nina's name, they have raised her in the esteem of some of her fellow-creatures. My cook, slut and butler, who is an Irishwoman, said on receiving some cake and fruit, "Sure she's a sweet cratur, sir, and it does my heart good to see her in this black place." There's an affecting mixture of bitter and sweet in that remark.'
Strange that he who could feel so exquisitely for his own daughter should have had so little regard for the daughter of another! Perhaps there are inconsistencies as startling in every heart.
Little could the public, when it chanced to think of Newgate, surmise what treasures of affection were hidden in one breast within its gloomy walls; nor is it likely that any voice from one end of the kingdom to the other was raised in Wakefield's favour. What, indeed, could be said? If any man had committed social felo de se, it seemed to be he. It would have appeared the wildest of prophecies had anyone told the crowds that watched him withdraw from the dock at Lancaster, or from before the bar of the House of Lords, that within eleven years the convicted offender would go forth as the confidential adviser of a British Proconsul, charged to reconcile a great disaffected dependency to the Empire; that in aiding to accomplish this end he would lay down principles which would all but extinguish colonial disaffection for the future; that his ideas would create one colony, and his daring action preserve another; that senators and statesmen would honour him as a superior, or contend with him as an equal; that almost his last exertions would be devoted to co-operation with philanthropists and ecclesiastics in the establishment of a model colony. There were, in fact, two Wakefields, one of whom was suddenly obliterated by a catastrophe which destroyed the careless man of fashion, ready out of page 47pure idleness and irrepressible spirits for any mischief, and left the powerful will and the unequalled gift of personal fascination concentrated on the intense purpose of rehabilitating the fallen man in the opinion of society. By itself, however, this would have taken Wakefield but a little way. The services to criminal reform which his longing to regain his place in society induced him to undertake might have atoned for his transgression, but he could not have ranked among the builders of Greater Britain if he had not been very much more than a practical philanthropist. To the surprise of all who had known him, he revealed himself as a man of ideas, not merely capable of conceiving them, but of surrendering himself to them with absolute devotion. From the moment that his colonial system occurred to him, he became its ardent votary on its own merits, and not merely as an instrument of social rehabilitation. How his convictions came to him the next chapter must describe, and the remainder will show how ideas became incarnate in colonies. The lesson of his career is the same that is to be derived from every human life that has risen above the common level, that so long as man's action is merely egoistic, he is a poor, and it may be a perverse creature; but give him an object transcending the sphere of his personal interests, and inspire him with devotion to follow it out, and the height to which he may rise will be only limited by the quality of his own powers. In Wakefield's page 48case these were of the highest order, and when the sharp lesson of adversity had once for all cured him of the pursuit of private ends by unlawful means, and decisively severed his connection with the frivolous, fashionable society which had so long kept him idle and useless, the hereditary but latent element in his character of a passion for public usefulness asserted itself, and he became an almost unparalleled instance of redemption from an apparently hopeless position in virtue of his devotion to a single illuminating idea— the regeneration of the British colonial system by the principles which came to be connected with his name. There was still not a little indirectness to lament, his powers were still frequently impaired by that adventurous and paradoxical bent of mind which alone could render such an escapade as the Turner affair possible—but in the main, after his ideas had once become matured in the salutary solitude of his prison, he is our best example of a type of heroism uncatalogued by Carlyle, the Hero as Colony Maker. No one can read his writings and correspondence intelligently without admitting that personal advantage, and even the recovery of his social standing, weighed far less with him than the realisation of the idea of which he had become enamoured, and for which he fought with the chivalry of Cœur de Lion, if with the weapons of Capel Court. It was this felicitous linking of his own fortunes to a great public cause in which he sincerely believed that, even more than his abilities, page 49lifted him from the well-nigh desperate plight in which this chapter leaves him to the position of influence and honour in which he will shortly be found. 'Hitch,' says Emerson, 'your waggon to a star.'
It is very extraordinary that the Turner escapade should have indirectly produced the regeneration of the British Museum, but such appears to have actually been the case. The Museum, at a low ebb of public usefulness in 1827, owes, as all know, its reform to Antonio Panizzi, who was introduced into it by the patronage of Lord Brougham in 1831. According to his biographer, Mr Fagan, Panizzi, who in 1827 resided in Liverpool, and had himself given Italian lessons to Ellen Turner, deserved Brougham's gratitude by the assistance he rendered him at the Wakefield trial, where Brougham would hardly have displayed 'the extraordinary knowledge of the principles and practice of the jurisprudence of different countries' with which the reporter credits him, if he had not had an Italian Doctor of Laws at his elbow. The obligation was handsomely requited; and it really seems that but for Miss Turner's abduction, both the British Museum and the British colonies would have wanted their providential man.