Patrick O`Brian: THE REVERSE OF THE MEDAL

'The Stock Exchange fraud? Why, it's all over -was over yesterday. They come up for sentence early next week, and won't they cop it? Oh no, not at all.'

Stephen did not know the City at all well; there were no hackney-coaches to be had, and as he hurried through the hurrying crowds in what he hoped was the direction of the Temple he seemed to pass the same church again and again. He also came to the gates of Bedlam twice. Presently his rapid walking took on the quality of a nightmare, but the fourth time he reached Love Lane - it was Love Lane that foxed him every time - he chanced upon an unemployed ticket-porter who led him to the river. Here he took a pair of oars, and the tide being in his favour the waterman brought him to the Temple stairs in less time than he had taken to reach Bedlam from Guildhall. At Lawrence 's chambers Stephen learnt that he was sick, confined to his bed, but that he had left word for Dr Maturin. The transcript of the trial was being written fair and would be ready tomorrow, but if Dr Maturin did not mind the risk of infection, Mr Lawrence would be happy to see him at home, in King's Bench Row.

'Conscientiously willing' would perhaps have been a more accurate expression, for as Lawrence heaved himself up in bed and pulled off his nightcap he looked perfectly wretched. His streaming eyes and nose, his obvious headache, his rasping throat, and his high degree of fever had a great deal to do with this, but he was also wretched as a lawyer and as a man.

'You heard the result, of course?' he said. 'Aubrey and all the defendants found guilty. You will have the whole transcript tomorrow, so I shall only give you the main heads now.' He broke into a fit of coughing, said 'As far as I can recall them,' and began wheezing, gasping and sneezing again. 'Forgive me, Maturin, I am in a sad way - wits all far to seek. Pray pass me that stuff on the bob.' When he had drunk some he said 'Do you remember I told you to bring Aubrey's ideas of the law, or rather of the administration of justice, down to a less exalted pitch? Well, if you had spoken with the tongues of men and of angels you could not have done better than Quinborough and Pearce. It was butchery, Maturin, butchery. Long-drawn-out, cold, deliberate butchery. I have seen some pretty ugly political trials, but none to touch this; I had no idea that Government thought General Aubrey and his Radical friends so important or that they would go to such lengths to attack them, such lengths to obtain a conviction.' Lawrence went into another paroxysm, drank another draught, and clasping his head with both hands he begged Stephen's pardon. 'This will be a miserably disjointed account, I am afraid. As I told you, Pearce was for the prosecution - would-be handsome young fellow, smirking at the judge - very able speech nevertheless, I must admit, blackguarding all the defendants. It was easy enough for him to make the stock-jobbers sound a pack of knaves and he fairly tore them to pieces: but you will see all that in the report. Aubrey is what matters to us. Pearce set about him in a way I had not expected, though perhaps I should have expected it if I had not been so dull-witted that day and if I had looked at the jury more attentively. Merchants, all of them, or money-men, and as heavy and commercial a set as you could wish; and it was the jurymen Pearce was addressing - he did not have to trouble about convincing the judge. Pearce had no lessons in patriotism to take from anyone and no man had a more sincere regard for the Navy than he: Captain Aubrey was a distinguished sailor - Pearce had not the least intention of denying it - Pearce was really sorry that his duty required him to prosecute such a man - should far rather see him on the poop of a frigate than in his present unhappy situation. But this distinguished career, this reasonably distinguished career, was not without its interruptions: there was the loss of no less than three ships of an aggregate value of I forget how many thousands, and several unfortunate courts-martial. Furthermore, although Pearce must not be understood as attempting to lessen these services in any way it must be pointed out that they were not entirely voluntary: Captain Aubrey had been paid for performing them, not only with very large sums of money, free quarters and free servants, but with splendid decorations, medals and ribbons. Oh Lord, Lord: pray give me those handkerchiefs.' He wheezed and wheezed and held dry cambric to his raw sore nose, and after a while he recovered breath and spirits enough to go on 'What I say now is not in due order: it is merely the gist of what he conveyed to the jury either by statement or evidence of cross-examination or reply. I protested at many of the statements and much of the wholly inadmissible evidence and sometimes even Quinborough was obliged to support me, but of course the harm was done - the impression was conveyed to the jurymen, whether it was unsupported statement, hearsay or improper inference, and it was no good telling those fellows to dismiss it from their minds. I resume. Pearce did not have to tell the gentlemen of the jury that physical courage, the natural endowment of every Briton, was a splendid virtue; it was one of the things that raised Britons so far above all other nations; but it did not necessarily bring every other virtue in its train. The gentlemen of the jury might think there was, to say the least, a want of delicacy, even of integrity, in a captain who received a Negro as an honoured guest in His Majesty's ship, the Negro being not only the fruit of the captain's criminal conversation with a black woman, but a Papistical clergyman into the bargain, and therefore totally opposed to His Majesty's supremacy. But of course Captain Aubrey might share his Radical connexions' views on Popery; he too might be all in favour of Catholic emancipation. Then there was the most distasteful question of sailing under false colours. It would be proved by extracts from his own log-books and by other evidence that Captain Aubrey had repeatedly sailed under false colours, and any attempt by the defence to deny it was doomed to ignominious failure. Pearce had nothing to say about false colours in war, except that to plain men, to straightforward city merchants, false colours had an ugly sound - the immortal Nelson did not bear down on the enemy at Trafalgar under false colours, he believed. But was there not a danger that this habit of sailing under false colours - and Captain Aubrey must have ordered them to be hoisted scores or even hundreds of times - might spread to civilian life? That was the only reason that Pearce most reluctantly mentioned the subject. Was not this alleged Mr Palmer a mere extension of the same stratagem? Captain Aubrey had amassed a considerable fortune in prize-money, largely by tricks or rather stratagems of this kind; he had made some very hazardous speculations and cases now depending might sweep that fortune away entirely, together with everything he possessed. He is in the most urgent need of a large sum of money - he lands from the cartel at Dover - he shares a chaise with some unknown gentleman - and there are his false colours ready to hand! This so-called Mr Palmer is said to have deceived him - the whole fault lies upon poor Mr Palmer. But really, gentlemen, it will not do. The burden cannot be shifted on to the shoulders of a non-existent Mr Palmer: I call him non-existent, gentlemen, because it is a maxim of the law that de non apparentibus et non existentibus eadem est ratio. He is a figment of the conspirators' imagination, founded upon the innocent anonymous gentleman who happened to offer the Captain a seat in his carriage. The innocent anonymous gentleman can be shown to have had an existence, and my learned friends will most zealously call half a dozen ostlers and chambermaids to prove it, but there is not a scrap of evidence to connect him with the mythical Palmer or with this most disgraceful and dangerous conspiracy.'