EVANS v. this sort of way, is extremely dangerous for the Court to the individual, who is exposed to an 2d July 1790. enquiry of this kind, it is dangerous in the extreme to place a man in this sort of legal pillory, where all who choose may pelt at him, is exposing an individual to the injustice of mankind, in such a way, as I am sure the justice of Courts cannot relieve him from. What I have to say upon this part of the case, therefore, will be extremely short, because it is merely a digression for the satisfaction of the parties; it is no foundation, no principle, no part of that legal proof, upon which I shall determine this case. And I must here take the opportunity of saying, that if the truth of this charge rested upon matter of character alone, it would determine me very favourably in behalf of Mr. Evans. Here are the attestations of a great number of persons-gentlemen extremely respectable in their own characters and situations; connected with him by early and familiar acquaintance; by habits of a long intercourse; by habits of business. But all this, it is said, is the partiality of friends. What, is it nothing in a man's favour to have friends? Can a man say any thing that bears more strongly in his favour, than that he has friends? partial friends? friends who have become so, and can have become so, from the opinion only of his good deservings? They are persons, many of them, who have lived with him in a distant country, where countrymen collect together in close and intimate connection; where they form, as one of the witnesses describes it, one community: some of them, two of them in particular, have lived with him in the same family; in the family of Mr. Hastings: they have been connected with him in the conduct of business, EVANS V. EVANS. where his temper was daily seen and daily tried; 28 July 1790. for business, as we all know, is very apt to expose the real dispositions of men: it is a tyrannical master; and if a man can go through the difficulties, which even the smoothest course of business will throw in his way, with an unruffled temper, it is no mean argument of a tractable disposition. All this, it is said, may be very true; but it has happened in other cases, that a man has worn a mask to the public, and pulled it off to his family. Undoubtedly there may have been such cases; cases of moral prodigies; cases of disgraceful exception to the ordinary course of nature; but the general presumption at least is strong the other way. If a man shews upon all occasions an obliging disposition in his general intercourse with the world, the presumption certainly is, that he carries that disposition with him into the private recesses of his life. If he is a good friend, the probability is, that he is a good husband, which is a friend only of a nearer and dearer nature. It is to be added too, that in this case almost all the witnesses speak to this very specific part of Mr. Evans's character, even the witnesses who are examined on the part of Mrs. Evans. There are particularly Mr. Wood, Dr. Curry, Tomlings, with the exception of one fact, Mr. Paumier, Mr. Griffiths, Mr. Boehm, Mrs. Webber, with the exception of one fact likewise, all these witnesses, who are examined on the part of Mrs. Evans, bear an honourable testimony to his general and visible conduct. Well, but it is said, there are witnesses who depose in a contrary manner, and you cannot recon EVANS U cile these two sets of witnesses together, but upon the supposition that what is said by the first set of 2d July 1790. witnesses is the effect of mere hypocritical assumption. Now the other witnesses, who depose unfavorably, with the exception of Mrs. Hartle, and a young French woman, Madame Bobillier, whom I shall speak of by and by, are Mr. and Mrs. Thackeray, and Mr. Moore. Mrs. Moore has not been examined in this cause, and the reason given for that has been, that she being the sister of the party, might be a witness whom the Court would hear with a great deal of jealousy and suspicion. Most assuredly the same circumstances of jealousy hang upon the characters of every one of these witnesses they are all persons nearly allied; are subject of course to prejudice: I don't say to a dishonest or dishonorable prejudice, but from that circumstance they are subject to prejudice. There is another observation that strikes me, and that is this, that all these witnesses, with the single exception of Mr. Moore, found their opinions upon the very facts controverted in the cause. Mr. Thackeray, who has given a very candid testimony in the cause, and on whom I shall very much rely in the determination of it, says expressly, "that till some time after Mr. Evans's return to England he had always a good opinion of him," and he expressly founds his present opinion upon the facts that are now in issue between the parties. Then, only consider what is done in this case. In the first place, the witnesses extract their opinions from these particular facts, and then it is expected that the Court shall take those opinions. and apply them to the establishment of the very facts in question. To be sure, if there is such a EVANS V. EVANS. thing as circularity in argument, this is that; and grosser injustice than that could not be committed. Mr. Moore, indeed, stands upon a very different 2d July 1790. footing, he goes back to a remoter opinion; his opinion does not arise out of the facts in issue; he refers to a much earlier period of time. Now there are one or two observations, which strike me pretty forcibly upon the testimony of Mr. Moore. Mr. Moore is a man of sense; he knows, I dare say, extremely well, that caution and that sobriety of mind, which belongs to a witness deposing in a Court of Justice to the character of another individual. And I am very sure he does not come here to amuse himself or the Court with drawing highly-finished pictures. I am therefore to suppose, as I do, that Mr. Moore is not only perfectly sincere, but that he rather falls short than exag gerates the impression upon his mind, in the character which he gives of this gentleman; That character is, "That he became intimately "acquainted with Mr. Evans, and was a good "deal in his company, and saw much of him, "prior to his marriage; that after his marriage "until the month of April 1780, their families "visited; but from the said month until the arrival " of Mr. Evans in England, he had little or no inter"course with him; but that upon his said arrival, "and for some time afterwards, he the deponent "often saw and was a good deal in his company; "and has at different periods prior to his marriage, "when he was likely to become allied to the deponent's family, and until Mrs. Evans was obliged "to quit his house, given a watching and scrutinizing eye over his conduct and disposition, and is there"by enabled to say that he knows him to be a man of 66 66 "wicked EVANS V. 2d July 1790. 66 wicked, profligate, and abandoned principles, and of a morose, tyrannical, cruel, and savage disposition, "void of common humanity, vindictive, full of animosity and revenge, of a turbulent and intolerable temper, avaricious and mean to excess, a great "dissembler and hypocrite, filthy in his ideas, and 66 delighting in the dirty expression of them; and so "much given to deceit, scandal, and falsehood, that, from a very early period after his aforesaid marriage, it was a rule in the deponent's family never "to believe what he said; and that he, the deponent, "has often heard him scoff at the religion of the "church to which he was brought up or professed; "that he has often heard him pride himself on his 66 apathy and callousness, and knows him to be of "callous feelings; and that he had the character of "a morose, tyrannical, cruel master amongst his "native servants in India." And he concludes by pronouncing him, in another passage of his deposition, a person unfit for admission into society. Now taking this character into consideration, I think there are circumstances in the conduct of Mr. Moore which are a little extraordinary. This young lady went over to India into the family and under the protection of Mr. Moore; Mr. Moore was acting by her with the substituted authority of a parent; he was perfectly acquainted with the detestable character of this gentleman; it is a courtship which goes on for many months, as is proved by Mr. Moore himself, and yet it does happen that this poor young creature is suffered to fall into the hands of this monster. The marriage is graced by the presence of Mr. Moore, by the presence of some of the most respectable persons then resident in the country, 8 |