The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 361, Supplementary Issue (1829)

This was my first revenge. But was I satisfied? No!

It was only a few months afterwards, that chance threw in my way a daughter of my uncle's. I met her at the house of a common friend, who knew and deplored the unhappy schism which prevailed between the two brothers. He was equally attached to both, and I believe pleased himself with the idea, that an occasional intercourse between the younger branches of the families, might, some day or other, bring about a reconciliation between the heads. My cousin Harriet was a year older than myself. She was in her nineteenth, I in my eighteenth year. I loved her. Yes; the first feeling that glowed within my bosom was that of love. She was beautiful—fascinating—accomplished—amiable—and I loved her. It was not long before I was satisfied. I had kindled a reciprocal passion in her breast. The mute eloquence of her look and manner was only the harbinger of that same thrilling eloquence, which fell from her tongue when I won the declaration of her affection.

Her father knew we met at this friend's house; but whether he was told, or whether he penetrated, the secret of our attachment, I never learned. I only know, that, at the very moment when separation was madness, his mandate went forth, prohibiting all farther intercourse between us, and that it was obeyed. Not by me; for I was incapable of submission: but by my gentle Harriet, who thought herself incapable of disobeying. We met no more where we had been wont to meet; and my young heart's spring of happiness seemed for ever withered.

But here again, I began to reflect, my path was crossed—my hopes were blighted—by my uncle. I heard, too, that his tongue had been free with my name; that the blistering censure of his austere virtue had fallen upon my actions. I writhed under the contumely. My wounded spirit was insatiate for vengeance. I meditated, deeply, how I could inflict it, so as to strike the blow where he was most vulnerable. I did not brood long over my dark purpose. The love I still bore his daughter, was now mingled with the hatred I bore towards himself; and I exulted in the thought, that I should perhaps be able to gratify, at one and the same moment, two of the fiercest passions of my nature—lust and revenge!

I SUCCEEDED!

In these two words let me shroud a tale of horror. Harriet was my victim! Ask not how. I triumphed! She fell! An angel might have fallen as she did, and lost no purity. But her stainless heart was too proud in virtue to palter and equivocate with circumstances. She never rose from what she deemed her bridal bed. And ere twenty summers had fanned her cheek, the grave-worm banqueted upon its loveliness.

This was my first crime. The recollection of it is engraven upon my memory by an awful catastrophe. The night wind that sung her funeral dirge, howled with dismal fury through the burning ruins of my paternal mansion. Yes! that very night, as if it were in mercy to them, my father and my mother both perished in the flames which reduced the house itself to cinders. They were seen at the windows of their bedchamber, shrieking for aid; but before any could be procured, the flooring gave way, and they sunk at once into the yawning furnace that roared beneath. Their remains, when afterwards dug out, were a few shovelsfull of blackened ashes; except my father's right hand, which was found clasped in that of my mother, and both unconsumed. I followed these sad relics to the sepulchre. But with the tears I shed, there was blended a feeble consolation at the thought they had died before they knew the fate of Harriet; and a frightful joy, that another pang was added to the wretchedness of my uncle.

I can well remember what a feeling of loneliness and desolation now took possession of me. Time, however, rolled on; and I grew callous, if not reconciled. I could not disguise from myself that the more select circles of society were closed against me; or, if I found my way into them, some blushing whisper was quickly circulated, which created a solitude around me.

It was during this period, and while I was squandering thousands to achieve the conquest of shadows, that I succeeded in fixing an intimacy with a family equal to my own in station, and superior to it in fortune. The eldest daughter was an heiress of large expectations, and my proposals of marriage were favourably received. I might almost say that Matilda was mine; when one day I received a letter from her father, peremptorily forbidding my visits. I was thunderstruck. I hastened to the house, and demanded an explanation. It was given in few words. I was referred to my uncle for any information I required.

This blow struck me down. I had run through my patrimonial estate; but hoped, by my marriage with Matilda, to repair my shattered fortune. Three weeks after it was known that the match was broken off, I was a prisoner for debt in the King's Bench! I breathed no curses upon the cause of this sudden reverse of fortune, but—I swore revenge, in silence; and I kept my oath. I languished away six months, a captive debtor; and then, taking the benefit of the act, I walked forth a beggar, to prey upon the world at large! I had studied, during that time, in an admirable school, where I found professors in every art by which fools are gulled, and knaves foiled with their own weapons. I was an apt scholar, and returned to the bosom of society, an adept in the science of polished depredation. Translate this into the language of the Old Bailey, and I became a swindler by profession. Like the eagle, however, I was a bird of prey that soared into the highest regions, and rarely stooped to strike the meaner tribes of my species. I had not lost, with the trappings of my birth, the manners and address of the sphere in which I had moved; and these were now my stock in trade for carrying on my new vocation.

Among the children of misfortune with whom I associated in prison, was Charles Fitzroy; a bankrupt in every thing but exhaustless invention, and unconquerable perseverance. Give him the free use of his limbs, and with matchless dexterity he would make the contributions of the morning furnish out the riotous expenses of the evening. It was his boast, that he would breakfast with an empty pocket, and dine with a purse that should defray the carouse of a dozen friends. And I have known him fulfil his boast, with a heart as light, too, as became a man who thus made the credulous fools of the world his bankers.

I was needy, desperate, and an outcast; and I linked my destiny with Fitzroy's. He had my confidence; such confidence as confederates in knavery can bestow. When he obtained his liberty, which he did shortly after my own was accomplished, he introduced me to his companions; men who, like himself, lived by plundering the unwary, and who looked up to him as their Magnus Apollo. I was soon initiated in all their mysteries; and played my part to admiration at the gaming-table, on the race course, and in the ring.

Fitzroy was master of the secret that festered near my heart; the increased and increasing hatred towards my uncle. I regarded him as my evil genius; for not only had he thwarted me in two of the dearest objects of my life; but his prediction of my boyhood had clung to me like a poisoned garment. I could not shake it off; and now, more than ever, it seemed accomplishing itself with rapid strides. It made me mad when I reflected upon the polluted channels through which my precarious means flowed, and thought of the luxurious enjoyments which his opulence commanded. It was true, I had dashed his cup with bitterness; but it was no less true, that it still flowed with sweets, while mine was brimming with gall. Fitzroy would often talk to me upon this subject, and devise schemes for a successful inroad upon his purse. At length a plan was matured between us, in which I could not appear, but which Fitzroy, and a picked few of our associates, undertook to execute.

My uncle had always been passionately fond of the course, and prided himself upon his stud of racers. He betted largely, and was generally fortunate, probably because he selected his men with a wary eye. The race course, then, was the arena chosen for the enterprise; but admirable as were the projected plans, and skilfully as they were executed, such was his luck, or so profound were his calculations, that they failed five successive seasons. Fitzroy, however, was one of those men who, when satisfied that what they engage in ought to succeed, according to the means employed, only derive fresh vigour from every fresh defeat. He played his game a sixth time, and won. The same day that saw my uncle rise with thousands, saw him seek his pillow at night, a frantic beggar! He was too proud a man, too honourable, I will add, not to throw down his last guinea, in satisfaction of such demands. He never suspected villany in the business. He paid his losses, therefore; and in less than a week afterwards, an inquest sat upon his body, which was found at the bottom of his own fish pond.

I had my share of this infernal plunder; but so ravenous had been my appetite for revenge, that not one pang of remorse disturbed the riotous enjoyments in which it was lavished. On the contrary, the very consciousness that it was my uncle's money I squandered, gave a zest to every excess, and seemed to appease the gnawing passions which had so long tormented me. In two or three years, however, boundless extravagance, and the gaming-table, stripped me of my last shilling. It was in one of the frenzied moments of this profligate reverse of fortune, that I committed the crime for which, if to-morrow dawned upon me, I should be publicly arraigned.

Fitzroy had been fortunate the whole night. I had thrown with constant bad luck. He had pocketed some hundreds; I had lost more than I could pay. I asked him for a temporary loan of fifty pounds, to make good what I owed, and stake the small remaining sum for the chance of retrieving all. He refused me. It was the first time he had ever done so. But he not only refused me, he taunted me with sarcastic reproofs for my folly, and muttered something about the uselessness of assisting a man who, if he had thousands, would scatter them like dust. He should have chosen a fitter moment to exhort me, than when I was galled by my losses, and by his denial of my request. I was heated with wine too; and half mad with despair, half mad with drink, I sprang upon him, tore him to the earth, and before the by-standers could interfere to separate us, I had buried a knife, which I snatched from a table near me, up to the handle in his heart! He screamed—convulsively grappled me by the throat–and expired! His death-gripe was so fierce and powerful, that I believe had we been alone, his murderer would have been found strangled by his side. It was with difficulty that the horror-struck witnesses of this bloody scene could force open his clenched hands time enough to let me breathe.

I have done! I remember, as if it were but yesterday, the silent response which my heart made, when my uncle pronounced that withering sentence on me. "No!" was my indignant exclamation; "I may deserve a hundred public deaths; but if I know myself, I would never undergo one!—NOR WILL I." When that which I have written shall be read—other hopes and fears—other punishments, perchance, than man can awaken or inflict—will await me. My first crime—my first revenge, and my last, I have recorded; my last crime others must tell, when they speak of the murderer and SUICIDE,

JAMES MORLEY.

There is little doubt that scarcely a moment intervened between his writing his name, and placing the pistol to his heart; for when he was discovered, the pen was lying on the paper, as if it had been laid down only for an instant.