appeared again with Fletcher the lender, and a Mr. Corry, Lord Chesterfield's confidential solicitor. A private room was ordered up-stairs, to which they all removed.

Doctor Dodd was then asked if he could give reasonable security for the balance? He answered, "Very readily;" that he was willing to give any in the world. It was proposed that he should execute a warrant of attorney to confess judgment upon his goods and furniture, which, though already under a distress and execution, were valuable enough to meet this claim also. This document was drawn out on the spot-attested by Corry and Manley. Then the Doctor said he thought he could draw for a couple of hundred more on his banker. "If you can," said the solicitor, "it will be much better;" and this reduced the judgment and security to some four hundred pounds only. Things, therefore, were in a fair way of being adjusted. There was hope for the wretched Doctor. The thing would be accommodated. It was too late that night to set him free from the officers; but to-morrow that could be arranged. Meanwhile, an agitating, fluttering day was over.

All seemed to have behaved with great consideration in this unhappy affair, and to have tried to help off Doctor Dodd in every way they could; and he went to bed that night relieved by the assurance that no further steps would be taken against him. But what now seems to have been a wretched fatality at this precise juncture, destroyed him.

CHAPTER THE SEVENTH.

66

COMMITTED TO THE COMPTER."

THE next morning was Saturday morning. Lord Chesterfield came down to Mr. Fletcher, at the banking-house of Sir Charles Raymond; and a message was sent over to the lord mayor, then sitting, to know when he would be willing to receive them. The answer brought back was, that the prisoner was then actually before him. They hurried over. But the lord mayor had insisted on going into the case. Indeed, all parties seem to have been under some strange misapprehensions about the powers of magistrates and prosecutors, and to have forgotten that compounding a felony is a serious offence against British law. Once the process of law has been put in motion, it is almost impossible, or requires infinite skill and something like collusion in the authorities, to check it.

The name of this lord mayor was Halifax. It was said afterwards, that he had acted with violence -certainly with haste; and the excuse made for him was the natural impetuosity of his temper. If

*Letter to Fletcher and Peach.

*

he had, indeed, hurried on the matter, and dealt too harshly with Dodd, there would be some excuse for Lord Chesterfield. But in the heat of public excitement these charges were shifted on to every party in the affair in turn, and it was the sheerest ignorance and absurdity to expect that the chief magistrate of a great city could compound a charge of this nature in open court, especially in the case of so public and well-known a character as Doctor Dodd.

The charge was entered on; both Mr. Manley and Lord Chesterfield had to give their evidence; and both were bound over to prosecute. This must have come like a thunderbolt on the wretched prisoner, who had considered his escape all but secure; and he made an agitated, incoherent protest to the magis

trate.

I

"I cannot tell what to say in such a situation; I had no intention to defraud Lord Chesterfield. hope his lordship will consider my case. . . . I meant it as a temporary resource. I have made satisfaction, and I hope it will be considered. I was pressed exceedingly for some three hundred pounds to pay some bills due to tradesmen. I should have repaid it in half a year. My Lord Chesterfield cannot but have some tenderness for me, as my pupil. I love him." (Here his tears interrupted him.) "He knows I revere his honour as dear as my honour. I hope he will accord to me that mercy that is in his heart, and show clemency to me. There is nobody wishes to prosecute. Pray, my lord mayor, consider this, and, discharge me."

There is something wild and very piteous in this

appeal. It could bring no fruit, as Mr. Manley could have told him. His friends were powerless-mere instruments in the hands of the law.

Robertson, who was a young man, and who, it was said, behaved with the consciousness of innocence, then called out: "I hope, Doctor, you will do me the justice to declare publicly that I am nowise guilty." The prisoner answered, "I do! I do! I do!"

Fletcher, the defrauded banker, it was noticed, now showed no eagerness to prosecute, having got back nearly all his money. But though Manley insisted strongly that Lord Chesterfield should be the prosecutor, the lord mayor eventually bound over Fletcher and Peach-as indeed was only legal and proper-in a penalty of five hundred pounds. Thus the distressing scene ended. The Doctor was led away to Wood-street Compter on foot, which gave the mob an opportunity of jeering at him, and of adding to his miseries. No wonder that when he reached his prison the wretched Doctor fainted away several times. And on that Saturday morning, the well-known Doctor Dodd, the fashionable preacher, was committed to take his trial. All London read it in their evening paper, and there was no sermon in Bedford-street that night.

The conduct of Lord Chesterfield all through this transaction seems, at first sight, to bear out the popular prejudice associated with his name. When it is considered that no practical injury was done to him beyond the freedom taken with his name, and when, besides, a question arose as to taking Lord Chesterfield's testimony on his oath or on "his honour," he almost in

sisted on being sworn, to avoid all fear of irregularity -putting these things together with the sort of promise given the night before, the pupil's behaviour might seem harsh and cruel. The odious celebrity which he for long after enjoyed of "having hung a parson," was thought to have some just foundation. The reasonable explanation seems to be, that he was young, and in the hands of legal advisers who thought impunity for so enormous a sum would be a dangerous precedent, and encourage others to victimise a young nobleman. Perhaps, too, he really resented the effrontery of the deed, and the scandal of the transaction; or perhaps—which may be the true reason he had no real feeling towards his old tutor, and their friendship only bore the rotten fruit which all convivial friendships are sure to bear.

The fact is, his share in the matter was purely negative. His influence might have done something, and this he did not exert. Manley, Fletcher's solicitor, was the active mover in the business from beginning to end, even to the illegal procuring an order to bring up witnesses at Hicks's Hall. It was said at the time that the money-lenders were furious at having lost a bargain that was almost usurious in its character, being "three times the interest allowed by law," and that there was a suspicious eagerness about the transaction.* Lord Chesterfield's known wealth and position should have told them that he was "likely to be his own banker," and unlikely to employ his tutor to raise money for him. Further, to make the transaction more profitable, the bills were not payable

*Letter to Fletcher and Peach.