Star. — 1811-12-10 (London, England)

ATTORNEY-GENERAL sta.edi that this Ras an action for criminal conversation with the plaintiff's wife; and he should be unworthy of the situation which he held, if he were to tell the Jury that thi, wag an aggravated case of that offence. There were, in fact, many mitigatory features in it; and the Learned Counsel should net deal justice to the defendant, if he did not allow, that the letters which he should pre • • sently lay before the Jury did not she', that since the commission of the injut y for which the plaintiff sought reparation, he had .tcted with great propriety. Wlttn he allowed thus much to the: defendant, still, he was  bound to do the fullest justice to his client ; and to say, that if the defendant had not aggravated the injury, neither had the• plaintiff's condurt to h's wife ey.er furnished either her or the dellndant with the  excuse fit committing that injury which was sometimes set up, and allowed its due weight, in actions  . _ of this nature.  The history of the prestnt case was  shortly this : The plaintiff was a Gentleman of competent fortune, and was in January, 1800, married to a Lady whom he tenderly loved, and whose affections he flatteted himself he reciprocally possessed. His cottage was situated at Burnham, in Buckinghamshire ; but since his marriage, he had entered into a regiment of militia ; and was at the pet iod at which this case took him up quartered at Plymouth. From hence his wife had occasion to pay a visit to her mother at Cheltenham; and the plaintiff accompanied her as far as Exeter on her way thither. At Cheltenham she met with the defendant ; this was in the year 1810 ; and when she returned to her husband, she plainly told him that he was no longer agreeable to her, and that her affections were completely estranged from him to another, naming the defendant, with whom she said she had had that connection which determined her no longer to sleep in the same bed with her husband. The plaintiff was thunciet struck with this intelligence, which he treated as a dream, the reality of whiCh he could n,,t bring himself, to htlieve. An opportuhity offered, however, one day of examining the contents of his wi'e's writing-box ; and there he found letters of the defendant, which totally deprived hint of the laid doubts which he had entertained of the truth of his wife's n.trrative. These lt•tters, however, although damning proofs to him, were all that he could adduce to the Jut v as lezai evidence of the adultery ; but the Attorney-General was atf,,:d the Jury would consider them as too strong tt. leave even upon Their minds a doubt of the fact which the plaintiff was compelled by this process of the law t ;day to establsh. [The letters, to the number of seven, were read :.the earliest were addressed, " My dear Caroline," and talked of the" connection" which had taken place between the parties. One appeared to he an answer to a proposal of elopement on the part of Mrs. Mortimer, and of living with him. It said that the defersdint, mistrustful of h.& knowletle,e of the world (he then I, big not of age) bad taken the advice of a sincere friend upon the subject ; and the following was the result of his consultation with that nd, who was the only pers: nto whom he had revealed his connection wl-h a lady in h. r rank of lite, and to whom he had not divulged her name I suffer her to ;iv., v. th me ? A. Undoubtedly not. Q. But I have promised Ist'. she shall. A. '1 hat is no matter : your own character, your situation in life, the feerngs of a mother, brird it. You will destroy her happiness if you do. Q. But I 5h..11 destroy Mrs. Monimer's ' happiness, if I do mfr. A. Not a bit of it : the lust of the moment may make her think so; Ina el:pend upon it, a very few years will convince her that to prosecute a sits is not the road to reI pentance. You have broken a positive commandment; and a ! perseverance in the crime would only drag damnation upon both her head and your's. Think not so Irglily of a promise to do wrong, made in an unguarded moment?' The defendant wrote to Mrs. Mortimer, that he-had committed this advice to paper the moment his friend left the room; havirnt before d-terniiited 'toabde by It, let it be what it might. It see med that the lady had, in answer to this le:ter, threatened violence upon herself ; for the defendant's next epistle to her was a long dissuasion apinst suicide. 'the other letters were less important : they blamed Mrs. Mortimer for her indiscreet disclosure of the connec'ion between her and the defendant to the plairriff; and one or two of them talked of intended, and alluded to ettec:ed, meetings in the neighbourhood of the plaint.ff's residence.] The ATTORNEYGENERAL concluded, that the defendant had, very much to his credit, taken the advice of this judicious friend, and had not added pro' tection to adultery. He had no doubt but the Jury, except in the actual injury, for which the plaintiff was entitled to a positive recompence, would think that the defendant was a man much more to b • pitied than blamed.  MAST v. f?^BI.EI