she was about to bring into the world. She had not announced to her friends that
she had been seduced from the path of honour - and why had she not done so? -
Because she expected daily to be restored to character, by her seducer doing her
that justice which she knew to be in his power, and believed to be in his
inclination. Was it natural - was it reasonable - was it fair, to expect that
she should in the interim, become felo de se of her own character, and proclaim
her frailty to the world, when she had every reason to expect, that, by
concealing it for a season, it might be veiled for ever? Was it not, on the
contrary, pardonable, that, in such an emergency, a young woman, in such a
situation, should be found far from disposed to make a confidant of every prying
gossip, who, with sharp eyes, and eager ears, pressed upon her for an
explanation of suspicious circumstances, which females in the lower - he might
say which females of all ranks, are so alert in noticing, that they sometimes
discover them where they do not exist? Was it strange or was it criminal, that
she should have repelled their inquisitive impertinence with petulant denials?
The sense and feeling of all who heard him would answer directly in the
negative. But although his client had thus remained silent towards those to whom
she was not called upon to communicate her situation, - to whom,« said the
learned gentleman, »I will add, it would have been unadvised and improper in her
to have done so; yet, I trust, I shall remove this case most triumphantly from
under the statute, and obtain the unfortunate young woman an honourable
dismission from your Lordships' bar, by showing that she did, in due time and
place, and to a person most fit for such confidence, mention the calamitous
circumstances in which she found herself. This occurred after Robertson's
conviction, and when he was lying in prison in expectation of the fate which his
comrade Wilson afterwards suffered, and from which he himself so strangely
escaped. It was then, when all hopes of having her honour repaired by wedlock
vanished from her eyes, - when an union with one in Robertson's situation, if
still practicable, might, perhaps, have been regarded rather as an addition to
her disgrace, - it was then, that I trust to be able to prove that the prisoner
communicated and consulted with her sister, a young woman several years older
than herself, the daughter of her father,