But,
somehow, my counsel thought differently; and cross-examined, and bullied,
and tormented, and misstated--as he was bound to do; and so one witness
after another, clumsy and cowardly enough already, was driven by his
engines of torture, as if by a pitiless spell, to deny half that he had
deposed truly, and confess a great deal that was utterly false--till
confusion became worse confounded, and there seemed no truth anywhere,
and no falsehood either, and "naught was everything, and everything was
naught;" till I began to have doubts whether the riot had ever occurred
at all--and, indeed, doubts of my own identity also, when I had heard the
counsel for the crown impute to me personally, as in duty bound, every
seditious atrocity which, had been committed either in England or France
since 1793. To him, certainly, I did listen tolerably; it was "as good as a
play." Atheism, blasphemy, vitriol-throwing, and community of women, were
among my lighter offences--for had I not actually been engaged in a plot
for the destruction of property? How did the court know that I had not
spent the night before the riot, as "the doctor" and his friends did before
the riots of 1839, in drawing lots for the estates of the surrounding
gentlemen, with my deluded dupes and victims?--for of course I, and not
want of work, had deluded them into rioting; at least, they never would
have known that they were starving, if I had not stirred up their evil
passions by daring to inform them of that otherwise impalpable fact.
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