Note 28 — Chapter IV

“From his childhood upward,” says his brother, “no man was gentler of heart—his charity was inexhaustible; his kindliness to all who were in distress well known. To him the wanderer resorted in his afflictions; by him the poor and houseless were fed and comforted. I write in the face of the public, with my character as a gentleman and a clergyman at stake, and I avow only facts that cannot be denied. His liberality was a proverb; his frank sincerity, his courage, his faithful loyalty to his friends, his temperance, his performance of the duties of religion, his social relations in the character of father, husband, and son, won for him the love and confidence of all who approached him; and though it is true that in one fatal instance he violated the laws of his country, and subjected himself to a severe penalty for an infringement of its commercial code, yet, this excepted, his was in all respects the very opposite of that cool, calculating, cowardly, crafty temper, which is essential to the poisoner, and we know cannot co-exist with those qualities which my brother possessed from his earliest years down even to the day when your lordship sent him to his death.” Letter to Lord Campbell, pp. 4, 5.