LOVEDEN V. LOVEDEN. letter itself which does show how it comes to be there with that particular date affixed to it. The other is sealed up intelligence to explain to 13th July 1810. him what it is essential for him to know. To be sure that is a letter which speaks for itself, without reference to any external transactions. It is a letter which from public decency was not permitted to be read in this Court; but I feel that my public duty calls upon me to state so much as this-that it does contain an account of the times in which the periodical indisposition of the sex visits her, and when she says she must avoid intercourse : she promises to mark the period in future, so that he may always compute it without difficulty; and she desires him to consider this communication as most indulgent, as she certainly had a right to do, and most explicit. This is a letter which I think requires no comment whatever. It is admitted that it does contain a declaration of violent attachment on the part of the writer; but it is said that there is no proof of any adultery having been committed between them. I confess I cannot help considering such a letter in a very different light, and that it does connect itself with a direct acknowledgment of facts of adultery having passed between these parties. There are only three possible suppositions in which such a letter as this can be conceived to have dropped from the pen of the writer. One of those is, that it may have been written by a woman in a state of absolute insanity, with a mind disordered, and indulging itself with vicious images that have no connexion with any reality and fact: -that is a possible case undoubtedly. It is another possible case, that such a letter might be written by a woman with the malicious intent of defaming. LOVEDEN U 13th July 1810. the character of a virtuous man, to whom such letter might appear to be addressed, but who had no such connexion whatever as those letters import: that is a possible case. But that either of these suppositions exist in the present case is out of all question; nobody imputes that this lady had any thing in the nature of lunacy; nobody imputes that she had any malicious design against the reputation of this gentleman, who was the object of her ardent attachment. 1 Then what is the only other supposition to which the Court can allude? can allude?-That it was written by a woman, and could be written by no other than by a woman, who had made a surrender of her body, her mind, and every thing which belonged to either the one or the other, to the person to whom this letter was addressed. Here is an act, and a proximate act it is undoubtedly, as connected with something which had passed between the parties before; because it is impossible to conceive that a woman would write such a letter as this, saving in one of the two possible cases which I have excluded from all consideration as applying to the present case. quite impossible to conceive that such a letter could be written by a woman who had not, in the most unreserved manner, submitted her person to him to whom it is written. It appears a matter of a stronger nature than that which we hold here to be a direct proof of adultery,-the having gone to a brothel with a person. The act of going to a house of ill-fame is characterized by our old saying, that people do not go there to say their paternoster; that it is impossible they can have gone there for. any but improper purposes; and that is universally held a proof of adultery. But many persons would It is go LOVEDEN V. LOVEDEN. go to a brothel who could not bring themselves up to the writing a letter of this kind. It is a letter that proves, in the most striking and conclusive 13th July 1810. manner, not only that the parties must be contriving for future indulgences, but that there had been that sort of intercourse which alone could have produced such a familiarity, and which alone could have emboldened a woman to describe in terms which I do not repeat, that which certainly showed, beyond all question, the fact that these parties had been so connected together. After such letters as these are proved, the proof of facts might appear superfluous; and I think it is super-abundant in this case. There are meetings, both prior and subsequent to the date of these letters, in which the commission of adulterous acts must be inferred. I do not say that from every one of these acts I would draw the same conclusions in the case of all individuals to whom no such history applied; but that is not the way in which evidence is to be considered. Other facts and other circumstances are explanatory of meetings which are doubtful in their own nature, and capable of candid interpretations :-they define appearances that might otherwise be ambiguous. These letters are a gloss or a running comment, I think, upon the text which occurs in the history of these parties: they are decisive of the terms upon which these parties met :-and that the writer of these letters could meet privately, and out of the reach of observation, the person to whom they are addressed, without any view to the purposes these letters express, is impossible to be conceived; and I think it is not less impossible that they should have met in the manner described, without his LOVEDEN. LOVEDEN . having concurred in effecting those purposes: for though these letters never reached Mr. Barker, I 13th July 1810. cannot but think that the probability highly is, that verbal communications were, in the opportunities which afterwards presented themselves, made upon this subject, agreeably, as she says, to his directions, and agreeably to her inclination to give the communication that was wanted. The first fact that occurred to which I shall advert, is one that happened at Kingston House, and which is spoken to by Hastings, upon the 7th article. It appears that Mr. Loveden, who is a member of parliament, had left the country in the month of February 1807, and went to reside at a house at Knightsbridge called Kingston House, where he continued 'till about the 4th of July in that year, when the family returned to Buscot :that Mr. Barker dined twice while Mr. Loveden was there: that in the month of May, Mr. Loveden went down to Shaftsbury, on the occasion of the general election which took place at that time, and that Mr. Barker came twice to Kingston House during Mr. Loveden's absence:-that on the first of such visits Mr. Barker came with a gentleman, who remained for some time in a room in front of the House, and Mr. Barker and Mrs. Loveden remained alone together for about three quarters of an hour, without being seen by the witness; and that he then went away, and let himself out. It is said, Cannot people go into decent rooms in a decent house without being suspected ?-Yes, certainly, if they are decent persons; but if such an intercourse is proved between them as is established by the fact of this correspoedence, and by the other facts to which I have alluded, LOVEDEN U. LOVEDEN. I say the fact of such parties being close together for such a length of time, and unobserved, warrants the conclusion that they have committed the 13th July 1810. criminal act. But, however, the next fact is of a stronger kind. It appears that he then came alone: that Mrs. Stephens was with Mrs. Loveden at the time, and was sitting with her in the breakfast-parlour, in which she usually received other visitors: that Mr. Barker then rang the bell; and just as the deponent had let him in, and was going to announce him, and to show him up stairs, she came running down stairs, having seen him from the breafast-room window, as the deponent supposes, met him in the hall, shook him by the hand, and took him into the green dining-room, which was a back room on the ground floor, with windows opening into and communicating with the garden by five steps; in which room there is an inner room, which had formerly been used as a bedroom, and which was a dark room, having no other than a borrowed light from a water-closet within; so that though the workmen might be employed in the garden at such time, Mrs. Loveden and Mr. Barker might have retired to such room, and been out of the sight of any persons; and after they had been together and alone in the green dining-room about an hour, and 'till the men employed in the garden had gone to their dinner, they then went into the garden and walked together there for about half an hour; and then Mr. Barker let himself out as before." I confess, after what has been proved of these parties, this fact,—that she quitted the company in which she was-that she did not introduce Mr. Barker as a visitor |