Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. V, No. XXIX., October, 1852

The young man had not very long to wait for it. He had just passed his twentieth year when his father died at the early age of forty-seven The last wandering thoughts of the dying parent reverted to the lost child. "Hither Mark," he faintly murmured, as the hushed mourners round his bed watched with mute awe the last flutterings of departing life; "hither: hold me tightly by the hand, or you may lose yourself in this dark, dark wood." These were his last words. On the will being opened, it was found that the whole of his estate, real and personal, had been bequeathed to his son Andrew, charged only with an annuity of £500 to his mother, during life. But, should Mark be found, the property was to be his, similarly charged with respect to Mrs. Bridgman, and £100 yearly to his brother Andrew, also for life, in addition.

On the evening of the tenth day after his father's funeral, young Mr. Bridgman sat up till a late hour examining various papers and accounts connected with his inheritance, and after retiring to bed, the exciting nature of his recent occupation hindered him from sleeping. While thus lying awake, his quick ear caught a sound as of some one breaking into the house through one of the lower casements. He rose cautiously, went out on the landing, and soon satisfied himself that his suspicion was a correct one. The object of the burglars was, he surmised, the plate in the house of which there was an unusually large quantity, both his father and grandfather having expended much money in that article of luxury. Andrew Bridgman was any thing but a timid person – indeed, considering that six men altogether slept in the house, there was but little cause for fear – and he softly returned to his bedroom, unlocked a mahogany case, took out, loaded and primed, two pistols, and next roused the gardener and groom, whom he bade noiselessly follow him. The burglars – three in number, as it proved – had already reached and opened the plate-closet. One of them was standing within it, and the others just without. "Hallo! rascals," shouted Andrew Bridgman, from the top of a flight of stairs, "what are you doing there?"

The startled and terrified thieves glanced hurriedly round, and the two outermost fled instantly along the passage pursued by the two servants, one of whom had armed himself with a sharp-pointed kitchen knife. The other was not so fortunate. He had not regained the threshold of the closet when Andrew Bridgman fired. The bullet crashed through the wretched man's brain, and he fell forward, stone-dead, upon his face. The two others escaped – one of them after a severe struggle with the knife-armed groom.

It was sometime before the uproar in the now thoroughly-alarmed household had subsided; but at length the screaming females were pacified, and those who had got up, persuaded to go to bed again. The corpse of the slain burglar was removed to an out-house, and Andrew Bridgman returned to his bedroom. Presently there was a tap at the door. It was Sarah Hollins. "I am come to tell you something," said the now aged woman, with a significant look. "The person you have shot is the Richard Green you have so often heard of."

The young man, Hollins afterward said, seemed much startled by this news, and his countenance flushed and paled in quick succession. "Are you quite sure this is true?" he at last said.

"Quite; though he's so altered that, except, Missus, I don't know any body else in the house that is likely to recognize him. Shall I tell her?"

"No, no, not on any account. It would only recall unpleasant events, and that quite uselessly. Be sure not to mention your suspicion – your belief, to a soul."

"Suspicion! belief!" echoed the woman. "It is a certainty. But, of course, as you wish it, I shall hold my tongue."

So audacious an attempt created a considerable stir in the locality, and four days after its occurrence a message was sent to Red Lodge from Bury St. Edmunds, that two men, supposed to be the escaped burglars, were there in custody, and requesting Mr. Bridgman's and the servants' attendance on the morrow, with a view to their identification. Andrew Bridgman, the gardener, and groom, of course, obeyed the summons, and the prisoners were brought into the justice-room before them. One was a fellow of about forty, a brutal-visaged, low-browed, sinister-looking rascal, with the additional ornament of a but partially closed hare-lip. He was unhesitatingly sworn to by both men. The other, upon whom, from the instant he entered, Andrew Bridgman had gazed with eager, almost, it seemed, trembling curiosity, was a well-grown young man of, it might be, three or four and twenty, with a quick, mild, almost timid, unquiet, troubled look, and features originally comely and pleasing, there could be no doubt, but now smirched and blotted into ill favor by excess, and other evil habits. He gave the name of "Robert Williams."

Andrew Bridgman, recalled to himself by the magistrate's voice, hastily said "that he did not recognize this prisoner as one of the burglars. Indeed," he added, with a swift but meaning look at the two servants, "I am pretty sure he was not one of them." The groom and gardener, influenced no doubt by their master's manner, also appeared doubtful as to whether Robert Williams was one of the housebreakers. "But if he be," hesitated the groom, hardly knowing whether he did right or wrong, "there must be some smartish wounds on his arms, for I hit him there sharply with the knife several times."

The downcast head of the youthful burglar was suddenly raised at these words, and he said, quickly, while a red flush passed over his pallid features, "Not me, not me – look, my arm-sleeves have no holes – no – "

"You may have obtained another jacket," interrupted the magistrate. "We must see your arms."

An expression of hopeless despair settled upon the prisoner's face; he again hung down his head in shame, and allowed the constables to quietly strip off his jacket. Andrew Bridgman, who had gone to some distance, returned while this was going on, and watched for what might next disclose itself with tenfold curiosity and eagerness. "There are stabs enough here, sure enough," exclaimed a constable, as he turned up the shirt-sleeve on the prisoner's left arm. There were, indeed; and in addition to them, natural marks of two strawberries were distinctly visible. The countenance of Andrew Bridgman grew ashy pale, as his straining eyes glared upon the prisoner's naked arm. The next moment he wrenched himself away, as with an effort, from the sight, and staggered to an open window – sick, dizzy, fainting, it was at the time believed, from the closeness of the atmosphere in the crowded room. Was it not rather that he had recognized his long-lost brother —the true heir to the bulk of his deceased father's wealth, against whom, he might have thought, an indictment would scarcely lie for feloniously entering his own house! He said nothing, however, and the two prisoners were fully committed for trial.

Mr. Prince went down "special" to Bury, at the next assize, to defend a gentleman accused of a grave offense, but the grand jury having ignored the bill, he would probably have returned at once, had not an attorney brought him a brief, very heavily marked, in defense of "Robert Williams." "Strangely enough, too," remarked the attorney, as he was about to go away, "the funds for the defense have been supplied by Mr. Andrew Bridgman, whose house the prisoner is accused of having burglariously entered. But this is confidential, as he is very solicitous that his oddly-generous action should not be known." There was, however, no valid defense. The ill-favored accomplice, why, I know not, had been admitted king's evidence by the counsel for the crown, and there was no resisting the accumulated evidence. The prisoner was found guilty, and sentenced to be hanged. "I never intended," he said, after the verdict was returned; and there was a tone of dejected patience in his voice that affected one strangely, "I never intended to commit violence against any one in the house, and but that my uncle – he that was shot – said repeatedly that he knew a secret concerning Mr. Bridgman (he didn't know, I am sure, that he was dead) which would prevent us from being prosecuted if we were caught, I should not have been persuaded to go with him. It was my first offense – in – in housebreaking, I mean."

I had, and indeed have, some relatives in Mildenhall, in the same county, whom, at the termination of the Bury assize, I got leave to visit for a few days. While there, it came to my knowledge that Mr. Andrew Bridgman, whom I had seen in court, was moving heaven and earth to procure a commutation of the convict's sentence to transportation for life. His zealous efforts were unsuccessful; and the Saturday County Journal announced that Robert Williams, the burglar, would suffer, with four others, on the following Tuesday morning. I reached Bury on the Monday evening, with the intention of proceeding by the London night coach, but there was no place vacant. The next morning I could only have ridden outside, and as, besides being intensely cold, it was snowing furiously, I determined on postponing my departure till the evening, and secured an inside place for that purpose. I greatly abhor spectacles of the kind, and yet, from mere idleness and curiosity, I suffered myself to be drawn into the human stream flowing toward "Hang Fair," and once jammed in with the crowd in front of the place of execution, egress was, I found, impossible. After waiting a considerable time, the death-bell suddenly tolled, and the terrible procession appeared – five human beings about to be suffocated by human hands, for offenses against property! – the dreadful and deliberate sacrifice preluded and accompanied by sonorous sentences from the Gospel of mercy and compassion! Hardly daring to look up, I saw little of what passed on the scaffold, yet one furtive, quickly-withdrawn glance, showed me the sufferer in whom I took most interest. He was white as if already coffined, and the unquiet glare of his eyes was, I noticed, terribly anxious! I did not again look up – I could not; and the surging murmur of the crowd, as it swayed to and fro, the near whisperings of ribald tongues, and the measured, mocking tones of the minister, promising eternal life through the mercy of the most high God, to wretches whom the justice of man denied a few more days or years of mortal existence – were becoming momently more and more oppressive, when a dull, heavy sound boomed through the air; the crowd swayed violently from side to side, and the simultaneous expiration of many pent-up breaths testified that all was over, and to the relief experienced by the coarsest natures at the consummation of a deed too frightful for humanity to contemplate. It was some time before the mass of spectators began to thoroughly separate, and they were still standing in large clusters, spite of the bitter, falling weather, when a carriage, furiously driven, with the body of a female, who was screaming vehemently and waving a white handkerchief, projected half out of one of the windows, was seen approaching by the London Road. The thought appeared to strike every one that a respite or reprieve had come for one or more of the prisoners, and hundreds of eyes were instantly turned toward the scaffold, only to see that if so it had arrived too late. The carriage stopped at the gate of the building. A lady dressed in deep mourning, was hastily assisted out by a young man with her, similarly attired, and they both disappeared within the jail. After some parleying, I ascertained that I had sufficient influence to obtain admission, and a few moments afterward I found myself in the press-room. The young man – Mr. Andrew Bridgman – was there, and the lady, who had fallen fainting upon one of the benches, was his mother. The attendants were administering restoratives to her, without effect, till an inner door opened, and the under-sheriff, by whom she was personally known, entered; when she started up and interrogated, with the mute agony of her wet, yet gleaming eyes, the dismayed and distressed official. "Let me entreat you, my dear madam," he faltered, "to retire. This is a most painful – fright – "

"No – no, the truth! – the truth!" shrieked the unfortunate lady, wildly clasping her hands, "I shall bear that best!"

"Then I grieve to say," replied the under-sheriff, "that the marks you describe – two on the left, and one on the right arm, are distinctly visible."

A piercing scream, broken by the words, "My son! – oh God! – my son!" burst from the wretched mother's lips, and she fell heavily, and without sense or motion, upon the stone floor. While the under-sheriff and others raised and ministered to her, I glanced at Mr. Andrew Bridgman. He was as white as the lime-washed wall against which he stood, and the fire that burned in his dark eyes was kindled – it was plain to me – by remorse and horror, not by grief alone.

The cause of the sudden appearance of the mother and son at the closing scene of this sad drama was afterward thus explained: – Andrew Bridgman, from the moment that all hope of procuring a commutation of the sentence on the so-called Robert Williams had ceased, became exceedingly nervous and agitated, and his discomposure seemed to but augment as the time yet to elapse before the execution of the sentence passed away. At length, unable longer to endure the goadings of a tortured conscience, he suddenly burst into the room where his mother sat at breakfast, on the very morning his brother was to die, with an open letter in his hand, by which he pretended to have just heard that Robert Williams was the long-lost Mark Bridgman! The sequel has been already told.

The conviction rapidly spread that Andrew Bridgman had been from the first aware that the youthful burglar was his own brother; and he found it necessary to leave the country. He turned his inheritance into money, and embarked for Charleston, America, in the bark Cleopatra, from Liverpool. When off the Scilly Islands, the Cleopatra was chased by a French privateer. She escaped; but one of the few shots fired at her from the privateer was fatal to the life of Andrew Bridgman. He was almost literally cut in two, and expired instantaneously. Some friends to whom I have related this story deem his death an accident; others, a judgment: I incline, I must confess, to the last opinion. The wealth with which he embarked was restored to Mrs. Bridgman, who soon afterward removed to London, where she lived many years – sad ones, no doubt, but mitigated and rendered endurable by the soothing balm of a clear conscience. At her decease, not very many years ago, the whole of her property was found to be bequeathed to various charitable institutions of the metropolis.

Monthly Record of Current Events

THE UNITED STATES

Congress adjourned, sine die, on the 31st of August. During the last month of its session several important public laws were passed, and various subjects of public interest were discussed at length. Substantial amendments to the Postage Law have been adopted, by which the rates of postage upon printed matter sent by mail, have been greatly reduced. The new law takes effect on the 30th of September. After that date each newspaper, periodical, or other printed sheet not exceeding three ounces in weight, will be sent to any part of the United States for one cent– one cent additional being charged for each additional ounce or fraction but when the postage is paid yearly or quarterly, in advance, at the office where the paper is mailed or delivered, one half of these rates only will be charged. Newspapers and periodicals weighing not over an ounce and a half, when circulated within the State where they are published, will pay only half these rates. Small newspapers and periodicals published once a month or oftener, and pamphlets of not more than sixteen pages each, when sent in single packages weighing at least eight ounces, to one address, and prepaid by affixing postage-stamps thereto, are to be charged only half a cent for each ounce. The postage on all transient matter must be prepaid by stamps or otherwise, or double the rates first mentioned will be charged. Books weighing not over four pounds may be sent by mail at one cent an ounce for all distances under 3000 miles, and at two cents an ounce for all distances over 3000 miles, to which fifty per cent. will be added if not prepaid. Publishers of periodicals and newspapers are to receive their exchanges free of postage; and weekly newspapers may also be sent to subscribers free within the county where they are published. These are the essential provisions of the new law: others are appended requiring the printed papers to be sent open, without any other communications upon them than the address, and without any other inclosures. – A bill was also passed, making large appropriations for the improvement of rivers and harbors in various sections of the country: the vote upon it in the Senate was 35 yeas and 23 nays: in the House of Representatives it was passed by the casting vote of the Speaker, there being 69 votes for and 69 votes against it. Bills were also passed providing measures of greater security for steamboat navigation, by requiring various precautions on the part of owners: granting to the State of Michigan land to aid the construction of a ship canal around the Sault St. Marie, and granting lands to the States of Arkansas and Missouri, to aid in the construction of railroads within those States: establishing a trimonthly mail between New Orleans and Vera Cruz: and making appropriations for the various branches of the public service. The whole number of public acts passed during the session was 64; of private acts 52: of joint resolutions 17. The French Spoliation bill, the bill granting public lands to the several States, and several other measures of importance, upon which extended debate had been had, were postponed until the next session.

On the 10th of August, the President transmitted a message to Congress, communicating to that body all the documents relating to the dispute concerning the Fisheries on the British Colonial coast. In the Senate, on the 12th, Mr. Soule of Louisiana, spoke in very warm censure of the proceedings of the English government, and criticising the measures of the Administration as deficient in energy and determination. He deprecated any negotiations with Great Britain on the subject, so long as any part of her fleet should be in those waters, and predicted the speedy separation of the Colonies from the British empire. Mr. Butler of South Carolina, as well as several other Senators, expressed their earnest hopes that the difficulty would be satisfactorily adjusted, and at their suggestion the debate was postponed until the 14th, when Mr. Seward made an extended and elaborate speech, setting forth the whole history of our negotiations with England upon the Fisheries, showing that England has presented no new claims, and that she has not indicated any purpose to use force or menaces in support of pretensions she has hitherto urged, and vindicating the President and Secretary of State from the attacks made upon them. – On the 16th, while the bill appropriating lands for the construction of a ship canal around the Falls of St. Mary was under discussion, Mr. Cass supported it on the ground of its being essential to the defenses of the country in time of war, and took occasion to say he would have no objection to the annexation of Canada and the acquisition of Cuba, if these objects could be accomplished without a war. Mr. Douglas spoke also in favor of the grant for the work, not as a necessary means of defense, but for the purpose of augmenting the value of the public lands lying further to the west: he said that he would not vote a donation of money for such a purpose, but would support a bill granting public lands. A motion to substitute $400,000, instead of land, was rejected by a vote of 21 to 32: and the bill was passed in its original form. – On the 17th, a message was received from the President, in reply to a resolution offered a day or two previously by Senator Seward, inquiring whether any proposition had been made to the United States by the King of the Sandwich Islands, to transfer the sovereignty of those islands to the United States. The President declines to communicate any information on the subject, since to do so would be incompatible with the public interest. Mr. Seward then offered a resolution providing for the appointment of a Commissioner, to inquire into the expediency of opening negotiations upon that subject. The resolution and the message was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations. – On the 23d, while the River and Harbor Bill was under debate, Senator Douglas offered a resolution giving the States power to levy tonnage duties upon their commerce, for the purpose of carrying on works of internal improvement. He supported this proposition at length. Mr. Cass opposed it on the ground that the duties thus levied would in fact be paid by the agricultural consumers. Mr. Smith of Connecticut opposed it, because it would throw the whole burden of these duties upon the farmers of the West. The amendment was rejected by 17 to 25.

On the 28th, in reply to a resolution, a Message was received from the President, transmitting sundry documents relating to the right of foreign nations to take guano from the Lobos islands, off the coast of Peru. On the 2d of June, Captain Jewett wrote to Mr. Webster, inquiring whether these islands were the possession of any single power, or whether they were open to the commerce of the world. Mr. Webster replied that the islands were uninhabited, that they had never been enumerated among the possessions or dependencies of any of the South American states, and that citizens of the United States would be protected in removing the valuable deposits upon them. At the same time the Secretary of the Navy ordered a vessel of war to be dispatched for the protection of American vessels engaged in this traffic. Under these assurances Captain Jewett and his associates fitted out some twenty vessels which were immediately dispatched to the islands in question. Mr. Webster's letter to Captain Jewett, meantime, having accidentally been made public, the Peruvian Minister, Senor Osma, in three successive notes, represented to the Government that the Lobos islands were dependencies of Peru, and that the United States could have no rightful claim to remove their valuable deposits. Mr. Webster replied to this claim on the 21st of August, by an elaborate argument showing that Peru had hitherto, by repeated acts, sustained the position that the islands do not belong to any of the South American states. They lie about thirty miles from the shore, and are uninhabited and uninhabitable. Citizens of the United States have visited them in pursuit of seals for half a century; and no complaint was made of this until 1833, when Peru issued a decree forbidding foreigners from visiting them for any such purpose. The United States Chargé at Lima immediately remonstrated against this decree, and requested its modification, so far as to permit citizens of the United States to continue pursuits in which they had been engaged for so many years. No reply was made to this remonstrance, and the citizens of the United States continued their avocations without any further interruption. Mr. Webster insists, therefore, that while these islands lie in the open ocean, so far from the coast of Peru as not to belong to that country by the law of proximity or adjacent position, the Government of Peru has not exercised any such acts of absolute sovereignty and ownership over them as to give to her a right to their exclusive possession as against the United States and their citizens by the law of indisputable possession. The Government of the United States is, however, disposed to give due consideration to all the facts of the case, and the President will therefore give such orders to the naval forces on that coast as will prevent collision until the case can be examined.

An important report was made in the Senate, on the 30th of August, by Mr. Mason, of Virginia, from the Committee on Foreign Relations, upon the subject of the right of way across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, granted to Don Jose de Garay, in March, 1842, by Santa Anna, then vested with supreme power as President of Mexico. The report, after mentioning this grant, and the stipulation contained in it that he, as well as any private individual or company succeeding him, native or foreign, should be protected in undisturbed enjoyment of all the concessions granted, states that on the 9th of February, 1843, a decree was issued by General Bravo, who had succeeded to the Presidency, recognizing and affirming this grant, and directing the departments of Oaxaca and Vera Cruz to put Garay in possession of the lands ceded to him by its provisions. On the 6th of October, 1843, Santa Anna, being restored to power, issued a further decree, directing the departments to furnish 300 convicts to be employed on the work; and by another decree of December 28, 1843, the time for commencing it was extended a year – until July 1, 1845. In November, 1846, General Salas, having, by the course of revolution, become invested with supreme power as Dictator, promulgated a decree, extending the time still further, namely, until November 5, 1848; and the work was actually commenced prior to that date. This is the history of the grant so long as it remained in the hands of Garay. During the year 1846 various contracts were entered into by which he transferred the grant, with all its rights and privileges, to Messrs. Manning and Mackintosh, subjects of Great Britain: and on the 28th of September, 1848, these contracts were formally recognized and consummated at the city of Mexico. On the 5th of February, 1848, this grant was assigned to Peter A. Hargous, a citizen of the United States, who subsequently entered into a contract to assign the same to certain citizens of New Orleans, on terms intended to secure the capital necessary to execute the work. In December, 1850, a party of engineers was sent out by the American assignees, to complete the necessary surveys – who continued so employed until the month of June following, when they were ordered by the Mexican government to discontinue the work and leave the country – a law having been passed by the Mexican Congress, and approved by the President, May 22, 1851, declaring the Garay grant to be null and void. Upon this statement of facts concerning the origin and history of the grant, the Report proceeds to show that its validity had been repeatedly recognized by the Mexican government. In 1846, President Herrera issued orders to prevent cutting mahogany from these lands. In 1847, while the treaty of peace was under discussion, Mr. Trist, by direction of our Government, offered a large sum for the right of way across the Isthmus; and was answered that "Mexico could not treat of this subject because she had, several years before, made a grant to one of her own citizens, who had transferred his right, by authorization of the Mexican government, to English subjects, of whose right Mexico could not dispose." After the assignment of the grant to American citizens, moreover, the Mexican government issued orders to the Governors of the Departments, directing them to afford all needed aid to the engineers, who were accordingly sent, the ports thrown open for their supplies, and over a hundred thousand dollars was expended upon the work. Negotiations for a treaty of protection to the workmen were also opened, and the draft of a Convention was concluded at Mexico, in June, 1850, and sent to the United States. Certain modifications being suggested at Washington, this draft was returned to our Minister in Mexico and a new Convention was signed January 28, 1851, with the approval of President Herrera. This convention was ratified by the Senate of the United States, and returned to Mexico, and finally rejected by the Mexican Congress, in April, 1852. – It is not pretended that this rejection of the Convention affects in the slightest degree the validity of the grant. The sole ground upon which its annulment is claimed, is, that the decree of Salas of November, 1846, extending the time for commencing the work, was null and void, inasmuch as he held the supreme power by usurpation, or that he transcended his powers. "Respect for the Mexican Government alone," says the Report, "restrains the Committee from treating of this position in the terms it deserves." The government of Salas was acknowledged and submitted to by the people of Mexico: – his decrees, this one included, were submitted to the Congress – and not one of them was ever approved by Congress, nor was his authority ever questioned at any other time, or in reference to any other decree. "The doctrine that the Government de facto is the Government responsible, has been fully recognized by Mexico herself, in the case of the Dictatorship of Salas, as of those who preceded him. It is a principle of universal law governing the intercourse of nations, with each other and with individuals, and this Government can not, nor ought not, treat with indifference a departure from it by Mexico in the present instance." The report concludes by referring to the unfriendly feeling which the proceedings of Mexico indicate toward the United States, and by recommending the adoption of the following resolutions: