Vindication (35 page)
Authors: Lyndall Gordon
He said he would think it over.
After discussing the matter with family and lawyers, he returned. His manner, at this second meeting, had changed. He refused her demand with the assurance of a man in the right.
Mary, in turn, refused to accept this. She resolved to go to Copenhagen, and lay the case in person before the highest official to whom she could appeal, no less than the Prime Minister of Denmark, Andreas Peter Bernstorff. Wulfsberg immediately backed her with a letter of introduction. He presents her as a talented woman, well known for her writings as Mary Wollstonecraft, but now as âMadame Imlay' seeking compensation for wrongs done to her husband. He presents Imlay as a Benefactor betrayed by a man he had tried to help. Wulfsberg's letter recapitulates the case against Ellefsen, stressing his conviction that the Ellefsens had leaned on witnesses to produce false testimonies, so that the truth of the matter was impossible to prove. He complains that Peder Ellefsen had somehow managed to instigate a High Court appeal before a judgement had been madeââwhich seems to be contrary to all laws'.
Then, just as Mary won this gesture of support with a sense of âself-applause', Imlay withdrew his lifeline. The change came in a letter he sent her on 20 August.
Mary's attempted suicide had affected his standing, he said. He suspected that she had not talked of him âwith respect'.
Her suicide note had been in his praise, she protested, âto prevent any odium being thrown on you'.
For Mary what rankled was Imlay's infidelity. âI will not torment you,' she resolved, âI will not complain', but she could not stop. Imlay had to hear that there âare wounds that can never be healedâbut they may be allowed to fester in silence without wincing'. Hardly an inducement to live with her. At this moment, Mary exchanged her Hamlet drama of flatness for that of King Lear: âWhat is the war of the elements to the pangs of disappointed affection, and the horror arising from a discovery of a breach of
confidence, that snaps every social tie!' She declared to Imlay that to tame her feeling would wither what she has come to be. âLove is a want of my heartâ¦To deaden is not to calm the mindâAiming at tranquillity, I have almost destroyed all the energy of my soulâ¦Despair, since the birth of my child, has rendered me stupidâsoul and body seemed to be fading away before the withering touch of disappointment.'
On her way south from Christiania to the Swedish border, she contemplated the torrential waterfall from the âdark cavities' of Frederikstad. Her Romantic bravura lingered in Coleridge's mind when he read Wollstonecraft's
Travels
a year later: âKubla Khan', his most famous poem, has a waterfall that seems to fountain from a chasm in the earth and run toward âcaverns measureless to man'. As Wollstonecraft gazed at the torrent, she asked herself âwhy I was chained to life and its misery', and then her soul ârose with renewed dignity above its caresâgrasping at immortalityâ¦I stretched out my hand to eternity, bounding over the dark speck of life to come.'
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She reached Gothenburg on 25 August, and after a seven-week absence clasped her âFannykin', her âlittle frolicker', delighted to find the child venting sounds on the brink of words. But three waiting letters from Imlay reversed her joy. Her reply next day is filled with the sound of his voice.
âYou tell me that my letters torture youâ¦Certainly you are right; our minds are not congenialâ¦You need not continually tell me that our fortune is inseparable,
that you will try to cherish tenderness
for me. Do no violence to yourself!'
Mary's next stop was Copenhagen. There, âfresh proofs' of Imlay's âindifference' arrived on 6 September. A quarter of Copenhagen had been gutted by fire: amidst its âheaps of ruins', she felt âstrangely cast off'. From now on she moves, suicidal, through alien landscapes. Imlay's evasion of her questions about the futureâhe was a master of the devout wishâleaves her panting.
âI do not understand you. It is necessary for you to write more explicitlyâand determine on some mode of conduct.âI cannot endure this suspenseâDecideâDo you fear to strike another blow?'
Stretched to the limits of endurance, she remained thoroughly professional. She wrote to Imlay, âIâ¦only converse with people immersed in trade'; presumably, she was carrying out his instruction to dispose of âgoods' in the hands of the Danish traders Ryberg & Co. She also sent a statement on Imlay as the injured party to Prime Minister Bernstorff (together with supportive letters from Wulfsberg and other Norwegian and Danish public figures). Mary Wollstonecraft's letter to the Prime Minister, buried for more than two centuries, is a new discovery by Gunnar Molden:
Impressed with a respect for your character, I venture, Sir, to expostulate with you relative to an affair which Mr Wulfsberg has already in some measure explained to you, in the letter which accompanies this brief statement.
Previously allow me to introduce myself to you by [my] own name, Mary Wollstonecraft, and I think I may be permitted, in a strange country, without any breach of modesty, to assert that my character as a moral writer is too well established for any one to suspect that I would condescend to gloss over the truth, or to anything like subterfuge, even in my own cause.
Mr Imlay, my husband, being very much engaged in business could not, at this juncture, leave England to pursue, according to law, Peter Elefsen, who had fraudulently deprived him, and his Partner, of a considerable property. I, therefore, wishing to have an opportunity of writing an account of the present state of Sweden, Norway and Denmark, determined to undertake the business, being fully acquainted with all the circumstances.
Will you, Sir, spare a moment to peruse the following narrative.
In the spring of 94 Mr Imlay bought a ship of an American captain, who had previously engaged Peter Elefsen to be his flag master. The transfer of the vessel deprived him of his employment, and his distress introduced him to our notice. For some time, without having any first plan of rendering him useful, Mr Imlay let him have the money necessary to support himâand at last sent him to Paris, two or three
times, to bring down some silver to Havre de Grace. During the intervals between these journeys Mr Elefsen pointed out a vessel that could be bought cheap and Mr Imlay purchased it; and giving the command to Elefsen[,] preparations were made for a voyage to Gothenburg. Mr Elefsen mean time lodged in the house of a merchant at Havre[,] Mr Imlay paying for it, as well as supplying his other wants. In his room the silver was deposited. I saw it there and the mate, Thomas Coleman, an American, assisted Elefsen to carry it on board the ship.
Previous to his sailing he signed a bill of parcels, in which the articles he took were not specified, as well as a receipt for the silver, both of which Mr Wheatcroft and I read over, Mr Wheatcroft (a merchant at Havre) witnessing that Elefsen signed them. The receipt was enclosed in a letter to Mr Backman of Gothenburg with other instructions for clearing and loading the vessel. I, Sir, gave Elefsen his last orders[,] Mr Imlay having set out for Paris the day before.
I have now to inform you that Elefsen took the silver privately on shore at Arendall, as the mate, Thos. Coleman, [h]as fully proved, and opened the letter addressed to Mr Backman, taking out the receipt. The cover of the letter has been brought into court. Many corroborating testimonies have supported the evidence of the mate to the conviction of the judges and every impartial person; still the atrocities carried on during the time the trial has been pending[,] to retard the march of justice[,] have even been more flagrant than the breach of trust. Many of the inhabitants, particularly the post master, who has but one character in the country, having shared in the spoil, bribery has produced prevarication and perjury. His [Ellefsen's] father-in-law, a major in the army, offered five hundred dollars to the wife of the first judge. When I arrived at East Risoer[,]
*
Elefsen waited on me and, as we were alone, behaved in the humblest manner, wished that the affair had never happened, though he assured me that I never
should be able to bring the proofs forward sufficient to convict him. He enlarged on the expense we must run intoâappealed to my humanity and assured me that he could not now return the money. Willing to settle the business I desired him to inquire of his relations, who are people of property, what they would advance, and come to me in the evening when I would endeavour to compromise the matter.âHe came and was almost impertinent. He had been spurred on by his attorneys, the pest of the country. Their plan, I plainly perceive, was to weary us out by procrastination. The suit has already been pending a twelvemonth, and the want of such a considerable sum in trade, as well as the expenses incurred by the detention of the vessel, which it has been proved he endeavoured to sink, is a very serious injury to us, not to dwell on the vexatious circumstances attending the failure of a commercial plan. I am very well convinced that an English jury would long ago have decided in our favour[,] not suffering justice to be insulted in the manner it has been with impunity; but the judges are timid.
To you, Sir, as a known lover of justice, I appeal, and I am supported by the most worthy Norwegians who wished by the respect they paid me to disavow the conduct of their countryman.
I am Sir yours
Respectfully
Copenhagen Mary Wollstonecraft
Sepr 5th 1795 femme Imlay
Mary's irritability with the Prime Minister's polite caution tells us that neither her nor Wulfsberg's letter succeeded in convincing Bernstorff to squeeze the Ellefsens on Imlay's behalf.
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Mary pressed on in the face of depression. Why did she and Fanny make for Hamburg when, by now, she knew that Imlay had gone back on the plan to meet them? If the source of âknavery' was not on the remote Norwegian coast but in the get-rich city of Hamburg, then it makes sense that Hamburg was always going to be her final stop on her business journey.
And this would explain, too, the loathing she felt, as though Hamburg were to blame for what went wrong in her life. For the silver ship as bearer of her hope that Imlay would make his fortune and settle down was foiled, it would seem, at Hamburg. To Mary, the city stank of commerce. It seemed to contaminate the air she breathed.
One of her contacts was Imlay's acquaintance, the Franco-American writer St Jean de Crèvecoeur, who earlier in 1795 had moved to Altona, the Holstein town within walking distance of Hamburg. As a tolerant placeâDanish, not GermanâAltona welcomed Jews, fleeing French émigrés (among them Mme de Lafayette), and many Americans including of course Joel and Ruth Barlow who had returned to Paris two months before Mary arrived. She too stayed in Altona, a little put out by the lack of paths and steps to ease Fanny's climb down the bluffs to the beach on the edge of the Elbe. Mary's only pleasure was to dine with Crèvecoeur daily, grateful for a companion who shared her distaste for commerce. She echoed what Dr Price had warned American leaders in 1784, that addiction to commerce could debase the new national character. âEngland and America owe their liberty to commerce,' she said, âwhich created a new species of power to undermine the feudal system. Butâ¦the tyranny of wealth is still more galling and debasing than that of rank.' Talk, in Hamburg, ran in âmuddy channels'.
Imlay hit back her volleys and continued to believe he had not wronged Mary Wollstonecraft. Had she not wanted to earn her keep? Had he not funded her journey in Scandinavia? Had she not travelled; met leading men; regained health; prolonged her stay by an extra month; and gathered matter for a travel book? He could not see that all this was secondary to her mission to earn the standing he had seemed to confer on her as his âbest friend' and âwife'. Every letter of hers sets out this claim: âI cannot live without some particular affectionâI am afraid[,] not without a passion' (Norway, 5 August); âI am weary of travellingâyet seem to have no homeâno resting place to look to' (Copenhagen, 6 September); âI am content to be wretched; but I will not be contemptible' (Hamburg, 27 September). Her pleas cry out in every form of love, plaint and logic she could devise, but Imlay refused to respond on any but his own terms.
Their exchange became a fight to the death. Mary was like the knight who performs a series of ordeals for the love of his ladyâonly, in this scenario, a woman replaced the hero of romanceâand for so unlikely a phenomenon there was no reward. Imlay's drama was about gain; from his point of view, it should have satisfied both sides. For Mary it was unacceptable unless commerce bought a domestic reward.
During most of her fortnight or so in Hamburg, she did not hear from Imlay; then, a letter arrived on 27 September. Something told Mary he had a new mistress, even as he confirmed âthe ties which bind me to you and the child'. At this point she rebelled: she left Hamburg that same day.
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The lawyers in the case did not solve the mystery of who fooled whom. Four unanswered questions remain. If we go back to the question why, given the value of the silver, did Imlay not go to Scandinavia himself, the answer now seems plain: because the silver
wasn
'
t there
. We must separate the shady issue of the ship from the shady issue of the silver. If the bulk of the silver was
not
dispersed to the Ellefsens in Arendal, we can understand why Mary Wollstonecraft saw no necessity to go there once she had seen Ellefsen in Risør.
The second question is what took Imlay to France in the summer of 1795 while Mary Wollstonecraft was in Scandinavia? What business was more pressing than the fortune he had supposedly lost far north? Here is another piece of circumstantial evidence that the silver, or the bulk of the silver, was not with the Ellefsens.
Mary sided with Imlay's vilification of Ellefsen: she went to Scandinavia to âget the money' from his family. But in view of the âknavery' that happened while Ellefsen was at sea, is the focus too narrowed? Should Ellefsen take the whole brunt of the wrong, or had he only a share in it?