the matter so accurately, that he conceived he could bring it home to
Mr. Tyrrel himself.

Hawkins had hitherto carefully avoided, notwithstanding the injuries he
had suffered, the attempting to right himself by legal process; being of
opinion that law was better adapted for a weapon of tyranny in the hands
of the rich, than for a shield to protect the humbler part of the
community against their usurpations. In this last instance however he
conceived that the offence was so atrocious, as to make it impossible
that any rank could protect the culprit against the severity of justice.
In the sequel, he saw reason to applaud himself for his former
inactivity in this respect, and to repent that any motive had been
strong enough to persuade him into a contrary system.

This was the very point to which Mr. Tyrrel wanted to bring him, and he
could scarcely credit his good fortune, when he was told that Hawkins
had entered an action. His congratulation upon this occasion was
immoderate, as he now conceived that the ruin of his late favourite was
irretrievable. He consulted his attorney, and urged him by every motive
he could devise, to employ the whole series of his subterfuges in the
present affair. The direct repelling of the charge exhibited against him
was the least part of his care; the business was, by affidavits,
motions, pleas, demurrers, flaws, and appeals, to protract the question
from term to term, and from court to court. It would, as Mr. Tyrrel
argued, be the disgrace of a civilized country, if a gentleman, when
insolently attacked in law by the scum of the earth, could not convert
the cause into a question of the longest purse, and stick in the skirts
of his adversary till he had reduced him to beggary.

Mr. Tyrrel, however, was by no means so far engrossed by his law-suit,