My thirty years' experience reads those words in
a sense exactly opposite to the sense which they are intended to convey.
I say that Admiral Bartram is _not_ free to apply his legacy to such
purposes as he may think fit; I believe he is privately controlled by a
supplementary document in the shape of a Secret Trust.
"I can easily explain to you what I mean by a Secret Trust. It is
usually contained in the form of a letter from a Testator to his
Executors, privately informing them of testamentary intentions on his
part which he has not thought proper openly to acknowledge in his will.
I leave you a hundred pounds; and I write a private letter enjoining
you, on taking the legacy, not to devote it to your own purposes, but to
give it to some third person, whose name I have my own reasons for not
mentioning in my will. That is a Secret Trust.
"If I am right in my own persuasion that such a document as I here
describe is at this moment in Admiral Bartram's possession--a
persuasion based, in the first instance, on the extraordinary words
that I have quoted to you; and, in the second instance, on purely legal
considerations with which it is needless to incumber my letter--if I am
right in this opinion, the discovery of the Secret Trust would be, in
all probability, a most important discovery to your interests.
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