Here was the fatal error. In this resolution, and the acting on it, lies the whole moral offence, fault, or delinquency of Captain Douglas. Not to admit a fact, when questioned on it, is so close upon a denial of the fact, that no human ingenuity can keep them long separate. His concealment of an act perfectly innocent was construed into a denial of that act: it could not well be otherwise, for an evasive answer, which serves the purpose of concealment, must be understood by the party who receives it as a denial, or it no longer serves the purpose of concealment. Yet an evasive answer of this description is permitted by men of the strictest honour in a thousand instances, and is only visited with _moral opprobrium_ in those cases where there is an imperative claim upon the conscience to tell the whole truth. No such imperative claim can be made out in the present case. We admit, however, that it was an error. The better rule is never to resort to an evasion unless there are very strong reasons for so doing. We admit that the adopting of, and persisting in, this policy, or rather this _impolicy_, of concealment, was here to some extent blameable. But we can detect no base or dishonourable motive leading to it. The worst motive we can divine, is a certain love of a tortuous policy by which some ingenious persons are afflicted. They like finessing, and will introduce into the common affairs of life, much to their own and other people’s embarrassment, what they would describe as a diplomatic dexterity.