The Sun. — London, England, 1812-05-16 00:00:00

F 1 ,a, ,m - 11 e aslant no inueu g from the Court : all he wanted was jus , ice and he e=x ercise Of their judicial discretion. It vas asked Y the Attorney- General, why not bring forward fiedical m en ? l a : answer he had to Sa,', that he a ri 1 , 4 i% Reynolds recommended an ap, , licarion to the t 7 .0 Gen t l emen most conversant witty inseoity in 118 country ; and that one of hem stated the ira tesibility of , his being able to attend this day, and at the othe r returne d no answer. I t Wiii next asked why not produce those who weeer best t luainteel with the prisoner for the last four o"Ms? The sh or t ness o f th e p reoare tnry titne trial , was an arist.ve‘r to that question : It was on 'Y the even i ng befor e that he received h i s in struaions. Their Lordships COUSUlted a few moments, and Sir irlatsseteto deliVered the opinion of the. Court. this S3 'd the Court would be most willing to grant isils,aliplication, if it had been made upon grottudi feestated particular material fads which could i ert be brought forward in evidence for the de -Icf the prisoner on account of the absence of he ; hut there were no such grounds laid. i,.. e affidavits spoke about his being established at illverPool,---his ha v i n g b een i n Russia, 8,:c.; but the Prisoner's were altoge ther silent as to any material fad in 1 ; 1 ! Priso ner ' s favour. On the contrary, his having _c,e.a e stablished at Liverpool,—his having transact ou,ines, in Russia, must create a presumption h e at be was then, and until the last two years, when returned, of perfea sound mind. As to the s ea l :• i f er. in hich he spent his time since,—how he - 111131 °Yed, who were his companions and con thltie-a-s'-'the affidavits were entirely silent. Bet as e t leestion was not whether he was once in such b ut ate as to have dune any outrageous a& of insanity, A e hwhether at the time charged in the indi&rnent an sufficiency of understanding to make him wosvverable for th e ate he had committed. Every at t r l c , l in the a ffid av i ts m i g ht b e perfe6ily true ; thate sa he time that was a clear as ylig ht, has at the time of the it commiss s deed ion of this deed he th e s ; na sound stand of mind. The Court refused -tile 3' Cr a ' f ury now began to be sworn ; but on the A ' 4 l 7 u challenging the first person who was named, r ; ALLEY contended, that the Crown had no tight lyh s° ,, ch allenge, without stating cause or no cause. ita c i '-'ARRow would by no. means consent to len: 3 Practice.. The Crown had theright of chat tiuTle gtaterally. The Court were of the same opi- Iv, a the but Mr. All ey persisted in denying, that it • Th e n r r atiice of the Criminal Court. of ti " e coitoot insisted that it was the practice_ B . le Coen _usi ng a ll the time he had known it. Xlll et r JAM ES MANSFIELD.—That's enough; Mr. beg mu st know the pradice of the Court, and I w ill observe it in this as well as in any corn n ease. kr, G to st et "How —I defy the Learned Gentleman sisi t „ - , e , one single case of such practice. Will he th e "is professional charader on the assertion of liexistence of such practice ? Tt; A : L ia . Y.—l never knew it othefwise. tass e l- r ight of general challenge, without stating , being established, the Crown challenged se -141)e/sons peremptorily, and the following Jury at le ngth sworn Abr a h am Lee William English 1)3 ° 1. 0 Heywood john Banks, It°lllls Whittington Charles Russell, ..„,m1 Kennington, (amen Osborne, 10nias uggins, fames Keating. and Zee Waters, r George Gay ton. ABatiTT then opened the pleadings, and dr 3te e °ll "Y-Geeeaee addressed the Court and t anj tu the following effect :—lt is my melancholy le tri r: i 'inful duty to state to you the details of the it - d '" Intl der for which the prisoner at the bar a 41 e , --1 c harged. That murder was committed upon s - i ' a . whose every ant, whose whole life, was such it tv ° a , ilare guarded him from such a fatal outrage : virtlecoternitted against a man of such pure christian 41' it f e) and such exalted charity, that I am cony inc een 'agh of life were left him after the inflic be; t 'L the deadly wound, his last breath would have t a ti n a r Sent the in a prayer to the Almighty God wretched creature who had directed 'molt's, thi s h eart. Thi s , h ow ever, Gentlemen, is seti - 1 e time f or t h e cons id e rations of those virtues tta 'n adorned t h e nature o f that great, and good fro m °. whatever they were, they are now torn us.-- their memory alone remains to console it is B ut it is not in justice even to his m emory,— tha i not for vengeance, nor t h roug h r e sen t ment , t f °r an apply to you against the prisoner : I far pasr an instant, and do yOu forget, also, that it " 0 who lifted the arm of an assassin against Mr. the -e /al's life—it is to satisfy the public justice of ai n ecni tltrY,—it is to proted the public from being ho to the perpetration and the disgrace of these and detested crimes, that I stand here as the ttii e 2 tle r's public acc us er. As to the prisoner's life a n d manners, I have not hi ng to d o w ith a x e „ ... tr t. I hav e to d o w i t h . no part o f hi s conduct, I A 7Pt whate ver i s connecte d w i t h t h e a d fo r which I % arrai gne d ; and, therefore, I shall go over is e 4 l ° much of his life as those transadions hap , s on u in which led to his fatal resentment. The pri %dr at)the bar, Gentlemen, acted as a merchant, e tah ras considered of such perfect and sound under liutg, that he not only conducted his own affairs, So le selected by others for the condual of theirs. ;le thre e or four years ago he was entrusted with th e °n 'tnission to Russia by a house somewhere in able ;north. The commission was. of consider- Tot'utportance, and he went to Russia. He was long in Russia, when, either justly or unjustly, aet,'.iliplained• of the conduit of the Russian Go fern„ruent, to Lord G. L. G ower . I t i s unnecessary vi v i il "le to detail th e particulars of the conduct of th at lie complained ; but it is sufficient to say, Lthen canto back to England, and returned to mailllurauit of his mercantile affairs. So sound was tll ind, that h e f ou nd pe rsons ready enough to h tiii t hemselve s o f hi s a bili t i es an d ex p e rience in t h l lis 4 l 7 l "% ert t entered, howev e r, into his head, that naent was bound to take cognizance of ire ease must and to remunerate him for the losses he eth prete nded to h ave sus t a i ne d f ro m that of Russia.o 11erekre aPplied to Ministers, who, according Of h ir usual practice in such cases, had the grounds tie s s 'Dpltcation examined ; bat it appearing from irejuex atn ination that his claims had no foundation tla en s i nc e , they wer e not farth e r attended to. He • 41 ) a l ad r ecourse to another contrivance :he drew taajetition to Parliament, in the hope that he eet -.4lt 'est a sufficient number of Members to `A\.\ sal pool in 3 C citlia i. IDL.:VCI al •••••- - - Claims unreasonable and unjust, shifted the thing from themselves, and he at length applied to the Minister to obtain :1i:; countenance to his petition, as, it being a money withoUt that countenance it would not be successfully introduced to the House. Mr. Per ceval, governed by those principles of justice which always guided his condua, refused the pfisoner that countenance which he required ; and from that moment the desire of revenge seems to have enter ed into and to have engrossed his heart ; from that !noment he seems to have conceived his resentment, and to have marked out his victim. He has been resident in London for the last tour months, and the latter part of that time appears to have been spent in preparations for his horrible purpose. He bought a brace of pistols and ammunition. Ha got his arms ready, and appears to have watched his best op portunity, He informed himself of the time when Mr. PeKeval usually went to the House of Commons ; he had an alteration made in his dress, by getting an inside pocket on the left side of his ' coat for the convenience of containing his pis tols. On the day when the horrible deed was per petrated, he placed himself at the entrance of the lobby in sti(‘!, a situation as was best calculated to com mit the crime he had in view, and also to elude the ..... _ • _ possibility of prevention ; there he waited the arri val of the of his malignity, and just as he :vas passing, he discharged his piStol at him. The effett of this shot was the instantaneous death of Mr. Per ceval. You will hear, Gentlemen, the details of this tragical - event . fmril the witnesses; 'and you will then have to decide, whether the prisoner at tha bar be or be not a murderer—whether he be or nor an- swerable for this horrid a&. You will not, however, consider the ad in an aggravated point of view—as the murder or assassination of the eminent M. Per- ceval—but you will judge of it as if it had been com mitted upon the meanest man amongst us; and you will judge of it, therefore, on its abstraEt nature, un surrounded by all those accidental circumstances which belong to it, as against such a man as Mr. Perceval. As to the faCt,. that will be put beyond the most distant doubt ; and it remains, therefore, for me only to allude to that attempt—that foolish and vain attempt—which has been [made to-day to impress upon your minds an idea or conviCtion of the prisoner's insanity. Let us, then, consider the question of insanity a little. Here is a man, who, like others, has been always equal to the con ducting his own affairs ; who has always had the management of his owe - earcerns. We see no in terterersce of any part of his family to deprive him, as ae insane person, of that management. We see bin; not on:y left in the tnanagennen: of his own business, but even selected to conduct the business of others. We see Fes., through his whole life, without the ;east bleaa in his understanding : and what colaur, thtreforn, aave eve acw to say, or to pretend, that he is an: compqs mentic,that he is not an accountable being, Thnse , ahn make the affidavits are unable toneny the be has not been in the management of his own affairs and those of others. Undaehtedly, could be proved that the prisoner ead no ,mind, no imputation could be made against him ia law, bersaaae the imputation presupposes mind in the person against whom it is made. If it could be proved, that there was an absence of mind at the time that he committed this act, nothing could lie against him ; but to day I am to learn, that the extraordinary wickedness of the act is the very reason why the perpetrator of it should not be answerable for it. Gentlemen, I will put a case :—Suppose it had pleased Almghty God to have arrested t.ie assasin's hand, just as he was about to inflict the fatal blow, and that Mr. Perceval had been thus miraculously spared to his family and to iris country; if, on the morning of the day in which he had beets thus snatched away from the perpetration of his meditated murder, he had made his will, and that the validity of that will was afterwards disputed in a Court of Justice, on the ground of insanity ; I ask, would any Court allow the, legality of such a plea ?—Would not the gene ral habit of his mind, the rationality of his general conduit, outweigh every consideration of insanity at taching to this one aft ? Would it not be said, and said fairly, that his whole life being rational, it was not right to conclude this as to he irrational because it possessed an atrociousness which the mind of man, in the highest flight of its wiekedness,would scarcely dare to conceive,—an atrociousness which would be conceived to be possible merely because it existed . ?e-- Aie we to conclude, in fact, the prisoner to be mad because he has clone act of madness ? If so, Gen tlemen, this very atrocious and extraordinarily wlcked stet carries with it its own defence; and we may do what we please against the justice of the country, provided our conduct be sufficiently daring, and boasts an atrocity beyond the wickedness of common life. The question then is simply this : whether a person like the prisoner at the bar, be at, the time of the commission of his 'act, capable of distinguishing between right and wrong. If he be so capaWe, then the law is, that he is answerable for his act, and criminally responsible for it. I think it necessary here to distinguish between that civil derangement which excludes a man from the ma, nagement of his property or his affairs, and that madness which renders a mart criminally unac countable to the law. A person may be in the first situation, and yet not in the second. The administration of his affairs may be taken from him by the law; and yet he may have still the power of jadging. between right and wrung in criminal cases, and, be therefore answerable for his criminal act. This is •the law as laid down by all our best and wisest writers, and as preserved hn memorially in the practice of our Courts. Indeed, all the cases which I remember speak this doe , rine ; but there are two cases more prominent than the rest, and these I shall quote to you." The Learned Gentleman then went into a detail of the King v. add the case of Lord Ferrars. In the first case Arnold was accused of the murder of Lord Onslow, in 1723 ; and the detence set up was, that Arnold was out of his mind, and several witnesses proved that he was to a certain extent incapable even from his childhood; every act of his life shewing a deficiency of understanding, and that he was not capable of managing either other people's affairs or his own. But it was proved that he had taken up a causeless resentment against Lord (}.;slow —had made preparations for the deed ; and it was held by the . Judge, that notwithstanding his deficient under standing, if he was capable of distinguishing be tween tight and wrong, he was cleatly answerable. The Jury found him pilty ticcordicigly, In the of the murder of Mr. Johnson, his steward. He had taken up an unfounded suspicion -rgainst him, and had resolved upon pa.)ing the unfortuhate man to' instant death. He m4de prepirations, sent for I)rn to his house, put every other person out of the the way, took him into a private wom, and shot hH, It was proved that he was frequently insar.e. ; that many of his relations had died inane ; that his So licitor was so convinced of his insanity, that he refused to a& for him. Medical men swore he was insane ; his relations declared that they would have taken out a commision of lunacy, but Were afraid of their motives being misrepresented. His Peers, all the Peers of the kangdom, declared with one consistent voice that he was guilty, and he was exe cuted. These cases the Attorney-General applied to the present, maintaining, that if even insanity in all his other axis had been rnanifea, yet ti:e systematic correaness with which' the prisoner contrived the murder of Mr. Perceval, shewed a mind, at the 'late, capable of distinguishing right and wrong. Here there was no deficiency, as in the cases he had cited ; and therefore he must insist, that it the Jury thought with him. they must find a verdict} of The ATTORNEY-GENERAL having finished his speech, Mr. WILLIAM SMITH was sworn and ,examined. —He is a Member of the Commons House of Par llams-it. On Monday last, he, in the discharge of his Parliamentary duty, haopenad to be talking to a Gentleman in the lobby of the House of Commons; While in conversation with the Gentleman he heard the report of a pistol; the report appeared to come from the outside lobby-door;—he turned his head to. the place whence the noise proceeded, and observed a tumult. A dozen or more persons were about the spot where the . pistol was' fired, and from amongst them he immediately saw a person rushing hastily from them ; —several voices at the same time cried out, shut the door, let no one escape. The person who came towards him looked now one way, and then aunt her,—reeled forward by him, and then fell upota his face. He thought when he was advancing, that he was more like a person who was seeking far shelter, than one who had received the wound. Before he fell, he said a word or two indistinctly, which he conceived to be oh! murder! or something like it ; did not know at first who the person was— thought him only slightly wounded—on raising him up, found it was Mr. Perceval, but not till then. — With the help of another, took Mr. Perceval in his arms into the office of the Speaker's Secretary. His face was completely pale. The blood came in a small quantity (row the corners of his mouth. His pulsation did not last long. His eyes, however, continued open for three or four minutes ; he ut tered some convulsive sobs, and died before the sur geon arrived. Mr. Perceval was shot just at the time that he was in the habit of going to the House of Commons. The name of the person who assist ed him into the Speaker's Secretary's office with the body was Phillips. ' Mr. LINN examined.—ls a surgeon, residin,c , in George-street, Westminster ; was sent for on Mon day evening to the House of Commons, where he saw the body of Mr. Perceval. He probed the wound, which was above the nipple of the left breast, and Was deep about five inches, going thro' the heart. This wound certainly caused Mr. Per ceval's death. HENRY BURGESS, solicitor, examined. —After Mr e Pcrceval fell, crying faintly " Oh ! Murder !" he heard a person say, " that's the man," and saw a hand pointing towards the fire place. The pri soner was-sitting on the bench near the fire-place, in great agitation. He found a pistol either in, or under the left hand of the prisoner, on the bench. It was warm. He asked the prisoner-how he could have committed such an a6l ? Prisoner replied— " Want of redress, and denial of justice," or words to that etiett. He asked the prisoner, had he at,- other pistol in his pocket ? Prisoner said, " Yes." [The pistol with which the shot was fired was here prodoced.] :Saw that other pistol taken by some person out of • his pocket. Heard the prisoner af terwards examined up stairs. The fads which he now related, he related at that a ximioation. Pri soner correaed - the witness during that examination,, in the following passage : " I wish (said the pri soner) to correct Mr. Burgess's statement in one particulas, but I believe he is perfectly corrects in, every other. Instead of my hand having been on or near the pistoi, he took the pistol out of it." Cross-examined by Mr. ALLEY.—Prisoner said that he had no personal resentment against Mr. Perceval : he said generally that he bad been ill used by the Government. He could not tell whe ther or not the prisoner might hive escaped after he had fired the shot. Prisoner was at first extremely agitated ; but he, at his examination, recovered his self-possession. Re-examined for the Crown.—There is an officer of the House of Commons just outside the lobby door, and the prisoner could not have escaped, ex cept by passing by this officer. Lieutenant General GASCOYNE said, he is Mem ber of Parliament for Liverpool. He • went to the House of Commons last Monday evening, •at five o'clock, by desire of Mr. Perceval, in order to have some conversation with him respecting a petition from that town, which he had to present to the House. - • Not finding Mr. Perceval come at his must hour, five o'clock, to the House, he went up' stairs to one of the Committee rooms ; and when he had reached the room which was open to she balustrade which overlooks the lobby of the House, he beard the report of a pistol, and immediately ran to the Gallery lobby, whete he heard an ex clamation of " close the doors." He then rushed down stairs, and through the House into the lobby, where he saw the circumstances described by the first witness. A person near him, whom he should not ktiow if he saw him, said, " that is the man who fired the pistol," pointing to John Belling ham, whose person and name he knew. He was sitting with one or two others on the bench near the fire. Took him by the breast, and as he lift ed up his hand, it appeared he had a pistol in his hand cocked. Therefore kept down his arm, and Mr. Burgess took the pistol from under the hand which the witness held. Heard the prison er say he had another pistol. Proceeded to search ' his pockets, but found no other pistol in the poc kets he searched ; but he found a parcel of papers in his breast pocket, tied together with red tape. The pressure was so great, around the witness, that, teaming to lose the papers, be held up his hand high, ouqe. be pri,,,oe.r both hand;„ and told l!iin he could not escape, ay he %v.-. wed known to C!e witness, h' was (1,.- 'l , ..ronned he would never lose sight of him. The priswler said that he had submitted. Some More questioni . were• put io him by several other per sons, which he answered; but which she wit nes; could not disti,, , Aly recollect ; and the prisoner was taken to the bar of the Hou.e, in the custody women, and from thence he was ordered by the Speaker to be taken in custody to a tonal up stairs, to be examined befOre the M.,gistrwes who attend ed. He appeared at first eKtremely agitated; but afterwards became quite calm and collected. 'When the witness gave his evidee befote the Magistrates, the prisoner said, " General Gascoyne is too correct for me to make any observations on his evict _nee : he must have been less agitated than I was." He certainly appeared to be at first in such a state of agitation as any man,might be who was deteaed iu aach a crime : but he afterwards seemed perfectly calm; and as the witness had known him before.— Witness can't recoiled precisely when he had seen him before; but thinks it was at his own house on the preceding Monday. JAMES TAYLOR, a taylor, who resides at No. North-place, Gray's Ina-lane, proved that he was employed by the prisoner to do some work for him in the way of his business ; and that on 25th of April particularly, he employed him to make a breast pocket on the left , side of a dark coloured body coat, which he gave Lim particular direßion% to make about nine inches deep, and gave him a piece of paper about" that length, a a pattern far the depth he wisked ; and desired h h o to make the pocket so as to be easily come at. He took En,rne the coat on the follow►ng day, and gave it to the servant of the. house in Millman -street, where the ptisoner lodged. Witness Ile'si saw him about six days ago, in Gray's Inn-lane: Witness then bowed to hint ; and the prisoner said, he should shortly have some more business tor him to do. JOHN NORRIS said, that having daily occasion to attend in the Gallery of the House of Commons, he was on his way thithtq, about five o'clock, last Monday evening; that he saw the prisoner standing close within side one of the folding-doors opening from the steps into the lobby, and that he appeared to be waiting for some person. Prisoner stood at , not more than arm's length from any person passing through the other opening of the door-way. The prisoner seemed to him, as well a.; he could now re collect, with his right hand within the left side of his coat-breast, and appeared to be in a state of ex treme anxiety. 'Witness passed on towards the gallery; and, on his reaching the lobby of the gal lery, heard the report of a pistol. Toe Contusion was so great below, that he could not afterwards distiudly understand what passed ; but he under stood that Mr. Perceval was shot. JOHN VICKERY, one of the Police Officers of Bow street, proved, that on the evening ot Monday last he went to search the prisoner's lodgings in Mill man-street, where he found in a drawer, a pair of pistol-bags, a small powder-flask, a paper wish some powder, a ball-mould with some pistol-balls, a pa per containing some small flints, and a pistol key for unscrewing the barrel of a pocket-pistol. Two of the balls appeared to have been screwed into a pocket-pistol, and he had no doubt but those bails had bden cast in this mould. Mr. V. C. DOWLiNG sworn.—Stated, that having been in the gallery of the House of Commons, on Monday evening last, a little after five, he heard the report of a pistol, and he immediately ran down to, the lobby. •He saw the prisoner, who was pointed out to him as the person who fired the shot. He immediately proceeded to search the prisoner, and took from .his small-clothes pocket a loaded pistol, which he now produced in Court. It was primed at the time, and contained, as It did now, a charge of powder, with a leaden ball ; and it wasfprectsely like the other pistol now produced, which had been discharged, and taken from the prisoner at the time. He compared the ball with the bore of the discharg ed pistol, and proved that it exactly tallied, and hat both pistols were marked with the same maker's name. He had seen the prisoner several times shortly before in the gallery and avenues of the House of Commons 5 and he partieularly recolhcled having seen him in the gallery, sitting some time by his side within the last week, and having some conversation with him. Mr. NEWMAN, the Keeper of Newgate, and a man named Bowman,'one of his assistants, proved the dark-coloured coat, with the deep side pocket, found in the prisoner's apartment in the prison, which he wore for some days after his commitment, and which Taylor, who searched theTocket, atter• wards identified. - The evidence for the Crown being now closed, the prisoner was called on for his defence. The prisoner proposed to leave it to his Counsel, but was informed that they ',vete not allowed to ad dress the Court in his defence. The prisoner then said, that the papers taken from his person were documents absolutely neccessary to his defence, and he claimed them from tl.e Court. They were accordingly delivered to him ; and he proceeded to address the Jury in a speech of above an hour's continuance, interspersed with the reading of those several JOCQUICtitS, and with his own comments. He expressed his thanks to the King's Attorney-General for tie resistance he op. posed to the defence set up by his Counsel, which went to prove that he was insane; because, it it had succeeded, it would not have answered the pm pose of his justification. He returned thauks to his Counsel for their zeal in his defence, and their in tentions in setting up such a plea at the desire of his friends ; but neither now . , ror at any time, had he incurred the charge of insanity, with the exception of a single instance in 11.wsia, when the. pressure of his suffering's had exposed him to that imputation. As to the lamentable cafas , rophe for which he was pow on his trial before that Court, no mart could lament the sad event with deeper sorrow than he did ; not even the family and nearest friends of the unfortunate Mr. Perceval. If he had been capable of taking away the We of that Gentleman with am, deliberate feeling of malice propense, lie should de serve to be accounted the most atrocious monster in existence. He disclaimed, however, in the most solemn manner, any such motive of personal pre. meditated malice towards - that Gentleman in parti cular ; and could only state, the uotbitunatelot had I fallen upon him as a leading Member of that