The Sun.
London, England, 1822-08-14 00:00:00

The LATE MARQUIS of LONDONDERRY.

CORONER'S INQUEST:
Yesterday at a few minutes before three o'clock
a Jury of the most respectable inhabitants in the
vicinity of the estate of the late Marquis of LON-
DONDERRY was empanelled, to inquire into the
cause of the death of the above Noble Lord,
The Coroner was Mr. JOSEPH CARTTAROf Dept-
ford. The Inquest was held at the house of the
deceased Lord, and to the credit of the indi-
viduals . who were appointed to superintend the
arrangements attendant upon this melancholy
occasion, not the slightest attempt was made to
keep the proceedings secret. Directions were
given to the domestics to admit every person
who desired to be present at the inquest.—ln-
deed publicity seemed rather to he courted than
otherwise.—The Jury were immediately sworn
in ; the following are their names :
WILLIAM MATTEN, Foreman,
William Meade, Robert Merrefield,
John Johnson, Harry Allen Wyburn,
; John Masters, John Cookson,
John Cook, Thomas .Preston,
John Storor,' Thomas Harmar,
Henry Dean, George Stone.
The CORONER addressed them in nearly the
following terms :—" Upon no former occasion in
the performance of his duty had his feelings been
so excited as by the present unfortunate event.
He was indeed so much affected that they must
perceive he could hardly express himself as he
wished. Upon this account he trusted they
would excuse any trifling errors which he
might commit in the exercise of his duty.—
The Gentlemen of the Jury were summoned
and sworn t 0... inquire into the causes of the
death of a Nobleman, who stood perhaps as
high in the public estimation as any man in the
country. That his Lordship had met his
death under particular circumstances, they doubt-
less must have learned. But it was his duty to
inform them that they must remove from their
minds all impressions which should not be borne
out by the evidence. The gentlemen whom- he
addressed being neighbours of the deceased,
were better able to form a just estimate of his
character than he was. As a public man, it was
impossible for him to weigh his character in any
scales that he could hold. In private life he
believed the world would admit that a more
amiable man could not be, found. Whether
the important duties of. the great office which
he held pressed upon his mind, and conduced
to the melancholy event which they had
assembled to investigate, was a circumstance
which all probability never could be discover-
ed. .He understood that his Lordship had for
some time past been so. unwell as to require the
assistance of a medical attendant. This Gentle-
man would be examined on the Inquest, and
would doubtless be competent to describe the
disease and affliction under which his Lordship
laboured. That the dreadful blow which de-
prived the Noble Lord of life was inflicted by
his own hand, he believed the Jury, when they
came to hear the evidence, could not doubt. He
understood it would be proved that no person in
the house, except his Lordship, could have com-
mitted the act. When the Jury should examine
the situation of the body, and hear the evidence
that Ivould be submitted to them, he was convinced
that they would he perfectly' unanimous in that
part of their verdict which went to declare the
manner in which the deceased met his death.
He felt that it was a matter of delicacy to allude
to the other part of the verdict, and he would
not presume to anticipate what it might be ; but
he trusted the result would be that which all
good men desired. If the facts which he had
heard were proved in evidence, he thought no
man could doubt that at the. time he. committed
the rash act his Lordship was labouring under a
mental delusion. If, however, it should unfor-
tunately appear that there was not sufficient evi-
dence to prove what were generally considered
the indications of a disordered mind, •he trusted
that the Jury would pay some attention to his
(the Coroner's) humble opinion, which was,
that no man could be in his proper senses
at the moment he committed so rash an act as
self-murder. His opinion was in consonance
with every moral sentiment, and with the informa-
tion which the wisest of men had given to the
world. The Bible declared that a man clung
to nothing so strongly as his own life. He
therefore viewed it as an axiom, and an ab-
stract principle, that a man must necessarily be
out of his mind at the moment of destroying him-
self. The Jury, of course, would not adopt his
opinion upon this point, unless it were in uni-
son with their own. He would not longer oc-
cupy the time and attention of the• Jury than to
express his pleasure at seeing so respectable a
body of Gentlemen, and to add a hope that
they would acquit themselves of their important
duty to the satisfaction of the public, as well as
of their own consciences. He must apologise for
saying a few words more. The body was lying
up stairs, and in the room adjoining to that in
which it lay, the Marchioness at present was,
and from thence it had been found impossible to
remove her. To picture to the imagination any
thing like the state of that noble lady's mind,
was altogether impossible. The partition which
divided the room in which the body lay from
that which the Marchioness at present occupied
was so thin, that the least noise being made in the
former could not fail to he heard in the latter.
The forms of law, however, required that the
jury should view the body, and judge from the
external marks which it might exhibit, of the
causes which had produced death : he therefore
had only to request that the gentlemen would be
as silent as possible. He was almost afraid that
the creaking of their shoes might be the means of