The Most Extraordinary Trial of William Palmer, for the Rugeley Poisonings, which lasted Twelve Days

by Anonymous

Something has been said about Cook having taken the antimony in “James’s powder,” but not a tittle of evidence has been given that he ever took any of these powders, while the presence of the antimony in the blood proved that it had been administered within, forty-eight hours of death. I believe that you will feel that you have a right to conclude from all the evidence that has been brought before you upon this point, that antimony had been administered to Cook in a mode and in quantities which showed that it could have been given for no legitimate object; and further, that it must have been administered by the prisoner. And from these facts you will see how great is the probability that he must, in that case, have acted with the view of carrying out a fatal resolution previously formed; for it is well known that antimony has often been given in amounts capable of destroying life. But let us take into consideration the conduct of the prisoner in the afterstages of the case, and let us look at what took place on the day of Cook’s death. On the preceding night he had suffered from what was indisputably a most severe attack. Dr. Bamford sees Palmer on the Tuesday morning, and not a word is said to him about that attack. The prisoner manifests an anxiety that he should not see the deceased; he states that Cook is quiet, and is dosing, and that he does not wish to have him disturbed. That might be. But on the other hand it must be remembered that if Dr. Bamford had seen Cook in the morning, Cook would in all probability have made known to him his frightful suffering of the night before, as they must then have formed the subject which was, of all others, the most present to his memory. Dr. Bamford, however, did not see the deceased until seven o’clock on the Tuesday evening, when he was much better. Palmer had then talked of his having suffered from a bilious affection; and it is a remarkable fact that he had more than once represented the illness of Cook as one arising from a bilious attack, both to Dr. Bamford and Dr. Jones, although the patient had exhibited none of the symptoms which ordinarily accompany a bilious constitution. The moment Dr. Jones saw him he made the observation that his “tongue was not that of a bilious patient,” and the answer he got from Palmer was, “Oh, you should have seen him before.” Seen him when before? There was not the slightest ground for supposing that he had been suffering from any bilious complaint, either at Shrewsbury or since his arrival at Rugeley. But not one word did Palmer say to Dr. Jones about the fit of Cook on the night before. Well, the three medical men consulted together, by the bedside of the patient, and then Cook turned round and said, “Mind, I will have no more pills and medicine, to-night,” remembering, as he no doubt did at the time, his illness of the preceding night. No observation was made even then by Palmer as to what had been the nature of Cook’s attack on the night before; but the medical men having withdrawn into the adjoining room or lobby, Palmer immediately proposed that Cook should again take the same pills he had taken on the previous night; but he desired Jones not to say anything to him about what they contained, lest he might object to take them.

It was then arranged that the pills should be made up, and Palmer proposed that they should be compounded by Dr. Bamford, although it was then early in the evening, and he might easily have prepared them on his own premises. He accompanied Dr. Bamford to the surgery of the latter; and after the pills had been made up there, he asked Dr. Bamford to write the address on them, and the address was so written. An interval occurred of an hour or two, during which the prisoner had abundant opportunities of going to his surgery, and doing what he pleased in the way of changing the pills. He returned to the hotel, and before he gave the pills to Cook he took care to call the attention of Jones, who was present at the time, to the remarkable handwriting of an old gentleman like Dr. Bamford, by whom the direction of the medicine had been written. What necessity was there for that? Might it not have been part of a preconceived design to save himself from any subsequent suspicion, by his being able to state that the pills had been prepared by Dr. Bamford? and might it not have been done for the purpose of disarming any immediate suspicion on the part of Dr. Jones himself? Have we not every reason to suppose that it may have been effectual in accomplishing the latter result? Any one of these circumstances could not have been of so decisive a character as to lead you to the conviction of the prisoner’s guilt; but I ask you to consider them as a series of events following one another in close succession; and I then leave it to you to draw from them the conclusion to which you may find they must legitimately lead. I will now pass over for a moment the remainder of the history of the Tuesday night, and I will take you to the circumstances which immediately followed Cook’s death. On the Thursday, Mr. Stevens, the stepfather of the deceased, went over to Rugeley, on receiving intelligence of the sad event. He applied to Palmer for information upon the subject of Cook’s affairs; and in the course of the communications which passed between them, Stevens said, “rich or poor, the poor fellow should be buried.” Palmer then observed that he would undertake to bury him himself, but Mr. Stevens declined, in a decisive manner, to avail himself of that offer. I admit that there may be nothing suspicious in the proposal of Palmer to bury his friend, if it should be taken by itself, but there is this somewhat remarkable circumstance in this part of the case, that when Mr. Stevens had said that he could not have the funeral for a few days, Palmer observed that “the body ought to be put into a coffin immediately;” and when, after an absence of about half an hour, he returned, and was asked by Mr. Stevens for the name of an undertaker to whom he should give directions about the funeral, the prisoner stated, much to the surprise of the gentleman whom he was addressing, that “he had himself ordered a shell and a strong oak coffin.” Why should he have so hurriedly interfered in the business of another man, unless he had made up his mind that the body should be consigned to its last resting place, and removed from the sight of man with the utmost possible rapidity?

You have heard the conversation which took place between Mr. Stevens and the prisoner on the Saturday at the different railway stations at which they met. It appears that at that time Mr. Stevens had made up his mind that a post-mortem examination of the body of the deceased should take place, in consequence of circumstances which had engendered a suspicion in his mind that the death of his step-son had not been the result of natural disease. He had noticed the strange attitude of the deceased—his clinched hands, and the unusual appearance of his face—and being a man of natural shrewdness and sagacity, he felt a lurking suspicion which he could not unravel, that there must have been foul play in the case. He made known to the prisoner his intention of having the body opened before it was consigned to the grave. It is true that the prisoner did not flinch from that trying ordeal, and that he met with firmness the trying gaze of Mr. Stevens, when the report of the post-mortem examination was first mentioned. But finding that there was to be a post-mortem examination, he was anxious to know who was to perform it. Mr. Stevens would not inform him, but merely stated that it was to take place on the Monday. Then we have on the Sunday that remarkable conversation between the prisoner and Newton, which has been for some time known to the Crown. It is true that Newton did not mention the conversation in the course of his examination before the coroner; but the reason for his silence upon the subject on that occasion may be easily proved. He was called at the inquest solely for the purpose of corroborating the evidence of Roberts with respect to Palmer’s appearance in Dr. Hawkins’s shop on the Tuesday morning; and to that point his evidence before the coroner was confined. He has since deposed that during a conversation with Palmer on the Sunday, the latter suddenly asked him, “What quantity of strychnine would you give if you wanted to kill a dog?” The reply was, “From half-a-grain to a grain.” The prisoner then asked, “Would you expect to find any traces of it in the stomach after death;” Newton answered, “No;” and, on his doing so, he observed the prisoner make a movement conveying an intimation of his delight.

I had at one time thought that my learned friend engaged for the defence would have attempted to show that the prisoner had purchased the strychnia at the commencement of the week for the purpose of destroying dogs; but no evidence whatever has been adduced to establish such a point; and we had no evidence of any kind to show how that strychnia was applied. But my learned friend has contended that the prisoner had no motive for taking away the life of his friend, Cook. Now if I convince you upon unimpeachable evidence that the death of Cook had bean caused by strychnine, and that that strychnine could only have been administered by the prisoner, then the question of motive must become a mere secondary consideration. It is often difficult to dive into the breast of man, and to ascertain with any certainty the reasons which directed him to any particular course of action; and the inscrutable character of any particular motive ought not to destroy the force of a well-authenticated fact. But motive is unquestionably an important element in a case over which any doubt as to the facts can by any possibility rest. I believe I can perfectly satisfy your minds that in this case the prisoner had a motive, and a very obvious motive, for taking away the life of Cook. He was at the time reduced to a condition of the direst embarrassment. It appears that in the month of November last he owed on bills not less than £19,000, of which £12,500 worth was in the hands of Pratt; and out of that latter sum £5,500 was pressing for immediate payment. By the death of Cook he was enabled to obtain possession of £1,020, due to the latter in the shape of bets; he was enabled to obtain possession of the money which Cook must have had about him on his arrival at Rugeley, and which, according to one of the witnesses, must have amounted to £700 or £800; and he attempted to obtain possession of the £350 which the Messrs. Weatherby were to have received as the amount of the stakes of the Shrewsbury Handicap. The order forwarded by Palmer to the Messrs. Weatherby for the £350, and purporting to bear the signature of Cook, had been sent back by them to the prisoner; and if that signature was not a forgery, why had it not been produced on the part of the defendant?

My learned friend says that Cook was the best friend of the prisoner, and that Cook was the only person to whom he could look for assistance in his embarrassments. But Cook had no means of assisting him, unless he were to appropriate to his use the money which he had won at Shrewsbury, which was all the property he then possessed; and can any one believe that the deceased would have parted with that money, and would have left himself wholly without any resources for the approaching winter? My learned friend contends that the fact that Palmer had written the letter on the Friday night, in which he asked Fisher to pay £200 to Pratt, on account of a transaction in which both he and Palmer were interested, while £300 more were to be sent upon that night—my learned friend contends that that fact shows that the prisoner and the deceased perfectly understood one another at the time, and goes far to prove the innocence of his client. To my mind, however, that very circumstance affords a very strong argument in favour of the case for the Crown. The only transaction with Pratt, in which Palmer and Cook were both interested, was that relating to the bill for £500, and in which Cook had assigned his horse as a collateral security. It is very easy to see that he must have felt particularly anxious that that claim should at once be settled, and that his horses should come into his own undisputed possession, one of these horses being a very valuable one, namely, Polestar, which had just won the Shrewsbury race. He accordingly, I have no doubt, gave Palmer £300 to be sent up to London on account of that bill; but that sum was never applied by the prisoner to the purpose for which it had been placed in his hands. There is not the slightest foundation for the statement that Cook had entered into an arrangement with Palmer for the purpose of defrauding Fisher of the £200 he had advanced; for there was nothing in his character which could show that he was capable of so infamous an act, and it could not possibly have been his interest that it should take place. I will not ask you to direct your attention to the request addressed by the prisoner to Cheshire, the postmaster, that he should bear his witness to the genuineness of Cook’s signature to the order on the Messrs. Weatherby for the sum of £350. That request was made forty-eight hours after Cook’s death; and if the signature was not a forgery, why was that extraordinary demand made of Cheshire, and why had not the document been since produced? It is impossible to forget that if Cheshire had testified to the genuineness of that document, the prisoner would have been enabled to exercise over him the most fatal control, and that he might then have compelled him to sign another paper, transferring, as the prisoner had sought to do in the course of one of his conversations with Mr. Stevens, to the deceased the liability for £4,000 or £5,000 due on bills to Pratt, and outstanding in his own name.

All these facts show irrefragably, as I contend, that the death of Cook had, in the opinion of the prisoner, become most desirable for his own relief. There is another part of his conduct as tending to throw light on this matter, and that is with reference to Cook’s betting book. On the night when Cook died—ere the breath had hardly parted from that poor man’s body—the prisoner was found there, rummaging his pockets, and searching for his papers. When, subsequently, Stevens asked for the betting book, the prisoner said, “Oh, it’s of no use, for a dead man’s bets are void.” True it is that a dead man’s bets are void, but not when they are paid during his life. Who received the bets? The prisoner at the bar. Who was answerable for them? The prisoner at the bar. Who had an interest in concealing the amount of those debts? The prisoner at the bar. If Stevens had seen that book, he would have seen that Cook was entitled to a sum of £1,020; he would have seen that Fisher was his agent, and from him that Herring, and not Fisher, had calculated his bets. But there is still more yet to be accounted for. When Stevens determined upon having a post-mortem examination, what was the conduct of the prisoner at the bar? [The learned Attorney-General then proceeded to refer to the arrival of Dr. Harland in the town of Rugeley for the purpose of making the examination, his conversation with Palmer, when the latter said that Cook had died of epileptic fits, and that traces of old disease would be found in the head and heart, none of which were, however, found on the examination of the body; the removal of the jar containing the stomach and intestines of Cook, the slits cut in the covering probably for the purpose of introducing something into the jar, which would neutralise the poison if it were present, the restlessness and uneasiness of the prisoner while the examination was going on, his remonstrating with Dr. Bamford for letting the jars be sent away, and his attempt to bribe the post-boy to upset the chaise and break the jar.]

The conduct of Mr. Stevens, the stepfather of Cook, in resolving to prosecute this inquiry, was such as the gravity and importance of the case proved ought to have protected him from the charge of insolent curiosity brought against him by my learned friend. The hon. and learned gentleman then concluded as follows:—It is for you to say, under these circumstances, whether or not the death of the deceased was caused by the prisoner at the bar. You have indeed had introduced into this case one other element which I cannot help thinking might well have been omitted. You have heard from my learned friend an unusual, I think I may even say an unprecedented, expression of the innocence of his client. I can only say on that point that I believe my learned friend might have abstained from any such statement. What would he think of me, if, imitating his example, I should at this moment declare to you, on my honour, as he did, what is the internal conviction which has followed from my conscientious consideration of this case? My learned friend has, with a full display of his great ability, also adopted another course, which, although sometimes resorted to by members of our profession, involves in my mind a species of insult to the good sense and the good feeling of the jury; he has endeavoured to intimidate you by evoking your own conscientious scruples for the purpose of preventing you from adopting the only honest mode of discharging the great duty you are called upon to perform. My learned friend told you that if your verdict in this case should be Guilty, the innocence of the prisoner will one day or other be made manifest, and you would never cease to regret the verdict you had given. If my learned friend was sincere in that—and I know that he was, for there is no man who is more alive than he is to the claims of truth and honour—but if he said what he believed, all I can state in answer is, that I can only attribute the conviction he has expressed to that strong bias which his mind easily, perhaps, received in directing all his energies to the defence of a man charged with this frightful crime. But I still think he would have done well to have abstained from any assurance of the innocence of the prisoner at the bar. I go further, and say that I think he ought, in justice and in consideration to you, to have abstained from telling you that the voice of the country would not sanction the verdict which you might give. I say nothing of the inconsistency which is involved in such a statement, coming from one who but a short time before complained in eloquent terms of the universal torrent of passion, and of prejudice by which, he said, his client was borne down.

In answer to my learned friend, I have only this to say to you. Pay no regard to the voice of the country, whether it be for condemnation or for acquittal; pay no regard to anything but to the internal voice of your own consciences; trust to the sense of that duty to God and man, which you are about to discharge upon this occasion, seeking no reward except the comforting assurance that when you shall look back at the events of this trial you have discharged, to the best of your ability, and to the utmost of your power, the duty you have been called upon to fulfil. If, on a review of the whole case, comparing the evidence on one side and on the other, and weighing it in the even scales of justice, you can come to the conclusion of the innocence, or even entertain that fair and reasonable doubt of guilt, of which the accused is entitled to the benefit, in God’s name give to him that benefit. But if, on the other hand, all the facts and all the evidence lead your minds with satisfaction to yourselves to the conclusion of his guilt, then—but then only—I ask for a verdict of Guilty at your hands. For the protection of the good, for the repression of the wicked, I then ask for that verdict by which alone—as it seems to me—the safety of society can be secured, and the demands—the imperious demands—of public justice can be satisfied. (The hon. and learned gentleman concluded his address shortly after half-past six o’clock, after having occupied the breathless attention of every one who had heard him during a period of three hours and three quarters).

Lord Campbell then addressed the jury as follows:—the cause of public justice imperatively requires that the court should now adjourn. I shall feel it my duty, in this important case, to bring before you the whole of the evidence on the one side and on the other, accompanying the reading of it with such remarks as I may think it proper to make. It is impossible to enter on that duty at this hour, and I am, therefore, under the painful necessity of ordering that you be again kept sequestered from your families and friends during another Sabbath.

The court then adjourned at twenty-five minutes to seven o’clock until ten o’clock on Monday.