These all gave as their opinion that the body of a person who had been drowned must contain water in the thorax, and that since no water was present in the body, death must have been caused in some other way. Two seamen of the Royal Navy were also put into the box, and both were emphatic in their opinion that the body of a person who had been drowned would sink, while a dead body thrown into the water would float.
Spencer Cowper, who, as has been stated, conducted his own defence, cross-examined the medical witnesses and made them admit that they had no knowledge of the way in which the body of a person who had drowned himself would behave.
He entered a strong protest against the body having been examined after the coroner’s inquest (at which a verdict of suicide while of unsound mind had been found) by medical men acting in the interests of the relations of the dead woman, with the intention of becoming prosecutors. “If,” said he, “they intended to have prosecuted me or any other gentleman upon this evidence, they ought to have given us notice, that we might have had some surgeons among them to superintend their proceeding. My Lord, with submission, this ought not to be given in evidence.” The judge overruled this objection, saying that supposing an ill thing had been done in taking up the body without some order, that was no reason why the evidence should not be heard.
In further cross-examination Mr. Cowper succeeded in throwing doubt upon the statements of witnesses, who alleged that they had seen marks of strangling, and produced witnesses to prove that any marks upon the body had been the result of contact with stakes in the bed of the river. Then he brought forward his own expert medical evidence, which was given by ten of the leading doctors of the day, including Sir Hans Sloane and the celebrated surgeon William Cowper. These held a different view from that of the doctors called for the prosecution, and gave their reasons for concluding that the appearance of the body was quite consistent with death by drowning.
Some described experiments they had made upon animals, which proved that when killed and thrown into the water the body sank at first and then rose to the surface, and also that drowning could take place without much water being swallowed.
As proof of the dead woman having been of a melancholy disposition and not of sound mind, letters of hers were read to the jury, but these her mother and brother would not admit were in her handwriting, since, they asserted, it did not suit her character. (See [p. 85].)
The judge, Sir Henry Hatsell, in summing up confessed that he was very much puzzled, and that he perceived that “doctors do differ in their notions about these things.”
The conclusion of his remarks is worthy of quotation: “I am sensible I have omitted many things; but I am a little faint, and cannot remember any more of the evidence.”
It is not surprising that, soon after Queen Anne came to the throne, he was removed from the bench.
The jury believed the medical witnesses for the defence, and after a short discussion found Spencer Cowper and the other prisoners “Not guilty.”