“My defence is composed, then, of a variety of circumstances, all tending to show the falsity of this charge, the absurdity of it, the improbability that it could be true. It will be laid before the jury, under the direction of my counsel; and I have the confidence of an innocent man, that it will be manifest to your lordship, the jury, and the whole world, that the story told by this woman is a perversion of truth in every particular. What could induce her to make such a charge, I can only suspect:—Very soon after she came to my house upon a representation to me that her father was distressed, I sent him a considerable sum of money: whether the ease with which that money was obtained from me might suggest the idea, as a means of obtaining a larger sum of money, or whether it was thought necessary to destroy me, in order to establish the character of the girl to the world, I know not; but I do aver, upon the word of a man of honour, that there is no truth in anything which has been said or sworn of my having offered violence to this girl. I ever held such brutality in abhorrence. I am totally against all force; and for me to have forced this woman, considering my weak state of health, and my strength, is not only a moral, but a physical impossibility. She is, as to bodily strength, stronger than I am. Strange opinions, upon subjects foreign to this charge, have been falsely imputed to me, to inflame this accusation. Libertine as I am represented, I hold no such opinions. Much has been said against me, that I seduced this girl from her parents: seduction is not the point of this charge; but I do assure your lordship and the jury, this part of the case has been aggravated exceedingly beyond the truth. If I have been in any degree to blame, I am sure I have sufficiently atoned for every indiscretion, which a weak attachment to this unworthy woman may have led me into, by having suffered the disgrace of being exposed as a criminal at the bar in the county which my father had the honour to represent in parliament, and where I had some pretensions to have attained the same honour, had that sort of an active life been my object.
“I will take up no more of your lordship’s time than to add that, if I had been conscious of the guilt now imputed to me, I could have kept myself and my fortune out of the reach of the laws of this country. I am a citizen of the world; I could have lived anywhere: but I love my own country, and submit to its laws, resolving that my innocence should be justified by the laws. I now, by my own voluntary act, by surrendering myself to the Court of King’s Bench, stake, upon the verdict of twelve men, my life, my fortune, and, what is dearer to me, my honour.
“March 25, 1768.”
“Baltimore.”
The substance of the defence of Mrs. Griffenburg and Mrs. Harvey consisted principally in alleging that Miss Woodcock had consented to all that had passed, and that no force had been used towards her either by Lord Baltimore or themselves.
The whole of the case having now been heard, Lord Chief Baron Smythe, in a clear and lucid manner, proceeded to sum up the case to the jury. Having pointed out to them the law of the case, as it affected the charge against the prisoners, and their defence, his lordship proceeded to recapitulate the evidence which had been produced, in doing which he was occupied during a period of three hours. He concluded by saying,—“In point of law, the fact is fully proved on my lord and the two other prisoners, if you believe the evidence of Sarah Woodcock. It is a crime which in its nature can only be proved by the woman on whom it is committed; for she only can tell whether she consented or no: it is, as my lord observes, very easy to be made, and hard to be disproved; and the defence can only be collected from circumstances; from these you must judge whether her evidence is or is not to be believed. Lord Hale, in his ‘History of the Pleas of the Crown,’ lays down the rules:—1. If complaint is not made soon after the injury is supposed to be received; 2. If it is not followed by a recent prosecution; a strong presumption arises that the complaint is malicious. She has owned the injury was received December 22; the complaint was not made till December 29; but she has accounted for it in the manner you have heard. The strong part of the case on behalf of the prisoners is her not complaining when she was at Lord Mansfield’s, the supreme magistrate of the kingdom in criminal matters. You have heard how she has explained and accounted for her conduct in that particular, which you will judge of. Upon the whole, if you believe that she made the discovery as soon as she knew she had an opportunity of doing it, and that her account is true, you will find all the prisoners Guilty; if you believe that she did not make the discovery as soon as she had an opportunity, and from thence, or other circumstances, are not satisfied her account is true, you will find them all Not guilty: for if he is not guilty, they cannot be so; for they cannot be accessory to a crime which was never committed.”
After an absence of an hour and twenty minutes, the jury returned with a verdict that the prisoners were not guilty.
This singular affair was tried at Kingston, in Surrey, on the 26th of March, 1768.
It would be useless to offer any observations upon this extraordinary case. From the verdict returned by the jury, there ought to exist no doubt of the innocence of the persons charged of the offence imputed to them; but although Lord Baltimore and his companions were acquitted of the charge of rape, there can be little doubt that the ruin of the unfortunate girl Woodcock—even if what was admitted by his lordship were only true—was the effect of a vile conspiracy among the prisoners to sacrifice her to the libertine passions of his lordship.