prepared to secure tranquillity in the districts; for at first it was apprehended that the assassin was instigated by political motives, and that he was connected with some treasonable association.
Measures being provided for securing order through the country and the metropolis, Bellingham was removed, under a strong military escort, about one o’clock in the morning, to Newgate, and conducted to a room adjoining the chapel. One of the head turnkeys, and two other persons, sat up with him all night. He retired to bed soon after his arrival at the jail; but he was disturbed during the night, and had no sound sleep. He rose soon after seven o’clock, and requested some tea for breakfast, of which, however, he took but little. No private persons were admitted to see him, but he was visited in the course of the day by the sheriffs and some other public functionaries. He conversed very cheerfully with the sheriffs and others who were in his room, and expressed no regret for the deed which he had perpetrated, conceiving himself, as he stated, justified in what he had done; and that it now only remained for the laws of his country to determine the nature of his guilt, which he did not seem to view in a criminal light. He stated that the question would soon be tried, when it would be seen how far he was justified. He considered the whole as “a private matter between him and the government, who gave him a carte blanche to do his worst, which he had done.”
Alderman Combe, as one of the committing magistrates, was very active in his endeavours to trace Bellingham’s connexions and habits, and for that purpose went to the house of a respectable woman where he lodged in New Millman-street, but could learn from her nothing that indicated any conspiracy with others. His landlady represented him as a quiet inoffensive man, though at times rather eccentric, which she instanced by observing, that when he had lodged there only three weeks, at 10s. 6d. per week, she was surprised to find that he had given her servant-maid half-a-guinea for herself. On being told the deed which he had perpetrated at five o’clock, on Monday the 11th of May, 1812, she said that was impossible; for that she had met him a few minutes before that time, when he told her, that he had just been to buy a prayer-book. She represented him as of a religious turn of mind.
In jail the prisoner requested to have pen, ink, and paper, to write some letters to his friends; and he accordingly wrote one to his family at Liverpool, which was delivered open to Mr. Newman. The following was sent to Mrs. Roberts, No. 9, New Millman-street, the lady at whose house he lodged. It will serve to show the state of his mind in the miserable situation to which he had reduced himself:
“Tuesday morning, Old Bailey.
“Dear Madam,—Yesterday midnight I was escorted to this neighbourhood by a noble troop of Light Horse, and delivered into the care of Mr. Newman (by Mr. Taylor, the magistrate, and M. P.) as a state prisoner of the first class. For eight years I have never found my mind so tranquil as since this melancholy but necessary catastrophe: as the merits or demerits of my peculiar case must be regularly unfolded in a criminal court of justice to ascertain the guilty party, by a jury of my country. I have to request the favour of you to send me three or four shirts, some cravats, handkerchiefs, night-caps, stockings, &c., out of my drawers, together with comb, soap, tooth-brush, with any other trifle that presents itself which you think I may have occasion for, and inclose them in my leather trunk, and the key please to send sealed, per bearer; also my great-coat, flannel gown, and black waistcoat: which will much oblige,