The Chronicles of Crime or The New Newgate Calendar. v. 1/2 / being a series of memoirs and anecdotes of notorious characters who have outraged the laws of Great Britain from the earliest period to 1841.

by Camden Pelham

James Taylor, a tailor, at No. 11, North Place, Gray’s-Inn Lane, deposed that he had been employed by the prisoner to repair some clothes. He was afterwards in Guildford Street, when the prisoner called him, and took him to his lodgings in Millman Street, and there directed him to put a side-pocket into a coat, which he gave him, of a particular length which he pointed out. He completed the job on the same night, and carried the coat home.

Mr. John Morris stated that he often attended in the gallery appropriated for strangers, and went down to the House on Monday, the 11th of May, for that purpose. He passed into the lobby about the hour of five in the afternoon. He observed the prisoner at the bar standing in the lobby near the outer door; he was standing beside that part of the door which is generally closed. It was a double door, and one half was usually closed, within which half the prisoner was standing, and any one to have entered the lobby must have passed him at arm’s length. He observed the prisoner as if watching for somebody coming, and he appeared to look anxiously towards the door. As well as the witness recollected, the prisoner had his right hand within the left breast of his coat. Witness passed on to the staircase of the gallery, and almost immediately after he got into the upper lobby, he heard the report of a pistol, and found soon after that it was connected with the fatal event which occurred on that evening. He had frequently seen the prisoner before in the gallery, where gentlemen who report the parliamentary proceedings resorted, and about the passages of the House of Commons.

John Vickery, a Bow Street officer, said that he went on Monday afternoon to New Millman Street, to the lodgings of the prisoner, which he searched, and found, in the bed-room up stairs, a pair of pistol-bags, and in the same drawer a small powder-flask, and some powder in a small paper, a box with some bullets, and some small flints wrapped in paper. There was also a pistol-key to unscrew the pistol for the purpose of loading, and some sand-paper and a pistol-mould. The witness on comparing the bullet found in the loaded pistol with the mould, and the screw with the pistols, found them all to correspond.

Mr. Vincent George Dowling was next called. He stated that he was in the gallery on the afternoon in question, and ran down into the lobby on hearing the report of a pistol. He saw the prisoner at the bar sitting on a stool, and going to him, he seized him and began to search his person. He took from his left-hand small-clothes pocket a small pistol, which he produced, and which, on his examining it, he found to be loaded with powder and ball. It was primed as well as loaded. The pistol which had been discharged and that which he took from the prisoner were in his belief a brace; they were of the same size and bore, and were marked with the same maker’s name. The witness had seen the prisoner several times before in the gallery and in the avenues of the house, and to the best of his recollection the last time he saw him was six or seven days before the death of Mr. Perceval. He was frequently in the gallery during the debates, and upon several occasions entered into conversation with the witness. He had often asked for information as to the names of the gentlemen speaking, and also as to the persons of the members of his majesty’s government.

Other witnesses from Newgate produced the coat worn by the prisoner at the time of his apprehension, and it was identified by Taylor as the same into which he had put the side-pocket.

Lord Chief-justice Mansfield then addressed the prisoner, and told him, that the case on the part of the crown being now gone through, the period was come for him to make any defence he might wish to offer.

The prisoner asked whether his counsel had nothing to urge in his defence?

Mr. Alley informed him that his counsel were not entitled to speak.

The prisoner then said that the documents and papers necessary to his defence had been taken out of his pocket, and had not since been restored to him.

Mr. Garrow said, that it was the intention of the counsel for the crown to restore him his papers, having first proved them to be the same which were taken from him, and had not suffered any subtraction; and that his solicitor already had copies of them.