General Gascoigne and Mr. Hume (M. P. for Weymouth) proved that the papers were those which had been taken from the person of the prisoner, and that they had been in their custody ever since, and had suffered no subtraction.
The papers were then handed to the prisoner, who proceeded to arrange and examine them.
The prisoner, who had been hitherto sitting, now rose, and, bowing respectfully to the court and jury, went into his defence, in a firm tone of voice, and without any appearance of embarrassment. He spoke nearly to the following effect:—
“I feel great personal obligation to the attorney-general for the objection which he has made to the plea of insanity. I think it is far more fortunate that such a plea as that should have been unfounded, than that it should have existed in fact. I am obliged to my counsel, however, for having thus endeavoured to consult my interest, as I am convinced the attempt has arisen from the kindest motives. That I am or have been insane is a circumstance of which I am not apprised, except in the single instance of my having been confined in Russia; how far that may be considered as affecting my present situation, it is not for me to determine. This is the first time that I have ever spoken in public in this way. I feel my own incompetency, but I trust you will attend to the substance, rather than to the manner, of my investigating the truth of an affair which has occasioned my presence at this bar. I beg to assure you that the crime which I have committed has arisen from compulsion rather than from any hostility to the man whom it has been my fate to destroy. Considering the amiable character and universally admitted virtues of Mr. Perceval, I feel, if I could murder him in a cool and unjustifiable manner, I should not deserve to live another moment in this world. Conscious, however, that I shall be able to justify everything which I have done, I feel some degree of confidence in meeting the storm which assails me, and shall now proceed to unfold a catalogue of circumstances which, while they harrow up my own soul, will, I am sure, tend to the extenuation of my conduct in this honourable court. This, as has already been candidly stated by the attorney-general, is the first instance in which any the slightest imputation has been cast upon my moral character. Until this fatal catastrophe, which no one can more heartily regret than I do, not excepting even the family of Mr. Perceval himself, I have stood alike pure in the minds of those who have known me, and in the judgment of my own heart. I hope I see this affair in the true light. For eight years, gentlemen of the jury, have I been exposed to all the miseries which it is possible for human nature to endure. Driven almost to despair, I sought for redress in vain. For this affair I had the carte blanche of government, as I will prove by the most incontestible evidence, namely, the writing of the secretary of state himself. I come before you under peculiar disadvantages. Many of my most material papers are now at Liverpool, for which I have written; but I have been called upon my trial before it was possible to obtain an answer to my letter. Without witnesses, therefore, and in the absence of many papers necessary to my justification, I am sure you will admit I have just grounds for claiming some indulgence. I must state that after my voyage to Archangel, I transmitted to his royal highness the Prince Regent, through Mr. Windle, my solicitor, a petition, and in consequence of there being no reply I came to London to see the result. Surprised at the delay, and conceiving that the interests of my country were at stake, I considered this step as essential, as well for the assertion of my own right as for the vindication of the national honour. I waited upon Colonel MacMahon, who stated that my petition had been received, but, owing to some accident, had been mislaid. Under these circumstances, I drew out another account of the particulars of the Russian affair; and this may be considered the commencement of that train of events which led to the afflicting and unhappy fate of Mr. Perceval.”
The prisoner then read various documents containing the statement the whole of his affairs in Russia; and in the course of narrating these hardships, took occasion to explain several points, adverting with great feeling to the unhappy situation in which he was placed, from the circumstance of his having been lately married to his wife, then about twenty years of age, with an infant at her breast, and who had been waiting for him at St. Petersburgh, in order that she might accompany him to England,—a prey to all those anxieties which the unexpected and cruel incarceration of her husband, without any just grounds, was calculated to excite. (He was here much affected.) He also described his feelings at a subsequent period, when his wife, from an anxiety to reach her native country (England) when in a state of pregnancy, and looking to the improbability of his liberation, was obliged to quit Petersburgh unprotected, and undertake the voyage at the peril of her life; while Lord L. Gower and Sir S. Shairp suffered him to remain in a situation worse than death. “My God! my God!” he exclaimed, “what heart could bear such excruciating tortures, without bursting with indignation at conduct so diametrically opposite to justice and to humanity. I appeal to you, gentlemen of the jury, as men—I appeal to you as brothers—I appeal to you as Christians—whether, under such circumstances of persecution, it was possible to regard the actions of the ambassador and consul of my own country with any other feelings but those of detestation and horror! In using language thus strong, I feel that I commit an error; yet does my heart tell me, that towards men who lent themselves thus to bolster up the basest acts of persecution, there are no observations, however strong, which the strict justice of the case would not excuse my using. Had I been so fortunate as to have met Lord Leveson Gower instead of that truly amiable and highly-lamented individual, Mr. Perceval, he is the man who should have received the ball!”
The prisoner then went on to state that on his coming to England he had represented his hardships to the Marquis Wellesley, from whose secretary he received the following answer:—
“Foreign Office, January 31, 1810.
“Sir,—I am directed by the Marquis Wellesley to transmit to you the papers which you sent to this office, accompanied by your letter of the 27th of last month; and I am to inform you, that his majesty’s government is precluded from interfering in the support of your case, in some measure, by the circumstances of the case itself, and entirely so at the present moment by the suspension of intercourse with the court of St. Petersburgh.
“I am, &c.
(Signed) “Culling Charles Smith.”