‘I am, &c.
‘J. Beckett.’
“After this, on personal application at the office of the secretary of state, and intimating my intention to take justice in my own hand, I was told, by the mouth of Mr. Hill, that I was at liberty to take such measures as I thought proper. Who then is to be reprobated in this case?—those who were regardless of every feeling of honour and of justice, or him who, spurred on by injury and neglect, and with a due notice of his intentions, pursued the only course likely to lead to a satisfactory termination of calamities which had weighed him down to the lowest ebb of misery! I will now only mention a few observations by way of defence. You have before you all the particulars of this melancholy transaction. Believe me, gentlemen, the rashness of which I have been guilty has not been dictated by any personal animosity to Mr. Perceval, rather than injure whom, from private or malicious motives, I would suffer my limbs to be cut from my body. (Here the prisoner seemed again much agitated.)
“If, whenever I am called before the tribunal of God, I can appear with as clear a conscience as I now possess in regard to the alleged charge of the wilful murder of the unfortunate gentleman, the investigation of whose death has occupied your attention, it would be happy for me, as essentially securing to me eternal salvation; but that is impossible. That my arm has been the means of his melancholy and lamented exit, I am ready to allow. But to constitute murder, it must clearly and absolutely be proved to have arisen from malice prepense, and with a malicious design, as I have no doubt the learned judge will shortly lay down, in explaining the law on the subject. If such is the case, I am guilty; if not, I look forward with confidence to your acquittal.
“That the contrary is the case has been most clearly and irrefutably proved; no doubt can rest upon your minds, as my uniform and undeviating object has been an endeavour to obtain justice, according to law, for a series of the most long-continued and unmerited sufferings that were ever submitted to a court of law, without having been guilty of any other crime than an appeal for redress for a most flagrant injury offered to my sovereign and my country, wherein my liberty and property have fallen a sacrifice for the continued period of eight years, to the total ruin of myself and family (with authenticated documents of the truth of the allegations), merely because it was Mr. Perceval’s pleasure that justice should not be granted, sheltering himself with the idea of there being no alternative remaining, as my petition to parliament for redress could not be brought (as having a pecuniary tendency) without the sanction of his Majesty’s ministers, and that he was determined to oppose my claim, by trampling both on law and right.
“Gentlemen, where a man has so strong and serious a criminal case to bring forward as mine has been, the nature of which was purely national, it is the bounden duty of government to attend to it; for justice is a matter of right, and not of favour. And when a minister is so unprincipled and presumptuous at any time, but especially in a case of such urgent necessity, to set himself above both the sovereign and the laws, as has been the case with Mr. Perceval, he must do it at his personal risk; for by the law he cannot be protected.
“Gentlemen, if this is not fact, the mere will of a minister would be law; it would be this thing to-day and the other thing to-morrow, as either interest or caprice might dictate.—What would become of our liberties? Where would be the purity and the impartiality of the justice we so much boast of?—To government’s non-attendance to the dictates of justice is solely to be attributed the melancholy catastrophe of the unfortunate gentleman, as any malicious intention to his injury was the most remote from my heart. Justice, and justice only, was my object, which government uniformly objected to grant; and the distress it reduced me to, drove me to despair in consequence; and, purely for the purpose of having this singular affair legally investigated, I gave notice at the public office, Bow Street, requesting the magistrates to acquaint his majesty’s ministers, that if they persisted in refusing justice, or even to permit me to bring my just petition into parliament for redress, I should be under the imperious necessity of executing justice myself, solely for the purpose of ascertaining, through a criminal court, whether his majesty’s ministers have the power to refuse justice to a well-authenticated and irrefutable act of oppression, committed by the consul and ambassador abroad, whereby my sovereign’s and country’s honour were materially tarnished, by my person endeavouring to be made the stalking-horse of justification, to one of the greatest insults that could be offered to the crown. But in order to avoid so reluctant and abhorrent an alternative, I hoped to be allowed to bring my petition to the house of commons—or that they would do what was right and proper themselves. On my return from Russia, I brought most serious charges to the privy council, both against Sir Stephen Shairp and Lord Granville Leveson Gower, when the affair was determined to be purely national, and consequently it was the duty of his majesty’s ministers to arrange it by acting on the resolution of the council. Suppose, for instance, the charge I brought could have been proved to be erroneous, should not I have been called to a severe account for my conduct? But, being true, ought not I to have been redressed?
“After the notice from the police to government, Mr. Ryder, conscious of the truth and cruelty of the case, transmitted the affair to the Treasury, referring me there for a final result. After a delay of some weeks, the Treasury came to the resolution of sending the affair back to the secretary of state’s office; at the same time I was told by a Mr. Hill, that he thought it would be useless my making further application to government, and that I was at liberty to take such measures as I thought proper for redress.
“Mr. Beckett, the under-secretary of state, confirmed the same, adding that Mr. Perceval had been consulted, and could not allow my petition to come forward. This direct refusal of justice, with a carte blanche to act in whatever manner I thought proper, were the sole causes of the fatal catastrophe—and they have now to reflect on their own impure conduct for what has happened.
“It is a melancholy fact, that the warping of justice, including all the various ramifications in which it operates, occasions more misery in the world, in a moral sense, than all the acts of God in a physical one, with which he punishes mankind for their transgressions; a confirmation of which, the single, but strong, instance before you is one remarkable proof.