The following papers were afterwards found in his handwriting on the table in his cell. The first contained reasons for his attempt upon his life, and was as follows:—“What am I better than my fathers? To die is natural and necessary. Perfectly sensible of this, I fear no more to die than I did to be born. But the manner of it is something which should, in my opinion, be decent and manly. I think I have regarded both these points. Certainly no man has a better right to dispose of a man’s life than himself; and he, not others, should determine how. As for any indignities offered to my body, or silly reflections on my faith and morals, they are, as they always were, things indifferent to me. I think, though contrary to the common way of thinking, I wrong no man by this, and hope it is not offensive to that eternal Being that formed me and the world: and as by this I injure no man, no man can be reasonably offended. I solicitously recommend myself to that eternal and almighty Being, the God of Nature, if I have done amiss. But perhaps I have not; and I hope this thing will never be imputed to me. Though I am now stained by malevolence and suffer by prejudice, I hope to rise fair and unblemished. My life was not polluted, my morals irreproachable, and my opinions orthodox. I slept sound till three o’clock, awaked, and then writ these lines—
Come, pleasing rest! eternal slumbers, fall!
Seal mine, that once must seal the eyes of all.
Calm and composed my soul her journey takes;
No guilt that troubles, and no heart that aches.
Adieu, thou sun! all bright, like her, arise!
Adieu, fair friends, and all that’s good and wise!”
The second was in the form of a letter, addressed to a former companion, and was in the following terms:
“My dear Friend,—Before this reaches you, I shall be no more a living man in this world, though at present in perfect bodily health: but who can describe the horrors of mind which I suffer at this instant? Guilt—the guilt of blood shed without any provocation, without any cause but that of filthy lucre—pierces my conscience with wounds that give the most poignant pains! ’Tis true the consciousness of my horrid guilt has given me frequent interruptions in the midst of my business or pleasures; but yet I have found means to stifle its clamours, and contrived a momentary remedy for the disturbance it gave me by applying to the bottle or the bowl, or diversions, or company, or business; sometimes one, and sometimes the other, as opportunity offered: but now all these, and all other amusements, are at an end, and I am left forlorn, helpless, and destitute of every comfort; for I have nothing now in view but the certain destruction both of my soul and body. My conscience will now no longer suffer itself to be hoodwinked or browbeat: it has now got the mastery; it is my accuser, judge, and executioner: and the sentence it pronounceth against me is more dreadful than that I heard from the bench, which only condemned my body to the pains of death, which are soon over; but conscience tells me plainly that she will summon me before another tribunal, where I shall have neither power nor means to stifle the evidence she will there bring against me; and that the sentence which will then be denounced will not only be irreversible, but will condemn my soul to torments that will know no end.
“Oh! had I but hearkened to the advice which dear-bought experience has enabled me to give, I should not now have been plunged into that dreadful gulf of despair which I find it impossible to extricate myself from; and therefore my soul is filled with horror inconceivable. I see both God and man my enemies, and in a few hours shall be exposed a public spectacle for the world to gaze at. Can you conceive any condition more horrible than mine? O, no! it cannot be! I am determined, therefore, to put a short end to trouble I am no longer able to bear, and prevent the executioner by doing his business with my own hand, and shall by this means at least prevent the shame and disgrace of a public exposure, and leave the care of my soul in the hands of eternal mercy. Wishing you all health, happiness, and prosperity, I am, to the last moment of my life, yours, with the sincerest regard,
“Eugene Aram.”
It is impossible to view the circumstances of this remarkable case, without being struck with the extraordinary conduct of Aram. It is most singular that a man of his talents and mind should have leagued himself with a person like Houseman, who appears to have been utterly uneducated, in the commission of a murder, and with the hope only of gain; for whatever his declarations after his conviction may have been, as to his object being revenge only for the supposed injury which had been done him by his victim in the seduction of his wife, his ready acquiescence in the plot with another, and his willing acceptance of the plunder which was obtained, distinctly show that that was not the only end which he sought to attain. If, indeed, his feelings were outraged, as he suggested, he would have selected some other mode of obtaining that satisfaction to which the injury alleged would have entitled him; and it is hardly to be supposed that he would have obtained the assistance of another to secure the object which he had in view, more particularly when it appears that it was he who absolutely committed the foul act, without the immediate aid of Houseman,—a circumstance which clearly exemplifies the power which he possessed to dispose of his victim, and which would seem to show a desire on his part only to obtain the participation of another in a preconceived act, anticipating doubtless that some aid would be necessary in appropriating and disposing of the property which might be procured from the deceased, and also that some advice would be requisite in the event of suspicion attaching to him. But while these circumstances cannot but surprise us, how much more astonishing is the Divine power of Providence, which disclosed to human eyes, after so long a lapse of time, such evidence as in the result proved the commission of the crime, and which secured the seizure of the criminal, who had up to that time remained unsuspected, and who even then was living in fancied security, free from all fear of discovery and apprehension! It is said that
“—— Murder! though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ:”
and how truly is this observation of the most wonderful of poets exemplified by nearly every page of these records of crime!