“I protest against the proceedings upon my trial, which I conceive to be grossly partial, and contrary to the very spirit of justice,—but, alas! the judges, who have heretofore been considered the counsel of the accused, are now, without exception, in all cases between the Crown and the People, the most implacable enemies of the latter. In every instance, the Judges charge the Jury to find the subject guilty; nay, in one instance, the Jury received a reprimand, and that not in the gentlest terms, for not strictly obeying the imperious mandate from the bench.
“The Court decided upon my trial to commit murder rather than depart, in the slightest degree, from its usual forms. Nay, it is with me a question, if the form is usual which precluded me from examining witnesses to prove the infamy of Adams, of Hyden, and of Dwyer. ’Ere the Solicitor-General replied to the address of my Counsel, I applied to the Court to hear my witnesses. The Court inhumanly refused, and I am in consequence to be consigned to the scaffold.
“Numerous have been the instances in which this rule of Court has been infringed; but to have infringed it in my case, would have been to incur the displeasure of the Court, and to forfeit every aspiring hope of promotion.
“A few hours hence and I shall be no more; but the nightly breeze which will whistle over the silent grave that shall protect me from its keenness, will bear to your restless pillow the memory of one who lived but for his country,—and died when liberty and justice had been driven from its confines by a set of villains, whose thirst for blood is only to be equalled by their activity in plunder.
“For life, as it respects myself, I care not; but, while yet I may, I would rescue my memory from the calumny which, I doubt not, will be industriously heaped upon it, when it will be no longer in my power to protect it.
“I would explain the motives which induced me to conspire against the Ministers of his Majesty; and I would contrast them with those which these very ministers have acted upon in leading me to my ruin. To do this, it will be necessary to take a short review of my life, for a few months prior to my arrest for the offence for which I am to be executed without a trial, or, at least, without an impartial one by a jury of my peers.
“’Tis true, the form, the etiquette of a trial has been gone through; but I challenge any of the Judges on the bench to tell me—to tell my country—that justice was not denied me in the very place where justice only should have been administered. I challenge them to say that I was fairly tried. I challenge them to say if I am not murdered according to the etiquette of a Court (falsely denominated) of Justice.
“I had witnesses in Court to prove that Dwyer was a villain, beyond all example of atrocity.—I had witnesses in Court to prove that Adams was a notorious swindler, and that Hyden was no better.—These were the three witnesses—indeed, almost the only ones—against me.—But the form and rules of Court must not be infringed upon, to save an unfortunate individual from the scaffold.
“I called those witnesses at the close of Mr. Adolphus’s address to the Jury, and before the Solicitor-General commenced his reply; but the Court decided that they could not be heard.
“Some good men have thought—and I have thought so too—that before the Jury retired, all evidence was in time, for either the prosecutor or the accused; and more particularly for the latter; nay, even before the verdict was given, that evidence could not be considered too late. Alas! such people drew their conclusion from principles of justice only; they never canvassed the rules of Court, which have finally settled my unhappy doom!