Lavender produced and identified the belt found in Thistlewood’s coat-pocket.
Ruthven produced the pike-staff, grenades, &c.
All the soldiers and officers who had any of the articles seized were now arranged behind the witness-box, and handed to Ruthven their several charges, and Ruthven laid them on the table. A pike was screwed on a staff, and handed to the Jury. The whole of the frightful apparatus was now exposed to view. Guns, blunderbusses, carbines, swords, pistols, pikes, sticks, cartridges, bullets; even the pot in which the tar was boiled,—all were produced and identified.
The fire-arms remained loaded till produced on this occasion, when the charges were drawn; they were loaded with ball. One of the grenades had been given to a person by an order of Colonel Congreve to be examined. The production of Ings’s knife excited an involuntary shudder; it was a broad desperate-looking weapon.
The Jury inspected the arms separately, and particularly the pikes, the construction and formation of which have already been minutely described. The whole had a most formidable appearance.
John Hector Morrison, servant to Mr. Underwood, cutler, in Drury-lane, was re-called, and looked at two swords, which, he said, were the same he had ground for Ings.
Serjeant Edward Hanson, of the Royal Artillery, examined by Mr. Gurney.—I examined one of the grenades produced to me at Bow-street; it is composed of a tin case, in the form of a barrel, in which a tube is soldered. The case contains three ounces and a half of gunpowder. The priming in the tube is a composition of saltpetre, powder, and brimstone. The tin was pitched, and wrapped round with rope-yarn, which was cemented with rosin and tar. Round the tin, and in the rope-yarn, twelve pieces of iron were planted. From the lighting of the fusee to the explosion might take about half a minute. If one of them were to be exploded in a room where there were a number of persons, it would produce great destruction. The pieces of iron would fly about like bullets.
[The witness here opened another of the grenades for the satisfaction of the Jury; it was composed in the manner already described. The pieces of iron principally consisted of old cart-nails, such as the tires of wheels are nailed on with. The carcase, or tin-case, was wrapped in an old stocking, and the powder which it contained was pronounced very good.]
Witness, in continuation.—I examined one of the fire-balls; it consisted of oakum, tar, rosin, and stone-brimstone, pounded. If one of these was thrown into a house, and alighted on wood, it would be sure to set it on fire. The effect would be still more certain on straw or hay.