As to the circumstances that have been raked together, I have nothing to observe; but that all circumstances whatsoever are precarious, and have been but too frequently found lamentably fallible; even the strongest have failed. They may rise to the utmost degree of probability, yet they are but probability still. Why should I name to your Lordship the two Harrisons, recorded in Dr. Howel, who both suffered upon circumstances, because of the sudden disappearance of their lodger, who was in credit, had contracted debts, borrowed money, and went off unseen, and returned again a great many years after their execution. Why name the intricate affair of Jaques du Moulin under King Charles II., related by a gentleman who was counsel for the Crown. And why the unhappy Coleman, who suffered innocent, though convicted upon positive evidence, and whose children perished for want, because the world uncharitably believed the father guilty. Why mention the perjury of Smith, incautiously admitted king’s evidence; who, to screen himself, equally accused Fainlotte and Loveday of the murder of Dunn; the first of whom, in 1749, was executed at Winchester; and Loveday was about to suffer at Reading, had not Smith been proved perjured, to the satisfaction of the court, by the surgeon of Gosport Hospital.
Now, my Lord, having endeavoured to show that the whole of this process is altogether repugnant to every part of my life; that it is inconsistent with my condition of health about that time; that no rational inference can be drawn that a person is dead who suddenly disappears; that hermitages were the constant repositories of the bones of the recluse; that the proofs of this are well authenticated; that the revolution in religion, or the fortunes of war, has mangled, or buried, the dead; the conclusion remains, perhaps no less reasonably, than impatiently, wished for. I, last, after a year’s confinement, equal to either fortune, put myself upon the candour, the justice, and the humanity of your Lordship, and upon yours, my countrymen, gentlemen of the jury.’
It will be seen from this elaborate defence that it must have been written long before his trial, and before his hopes of acquittal were crushed by the appearance of Houseman in the witness-box to give evidence against him; for he did not attempt to discredit his evidence, nor did he attempt to shake his testimony by cross-examination, and he must have anticipated the result. The judge summed up carefully; he recapitulated the evidence, and showed how Houseman’s testimony was confirmed by the other witnesses; and, taking Aram’s defence, he pointed out that he had alleged nothing that could invalidate the positive evidence against him. The jury, without leaving the court, returned a verdict of ‘Guilty,’ and the judge pronounced the awful sentence of the law. Aram had behaved with great firmness and dignity during the whole of his trial, and he heard his conviction, and his doom, with profound composure, leaving the bar with a smile upon his countenance.
In those days the law allowed but little time for appeal. Aram was tried, convicted, and sentenced on Friday, the 3rd of August, 1759, and he had to die on the following Monday—only two whole days of life being allowed him. Those days must have been days of exquisite torture to him, when he thought of the upturned faces of the mob, all fixing their gaze upon him, yelling at, and execrating him, and we can scarcely wonder at his attempting to commit suicide. On the Monday morning, when the clergyman came to visit him, and at his request to administer the Sacrament to him, he was astonished to find Aram stretched on the floor of his cell in a pool of blood. He had managed to secrete a razor, and had cut the veins of his arms in two places. Surgeons were sent for, and they brought him back to life, when he was put into the cart and led to execution. Arrived at the gallows, he was asked if he had any speech to make, and he replied in the negative. He was then hanged, and, when dead, his body was cut down, put in a cart, taken to Knaresborough, and there suspended in chains, on a gibbet which was erected on Knaresborough forest, south or south-east of the Low Bridge, on the right hand side going thence to Plumpton. It was taken down in 1778, when the forest was enclosed.
He left his latest thoughts in writing, for, on the table in his cell, was found a paper on which was written,
‘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 nobody has a better right to dispose of man’s life than himself; and he, not others, should determine how. As for any indignities offered to anybody, or silly reflections on my faith and morals, they are (as they were) things indifferent to me. I think, though, contrary to the common way of thinking; I wrong no man by this, and I hope it is not offensive to that eternal being who formed me and the world; and as by this I injure no man, no man can be reasonably offended. I solicitously recommend myself to the 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 soundly till three o’clock, awak’d, and then writ these lines.
‘“Come, pleasing Rest, eternal Slumber fall;
Seal mine, that once must seal the eyes of all;
Calm and compos’d 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.”’
Aram never made any regular confession of his guilt—but in a letter he wrote to the vicar of Knaresborough, in which he gives his autobiography, he says, ‘Something is expected as to the affair upon which I was committed, to which I say, as I mentioned in my examination, that all the plate of Knaresborough, except the watches and rings, were in Houseman’s possession; as for me, I had nothing at all. My wife knows that Terry had the large plate, and that Houseman himself took both that and the watches, at my house, from Clark’s own hands; and, if she will not give this in evidence for the town, she wrongs both that and her own conscience; and, if it is not done soon, Houseman will prevent her. She likewise knows that Terry’s wife had some velvet, and, if she will, can testify it. She deserves not the regard of the town, if she will not. That part of Houseman’s evidence, wherein he said I threatened him, was absolutely false; for what hindered him, when I was so long absent and far distant? I must need observe another thing to be perjury in Houseman’s evidence, in which he said he went home from Clark; whereas he went straight to my house, as my wife can also testify, if I be not believed.’
The contemporary accounts of his trial, whether published in York or London, have the following: