Sir Robert Peel presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and begs leave to acquaint your Majesty that the prisoner MacNaghten was acquitted last night, after a trial which lasted two days, upon the ground of insanity.
The fuller account of the evidence which Sir Robert Peel has seen is on the accompanying newspaper.
The only other information which has reached Sir Robert Peel is contained in a note (enclosed) from Mr Maule, the solicitor to the Treasury, who conducted the prosecution. The three Judges21 appear to have concurred in opinion, that the evidence of insanity was so strong as to require a verdict of acquittal—and the Chief Justice advised the Jury to find that verdict without summing up the evidence or delivering any detailed charge upon the facts of the case and the law bearing upon them.
It is a lamentable reflection that a man may be at the same time so insane as to be reckless of his own life and the lives of others, and to be pronounced free from moral responsibility, and yet capable of preparing for the commission of murder with the utmost caution and deliberation, and of taking every step which shall enable him to commit it with certainty.
Footnote 21: Chief Justice Tindal, and Justices Williams and Coleridge.
Sir Robert Peel to Queen Victoria.
Whitehall, 10th March 1843.
Sir Robert Peel, with his humble duty to your Majesty, begs leave to acquaint your Majesty that the House of Commons was occupied last night with the attack upon Lord Ellenborough for the Somnauth Proclamation.22
The motion was made by Mr Vernon Smith.23 The resolution proposed condemned the Proclamation as unwise, indecorous and reprehensible. Mr Vernon Smith was followed by Mr Emerson Tennent,24 one of the Secretaries to the Board of Controul.
Mr Macaulay next spoke, and condemned the conduct of Lord Ellenborough in a speech of great bitterness and great ability.