Trial of Deacon Brodie

by Unknown

The first circumstance which you have in evidence, and to which I call your attention, is the intimate connection between the prisoner Brodie and the other three, Smith, Ainslie, and Brown, who have all confessed themselves guilty of the crime charged; it is admitted by himself in his letters and declaration, and is confirmed by the evidence of Smith’s maid, who said that she had seen them often together in her master’s house; his being often in company with them, gambling with them in different houses, and particularly in Clark’s, a house which, from what we have heard of it this day, ought for the good of society to be razed to the ground or built up, as houses infected by the plague are in times of pestilence.

In the second place, gentlemen, the prisoner was in company with these men on the very night in which the robbery was committed. This is proved by the testimony of Smith’s maid, Grahame Campbell, a witness who it is not pretended had any temptation to perjure herself. She tells you that Brodie came to her master’s house that day in the dusk of the evening; that they were in the upper room all together, and had some cold fowl and herrings; that Brodie was then dressed in an old-fashioned black coat; that she mentioned this circumstance to her mistress; that he went out with Smith, Brown, and Ainslie; and that when he came back later in the evening, he had then changed his dress and had on light-coloured clothes. These are all circumstances highly suspicious, and they would have been likewise sworn to by Smith’s wife, if she had been allowed to be examined; but that is unnecessary, as the facts the witness has deponed to are all probable in themselves, and they are corroborated, to the extent I have mentioned, by the other evidence, and also by Smith’s declarations, which last I do not mean to found upon as evidence against Mr. Brodie, but it is a curious fact.

In the third place, gentlemen, you will observe that the Excise Office was robbed upon Wednesday, the 5th of March. On the Friday night following, information was given to the Procurator-Fiscal by Brown; on the Saturday, Smith and Ainslie were apprehended and committed to prison. And what happens? Brodie goes to the prison to visit them, but is denied access. Is it possible to suppose that a gentleman in Mr. Brodie’s situation would have done this had he been innocent? No, gentlemen, it is not to be supposed.

But attend to what follows. Early the next morning, Brodie sends for Robert Smith, his foreman, and asks him if he had heard any news concerning them; he tells Brodie that Smith, the pannel, and Ainslie were in prison, and so forth, and adds that he hoped his master was not concerned with them. Gentlemen, he knew that Smith and Ainslie were Mr. Brodie’s companions; and you cannot conceive that he would have presumed to put such a question to his master if he had not been convinced in his own mind of his master’s guilt. Mr. Brodie makes no answer to this question. Will it be said that a man conscious of his own innocence would have remained silent upon such an occasion? Gentlemen, I appeal to yourselves; how would any one of you have felt, or what answer would you have returned to a servant who dared put such a question to you?

Brodie at this time tells Smith that he is going out of town for a few days; but you have it in evidence that he left this country, and fled to Flushing. In order to account for this flight you are told a story of a prosecution against him, at the instance of a chimney-sweep, for using false or loaded dice. This is a very strange circumstance to bring in exculpation. I have no hesitation to say that it is the most ignominious defence I ever remember to have heard maintained by a prisoner at that bar; but you cannot believe that that prosecution was the occasion of his flight. He was in no greater danger from it then than he had been in for months before; no step had been taken in that process which could alarm him at this critical time; and it is mere mockery, it is altogether a joke, to pretend that from such a circumstance the prisoner at the bar could have taken up the resolution of banishing himself from his country for ever.

Besides, Mr. Brodie, in his declaration before the Sheriff, did not assign this as the cause of his flight. He said that, as he was intimate with Smith and Ainslie, he was afraid they would accuse him of being concerned with them in robbing the Excise Office. He did not so much as mention the defence now set up for him; but his counsel saw that it would be necessary to account for his conduct in some shape or other, and no other appearance of defence occurred but this process. It is impossible to believe this story; and indeed it is impossible to assign any cause for Mr. Brodie’s conduct consistent with his innocence of the crime charged against him.

I would, in the next place, gentlemen, have you to attend to the prisoner’s behaviour when he flies from this place to London. He secretes himself in London for several weeks; search is made for him, but he cannot be found; he admits in one of his letters that he knew that Mr. Williamson was in search of him, but he did not choose an interview; a vessel is freighted for him by some persons, contrary to the duty they owed to their country; she is cleared out for Leith; he goes on board of her in the middle of the night, with a wig on, in disguise, and under a borrowed name; he is carried to Flushing; he changes his name to John Dixon, and writes letters to people in Edinburgh under that false signature, explaining his whole future operations, in consequence of which letters he is traced and apprehended, just when he is on the point of going on board of a ship for New York. If he had been innocent; if he had had nothing else to fear than the story of the loaded dice, it is not possible that he could have conducted himself in this manner.

The letters he writes to Geddes are likewise very strong circumstances; but the other letters, or scrolls, found in his trunk are still stronger. You have had it clearly proven that all these letters are of his own handwriting, and in both of the scrolls he expressly acknowledges the crime for which he now stands at the bar. In one of them he says that he had no “direct” concern in any of the late depredations of Smith, Brown, and Ainslie, excepting “the last fatal one”; in the other the word “direct” is scored out, but in both of them he acknowledges his accession to the last act; by which he can mean no other than the robbery of the Excise Office; for it happened on the Wednesday evening, and Brown gave information of it on the Friday evening immediately after. It was, therefore, in all probability the last of the depredations of this dangerous combination; and Mr. Brodie’s having applied the expression “fatal” to it identifies it beyond all doubt.

Gentlemen, I beg leave now to bring under your consideration what happened in this city after Mr. Brodie absconded. You have it in evidence that his house was searched, and various articles of a very suspicious nature found. A pair of pistols, identified to have been used on the occasion of the robbery, is found under the earth, and the place where they were hid pointed out by the other prisoner Smith; also a dark lanthorn, the one half of it in one place and the other half of it in another. Gentlemen, if Mr. Brodie is really innocent, it appears to me passing strange that these articles should have been so concealed.

All these circumstances, gentlemen, are established by the most unexceptionable evidence; they are connected with and corroborated by each other; and they all point to this conclusion, independent altogether of the direct evidence of Brown and Ainslie, that Mr. Brodie is guilty of the crime charged. They cannot be accounted for upon any other supposition.