Mr. Clerk—Pray, your Lordship, let me proceed.
The Lord Justice-Clerk—Well then, proceed, young man.
Mr. Clerk—It is easy to account from this cause, gentlemen, for what my Lord Advocate observed concerning the obscurity of my client’s history before the robbery of the Excise Office; and I imagine that no argument against him can be drawn from it. I know that I speak to a jury who will lay nothing into the scale against him that does not arise from the evidence which has been adduced.
My Lord Advocate has told you, gentlemen, that the guilt of my unfortunate client is so clear as to admit of no doubt, and it is in consequence of that opinion, I suppose, that his Lordship has made so few observations upon it. I cannot, however, yield my assent to this proposition; and I shall endeavour to show you, on the contrary, gentlemen, from a statement of such parts of the proof as affect my client, that the fair and legal evidence against him is incomplete and will not warrant a verdict for the Crown.
The evidence may be reduced to three distinct branches—his own declarations, which have been read; the direct evidence of the witnesses adduced for the prosecutor to the commission of the crime; and the real evidence of circumstances.
With regard to the declarations, the Lord Advocate has told
John Clerk (afterwards Lord Eldin).
(After Kay.)
you, gentlemen, that they contain a variety of particulars which have not been read, and have been omitted by the consent of the pannel; and from this, his Lordship observed, an inference might be drawn that the declarations contain many more particulars little to the credit of the pannel. Gentlemen, an inference more candid, or at least more charitable, might, in my opinion, be deduced from the circumstance. It is easy to conceive the state of mind in which the pannel must have been when apprehended. Connected with those infamous men who were supposed to have committed the crime, a partner in their most dissolute scenes, no wonder, gentlemen, that he was struck with terror when seized upon an accusation of being joined in their guilt.
After having resisted for some time the impressions arising from his confinement, his panic most naturally increased almost to a delirium; a fit of temporary frenzy, an insanity, seized him, and he accused himself of an atrocious crime as the only means of safety. But this accusation is rejected by his cooler judgment, and accordingly he pleaded not guilty at this bar. In accusing himself in such a manner, the greater variety of crimes he laid to his own charge, the greater is the improbability of their being true, for it was folly to balance the merit of confessing a crime eagerly inquired after by the guilt of other crimes which were out of head. And it was folly of such a sort as to prove that the pannel was incapable of rational conduct; and thus the credit of his declaration, in so far as it injured himself, is in charitable reasoning considerably diminished.