Trial of Deacon Brodie

by Unknown

You have, in the first place, the evidence of Mr. Sheriff. This gentleman, no doubt, is brother-in-law to Mr. Brodie; and it may be said that this circumstance renders his evidence suspicious. But Mr. Sheriff, gentlemen, is well known to many of you as a man of character and reputation, as a person of unblemished conduct, in a rank of life equal to many of yourselves. And I appeal to you, gentlemen of honour as you are, whether any of you, judging of this witness, as you would wish to be judged of yourselves, would for a moment indulge the thought that even to save the life of his wife’s brother he would deliberately come forward to cast away his own soul? This gentleman deposes most expressly that he dined at Mr. Brodie’s house on Wednesday, the 5th of March, the day on which the Excise Office was broke into, in company with two ladies and another gentleman; that he staid there till about eight o’clock; that Mr. Brodie during all that time was never absent from his company; and that he even asked the witness to stay supper.

Here is a direct contradiction to the evidence of Brown, who swore that Brodie called at Smith’s in the afternoon of that Wednesday. Which of the two, gentlemen, are you to believe? But it is needless for me to ask the question. Were even the former circumstances urged against the credibility of this man’s evidence not sufficient, you have him here convicted of the grossest perjury, if Mr. Sheriff is to be believed; for that gentleman has expressly sworn that they dined at a quarter past three o’clock, and that Mr. Brodie never left the company while the witness staid, which was till near eight o’clock.

It was asked on the other side of the bar how Mr. Sheriff, at this distance of time, came to recollect so precisely that it was upon Wednesday, the 5th of March, he dined with Mr. Brodie? The answer is obvious. It was publicly known upon the Monday following, and the witness has sworn he knew it, that Mr. Brodie was accused of being concerned in the robbery of the Excise Office. Was it not then natural—nay, would not the contrary have been altogether incredible—that Mr. Sheriff, having only four days to look back, should be able to recollect in a matter that touched so deeply the character, and might affect the life, of so near a relation, that he dined with him that very day on which that felony was perpetrated? Which of you, gentlemen, could not at this time recollect where you dined last Saturday or Sunday, and the precise time at which you left the company?

If, therefore, Mr. Sheriff is to be believed, and why he should not no reason can be suggested, the prisoner could not be present, as Brown and Ainslie have deponed he was, prior to the time Ainslie left Smith’s to go to the Excise Office; which Ainslie has fixed at a quarter before eight; nor could he be with them at Smith’s at all, as Brown swears they all left it a quarter of an hour after Ainslie, and immediately joined him at the Excise Office.

But Jean Watt depones that Mr. Brodie came to her house at eight o’clock on the Wednesday evening, when the eight o’clock bell was ringing; her reason for recollecting these circumstances, too, is a very good one, it being the last time that ever Mr. Brodie slept in her house. Her evidence is corroborated by the servant-maid, who depones exactly to the same purpose. And there is a circumstance, gentlemen, in the deposition of this witness which well merits your attention. Upon being asked what bell was ringing, she said it was the bell of the Tron Church. Here the counsel on the other side of the bar appeared to hug themselves upon the mistake into which they supposed she had fallen, by mentioning a bell which, from the distance, she could not possibly hear. But the matter was cleared up in a moment, when, on being asked where the Tron Church was, she replied, in the Parliament Close. This, gentlemen, is the natural simplicity of truth; this proves her to be no tutored witness, brought forward to rehearse a tale made up beforehand, or to assign fictitious causes of knowledge.

Both these witnesses concur in deposing that Mr. Brodie staid the whole night until next morning at nine o’clock in Mrs. Watt’s house; and their evidence is corroborated by that of Helen Alison, who saw him coming down stairs at nine on the Thursday morning. The evidence of this good woman, Helen Alison, is accompanied with circumstances the most natural and striking, and is confirmed by James Murray, one of the sheriff-officers employed in the search on the Thursday morning, who swears to her having at that time mentioned Mr. Brodie’s having been at Jean Watt’s all the night of the Wednesday and morning of the Thursday preceding.

The whole of this evidence, taken together, affords a proof the most conclusive that Mr. Brodie could not be present at the robbery of the Excise Office. You find him in his own house till the hour of eight; from that hour till nine on the Thursday morning you find him in the house of Mrs. Watt. It is impossible then that he could have been at Smith’s a considerable time before the hour of eight, or that he could have been present at a robbery which took up an hour in the perpetration.

It was said, on the other side of the bar, that it was of no avail to prove an alibi which was merely confined to the city. This is strange doctrine, gentlemen, and perfectly new. That an alibi may be proved with greater certainty when the distance is greater than when it is small, I do not dispute; but does it follow that it may not be proved though the distance be ever so short? Suppose a felony to have been committed this day under that window, and that I should be accused of having been an actor in it. Could not I, gentlemen, bring sufficient evidence of an alibi, although within a few yards of the place where it was perpetrated? Could I not substantiate, by this numerous and respectable assembly, that I was here from nine in the morning till the present hour, employed in such a manner as to exclude the possibility of my being any way concerned in such felony? And could it be objected to such evidence that I had not proved myself absent from town, and that my alibi was confined to within a few feet of the place where the fact was committed?

It is to no purpose to say that the witnesses may not be accurate as to time, and that, making a small allowance for mistakes, the facts they swear to may be true, consistently with the evidence of Brown and Ainslie. For supposing Mr. Sheriff to have been mistaken as to the precise time he left the prisoner that night, he could not be mistaken as to his being constantly with him from the time of dinner till the time he left him, whatever it was; and this alone must defeat the testimony of Brown and Ainslie, who swear to the prisoner’s having been there in the afternoon long before the meeting, previous to their setting out for the Excise Office, which cannot possibly be true, if Mr. Sheriff’s evidence is to be believed.

Here, then, is the most unequivocal and positive proof that the prisoner, Mr. Brodie, could have no accession whatever to this robbery of the Excise Office, unless you, gentlemen, shall conclude that the whole of these witnesses, consistent as they are and corroborated by circumstances the most simple and natural, have perjured themselves wilfully and deliberately; while Brown and Ainslie, witnesses, from their character, unworthy of all belief and swearing in circumstances the most suspicious, are deponing in the utmost purity of truth and fairness.