At his trial he intended to have pled guilty but was prevailed upon to take his chance of a trial. He meant to have asked for mercy on the ground of making an ample confession of the crimes committed and to be committed, and had prepared a speech in writing to that purpose, which he intended to have read.
On the Friday before the trial, Smith wrote a letter to the Board of Excise, saying that he was not to give them any trouble, for he would plead guilty.
By means of a humane and benevolent clergyman who attended this unhappy man with the most feeling solicitude and earnest discharge of duty during his imprisonment, we have been favoured with this speech, and the catalogue of crimes which were to have been perpetrated, which will strike every reader with horror and amazement.
It is in his own handwriting, and will be deemed curious by the public. It is remarkable that Smith spells much better in his writing than Brodie.
The speech is as follows:—
My Lords, and Gentlemen of the Jury,
I stand before this Tribunal, so dreadful to the guilty mind, a victim, in the first instance, to private revenge. The principal informer against me had suddenly become my mortal enemy, and thought of nothing, I fear, when he went to the Sheriff-clerk’s Office, but my single ruin. I pray God to forgive him this cruel wrong, as I do from my heart.
Since I was committed to prison, it has been said against me that I was formerly a Smith by occupation, and made the keys that opened the Excise Office and other places; neither of which are true. I never was a Smith, nor ever made a key. Old keys were bought, and the wards of them altered; but I was not by any means the best in the execution.
It may be remembered against me that I tried to break out of prison. But, not to dwell upon the love of life, and the dread of an ignominious execution, both of which are so natural and strong, I not only sincerely repented of having made the attempt, but, as a proof of my sincerity, and, I humbly trust, as some kind of atonement, I prevented Peter Young and three others from doing so—who, with myself, could afterwards have escaped from prison—by freely discovering the plot to the turnkey.
I have, moreover, been falsely accused of advising my unfortunate wife not to speak at all when she should be brought to this Court; but I solemnly declare that the worst advice I ever gave her on that head, was to speak the truth. I have no fear of her evidence affecting my life. To make the wife the witness in law against the life of her husband, would be barbarous in any country. My great security here is that the justice and humanity of this country forbid it.