Attorney-General
The Attorney-General—I can only say I think it would have been better if my learned friend had abstained from so strange a declaration. What would he think of me if, imitating his example, I at this moment stated to you, upon my “honour,” as he did, what is my internal conviction from a conscientious consideration of this case. The best reproof which I can administer to my learned friend is to abstain from imitating so dangerous an example. My learned friend in that address, of which we all admired the power and ability, also adopted a course sometimes resorted to by advocates, but which I cannot help thinking is more or less an insult to a jury, the endeavouring to intimidate them by the fear of their own consciences and the fear of the country’s opinion from discharging firmly and honestly the great and solemn duty which you have to perform upon this occasion. My learned friend told you if your verdict should be “Guilty,” one day or other the innocence of the prisoner would be made manifest, and you would never cease to repent the verdict you had given. If my learned friend was sincere in that—and I know he was—there is no man in whom the spirit of truth and honour is more keenly alive—he said what he believed; but all I can say in answer is, that it shows how when a man enters with a bias upon his mind upon the consideration of a subject he is led into error; and when my learned friend said that he had entered upon this case with an unbiassed and an unprejudiced mind, who could have failed to feel that never in anything could he have been more deceived than in thinking that? For who that has to give his best energies to a defence upon such a charge as this would not shrink in his own mind from the conclusion that he was to advocate the cause of one whom he believed to have been guilty of the foulest of all imaginable crimes? I say, therefore, I think my learned friend had better have abstained from making any observations which involved the assurance of his own conviction. I say, further, I think he ought, in justice and in consideration for you, to have abstained from reminding you or telling you that the voice of the country would not sanction the verdict which you were about to give. I say nothing of the inconsistency which is involved in such a statement, coming from one who but a short hour before had complained in eloquent terms of the universal torrent of passion and prejudice by which he said his client was oppressed and borne down. Why, gentlemen, in answer to my learned friend, I have only to say, pay no regard to the voice of the country, whether it be for condemnation or acquittal; pay no regard to anything but the internal voice of your own consciences, and the sense of that duty to God and man which you are to discharge upon this occasion. Seek no reward, except the comforting assurance when you shall look back to the events of this day, that you have discharged to the best of your ability and to the uttermost of your power the duty that it was yours to perform. If, upon a review of this whole case, comparing the evidence upon the one side and upon the other, and weighing it in the even scales of justice, you can come to a conclusion of the prisoner’s innocence, or even entertain that fair and reasonable amount of doubt of which the accused is entitled to the benefit, in God’s name acquit him. But if, on the other hand, all the facts and all the evidence lead your minds, with satisfaction to yourselves, to the conclusion of the prisoner’s guilt, then, but then only, I ask for a verdict of guilty at your hands. For the protection of the good, and for the repression of the wicked, I ask for that verdict, by which alone, as it seems to me, the safety of society can be secured, and the demands, the imperious demands, of public justice can alone be satisfied.
Eleventh Day, Monday, 26th May, 1856.
The Court met at ten o’clock.
Charge to the Jury.
Lord Campbell
Lord Campbell—Gentlemen of the jury, we have at length arrived at that stage of these solemn proceedings when it becomes my duty, as the chief judge presiding in this Court, to explain to you the nature of the charge brought against the prisoner, and those questions and considerations upon which your verdict ought to be found. And, gentlemen, I must begin by conjuring you to banish from your minds all that you have heard with reference to these proceedings before entering into that box. There is no doubt that a strong prejudice elsewhere did prevail against the prisoner at the bar, in the county of Stafford, where the offence for which he has now to answer is alleged to have been committed; that prejudice was so strong that the Court of Queen’s Bench made an order to remove the trial from that county. The prisoner, by his counsel, expressed a wish that the trial should take place in the Central Criminal Court. To enable that wish to be accomplished an Act has been passed by the Legislature authorising the Court of Queen’s Bench to direct the trial to take place in the Central Criminal Court, where it was believed and known that the trial would be fair and impartial. I must not only warn you, gentlemen, against being influenced by what you may have before heard, but I must likewise warn you—although I am sure it is an unnecessary caution, but one which it is my duty to offer—against being improperly influenced by the evidence that has been laid before you; because there has been evidence which certainly implicates the prisoner in transactions of a very discreditable nature. It appears that he had forged a great many bills of exchange, and that he had entered into transactions not of a reputable nature. These transactions, however, would have been excluded from your consideration altogether had it not been necessary to bring them forward to assist you in arriving at your verdict. By the law and practice of some countries it is allowed to raise a probability that the party accused has committed the offence which he has to answer, to show that he has committed other offences, with a view of showing that he is an immoral man, and not unlikely to commit other offences, whether of the same or of a different nature; but the law of England is different, and, presuming every man to be innocent until his guilt is established, it allows his guilt to be established only by evidence directly connected with the charge brought against him.
