APPENDICES.
APPENDIX I.
Letter from Thomas Palmer, Brother of William Palmer, to the Lord Chief-Justice Campbell.
The following extract from the Diary of Lord Chief-Justice Campbell will serve as introduction to the following letter:—
June 28.
Since my last notice in this journal the great event has been the trial of William Palmer at the Central Criminal Court for poisoning, which began on Wednesday, May 14th, and did not finish till Tuesday, May 27th—the most memorable judicial proceedings for the last fifty years, engaging the attention not only of this country but of all Europe.
My labour and anxiety were fearful; but I have been rewarded by public approbation. The Court sat eight hours a day. When I got home, renouncing all other engagements, I employed myself till midnight in revising my notes and considering the evidence. Luckily I had a Sunday to prepare for my summing up, and to this I devoted fourteen continuous hours. The following day, after reading in Court ten hours, I had only got through the proofs for the prosecution. My anxiety was over on the last day, when the verdict of guilty was pronounced and I had sentenced the prisoner to die, for I had no doubt of his guilt, and I was conscious that by God’s assistance I had done my duty. Such was the expressed opinion of the public and of all the respectable part of the Press. But a most ruffian-like attempt was made by the friends of the prisoner to abuse me, and to obtain a pardon or reprieve on the ground that the prisoner had not had a fair trial. Having unbounded funds at their command, they corrupted some disreputable journals to admit these diatribes against me. They published a most libellous pamphlet under the title of “A Letter from the Rev. T. Palmer,” the prisoner’s brother, to Lord Chief-Justice Campbell, in which the Chief-Justice was represented to be worse than his predecessor Jeffreys, and it was asserted that there had been nothing in England like the last trial since the “Bloody Assize.” However, the Home Secretary remained firm and the law took its course.
The Rev. T. Palmer has since disclaimed the pamphlet, and it is said to have been written by a blackguard barrister. I bear him no enmity. He has done me no harm; but for the sake of example he ought to be disbarred.