This salutary statute (proposed by the late Sir Robert Peel) was passed unanimously; Lord John Russell justly remarking, that "as the offence to be punished was that of bad and degraded beings, a base and degrading punishment was most fitly applied to it." Her Majesty enjoyed a seven years' respite from the insufferable annoyance to which she had been subjected—viz., till the 19th May 1849—when, about four o'clock in the afternoon, as she was driving in an open carriage with three of her children, a pistol was fired in the direction of the carriage by "one William Hamilton, an Irish bricklayer." The pistol was fired point-blank at the person of General Wemyss, one of her equerries, who happened to be in the line of her Majesty's person. This stolid wretch was tried on the 14th June ensuing, under the above statute, when he pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to be transported for seven years. Again, on the 12th of July last, it was rendered lamentably necessary to call this statute into operation, and with the like effect as in the preceding case: but we shall reserve our observations upon the case of Pate till after we have completed what we have to offer on those of Oxford and M'Naughten. We have just returned from an examination of those two notorious persons in Bethlehem Hospital, and shall by and by convey to the reader the result of our own careful observations, made since the earlier portions of this article were committed to the press.
Oxford's Case.
The judges who presided at the trial—which took place at the Old Bailey, and lasted three days, (the 9th, 10th, and 11th July 1840)—were Lord Denman, Baron Alderson, and Justice Maule. The counsel for the crown were—the Attorney and Solicitor Generals, (Sir John Campbell and Sir Thomas Wilde), Sir Frederick Pollock, the present Mr Justice Wightman, Mr Adolphus, and Mr Gurney; those for the prisoner were the late Mr Sydney Taylor and Mr Bodkin. The indictment contained two counts—respectively applicable, in precisely the same terms, to the two acts of firing—charging that Oxford, "as a false traitor, maliciously and traitorously did compass, imagine, and intend to put our lady the Queen to death; and, to fulfil and bring into effect his treason and treasonable compassing, did shoot off and discharge a certain pistol loaded with gunpowder and a bullet, and thereby made a direct attempt against the life of our said lady the Queen,"—in the words of statute 39 and 40 Geo. III., c. 93, § 1. The trial, as already observed, differed in no respect from an ordinary trial for felony; and neither the Crown nor the prisoner challenged a single juryman. "Oxford," says Mr Townsend, "stepped into the dock with a jaunty air, and a flickering smile on his countenance; glanced at the galleries, as if to ascertain whether he had a large concourse of spectators; and, leaning with his elbow on the ledge of the dock, commenced playing with the herbs[16] which were placed there before him. He kept his gaze earnestly fixed on the Attorney-general during the whole of his address, twirling the rue about in his fingers, and became more subdued in manner towards the close of the speech."[17] The facts constituting the outrage lie in a nutshell: The prisoner was seized instantly after having discharged two pistols, as the Queen and the Prince-consort were driving up Constitution Hill, in a low open carriage. He had been observed, for some time before the approach of the royal carriage, walking backwards and forewards with his arms folded under his breast. As the carriage approached, he turned round, nodded, drew a pistol from his breast, and discharged it at the carriage, when it was nearly opposite to him. As it advanced, after looking round to see if he were observed, he took out a second pistol, directed it across the other to her Majesty, who, seeing it, stooped down; and he fired a second time—very deliberately—at only about six or seven yards' distance. The witnesses spoke to hearing distinctly a sharp whizzing sound "close past their own ears." The prisoner, on seeing the person who had snatched from him the pistols mistaken for the person who had fired, said, "It was me—I did it. I give myself up—I will go quietly." At the police-office he said, "Is the Queen hurt?" Some one observed, "I wonder whether there was any ball in the pistol?" on which the prisoner said, "If the ball had come in contact with your head, if it were between the carriage, you would have known it." The witness who spoke to these words appears, however, to have somewhat hesitated when pressed in cross-examination; but he finally adhered to his statement that the prisoner declared there were balls in the pistols. A few days previously he had purchased the pistols for two sovereigns, about fifty percussion-caps, a powder-flask, which, with a bullet-mould and five bullets fitting the pistols, were found at his lodgings. He had also been practising firing at a target, and, on purchasing the pistols, particularly asked how far they could carry. The Earl of Uxbridge deposed that, when he saw Oxford in his cell, he asked, "Is the Queen hurt?" on which Lord Uxbridge said, "How dare you ask such a question?" Oxford then stated that "he had been shooting a great deal lately—he was a very good shot with a pistol, but a better shot with a rifle." "You have now fulfilled your engagement," said the Earl. "No," replied Oxford, "I have not." "You have, sir," rejoined Lord Uxbridge, "as far as the attempt goes." To that he was silent. The most rigid search was made to discover any bullets; but in vain. Two witnesses, gentlemen of rank, and well acquainted with the use of firearms, spoke confidently to having seen bullet-marks on the wall, in the direction in which Oxford had fired; but the Attorney-general expressed his opinion that the evidence was entitled to no weight, as probably mistaken; declaring himself, however, positive that there must have been balls in the pistols, but that the pistols had been elevated so high that the balls went over the garden-wall. One of the witnesses said to the other, immediately after seizing Oxford, "Look out—I dare say he has some friends;" to which he replied, "You are right—I have." At his lodgings were found some curious papers, in Oxford's handwriting, purporting to be the rules of a secret club or society called Young England; the first of which was, "that every member shall be provided with a brace of pistols, a sword, a rifle, and a dagger—the two latter to be kept at the committee-room." A list of members-factitives' [sic] names were given. "Marks of distinction: Council, a large white cockade; President, a black bow; General, three red bows; Captain, two red bows; Lieutenant, one red bow." There were also found in Oxford's trunk a sword and scabbard, and a black crape cap with two red bows—one of the "rules" requiring every member to be armed with a brace of loaded pistols, and to be provided with a black crape cap to cover his face, with his marks of distinction outside. Three letters were also found in his pocket-book, addressed to himself at three different residences, purporting to be signed by "A. W. Smith, secretary," and to contain statements of what had taken place, or was to take place, at the secret meetings of the society. They were all headed "Young England," and dated respectively "16th May 1839," "14th Nov. 1839," and "3d April 1840." Oxford said he had intended to destroy these papers in the morning, before he went out, but had forgotten it. All these papers—the "rules" and letters—were sworn by Oxford's mother to be in his own handwriting; and it should have been mentioned that there was not a tittle of evidence adduced to show that there were, in fact, any such society in existence, or any such persons as these papers would have indicated; nor, up to the present moment, has there been the least reason for believing that such was the case.
Thus closed the case for the Crown, undoubtedly a very formidable one. No attempt was made by the prisoner's counsel—who appear to have conducted the defence temperately and judiciously—to alter by evidence the position of the proved facts; which, therefore, were allowed to stand before the jury as almost conclusively establishing the case of high treason. Mr Taylor, however, strongly impaired the Attorney-general's notion that there had been in the pistols balls, which had gone over the wall; because his own witnesses had spoken decisively to the bullet-marks on the wall; yet no flattened balls had been produced, after all the search that had been made. Mr Taylor, therefore, inferred that the pistols had contained powder only: "a great outrage, unquestionably, but still not the treason charged." There was, again, he contended, there could have been, no motive for killing the Queen; and the idea of the Treasonable Society was mere moonshine—a pure invention concocted by a lunatic—one who had inherited insanity, and himself exhibited the proofs of its existence: for Mr Taylor undertook to prove the insanity of Oxford's grandfather, his father, and himself. The proof broke down as far as concerned the grandfather, a sailor in the navy; for it was clear that his alleged violent eccentricities had been exhibited when he was under the influence of liquor. The insanity of Oxford's father was sought to be established by his widow, the mother of the prisoner. If her story, "told with unfaltering voice and unshaken nerve," were correct, her husband had undoubtedly been a very violent and brutal fellow, with a dash of madness in his composition. It is possible that the mother, in her anxiety to save her son from a traitor's death on the scaffold, had, by a quasi pia fraus, too highly coloured her deceased husband's conduct. If this were not so, she had indeed been an object of the utmost sympathy. He forced her to marry him, she said, by furious threats of self-destruction if she did not: he burnt a great roll of banknotes to ashes in her presence, because she had refused, or hesitated, to become his wife. He used to terrify her, during her pregnancies, by hideous grimaces, and apish tricks and gesticulations: the results being that her second child was born, and within three years' time died, an idiot. Her husband pursued the same course during her pregnancy with the prisoner, and presented a gun at her head. The prisoner had always been a headstrong, wayward, mischievous, eccentric youth—subject to fits of involuntary laughing and crying. He was absurdly vain, boastful, and ambitious; and wished his mother to send him to sea, where he would have nothing to do but walk about the deck, give orders, and by and by become Admiral Sir Edward Oxford! This was the utmost extent of the facts alleged in support of the defence of insanity. The prisoner's whole life had been traced—in evidence—while he was at school, and in three distinct services; and he had never been confined, or in any way treated as mad. His sister spoke to his going out on the day of the outrage, and detailed a conversation evincing no symptoms of wandering. He used to have books from the library—"The Black Pirate," "Oliver Twist," and "Jack Sheppard." On leaving home that day, about three o'clock in the afternoon, he told his sister that he was going to the Shooting Gallery to buy some linen for her to make him some shirts, and to bring home some tea from a particular shop in the Strand. A nur-sery-maid to whom he had written a ludicrously-addressed letter a few weeks before, said, "I considered him in a sound state of mind, but sometimes very eccentric:" than which, no words were fitter to characterise the true scope and tendency of all the evidence which had been offered to prove him insane. Of that evidence, according to the genius and spirit, and also the letter of English law, twelve intelligent jurymen were the proper judges, under judicial guidance; and greatly to be deprecated is any attempt to deprive them of their right, and their fellow-subjects—the public at large—of the protection afforded by its unfettered exercise.
We therefore earnestly beg the reader to assume that he is given credit for an average degree of intelligence, and only a moderate amount of moral firmness—to imagine himself a juryman, charged with the solution of this critical problem. We ask—On the facts now laid before you, do you believe Oxford to have been no more conscious of, or accountable for, his actions, in twice deliberately firing at the Queen, than would have been a baby accidentally pulling the trigger of a loaded pistol, and shooting its fond incautious mother or affectionate attendant?
If Oxford, instead of shooting at the Queen, had shot himself that afternoon: would you, being sworn "to give a just and true verdict according to the evidence," have pronounced him insane—totally unconscious and irresponsible? Would you have declared him such, if required to say ay or no to that question on a commission of lunacy? Would you have declared his marriage, on that afternoon, null and void, on the ground of his insanity? Would you have declared his will void? or any contract, great or small, which he had entered into? Would you have declared his vote, in a municipal or parliamentary election, invalid? If he had committed some act of petty pilfering or cheating, would you have deliberately absolved him from guilt on the ground of insanity? Would you, in each and every one of these cases, have declared, upon your oath, that you believed Oxford was "labouring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing,—or, if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing wrong?"[18] We entreat you to forget altogether the enormity of the offence imputed to Oxford—an attempt to take the life of his Queen: dismiss it, and all consideration of consequences, as a disturbing force, and address your reason exclusively to the question last proposed. What would be your sworn answer? We beg you also to bear in mind from whom has proceeded the chief evidence in support of the defence of insanity—a mother, seeking to rescue her son from the fearful death of a traitor; and that the attempt to impugn his mental sanity is not made till after such a terrible occasion has arisen for doing so. Had it been their interest to establish his sanity, in order to uphold a will of his bequeathing them a large sum of money, who sees not how all their evidences of insanity would have melted into thin air, and the attempt to magnify and distort petty eccentricities into such, have been branded as cruel, unjust, and disgraceful?
But there came five doctors on the scene, and at their approach the light of reason was darkened. These astute personages—mysterious in their means of knowledge, and confident in their powers of extinguishing the common sense of both judges and jury—came to demonstrate that the unfortunate young gentleman at the bar was no more the object of punishment than the unconscious baby aforesaid; no more aware of the nature and consequences of the act which he had done than is the torch with which a haystack is fired, or the bullet, cannonball, or dagger with which life is taken away! But let them speak for themselves—these wise men of Gotham—these confident disciples of the "couldn't help it" school!
First Doctor.—Question by the prisoner's counsel and the Court—"Supposing a person, in the middle of the day, without any suggested motive, to fire a loaded pistol at her Majesty, passing along the road in a carriage; to remain on the spot; to declare he was the person who did it; to take pains to have that known; and afterwards to enter freely into discussion, and answer any questions put to him on the subject: would you, from those facts alone, judge a person to be insane?"
Answer.—"I should."
The Court.—"You mean to say, upon your oath, that if you heard these facts stated, you should conclude that the person would be mad?"