was. to the overthrow of the whole of the evidence (admitting, at the same time, the truth of it), by which the prisoner's case can alone be encountered. cases where the wrong. he was sane. He underwent the most severe examination by the defendant's counsel without exposing his complaint; but Dr. Battye, having come upon the bench by me, and having desired me to ask him what was become of the But it is said that whatever delusions may PRINCESS whom he had corresponded with in overshadow the mind, every person This delusic cherry-juice, he showed in a moment what he ought to be responsible for erimes may exist in He answered, that there was nothing at who has the knowledge of good and subject of it an distinguish beall ir. that, because, having been (as every body evil. I think I can presently convince tween right at d knew imprisoned in a high tower, and being de- you, that there is something too genbarred the use of ink, he had no other means of eral in this mode of considering the subject; and correspondence but by writing his letters in cher-you do not, therefore, find any such proposition ry-juice, and throwing them into the river which in the language of the celebrated writer alluded surrounded the tower, where the Princess re-to by the Attorney General in his speech. Let ceived them in a boat. There existed, of course, me suppose that the character of an insane deluno tower, no imprisonment, no writing in cher- sion consisted in the belief that some given perry-juice, no river, no boat; but the whole the in- son was any brute animal, or an inanimate being veterate phantom of a morbid imagination. I (and such cases have existed), and that upon the immediately," continued Lord Mansfield, "di- trial of such a lunatic for murder, you firmly, rected Dr. Monro to be acquitted. But this man, upon your oaths, were convinced, upon the unWood, being a merchant in Philpot Lane, and contradicted evidence of a hundred persons, that having been carried through the City in his way he believed the man he had destroyed to have to the mad-house, he indicted Dr. Monro over been a potter's vessel. Suppose it was quite imagain, for the trespass and imprisonment in Lon- possible to doubt that fact, although to all other don, knowing that he had lost his cause by speak-intents and purposes he was sane; conversing, ing of the Princess at Westminster. And such," said Lord Mansfield, "is the extraordinary subtlety and cunning of madmen, that when he was cross-examined on the trial in London, as he had successfully been before, in order to expose his madness, all the ingenuity of the bar, and all the authority of the court, could not make him say a syllable upon that topic, which had put an end to the indictment before, although he still had the same indelible impression upon his mind, as he signified to those who were near him; but, conscious that the delusion had occasioned his defeat at Westminster, he obstinately persisted in holding it back.” the present 118 reasoning, and acting, as men not in any manner tainted with insanity, converse, and reason, and conduct themselves. Let me suppose further, that he believed the man whom he destroyed, but whom he destroyed as a potter's vessel, to be tho property of another; and that he had malice against such supposed person, and that he meant to injure him, knowing the act he was doing to be malicious and injurious, and that, in short, he had full knowledge of all the principles of good and evil. Yet it would be possible to convict such a person of murder, if, from the influence of his disease, he was ignorant of the relation he stood in to the man he had destroyed, and was utterly Now, gentlemen, let us look to the applica- unconscious that he had struck at the life of a huApplication of tion of these cases. I am not exam-man being. I only put this case, and many oththese cases to ining, for the present, whether either ers might be brought as examples to illustrate question. of these persons ought to have been that the knowledge of good and evil is too genacquitted, if they had stood in the place of the eral a description. prisoner now before you. That is quite a dis- I really think, however, that the Attorney Gen. tinct consideration, which we shall come to here- eral and myself do not, in substance, These princi after. The direct application of them is only very materially differ. From the pleasu a substantia. this, that if I bring before you such evidence of whole of his most able speech, taken the Attorney the prisoner's insanity as, if believed to have real- together, his meaning may, I think, ly existed, shall, in the opinion of the court, as be thus collected; that where the act which is the rule for your verdict in point of law, be suf- criminal, is done under the dominion of malicious ficient for his deliverance, then that you ought mischief and wicked intention, although such innot to be shaken in giving full credit to such ev-sanity might exist in a corner of the mind, as dence, notwithstanding the report of those who were present at his apprehension, who describe him as discovering no symptom whatever of mental incapacity or disorder. For I have shown you that insane persons frequently appear in the utmost state of ability and composure, even in the highest paroxysms of insanity, except when frenzy is the characteristic of the disease. In this respect, the cases I have cited to you have the most decided application, because they apply • The evidence at Westminster was then proved against him by the short-hand writer. ly admitted by General might avoid the acts of the delinquent as a luna The real ques tion before the jurv as a soldier to convinced, and ought to convince, every person saw the emotion which overpowered him wher that it was pointed at the person of the King, he the illustrious person now in court His attachment meditated mischief and violence to his Majesty, took his seat upon the bench. Can you his commandor whether he came to the theater (which it is my then believe, from the evidence, for I ing officer. purpose to establish) under the dominion of the do not ask you to judge as physiognomists, or to most melancholy insanity that ever degraded and give the rein to compassionate fancy; but can overpowered the faculties of man. I admit that there be any doubt that it was the generous emo when he bought the pistol, and the gunpowder tion of the mind, on seeing the Prince, under to load it, and when he loaded it, and came with whom he had served with so much bravery and it to the theater, and lastly, when he discharged honor? Every man, certainly, must judge for it; every one of these acts would be overt acts himself. I am counsel, not a witness, in the of compassing the King's death, if at all or any But it is a most striking circumstance, of these periods he was actuated by that mind as you find from the Crown's evidence, that and intention, which would have constituted mur-when he was dragged through the orchestra under der in the case of an individual, supposing the individual had been actually killed. I admit, also, that the mischievous, and, in this case, traitorous intention must be inferred from all these acts, unless I can rebut the inferences by proof. If I were to fire a pistol toward you, gentlemen, where you are now sitting, the act would undoubtedly infer the malice. The whole proof, therefore, is undoubtedly cast upon ME. of the prisoner a permanent delusion of the kind described. In every case of treason, or murder, which are Was the motive precisely the same, except that the unconsummated intention in the case of the King is the same as the actual murder of a private man, the jury must impute to the person whom they condemn by their verdict, the motive which constitutes the crime. And your province to-day will, therefore, be to decide whether the prisoner, when he did the act, was under the uncontrollable dominion of insanity, and was impelled to it by a morbid delusion; or whether it was the act of a man who, though occasionally mad, or even at the time not perfectly collected, was yet not actuated by the disease, but by the suggestion of a wicked and malignant disposition. I admit, therefore, freely, that if, after you have heard the evidence which I hasten to lay before you, of the state of the prisoner's mind, and close up to the very time of this catastrophe, you shall sull not feel yourselves clearly justified in negativing the wicked motives imputed by this indict ment, I shall leave you in the hands of the learned judges to declare to you the law of the land, and shall not seek to place society in a state of uncertainty by any appeal addressed only to your compassion. I am appointed by the court to claim for the prisoner the full protection of the law, but not to misrepresent it in his protection. Gentlemen, the facts of this melancholy case lie within a narrow compass. The unfortunate person before you was a Early life of soldier. He became so, I believe, in the prisoner, the year 1793-and is now about twenty-nine years of age. He served in Flanders, under the Duke of York, as appears by his Royal Highness's evidence; and being a most approved soldier, he was one of those singled out as an orderly man to attend upon the person of the Commander-in-Chief. You have been witnesses, gentlemen, to the calmness with which the prisoner has sitten in his place during the tria!. There was but one exception to it. You cause. the stage, and charged with an act for which he considered his life as forfeited, he addressed the Duke of York with the same enthusiasm which has marked the demeanor I am adverting to. Mr. Richardson, who showed no disposition in his evidence to help the prisoner, but who spoke with the calmness and circumspection of truth, and who had no idea that the person he was examining was a lunatic, has given you the account of the burst of affection on his first seeing the Duke of York, against whose father and sovereign he was supposed to have had the consciousness of treason. The King himself, whom he was supposed to have so malignantly attacked, never had a more gallant, loyal, or suffering soldier. His gallantry and loyalty will be proved; his sufferings speak for themselves. About five miles from Lisle, upon the attack made on the British army, this un- His wounds fortunate soldier was in the fifteenth light dragoons, in the thickest of the ranks, exposing his life for his Prince, whom he is supposed to-day to have sought to murder. The first wound he received is most materially connected with the subject we are considering; you may see the effect of it now." The point of a sword was impelled against him with all the force of a man urging his horse in battle. When the court put the prisoner under my protection, 1 thought it my duty to bring Mr. Cline to inspect him in Newgate. It will appear by the evidence of that excellent and conscientious person, who is known to be one of the first anatomists in the world, that from this wound one of two things must have happened: either, that by the immediate operation of surgery the displaced part of the skull must have been taken away, or been forced inward on the brain. The second stroke, also, speaks for itself: you may now see its effects. [Here Mr. Erskine touched the head of the prisoner.] He was cut across all the nerves which give sensibility and animation to the body, and his head hung down almost dissevered, until by the act of surgery it was placed in the position you now see it. But thus, almost destroyed, he still recollected his duty, and continued tc maintain the glory of his country, when a sword divided the membrane of his neck where it term. inates in the head; yet he still kept his place, • Mr. Erskine put his hand to the prisoner's heal who stood by him at the bar of the court. though his helmet had been thrown off by the blow which I secondly described, when by another sword he was cut into the very brain-you may now see its membrane uncovered. Mr. Cline will tell you that he examined these wounds, and ne can better describe them. I have myself seen them, but am no surgeon; from his evidence you will have to consider their consequences. It may be said that many soldiers receive grievous wounds without their producing insanity. So they may, undoubtedly; but we are upon the fact. There was a discussion the other day, whether a man who had been seemingly hurt by a fall beyond remedy could get up and walk. The people around said it was impossible; but he did get ap and walk, and so there was an end to the impossibility. The effects of the prisoner's wounds were known by the immediate event of insanity, and Mr. Cline will tell you that it would have been strange, indeed, if any other event had followed. We are not here upon a case of insanity arising from the spiritual part of man, as it may be affected by hereditary taint, by intemperance, or by violent passions, the operations of which are various and uncertain; but we have to deal with a species of insanity more resembling what has been described as idiocy, proceeding from original malorganization. There the disease is, from its very nature, incurable; and so where a man (like the prisoner) has become insane from violence to the brain, which permanently affects its structure, however such a man may appear occasionally to others, his disease is immovable. If the prisoner, therefore, were to live a thousand years, he never could recover from the consequence of that day. But this is not all. Another blow was still aimed at him, which he held up his arm to avoid, when his hand was cut into the bone. It is an afflicting subject, gentlemen, and better to be spoken of by those who understand it; and, to and all further description, he was then thrust almost through and through the body with a bayonet, and left in a ditch among the slain. He was afterward carried to a hospital, where he was known by his tongue to one of his countrymen, who will be examined as a witness, who found him, not merely as a wounded soldier deprived of the powers of his body, but bereft of his senses forever. He was affected from the very beginning with The madness that species of madness which, from that followed. violent agitation, fills the mind with the most inconceivable imaginations, wholly unfitting it for all dealing with human affairs, acnording to the sober estimate and standard of rea son. delusion nn He imagined that he had constant intercourse with the Almighty Author of all things; that the world was coming to a conclusion; and The peculiar that, like our blessed Savior, he was to nature of the sacrifice himself for its salvation. So der which he obstinately did this morbid image conabored tinue, that you will be convinced he went to the theater to perform, as he imagined, :bat blessed sacrifice; and, because he would not be guilty of suicide, though called upon by the imperious voice of Heaven, he wished that by the appearance of crime his life might be taken away from him by others. This bewildered, extrava gant species of madness appeared immediately after his wounds, on his first entering the hos pital; and on the very same account he was discharged from the army on his return to England, which the Attorney General very honorably and candidly seemed to intimate. Manifested in an attempt to destroy his own child. To proceed with the proofs of his insanity down to the very period of his supposed guilt. This unfortunate man before you is the father of an infant of eight months; and I have no doubt, that if the boy had been brought into court (but this is a grave place for the consideration of justice, and not a theater for stage effect)-I say, I have no doubt whatever, that if this poor infant had been brought into court, you would have seen the unhappy father wrung with all the emotions of parental affection. Yet, upon the Tuesday preceding the Thursday when he went to the playhouse, you will find his disease still urging him forward, with the impression that the time was come when he must be destroyed for the benefit of mankind; and in the confusion, or, rather, delirium of this wild conception, he came to the bed of the mother, who had this infant in her arms, and endeavored to dash out its brains against the wall. The family was alarmed; and the neighbors being called in, the child was, with difficulty, rescued from the unhappy parent, who, in his madness, would have destroyed it. that time and Now let me, for a moment, suppose that he had succeeded in the accomplishment Comparison of of his insane purpose; and the ques- his feelings at tion had been, whether he was guilty when he fired of murder. Surely, the affection for at the King. this infant, up to the very moment of his distracted violence, would have been conclusive in his favor. But not more so than his loyalty to the King, and his attachment to the Duke of York, as applicable to the case before us; yet at that very period, even of extreme distraction, he conversed as rationally on all other subjects as he did with the Duke of York at the theater. The prisoner knew perfectly that he was the husband of the woman and the father of the child. The tears of affection ran down his face at the very moment that he was about to accomplish its destruction. During the whole of this scene of horror, he was not at all deprived of memory, in the Attorney General's sense of the expression; he could have communicated, at that moment, every circumstance of his past life, and every thing connected with his present condition, except only the quality of the act he was meditating. In that, he was under the overruling dominion of a morbid imagination, and conceived that he was acting against the dictates of nature in obedience to the superior commands of Heaven, which had told him, that the moment he was dead, and the infant with him, all nature was to be changed, and all mankind were to be redeemed by his dissolution. There was not an idea in his mind, from the beginning to the end, of the destruction of the King. On the contrary, he | always maintained his loyalty—lamented that he could not go again to fight his battles in the field; and it will be proved, that only a few days before the period in question, being present when a song was sung, indecent, as it regarded the person and condition of his Majesty, he left the room with loud expressions of indignation, and immediately sang "God save the King," with all the enthusiasm of an old soldier, who had bled in the service of his country. sentiment of the strongest points in the case. taking his undoubted insanity into consideration, because it is his unquestionable insanity which alone stamps the effusions of his mind with stacerity and truth. something lead to his bo.. The idea which had impressed itself, but i most confused images, upon this rin. He felt it 104fortunate man, was, that he must be easars te de destroyed, but ought not to destroy which would himself. He once had the idea of ing put to death firing over the King's carriage in the judicially. street; but then he imagined he should be im mediately killed, which was not the mode of propitiation for the world. And as our Savior, before his passion, had gone into the garden to pray, this fallen and afflicted being, after he had taken the infant out of bed to destroy it, returned also to the garden, saying, as he afterward said to the Duke of York, "that all was not over that a great work was to be finished," and there he remained in prayer, the victim of the same melancholy visitation. that of Lord Gentlemen, these are the facts, freed froin even the possibility of artifice or disguise; comparis because the testimony to support them w will be beyond all doubt. In contem- Ferrers plating the law of the country, and the prece dents of its justice to which they must be applied, I find nothing to challenge or question. I ap I confess to you, gentlemen, that this last cirHis prevailing cumstance, which may, to some, apoyalty one of pear insignificant, is, in my mind, most momentous testimony. For if this man had been in the habit of associating with persons inimical to the government of our country, so that mischief might have been fairly argued to have mixed itself with madness (which, by-the-by, it frequently does); if it could in any way have been collected that, from his disorder, more easily inflamed and worked upon, he had been led away by disaffected persons to become the instrument of wickedness; if it could have been established that such had been his companions and his habits, I should have Deen ashamed to lift up my vo.ce in his defense. I should have felt that, however his mind might have been weak and disordered, yet if his under-prove of them throughout. I subscribe to ali that standing sufficiently existed to be methodically acted upon as an instrument of malice, I could not have asked for an acquittal. But you find, on the contrary, in the case before you, that, notwithstanding the opportunity which the Crown has had, and which, upon all such occasions, it justly employs to detect treason, either against the person of the King or against his government, not one witness has been able to fix upon the prisoner before you any one companion, of even a doubtful description, or any one expression from which disloyalty could be inferred, while the whole history of his life repels the imputation. His courage in defense of the King and his dominions, and his affection for his son, in such unanswerable evidence, all speak aloud against the presumption that he went to the theater with a mischievous intention. King's life. is written by Lord Hale. I agree with all the authorities cited by the Attorney General, from Lord Coke; but above all, I do most cordially agree in the instance of convictions by which he illustrated them in his able address. I have now lying before me the case of Earl Ferrers: unquestionably there could not be a shadow of doubt, and none appears to have been entertained, of his guilt. I wish, indeed, nothing more than to contrast the two cases; and so far am I from disputing either the principle of that condemnation, or the evidence that was the foundation of it, that I invite you to examine whether any two instances in the whole body of the criminal law are more diametrically opposite to each other than the case of Earl Ferrers and that now before you. Lord Ferrers was divorced from his wife by act of Parliament; and a person of the name of Johnson, who had been his steward, had taken part with the lady in that proceeding, and had conducted the business in carrying the act through the two Houses. Lord Ferrers consequently wished to turn him out of a farm which he occupied under him; but his estate being in trust, Johnson was supported by the trustees in his possession. There were, also, some differences respecting coal-mines; and in consequence of both transactions, Lord Ferrers took up the most violent resentment against him. Let me To recur again to the evidence of Mr. Rich- | Peculiarity of ardson, who delivered most honorable attempting the and impartial testimony. I certainly am obliged to admit, that what a prisoner says for himself, when coupled at the very time with an overt act of wickedness, is no evidence whatever to alter the obvious quality of the act he has committed. If, for instance, I, who am now addressing you, had fired the same pistol toward the box of the King, and, having been dragged under the orchestra and secured for criminal justice, I had said that I had no intention to kill the King, but was weary of my life, and meant to be condemned as guilty; would any man, who Mr. Erskine goes on to consider, the statement of the was not himself insane, consider that as a de- facts is not only clear and beautiful in itself, but is shaped throughout with a particular reference to the fense? Certainly not: because it would be with-case of Hadfield, so as to bring out the points of conout the whole foundation of the prisoner's previous condition, part of which it is even difficult to apply closely and directly by strict evidence, without 10 The reader will remark, that in the cases which trast in strong relief, and thus open the way for the distinctions which follow. This kind of preparation is one of Mr. Erskine's greatest excellence. here observe, gentlemen, that this was not a re- | ruin his country; and although he appeared from sentment founded upon any illusion; not a resent- the evidence to be a man of most wild and turment forced upon a distempered mind by falla-bulent manners, yet the people round Guildford cious images, but depending upon actual circumstances and real facts; and, acting like any other man under the influence of malignant passions, he repeatedly declared that he would be revenged on Mr. Johnson, particularly for the part he had taken in depriving him of a contract respecting the mines. who knew him, did not, in general, consider him to be insane. His counsel could not show that any morbid delusion had ever overshadowed his understanding. They could not show, as I shall, that just before he shot at Lord Onslow, he had endeavored to destroy his own beloved child. It was a case of human resentment. I might instance, also, the case of Oliver, who was indicted for the murder of Mr. Wood, with tha a potter, in Staffordshire. Mr. Wood had of Oliver refused his daughter to this man in marriage. My friend, Mr. Milles, was counsel for him at the assizes. He had been employed as a surgeon and apothecary by the father, who forbid him his house, and desired him to bring in his bill for pay. ment; when, in the agony of disappointment, and brooding over the injury he had suffered, on his being admitted to Mr. Wood to receive payment, he shot him upon the spot. The trial occupied great part of the day; yet, for my own part, I can not conceive that there was any thing in the case for a jury to deliberate on. He was a man acting upon existing facts, and upon human resentments connected with them. He was at the very time carrying on his business, which required learning and reflection, and, indeed, a Now, suppose Lord Ferrers could have showed that no difference with Mr. Johnson had ever existed regarding his wife at all-that Mr. Johnson had never been his steward—and that he had only, from delusion, believed so when his situation in life was quite different. Suppose, further, that an illusive imagination had alone suggested to him that he had been thwarted by Johnson in his contract for these coal-mines, there never having been any contract at all for coal-mines-in short, that the whole basis of his enmity was without any foundation in nature, and had been shown to have been a morbid image imperiously fastened upon his mind. Such a case as that would have exhibited a character of insanity in Lord Ferrers extremely different from that in which it was presented by the evidence to his peers. Before them, he only appeared as a man of turbulent passions, whose mind was disturbed by no fallacious images of things without exist-reach of mind beyond the ordinary standard, beence; whose quarrel with Johnson was founded upon no illusions, but upon existing facts; whose resentment proceeded to the fatal consummation with all the ordinary indications of mischief and malice; and who conducted his own defense with the greatest dexterity and skill. WHO, THEN, COULD DOUBT THAT LORD FERRERS WAS A MURDERER? When the act was done, he said, "I am glad I have done it. He was a villain, and I am revenged." But when he afterward saw hat the wound was probably mortal, and that it involved consequences fatal to himself, he desired the surgeon to take all possible care of his patient; and, conscious of his crime, kept at bay the men who came with arms to arrest him: showing, from the beginning to the end, nothing that does not generally accompany the crime for which he was condemned. He was proved, to be sure, to be a man subject to unreasonable prejudices, addicted to absurd practices, and agitated by violent passions. But the act was not done under the dominion of uncontrollable disease; and whether the mischief and malice were substantive, or marked in the mind of a man whose passions bordered upon, or even amounted to insanity, it did not convince the Lords that, under all the circumstances of the case, he was not a fit object of criminal justice. In the same manner, Arnold, who shot at Lord With that of Onslow, and who was tried at Kingston Arnold. soon after the Black Act passed on the accession of George I. Lord Onslow having been very vigilant as a magistrate in suppressing clubs, which were supposed to be set on foot to disturb the new government, Arnold had frequently been heard to declare that Lord Onslow would ing trusted by all who knew him as a practitioner in medicine. Neither did he go to Mr. Wood's under the influence of illusion; but he went to destroy the life of a man who was placed exactly in the circumstances which the mind of the crim. inal represented him. He went to execute vengeance on him for refusing his daughter. In such a case there might, no doubt, be passion approaching to frenzy; but there wanted that characteristic of madness to emancipate him from criminal justice. the murderer There was another instance of this description in the case of a most unhappy woman, with that of who was tried, in Essex, for the murder of Mr. Errington, who had seduced rington. and abandoned her and the children she had borne to him. It must be a consolation to those who prosecuted her, that she was acquitted, as she is at this time in a most undoubted and deplorabl state of insanity. But I confess, if I had been upon the jury who tried her, I should have ontertained great doubts and difficulties; for, although the unhappy woman had before exhibited strong marks of insanity, arising from grief and disappointment, yet she acted upon facts and circumstances which had an existence, and which were calculated, upon the ordinary principles of human action, to produce the most violent resentment. Mr. Errington having just cast her off and married another woman, or taken his under his protection, her jealousy was excited to suck a pitch as occasionally to overpower her understanding; but when she went to Mr. Errington's house, where she shot him, she went with the ex. press and deliberate purpose of shooting him. That fact was unquestionable. She went there |