Celebrated trials of all countries, and remarkable cases of criminal jurisprudence / Selected by a member of the Philadelphia bar [i.e. J.J. Smith].

  • John Jay Smith
Date:
1835
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Celebrated trials of all countries, and remarkable cases of criminal jurisprudence / Selected by a member of the Philadelphia bar [i.e. J.J. Smith]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    persons who observed it; it is a circumstance that cannot be explained by any possibility ; it cannot be imputed to folly ; no art can explain it away. Those who are at all acquainted with the human mind, must feel it as speaking, most forcibly, the efforts of a guilty man to screen from the public eye a fact which he perceived must stamp his guilt upon every mind. That circumstance will be proved to you by people of veracity ; nay, gentlemen, it will be in proof to you, that after he returned to Lawford Hall with lady Boughton, before the whole of the inquiry was over before the coroner he chides her for meddling in it; he checks her, says you are not to give the whole account, you are only to answer such questions as are put to you, and you must say nothing else. Say nothing else ! is there any thing to be con- cealed ] is it material for him that any thing should be concealed 1 Yet this you will have proved to be the conduct of the prisoner, both before the coroner and upon his return to Lawford Hall. When the prisoner found that the idea of this young man having been poisoned was so generally entertained, that there was no probability of getting rid of that suspicion by the ridiculous pretence of his having taken cold, or having died by any such means, captain Donellan writes a letter addressed to the coroner and his jury. That letter was sent to them on the last day of their sitting, which was the third day. This letter is very material, and I shall read it to you. It is addressed by the prisoner to the coroner and the gentlemen of the jury at Newbold. (For this letter see the close of the evidence for the crown, post.) The materiality of this letter is, that you will find the prisoner, when the idea of sir Theodosius having been poisoned is so far circulated that it is universally believed, that he then finds it necessary to account for the death by poison; and the whole scope of that letter is to induce the jury to believe that this young man had inadvertently poisoned himself. Now, independent of the strength of that observation, it will be in proof to you that the letter is false in fact; for it is not true, that the family had not, for many months, touched of any dish that sir Theodosius had eaten of: on the contrary, the ob- servation was never made, and you will learn that the whole was clearly an invention calculated to answer the purposes proposed by the prisoner in that letter. The prisoner, however, was committed upon the coroner's warrant to jail. Since his commitment, his conduct will afford very material matter for your consideration. Since neither the pretence of this young man's having taken cold, and died by that means ; since the invention of his having inad- vertently poisoned himself had not been adopted by anybody ; it was found necessary then for the prisoner to suppose, and then for him to give out, that this young man had been poisoned by somebody else; and I shall call to you a witness, who has had frequent conversations with him in jail—and conversa- tions very fairly to be given in evidence here; because this man frequently cau- tioned the prisoner not to mention before him circumstances which may make against him, as probably he should be called to give evidence of them; but so so- licitous has the prisoner been to account for this young man's death, that he has frequently to this man pressed the conversation upon him, notwithstanding he has been cautioned by the man respecting it. In one of the conversations, it will be in proof to you that Darbyshire, which is the name of the man, said to him, Why do you believe that sir Theodosius was in truth poisoned 1—Says the prisoner, I make no doubt of it.—Why, who do you think could have poi- soned him 1—Why, says he, it must lie among themselves.—Who do you mean ]—Why, says he, either sir Theodosius himself, lady Boughton, or the apothecary, or the servants; it must be among them; some of them did it, there is no doubt of it.—Why, says Darbyshire, the young man would hard- ly poison himself?—Why, no.—I don't think that neither, says Darbyshire ; it could not be the interest of the apothecary, he could get nothing by it, he would lose a patient by it; and lady Boughton could get nothing by it, be- sides it's being in itself the most unnatural conduct ]—Upon which the pri- soner turned round, and said, I don't know which of them, but it is amongst