The Attorney-General -- 'I will now answer what has fallen from the prisoner. He says that he has been denied access to his papers.
It is true that Government, for the purposes of justice, has retained them -- but it is also true that he has been informed that if he asked for them at the time of his trial they should be ready, and any of them, which he might think useful to his defence, should be given to him: and in the meantime, if he considered it necessary, he might have copies of them.
This we are ready to verify on oath. The clerk of the arraigns, Mr Shelton, then read the indictment, which charged the prisoner in the usual way with the murder of the Right Hon Spencer Perceval, with which he was also charged on the coroner's inquisition. Mr Abbott having opened the case, the Attorney-General addressed the jury. He said that a lamentable and painful task devolved upon him to state to the jury the circumstances of this horrid murder -- a crime perpetrated on a man whose whole life, he should have thought, would have guarded and protected him against such an attack, who, he was sure, if enough of life had been left him to see by whose hand he had fallen, would have spent his last moment in uttering a prayer for the forgiveness of his murderer.
But It was not a time for him to dwell on the public loss, which had been sustained -- its brightest ornament had been torn from the country, but the country had done justice to his memory.
These were not considerations, however, by which they must be swayed. It was not revenge, nor was it resentment, that ought to have any influence on their consideration of the question. They were to satisfy public justice -- to take care, by their verdict, that the public should not be exposed to such horrid crimes. With respect to the prisoner, he knew nothing, nor did he know how his life had been spent, except so far as related to the circumstances of the case. He had been in business and had acted as a merchant, in the course of which he had shown himself a man of sound understanding in every act which he performed; and he had not only conducted his own affairs with understanding, but he had been selected by other persons to manage theirs.
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Having stated the main facts of the case as we have already detailed them, he entreated the jury to consider it not as the murder of so eminent a person, but as the murder of a common individual -- to suppose the meanest subject to have suffered as Mr Perceval had suffered, and to return their verdict as they would upon that case. Was he or was he not guilty? To that point they must direct their attention, and he knew of no reason to cause even a doubt.
But what remained? This only -- the attempt which had been made that day to put off the trial of the prisoner, on the ground of his being fit for this or any other crime, as he was afflicted with insanity. Let them consider this a little. The prisoner was a man conducting himself like others in all the ordinary circumstances of life -- who carried on business, none of his family or friends interfering -- no pretence being suggested that he was unable to superintend his own affairs. What clearer proofs, then, could be given to show, contrary to the defence set up, that he was not what the law called non compos mentis -- that he was an accountable being?
He knew the cases where the plea of insanity would be received -- where for instance a murder was committed by a person whose mental infirmity might be considered as very nearly the absence of all mind. Against their defence there was no argument. But he was this day to learn whether the wickedness of the act which the prisoner was called on to answer was to be considered an excuse for its perpetration. Travelling through his whole life, what ground could they adduce for such a plea?
His every act appeared rational except one, and that was only irrational, because it was so horrid that the imagination of man could not fancy to itself the existence of so atrocious a deed. But how far must this argument go? It must arrive at this conclusion -- that every act of gross and unusual atrocity would carry its defence along with it, that every act of peculiar horror would have within itself a certain defence, for the barbarity of the deed would be considered as a proof that the mind which directed it was not in a state of sufficient security to judge whether the action was right or wrong.
If the mind possessed the power of forming that judgement, the prisoner was criminally accountable for the act. A man might be infirm in mind, insufficient to dispose of his property or to judge of the claims of his respective relatives, and if he were in that situation, the management of his affairs might be taken from him and vested in trustees: but such a man was not discharged from criminal acts because he could not transact civil business.
Many cases had occurred within his memory in courts of law, in which it was proved that a person in many respects had evinced symptoms of insanity up to a certain time; but the question then was, whether that insanity was of such a description as precluded or permitted the knowledge of right or wrong?
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In every one of the cases which recurred to his memory, though a certain degree of madness was proved, still as the parties seemed to have sufficient sense to distinguish right from wrong at the time of the perpetration of the acts charged against them, they were held to be criminally accountable. Here there was no deficiency of understanding whatever. No opinion of others to that effect was adduced: on the contrary, he was entrusted with the management of his own and others' affairs.
What conclusion could they draw in favour of the idea which had been suggested? Let them take from their recollection the frightful nature of the act with the commission of which he was charged, let them take from it its accumulated horrors, and time prisoner stood before them in a state of sanity, and fully accountable for the act, of which, he thought, little doubt could be entertained he had been guilty.
The learned gentleman concluded by expressing his satisfaction at the fact that the prisoner stood alone on that occasion, that he was unconnected with, and unaided and uninfluenced by, any other person or party in the country, and that this deed could not therefore be attributed to any but the personal feelings which he entertained towards His Majesty's Government.
On him, and on him only, did the disgrace which he had excited rest, and the character of the country was entirely free from any participation in it. He was on his way to attend the House of Commons on the evening of Monday the 11th of May, and was going through the lobby towards the door of the house, when he heard the report of a pistol, which appeared to have been fired close to the entrance door of the lobby. Immediately on the report, he turned towards the place from whence the noise appeared to proceed, and observed a tumult and probably a dozen or more persons about the spot.
Almost in the same instant he saw a person rush hastily from among the crowd, and heard several voices cry out, 'Shut the doors -- let no one escape. But taking two or three steps towards the witness, he reeled by him and almost instantaneously fell on the floor with his face downward, Before he fell, witness heard him cry, though not very distinctly, and in what he uttered, he heard the word 'murder!
When he first fell, witness thought that he might have been slightly wounded, and expected to see him make an effort to rise. But gazing on him for a few moments, he observed that he did not stir at all, and he, therefore, immediately stooped down to raise him front the ground, requesting the assistance of a gentleman close by him for the purpose. As soon as they had turned his face upwards, and not till then, he found that it was Mr Perceval. They then took him into their arms, and carried him into the office of the Speaker's secretary, where they seated themselves on the table, with Mr Perceval between them, also sitting on the table, and resting on their arms.
His face was now perfectly pale, the blood issuing in small quantities from each corner of his mouth, and probably in two or three minutes from the firing of the pistol all signs of life had ceased. The eyes of the unfortunate gentleman were open, but he did not appear to know witness, nor to take any notice of any person about him, nor did he utter the least articulate sound from the moment he fell.
A few convulsive sobs, which lasted perhaps three or four moments, together with a scarcely perceptible pulse, were the only signs of life which appeared then, and those continued but a very short time longer. When witness felt Mr Perceval's pulse for the last time, just before Mr Lynn, the surgeon, arrived, it appeared to him that he was quite dead.
Witness remained supporting the body until it was conveyed into the Speaker's house, but he was unable to give any account of what passed in the lobby. Mr William Lynn, a surgeon in Great George Street, de posed that he was called to the deceased, hut on his arrival he was quite dead. There was blood upon his white waistcoat and shirt, and upon his examining the body, he found that there was an opening in the skin, he probed the wound three inches down wards, and entertained no doubt that the pistol-ball passed into the heart, and was the cause of death.
Mr Henry Burgess, a solicitor who was in the lobby, stated, that after having seen Mr Perceval fall, as had been already described, he heard someone exclaim, 'That's the man! There were one or two persons by him.
He looked at his hands, and saw his left hand on the bench; and near or under his other hand he saw a pistol, which he took, and asked the prisoner what had induced him to do such a deed? He replied, 'Want of redress of grievances and refusal by government', or words to that effect. Witness then said to the prisoner, 'You have another pistol?
Witness then saw some person take the other pistol from his person. The pistol which witness took from the prisoner was warm, and appeared as if it had been recently discharged. The lock was down and the pan open. Here the pistol was produced, and recognized by the witness. He then stated, that he put his hand into the right waist coat-pocket of the prisoner, from which he took a small penknife and a pencil, and from his left-hand waistcoat-pocket he took a bunch of keys and some money.
The prisoner was detained in custody, and examined shortly afterwards above stairs in the House of Commons before the magistrates. Witness related in the presence of the prisoner, on that occasion, the facts which he had now detailed.
When he had concluded, the prisoner made an observation to this effect, as well as he could recollect. Instead of my hand being, as Mr Burgess stated, upon or near the pistol, I think he took it from my hand or upon it. James Taylor, a tailor, at No 11 North Place, Gray's Inn Lane, deposed that he had been employed by the prisoner to repair some clothes. He was afterwards in Guildford Street, when the prisoner called him, and took him to his lodgings in Millman Street, and there directed him to put a side-pocket into a coat, which he gave him, of a particular length which he pointed out.
He completed the job on the same night, and carried the coat home. Mr John Morris stated that he often attended in the gallery appropriated for strangers, and went down to the House on Monday, the 11th of May, for that purpose.