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!