The Chronicles of Crime or The New Newgate Calendar. v. 1/2: being a series of memoirs and anecdotes of notorious characters who have outraged the laws of Great Britain from the earliest period to 1841.Pelham, Camden
History
The Chronicles of Crime or The New Newgate Calendar. v. 1/2: being a series of memoirs and anecdotes of notorious characters who have outraged the laws of Great Britain from the earliest period to 1841.
Pelham, Camden
Crime -- Great Britain; Criminals -- Great Britain; Newgate (Prison : London, England)
The whole of the case having now been heard, Lord Chief Baron Smythe, in
a clear and lucid manner, proceeded to sum up the case to the jury.
Having pointed out to them the law of the case, as it affected the
charge against the prisoners, and their defence, his lordship proceeded
to recapitulate the evidence which had been produced, in doing which he
was occupied during a period of three hours. He concluded by
saying,--"In point of law, the fact is fully proved on my lord and the
two other prisoners, if you believe the evidence of Sarah Woodcock. It
is a crime which in its nature can only be proved by the woman on whom
it is committed; for she only can tell whether she consented or no: it
is, as my lord observes, very easy to be made, and hard to be disproved;
and the defence can only be collected from circumstances; from these you
must judge whether her evidence is or is not to be believed. Lord Hale,
in his 'History of the Pleas of the Crown,' lays down the rules:--1. If
complaint is not made soon after the injury is supposed to be received;
2. If it is not followed by a recent prosecution; a strong presumption
arises that the complaint is malicious. She has owned the injury was
received December 22; the complaint was not made till December 29; but
she has accounted for it in the manner you have heard. The strong part
of the case on behalf of the prisoners is her not complaining when she
was at Lord Mansfield's, the supreme magistrate of the kingdom in
criminal matters. You have heard how she has explained and accounted for
her conduct in that particular, which you will judge of. Upon the whole,
if you believe that she made the discovery as soon as she knew she had
an opportunity of doing it, and that her account is true, you will find
all the prisoners Guilty; if you believe that she did not make the
discovery as soon as she had an opportunity, and from thence, or other
circumstances, are not satisfied her account is true, you will find them
all Not guilty: for if he is not guilty, they cannot be so; for they
cannot be accessory to a crime which was never committed."
After an absence of an hour and twenty minutes, the jury returned with a
verdict that the prisoners were not guilty.
This singular affair was tried at Kingston, in Surrey, on the 26th of
March, 1768.
It would be useless to offer any observations upon this extraordinary
case. From the verdict returned by the jury, there ought to exist no
doubt of the innocence of the persons charged of the offence imputed to
them; but although Lord Baltimore and his companions were acquitted of
the charge of rape, there can be little doubt that the ruin of the
unfortunate girl Woodcock--even if what was admitted by his lordship
were only true--was the effect of a vile conspiracy among the prisoners
to sacrifice her to the libertine passions of his lordship.
JOHN WILKES, ESQ.
CONVICTED OF SEDITION AND BLASPHEMY.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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