The Chronicles of Crime or The New Newgate Calendar. v. 2/2: being a series of memoirs and anecdotes of notorious characters who have outraged the laws of Great Britain from the earliest period to 1841Pelham, Camden
History
The Chronicles of Crime or The New Newgate Calendar. v. 2/2: 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 case of the parties to this most diabolical conspiracy immediately
received the attention of the law officers of the crown; and on the 15th
April 1820, a special commission having issued, the prisoners were
arraigned at the bar of the Old Bailey on the charge of high treason,
and also of murder, in having caused the death of the unfortunate
Smithers. There were eleven prisoners, Arthur Thistlewood, William
Davidson (a man of colour), James Ings, John Thomas Brunt, Richard Tidd,
James Wilson, John Harrison, Richard Bradburn, John Shaw Strange, James
Gilchrist, and Charles Cooper, and they all pleaded Not guilty to the
charges preferred against them.
Counsel having been assigned to the prisoners, and the necessary forms
having been gone through, Thistlewood received an intimation that his
case would be taken on Monday morning the 17th of the same month, and
the prisoners were remanded to that day.
At the appointed time, accordingly, Arthur Thistlewood was placed at the
bar. He looked pale, but evinced his usual firmness. The jury having
been sworn, and the indictment read, the attorney-general stated the
case at great length, and twenty-five witnesses were examined in support
of the prosecution, among whom were several accomplices, whose testimony
was satisfactorily corroborated. Some of those who appeared to give
evidence had been apprehended on the fatal night in Cato-street, but
were now admitted witnesses for the crown. After a trial which occupied
the court four days, Thistlewood was found Guilty of high treason. He
heard the verdict with his wonted composure, seeming to have anticipated
it; for when it was pronounced he appeared quite indifferent to what so
fatally concerned him.
The evidence against Tidd, Ings, Davidson, and Brunt, whose trials came
on next in succession, differed little from that upon which Thistlewood
was convicted, and they were also found Guilty. Their trials being
separate, occupied the court six days. On the evening of the tenth day
the six remaining prisoners, at the suggestion of their counsel, pleaded
Guilty, having been permitted to withdraw their former plea, by which
they eventually escaped capital punishment.
On Friday, April the 28th, the eleven prisoners were brought up to
receive sentence. When the usual question was put to Thistlewood by the
clerk of arraigns, why he should not receive sentence to die, he pulled
a paper from his pocket, and read as follows:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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