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
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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)
John Thomas Brunt next addressed the court in the following terms:--"I
am precluded from saying much: I had intended to have committed to
writing my defence, but I have been denied pen, ink, and paper;--as
such, what I have to state will be very short. In the first place,
whatever impression I made on the jury yesterday, was knocked down by
the Solicitor-General, who appears to me, by his sophistical eloquence,
to be capable of making the worst of crimes appear a virtue. And next,
with regard to Edwards, to whose machinations I have at last fallen a
dupe: he once before nearly entrapped me, when a cabinet dinner was
given, I believe, at the Earl of Westmoreland's. He said he had part of
the men mustered, but there was not sufficient. He had like to have
hooked me in then, but I happened not to go to the house. No doubt that
Hieden was in that plot for me; it was held at the Scotch Arms. Of all
the infamous characters on earth, Edwards is the worst; and yet he has
been kept altogether out of the view of the court. I protest against the
verdict which has been pronounced against me. For my life, if it was
sacrificed in the cause of liberty, I care not a farthing; but it is
galling to have it sworn away by a set of villains who thirst after
blood, merely for the sake of personal gain. Edwards is far more worthy
of punishment than any of us. He it was that furnished the arms--and he
it was that goaded us on to our own ruin. He always spoke well of me,
and said, if he had a hundred such men as me, he would be satisfied. He
knew I was not a shuttlecock, to be bandied about at pleasure. He knew
he could put confidence in my word, and that I would perish before I
shrunk from what I undertook." (The prisoner then went on in a strain of
strong invective against the witness Adams.) After which he referred to
the two Monuments. These two persons had been described by the
Solicitor-General, as having had no communication with each other, and
yet having agreed in all respects in their testimony. Was this the fact?
No, for three weeks previous to the trials, they met twice a day at the
Tower, rehearsed their story, and thus were enabled to come forward
quite perfect in their respective parts. He next adverted to the
character of his apprentice Hale, and was casting strong reflections on
his conduct--when
The chief justice said he could not suffer such observations to be made
under such circumstances.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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