I would, in the next place, gentlemen, have you to attend to the
prisoner’s behaviour when he flies from this place to London. He
secretes himself in London for several weeks; search is made for him,
but he cannot be found; he admits in one of his letters that he knew
that Mr. Williamson was in search of him, but he did not choose an
interview; a vessel is freighted for him by some persons, contrary to
the duty they owed to their country; she is cleared out for Leith; he
goes on board of her in the middle of the night, with a wig on, in
disguise, and under a borrowed name; he is carried to Flushing; he
changes his name to John Dixon, and writes letters to people in
Edinburgh under that false signature, explaining his whole future
operations, in consequence of which letters he is traced and
apprehended, just when he is on the point of going on board of a ship
for New York. If he had been innocent; if he had had nothing else to
fear than the story of the loaded dice, it is not possible that he could
have conducted himself in this manner.
The letters he writes to Geddes are likewise very strong circumstances;
but the other letters, or scrolls, found in his trunk are still
stronger. You have had it clearly proven that all these letters are of
his own handwriting, and in both of the scrolls he expressly
acknowledges the crime for which he now stands at the bar. In one of
them he says that he had no “direct” concern in any of the late
depredations of Smith, Brown, and Ainslie, excepting “the last fatal
one”; in the other the word “direct” is scored out, but in both of them
he acknowledges his accession to the last act; by which he can mean no
other than the robbery of the Excise Office; for it happened on the
Wednesday evening, and Brown gave information of it on the Friday
evening immediately after. It was, therefore, in all probability the
last of the depredations of this dangerous combination; and Mr. Brodie’s
having applied the expression “fatal” to it identifies it beyond all
doubt.
Gentlemen, I beg leave now to bring under your consideration what
happened in this city after Mr. Brodie absconded. You have it in
evidence that his house was searched, and various articles of a very
suspicious nature found. A pair of pistols, identified to have been used
on the occasion of the robbery, is found under the earth, and the place
where they were hid pointed out by the other prisoner Smith; also a dark
lanthorn, the one half of it in one place and the other half of it in
another. Gentlemen, if Mr. Brodie is really innocent, it appears to me
passing strange that these articles should have been so concealed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account