IIIGusts of rain were splashed by the spring winds round and about the hilly streets of Edinburgh; the defeated sun lay like a large pale yellow blot against the moist clouds. Yet very early in that morning of April 4 throngs of folk were crowding to the prison gates and scattering about the sands of Leith. For to-day Darien was to be avenged.In the chambers of the Scottish Estates, in Parliament Square, the privy council assembled, attended by the city magistrates, for a tumult was clearly prophesied.“The idea!” puffed my lord chancellor, getting into his gown. “Such a clamor about the prison! Would they intimidate us with their uproar. Mr. Magistrate, go sweep them through the gutters to their kennels!”“My lord, I hae no broom big enow.”The clerk presented a petition, signed by many of the better consciences of the town, praying a reprieve for the condemned pirates. The council turned the matter about with grave, genteel speech.“What a file of names! They seem to urge that Reynolds should have had opportunity ofexculpation. Well, we discharged Reynolds, did we not?”“In view of the verdict, my lords, I am inclined to think—well, that he might have been exculpated.”“And I.”“And I.”“The indictment was good, my Lord Chancellor, of course—did we not so hold. But the fact of death—ordinarily, of course, it should be shown. Ordinarily, I say. The other rule is a little dangerous, is it not? Thecorpus delicti—it is a sound doctrine—usually.”“Oh, ordinarily—certainly. Macer, close the window—the noise from the prison yard is getting intolerable.”“My lords, my lords, they’re under our windows! Oh, my lords, such a press, and ilk has a stick or a stane ’n’s fist.“Mr. Magistrate, you will see to the protection of her majesty’s council.”“Aye, my Lord Chancellor—or die wi’ ye.”“Tush! tush! Such blathering! Die? Who said die?”“Heavens! Who’s thumping on that door?”“My lords, the people cry that you are reprieving the pirates!”“I pray that no torch be set to the town. Shall I step forth and promise the people, on the honor of a magistrate, there shall be no reprieve?”“Reprieve, Mr. Magistrate! Who spoke of reprieve?”A gust of wind from the open door blew the petition fluttering to the floor. None stooped to pick it up.The council adjourned. The chancellor got as far as the old Tron church when some pudding-face in the crowd shouted the pirates were reprieved. A wave of people beat against the chancellor’s coach, they smashed the glass, crashed in the panels, and might have licked up the blood of the worthy nobleman himself but for the onrushing bayonets of the city guard, and, what was more effective,—a sudden, cyclonic roar from the throng at the prison gate, announcing that Green, Madder and Simpson were departing in the death wagon for the doomful sands of Leith.Dimmed, indeed, was the honor of Scottish lawyers when bench and bar could thus go hand in hand to cast to the wild beast of public passion the unprotected and the innocent. Even the defense—able, adroit, complete—was not purely disinterested, yet amid all those mad scenes one soul, at least, kept the noblest traditions of the law alive within him and splendidly redeems his profession. For a young, obscure lawyer sat attentively in court during the whole trial, and, on the day of doom, clad himself in a suit of complete mourning and attended at the sands of Leith, and, when Justice had completedits terrific miscarriage, he, at the risk of his life, saw to the decent interment of the poor victims. That young man was to be the future illustrious Duncan Forbes!None of the otherWorcestermen were executed. Between March 16 and April 3, Thomas Linsteed, John Bruckley and George Haines made solemn confession of their fictitious crimes before James Graham, the judge admiral. But these confessions are dismissed by a contemporary writer as worthless and purely self-serving; they merely elaborated the tale already told and were obviously made to repair the weakness of the State’s case, and as the prosecution’s apology for an act already beginning to disturb many consciences.The public blood thirst was slaked. One reprieve followed another, and eventually the whole crew drifted out of prison, out of the country and out of the view of history.And a few days before the execution of the three ill-fated men, our old friends Israel Phippany and Peter Freeland landed in England, but too late to prevent the tragedy of Leith sands, and revealed the true fate of the good shipsContentandSpeedy Return!A moralist must find this tale provocative. Mark the factors of evil in the case; the commercial greed which seized theAnnandale, the violent crime of Bowen in pirating theSpeedy Return, the blind national anger which pervertedpublic opinion, and which in its turn warped a timid and compliant court and council to its will, the individual habits of a ship’s steward, and the fear for their personal safety which made perjurers of the State’s witnesses. One’s speculation is challenged.These tragic deaths were not entirely fruitless. Although not the foundation of the principle, nevertheless this celebrated cause went far to rivet unshakably into the foundations of English jurisprudence the vital doctrine of thecorpus delicti,—proof of the actual fact of death before a charge of homicide will lie.
Gusts of rain were splashed by the spring winds round and about the hilly streets of Edinburgh; the defeated sun lay like a large pale yellow blot against the moist clouds. Yet very early in that morning of April 4 throngs of folk were crowding to the prison gates and scattering about the sands of Leith. For to-day Darien was to be avenged.
In the chambers of the Scottish Estates, in Parliament Square, the privy council assembled, attended by the city magistrates, for a tumult was clearly prophesied.
“The idea!” puffed my lord chancellor, getting into his gown. “Such a clamor about the prison! Would they intimidate us with their uproar. Mr. Magistrate, go sweep them through the gutters to their kennels!”
“My lord, I hae no broom big enow.”
The clerk presented a petition, signed by many of the better consciences of the town, praying a reprieve for the condemned pirates. The council turned the matter about with grave, genteel speech.
“What a file of names! They seem to urge that Reynolds should have had opportunity ofexculpation. Well, we discharged Reynolds, did we not?”
“In view of the verdict, my lords, I am inclined to think—well, that he might have been exculpated.”
“And I.”
“And I.”
“The indictment was good, my Lord Chancellor, of course—did we not so hold. But the fact of death—ordinarily, of course, it should be shown. Ordinarily, I say. The other rule is a little dangerous, is it not? Thecorpus delicti—it is a sound doctrine—usually.”
“Oh, ordinarily—certainly. Macer, close the window—the noise from the prison yard is getting intolerable.”
“My lords, my lords, they’re under our windows! Oh, my lords, such a press, and ilk has a stick or a stane ’n’s fist.
“Mr. Magistrate, you will see to the protection of her majesty’s council.”
“Aye, my Lord Chancellor—or die wi’ ye.”
“Tush! tush! Such blathering! Die? Who said die?”
“Heavens! Who’s thumping on that door?”
“My lords, the people cry that you are reprieving the pirates!”
“I pray that no torch be set to the town. Shall I step forth and promise the people, on the honor of a magistrate, there shall be no reprieve?”
“Reprieve, Mr. Magistrate! Who spoke of reprieve?”
A gust of wind from the open door blew the petition fluttering to the floor. None stooped to pick it up.
The council adjourned. The chancellor got as far as the old Tron church when some pudding-face in the crowd shouted the pirates were reprieved. A wave of people beat against the chancellor’s coach, they smashed the glass, crashed in the panels, and might have licked up the blood of the worthy nobleman himself but for the onrushing bayonets of the city guard, and, what was more effective,—a sudden, cyclonic roar from the throng at the prison gate, announcing that Green, Madder and Simpson were departing in the death wagon for the doomful sands of Leith.
Dimmed, indeed, was the honor of Scottish lawyers when bench and bar could thus go hand in hand to cast to the wild beast of public passion the unprotected and the innocent. Even the defense—able, adroit, complete—was not purely disinterested, yet amid all those mad scenes one soul, at least, kept the noblest traditions of the law alive within him and splendidly redeems his profession. For a young, obscure lawyer sat attentively in court during the whole trial, and, on the day of doom, clad himself in a suit of complete mourning and attended at the sands of Leith, and, when Justice had completedits terrific miscarriage, he, at the risk of his life, saw to the decent interment of the poor victims. That young man was to be the future illustrious Duncan Forbes!
None of the otherWorcestermen were executed. Between March 16 and April 3, Thomas Linsteed, John Bruckley and George Haines made solemn confession of their fictitious crimes before James Graham, the judge admiral. But these confessions are dismissed by a contemporary writer as worthless and purely self-serving; they merely elaborated the tale already told and were obviously made to repair the weakness of the State’s case, and as the prosecution’s apology for an act already beginning to disturb many consciences.
The public blood thirst was slaked. One reprieve followed another, and eventually the whole crew drifted out of prison, out of the country and out of the view of history.
And a few days before the execution of the three ill-fated men, our old friends Israel Phippany and Peter Freeland landed in England, but too late to prevent the tragedy of Leith sands, and revealed the true fate of the good shipsContentandSpeedy Return!
A moralist must find this tale provocative. Mark the factors of evil in the case; the commercial greed which seized theAnnandale, the violent crime of Bowen in pirating theSpeedy Return, the blind national anger which pervertedpublic opinion, and which in its turn warped a timid and compliant court and council to its will, the individual habits of a ship’s steward, and the fear for their personal safety which made perjurers of the State’s witnesses. One’s speculation is challenged.
These tragic deaths were not entirely fruitless. Although not the foundation of the principle, nevertheless this celebrated cause went far to rivet unshakably into the foundations of English jurisprudence the vital doctrine of thecorpus delicti,—proof of the actual fact of death before a charge of homicide will lie.