THE

DEFENCE OF EUGENE ARAM.

For the convenience of those who cannot readily refer to the Biographia Britannica, or the Newgate Calendar, the Defence of EUGENE ARAM is appended. It was apparently delivered, like the more recent one of Thurtell, as if extempore; but was, no doubt, got as much by head, and certainly more by heart, than the set oration of the gravel-hearted Barnadine of Gill's Hill.

"MY LORD,

"I know not whether it is of right, or through some indulgence of your lordship, that I am allowed the liberty at this bar, and at this time, to attempt a defence, incapable and uninstructed as I am to speak; since, while I see so many eyes upon me, so numerous and awful a concourse, fixed with attention, and filled with I know not what expectancy, I labour not with guilt, my lord, but with perplexity; for, having never seen a Court but this, being wholly unacquainted with law, the customs of the bar, and all judiciary proceedings, I fear I shall be so little capable of speaking with propriety in this place, that it exceeds my hope if I shall be able to speak at all.

"I have heard, my lord, the indictment read, wherein I find myself charged with the highest crime, with an enormity I am altogether incapable of; a fact, to the commission of which there goes far more insensibility of heart, more profligacy of morals, than ever fell to my lot; and nothing pos

sibly could have admitted a presumption of this nature but a depravity not inferior to that imputed to me. However, as I stand indicted at your lordship's bar, and have heard what is called evidence adduced in support of such a charge, I very humbly solicit your lordship's patience, and beg the hearing of this respectable audience, while I, single and unskilful, destitute of friends, and unassisted by counsel, say something, perhaps like argument, in my defence. I shall consume but little of your lordship's time: what I have to say will be short; and this brevity, probably, will be the best part of it: however, it is offered with all possible regard and the greatest submission to your lordship's consideration, and that of this honourable Court.

“First, my lord, the whole tenour of my conduct in life contradicts every particular of the indictment: yet had I never said this, did not my present circumstances extort it from me, and seem to make it necessary. Permit me here, my lord, to call upon malignity itself, so long and cruelly busied in this prosecution, to charge upon me any immorality of which prejudice was not the author. No, my lord, I concerted no schemes of fraud, projected no violence, injured no man's person or property; my days were honestly laborious, my nights intensely studious; and I humbly conceive my notice of this, especially at this time, will not be thought impertinent or unseasonable, but, at least, deserving some attention; because, my lord, that any person, after a temperate use of life, a series of thinking and acting regularly, and without one single deviation from sobriety, should plunge into the very depth of profligacy precipitately and at once, is altogether improbable and unprecedented, and absolutely inconsistent with the course of things. Mankind is never corrupted at once; villainy is always progressive, and declines from right, step after step, till every regard of probity is lost, and every sense of all moral obligation totally perishes.

"Again, my lord, a suspicion of this kind, which nothing but malevolence could entertain, and ignorance propagate, is violently opposed by my very situation at that time, with respect to health; for, but a little space before, I had been confined to my bed, and suffered under a very long and severe disorder, and was not able, for half a year together, so much as to walk. The distemper left me, indeed-yet slowly, and in part; but so macerated, so enfeebled, that I was reduced to crutches; and, so far from being well about the time I am charged with this fact, that I never, to this day, perfectly

recovered. Could, then, a person in this condition take any thing into his head so unlikely, so extravagant? I, past the vigour of my age, feeble and valetudinary, with no inducement to engage, no ability to accomplish, no weapon wherewith to perpetrate such a fact; without interest, without power, without motive, without means.

"Besides, it must needs occur to every one that an action of this atrocious nature is never heard of but when its springs are laid open; it appears that it was to support some indolence, or supply some luxury; to satisfy some avarice, or oblige some malice; to prevent some real or some imaginary want: yet I lay not under the influence of any of these. Surely, my lord, I may, consistently with both truth and modesty, affirm thus much; and none who have any veracity, and knew me, will ever question this.

"In the second place, the disappearance of Clarke is suggested as an argument of his being dead; but the uncertainty of such an inference from that, and the fallibility of all conclusions of such a sort from such a circumstance, are too obvious and too notorious to require instances; yet, superseding many, permit me to produce a very recent one, and that afforded by this castle.

"In June, 1757, William Thompson, for all the vigilance of this place, in open daylight, and double-ironed, made his escape; and, notwithstanding an immediate inquiry set on foot, the strictest search, and all advertisement, was never seen or heard of since. If then Thompson got off unseen, through all these difficulties, how very easy was it for Clarke, when none of them opposed him? But what would be thought of a prosecution commenced against any one seen last with Thompson?

"Permit me next, my lord, to observe a little upon the bones which have been discovered. It is said (which, perhaps, is saying very far) that these are the skeleton of a man. It is possible, indeed, it may; but is there any certain known criterion which incontestably distinguishes the sex in human bones. Let it be considered, my lord, whether the ascertaining of this point ought not to precede any attempt to identify them.

"The place of their depositum, too, clains much more attention than is commonly bestowed upon it; for, of all places in the world, none could have mentioned any one wherein there was greater certainty of finding human bones than a hermitage, except he should point out a church-yard; hermi

tages, in time past, being not only places of religious retirement, but of burial too: and it has scarce, or never, been heard of, but that every cell now known contains, or contained, these relics of humanity; some mutilated, and some entire. I do not inform, but give me leave to remind your lordship, that here sat solitary Sanctity, and here the hermit or the anchoress hoped that repose for their bones, when dead, they here enjoyed when living.

"All the while, my lord, I am sensible this is known to your lordship, and many in the Court, better than to me; but it seems necessary to my case that others, who have not at all, perhaps, adverted to things of this nature, and may have concern in my trial, should be made acquainted with it. Suffer me then, my lord, to produce a few of many evidences that these cells were used as repositories of the dead, and to enumerate a few in which human bones have been found, as it happened in this question; lest, to some, that accident might seem extraordiñary, and, consequently, occasion prejudice.

"1. The bones, as was supposed, of the Saxon Saint, Dubritius, were discovered buried in his cell at Guy's Cliff, near Warwick, as appears from the authority of Sir William Dugdale.

2. The bones, thought to be those of the anchoress Rosia, were but lately discovered in a cell at Royston, entire, fair, and undecayed, though they must have lain interred for several centuries, as is proved by Dr. Stukely.

"3. But my own country, nay, almost this neighbourhood, supplies another instance; for in January, 1747, were found, by Mr. Stovin, accompanied by a reverend gentleman, the bones, in part, of some recluse, in the cell at Lindholm, near Hatfield. They were believed to be those of William of Lindholm, a hermit, who had long made this cave his habitation.

“4. In February, 1744, part of Woburn Abbey being pulled down, a large portion of a corpse appeared, even with the flesh on, and which bore cutting with a knife; though it is certain this had lain above two hundred years, and how much longer is doubtful; for this abbey was founded in 1145, and dissolved in 1538 or 1539. What would have been said, what believed, if this had been an accident to the bones in question? "Farther, my lord:-it is not yet out of living memory that at a little distance from Knaresborough, in a field, part of the manor of the worthy and patriot baronet who does that

borough the honour to represent it in parliament, were found, in digging for gravel, not one human skeleton only, but five or six, deposited side by side, with each an urn placed at his head, as your lordship knows was usual in ancient interments.

"About the same time, and in another field, almost close to this borough, was discovered also, in searching for gravel, another human skeleton; but the piety of the same worthy gentleman ordered both pits to be filled up again, commendably unwilling to disturb the dead.

"Is the invention of these bones forgotten, then, or industriously concealed, that the discovery of these in question may appear more singular and extraordinary? whereas, in fact, there is nothing extraordinary in it. My lord, almost every place conceals such remains. In fields, in hills, in highway sides, in commons, lie frequent and unsuspected bones; and our present allotments for rest for the departed are but of some centuries.

"Another particular seems not to claim a little of your lordship's notice, and that of the gentlemen of the jury; which is, that perhaps no example occurs of more than one skeleton being found in one cell: and in the cell in question was found but one; agreeable, in this, to the peculiarity of every other known cell in Britain. Not the invention of one skeleton, but of two, would have appeared suspicious and uncommon. But it seems another skeleton has been discovered by some labourer, which was full as confidently averred to be Clarke's as this. My lord, must some of the living, if it promotes some interest, be made answerable for all the bones that earth has concealed, and chance exposed? And might not a place where bones lay be mentioned by a person by chance as well as found by a labourer by chance? Or is it more criminal accidentally to name where bones lie, than accidentally to find where they lie?

“Here too is a human skull produced, which is fractured; but was this the cause, or was it the consequence, of death was it owing to violence, or was it the effect of natural decay? If it was violence, was that violence before or after death? My lord, in May, 1732, the remains of William, lord archbishop of this province, were taken up, by permission, in this cathedral, and the bones of the skull were found broken; yet certainly he died by no violence offered to him alive that could occasion the fracture there.

"Let it be considered, my lord, that, upon the dissolution of religious houses, and the commencement of the Reforma