Part 17

Mr. Serjeant SHEE then rose to open the defence. He said: In rising to perform the task which it now becomes my duty to discharge, I feel, gentlemen of the jury, an almost overwhelming sense of responsibility. Once only has it before fallen to my lot to defend a fellow-creature charged with a capital offence. You can well understand that to take a leading part in a trial of this kind is sufficient to disturb the calmest temper, and try the clearest judgment, even if the effort only last for one day. But how much more trying is it to stand for six long days under the shade, as it were, of the scaffold, conscious that the least error in judgment may consign my client to an ignominious death and public indignation! It is useless for me to conceal that which all your endeavours to keep your minds free from prejudice cannot wholly efface from your recollection. You perfectly well know that for six long months, under the sanction and upon the authority of science, an opinion has almost universally prevailed that the blood of John Parsons Cook has risen from the ground to bear witness against the prisoner; you know that a conviction of the guilt of the prisoner has impressed itself upon the whole population, and that by the whole population has been raised, in a delirium of horror and indignation, the cry of blood for blood. You cannot have entered upon the discharge of your duty--which, as I have well observed, you have most conscientiously endeavoured to perform--without, to a great extent, sharing in that conviction. Before you knew that you would have to sit in that box to pass judgment between the prisoner and the Crown, you might with perfect propriety, after reading the evidence taken before the coroner’s jury, have formed an opinion with regard to the guilt or innocence of the prisoner. The very circumstances under which we meet in this place are of a character to excite in me mingled feelings of encouragement and alarm. Those whose duty it is to watch over the safety of the Queen’s subjects felt so much apprehension lest the course of justice should be disturbed by the popular prejudice which had been excited against the prisoner--they were so much alarmed that an unjust verdict might, in the midst of that prejudice, be passed against him, that an extraordinary measure of precaution was taken, not only by Her Majesty’s Government, but also by the Legislature. An act of Parliament, which originated in that branch of the Legislature to which the noble and learned lord who presides here belongs, and was sanctioned by him, was passed to prevent the possibility of an injustice being done through an adherence to the ordinary forms of law in the case of William Palmer. The Crown, also, under the advice of its responsible Ministers, resolved that this prosecution should not be left in private hands, but that its own law officer, my learned friend the Attorney-General, should take upon himself the responsibility of conducting it. And my learned friend, when that duty was intrusted to him, did what I must say will for ever redound to his honour--he resolved that, in a case in which so much prejudice had been excited, all the evidence which it was intended to press against the prisoner should, as soon as he received it, be communicated to the prisoner’s counsel.

I must therefore tell my unhappy client that everything which the constituted authorities of the land--everything which the Legislature and the Law Officers of the Crown could do to secure a fair and impartial trial has been done, and if that unhappily an injustice should on either side be committed, the whole responsibility will rest upon my Lords and upon the jury. A most able man was selected by the prisoner as his counsel not many weeks ago, but, unfortunately, was prevented by illness from discharging that office. I have endeavoured, to the best of my ability, to supply his place; but I cannot deny that I labour under a deep feeling of responsibility, although the national effort, so to speak, which has been made to insure a fair trial is a great cause of encouragement to me. I am moved by the task that is before me, but I am not dismayed. I have this further cause for not being altogether overcome in discussing the mass of evidence which has been laid before you. When the papers in the case came into my hands, I had formed no opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the prisoner. My mind was perfectly free to form what I trust will prove to be a right judgment upon the case, and--I say it in all sincerity--having read these papers, I commenced his defence with an entire conviction of his innocence. I believe that truer words were never pronounced than the words he uttered when he said “Not Guilty” to this charge, and if I fail in establishing his innocence to your satisfaction, I shall have very great misgivings that my failure is attributable only to my own inability to do justice to his case, and not to any weakness in the case itself. I will prove to you the sincerity with which I declare my conviction of the prisoner’s innocence by meeting the case for the prosecution foot to foot, and grappling with every difficulty which has been suggested by my learned friend. You will see that I shall avoid no point which has been raised. I will deal fairly with you, and I know that I shall have your patient attention to an address which must, I fear, unavoidably be a long one, but in which no observation will be introduced which does not necessarily and properly belong to the case.

The proposition which my learned friend undertakes to establish entirely by circumstantial evidence, may be shortly stated. It is, that the prisoner, having in the second week in November made up his mind that it was his interest to get rid of John Parsons Cook, deliberately prepared his body for the reception of a deadly poison by the slower poison of antimony, and that he afterwards despatched him by the deadly poison of strychnine. Now, no jury will convict a man of the crime thus charged unless it be made clear, in the first place, that he had some motive for its commission,--some strong reason for desiring the death of the deceased; in the second place, that the symptoms before death, and the appearances of the body after death, are consistent with the theory that he died by poison: and, in the third place, that they are inconsistent with the theory that death proceeded from natural causes. Under these three heads I shall discuss the large mass of evidence which has been laid before you; and I must, by adhering to that order, exhaust the whole subject, and leave myself no chance of evading any difficulty without immediate detection. Before, however, I proceed to grapple in these close quarters with the case for the Crown, allow me to restore to its proper place in the discussion, a fact which, although it was by no means concealed by my learned friend in that address by which he at once seized upon your judgments, appeared to me to be thrown too much into the shade--the fact, I mean, that strychnine was not found in the body of the unfortunate deceased. If he died of the poison of strychnine--if he died within a few hours, or within a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes of the administration of a strong dose--if the _post-mortem_ examination took place within six days of the death, there is not the least reason to suppose that between the time of the injection of the poison and the paroxysms of death, there was any dilution of it, or any ejection of it by vomiting. Never, therefore, unless chemical analysis is altogether a failure in the detection of strychnine, were circumstances more favourable for its discovery. But, beyond all question, strychnine was not found. Whatever we may think of the judgment and experience of Dr. Taylor, we have no reason to doubt that he is a very skilful chemist; we have no reason to believe--in fact, we know to the contrary--that he and Dr. Rees did not do all that the science of chemical analysis could enable men to do to detect the poison. They had a distinct intimation from the executor and near relative of the deceased, that he, for some cause or another, had reason to suspect that poison had been administered. They undertook an analysis of the stomach (which, without now going into details upon that point, was not on the whole in an unfavourable condition) with a firm expectation that if it was there it would be found, and without any doubt as to the efficiency of their tests. Then, in December, they say,--

“We do not find strychnine, prussic acid, or any trace of opium. From the contents having been drained away” (not drained out of the jar, you know) “it is now impossible to say whether any strychnine had or had not been given just before death, but it is quite possible for tartar emetic to destroy life if given in repeated doses; and, so far as we can at present form an opinion, in the absence of any natural cause of death, the deceased may have died from the effects of antimony in this or some other form.”

But they afterwards attended the inquest, and having heard the evidence of Mills, of Mr. Jones, of Lutterworth, and of Roberts (who spoke to the purchase of strychnine on the morning of the death), they came to the conclusion that the pills administered to Cook on the Monday and the Tuesday night contained strychnine. Dr. Taylor came to that conclusion, notwithstanding his written opinion that Cook might have been poisoned by antimony, and notwithstanding the fact that no trace of strychnine was found in the body. I call your attention now to this circumstance in order to claim for it its proper place in the discussion. The gentlemen who have come to the conclusion that strychnine may have been in the body, although it was not found, have arrived at that conclusion from experiments of a very partial kind indeed; they contend that when strychnine has once done its fatal work and become absorbed into the system it ceases to be the thing it was when taken into the system; it becomes decomposed, its elements are separated from each other, and therefore are no longer capable of responding to the tests which would certainly detect its presence if undecomposed. That is their case. They account for its not being found, and for their belief that it destroyed Cook, by that hypothesis. Now, it is only an hypothesis. No authority for it can be drawn from experiments, and it is supported by the opinion of no eminent toxicologists but themselves. It is only fair to them, and to Dr. Taylor in particular, to say that Dr. Taylor does propound that theory in his book. It is, however, only a theory of his own; he does not support it by the authority of any distinguished toxicologist, and when we recollect that his knowledge of the matter--good, humane man!--consists in having poisoned five rabbits twenty-five years ago, and five others since this question was raised, it cannot have much weight. But I will call before you a number of gentlemen of high eminence in their profession as analytical chemists, who will state their utter renunciation of that theory. I will call Dr. Nunneley, a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons and a professor of chemistry, who attended the case at Leeds, which has been described to you, and Dr. Williams, professor of _materia medica_ at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, for eighteen years surgeon to the City of Dublin Hospital. Dr. Letheby, one of the ablest and most distinguished men of science in this great city, professor of chemistry and toxicology in the Medical College of the London Hospital, and medical officer of the City of London, will tell you that he rejects the theory as a heresy unworthy the belief of scientific men. Dr. Nicholas Parker, of the College of Physicians of London, and professor of medicine, Dr. Robinson, of the College of Physicians, and Mr. Rogers, professor of chemistry, concur with Dr. Letheby.

Lastly, I will call Mr. William Herapath, of Bristol, probably the most eminent chemical analyst in this country, who also utterly rejects the theory. All of those gentlemen contend that if not only half a grain of strychnine, but even 1-50th part or less has once entered into the human frame, it can and must be discovered by the tests known to chymists. They will tell you this, not as the result of a few experiments, for ever regretted, upon five rabbits, but from a large experience as to the operation of the poison upon the inferior animals, created, as you know, for the benefit of mankind, and many of them from their experience as to its effects upon the human system. I will satisfy you from their evidence, that if you admit the correctness of the tests which were used, the only safe conclusion at which you can arrive is that strychnine not having been found in the body, it could never have been there. They all agree, too, that no degree of putrefaction or fermentation in the human system could so decompose strychnine that it should no longer possess those qualities which cause it, in its undecomposed state to respond to chemical tests. I will now apply myself to a question which in my judgment is of equal, if not greater, importance--the question whether, in the second week of November, 1855, the prisoner had a motive for the commission of this murder--a strong reason for desiring that Cook should die. I never will believe that unless it were made clear that it was his interest to destroy Cook, you would come to the conclusion that he had committed such a crime. It seems to me abundantly clear upon the evidence that not only was it not the interest of Palmer that Cook should die, but that the death of Cook was the very worst calamity that could befall him, and that he could not possibly be ignorant that it would be followed by his own ruin. That it was followed by his immediate ruin we know. We know that at the time when it is said he commenced to plot Cook’s death he was in a condition of the greatest embarrassment--an embarrassment which in its extreme intensity had come upon him but recently--an embarrassment, too, in some degree mitigated by the circumstance that the acceptances he is said to have forged were those of his mother--a lady of large fortune living in the town. My learned friend’s hypothesis is, that not until he was in a state of the greatest embarrassment did he wish to destroy Cook. My learned friend stated to you “That, being in desperate circumstances, with ruin, disgrace, and punishment staring him in the face, which could only be averted by means of money, he took advantage of his intimacy with Cook, when Cook had become the winner of a considerable sum, to destroy him, in order to obtain possession of his money.” Let us test this theory. Let us relieve our minds for a moment from the anxiety we must always feel when the life of a fellow-creature is at stake, and, looking at it as a mere matter of business, let us ask ourselves whether in the second week of November Palmer had any motive to commit this crime.

When a long correspondence is read to a jury, who are without the same means of testing its importance as the judge or the counsel, they frequently do not attach that weight to it which it deserves. But I watched the correspondence which was read to you yesterday with an anxiety which no words can express, because I firmly believed that in it the innocence of the prisoner lay concealed; that it proved not only that the prisoner had no motive to kill Cook, but that Cook’s death was ruin to him. Allow me to call your attention to the relation in which these men stood to each other. They had been intimate as racing friends for two or three years; they had had many transactions together; they were jointly interested in at least one racehorse, Pyrrhine; they generally stayed at the same hotels; they were seen together upon almost all the race courses in the kingdom; they were known to be connected in adventures upon the same horses at the same races; and although, Cook being dead, the mouth of the prisoner being sealed, and transactions of this kind not being recorded in regular books, it is impossible to give you positive evidence as to their relations to one another, it is abundantly clear that they were very closely connected. In August, 1855, money was wanted either by Cook or Palmer, and Palmer applied to Pratt for it. He seems to have wanted £200, to make up a larger sum, having already £190 in Pratt’s hands; and he offered as security for the advance his friend Mr. Cook, whom he described as a gentleman of respectability and substance. We do not know the exact state of Cook’s affairs at that time. Such a fortune as he had might have been thrown down in a week with the life he was leading; but a young man who is reckless as to the mode in which he employs his money and has only £13,000 may for a year or two pass before the world for a man of considerable means. It is not every one who will go to Doctors’ Commons to ascertain the precise amount of the property he has inherited. Mr. Cook, of Lutterworth, kept his racehorses, lived expensively, was known to have inherited a fortune, and was altogether a person whose friendship was of considerable importance to a man like Palmer. Recollect that I am not now defending Palmer against the crime of forgery, nor am I defending him against the imputation of reckless improvidence in obtaining money at an enormous discount. But as early as May, 1855, Palmer and Cook were thus circumstanced. What was their position in November?

The evidence of PRATT, and the correspondence which he proved, can leave no doubt on our minds upon that subject. Among a mass of bills, amounting altogether to £11,500, there were two, of £2,000 each, due the last week in October, two others, amounting to £1,500, having become due some time before, but being held over from month to month upon payment by Palmer, who was liable for them, of what was called interest at the rate of 60 per cent. These three sums--£2,000, £2,000, and £1,500--were the embarrassments which were pressing upon him in the second week in November, and, be it observed, they were pressed upon him by a man who, although he would, doubtless, have been glad to get his principal, would also, upon anything like security, have been very well pleased to continue to receive interest. How can capital, if well secured, be better employed than in returning 40 or 60 per cent.? In this state of things Palmer, in answer to an urgent demand for money, came up to town on the 27th of October. Pratt then insisted that if Palmer could not pay one of the £2,000 bills which had just become due he should pay instalments, in addition to the enormous interest charged upon it, and it was agreed that £250 should be paid down, £250 upon the 31st of October, and a further sum of £300 as soon afterwards as possible, making a total payment on account of that bill of £800, to “quiet” Pratt or his client, and to induce him to let the bill stand over. On the ninth of November the £300 was paid, and then a letter was written, to which I beg your particular attention. On the thirteenth of November, the day that Polestar won the race, Pratt wrote to Palmer that the case (“Palmer v. the Prince of Wales Insurance Company”) had been laid before Sir F. Kelly, that in the opinion of several secretaries of insurance offices the company had not a leg to stand upon, and that the mere fact of the enormous premium would go a great way to get a verdict. The letter concluded--“I count most positively on seeing you on Saturday. Do, for both our sakes, try and make up the amount to £1,000, for without it I shall be unable to renew the £1,500 due on the ninth.” Pratt had threatened to issue a writ against Palmer’s mother. Palmer had almost gone upon his knees to beg him not to do so, and this letter really meant, “Unless you give me £200 more and make up £1,000, a writ shall be served upon your mother.” That letter is written on the thirteenth of November. Palmer gets it at Rugeley, whither he had gone from the racecourse on the day that Polestar won. What does he do? He instantly returns to Shrewsbury, gets there on Wednesday, sees Cook. They say he doses him. We will see how probable that is presently. Cook goes to bed in a state I will not describe, gets up next morning much more sensible than he went to bed, goes upon the racecourse, returns with Palmer to Rugeley on the Thursday, goes to bed, gets up next morning still uncomfortable, but able to go and dine with Palmer on that day (Friday). On that day, the sixteenth of November, Palmer writes to Pratt--

“I am obliged to come to Tattersall’s on Monday to the settling, so that I shall not call and see you before Monday, but a friend of mine will call and leave you £200 to-morrow, and I will give you the remainder on Monday.”

The person who ordinarily settled Cook’s accounts was a person named Fisher, a wine-merchant in Shoe-lane, who was called first in this case; and on that very day (the day on which Cook dined with Palmer), Cook writes to him:--

“It is of great importance, both to Mr. Palmer and myself, that a sum of £500 should be paid to a Mr. Pratt, of 5, Queen-street, May-fair, to-morrow, without fail. £300 has been sent up to-night, and, if you will be kind enough to pay the other £200 to-morrow, on the receipt of this, you will greatly oblige me, and I will give it to you on Monday at Tattersall’s.”