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to get the jury to convict. They brought in a temporising and modified verdict, which deprived the Court of the few wits with which they seem to have been originally gifted. The Mayor scolded, the Recorder stormed. The jury were locked up, sent back; sent back again, locked up again for something like two days; and must have been made of very stubborn stuff to have resisted the starvation. They did resist however. The more they were pressed, the more favourable the verdict became, and the bench were at last compelled to accept a complete and triumphant acquittal.

The tragedy relates to a far greater man, to that great patriot, Algernon Sydney, who in declining years, of feeble health, and never, as he himself asserted, having been present at a trial or read a law-book in his life, yet fought this losing battle so bravely, so manfully, with so much presence of mind, learning and eloquence, that the pain of reading of such wrongs is almost lost in admiration of the sufferer, and in envy of such a death.

Everybody knows the story of this frightful injustice that he was convicted upon the hearsay evidence of the infamous Lord Howard and the no less infamous West, contradicted as that evidence was out of their own mouths by a host of honourable witnesses, and only bolstered up by a manuscript book written twenty years before, and left openly upon his writing-table.

Everybody knows too, his famous answer to Jeffries at the conclusion of his trial:

Lord Chief Justice.-I pray God work in you a temper fit to go into the other world, for I see you are unfit for this.

Sydney.-My Lord, feel my pulse (holding out his hand), and see if I am disordered. I bless God I never was in better temper than I am now.

Then the Lieutenant of the Tower carried back his prisoner.

This last act of his life is worthy of an anecdote related by Mr. Brand Hollis of his earlier days:

"Mr. Sydney, during his stay in France, being one day hunting with the French King, and mounted on a fine English horse, the form and spirit of which caught the King's eye, received a message that he would be pleased to oblige the King with his horse at his own price. He answered that he did not choose to part with him. The King determined to have no denial, and gave orders to tender him money or to seize the horse; which being made known to Mr. Sydney, he instantly took a pistol and shot him, saying: That his horse was born a free creature, had served a free man, and should not be mastered by a King of slaves.'"*

* 4to. Edition (1772) of Algernon Sydney's works.

VOL. II.

M

Besides the cases of high treason, of conspiracy and of misdemeanor, public crimes, which may be understood as state trials in the strictest sense of the word, and which have all more or less of historical interest, this collection includes a vast variety of remarkable causes, robbery, forgery, murder, offences against individuals, which have frequently, the more perhaps because they are confined within the limits of private life, the sort of dramatic effect, of incident and of situation, which belong properly to romance.

Amongst these I know none more striking, from the near connection of the principal actors, the strangeness of the scene, the boldness of the crime, and its most providential discovery, than the trial (in 1741) of Samuel Goodere, Captain of H.M.S. 'Ruby,' for the murder of his brother, Sir John Dinely Goodere, on board his own man-of-war, brought to light by the cooper's wife, who happened accidentally to be sleeping on board, and by her husband, who had the moral courage to apprehend the assassin in his very cabin.

The fulness and minuteness of the evidence, the gradations by which every thought and plan of the fratricide are laid bare by the different witnesses, the reiteration by which one detail is linked to another, from the first attempt to effect a pretended reconciliation with the destined victim,

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the hurrying him from the shore to the boat, the forcing him from the boat to the vessel, and the barring him in the purser's cabin, to the midnight strangulation, produce an impression of truth and reality almost equal to that of having been personally present at the horrid catastrophe.

The very minuteness and repetition, which make so great a part of the charm, forbid any attempt to transcribe the evidence, but an extract from the opening speech of the counsel will convey better than any words of mine can do, the story of this domestic tragedy. One of the subordinate assassins was tried with Captain Goodere, and another afterwards, and it is singular that the first pair of culprits both laboured under the infirmity of deaf

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Gentlemen, as I am instructed, there had been a long and very unhappy difference between the deceased Sir John and his brother, the prisoner, owing to various occasions; and amongst others, to Sir John's having cut off the entail of a large estate in Worcestershire, to which Mr. Goodere, as the next remainder man would have otherwise stood entitled in default of issue of Sir John. Gentlemen, this misunderstanding by degrees grew to an inveterate grudge and hatred on the part of Mr. Goodere; which was so rooted in his heart, that it at length worked him into a formed design of destroying his brother and making away with him

at all hazards and events. The great difficulty was how to get Sir John into his power, for he generally travelled armed ; nor was it easy to get together a set of fellows so base and desperate as to join with him in the carrying off his brother. But, unfortunately for the deceased, Mr. Goodere having been recently honoured by his Majesty with the command of the 'Ruby,' man-of-war, happened, in January last, to be stationed in King's-road (as much within the county of Bristol as this town-hall, where we are sitting). Sir John, who was advanced in years, and very ailing, had, it seems, been advised to come to Bath for the recovery of his health; and having occasion to transact affairs of consequence at Bristol with Mr. Josiah Smith, Mr. Goodere took this opportunity of laying a snare for his brother's life, as you will find by the event. He applies to Mr. Smith; and taking notice to him of the misunderstanding between himself and his brother, pretends a sincere desire of reconciliation, and desires Mr. Smith, if possible, to make up the breach between them; and Mr. Smith promised to do his utmost towards effecting a reconciliation, and was as good as his word; for, by his interest and persuasions, he at length prevailed upon Sir John to see and be reconciled to his brother; and Sir John having appointed Tuesday, the 13th of January last, in the morning, for calling on Mr. Smith, at his house in College Green, Mr. Smith soon made his brother,

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