Report of the trial of Daniel M’Naughton at the Central Criminal Court, Old Bailey (on Friday, the 3rd, and Saturday, the 4th of March, 1843) for the wilful murder of Edward Drummond, Esq / by Richard M. Bousfield and Richard Merrett.

Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the trial of Daniel M’Naughton at the Central Criminal Court, Old Bailey (on Friday, the 3rd, and Saturday, the 4th of March, 1843) for the wilful murder of Edward Drummond, Esq / by Richard M. Bousfield and Richard Merrett. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    mortal, and that it involved consequences fatal to himself, lie desired the surgeon to take all possible care of his patient; and, conscious of his crime, kept at bay the men who came with arms to arrest him; shewing, from the beginning to the end, nothing that does not generally accompany the crime for which he was condemned. He was proved, to be sure, to be a man subject to unreasonable prejudices, addicted to absurd practices, and agitated by violent passions; but the act was not done under the dominion of uncontrollable disease; and whether the mischief and malice were substantive, or marked in the mind of a man whose passions bordered upon, or even amounted to insanity, it did not convince the lords, that, under all the circumstances of the case, he was not a fit object of criminal justice.” Thus, gentlemen, Lord Erskine shewed the greatest possible contrast between the two cases ; and I shall, in the case now before you, do the same thing. My learned friend has also called your attention to the case of Arnold. That case was also disposed of by Lord Erskine, and here, gentlemen, is his answer to it:—“ In the same manner, Arnold, who shot at Lord Onslow, and who was tried at Kingston soon after the Black Act passed, on the accession of George I. Lord Onslow having been very vigilant as a magistrate in suppressing clubs, which were supposed to have been set on foot to disturb the new Government, Arnold had been frequently heard to declare, that Lord Onslow would ruin his country; and, although he appeared, from the evidence, to be a man of most wild and turbulent manners, yet the people, round Guildford, who knew him did not in general consider him to be insane. His counsel could not shew any morbid delusion had ever overshadowed his understanding. They could not shew, as I shall, that just before he shot at Lord Onslow, he had endeavoured to destroy his own beloved child. It was a case of human resentment.” Gentlemen, here permit me also to call your attention to the way in which this case of Arnold has been treated upon by the same able and learned writer to whom I have already referred—I mean Dr. Ray. Dr. Ray says,*—<£ Arnold seems to have been of weak understanding from his birth, and to have led an idle, irregular, and disordered life, sometimes unequi- vocally mad, and at all times considered exceedingly strange and different from other people; one witness describing him as a strange, sullen boy at school, such as he had never seen before. It was testified by his family and his neighbours, that for several years previous they had considered and treated him as mad occasionally, if not always, although so little disposed to mischief that he was suffered to be at large. Contrary to the wishes of his friends, he persisted in living alone in a house destitute of the ordinary conveniences; was in the habit of lying about in barns and under hay-ricks ; would curse and swear to himself for hours together; laugh and throw things about the house without any cause whatever, and was much disturbed in his sleep by fancied noises. Among other unfounded notions, he believed that Lord Onslow, who lived in his neighbourhood, was the cause of all the tumults, disturbances, and wicked devices that happened in the country, and his thoughts were greatly occupied with this person. He was in the habit of declaring that Lord Onslow sent his devils and imps into his room at night to disturb his rest, and that he constantly plagued and bewitched him, by getting into his belly or bosom, so that he could neither eat, drink, nor sleep for him. He talked much of being plagued by the Bodies and Bollcroys; he declared in prison it was better