The important results of an elaborate investigation into the mysterious case of Elizabeth Fenning: being a detail of extraordinary facts discovered since her execution, including the official report of her singular trial, now first published, and copious notes thereon. : Also, numerous authentic documents; an argument on her case; a memorial to H.R.H. the Prince Regent; & strictures on a late pamphlet of the prosecutors' apothecary / by John Watkins, LL.D. ; With thirty original letters, written by the unfortunate girl while in prison; an appendix, and an appropriate dedication.

  • Watkins, John, active 1792-1831.
Date:
1815
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The important results of an elaborate investigation into the mysterious case of Elizabeth Fenning: being a detail of extraordinary facts discovered since her execution, including the official report of her singular trial, now first published, and copious notes thereon. : Also, numerous authentic documents; an argument on her case; a memorial to H.R.H. the Prince Regent; & strictures on a late pamphlet of the prosecutors' apothecary / by John Watkins, LL.D. ; With thirty original letters, written by the unfortunate girl while in prison; an appendix, and an appropriate dedication. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    They * lament,’ that they ‘ had not an opportunity’ of giving some important particulars in evidence on the trial of Eliza Yenning. One of these gentlemen was the first who attended, after the accused and the family were poisoned; and he was in attendance nearly four hours before the other. In point of law and justice, as well as in reason, he ought to have been the first examined of the two; and, as he has placed himself at the bar of the public, HE is bound to an- swer the public guest ion, WHY was he not sworn and examined at the two examinations at Hatton Garden, and WHY we are now to lament, that IIE who had an opportunity of knowing the most, was not examined at all upon the trial?—The other gentleman was twice solerpnly sworn and examined at Hatton Garden, to depose to ALL he knew of the case, on the two separate examinations of Eliza Pen- ning. He attended also two days at the Old Bailey, when the trial was expected to come on; so that he had full time to be collected on the third day, the 11th of April, when the trial took place. On the trial he was a third time sworn and examined as a witness, in the face of his country, to depose to all he knew. He took the wit- ness’s oath solemnly to swear ‘ the truth, the WHOLE truth, and nothing but the truth,’ pronouncing in the usual form, as he applied his lips to the Bible, ‘ So help me God;’ that is, so reject, and sen- tence, and punish we, God, if I do not depose to the WHOLE truth, without any diminution, suppression, or concealment*. His declaration, therefore, that he had not an opportunity to depose all he knew, is, in point of fact, vitiated by the notorious facts of his THREE solemn opportunities. “ The assertion of any person, who gratuitously and spontaneously, although unintentionally, by a public declaration, impeaches his own credit as a SWORN witness, may, so far as it affects his own asser- tion, be believed; and his statements are important, if evidented by notorious facts. But his extra-judicial inferences of the guilt or inno- cence of others, drawn from his own garbled statements, are merely his opinion, which, if confessedly brought forward to fit the time and the circumstances, few impartial men will be inclined to follow; and from which the majority of thinking men may, with a reliance on their own convictions, very safely dissent. It is asserted, that Eliza Penning at first refused all medical aid, declaring, that life was of no value to her; but that she afterwards did take some medicine. A servant girl might well, in the excruciating pangs produced by poison, * Judge Blackstone decides the momentous point of Concealment in the following words : — “ The oath administered to the Witness is not only that which he deposes shall be true, but that he shall depose the WHOLE TRUTH ; so that he is not to conceal any part of what he knows, WHETHER INTERROGATED to that point or not.”