Volume 2

Portraits and lives of remarkable and eccentric characters.

Date:
[1819?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Portraits and lives of remarkable and eccentric characters. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    spectitig this extraordinary affair, and all such collateral testimony had been given as cbuld be adduced on such an occasion, Aram was called on for his defence: but having foreseen that the perturbation of his spirits would incapacitate him to make such defence without previous prepara¬ tion, he had written the following, which, by permission, he read in court: “ 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 de¬ fence, 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 pro¬ ceedings, 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 insen¬ sibility of heart, more profligacy of morals, than ever