… “Thou standest charg’d
With murder, monstrous and deliberate!”
The next day the papers were filled with an account of the trial of the
murderers of Mr. Henry St. Aubin. The murder was proved; yet, strange to
say, the murderers were acquitted.
The Captain of the privateer spoke his own defence. He was, he said, a
Frenchman fighting for his country. He was not, even by the laws of war,
a prisoner; for he had not lowered his colours. He had as good a right to
recover possession of his ship as the English had in the first instance
to capture her; and if lives were lost in the struggle, it was but the
fate of war.
This defence was admitted, and the midnight murderer of his own son
acquitted by the blindness of mortal judgment.
The papers proceeded to state that the murderers having been remanded
for a fresh trial on fresh charges, the principal was found the next
morning alone in the prison with his brains beat out. The black had made
his escape. The particulars were supposed to be as follows: The villains
had first, it would appear, by their united strength, forced a bar of
their window. From the bloody appearance at one end of the heavy iron
weapon thus obtained, and the battered state of the head of the privateer
captain, it was quite evident that the black had used the bar to knock
down and murder his master; whom, as the wretch was his inferior in
strength, he must have taken unawares. A large wound on the back of the
head of the deceased, strengthened this opinion. It was supposed that the
black’s motive for committing this crime, must have been his knowledge
of where to lay his hands on the ill-gotten wealth of his master, of
which he hoped thus to obtain undisturbed possession. The papers further
stated, as the reason why the prisoners had been remanded, that the
magistrates had had information respecting the privateer captain having
been largely concerned both with pirates and smugglers on various parts
of the coast. One very suspicious circumstance was, they ascertained,
clearly proved, namely, his identity as the individual who had for so
many years imposed on the inhabitants of Whitehaven and its vicinity,
by passing for a madman, and calling himself Sir Sydney Smyth. The very
nature of the derangement he thus feigned afforded a pretext for lounging
about the quays and the coast at all hours. On reading this paragraph,
Lord L⸺ and Mr. Jackson exchanged looks.