DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70301#0071
RICHARD PATCH.
55
chant surrounded by clerks, who record every concern rela-
tive to his business, would be enabled, by the evidence of such
clerks, to lay before you such a statement of his affairs aS
would shew the amount of the property he was at any time
possessed of; but can this be expected from a man who has
no such assistance; is it fair to infer, that a man, by his po-
verty, has been urged to the commission of a capital crime,
because he cannot, by a regular debtor and creditor account,
establish the exact amount of his property ? If I had laid
out or advanced my money upon loans, I could have called
persons to prove it, but I cannot call Mr. Blight from the
grave to prove what advances have been made by me to him.
What can I do more than I have done; that is, to advert to
the assignment, which proves, that he did assign to me a third
share, and that that share was paid for. I should hope you
will think this such a proof of the application of property,
m satisfaction of ail demands of Mr. Blight, that is not to be
shaken by vague declarations, or loose and idle conjectures;
if you feel this, you will perceive I had no debt to cancel;
and that I had no interest to advance by killing Mr. Blight;
that, on the contrary, his death was destruction to all my
hopes, with respect to that business in which I had embarked
my property.
The next proposition advanced as a proof of my guilt is,
that I had an opportunity of killing him.—Opportunities I
have had enough, if I could ever have attempted so wicked
a thing : from the circumstances in which we lived together,
I could have done it when no one was nigh, and when no ves-
tige of my guilt could have remained. I knew when he was
at home alone, and when and where he went abroad : if I had
been the person, should I have chosen to have committed
the crime at a time when there was a witness upon the very
spot, who could detect my guilt, or should I have done it by
means of an instrument which must necessarily have alarmed
the neighbourhood ? The man who murdered Mr. Blight
55
chant surrounded by clerks, who record every concern rela-
tive to his business, would be enabled, by the evidence of such
clerks, to lay before you such a statement of his affairs aS
would shew the amount of the property he was at any time
possessed of; but can this be expected from a man who has
no such assistance; is it fair to infer, that a man, by his po-
verty, has been urged to the commission of a capital crime,
because he cannot, by a regular debtor and creditor account,
establish the exact amount of his property ? If I had laid
out or advanced my money upon loans, I could have called
persons to prove it, but I cannot call Mr. Blight from the
grave to prove what advances have been made by me to him.
What can I do more than I have done; that is, to advert to
the assignment, which proves, that he did assign to me a third
share, and that that share was paid for. I should hope you
will think this such a proof of the application of property,
m satisfaction of ail demands of Mr. Blight, that is not to be
shaken by vague declarations, or loose and idle conjectures;
if you feel this, you will perceive I had no debt to cancel;
and that I had no interest to advance by killing Mr. Blight;
that, on the contrary, his death was destruction to all my
hopes, with respect to that business in which I had embarked
my property.
The next proposition advanced as a proof of my guilt is,
that I had an opportunity of killing him.—Opportunities I
have had enough, if I could ever have attempted so wicked
a thing : from the circumstances in which we lived together,
I could have done it when no one was nigh, and when no ves-
tige of my guilt could have remained. I knew when he was
at home alone, and when and where he went abroad : if I had
been the person, should I have chosen to have committed
the crime at a time when there was a witness upon the very
spot, who could detect my guilt, or should I have done it by
means of an instrument which must necessarily have alarmed
the neighbourhood ? The man who murdered Mr. Blight