Trying To Change A Sovereign.

held sufficient—was afforded in the description of the unhappy boy ' s youth ancl lineage . He had always , as I have said , been given to laughing , even idiotically , ancl yet , like the ruthless boy who " took a holiday from school to see the kittens drowned , " was irritable , cruel , perverse , and moody . His father and grandfather , the latter an old Greenwich pensioner , had been sad drunkards . The former hadwhen in liquorfrequentlbeen adjured in the irit of the

, , y sp refined terms of the pathetic American ballad , "Father , refrain from larrupping mother . " The latter had never attended to the poetical exhortation , presumably by the same author , " Daddy , abstain from liquoring up . " Again I say , if getting drunk and thrashing one ' s wife are proofs of insanity , there is plenty of impunity to be had . The prisoner himself had once run away to go to seaanclwith the egotism so conspicuous in his feeble characterhad written

, , , to his mother , asking her whether she would ' nt feel proud to see him return , as he assuredly should , " Admiral Sir Edward Oxford . " Gracious ! if running away to go to sea when you are a lad , ancl fancying that the boy ' s ' straw is to be speedily exchanged for the Admiral ' s thwartships cocked hat , is to consign one to a mad-house for life , why the present writer has been very near incurring that species of seclusive restraint , that ' s all .

But the jury were mercifull y disposed ; ancl more , they were weak ancl illogical , ancl so a very little evidence of insanity went a long way with them . They were illogical thus : Although , of course , strict search had been made , no bullets were ever found , and there has always been considerable doubt wh other the pistols were loaded with ball or not—that is to say , whether unis silly youth ever reall y did have any intention of changing his sovereign . Had it not been for his fondness for pistol practice , and his inability to refrain from swagger thereanent—one of the witnesses at the trial , however , deposed that he had heard it remarked to

the prisoner , at a shooting-gallery , that he was more fit to shoot at a hay-stack than at a targets—and his foolish braggadocio speeches when taken into custod y , there would have been very little evidence against him of any overt act of treason ; although , of course , in any case he had been guilty of a most brutal outrage . What evidence of attempting his young Queen ' s life there was to affect him he had himself boastfull y supplied . The jury then , being in doubt on this pointreturned the special verdict— " We find the prisonerEdward

, , Oxford , guilty of discharging the contents of two pistols ; but whether or not they were loaded with ball has not been satisfactoril y proved to us , he being of unsound mind at the time . " The Attorney-General fastened on the words I ' have italicised , ancl claimed under 40 Geo . 3 , cap . 94 , that the prisoner , being acquitted on the ground of insanity , should be imprisoned during her Majesty ' s pleasure . But the prisoner ' s advocate was quite as sharp . " This is not an

acquittal on the ground of insanity , " lie contended . " By negativing the fact that the pistols were loaded with ball , or , rather , by returning that the prosecution have not made out that fact affirmativel y , which is indispensable to a . conviction , the finding becomes an unqualified verdict of 'Not guilty ; '" and this it was impossible to get over without sending the boxful back to their room to reconsider the point . But now they had had a hint iven them of a

g possible expedient whereby they could reconcile humanity with duty . So they returned into Court again with a verdict which Lord Denman construed as "Not guilty on the ground of insanit y , " and his lordship added that the acquitted one would , nevertheless , be confined in strict custody as a matter of course . " The prisoner walked briskl y from the bar , apparently glad that the tedious trial was over -. " so says the contemporaneous recordandas he disappears down the

; , gloomy stairs leading from the clock of the old Court , so does he virtuall y vanish from the page of history . True , we catch faint glimpses of him occasionall y during the next forty years . He is basket making at Bethlehem Hospital—not the old Bedlam outside Moor Gate , where " Cibber ' s brazen brainless brothers stand , "