From the Leeds Times, 31 August 1867, this account, originally published in All the Year Round, of the death of the Reverend William Jackson in the Court of King’s Bench in the old Four Courts in Christchurch, just as the Chief Justice of the King’s Bench was about to pronounce sentence on him for treason.
Jackson had been sent over to England and Ireland as a secret envoy from the Comite de Salut Public, instructed to inquire into and report upon the likelihood of popular support in the event of a French invasion, a mission which was subsequently betrayed by a British government spy called John Cockayne.
Had Jackson actually been sentenced, his property would have been confiscated, and the desire to avoid this may have motivated his suicide, assisted by his wife.
Incidentally, Mrs Jackson, who provided the poison by which her husband met his end, was a woman of extraordinary fascination – a femme fatale on whom at least one member of the Law Library had a significant crush, something which nearly ruined his career when he yielded to her importunities that he attend her spouse’s funeral…
“DEATH IN THE DOCK – A STRANGE STORY
“The court was formed of the Earl of Clonmell, Lord Chief Justice of the Queen’s Bench, Mr Justice Downs (sic) and Mr Justice Chamberlain. Mr Justice Bond was absent. The names of the leading counsel for the accused are remarkable in Irish history. Amongst them are found those of John Philpott (sic) Curran, George Ponsonby, L. McNally, and Thomas Addis Emett (sic).
At four o’clock in the morning of the 26th of April, the jury found Jackson guilty. They recommended him to mercy; but the Lord Chief Justice exclaimed that they had done so ‘only’ through compassion; a plea not influential with such a judge. Turning to the jailer, who stood beside the condemned, he said, ‘Jailer, take that man away, and let him be brought up here in four days.’ The four days slowly but surely passed hour by hour away, and then, on the morning of the 30th April, Jackson was conveyed to the Court of King’s Bench to hear his doom pronounced. He had made some allusions to suicide, and therefore was guarded strictly. His food was always cut in pieces for him, the jailer fearing to entrust him with a knife and fork….
A partisan of the government of the day saw Jackson as he passed on his way to the court. This person remarked to one of Jackson’s counsel, ‘I always said Jackson was a coward, and I am not mistaken. His fears have made him sick. I observed him, as the coach drove by, with his head out of the window, vomiting violently.’ His friend hurried into court only to witness a most appalling scene. Jackson’s frame quivered rather than trembled, but his mind was firm and collected still. With clammy and nerveless fingers he tried to press the hand of his counsel, and, sadly smiling, whispered the words of Pierre, ‘We have deceived the senate.’ The Chief Justice, perceiving the condition of the prisoner, thought of remanding him, but the Attorney General prayed for judgment.
Then ‘the Reverend William Jackson was set forward.’ All eyes were directed towards him. His body teemed with profuse perspiration, the steam rose from his hair, the muscles of his face twitched in convulsions, his eyes were nearly closed and when at intervals he opened them the dull dry light of death glared out of them. Ordered by the court to stand up, his mind strove to command his failing body. He rose, but tottered and reeled as if about to fall. At last, he crossed his arms tightly over his breast, and rocking to and fro awaited the traitor’s dreadful sentence of doom. When the clerk of the court directed him to hold up his hand, he strove to raise it, but the powerless arm dropped instantly at his side.
When the clerk demanded, in the usual form ‘what he had now to say why judgment of death and execution should not be awarded against him according to law,’ Mr Curran rose and moved an arrest of judgment. A legal argument of some length ensued. All the while the prisoner grew worse and worse as he presented the aspect of a living corpse. Mr Curran proposed that he should be remanded, as his state of body rendered communication between him and his counsel impossible. Lord Clonmel thought it would be lenient to dispose of the sentence with all speed.
They opened the windows of the court, and the cold air came rushing in. But the spirit of death gathered closer round him, and now he fainted. He sank down in the dock. The crowd heard the hollow sound of his convulsive movements against the panelling. The closing scene is thus described.
‘-Lord Clonmel: ‘If the prisoner is in a state of insensibility, it is impossible that I can pronounce the judgment of the court upon him.’ Thereupon, Mr Thomas Kinsley, an apothecary, who was in the jury-box, said he would go down to him. He stooped down over the dock, felt Jackson’s pulse, and then turning round towards the judge, declared that the prisoner was certainly dying.
By order of the court, Mr Kinsley was sworn.
Lord Clonmel: Are you in any profession?
Mr Kinsley: I am an apothecary.
Lord Clonmell: Can you speak with certainty of the state of the prisoner?
Mr Kinsley: I can. I think him verging to eternity.
Lord Clonmell: Do you think him capable of hearing his judgment?
Mr Kinsley: I do not think he can.
Lord Clonmell: Then he must be taken away. Take care that in sending him away no mischief be done. Let him be remanded until further orders; and I believe it is as much for his advantage, as for all of yours, to adjourn.
But the further orders never were delivered; the case of the prisoner had been already transferred to another tribunal. The sheriff, pale and horror-stricken, informed the court that the man was dead. All rose and hurriedly left the court. The jailers laid the corpse straight on the floor of the dock, and hurried away. Many a man dead by the execution of the law had they seen, but never such a sight as this. All through the night the dead lay there, a guard of soldiers keeping silent watch. There is a story that at midnight a weeping woman stole in like a spirit, kissed the cold lips, clasped the rigid hands, and vanished.
Next day an inquest was held; the body contained a large quantity of metallic poison. The jailer swore that on the preceding day, a little before the prisoner was brought up to court, he found him with his wife, greatly agitated, and vomiting violently. ‘I have taken some tea,’ said Jackson, ‘which has disagreed with me.’ He had died of poison, and baffled the law. Whether it was to save himself and his family from the shame of an ignominious execution, or to preserve his property from confiscation, he had hurried to the final court of appeal…’
Such a scene could never have been forgotten by those who witnessed it. Few, however, could imagine the effect it had upon the judge. Here is his ‘note,’ written with his own hand on the very night of Jackson’s death, when the eyes of the corpse were rigidly fixed upon the ceiling of the court:
‘April 30, 1795 – Recollect the death of that Jackson, at them moment that judgment was about to be pronounced upon him. This should make a new judicial era in your life. As to regimen, diligence and exercise, remember to ride and walk as much, to eat and sleep as little, as possible; to read law as much, to idle as little as you can, and never to fret at all; to laugh, and smile as much, to frown and sulk as little, as may be. Never to be drunk. Put yourself into no person’s power. Live as long and as happy as you can. Turn each moment to the best account, and make the most of each good occasion, and the best of every bad one. Look to God and yourself only.’
What a comment on so fearful a tragedy, and written by a judge’s hand!”
A riveting full account of Jackson’s trial, from start to finish, may be found here.
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