Speech which George Smith intended to have made to the Court
and Jury at his Trial.

George Smith was taken into custody on Saturday morning, the 8th of March, upon the information of John Brown alias Humphry Moore. On Monday, the 10th, remorse of conscience seized his mind, and he sent to the Sheriff, wishing to make a clean breast, and to tell the truth. From that time he has all along been humble, penitent, and resigned.

At his trial he intended to have pled guilty but was prevailed upon to take his chance of a trial. He meant to have asked for mercy on the ground of making an ample confession of the crimes committed and to be committed, and had prepared a speech in writing to that purpose, which he intended to have read.

On the Friday before the trial, Smith wrote a letter to the Board of Excise, saying that he was not to give them any trouble, for he would plead guilty.

By means of a humane and benevolent clergyman who attended this unhappy man with the most feeling solicitude and earnest discharge of duty during his imprisonment, we have been favoured with this speech, and the catalogue of crimes which were to have been perpetrated, which will strike every reader with horror and amazement.

It is in his own handwriting, and will be deemed curious by the public. It is remarkable that Smith spells much better in his writing than Brodie.

The speech is as follows:—

My Lords, and Gentlemen of the Jury,

I stand before this Tribunal, so dreadful to the guilty mind, a victim, in the first instance, to private revenge. The principal informer against me had suddenly become my mortal enemy, and thought of nothing, I fear, when he went to the Sheriff-clerk’s Office, but my single ruin. I pray God to forgive him this cruel wrong, as I do from my heart.

Since I was committed to prison, it has been said against me that I was formerly a Smith by occupation, and made the keys that opened the Excise Office and other places; neither of which are true. I never was a Smith, nor ever made a key. Old keys were bought, and the wards of them altered; but I was not by any means the best in the execution.

It may be remembered against me that I tried to break out of prison. But, not to dwell upon the love of life, and the dread of an ignominious execution, both of which are so natural and strong, I not only sincerely repented of having made the attempt, but, as a proof of my sincerity, and, I humbly trust, as some kind of atonement, I prevented Peter Young and three others from doing so—who, with myself, could afterwards have escaped from prison—by freely discovering the plot to the turnkey.

I have, moreover, been falsely accused of advising my unfortunate wife not to speak at all when she should be brought to this Court; but I solemnly declare that the worst advice I ever gave her on that head, was to speak the truth. I have no fear of her evidence affecting my life. To make the wife the witness in law against the life of her husband, would be barbarous in any country. My great security here is that the justice and humanity of this country forbid it.

It was my full confession on my first imprisonment, that has made my offences capital. I have destroyed myself, otherwise no evidence could have condemned me.

I made that confession to prevent more dreadful mischief being done to this injured country from persons whom it least suspected; for God, who seeth in secret, only knows where the evil would have stopped. And, if possible, to make some small reparation for the violent wrongs I have myself been guilty of, I request the indulgence of the Court to suffer me to read over a list of such robberies as my accomplices and myself had determined to commit, had we not been timeously prevented.

• 1. On Dalgleish and Dickie, Watchmakers.
• 2. On White and Mitchell, Lottery Office keepers.
• 3. On a rich Baker near Brodie’s close,—the name forgot.
• 4. The Council Chamber, for the Mace.
• 5. The Chamberlain’s Office, for money.
• 6. Forrester and Co.’s, Jewellers.
• 7. Gilchrist and Co.’s, Linen-drapers.

[Besides these, and as depredations of greater magnitude,]

8. The Bank of Scotland (or Old Bank) was to have been broke into.

9. The Stirling Stage Coach, carrying a thousand pounds to pay the Carron workmen, was to have been stopped and robbed.

10. Mr. Latimer, Collector of Excise for the Dalkeith district, reported to have generally from one to two thousand pounds, was to have been robbed.

I do not here speak of those felonies which are set forth in my declarations, because some of them were made known by another.

With all humility, therefore, and a trembling heart, I urge the plea of having been the true cause—whatever may seem, or may be endeavoured to be proved to the contrary—of this wicked and dangerous confederacy being discovered and broken up, trusting my life to this one plea, and secure that it will have its full weight in the breasts of a discerning, unbiassed, and merciful Jury.

My most thankful acknowledgments are humbly returned to your Lordships for the appointment of such able and humane Counsel to plead for me. Forgive me for declining their kind help.

I have no warrant to be farther troublesome. My guilty conscience, in place of every other accuser and distress, has brought me to confess crimes for which avenging justice will sentence me to die, and I deserve my doom. I throw myself entirely on the mercy of the Court.

My Lords, to the charge brought against me in the Indictment, I Plead Guilty.