Читать книгу True Crime Chronicles - Camden Pelham - Страница 99

Table of Contents

ON the 16th of September, 1775, Mrs. Rudd was put to the bar at the Old Bailey, to be tried for forgery; but the counsel for the prisoner pleading that, as she had been already admitted an evidence for the crown, it was unprecedented to detain her for trial, and the judges differing in opinion on the point of law, she was remanded to prison till the opinion of the judges could be taken on a subject of so much importance.

On the 8th of December, 1775, she was arraigned on an indictment for feloniously forging a bond, purporting to be signed by William Adair, and for feloniously uttering and publishing the same.

Mr. Justice Aston now addressed the prisoner, informing her that eleven of the judges had met (the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas being indisposed), “and were unanimous in opinion, that in cases not within any statute, an accomplice, who fully discloses the joint guilt of himself and his companions, and is admitted by justices of the peace as a witness, and who appears to have acted a fair and ingenuous part in the disclosure of all the circumstances of the cases in which he has been concerned, ought not to be prosecuted for the offences so by him confessed, but cannot by law plead this in bar of any indictment, but merely as an equitable claim to mercy from the crown: and nine of the judges were of opinion that all the circumstances relative to this claim ought to be laid before the Court, to enable the judges to exercise their discretion whether the trial should proceed or not. With respect to the case before them, the same nine judges were of opinion that if the matter stood singly upon the two informations of the prisoner, compared with the indictments against her, she ought to have been tried upon all, or any of them, for from her information she is no accomplice. She exhibits a charge against Robert and Daniel Perreau, the first soliciting her to imitate the hand-writing of William Adair, the other forcing her to execute the forgery under the threat of death. Her two informations are contradictory: if she has suppressed the truth, she has no equitable claim to favour; and if she has told the truth, and the whole truth, she cannot be convicted. As to the indictments preferred against her by Sir Thomas Frankland, as her informations before the justices have no relation to his charges, she can claim no sort of advantage from these informations.”

The trial then proceeded.—The principal evidences were the wife of Robert Perreau, and John Moody, a servant to Daniel. The first endeavoured to prove that the bond was published, the latter that it was forged. Sir Thomas Frankland proved that he had lent money on the bond. It was objected by the counsel for the prisoner, that Mrs. Perreau was an incompetent witness, as she would be interested in the event; but the Court overruled this objection.

Mrs. Perreau deposed that, on the 24th December, she saw Mrs. Rudd deliver a bond to her husband, which he laid on the table while he brushed his coat; that it was for five thousand three hundred pounds, payable to Robert Perreau, and signed “William Adair;” and that it was witnessed in the names of Arthur Jones and Thomas Start, or Hart. Mrs. Perreau, being asked when she again saw the bond, said that it was brought to her on the 8th of March (the day after her husband was convicted), when she selected it from other bonds delivered to him on the 24th of December. She made her mark on it, and deposed that when it was delivered to Mr. Perreau, Mrs. Rudd said, “Mr. Adair would be very much obliged to Mr. Perreau to try to raise upon that bond the sum of four thousand pounds of Sir Thomas Frankland.”

Sergeant Davy cross-examined Mrs. Perreau. She acknowledged that till the 24th of December she had never seen a bond in her life; and that on her first sight of that in question she had no suspicion that anything was wrong.

John Moody, the servant to Daniel Perreau, who had been examined on the former trials, was called, and repeated the testimony which he had before given. The bond which in this case was alleged to have been uttered was that for 4000l., on which Sir Thomas Frankland had advanced money.

The prisoner, on being called on for her defence, in a short speech declared that she was innocent, and concluded by leaving her case in the hands of the jury, who almost immediately declared her not guilty.

As soon as the verdict was returned, she quitted the Court, and retired to the house of a friend at the west end of the town.