Page:Blanchard on L. E. L.pdf/180

180 "The inquest is then given. It recites that it was taken 'before me, James Swanzey, Member of the Council of the Government, and one of her Majesty's Justices of the Peace in and for the British Settlements on the Gold Coast of Africa, acting as Coroner, upon the view of the body of Letitia Elizabeth Maclean, then and there lying dead,—upon the oaths of William Topp, John Jackson, Robert Jackson, William Edward Stanley, Joseph Clouston, James Henry Akhurst, Henry Smith, William Spinks, and Thomas Hutton, good and lawful men of Cape Coast Castle aforesaid; as well as upon the oaths of James Morley, master of the brig Governor Maclean, Francis Swanzey, of Dixcove, John Gardiner Jackson, master of the brig Osborne, and Brodie Cruikshank, of Annamaboe, who being sworn and charged to inquire on the part of our said Lady the Queen, when, where, how, and after what manner the laid Letitia Elizabeth came to her death, do, upon their oaths, say that on the day and year aforesaid, and at the place aforesaid, the death of the said Letitia was caused by her having incautiously taken an over-dose of prussic acid, which, from evidence, it appeared she had been in the habit of using as a remedy for spasmodic affections to which she was subject."

The publication of these depositions and the verdict founded on them, created a deep and general interest, and was instantly followed by a variety of rumours and surmises of the most painful description. The circumstance that written evidence only was received, the surgeon's omission to open the body, the irregularity of the entire proceedings, compared with the mode in which inquests are conducted here, and the marked insufficiency of the inquiry, were freely commented on in the public journals. The verdict itself was received with great suspicion, and soon failed in most quarters to obtain concurrence.

The inference then was, and the dreadful idea became but too prevalent, that the deadly acid had been taken by the deceased, but not accidentally; that, racked by many nameless griefs, beset with distracting fears of peril and accumulating trouble, the object of our admiration and sympathy, over wrought, over-excited by the very effort to