Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/469

 12 s. viii. MAY 14, i-o2i.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 383 MR. DAWE, for the defence, addressed the Court, and read the following appeals from the respec- tive prisoners. CAPTAIN RUDKIN'S ADDRESS. " My Lords, and Gentlemen of the Jury, " Labouring under feelings of the deepest ! regret, for the melancholy circumstance which j has placed me and my fellow -prisoners in the ! unhappy situation in which we now stand before you, and charged as we are by the indictment, | as principal and accessories in a crime at the bare mention of which human nature shudders, I have thought it prudent to commit to paper the few observations I have to address to you, j lest, in the agitation I must naturally feel on so awful an occasion, I should omit anything which might be material to our defence. " You have as yet only heard the mere naked facts immediately attending the fatal rencounter in which I have unhappily, though uninten- tionally, deprived a fellow-being of existence ; but I trust, gentlemen, that when the circum- stances which led to it have been given in evidence, you will be satisfied that, as a British Officer, I was bound to seek that satisfaction which, according to the laws of honour and the estab- lished rules and customs amongst military men, could alone atone for the gross insults and provo- cation I received or, that I must otherwise for ever have forfeited all claim to that character which I had acquired by years spent in the arduous service of that country in whose cause I have so often fought and bled. " Gentlemen, we stand indicted for wilful Murder. To constitute this crime, to use the language of a learned Judge, ' the fact must be attended by such circumstances as are the ordinary symptoms of a wicked, depraved, and malignant spirit; a heart regardless * of social duty, and deliberately bent upon mischief.' " It is not for me, nor for my fellow-prisoners, to speak of our own characters. What they are, gentlemen, you will hear from the witnesses ; I and I trust that when you have heard them . . . i " By some means, gentlemen, it has acquired publicity that the insults offered me by the deceased, on the night previous to the fatal meeting, were not the first that I received from him : it is, indeed, but too true. . . . " For his previous conduct he had apologized ; and I most solemnly declare, standing, as I now do, at the bar of this tribunal, through whose decision -I might, perhaps, in a few short hours appear before the more high and awful tribunal of my Creator, that I had, with all that candour and sincerity which are the characteristics of my countrymen, with all my heart and soul forgiven him, and that I entertained the same ! friendly disposition towards him which I had j felt from our first acquaintance. And, gentlemen, | it has been laid down, by the highest legal authori- j ties, that ' if there be an old quarrel between A j and B, and they are reconciled again, and then j upon a new falling out A kills B, this is not j murder, for it is not to be presumed that the j parties fought upon the old grudge, unless it 'appears from the whole circumstances of the fact.' " I will not, gentlemen, detain you by stating all the minute facts attending the lamentable occurrence. . . . " The fatal quarrel, gentlemen, arose at a card-party at the quarters of a brother-officer, and the deceased addressed me in language which I will not repeat. I saw, however, that he was in a state of great mental irritation, and therefore left the room to prevent his further committing himself ; when, gentlemen, he followed me out of the door and kicked me. Yes, gentlemen, I blush to acknowledge that I suffered the vile indignity ; aye, and in the presence of a gentleman, and that gentleman I will call to prove the fact. " Of all the personal insults one man can give another, a kick is, gentlemen, the most galling and degrading. A blow is certainly a very gross provocation, but the man who strikes you, treats you as if you were upon a level with himself in the scale of the creation ; but, gentlemen, in a kick, contempt is coupled with violence ; it sinks you hi your estimation, as it were, below humanity ; it is an act which a man of correct and humane feeling would scarcely commit towards a dog he regarded ; it leaves a stain upon the character of the injured party, especially in military life, which verbal apologies never can efface ; and, gentlemen, had I not redeeemed my character by pursuing the course I did (however much the event of it is to be deplored), I should have been scouted by my brother-officers and held in contempt by my men. Vain would it have been for me to quit my present regiment ; the disgrace would have stuck to me through the army, would have driven me from it, and have followed me even into the retirement- of private life. What would it have availed me that I had served, with a reputation for courage unsullied and undoubted, in all those campaigns which have raised the British Army to the highest pitch of military glory, had I submitted to this degrading indignity without resenting it as an officer and a gentleman. I should, notwith- standing, for ever have been branded as a poltroon and a coward. " Gentlemen, I had no alternative. If I had reported his conduct to the commanding officer, his ruin would have been certain but that would not have repaired my injured honour. An officer in the army, however high his rank, is bound to resent such an insult as I received in the manner I did ; nor can he ever refuse a chal- lenge from an inferior officer. It is ndt long since the Marquis of Londonderry, Colonel of the 10th Hussars, went out with Mr. Battier, a Cornet in his regiment. " I requested Dr. Strachan, ho was the friend of both parties, to wait upon him. He accepted my challenge. We went, gentlemen, to the fatal field, but with videly different feelings, and for udely different purposes I, gentlemen, to repair my injured honour, and he, to seek my life. Had that, gentlemen, not been his fixed deter- mination, he might, without even the shadow of an imputation on his courage, or indeed even without submitting to an apology, have averted his untimely fate. He might have fired in the air, and then the matter must have ended. He was by a mutual friend advised to do so, and