ceased was a meek and inoffensive man. He was unarmed, and had visited the prisoner, although under some excitement, yet without any hostile purpose, and when the remains of the deceased were found, the head, fractured, with certainly five and probably more wounds, no longer retained the human form. There was a fracture large enough to admit the finger of the surgeon through the skull into the brain above and behind the left ear. A piece of the skull had been cut out on a line above the ear and a little to the right of a line drawn from the top of the head toward the spine. Again there was a fracture over the right ear. These wounds were manifestly the result of blows inflicted with the edge of a hatchet. In front, parts of the skull, commencing far above the left eye, reaching into the hair, extending across two thirds of the space from ear to ear and descending on the right side so as to include the eye and a large portion of the cheek, were broken in and pressed deeply on the brain. This fracture was made by several blows with the hammer end of the same instrument. A hatchet, which was one of the usual form, and in weight exceeded seventeen ounces, was found in the apartment, and identified as belonging to the accused. Each of the wounds would have been mortal, and whichever of them was first inflicted, must have instantly deprived the deceased of consciousness and of all power of resistSuch a homicide could not have been accidental or necessary for self-defence. It was committed with a deadly weapon, in a cruel and inhuman manner, upon a defenceless, powerless Reason and law agree that the homicide could not have been innocent, justifiable, or excusable. Society could never exist if human life could be destroyed in such a manner with impunity. It was then a felonious homicide, and the jury had only to ascertain the degree of crime which had been perpetrated. By a presumption of law, which is the established deduction of reason, that crime was murder, and it remained for the manslayer to show that the deed would bear a milder designation. The accused could show this only by proving that Adams was perpetrating or attempting to perpetrate a crime or misdemeanor, and that the accused did not design to effect death, or that the wounds were given to aid Adams in committing self murder, or that they were inflicted without a design to effect death, in a heat of passion, in an attempt to resist murder, or self-defence against some

ance.

man.

great personal injury of which the accused was in imminent danger. No such proof was given or offered. But since no other human eye witnessed the deed, nor human ear heard anything but a confused sound and a heavy fall, the jury were required to suppose it possible that Adams had assailed the accused and the crime was committed in self-defence. Even if this could have been assumed, it must also have been assumed not only that there were an assault and an affray, but that the accused was in imminent danger and in the heat of passion, suddenly excited, intense, uncontrollable, and allowing no time for reflection, and that he did not design to produce death, and was unconscious that such a consequence might follow his violence. But Adams was unarmed. He had never been known to menace the accused or assail any other person. In strength Adams at most did not excel the accused. If there was an affray there would probably have been an outcry by one of the parties, unless the first blow terminated the strife by rendering one of them speechless as well as defenceless. If the accused had been in imminent danger he could probably have shown wounds or marks of an assault. But he exhibited none. On the contrary, he carefully concealed a small and unimportant discoloration of the skin accidentally discovered by Caroline M. Henshaw on his neck, on the morning after the deed was committed. And even if an affray had been proved, could it be supposed that the passion of the accused had no time to abate, and his mind no time to relent, when the first blow had relieved him from the assailant, and each subsequent blow fell upon an unconscious and unresisting victim. Murder is defined in law to be, first, the killing of a person (not under the peculiar circumstances which render homicide excusable or justifiable) from a premeditated design to effect the death of the person killed or of any human being. Second, the killing of another (not under the same circumstances before mentioned) by any act imminently dangerous to others, and evincing a depraved mind, regardless of human life, although without any premeditated design to effect the death of any particular individual. It has been seen that this case presents none of the circumstances which render homicide justifiable or excusable. Even if the accused did not design death, the act he perpetrated was imminently dangerous, and the repeated blows inflicted in so inhuman a manner certainly evinced a depraved mind, regardless of human

life.

Whatever was the degree of crime it was complete when life was extinguished, and could not be changed by the subsequent conduct of the accused. Yet his subsequent conduct was legitimately opened to the jury for the light it might reflect on the deed he had consummated. The house was filled with tenants from the base to the roof. The narrow room of the accused was separated only by thin folding doors from an occupied apartment, and looked out on the corner of the streets. Even without leaving the presence of the dying or dead man, the accused could have instantly summoned a multitude.-But he invoked no witnesses. On the contrary, according to his own acknowledgment, he closed the only aperture through which he might be observed, stripped the deceased of the clothing by which the person might be identified, and without aid, and almost with superhuman effort, wrapped the body in canvass; contracted it with a rope, and deposited it in a box three and a half feet in length, and standing upon the protruding knees, pressed them down by dislocating the limbs until the box could be closed. After this was done and night had come, the accused, with hands unaccustomed to such labor, washed the floor, and carefully stained it with oil and ink and tobacco to conceal the blood which had been shed. He clandestinely cast the clothing and articles of property found on the person of the deceased, except his watch, into a sink, repaired to a bathing-house, and washed the stains from his own dress, and then retired to his lodgings. Early the next morning, before the usual hour for going abroad, he returned to the apartment and resumed his efforts to remove the evidences of the fatal transaction. He carefully fastened the box, labelled it with the address of an imaginary person in St. Louis, to the care of imaginary persons in New Orleans, and carefully removed it from his apartment, and caused it to be conveyed to the ship which was expected to depart immediately to that port, and delivered it to the master, and took a receipt for it as for a parcel of merchandise. He had many associates in the city; a brother, and a mistress who seems to have been worthy of his affection and confidence, and whom he says he intended soon to admit to the rights of a wife. To none of these persons did he reveal what had happened or what he had done. On the contrary, upon mature reflection, as he says, he avoided his brother, and took counsel only with himself. He gave Caro

line M. Henshaw a false explanation of the reasons of his late return on the night succeeding the crime, and of his early absence on the next morning.-To the person who occupied the adjoining rooms he at first denied and afterward falsely explained circumstances which had excited suspicion, and day after day, while the friends of the deceased and his fellow-citizens were engaged in anxious inquiries concerning his fate, the accused visited the place where the deceased was accustomed to transact business, and remarked on his mysterious absence like a sympathizing friend. Nature suggests a mode of proceeding in every exigency, but not the same mode in exigencies so entirely dissimilar as those of guilt of murder and consciousness of having committed other forms of homicide. Guilt seeks concealment, misfortune sympathy, and innocence vindication. If the homicide had not been felonious, the first impulse of the accused, when he discovered the fatal consequences of his violence, would have been to have invoked aid to the sufferer if living, or at least advice or sympathy for himself. If the blood which had been spilled did not accuse the prisoner, he would not have endeavored to remove the stains it left. If Adams had fallen by the hand of the accused through accident or misfortune, or even suddenly excited passion, the friends of the unfortunate man would not have been denied the melancholy privilege of giving his remains a becoming burial. Much less would the accused have mutilated those remains and disposed of them in a manner, the very account of which produces a revolt of all the sympathies of the human heart. But it is urged that consciousness of the crime of manslaughter, and fear of its punishment, would have induced concealment.-Flight from false accusation sometimes occurs, but the records of crime present scarcely an authentic case where a person guilty of only manslaughter, has concealed the dead body and increased his peril by any of the acts which distinguish the conscious murderer. Manslaughter, although for reasons of conservative policy, declared to be a felony and punished as such, is regarded by the offender, as well as by society, as a misfortune rather than a crime, or at most as a crime mingled with misfortune. He who has committed it, if he possess the common tenderness of our nature, deplores the injury he has done, but conscience vindicates him and sustains him against accusations of a higher crime.—Society exacts his punishment with relucVOL. II.-42

tance, and notwithstanding the law adjudges him a felon, he suffers no ignominy. Imprisonment seems to him an inconsiderable punishment compared with the extreme penalty of human laws, and his subdued and broken spirit is almost willing to endure it to solace the regret he feels for having even without design deprived a fellow-man of life. It seems impossible to suppose that an individual guilty of only such a crime, and exposed to only such hazards, would go on for hours and days, accumulating for his own destruction such a mass of the peculiar evidences of murder. From the legal presumption of guilt, the relations of the parties, the circumstances under which they met, the instrument of death, the number and violence of the blows, the mutilation of the deceased, the prevarication and falsehoods of the accused, and his studied, laborious, and persevering efforts for concealment, the jury, under a full sense of their responsibility and aware of their duty to give their verdict in favor of the accused if they entertained a reasonable doubt, pronounced him guilty of deliberate and wilful murder.

By a humane provision of law, a full report of every conviction of a capital case is required to be made to the governor, who, in considering the same, is entitled to the advice of the chancellor, the justices of the supreme court, and the attorney-general. The justices of the supreme court have carefully reviewed the report in the present case, and unanimously certified their opinion that the verdict was just. If the governor entertained doubts of its correctness, he might, perhaps, rightfully relinquish them and confide in the opinions of his learned judicial advisers. But justice to the jury, and a proper regard for the security of society, as well as a desire to temper the administration of the laws with mercy, have induced an examination of the testimony independently of the opinions of the jury and of the legal tribunals, and the result is a conviction, undisturbed by any doubt, that the accused was guilty of the murder of Samuel Adams.

It remains to be considered whether any circumstances, extraneous or appearing on the record, require executive interposition or recommend the prisoner to clemency. The attention of the governor has been directed to an account of the homicide, favorable to the prisoner, which was submitted by him to the jury, after the testimony had closed, and to proofs and arguments designed to show the probable truth of that statement. Whatever