In the interval which took place, between the commission of the offence and the assembling of a court-martial to try him for it, he suffered much from the deepest sensations of regret: yet his sleep was calm and undisturbed, and when he awoke to the recollection of his miseries, the dread event appeared in retrospect, but as a dream of the perturbed imagination.
The court was assembled on the 27th October, and, assured of the general sympathy he attracted. Lieutenant Gamage appeared before it with a dignified composure, equally remote from confidence or dismay. When the prosecution was closed, which was conducted, under an Admiralty order, by Captain Trollope, who, on this occasion, as well as during the whole affair, behaved with the greatest delicacy and attention to him, he was called upon for his defence, which he read himself, as follows;–
“Mr. President, and Gentlemen of this Hon. Court.
“It is with the utmost poignancy of feeling, with the deepest bitterness and regret, that I appear before you in my present awful and unfortunate situation. To the wretch hardened in crimes, and growing grey in the pursuits of villany, the recollection of having actually deprived a fellow-creature of existence, the divine gift of the Creator, must ever crowd his imagination with a load of the most intolerable ideas. How then can any power of language express the multiplied pains of my situation, the pangs of remorse which swell in my bosom, with the most heart-rending sensations ou the remembrance of the past, through an unpremeditated and deeply-lamented act, which has led to this investigation. Ah, God! could years of banishment and pain atone for the mania of a moment; could tears of blood, or sobs of acutest grief, recall the flighted spirit; the scorpion’s sting, which now rankles in my bosom, might be removed, and a fever of agony be succeeded by peace of mind and the sweetness of content; but, alas ! what human power can re-kindle the vital spark, or illuminate the faded eye; the floods of affliction, and the humane tear, are in vain; they rend my soul, but yield no consolation to its wound.
“Thus, though impressed with the deepest contrition, my imagination recoils with horror and indignation at the horrid crime of murder, – though the unfortunate man did indeed fall by my hand, the violent mutinous tenor of his conduct, heightened by the most aggravated circumstances to me, his commanding officer, in the act of carrying on the duties of my situation, worked me to a phrensy of passion, in the tempest of which he fell, a sad victim of his own contumacious obstinacy. Of a very different nature from the whirlwind of rage, by which he was swept from among men, is the prepense malice of the deliberate and insidious murderer.
