o’clock the preceding morning, no signs of exhaustion appear in his eloquent and powerful speech. Every point telling in favour of the prisoner was given due prominence, and the utmost was made of the somewhat flimsy material of the alibi; the whole address forms a fine example of forensic oratory.
At half-past four o’clock the Lord Justice-Clerk—who is said never to have left the bench since the proceedings began—delivered his charge to the jury, which, one is glad to find, notwithstanding what had previously occurred, was a fair and impartial review of the evidence. His Lordship having concluded his charge at six o’clock on Thursday morning, the Court adjourned until one o’clock afternoon; the jury were inclosed; and the prisoners taken back to prison.
The Edinburgh Advertiser remarks—“Mr. Brodie’s behaviour during the whole trial was perfectly collected. He was respectful to the Court, and when anything ludicrous occurred in the evidence he smiled as if he had been an indifferent spectator.”
When the Court met again at one o’clock, the Chancellor of the jury handed in their written verdict, sealed with black wax, which unanimously found both panels guilty of the crime libelled, and the Lord Advocate formally moved for sentence.
A final effort was now made on behalf of the prisoners. Counsel for Brodie stated a plea in arrest of judgment, in respect that the verdict found the panels guilty “of breaking into the house in which the General Excise Office for Scotland was kept,” whereas it appeared from the evidence that there were, in fact, two separate and distinct houses occupied as the Excise Office. This objection was, after argument, repelled by the Court, and the prisoners were sentenced to death, their execution being appointed to take place on Wednesday, 1st October.
When the sentence was pronounced, we are told “Mr. Brodie discovered some inclination to address himself to the Court, but was restrained by his counsel,” and contented himself with bowing to the bench. The prisoners were then removed to the Tolbooth, escorted by the City Guard, amid a great concourse of spectators, and the proceedings terminated.
Æneas Morrison, the agent for Smith, adds the following particulars:—“The panels behaved in a manner different from each other, Smith appearing to be much dejected, especially at receiving his dreadful sentence, although in many instances he showed very great acuteness in his remarks upon the depositions of the witnesses and in the questions to them which he suggested. Mr. Brodie, on the other hand, affected coolness and determination in his behaviour. When the sentence of death was pronounced he put one hand in his breast and the other in his side and looked full around him. It is said that he accused his companion of pusillanimity, and even kicked him as they were leaving the Court. Thus ended a trial which had excited the public curiosity to an extraordinary degree, and in which their expectations were not disappointed. During the space of twenty-one hours—the time it lasted—circumstances continually followed each other to render it highly interesting, and more particularly to the gentlemen of the law, on account of the great variety and importance of the legal topics which were discussed and decided.”
The prisoners were lodged in the condemned cell of the Tolbooth, along with two men, James Falconer and Peter Bruce, then under sentence of death for breaking into and robbing the office of the Dundee Banking Company. They were each chained by one foot to an iron bar, but a contemporary account records that “Brodie’s chain is longer than the rest, as he can sit at a table and write by himself. They have behaved tolerable well, considering the small room they have on the goad, which goes across the room, very securely fixed from one end to the other in the wall, and hath four divisions or places on which the chains are fixed, with strong iron supporters fastened into the stone floor, and each has a mattress to lie on opposite to himself.”
A terrible change this, for the unfortunate Deacon, from the comfortable chambers of his house in Brodie’s Close and the social advantages which he had so long and undeservedly enjoyed. He seems, notwithstanding, to have kept up his spirits, and is said to have been as particular as ever in the matter of his dress. Having contrived to cut out the figure of a draughtboard on the stone floor of his dungeon, he amused himself by playing with any one who would join him, and in default of such, with his right hand against his left. The author of “Traditions of Edinburgh” states that this diagram remained in the room, where it was so strangely out of place, till the demolition of the Old Tolbooth in 1817. Many of his friends came to see him, for, until the time of his execution drew near, no restriction was placed upon their visits, and every effort was made by them to obtain a commutation of the death sentence to one of transportation for life.
In furtherance of this object Deacon Brodie, on 10th September, wrote letters to the Right Hon. Henry Dundas, afterwards Viscount Melville, and to the Duchess of Buccleuch, soliciting their influence in support of an application then being made to the Government on his behalf. Copies of these most interesting documents, which have never before been published, will be found in the Appendix—that addressed to the Duchess being also given in facsimile. This lady was Elizabeth, daughter of George, Duke of Montague, and wife of Henry, third Duke of Buccleuch, the friend of Sir Walter Scott, whose daughter-in-law, when Countess of Dalkeith, inspired “The Lay of the Last Minstrel.” It is noteworthy that, in spite of his position and presumed education, the Deacon’s spelling is more remarkable for originality than accuracy. His friends’ “aplication above,” however, proved unsuccessful, and the inevitable end had to be faced.
Deacon Brodie continued to bear up bravely, referring to his approaching exit as “a leap in the dark,” and is said to have only once broken down, when he was visited by his eldest daughter, Cecil, on the Friday before his execution. On the Sunday preceding his death, the other two prisoners, Falconer and Bruce, who were to have been executed on the same day, were granted a respite of six weeks. Smith observed that six weeks was but a short time; whereupon the Deacon exclaimed, “George, what would you and I give for six weeks longer? Six weeks would be an age to us!” On the Tuesday he was visited by a friend, when, we are told, “the conversation turning upon the female sex, he began singing with the greatest cheerfulness from the ‘Beggar’s Opera’ ‘ ’Tis woman that seduces all mankind,’ &c.”
The “Beggar’s Opera,” the well-known work of the poet and dramatist, John Gay, appears to have been a special favourite with the Deacon, for it will be remembered that he sang a stave from it on the night of the robbery of the Excise Office. The opera was frequently performed at the Old Theatre Royal, Edinburgh, at this period, and he had, no doubt, had many opportunities of hearing it. Commenting on this incident, the Edinburgh Advertiser remarks—“Brodie seemed to take the character of Captain Macheath as his model, and the day before his death was singing one of the songs from the ‘Beggar’s Opera.’ This is another proof of the dangerous tendency of that play, which ought to be prohibited from being performed on the British stage. It is inconceivable how many highwaymen and robbers this opera has given birth to.” The editor of the Advertiser was evidently less gifted with a sense of humour than the Deacon, and had never read Fergusson’s lines “To Sir John Fielding, on his attempt to suppress the ‘Beggar’s Opera.’ ”
On the night before the execution, Deacon Brodie complained of the noise made by the workmen in effecting the alterations on the gibbet necessitated by the reprieve of the other prisoners, Falconer and Bruce; and it is stated in a contemporary report of the trial, published by Robertson on 2nd October, 1788, the day after the execution, that Brodie then said “he planned the model of the new place of execution, he purchased the wood, and gave his assistance in finishing it—but little did he imagine at the time that he himself would make his exit on it.” The Edinburgh Advertiser of 3rd October, 1788, describing the execution, says—“It is not a little remarkable that Brodie was the planner, a few years since, of the new-invented gallows on which he suffered”; and Robert Chambers, in his “Minor Antiquities of Edinburgh,” (1833, p. 168), remarks—“As the Earl of Morton was the first man executed by the ‘Maiden,’ so