A Place Called Freedom (1995)

“The theory is that if you’re innocent you don’t need legal expertise to prove it. But sometimes judges make exceptions.”

“I hope we get a friendly judge,” Mack said anxiously.

“The judge ought to help the accused. It’s his duty to make sure the defense case is clear to the jury. But don’t rely on it. Place your faith in the plain truth. It’s the only thing that can save you from the hangman.”

24

ON THE DAY OF THE TRIAL THE PRISONERS WERE awakened at five o’clock in the morning.

Dermot Riley arrived a few minutes later with a suit for Mack to borrow: it was the outfit Dermot had got married in, and Mack was touched. He also brought a razor and a sliver of soap. Half an hour later Mack looked respectable and felt ready to face the judge.

With Cora and Peg and fifteen or twenty others he was tied up and marched out of the prison, along Newgate Street, down a side street called Old Bailey and up an alley to the Sessions House.

Caspar Gordonson met him there and explained who was who. The yard in front of the building was already full of people: prosecutors, witnesses, jurors, lawyers, friends and relatives, idle spectators, and probably whores and thieves looking for business. The prisoners were led across the yard and through a gate to the bail dock. It was already half full of defendants, presumably from other prisons: the Fleet Prison, the Bridewell and Ludgate Prison. From there Mack could see the imposing Sessions House. Stone steps led up to its ground floor, which was open on one side except for a row of columns. Inside was the judges’ bench on a high platform. On either side were railed-off spaces for jurors, and balconies for court officers and privileged spectators.

It reminded Mack of a theater—but he was the villain of the piece.

He watched with grim fascination as the court began its long day of trials. The first defendant was a woman accused of stealing fifteen yards of linsey-woolsey—cheap cloth made of a mixture of linen and wool—from a shop. The shopkeeper was the prosecutor, and he valued the cloth at fifteen shillings. The witness, an employee, swore that the woman picked up the bolt of cloth and went to the door then, realizing she was observed, dropped the material and ran away. The woman claimed she had only been looking at the cloth and had never intended to make off with it.

The jurors went into a huddle. They came from the social class known as “the middling sort”: they were small traders, well-to-do craftsmen and shopkeepers. They hated disorder and theft but they mistrusted the government and jealously defended liberty—their own, at least.

They found her guilty but valued the cloth at four Shillings, a lot less than it was worth. Gordonson explained that she could be hanged for stealing goods worth more than five shillings from a shop. The verdict was intended to prevent the judge from sentencing the woman to death.

She was not sentenced immediately, however: the sentences would all be read out at the end of the day.

The whole thing had taken no more than a quarter of an hour. The following cases were dealt with equally rapidly, few taking more than half an hour. Cora and Peg were tried together at about midafternoon. Mack knew that the course of the trial was preordained, but still he crossed his fingers and hoped it would go according to plan.

Jay Jamisson testified that Cora had engaged him in conversation in the street while Peg picked his pockets. He called Sidney Lennox as the witness who had seen what was happening and warned him. Neither Cora nor Peg challenged this version of events.

Their reward was the appearance of Sir George, who testified that they had been helpful in the apprehension of another criminal and asked the judge to sentence them to transportation rather than hanging.

The judge nodded sympathetically, but the sentence would not be pronounced until the end of the day.

Mack’s case was called a few minutes later.

Lizzie could think of nothing but the trial.

She had dinner at three o’clock and, as Jay was at the court all day, her mother came to dine and keep her company.

“You’re looking quite plump, my dear,” Lady Hallim said. “Have you been eating a lot?”

“On the contrary,” Lizzie said. “Sometimes food makes me feel ill. It’s all the excitement of going to Virginia, I suppose. And now this dreadful trial.”

“It’s not your concern,” Lady Hallim said briskly. “Dozens of people are hanged every year for much less dreadful crimes. He can’t be reprieved just because you knew him as a child.”

“How do you know he committed a crime at all?”

“If he did not, he will be found not guilty. I’m sure he is being treated the same as anyone foolish enough to get involved in a riot.”

“But he isn’t,” Lizzie protested. “Jay and Sir George deliberately provoked that riot so that they could arrest Mack and finish the coal heavers’ strike—Jay told me.”

“Then I’m sure they had good reason.”

Tears came to Lizzie’s eyes. “Mother, don’t you think it’s wrong?”