|
366 TRIAL OF JOHN W. WEBSTER.
which it was presumed was to be used in removing blood-stains. I
wished the parcel to be kept untouched, that it might be shown, if there
should be occasion, what it really was that I had purchased.
I have drawn up in separate papers an explanation of the use I
intended to make of the blood sent for on Thursday, the 22d, and of
the conversation with Littlefield about the dissecting vault.
I think that Pettee, in his testimony at the trial, put too strongly
my words about having settled with Dr. Parkman. Whatever I did
say, of the kind, was predicated on the hope I entertained that I should
be able to pacify Dr. Parkman and make some arrangement with him;
and was said in order to quiet Pettee, who was becoming restive under
the solicitation of Dr. Parkman.
Having read the foregoing statement, Dr. Putnam proceeded with
his own narrative as follows:-
After Dr. Webster had stated most of the facts recorded above, on
the 23d of May, with all the earnestness, solemnity, and authority of
tone that I was master of I abruptly addressed him, in substance, thus:-
" Dr. Webster, in all probability, your days are numbered. You cannot,
you dare not, speak falsely to me now. You must not die with a lie in
your mouth, and so prove to yourself, that your repentance for the sins
of your life is insincere and ineffectual. Tell me the truth, then, in a
confidence to be kept sacred during your lifetime, and as much longer
as my regard for the happiness of your family shall seem to me to require,
and the interest of truth and justice to permit. Search to the bottom
of your heart for the history of your motives, and tell me, before God, Did
it never occur to you, before the death of Dr. Parkman, that his death, if
you could bring it to pass, would be a great advantage to you, or, at least,
that personal injury to him might possibly be the result of your expected
conference with him? As a dying man, I charge you to answer me
truly and exactly, or else be silent.-Had you not such a thought?"
" No, never," said he, with energy and feeling. "As I live, and as God
is my witness, never? I was no more capable of such a thought, than one
of my innocent children. I never had the remotest idea of injuring Dr.
Parkman, until the moment the blow was struck. Dr. Parkman was
extremely severe and sharp-tongued, the most provoking of men; and
I am irritable and passionate. A quickness and brief violence of temper
has been the besetting sin of my life. I was an only child, much
indulged, and I have never acquired the control over my passions that
I ought to have acquired early; and the consequence is-all this." " But
you notified Dr. Parkman to meet you at a certain hour, and told him
you would pay him, when you knew you had not the means of paying
him? " No," he replied; " I did not tell him I should pay him; and
there is no evidence that I told him so, except my own words spoken after
his disappearance, and after I had taken the ground that I had paid
him. Those words were one of the miserable tissue of falsehoods to
which I was committed, from the moment I began to conceal the homi-
cide. I never had a thought of injuring Dr. Parkman."
Having finished reading his notes of the statement made by Dr.
Webster on the 23d of May, Dr. Putnam then submitted the following
Supplementary Explanations of various occurrences testified of at the
trial, which had been reduced to writing by the Professor himself.
My having sent Mr. Littlefield for blood, has been brought forward
and made to produce an influence against me.
|
