The Defence of Eugene Aram, for
the murder of Daniel Clarke.
As this trial has excited very extraordinary interest, and
presents illustrations of several points connected with Medico-legal
investigations, we shall offer to our readers a brief
outline of the case, and introduce the ingenious defence
which the prisoner composed and read at his trial. In the
year 1745, Clarke, a shoemaker, at Knaresborough, in
Yorkshire, was induced by Eugene Aram and Richard
Houseman, to purchase a variety of valuable articles of plate
and jewellery, in consequence of having married a woman
who had many rich relations, and who, by an ostentatious display
of this kind, might conclude that Clarke was rich, and
in consequence of such belief make him their heir. No
sooner had Clarke yielded to the persuasion of these men,
and became in consequence possessed of many valuable
goods, than Eugene Aram and Houseman murdered him, in
February 1745, and buried his body in a field near the town,
and having shared Clarke's treasure, they decamped.—Clarke
being at the time very much in debt, was supposed
to have gone abroad, and every inquiry ceased until the
year 1758, when a person, as he was digging for lime-stone
near St. Robert's cave, found the bones of a human body,
upon which a conjecture arose that they were the remains of
Daniel Clarke, who it was presumed might have been murdered;
and as Houseman was seen in the company of Clarke
a short time before his disappearance, he was immediately
apprehended on suspicion, when having lost his self-possession
he imprudently exclaimed that those were not the bones
of Clarke, for they were buried in a different place! and
subsequently he stated the exact place where they were deposited,
and which were found accordingly. Soon after
Houseman was committed to the castle of York, it was discovered
that Aram resided in the character of a respectable
