Mr Sheridan, who was dreadfully afraid that
this attempt might make the king desert Drury
Lane and take to the rival house, proceeded at
once with Mr. Wigstead, a magistrate, to
examine the prisoner, on whom no papers or
firearms had been found. (The pistol was picked
up under the seat in the pit where it had been
dropped.) Mr. Tamplin, trumpeter in the band,
pronounced the man a soldier, and, pulling
open his coat, found that he had on an officer's
waistcoat, with the button of the 15th Light
Dragoons.

The old mad dragoon (for such he proved)
was no conspirator. He had been badly
wounded in a pell-mell fight among the French
cavalry swords in Flanders, and he told
his story with a simple honesty that was not
without pathos. On being questioned by Mr.
Sheridan, he said, "he had no objection to tell
who he was. It was not over yet; there was a
great deal more and worse to be done. His
name was James Hatfield. He had served his
time to a working silversmith, but had enlisted
into the 15th Light Dragoons, and had fought
for his king and country." At this moment the
Prince of Wales and the Duke of York entered
the room to be present at the examination.
Hatfield immediately turned to the Duke, and
said:

"I know your royal highness—God bless
you. You are a good fellow. I have served
with your highness" (pointing to a deep cut
over his eye, and another long scar on his cheek),
he said. "I got these, and more than these,
in fighting by your side. At Lincelles I was
left three hours among the dead in a ditch,
and was taken prisoner by the French. I had
my arm broken by a shot, and eight sabre-
wounds in my head; but I recovered, and here
I am."

He then gave the following account of
himself and of his conduct. He said, that having
been discharged from the army on account of
his wounds, he had returned to London, and
now lived by working at his own trade for a Mr.
Solomon Hougham. He made a good deal of
money. Being weary of life, he last week
bought a pair of pistols from Mr. Wakelin,
a hairdresser and broker in St. John-street.
He told him they were for his young master,
who would give him a blunderbuss in exchange;
he had borrowed a crown from his master
that morning, with which he had bought some
powder; he went backwards to the yard of
an inn in Red Lion-street, and there he tried
his pistols. He found one of them good for
nothing, and left it behind him. In his own
trade he used lead, so he cut two slugs,
with which he loaded his pistol, and came to
the theatre. He did not wish to kill the king,
though he (Hatfield) was as good a shot as any
in England. He fired over the royal box. He
wished for death, but did not wish to fall by his
own hands. He had hoped that, in the alarm,
the spectators would have killed him. He hoped
that his life was forfeited.

Sir William Addington, the magistrate, who
had been placed in the chair, still harping on
conspiracy, asked Hatfield if he were a member
of the Corresponding Society? He replied
simply, No, but that he belonged to a club of
Odd Fellows and a benefit society. Being asked
if he had any accomplices, he solemnly declared
that he had none, and with great energy took
God to witness, placing his hand upon his
heart. From this time he began to show manifest
signs of mental derangement. When asked
who his father was, he said he had been postilion
to some duke, but could not say what duke.
He talked in a mysterious way of dreams, and
of a great commission he had received in his
sleep; he knew he was to be a martyr, and
was to be persecuted like his great master,
Jesus Christ. He had been persecuted in
France, but he had not yet been sufficiently
tried. He knew what he was to endure, but he
begged Sir William Addington to remember
that Jesus Christ had his trial before he was
crucified. It being proved that the least drink
had deranged Hatfield ever since his wounds in
the Netherlands, he was committed to Coldbathfields
prison: the Dukes of Clarence, and
Cumberland, and Mr. Sheridan, conducting him there.
He was then taken to the Duke of Portland's
office, and again examined.

The royal dukes, the manager, and some
officers, made strict search for the slugs that
had been fired. One was found in the orchestra,
it having ricocheted there after piercing the
canopy of the royal box; the second was found
in Lady Milner's box, where it had glanced
from the cornice of the king's box, which, raised
fifteen feet above the floor, was forty or fifty
feet from where Hatfield had stood.

On the 26th of June, Hatfield was tried for
high treason, in the Court of King's Bench,
before Lord Kenyon and the other judges. Mr.
Abbott (afterwards Lord Chief Justice) opened
the pleadings. Erskine conducted the defence,
and clearly proved the prisoner's insanity. The
evidence was interesting, in the proof it afforded
of the instantaneous way in which a brave and
daring soldier had been turned, by a blow or two
on the skull, into a dangerous fanatic, believing
himself a rightful claimant of the crown.

Hercules M'Gill said that he was in the
battle near Lisle, in which Hatfield was
wounded. Hatfield was on that occasion his
right-hand man, and received two scars in
attempting to rescue him. Hatfield fought with
bravery, and always testified a great attachment
for his sovereign. He was left for dead
on the field of battle, and the witness did not
see him again until the autumn of 1795, when
he came to Croydon barracks, to the great
surprise of the whole regiment. When the witness
went to see him at the hospital, he seized a
bayonet in a frantic manner, and made a lunge at
him. He did not recognise witness, and was
quite deranged.

One Lane, a soldier in the Coldstream
Regiment of Guards, said that he was a prisoner
in France in 1795, and that he was confined in
an hospital in St. Cyr, three miles from