In like manner, he represents his intercourse with Taber at Boston. Taber, he says, made certain confessions. They made a bargain for a disclosure or confession on one side, and a reward on the other. But no one heard these confessions except Goodridge himself. Taber now confronts him, and pronounces this part of his story to be wholly false; and there is nobody who can support the prosecutor.
A jury cannot too seriously reflect on this part of the case. There are many most important allegations of fact, which, if true, could easily be shown by other witnesses, and yet are not so shown.
How came Mr. Goodridge to set out from Bangor, armed in this formal and formidable manner? How came he to be so apprehensive of a robbery? The reason he gives is completely ridiculous. As the foundation of his alarm, he tells a story of a robbery which he had heard of, but which, as far as appears, no one else ever heard of; and the story itself is so perfectly absurd, it is difficult to resist the belief that it was the product of his imagination at the moment. He seems to have been a little too confident that an attempt would be made to rob him. The manner in which he carried his money, as he says, indicated a strong expectation of this sort. His gold he wrapped in a cambric cloth, put it into a shot bag, and then into a portmanteau. One parcel of bills, of a hundred dollars in amount, he put into his pocket-book; another, of somewhat more than a thousand dollars, he carried next his person, underneath all his clothes. Having disposed of his money in this way, and armed himself with two good pistols, he set out from Bangor. The jury will judge whether this extraordinary care of his money, and this formal arming of himself to defend it, are not circumstances of a very suspicious character.
He stated that he did not travel in the night; that he would not so much expose himself to robbers. He said that, when he came near Alfred, he did not go into the village, but stopped a few miles short, because night was coming on, and he would not trust himself and his money out at night. He represents himself to have observed this rule constantly and invariably until he got to Exeter. Yet, when the time came for the robbery, he was found out at night. He left Exeter about sunset, intending to go to Newburyport, fifteen miles distant, that evening. When he is asked how this should happen, he says he had no fear of robbers after he left the District of Maine. He thought himself quite safe when he arrived at Exeter. Yet he told the jury, that at Exeter he thought it necessary to load his pistol afresh. He asked for a private room at the inn. He told the persons in attendance that he wished such a room for the purpose of changing his clothes. He charged them not to suffer him to be interrupted. But he now testifies that his object was not to change his dress, but to put new loading into his pistols. What sort of a story is this?