first newspaper reports were optimistic: "The ball has been extracted. No vital part is injured, and [surgeons] Mr Guthrie and Mr Bransby Cooper have every reason to believe that Mr. Drummond is doing very well." But complications set in and possibly because of the surgeons' bleeding and leeching, Drummond died five days later. M'Naghten appeared at the Bow Street magistrates' court the morning after the assassination attempt. He made a brief statement in which he described how persecution by the Tories had driven him to act: "The Tories in my native city have compelled me to do this. They follow, persecute me wherever I go, and have entirely destroyed my peace of mind... It can be proved by evidence. That is all I have to say." It was indeed all he had to say. He never spoke about the assassination again (apart from a dozen words when asked to plead guilty or not guilty at arraignment). Trial When M'Naghten was arrested, a bank receipt for £750 was found on him. His father successfully applied to the court to have the money released to finance his defence, and for the case to be adjourned for evidence relating to M'Naghten's state of mind to be gathered. A date was set for Friday 3 March. The speed and efficiency with which M'Naghten's defence was organised suggests that a number of powerful people in law and medicine were waiting for an opportunity to bring about changes in the law on criminal insanity. M'Naghten's trial for the "wilful murder of Mr Drummond" took place at the Central Criminal Court, Old Bailey, Thursday and Friday, 2–3 March 1843, before Chief Justice Tindal, Justice Williams and Justice Coleridge. When asked to plead guilty or not guilty, M'Naghten had said "I was driven to desperation by persecution" and, when pressed, "I am guilty of firing", which was taken as a not guilty plea. M'Naghten's defence team was led by one of London's best-known barristers, Alexander Cockburn. The case was prosecuted by the solicitor-general, Sir William Follett (the attorney-general being busy in Lancaster prosecuting Feargus O'Connor and 57 other Chartists following the plug riots). Both prosecution and defence based their cases on what constituted a legal defence of insanity. Both sides agreed that M'Naghten suffered from delusions of persecution. The prosecution argued that, in spite of his "partial insanity", he was a responsible agent, capable of distinguishing right from