ably; not by arguments and inferences, and strains of wit, but by plain, direct and manifest proof, before you return a verdict of condemnation. If the smallest tittle of that proof should be wanting, you are bound by the oath you have taken, to acquit the prisoner. But, Gentlemen, in this case, wherever we turn our eyes, we are encountered by fresh doubts, doubts at least upon the law, doubts on the character of the transactions, doubts on the effect of the evidence, doubts on the credit due to the accomplices from whom it proceeded, doubts as to the motives, doubts as to the expressions, The prisoner was but a few hours with the party: when he left, we do not precisely know, but it was certainly before the dragoons came up; and in the absence of all direct and positive evidence, I submit that so many doubts on the one side, amount to absolute certainty on the other. On retiring from the box, and minutely examining the evidence, if your minds cannot be clearly and fully satisfied that this unfortunate man was guilty of the high offence imputed to him, you will rejoice in the verdict you must then pronounce. By whom these few poor unhappy and miserable wretches were corrupted and seduced from the path of duty, we are still entirely uninformed; was not that a doubt worth removing? No such attempt has been made, and it casts upon the whole proceeding, a cloud of the blackest suspicion. You will ask yourselves why it has been kept back, and not convict a man upon evidence thus managed and selected, and upon a few circumstances picked out of a long series of transactions, without knowing the origin and source of all, and who it was that tempted the miserable captain to betray these ignorant villagers into guilt and ruin.

It will then, gentlemen, be your happy privilege to give a turn to these prosecutions; this victim must be saved by your verdict; for the proof is manifestly defective, and the case abounds with doubt. I revert not to the past; but how enviable is your distinction, how blessed the lot that Providence has cast upon you! The waters of wrath are beginning to subside; it is for you to hold out the

olive branch, the auspicious symbol of pardon, hope, and joy. Yours will be the blessing of the peace-makers, yours will be the blessing of the merciful, who shall obtain that mercy which they extend to others. You will feel, with exalted pleasure, that your feelings can be reconciled with your duty; you will return to your homes with undoubting consciences, and embrace your families with arms unstained by blood; you will leave to your children, as their best inheritance, the memory of that just and humane verdict, the record of your honesty, your firmness, and your independence, which will be the pride and glory of your latest posterity, as long as that constitution endures, which is indebted for its life, its health, and its excellence, to the trial by Jury.

Mr. Justice Abbott. Isaac Ludlam, if you wish to say anything in addition to the observations of your Counsel, you are at liberty to do so; and this is the proper time for you to do it.

REPLY.

MR. SOLICITOR GENERAL.

May it please your Lordship,
Gentlemen of the Jury,

IT now becomes my painful duty to reply to the observations which have been made on the part of the prisoner by his Counsel; and to call back your attention from the powerful appeal which has been made to your feelings, by my learned friend who last addressed you, to that which you alone have to consider upon the present occasion, the facts and the law as applicable to this Case. Gentlemen, your decision is not to be influenced by those feelings, which every man must entertain upon an occasion like the present towards the unfortunate prisoner at the bar; nor is your verdict to be affected by any thing which has taken place upon former trials, or by what may succeed the present; your decision is to be formed upon the facts of this particular Case, and to those alone your attention will be by me directed.

Gentlemen, the situation which I fill upon the present occasion precludes me, even if my inclination were not in unison with my duty, from addressing any topics to you, which can either excite your prejudices or your feelings. To my learned friends who addressed you for the prisoners, that is reserved, and properly so; but to me, the single duty remains of calmly, temperately, dispassionately, without attempting, as I have already said, to rouse your prejudices or to influence your feelings, addressing what I have to say upon this subject to your understandings, and to your understandings alone.

Gentlemen, I had expected, from the discussions which have already at so much length taken place in the course of these trials, that I should not have had the task of addressing you again upon the subject of the law of the Case; and for a great length of time in the course of this

trial, during the whole indeed of the speech of the learned counsel who first spoke to you, and the greater part of my learned friend Mr. Denman's address, I was confirmed in the notion, that the point was at rest, and that it would have been perfectly unnecessary for me to say one syllable upon the law, as it applies to the charge now preferred against the prisoner at the bar, and that I might confine myself to what I humbly apprehend to be your province and your duty upon the present occasion.

Gentlemen; what is the constitution of the trial by jury, of which every Englishman is so proud, and the pre-eminence of which he boasts, over all the legal institutions of other countries? It is, that the prisoner accused of a crime shall be tried by twelve of his fellow-subjects, who are to determine upon the facts; and that the judges of the land, persons of education, of experience, of learning, who have made the law of the country their peculiar study, are to explain that law, and state it to the jury who are assembled, as you are, to decide upon the guilt or innocence of the person accused; but that with the judges, and with them only, shall be confided the exposition of the law upon which those jurymen are to act; and I must confess, that with all that respect which I and every man must entertain for the talents and abilities of my learned friend who last addressed you, and which have been so conspicuously displayed upon the present trials, I was surprised to hear him urge, upon the first trial, and to hear it repeated upon the present, that there is a distinction with respect to the crime of high treason; for such there is, if he be correct; that there is, I say, a distinction in the trial of the offence of high treason, from every other which can be brought before you for your decision; and that, upon that most heinous of all crimes in our penal code, you are to judge, not only of the facts but of the law of the case; I say, I was surprised, because I verily believe it was the first time that such a proposition ever was laid down in a Court of justice; it is unconfirmed by any former decision, and unsupported, I will venture to say, by a single authority or writer on the sub

ject. I therefore beg leave to state to you with great humility, but at the same time with the utmost confidence, that I shall be confirmed in what I say by the judges who preside upon this occasion, that that is not the law of the land, but that the crime of high treason is to be tried like every other crime; you are to hear, from the learned judges, what, in point of law, constitutes the offence, and then you are to be the judges whether the facts proved bring the prisoner's case within that law or not.

Gentlemen, my learned friend, in his argument on the law, which he has resumed to day, has stated to you, that the language of the Act of parliament is plain, with respect to levying war against the King, and that you are the proper persons to judge of the construction of that Act of parliament. What authority does my learned friend produce for this? Who, by the constitution of the country, is to expound the meaning of an Act of parliament upon any subject? Is it you, who from your situation in life, and from your pursuits and studies, cannot be supposed to understand correctly the laws of the country, or the expositions of Acts of parliament; or is it the learned judges of the land? Gentlemen, I beg leave to state, that with respect to the construction of this or any Act of parliament (if the construction were doubtful in this case, which I will shew you that it is not ;) if this Act of parliament, instead of having been passed so many centuries ago, and having received so many decisions upon it, had passed the last session, still you are bound to receive the exposition of it, from the learned judges; that you are not yourselves to put the construction upon it, but to receive it from those by whom by the law it is directed to be explained; therefore taking my learned friend's instance, if this was the first case tried upon this Act of parliament, you would be bound to receive the construction to be put upon that Act, from the judges who preside upon this occasion. But that however is not the fact here; and though my learned friend considers it as a misfortune upon the prisoner at the bar and those to be tried, that this Act passed so long ago, and that decisions have taken place,