erity in your answers; but
you will learn, young man, to your cost, that dexterity, however
powerful it may be in certain cases, will avail little against the
stubbornness of truth. It is fortunate for mankind that the empire of
talents has its limitations, and that it is not in the power of
ingenuity to subvert the distinctions of right and wrong. Take my word
for it, that the true merits of the case against you will be too strong
for sophistry to overturn; that justice will prevail, and impotent
malice be defeated.

"To you, Mr. Falkland, society is obliged for having placed this black
affair in its true light. Do not suffer the malignant aspersions of the
criminal to give you uneasiness. Depend upon it that they will be found
of no weight I have no doubt that your character, in the judgment of
every person that has heard them, stands higher than ever. We feel for
your misfortune, in being obliged to hear such calumnies from a person
who has injured you so grossly. But you must be considered in that
respect as a martyr in the public cause. The purity of your motives and
dispositions is beyond the reach of malice; and truth and equity will
not fail to award, to your calumniator infamy, and to you the love and
approbation of mankind.

"I have now told you, Williams, what I think of your case. But I have no
right to assume to be your ultimate judge. Desperate as it appears to
me, I will give you one piece of advice, as if I were retained as a
counsel to assist you. Leave out of it whatever tends to the
disadvantage of Mr. Falkland. Defend yourself as well as you can, but do
not attack your master. It is your business to create in those who hear
you a prepossession in your favour. But the recrimination you have been
now practising, will always create indignation. Dishonesty will admit of
some palliation. The deliberate malice you have now been showing is a
thousand times more atrocious. It proves you to have the mind of a
demon, rather than of a felon. Wherever you shall repeat it, those who
hear you will pronounce you guilty upon that, even if the proper
evidence against you were glaringly defective. If therefore you would
consult your interest, which seems to be your only consideration, it is
incumbent upon you by all means immediately to retract that. If you
desire to be believed honest, you must in the first place show that you
have a due sense of merit in others. You cannot better serve your cause
than by begging p