pernicious counsel has led. If it be a case of felony,
he is by the common law an accessory before the fact, and by
the laws of the United States and of this State, is
punishable to the same extent as the principal felon. If it
be a case of misdemeanor, the adviser is himself a principal
offender, and is to be indicted and punished as if he
himself had done the criminal act. It may be important for
you to know what, in point of law, amounts to such an
advising or counselling another as will be sufficient to
constitute this legal element in the offence. It is laid
down by high authority, that though a mere tacit
acquiescence, or words, which amount to a bare permission,
will not be sufficient, yet such a procurement may be,
either by direct means, as by hire, counsel, or command, or
indirect, by evincing an express liking, approbation, or
assent to another's criminal design. From the nature of the
case, the law can prescribe only general rules on this
subject. My instruction to you is, that language addressed
to persons who immediately afterwards commit an offence,
actually intended by the speaker to incite those addressed
to commit it, and adapted thus to incite them, is such a
counselling or advising to the crime as the law
contemplates, and the person so inciting others is liable to
be indicted as a principal.

"In the case of the _Commonwealth_ v. _Bowen_ (13 Mass. R.
359), which was an indictment for counselling another to
commit suicide, tried in 1816, Chief Justice Parker
instructing the jury, and speaking for the Supreme Court of
Massachusetts, said:--

"'The government is not bound to prove that Jewett would not
have hung himself, had Bowen's counsel never reached his
ear. The very act of advising to the commission of a crime
is of itself unlawful. The presumption of law is that advice
has the influence and effect intended by the adviser, unless
it is shown to have been otherwise; as that the counsel was
received with scoff, or was manifestly rejected and
ridiculed at the time it was given. It was said in the
argument that Jewett's abandoned and depraved character
furnishes ground to believe that he would have committed the
act without such advice from Bowen. Without doubt he was a
hardened and depraved wretch