g entered
by stealth from without; and his house situated within three hundred
feet of this street. The windows of his chamber were in plain sight from
this street; a weapon of death is afterwards found in a place where
these persons were seen to pass, in a retired place, around which they
had been seen lingering. It is now known that this murder was committed
by four persons, conspiring together for this purpose. No account is
given who these suspected persons thus seen in Brown Street and its
neighborhood were. Now, I ask, Gentlemen, whether you or any man can
doubt that this murder was committed by the persons who were thus in and
about Brown Street. Can any person doubt that they were there for
purposes connected with this murder? If not for this purpose, what were
they there for? When there is a cause so near at hand, why wander into
conjecture for an explanation? Common-sense requires you to take the
nearest adequate cause for a known effect. Who were these suspicious
persons in Brown Street? There was something extraordinary about them;
something noticeable, and noticed at the time; something in their
appearance that aroused suspicion. And a man is found the next morning
murdered in the near vicinity.

Now, so long as no other account shall be given of those suspicious
persons, so long the inference must remain irresistible that they were
the murderers. Let it be remembered, that it is already shown that this
murder was the result of conspiracy and of concert; let it be
remembered, that the house, having been opened from within, was entered
by stealth from without. Let it be remembered that Brown Street, where
these persons were repeatedly seen under such suspicious circumstances,
was a place from which every occupied room in Mr. White's house is
clearly seen; let it be remembered, that the place, though thus very
near to Mr. White's house, is a retired and lonely place; and let it be
remembered that the instrument of death was afterwards found concealed
very near the same spot.

Must not every man come to the conclusion, that these persons thus seen
in Brown Street were the murderers? Every man's own judgment, I think,
must satisfy him that this must be so. It is a plain deduction of common
sense. It is a point on which each one of you may reason like a Hale or
a Mansfield. The two occurrences explain each other. The murder shows
why these persons were thus lurking, at that hour, in Brown Street; and
their lur