it, the accuracy of which you cannot doubt.
I think you cannot doubt that there was a conspiracy formed for the
purpose of committing this murder, and who the conspirators were:

That you cannot doubt that the Crowninshields and the Knapps were the
parties in this conspiracy:

That you cannot doubt that the prisoner at the bar knew that the murder
was to be done on the night of the 6th of April:

That you cannot doubt that the murderers of Captain White were the
suspicious persons seen in and about Brown Street on that night:

That you cannot doubt that Richard Crowninshield was the perpetrator of
that crime:

That you cannot doubt that the prisoner at the bar was in Brown Street
on that night.

If there, then it must be by agreement, to countenance, to aid the
perpetrator. And if so, then he is guilty as PRINCIPAL.

Gentlemen, your whole concern should be to do your duty, and leave
consequences to take care of themselves. You will receive the law from
the court. Your verdict, it is true, may endanger the prisoner's life,
but then it is to save other lives. If the prisoner's guilt has been
shown and proved beyond all reasonable doubt, you will convict him. If
such reasonable doubts of guilt still remain, you will acquit him. You
are the judges of the whole case. You owe a duty to the public, as well
as to the prisoner at the bar. You cannot presume to be wiser than the
law. Your duty is a plain, straightforward one. Doubtless we would all
judge him in mercy. Towards him, as an individual, the law inculcates no
hostility; but towards him, if proved to be a murderer, the law, and the
oaths you have taken, and public justice, demand that you do your duty.

With consciences satisfied with the discharge of duty, no consequences
can harm you. There is no evil that we cannot either face or fly from,
but the consciousness of duty disregarded. A sense of duty pursues us
ever. It is omnipresent, like the Deity. If we take to ourselves the
wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, duty
performed, or duty violated, is still with us, for our happiness or our
misery. If we say the darkness shall cover us, in the darkness as in the
light our obligations are yet with us. We cannot escape their power, nor
fly from their presence. They are with us in this life, will be with us
at its close; and in that scene of inconceivable solemnity, which lies
yet farther onward, we shall still find ourselves surround