ed them
to go with him, and, by corrupt influences and inducements, caused them
to come to his ship, and then took and carried them down the river, then
the act was a larceny."

Upon these instructions of the judge, to which bills of exceptions were
filed by my counsel, the case, which had been already near a week on
trial, was argued to the jury. The District Attorney had the opening and
the close, and both my counsel had the privilege of speaking. For the
following sketch of the argument, as well as of the legal points already
noted, I am indebted to the notes of Mr. Hildreth, taken at the time:

"_District Attorney_.--I shall endeavor to be very brief
in the opening, reserving myself till I know the grounds
of defence. It is the duty of the jury to give their
verdict according to the law and evidence; and, so far
as I knew public opinion, there neither exists now, nor
has existed at any other time, the slightest desire on
the part of a single individual that the prisoner should
have otherwise than a fair trial. I think, therefore,
the solemn warnings by the prisoner's counsel to the
jury were wholly uncalled for. There was, no doubt, an
excitement out of doors,--a natural excitement,--at such
an amount of property snatched up at one fell swoop; but
was that to justify the suggestion to a jury of twelve
honest men that they were not to act the part of a mob?
The learned counsel who opened the case for the prisoner
has alluded to the disadvantage of his position from the
fact that he was a stranger. I acknowledge that
disadvantage, and I have attempted to remedy it, and so
has the court, by extending towards him every possible
courtesy.

"The prisoner's counsel seems to think I press this
matter too hard. But am I to sit coolly by and see the
hard-earned property of the inhabitants of this District
carried off, and when the felon is brought into court
not do my best to secure his conviction? [The District
Attorney here went into a long and labored defence of
the course he had taken in preferring against the
prisoner forty-one indictments for larceny, and
seventy-four others, on the same state of facts, for
transportation. He denied that the forty-one larcenies
of the property of different individuals could be
included in one indictment, and declared that if the
prisoner's counsel w