n
the subject of slavery, unless he be blinded by some
film of interest,--to hesitate a moment as to his
conclusions. [The District Attorney here proceeded at
great length, and with a great air of offended dignity,
to complain of having been schooled and advised by the
prisoner's counsel, and to justify the use of the foul
epithets he had bestowed on the prisoner.] This is not a
place for parlor talk. I had chosen the English words
that conveyed my meaning most distinctly. It was all
very well for the prisoner's counsel to smooth things
over; but was I, instead of calling him a liar, to say,
he told a fib? When I call him a thief and a felon, do I
go beyond the charge of the grand jury in the
indictment? If this is stepping over the limits of
propriety, in all similar cases I shall do the same. I
do not intend to blackguard the prisoner,--I do not
delight in using these epithets. My heart is not locked
up; I am no Jack Ketch, prosecuting criminals for ten
dollars a head. I sympathize with the wretches brought
here; but when I choose to call them by their proper
names I am not to be accused of bandying epithets. [The
District Attorney then proceeded also at great length,
and in a high key, to justify his hundred and
twenty-five indictments against the prisoner, and to
clear himself from the imputation of mercenary motives,
on the ground that the business of the year,
independently of these indictments, would furnish the
utmost amount to which he was entitled. He next referred
to the matter of the brig testified to by Captain Baker,
which had been made the occasion of much ridicule by the
prisoner's counsel. Part of the evidence which he had
relied on in connection with the brig had been ruled
out; and the law, as laid down by the court, according
to which taking to liberate was the same as taking to
steal, had made it unnecessary for him, so he said, to
dwell on this part of the case. Yet he now proceeded to
argue at great length, from the testimony in the case,
that there must have been a connection between the brig
and the schooner; that, as the schooner was confessedly
unseaworthy, and could not have gone out of the bay, it
must have been the intention to put the slaves on board
the brig, and to carry them off to Cuba or elsewhere and
sell the