ted that treason in secret which openly they dared
not proclaim. If they were sparing of their blood, they were lavish
of their gold; what they failed in courage they supplied in assignats.
Large promises of gain, rich offers of booty, were rife throughout the
land; and wherever disaffection lurked or rebellion lingered, the enemy
of England found congenial allies. Nothing too base, nothing too
low, for this confederacy of crime; neither was anything too lowly in
condition or too humble in efficiency. Treason cannot choose its agents;
it must take the tools which chance and circumstances offer: they may
be the refuse of mankind, but if inefficient for good, they are not the
less active for evil. Such a one was the youth who now stands a prisoner
before you, and here was the price of his disloyalty."

At these words he held up triumphantly the French assignat, and waved it
before the eyes of the court. However little the circumstances weighed
within me, such was the impression manifestly produced upon the jury by
this piece of corroborative evidence, that a thrill of anxiety for the
result ran suddenly through me.

Until that moment I believed Darby had repossessed himself of the
assignat when Crofts lay insensible on the ground; at least I remembered
well that he stooped over him and appeared to take something from him.
While I was puzzling my mind on this point, I did not remark that
the lawyer was proceeding to impress on the jury the full force of
conviction such a circumstance implied.

The offer I had made to Crofts to barter the assignat for an English
note; my urgent entreaty to have it restored to me; the arguments I had
employed to persuade him that no suspicion could attach to my possession
of it,--were all narrated with so little of exaggeration that I was
actually unable to say what assertion I could object to, while I was
conscious that the inferences sought to be drawn from them were false
and unjust.

Having displayed with consummate skill the critical position this paper
had involved me in, he took the opportunity of contrasting the anxiety I
evinced for my escape from my difficulty, with the temperate conduct
of my antagonist, whose loyalty left him no other course than to retain
possession of the note, and inquire into the circumstances by which it
reached my hands.

Irritated by the steady determination of Crofts, it was said that I
endeavored by opprobrious epithets and insulting language to pro