ave
no doubt you are honorable men, you cannot have lived in this city, in
which you are all merchants, for the last two months of your lives,
without having every hour of the day, and at every meal at which you sat
down, had your ears assailed by accounts of this transaction, and there
is no one, however honourable he may be, who can prevent his mind being
biassed by circumstances stated in common conversation. Gentlemen, I
only know this matter publicly; but I declare one could hardly go into
any company, where the discourse has not been turned upon this very
circumstance we are now discussing; how difficult is it then for you to
recollect, that you are not to decide upon any thing you heard before
you came into that box, but upon the evidence produced before you. But,
did my learned friend himself follow that course which he prescribed to
you? Did he embark no prejudice into this matter? My learned friend will
give me leave to say, that I own it is quite new to me, that in
discussing criminal matters, the counsel for the prosecution are to
argue it and labour it as they would a cause between party and party:--I
dare say I have been extremely faulty in that respect, but having been
engaged in criminal prosecutions, chiefly in the service of His Majesty,
I never thought myself at liberty so to treat criminal prosecutions. I
have generally acted on the opposite scheme, and mean, till corrected,
so to continue to act; but at all events, I am surprised that my learned
friend, with whose good nature in private life we are all acquainted,
should have introduced before you, that which I say my learned friend's
great experience in courts of justice told him, before he pronounced it,
he had no right to read in evidence before you. I do not speak lightly
of this; you will remember we had an affidavit, supposed to have been
made by William Smith, read verbatim from some pamphlet my learned
friend had in his hand; he knew perfectly well that it could not be
given in evidence; if William Smith was called as a witness, undoubtedly
my learned friend might ask him, whether he had not sworn the contrary
at another time; but it will be for my learned friend to explain to you,
under what rule it was, that he was at liberty to read such a document
as a part of his speech, which, by the rules of law, could not be
received in evidence in this place.

Gentlemen, there was another circumstance which my learned friend has
introduced to prejud