who all
saw this gentleman in London, at an hour which was impossible,
consistently with the case for the prosecution, and who have no
interest, and had better means of knowledge than those who have been
called before you.

Gentlemen, I do not mean to say those witnesses who have been called
before you have been perjured; but I mean to say, they had not the same
means of knowledge with my witnesses; and that, except one of them, or
two at the utmost, they had not the day light to assist them in
observations they made upon this traveller. Be so good as to recollect
the circumstances under which he was supposed to have come to Dover; he
is found knocking at the door of the Ship Inn, about one in the morning;
the man belonging to the opposite house, having been carousing there at
a most astonishingly late hour for a reputable tradesman, in the town of
Dover, the hatter, the cooper, and the landlord, being sitting together,
hear a knocking at the door; and they find a man in the passage of the
house. Whom do they find there? a man dressed in the manner you have
heard described; but the person who sees him, and holds the candle in
the passage, has a very short conversation with him; the whole time he
saw him did not exceed five minutes, and in that time he went up to call
the landlord; he put the pen, ink and paper, into his room, and then he
left him; he did not see him without his cap, and yet he swears he is
the man; and he is not singular in that, for there are many others swear
to the same.

Gentlemen, it is a prejudice my client has to encounter, that we have
been engaged in this case seventeen hours; and that my learned friend,
Mr. Gurney, who opened the case, was in the full possession of his
powers, and that he has in a measure forestalled your minds by the
evidence he has given, and that the evidence given by me has to
eradicate the impressions which his statements and his evidence have
made. Gentlemen, I put questions to one of the witnesses which his
lordship thought were not of any weight, and _per se_ they were not
strong; but when we are proving identity every little circumstance goes
to the question, aye or no; we had some witnesses swearing to a slouch
cap, one which comes over the eyes, and another swearing that it was
like the coat, _grey_; another that it was a dark brown. If the _fac
simile_ is correct, there are discordances in the evidence which raise a
suspicion in my mind, a suspicion not that the