r. Wood's, at Westminster, and they all fixed upon Mr.
De Berenger, not corruptly, but in consequence of being carried there,
and his being pointed out as the man by Mr. Lavie and some of his
clerks; they come readily enough and fix upon him; the deaf man not so
easily, but at last he did it too; and it struck me, the question I put
to that deaf man was extremely relevant. I cannot tell by a witness's
face whether he is merely an actor or not, and especially when my
instructions tell me he is mistaken; I wished therefore to know, whether
he was not looking round the court to give it the air of probability,
and whether he had been standing behind, so as to see the others point
out Mr. De Berenger, whom they all knew, because most of them had seen
him since that time; some of them had not I admit; he is a
soldierly-looking man, and a man likely from the description to be fixed
upon. My learned friend seemed to think that one of the witnesses had
not a fair opportunity of seeing his person, in consequence of his
holding down his head; the fact was, he was taking notes (for he has
taken a very full note); but without meaning to do anything improper, I
said, hold up your head, and he did so immediately; his recognizance was
to appear here to-day, not fearing to have all enquiry made respecting
him and as it appeared to me; he did not on any one occasion attempt to
conceal his person from their observation, I do say, gentlemen, that the
means of knowledge of these witnesses are so slight, that if I call
witnesses to prove, not by vague surmise, never having seen him before,
that he was in their society and company that evening so late, as to
render it impossible that he should have been at Dover that night. But
supposing that the evidence of _alibi_ should not be satisfactory, it
then comes back to the other observations made in the prior part of the
defence.

Gentlemen, this is the general nature of the defence I have to make to
you. You will, I have no doubt, endeavour to free yourselves from all
prejudice infused into your minds; and will come to your conclusion with
a desire to do justice. And I trust that you will, in the result of this
long hearing, be enabled to pronounce, that this defendant, for whom I
am counsel (not meaning by that to exclude any of the rest, but he is
the only one committed to my care) is not guilty of the charge imputed
to him.

MR. SERJEANT PELL.

May it please your Lordship,

Gentlemen o