r play;' and while
attempting to escape from the place in peace, he was intercepted, struck
down, and beaten to the effusion of his blood.

"Gentlemen of the jury, it was with some impatience that I heard my
learned brother who opened the case for the crown give an unfavourable
turn to the prisoner's conduct on this occasion. He said the prisoner
was afraid to encounter his antagonist in fair fight, or to submit to
the laws of the ring; and that therefore, like a cowardly Italian, he
had recourse to his fatal stiletto, to murder the man whom he dared not
meet in manly encounter. I observed the prisoner shrink from this part
of the accusation with the abhorrence natural to a brave man; and as I
would wish to make my words impressive when I point his real crime, I
must secure his opinion of my impartiality by rebutting everything that
seems to me a false accusation. There can be no doubt that the prisoner
is a man of resolution--too much resolution. I wish to Heaven that he
had less--or, rather that he had had a better education to regulate it.

"Gentlemen, as to the laws my brother talks of, they may be known in the
bull-ring, or the bear-garden, or the cock-pit, but they are not known
here. Or, if they should be so far admitted as furnishing a species of
proof that no malice was intended in this sort of combat, from which
fatal accidents do sometimes arise, it can only be so admitted when both
parties are IN PARI CASU, equally acquainted with, and equally willing
to refer themselves to, that species of arbitrament. But will it be
contended that a man of superior rank and education is to be subjected,
or is obliged to subject himself, to this coarse and brutal strife,
perhaps in opposition to a younger, stronger, or more skilful opponent?
Certainly even the pugilistic code, if founded upon the fair play of
Merry Old England, as my brother alleges it to be, can contain nothing
so preposterous. And, gentlemen of the jury, if the laws would support
an English gentleman, wearing, we will suppose, his sword, in defending
himself by force against a violent personal aggression of the nature
offered to this prisoner, they will not less protect a foreigner and a
stranger, involved in the same unpleasing circumstances. If, therefore,
gentlemen of the jury, when thus pressed by a VIS MAJOR, the object of
obloquy to a whole company, and of direct violence from one at least,
and, as he might reasonably apprehend, from more, the panel