e." So also might the
unhappy Jews of Damascus, whilst yielding to bodily
suffering and confessing their guilt, exclaim the moment
afterwards, "but yet we are innocent."

The whole of the pretended evidence against the
prisoners was obtained either by torture or fear of
torture, and the alleged agreement between the
statements of the different witnesses, on which great
stress has been laid, may easily be accounted for when
it is considered how impossible it would be for people
writhing under agonies of intense bodily suffering to
give their evidence in a clear and connected manner, and
how absolutely necessary it would be to extract their
confession from them word by word, affirmatively or
negatively--yes or no--through the agency of leading
questions.

On the other hand, the only two witnesses who appeared
in favour of the Jews were conveniently disposed of by
being bastinadoed to death. These were a young man, who
deposed to having spoken to Tommaso and his servant on
the evening of the alleged murder as they were
proceeding from the Jewish quarter, and the porter of
the gate near the house of David Arari, who stated that
he had heard or seen nothing of the priest's remains
being thrown into the sewer.

The evidence was awkward, and not at all suited to the
wishes of the prosecutors; and it proved fatal to the
witnesses who gave it.

But, exclaim those who argue in favour of the guilt of
the Jews, even although there is not sufficient legal
evidence to convict them of the crimes laid to their
charge, surely you must admit that, morally speaking,
there can be no doubt that they are actually guilty.
Far from it. Every reasonable consideration appears to
my mind to throw discredit on the statements of their
accusers, while the whole of the evidence teems with
obvious and palpable improbabilities.

For instance, to say nothing of the absence of any
rational assignable motive which could induce frontier
merchants--men of rank and influence among their own
people--men of wealth and consideration among their
neighbours--with everything to lose and nothing to gain,
to conspire together to commit two such atrocious
murders, is it likely for one moment, even if they did
so, that they should be so utterly devoid of all common
prudence, and so grossly infatuated, as to place
themselves in the power of two such inferior person