Personal Memoir of Daniel Drayton Part 3

"_Judge Crawford_.--A certain lat.i.tude is to be allowed to counsel in this case; but I cannot permit any harangue against slavery to be delivered here.

"_Carlisle (rising suddenly and stepping forward_).--I am sure your honor must be laboring under some strange misapprehension. Born and bred and expecting to live and die in a slave-holding community, and entertaining no ideas different from those, which commonly prevail here, I have watched the course of my a.s.sociate's argument with the closest attention. The point he is making, I am sure, is most pertinent to the case,--a point it would be cowardice in the prisoner's counsel not to make; and I must beg your honor to deliberate well before you undertake to stop the mouths of counsel, and to take care that you have full const.i.tutional warrant for doing so.

"_Judge Crawford_.--I can't permit an harangue against slavery."

Mr. Mann proceeded to explain the point at which he was aiming. He had read these extracts from Mr. Foote's speech, delivered to a miscellaneous collection of blacks and whites, bond and free, a.s.sembled before the _Union_ office, as showing to what exciting influences the slaves of the District were exposed, independently of any particular pains taken by anybody to make them discontented; and, with the same object in view, he proposed to read some further extracts from other speeches delivered on the same occasion.

"_District Attorney_.--If this matter is put in as evidence, it must first be proved that such speeches were delivered.

"_Mann_.--If the authenticity of the speeches is denied, I will call the Honorable Mr. Foote to prove it.

"_District Attorney_.--What newspaper is that from which the counsel reads?

"_Mann_ (_holding it up_).--The Washington _Union_, of April 19th."

And, without further objection, he proceeded to read some further extracts.

He concluded by urging upon the jury that this case was to be viewed merely as an attempt of certain slaves to escape from their masters, and on my part an attempt to a.s.sist them in so doing; and therefore a case under the statute of 1796, punishable with fine; and not a larceny, as charged against me in this indictment.

Several witnesses were called who had known me in Philadelphia, to testify as to my good character. The District Attorney was very anxious to get out of these witnesses whether they had never heard me spoken of as a man likely to run away with slaves? And it did come out from one of them that, from the tenor of my conversation, it used sometimes to be talked over, that one day or other it "would heave up" that I had helped off some negro to a free state. But these conversations, the witness added, were generally in a jesting tone; and another witness stated that the charge of running off slaves was a common joke among the watermen.

According to the practice in the Maryland criminal courts,--and the same practice prevails in the District of Columbia,--the judge does not address the jury at all. After the evidence is all in, the counsel, before arguing the case, may call upon the judge to give to the jury instructions as to the law. These instructions, which are offered in writing, and argued by the counsel, the judge can give or refuse, as he sees fit, or can alter them to suit himself; but any such refusal or alteration furnishes ground for a bill of exceptions, on which the case, if a verdict is given against the prisoner, may be carried by writ of error before the Circuit Court of the District, for their revisal.

My counsel asked of the judge no less than fourteen instructions on different points of law, ten of which the judge refused to give, and modified to suit himself. Several of these related to the true definition of theft, or what it was that makes a taking larceny.

It was contended by my counsel, and they asked the judge to instruct the jury, that, to convict me of larceny, it must be proved that the taking the slaves on board the Pearl was with the intent to convert them to my own use, and to derive a gain from such conversion; and that, if they believed that the slaves were received on board with the design to help them to escape to a free state, then the offence was not larceny, but a violation of the statute of 1796.

This instruction, variously put, was six times over asked of the judge, and as often refused. He was no less anxious than the District Attorney to convict me of larceny, and send me to the penitentiary. But, having a vast deal more sense than the District Attorney, he saw that the idea that I had carried off these negroes to sell them again for my own profit was not tenable. It was plain enough that my intention was to help them to escape. The judge therefore, who did not lack ingenuity, went to work to twist the law so as, if possible, to bring my case within it. Even he did not venture to say that merely to a.s.sist slaves to escape was stealing. Stealing, he admitted, must be a taking, _lucri causa_, for the sake of gain; but--so he told the jury in one of his instructions--"this desire of gain need not be to convert the article taken to his--the taker's--own use, nor to obtain for the thief the value in money of the thing stolen. If the act was prompted by a desire to obtain for himself, or another even, other than the owner, a money gain, or any other inducing advantage, a dishonest gain, then the act was a larceny." And, in another instruction, he told the jury, "that if they believed, from the evidence, that the prisoner, before receiving the slaves on board, imbued their minds with discontent, persuaded them to go with him, and, by corrupt influences and inducements, caused them to come to his ship, and then took and carried them down the river, then the act was a larceny."

Upon these instructions of the judge, to which bills of exceptions were filed by my counsel, the case, which had been already near a week on trial, was argued to the jury. The District Attorney had the opening and the close, and both my counsel had the privilege of speaking. For the following sketch of the argument, as well as of the legal points already noted, I am indebted to the notes of Mr. Hildreth, taken at the time:

"_District Attorney_.--I shall endeavor to be very brief in the opening, reserving myself till I know the grounds of defence. It is the duty of the jury to give their verdict according to the law and evidence; and, so far as I knew public opinion, there neither exists now, nor has existed at any other time, the slightest desire on the part of a single individual that the prisoner should have otherwise than a fair trial. I think, therefore, the solemn warnings by the prisoner's counsel to the jury were wholly uncalled for. There was, no doubt, an excitement out of doors,--a natural excitement,--at such an amount of property s.n.a.t.c.hed up at one fell swoop; but was that to justify the suggestion to a jury of twelve honest men that they were not to act the part of a mob?

The learned counsel who opened the case for the prisoner has alluded to the disadvantage of his position from the fact that he was a stranger. I acknowledge that disadvantage, and I have attempted to remedy it, and so has the court, by extending towards him every possible courtesy.

"The prisoner's counsel seems to think I press this matter too hard. But am I to sit coolly by and see the hard-earned property of the inhabitants of this District carried off, and when the felon is brought into court not do my best to secure his conviction? [The District Attorney here went into a long and labored defence of the course he had taken in preferring against the prisoner forty-one indictments for larceny, and seventy-four others, on the same state of facts, for transportation. He denied that the forty-one larcenies of the property of different individuals could be included in one indictment, and declared that if the prisoner's counsel would show the slightest authority for it he would give up the case. After going on in this strain for an hour or more, attacking the opposite counsel and defending himself, in what Carlisle p.r.o.nounced 'the most extraordinary opening argument he had ever heard in his life,' the District Attorney came down at last to the facts of the case."]

"In what position is the prisoner placed by the evidence? How is he introduced to the jury by his Philadelphia friends? These witnesses were examined as to his character, and the substance of their testimony is, that he is a man who would steal a negro if he got a chance. He pa.s.sed for honest otherwise. But he says himself he would steal a negro to liberate him, and the court says it makes no difference whether he steals to liberate or steals to sell. Being caught in the act, he acknowledges his guilt, and says he was a deserter from his G.o.d,--a backslider,--a church-member one year--the next, in the Potomac with a schooner, stealing seventy-four negroes! Why say he took them for gain, if he did not steal them? Why say he knew he should end his days in a penitentiary? Why say if he got off with the negroes he should have realized an independent fortune?

Did he not know they were slaves? He chartered the vessel to carry off negroes; and, if they were free negroes, or he supposed them to be, how was he to realize an independent fortune? He was afraid of the excitement at Washington. Why so, if the negroes were not slaves? There was the fact of their being under the hatches, concealed in the hold of the vessel,--did not that prove he meant to steal them? Add to that the other fact of his leaving at night. He comes here with a miserable load of wood; gives it away; sells it for a note; did not care about the wood, wanted only to get it out; had a longing for a cargo of negroes. The wood was a blind; besides he lied about it;--would he have ever come back to collect his note? But the prisoner's counsel says the slaves might have heard Mr. Foote's torch-light oration, and so have been persuaded to go. A likely story! They all started off, I suppose, ran straight down to the vessel and got into the hold!

Seventy-four negroes all together! But was not the vessel chartered in Philadelphia to carry off negroes?

This shows the excessive weakness of the defence. And how did the slaves behave after they were captured? If they had been running away, would they not have been downcast and disheartened? Would not they have said, Now we are taken? On the other hand, according to the testimony of Major Williams, on their way back they were laughing, shouting and eating mola.s.ses in large quant.i.ties. Nero fiddled when Rome was burning, but did not eat mola.s.ses. What a transition, from liberty to mola.s.ses!

"Then it is proved that the bulkhead between the cabin and the hold was knocked down, and that the slaves went to Drayton and asked if they should fight. Did not that show his authority over them,--that the slaves were under his control, and that he was the master-spirit? It speaks volumes. [Here followed a long eulogy on the gallantry and humanity of the thirty-five captors. One man did threaten a little, but he was drunk.]

"The substance of the law, as laid down by the judge, is this: If Drayton came here to carry off these people, and, by machinations, prevailed on them to go with him, and knew they were slaves, it makes no difference whether he took them to liberate, or took them to sell.

If he was to be paid for carrying them away, that was gain enough. Suppose a man were to take it into his head that the northern factories were very bad things for the health of the factory-girls, and were to go with a schooner for the purpose of liberating those poor devils by stealing the spindles, would not he be served as this prisoner is served here? Would they not exhaust the law-books to find the severest punishment? There may be those carried so far by a miserable mistaken philanthropy as even to steal slaves for the sake of setting them at liberty. But this prisoner says he did it for gain. We might look upon him with some respect if, in a manly style, he insisted on his right to liberate them. But he avowedly steals for gain. He lies about it, besides. Even a jury of abolitionists would have no sympathy for such a man. Try him anyhow, by the word of G.o.d--by the rules of common honesty--he would be convicted, anyhow. He is presented to the world at large as a rogue and a common thief and liar. There can be no other conception of him. He did it for dishonest gain.

"The prisoner must be convicted. He cannot escape. There can be no manner of doubt as to his guilt. I am at a loss, without appearing absurd in my own eyes, to conceive what kind of a defence can be made.

"I have not the least sort of feeling against the wretch himself,--I desire a conviction from principle. I have heard doctrines a.s.serted on this trial that strike directly at the rights and liberty of southern citizens.

I have heard counsel seeking to establish principles that strike directly at the security of southern property. I feel no desire that this man, as a man, should be convicted; but I do desire that all persons inclined to infringe on our rights of property should know that there is a law hero to punish them, and I am happy that the law has been so clearly laid down by the court. Let it be known from Maine to Texas, to earth's widest limits, that we have officers and juries to execute that law, no matter by whom it may be violated!

"_Mann_--for the prisoner--regretted to occupy any more of the jury's time with this very protracted trial. I mentioned, some days since, that the prisoner was liable, under the indictments against him, to eight hundred years imprisonment,--a term hardly to be served out by Methuselah himself; but, apart from any punishment, if his hundred and twenty-five trials are to proceed at this rate, the chance is he will die without ever reaching their termination. The District Attorney has dwelt at great length on what pa.s.sed the other day, and more than once he has pointedly referred to me, in a tone and manner not to be mistaken. I have endeavored to conduct this trial according to the principles of law, and to that standard I mean to come up. My client, though a prisoner at this bar, has rights, legal, social, human; and upon those rights I mean to insist. This is the first time in my life that I ever heard a prisoner on trial, and before conviction, denounced as a liar, a thief, a felon, a wretch, a rogue. It is unjust to apply these terms to any man on trial. The law presumes him to be innocent. The feelings of the prisoner ought not to be thus outraged. He is unfortunate; he may be guilty; that is the very point you are to try.

"This prisoner is charged with stealing two slaves, the property of Andrew Houver. Did he, or not? That point you are to try by the law and the evidence. Because you may esteem this a peculiarly valuable kind of property, you are not to measure out in this case a peculiar kind of justice. You have heard the evidence; the law for the purposes of this trial you are to take from the judge.

But you are not to be led away with the idea that you must convict this prisoner at any rate. It is a well-established principle that it is better for an indefinite number of guilty men to escape than for one innocent man to be convicted and punished; and for the best of reasons,--for to have the very machinery established for the protection of right turned into an instrument for the infliction of wrong, strikes a more fatal blow at civil society than any number of unpunished private injuries.

"Nor is there any danger that the prisoner will escape due punishment for any crimes he may have committed.

Besides this and forty other larceny indictments hanging over his head, there are seventy-four transportation indictments against him. Now, he cannot be guilty of both; and which of these offences, if either, does the evidence against him prove?

"Who is this man? Look at him! You see he has pa.s.sed the meridian of life. You have heard about him from his neighbors. They p.r.o.nounce him a fair, upright, moral man. No suspicion hitherto was ever breathed against his honesty. He was a professor of religion, and, so far as we know, had walked in all the ordinances and commands of the law blameless. Now, in all cases of doubt, a fair and exemplary character, especially in an elderly man, is a great capital to begin with. This prisoner may have been mistaken in his views as to matters of human right; but, as to violating what he believed to be duty, there is not the slightest evidence that such was his character, but abundance to the contrary. He is found under circ.u.mstances that make him amenable to the law; let him be tried,--I do not gainsay that; but let him have the common sentiments of humanity extended toward him, even if he be guilty.

"The point urged against him with such earnestness--I may say vehemence--is, not that he took the slaves merely, but that he took them with design to steal. His confessions are dwelt upon, stated and overstated, as you will recollect. But consider under what circ.u.mstances these alleged confessions were made. There are circ.u.mstances which make such statements very fallacious. Consider his excitement--his state of health; for it is in evidence that he had been out of health, suffering with some disorder which required his head to be shaved. Consider the armed men that surrounded him, and the imminent peril in which he believed his life to be. It is great injustice to brand him with the foul epithet of liar for any little discrepancies, if such there were, in statements made under such circ.u.mstances. Other matters have been forced in, of a most extraordinary character, to prejudice his case in your eyes. It has been suggested--the idea has been thrown out, again and again--that, under pretence of helping them to freedom, he meant to sell these negroes. This suggestion, which outruns all reason and discretion, is founded on the simple fact of a brig seen lying at anchor in a place of common anchorage, suggesting no suspicious appearance, but as to which you are asked to infer that these seventy-six slaves were to be transported into her, and carried to Cuba or elsewhere for sale. What a monstrous imagination! What a gross libel on that brig, her officers, her crew, her owners, all of whom are thus charged as kidnappers and pirates; and all this baseless dream got up for the purpose of influencing your minds against the prisoner!

It marks, indeed, with many other things, the style in which this prosecution is conducted.

"Take the law as laid down by the court, and it is necessary for the government to prove, if this indictment is to be sustained, that the prisoner corrupted the minds of Houver's slaves, and induced and persuaded them to go on board his vessel. They were found on board the prisoner's vessel, no doubt; but as to how they came there we have not a particle of evidence. Here is a gap, a fatal gap, in the government's case. By what second-sight are you to look into this void s.p.a.ce and time, and to say that Drayton enticed them to go on board? [The counsel here read from 1 _Starkie on Evidence,_ 510, &c., to the effect that the prosecution are bound by the evidence to exclude every hypothesis inconsistent with the prisoner's guilt.] Now, is it the only possible means of accounting for the presence of Houver's slaves on board to suppose that this prisoner enticed them? Might not somebody else have done it? Might they not have gone without being enticed at all? We wished to call the slaves themselves as witnesses, but the law shuts up their mouths. Can you, without any evidence, say that Drayton enticed them, and that by no other means could they come onboard? Presumptive evidence, as laid down in the book--an acknowledged and unquestioned authority--from which I have read, ought to be equally strong with the evidence of one unimpeached witness swearing positively to the fact. Are you as sure that Drayton enticed those slaves as if that fact had been positively sworn to by one witness, testifying that he stood by and saw and heard it? If you are not, then, under the law as laid down by the court, you can not find him guilty.

"_Thursday, Aug_. 13.

"_Carlisle_, for the prisoner.--The sun under which we draw our breath, the soil we tottle over, in childhood, the air we breathe, the objects that earliest attract our attention, the whole system of things with which our youth is surrounded, impress firmly upon us ideas and sentiments which cling to us to our latest breath, and modify all our views. I trust I am man enough always to remember this, when I hear opinions expressed and views maintained by men educated under a system different from that prevailing here, no matter how contrary those views and opinions may be to my own.

"It may surprise those of you who know me,--the moral atmosphere in which I have grown up, and the opinions which I entertain,--but never have I felt so deep and hearty an interest in the defence of any case as in this. This prisoner I never saw till I came from a sick bed into this court, when I met him for the first time.

I had partic.i.p.ated strongly in the feeling which in connection with him had been excited in this community.

As you well know, I have and could have no sympathy with the motives by which he may be presumed to have been actuated. Why, then, this sudden feeling in his behalf?

Not, I a.s.sure you, from mercenary motives. His acquittal or his condemnation will make no difference in the compensation I receive for my services. The overpowering interest I feel in this case originates in the fact that it places at stake the reputation of this District, and, in some respects, of the country itself, of which this city is the political capital. The counsel for the government has dwelt with emphasis on the great amount and value of property placed at hazard by this prisoner.

There is something, however, far more valuable than property--a fair, honorable, impartial administration of justice; and of the chivalrous race of the south it may be expected that they will do justice, though the heavens fall! G.o.d forbid that the world should point to this trial as a proof that we are so besotted by pa.s.sion and interest that we cannot discern the most obvious distinctions and that on a slave question with a jury of slave-holders there is no possible chance of justice!

Many, I a.s.sure you, will be ready to fasten this charge upon us. It is my hope, my ardent desire, it is your sworn duty, that no step be taken against this prisoner without full warrant of law and evidence. The duty of defence I discharge with pleasure. I could have desired that this prisoner might have been defended entirely by counsel resident in this District. It would have been my pride to have shown to the world that of our own mere motion we would do justice in any case, no matter how delicate, no matter how sore the point the prisoner had touched.

"My learned friend, the District Attorney, has alluded to the courtesy which he and the court have extended to my a.s.sociate in this cause. I hope he does not plume himself upon that. A gentleman of my a.s.sociate's learning, ability, unexceptionable deportment, and high character among his own people, must and will be treated with courtesy wherever he goes. But, at the same time that he boasts of his courtesy, the District Attorney takes occasion to charge my a.s.sociate with gross ignorance of the law. He says the forty-one charges could not have been included in one indictment, and offers to give up the case if we will produce a single authority to that effect. It were easy to produce the authority [see 1 _Chitty_, C.L. Indictment], but, unfortunately, the District Attorney has made a promise which he can't fulfil. The District Attorney is mistaken in this matter; at the same time, let me admit that in the management of this case he has displayed an ability beyond his years. This is the first prosecution ever brought, so far as we can discover, on this slave-stealing statute, either in this District or in Maryland. This statute, of the existence of which few lawyers were aware,--I am sure I was not,--has been waked up, after a slumber of more than a century, and brought to bear upon my client. It is your duty to go into the examination of this novel case temperately and carefully; to take care that no man and no court, upon review of the case, shall be able to say that your verdict is not warranted by the evidence. If the case is made out against the prisoner, convict him; but if not, as you value the reputation of the District and your own souls, beware how you give a verdict against him!

"You are not a lynch-law court. It is no part of your business to inquire whether the prisoner has done wrong, and if so to punish him for it. It is your sole business to inquire if he be guilty of this, special charge set forth against him in this indictment, of stealing Andrew Houver's two slaves. The law you are not expected to judge of; to enlighten you on that matter, we have prayed instructions from the court, and those instructions, for the purpose of this trial, are to be taken as the law. The question for you is, Does the evidence in this case bring the prisoner within the law as laid down by the court? To bring him within that law, you are not to go upon imagination, but upon facts proved by witnesses; and, it seems to me, you have a very plain duty before you. This is not a thing done in a corner. Take care that you render such a verdict that you will not be ashamed to have it set forth in letters of light, visible to all the world.

"There are two offences established by the statutes of Maryland, between which, in this case, it becomes your duty to distinguish. Everything depends on these statutes, because without these statutes neither act is a crime. At common law, there are no such offences as stealing slaves, or transporting slaves. Now, which of these two acts is proved against this prisoner? In some respects they are alike. The carrying the slaves away, the depriving the master of their services, is common to both. But, to const.i.tute the stealing of slaves, according to the law as laid down by the court, there must be something more yet. There must be a corruption of the minds of the slaves, and a seducing them to leave their masters' service. And does not this open a plain path for this prisoner out of the danger of this prosecution? Where is the least evidence that the prisoner seduced these slaves, and induced them to leave their masters? Has the District Attorney, with all his zeal, pointed out a single particle of evidence of that sort? Has he done anything to take this case out of the transportation statute, and to convert it into a case of stealing? He has, to be sure, indulged in some very harsh epithets applied to this prisoner,--epithets very similar to those which Lord c.o.ke indulged in on the trial of Sir Walter Raleigh, and which drew out on the part of that prisoner a memorable retort. My client is not a Raleigh; but neither, I must be permitted to say, is the District Attorney a Lord c.o.ke. I should be sorry to have it go abroad that we cannot try a man for an offence of this sort without calling him a liar, a rogue, a wretch. [The District Attorney here interrupted, with a good deal of warmth. He insisted that he did not address the prisoner, but the jury, and that it was his right to call the attention of the jury to the evidence proving the prisoner to be a liar, rogue and wretch.]

_Carlisle_--I do not dispute the learned gentleman's right. It is a matter of taste; but with you, gentlemen of the jury, these harsh epithets are not to make the difference of a hair. You are to look at the evidence; and where is the evidence that the prisoner seduced and enticed these slaves?

"It may happen to any man to have a runaway slave in his premises, and even in his employment. It happened to me to have in my employ a runaway,--one of the best servants, by the way, I ever had. He told me he was free, and I employed him as such. If I had happened to have taken him to Baltimore, there would have been a complete similitude to the case at bar, and, according to the District Attorney's logic, I might have been indicted for stealing. Because I had him with me, I am to be presumed to have enticed him from his master! As to the particular circ.u.mstances under which he came into my employment, I might have been wholly unable to show them. Is it not possible to suppose a great number of circ.u.mstances under which these slaves of Houver left their master's service and came on board the Pearl, without any agency on the part of this prisoner? Now, the government might positively disprove and exclude forty such suppositions; but, so long as one remained which was not excluded, you cannot find a verdict of conviction. The government is to prove that the prisoner enticed and seduced these negroes, and you have no right to presume he did so unless every other possible explanation of the case is positively excluded by the testimony. Is it so extravagant a supposition that Mr.

Foote's speech, and the other torch-light speeches heretofore alluded to, heard by these slaves, or communicated to them, might have so wrought upon their minds as to induce them to leave their masters? I don't say that they had any right to suppose that these declamations about universal emanc.i.p.ation had any reference to them. I am a southern man, and I hold to the southern doctrine. I admit that there is no inconsistency between perfect civil liberty and holding people of another race in domestic servitude. But then it is natural that these people should overlook this distinction, however obvious and important. Nor do they lack wit to apply these speeches to their own case or interest in such matters. I myself have a slave as quick to see distinctions as I am, and who would have made a better lawyer if he had had the same advantages. It came out the other day, in a trial in this court, that the colored people have debating-societies among themselves.

It was an a.s.sault and battery case; one of the disputants, in the heat of the argument, struck the other; but then they have precedents for that in the House of Representatives. Is it an impossible, or improbable, or a disproved supposition, that a number of slaves, having agreed together to desert their masters, or having concerted such a plan with somebody here, Drayton was employed to come and take them away, and that he received them on board without ever having seen one of them? If his confessions are to be taken at all, they are to be taken together; and do they not tend to prove such a state of facts? Drayton says he was hired to come here,--that he was to be paid for taking them away. Does that look as if he seduced them? [The counsel here commented at length on Drayton's statements, for the purpose of showing that they tended to prove nothing more than a transportation for hire; and he threw no little ridicule on the 'phantom ship' which the District Attorney had conjured up in his opening of the case, but which, in his late speech, he had wholly overlooked.]

"But, even should you find that Drayton seduced these slaves to leave their masters, to make out a case of larceny you must be satisfied that he took them into his possession. Now, what is possession of a slave? Not merely being in company with him. If I ride in a hack, I am not in possession of the driver. Possession of a slave is dominion and control; and where is the slightest evidence that this prisoner claimed any dominion or control over these slaves? The whole question in this case is, Were these slaves stolen, or were they running away with the prisoner's a.s.sistance?

The mere fact of their being in the prisoner's company throws no light whatever on this matter.

"The great point, however, in this case is this,--By the judge's instructions, enticement must be proved. Shall the record of this trial go forth to the world showing that you have found a fact of which there was no evidence?

"I believe in my conscience there is a gap in this evidence not to be filled up except by pa.s.sion and prejudice. If that is so, I hope there is no one so ungenerous, so little of a true southerner, as to blame me for my zeal in this case, or not to rejoice in a verdict of acquittal. It is bad enough that strangers should have got up a mob in this District in relation to this matter. It would, however, be a million times worse if juries cannot be found here cool and dispa.s.sionate enough to render impartial verdicts.

"_District Attorney_.--I hope, gentlemen of the jury, you will rise above all out-of-door influence. Make yourselves abolitionists, if you can; but look at the facts of the case. And, looking at those facts, is it necessary for me to open my lips in reply? In a case like this, sustained by such direct testimony, such overwhelming proof, I defy any man,--however crazy on the subject of slavery, unless he be blinded by some film of interest,--to hesitate a moment as to his conclusions. [The District Attorney here proceeded at great length, and with a great air of offended dignity, to complain of having been schooled and advised by the prisoner's counsel, and to justify the use of the foul epithets he had bestowed on the prisoner.] This is not a place for parlor talk. I had chosen the English words that conveyed my meaning most distinctly. It was all very well for the prisoner's counsel to smooth things over; but was I, instead of calling him a liar, to say, he told a fib? When I call him a thief and a felon, do I go beyond the charge of the grand jury in the indictment? If this is stepping over the limits of propriety, in all similar cases I shall do the same. I do not intend to blackguard the prisoner,--I do not delight in using these epithets. My heart is not locked up; I am no Jack Ketch, prosecuting criminals for ten dollars a head. I sympathize with the wretches brought here; but when I choose to call them by their proper names I am not to be accused of bandying epithets. [The District Attorney then proceeded also at great length, and in a high key, to justify his hundred and twenty-five indictments against the prisoner, and to clear himself from the imputation of mercenary motives, on the ground that the business of the year, independently of these indictments, would furnish the utmost amount to which he was ent.i.tled. He next referred to the matter of the brig testified to by Captain Baker, which had been made the occasion of much ridicule by the prisoner's counsel. Part of the evidence which he had relied on in connection with the brig had been ruled out; and the law, as laid down by the court, according to which taking to liberate was the same as taking to steal, had made it unnecessary for him, so he said, to dwell on this part of the case. Yet he now proceeded to argue at great length, from the testimony in the case, that there must have been a connection between the brig and the schooner; that, as the schooner was confessedly unseaworthy, and could not have gone out of the bay, it must have been the intention to put the slaves on board the brig, and to carry them off to Cuba or elsewhere and sell them. The testimony to this effect he p.r.o.nounced conclusive.]

"The United States (said the District Attorney) have laid before you the clearest possible case. I have just gone through a pretty long term of this court; I see several familiar faces on the jury, and I rely on your intelligence. In fact, the only point of the defence is, that the United States have offered no proof that Drayton seduced and enticed these slaves to come on board the Pearl; and that the prisoner's counsel are pleased to call a gap, a chasm, which they say you can't fill up. It is the same gap which occurs in every larceny case. Where can the government produce positive testimony to the taking? That is done secretly, in the dark, and is to be presumed from circ.u.mstances. A man is found going off with a bag of chickens,--your chickens.