any rate, he is but a servant. Now will you make misfortune
pay the penalty of guilt? Do not, I entreat you, lightly condemn this
man to death. Do not throw him in to make up the dozen. The regard for
human life is one of the most prominent proofs of a civilized state of
society. The Sultan of Turkey may place women in sacks and throw them
into the Bosphorus, without exciting more than an hour's additional
conversation at Constantinople. But in our country it is different. You
well remember the excitement produced by the abduction and death of a
single individual; the convulsions which ensued, the effect of which
will long be felt in our political institutions. You will ever find that
the more a nation becomes civilized, the greater becomes the regard for
human life. There is in the eye, the form, and heaven-directed
countenance of man, something holy, that forbids he should be rudely
touched.

The instinct of life is great. The light of the sun even in chains, is
pleasant; and life, though supported but by the damp exhalations of a
dungeon, is desirable. Often, too, we cling with added tenacity to life
in proportion as we are deprived of all that makes existence to be
coveted.

[Illustration: _Thomas Fuller striking Ruiz in Court._]

"The weariest and most loathed worldly life.
That age, ache, penury and imprisonment
Can lay on Nature, is a Paradise
To that we fear of Death."

Death is a fearful thing. The mere mention of it sometimes blanches the
cheek, and sends the fearful blood to the heart. It is a solemn thing to
break into the "bloody house of life." Do not, because this man is but
an African, imagine that his existence is valueless. He is no drift weed
on the ocean of life. There are in his bosom the same social sympathies
that animate our own. He has nerves to feel pain, and a heart to throb
with human affections, even as you have. His life, to establish the law,
or to further the ends of justice, is not required. _Taken_, it is to us
of no value; given to him, it is above the price of rubies.

And _Costa_, the cabin boy, only fifteen years of age when this crime
was committed--shall he die? Shall the sword fall upon his neck? Some of
you are advanced in years--you may have children. Suppose the news had
reached you, that your son was under trial for his life, in a foreign
country--(and every cabin boy who leaves this port may be placed in the
situation of this prisoner,)--suppose you were told t