ortance
of the duty you have to perform, and serves to remind you of the care
and wisdom necessary to be exercised in its performance. But certainly
these considerations do not render the prisoner's guilt any clearer, nor
enhance the weight of the evidence against him. No one desires you to
regard consequences in that light. No one wishes any thing to be
strained, or too far pressed against the prisoner. Still, it is fit you
should see the full importance of the duty which devolves upon you.

And now, Gentlemen, in examining this evidence, let us begin at the
beginning, and see first what we know independent of the disputed
testimony. This is a case of circumstantial evidence. And these
circumstances, we think, are full and satisfactory. The case mainly
depends upon them, and it is common that offences of this kind must be
proved in this way. Midnight assassins take no witnesses. The evidence
of the facts relied on has been somewhat sneeringly denominated, by the
learned counsel, "circumstantial stuff," but it is not such stuff as
dreams are made of. Why does he not rend this stuff? Why does he not
scatter it to the winds? He dismisses it a little too summarily. It
shall be my business to examine this stuff, and try its cohesion.

The letter from Palmer at Belfast, is that no more than flimsy stuff?

The fabricated letters from Knapp to the committee and to Mr. White, are
they nothing but stuff?

The circumstance, that the house-keeper was away at the time the murder
was committed, as it was agreed she would be, is that, too, a useless
piece of the same stuff?

The facts, that the key of the chamber door was taken out and secreted;
that the window was unbarred and unbolted; are these to be so slightly
and so easily disposed of?

It is necessary, Gentlemen, to settle now, at the commencement, the
great question of a conspiracy. If there was none, or the defendant was
not a party, then there is no evidence here to convict him. If there was
a conspiracy, and he is proved to have been a party, then these two
facts have a strong bearing on others, and all the great points of
inquiry. The defendant's counsel take no distinct ground, as I have
already said, on this point, either to admit or to deny. They choose to
confine themselves to a hypothetical mode of speech. They say, supposing
there was a conspiracy, _non sequitur_ that the prisoner is guilty as
principal. Be it so. But still, if there was a conspiracy, and if h