year of my life; and I feel
as if I had obtained a new system by the change. _My natural disposition
is luxurious_, and under a better system of government, or when this
rational warfare was not called for, I should at all times live up to my
income." And here, gentlemen, I beg you to mark, that so unreserved, so
much in earnest is the writer in his object, that he does not attempt
even to conceal his own faults, and weakness. I ask, whether you have
ever found men, who were acting and writing with duplicity and sinister
intentions, reproach or expose themselves? But the writer of this paper
practises no reserve; he conceals nothing, though the disclosure should
be against himself, but

Pours out all himself as plain,
As dowright Shippen, or as old Montaigne.

He concludes this exhortation to temperance with this sentence, "Shrink
not then you male and female reformers from this virtuous mode of
warfare; for to conquer our injurious habits and our enemy at the same
time is a double conquest, to obtain which both man and woman and child
can very properly assist." I read this conclusion of the paragraph,
gentlemen, and I beg your attention to it, because it makes it manifest
that the change which the writer proposes to compass is a change by a
moral operation through legal and peaceful means; and that he never
dreamed of inculcating, as it is insinuated, any appeal to violence and
arms.

I have now, gentlemen, concluded all the particular observations which I
had to address you upon this paper; and having shown you that by the
least liberal construction, no criminality of intention can be imputed to
the author, how can I doubt of your acquittal? For it is your duty to
construe the author's words so as to give them an innocent meaning if
they will bear it, and not come to a conclusion of guilt from them unless
you shall be convinced that they will not possibly admit of any other
than a criminal sense. That he had no criminal design, is apparent
enough, even from the indicted passages; and by reading the context is
put beyond the possibility of a doubt. There are many other passages as
well as that, which I have read, which tend equally to the inference of
the sincerity with which the whole paper was written, but which I will
not consume your time in reading, as you will have the whole before you
when you deliberate on your verdict, and they must themselves strike your
attention.

Now, gentlemen, I