savage, innumerable difficulties must occur. The
distance in the scale of humanity between the wandering, houseless man of
the woods, and the civilized European, is immeasurable! FOR PROTECTION,
AND FOR RESPONSIBILITY IN HIS RELATION TO THE WHITE MAN THE BLACK IS
REGARDED AS A BRITISH SUBJECT. In theory, this sounds just and
reasonable; but in practice, how incongruous becomes its application! As
a British subject, he is presumed to know the laws, for the infraction of
which he is held accountable, and yet he is shut out from the advantage
of its protection when brought to the test of responsibility. As a
British subject, he is entitled to be tried by his PEERS. Who are the
peers of the black man? Are those, of whose laws, customs, language, and
religion, he is wholly ignorant--nay, whose very complexion is at
variance with his own--HIS peers? He is tried in his native land by a
race new to him, and by laws of which he knows nothing. Had you, unhappy
man! had the good fortune to be born a Frenchman, or had been a native of
any other country but your own, the law of England would have allowed you
to demand a trial by half foreigners and half Englishmen. But, by your
lot being the lowest, as is assumed, in the scale of humanity, you are
inevitably placed on a footing of fearful odds, when brought into the
sacred temple of British justice. Without a jury of your own
countrymen--without the power of making adequate defence, by speech or
witness--you are to stand the pressure of every thing that can be alleged
against you, and your only chance of escape is, not the strength of your
own, but the weakness of your adversary's case. Surrounded as your trial
was with difficulties, everything, I believe, was done that could be done
to place your case in a proper light before the jury. They have come to a
conclusion satisfactory, no doubt, to their consciences. Whatever might
be the disadvantages under which you laboured, they were convinced, as I
am, that you destroyed the life of Dillon; and as there was nothing
proved to rebut the presumption, of English law, arising from the fact of
homicide being committed by you, they were constrained to find you guilty
of murder. There may have been circumstances, if they could have been
proved, which would have given a different complexion to the case from
that of the dying declaration of the deceased, communicated to the Court
through the frail memory of two witnesses, who varied in their rel