ould 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
pronounced '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 passed 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 God,--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 s