constitute the stealing of slaves,
according to the law as laid down by the court, there
must be something more yet. There must be a corruption
of the minds of the slaves, and a seducing them to leave
their masters' service. And does not this open a plain
path for this prisoner out of the danger of this
prosecution? Where is the least evidence that the
prisoner seduced these slaves, and induced them to leave
their masters? Has the District Attorney, with all his
zeal, pointed out a single particle of evidence of that
sort? Has he done anything to take this case out of the
transportation statute, and to convert it into a case of
stealing? He has, to be sure, indulged in some very
harsh epithets applied to this prisoner,--epithets very
similar to those which Lord Coke indulged in on the
trial of Sir Walter Raleigh, and which drew out on the
part of that prisoner a memorable retort. My client is
not a Raleigh; but neither, I must be permitted to say,
is the District Attorney a Lord Coke. I should be sorry
to have it go abroad that we cannot try a man for an
offence of this sort without calling him a liar, a
rogue, a wretch. [The District Attorney here
interrupted, with a good deal of warmth. He insisted
that he did not address the prisoner, but the jury, and
that it was his right to call the attention of the jury
to the evidence proving the prisoner to be a liar, rogue
and wretch.]

_Carlisle_--I do not dispute the learned gentleman's
right. It is a matter of taste; but with you, gentlemen
of the jury, these harsh epithets are not to make the
difference of a hair. You are to look at the evidence;
and where is the evidence that the prisoner seduced and
enticed these slaves?

"It may happen to any man to have a runaway slave in his
premises, and even in his employment. It happened to me
to have in my employ a runaway,--one of the best
servants, by the way, I ever had. He told me he was
free, and I employed him as such. If I had happened to
have taken him to Baltimore, there would have been a
complete similitude to the case at bar, and, according
to the District Attorney's logic, I might have been
indicted for stealing. Because I had him with me, I am
to be presumed to have enticed him from his master! As
to the particular circumstances under which