on the one side or the other, I intreat you to lay
it totally aside; to come to the consideration of this subject with
cool, dispassionate, unprejudiced, unprepossessed minds, to attend to
the evidence that will be laid before you, and to that evidence
alone--by that evidence let the Defendants stand or fall.

Gentlemen, it would be very extraordinary indeed, if it could ever have
been supposed by any person, even the most ignorant, that this was not a
crime. It would be a disgrace to any civilized country, if its laws were
so defective. If that which has been done by these Defendants _in
conspiracy_, had been done by any one of them _singly_, it would have
been unquestionably a crime; but when done _by conspiracy_, it is a
crime of a more aggravated nature--_To circulate false news_, much more
_to conspire to circulate false news_ with intent to raise the price of
any commodity whatever, is, by the Law of England, a crime, and its
direct and immediate tendency is to the injury of the public. If it be
with intent to raise the price of the public funds of the country,
considering the immense magnitude of those funds, and, consequently, the
vast extent of the injury which may be produced, the offence is of a
higher description. The persons who must be necessarily injured in a
case of that kind, are various; the common _bona fide_ purchaser who
invests his money--the public, through the commissioners for the
redemption of the national debt--the persons whose affairs are under the
care of the Court of Chancery, and whose money is laid out by the
Accountant General, all these may be injured by a temporary rise of the
public funds, growing out of a conspiracy of this kind; and, Gentlemen,
this is no imaginary statement of mine, for it will appear to you
to-day, that all these persons were in fact injured by the temporary
rise produced by this conspiracy. Undoubtedly the public funds will be
affected by rumours, which may be considered as accidental; in
proportion as they are liable to that, it becomes more important to
protect them against fraud.

If this had been a conspiracy to circulate false rumours, merely to
abuse public credulity, it would not have been a trivial offence; but if
the object of the conspiracy be not merely to abuse public credulity,
but to raise the funds, in order that the conspirators may sell out of
those funds for their own advantage, and, consequently, to the injury of
others, in that case the offe