play'; and while
attempting to escape from the place in peace, he was intercepted,
struck down, and beaten to the effusion of his blood.

"Gentlemen of the jury, it was with some impatience that I heard my
learned brother, who opened the case for the crown, give an
unfavourable turn to the prisoner's conduct on this occasion. He said
the prisoner was afraid to encounter his antagonist in fair fight, or
to submit to the laws of the ring; and that, therefore, like a cowardly
Italian, he had recourse to his fatal stiletto, to murder the man whom
he dared not meet in manly encounter. I observed the prisoner shrink
from this part of the accusation with the abhorrence natural to a brave
man; and as I would wish to make my words impressive when I point his
real crime, I must secure his opinion of my impartiality by rebutting
everything that seems to me a false accusation. There can be no doubt
that the prisoner is a man of resolution--too much resolution. I wish
to Heaven that he had less, or rather that he had had a better
education to regulate it.

"Gentlemen, as to the laws my brother talks of, they may be known in
the bull-ring, or the bear-garden, or the cockpit, but they are not
known here. Or, if they should be so far admitted as furnishing a
species of proof that no malice was intended in this sort of combat,
from which fatal accidents do sometimes arise, it can only be so
admitted when both parties are in part casu, equally acquainted with,
and equally willing to refer themselves to, that species of
arbitrament. But will it be contended that a man of superior rank and
education is to be subjected, or is obliged to subject himself, to this
coarse and brutal strife, perhaps in opposition to a younger, stronger,
or more skilful opponent? Certainly even the pugilistic code, if
founded upon the fair play of Merry Old England, as my brother alleges
it to be, can contain nothing so preposterous. And, gentlemen of the
jury, if the laws would support an English gentleman, wearing, we will
suppose, his sword, in defending himself by force against a violent
personal aggression of the nature offered to this prisoner, they will
not less protect a foreigner and a stranger, involved in the same
unpleasing circumstances. If, therefore, gentlemen of the jury, when
thus pressed by a vis major, the object of obloquy to a whole company,
and of direct violence from one at least, and, as he might reasonably
apprehend, from more,