The Sun.
London, England, 1841-11-01 00:00:00

MORNING SUN

o ner ae a crime, toehave been an act of duty—to a na-
tion which stands ready to vindicate the faith plighted
by all Governments to their subjects for their protec-
tion—to this nation it is closed ; and, I confess to you,
that when I sat down to the trial of this cause, I did it
with a sinking heart—knowing the clamour which has
pervaded the country—knowing the anticipated triumph
which has been been pealed through the land on the part
of the prosecution. I did it with a sinking heart, lest
there should be an adverse verdict ; but, I confess to
you, that that hour has some time since passed,
and those feelings have altogether subsided.
It has already been said in your presence, by the
Counsel on the part of the prosecution, and of the
Court, that the simple question for you to try is the
fact of the presence of the prisoner at Schlos-
ser, on the night of the burning of the Caroline,
aiding and abetting in that enterprise. Teis is
the only testimony that you are to regard—
all other must be considered as only collateral to this
main point—no further to be considered than so far
as it tends to throw light upon this main and princi-
pal question. No :v, it is a principle of lag with
which you are doubtless ail familiar, that in criminal
cases—even in the slightest and most unimpor-
tant, when the punishment following conviction
would be a trifling confinement in the county gall,
every doubt as to the guilt of the accused should be
taken into the account for his benefit. It is not enough
that there be a preponderance aglinst the prisoner.
It must be full—it must be conclusive—it mutt ex-
clude all doubt—it must annihilate every doubt of
guilt. Now let us look at the circumstances of this
case ; let us see how near the prosecution has come
to this clearness of proof. In the first place the
prisoner is guarded by the principle of law, that every
man is presumed to be innocent until he is proved to
be guilty. In the next place, the testimony of those
men who were engaged in the expediiion—testimony
taken in the only way in which c•.•ldence from a
foreign country can be obtained, by commission, this
testimony goes to show that he was not present.
Gentlemen, it is well known to you, indeed it has been
stated in almost every sentence of the te.timony in the
progress of this case, tnat it had its origin in a national
quee:ion. Throughout both the Canada', discontent,
deep-seated, had prevailed. Whether that is right or j
wrong, it is not for us to determine. Resort was had to I
arms, and with no success to the insurgents ; after the
failure of the movement on Toronto, peace was restored
throughout both provinces ; no hostile force continued
there; fie insurgents—a few—fled to the United S ales;
and after about a fortnight, again returned to Nevy
I:la id. Tee object of this movement was to create hos-
tile war ; the dangers end the horrors of v,a7 cln be
imagined by you ;tam 50:11e portion of the testimony
which has been igi,el ; how furious and bloody war
must el ,sae..s be you can imagine Irani the transaction
at Sehlosser, and but faintly imagine ; for in the accu-
mulated etrecities of a whole campaign, to what part
would this little transaction, horrid as it seems in the
detail, have been equal ? One man was killed ; several
wounded slightly, and one severely. But what would
have been a whole campaign in Canada, amid the snows
and frosts of a Canadian winter ; a brutal soldiery
around, and a peasantry likely to become mere brutal
still. Trio hundred and fifty thousand soldiers—giving
the insurgents half of the province ; what could they do
against the other hdr, and all Britain beside ? At
th first relenting of spring, if indeed they had been
able to laa:e resisted through the winter, it would
all have vanished, as the tern:wst vanishes, leaving the
sky clear, but desolation all around. Now, gentlemen,
evidently to kindle such a war—so mail in its oris.rin—
so hopeless in its result, Navy Island was seized by
American citizens, headed by one American chief. A
strange spectacle this for a land of law, bound by treaties
itself had made! Why this effort to create a w ir,
which all had alike an interest to share ? The
answer, while it shows the interests which, have
fomented in this case against the prisoner,
will carry us another step in its progress.
It was said by the Court, before you were emwarnielled
that you had nothing to do with consequences. In one
point of view, it is true, and in another erroneceue. if
the prisoner be proved guilty by testimony which ex-
cludes doubt, which haves no chance of innocence,
coming from witnesses who have had fair opportunity
to see, and &ear and unclouded memories to rain the
facts they depose ; and of unimpeached veracity ; if
his guilt be proved by such testimony, then it is true
that you have nothing to do with the consequences
of conviction ; it is your duty, whatever the con.
sequence is, to find a verdict of " guilty ;" and
though from it war should come—though our com-
merce should be swept from the ocean, and Our land
invaded—your duty is a plain one. If you should suffer
yourselves to falter you would commit a crime for which
He, whose justice you are now administering, would at
a future day call you to account. But there is another
view, in which you cannot, without the same responsi-
bility, overlook the consequences. If war is to come
from your vcrdiet, then it is your duty to leek end see
whether the witnesses who came one after another, on
the stand, did not come forward by the desire to pro-
duce this consequence ; it is your duty to lock abroad
and see whether there are not influences existing through
the land which may prompt witnesses to stand and tes-
tify to that which they do not only not know to he true,
but do know to be false. These same men, by whom
Navy Island was occupied, are still in our midst ; if
war was then the object to be attained, is it not so
still ? If Van Rensselaer was then a valuable acquisi-
tion to lead their forces, would not the Coneznander-
in-Chief of a main army be still more valuable ? The
motive exists still stronger now than then. It is now
reduced almost to a certainty fleet the conviction
and execution of the prisoner would lead to a war ; and
if witnesses who have ascended the stand have bad in-
tercaurse with those who have violated our netrtrality,
then it becomes a serious question to you, whether the
credit of these witnesses is not impeached—veliether
they did not testify under the influence of a motive
which causes thorn to swerve from the truth.
I leave the cause-1 merely designed to run over the
prominent features, and then leave the cause to my
associate. I told you at the opening, that I bad no
anxiety as to the result. There is no longer a doubt as
to the issue of this trial ; deep anxiety and alarm have
been felt ; there is now no danger of war, or that our
foreign relations will be disturbed. I anticipate a reso-
lute acquittal, which shall satisfy not only the crowds
assembled around, not only public justice, but your own
consciences, in that hour to which the Attorney-Gene-
ral alluded in his opening, that shall be not only fur a
pleasure through life, but gratification in the last hour
of terrible account.
Mr. Spencer spoke as follows :—May it please your
Honours, Geatlemen of the Jury—lt is the first time in
my life that I have ever risen, having in my charge an
important trial or defence, when I felt that the remain-
ing duty of Counsel, after the evidence was disclosed,
was entirely a work of supererogation ; and the consci-
ousness that it is so, really oppresses me. It seems to
enervate the whole system that circumstances should
thus attend me, and that I should be obliged to detsin a
jury whose patience has been largely tried, by comment-
ing on evidence, when my judgment satisfies me
that that evidence has already been carefully con-
sidered by the jury, and that their judgment is now
ripe to be pronounced. But in all this I may be
mistaken; it is very possible that my convictions
of the evidence of M‘Leod arc stronger than are yours,
or those of any other person who has not been so inti•
mately acquainted with the whole interests of this case
as I have been. It is because I have no right to remit
any exertion which shall lead to the development of
truth and the innocence of M‘Leod, and the securing
of your verdict of acquittal, that I will even now at-
tempt to draw further on your patience, and submit
such considerations as deserve to be reflected on by you •
such as the prisoner has a right to demand, and such as
the State and our common country have reason to ex-
pect. As I took occasion,Gentlemen, to remark in the
opening of the defence, this case is one, as the evidence
has now disclosed it to be, of greater importance
bartbate
almost any other ever brought before an American
for trial. Cases involving the life of an individual have
an all-sufficient interest to awaken the deepest emotions
cronbseidyoe r
n dthtahte
es
of the human
otherheart;but whe
interestsn fa
we
is a case involving
and death of M‘Leod, no man with an American heart
,eating in his bosom can fail to be alive to every we_
eideration that shall lead him to a right conclusion ; and
equally as jurors and as citizens Idn.voke your attention
to such considerations as I shall address to you.
Gentlemen of the Jury, 1 hope you will be spared all
your lives from such excitement as has been manifested
here. You may have observed, in the progress of this
trial, in the examination of witnesses, that there was a
want of kindness and charity, and you may think
there may have been a rigour and a rigidity to which,
perhaps, witnesses should not be subjected who ap-
pear here in obedience to tie mandate of the late.
I believe that the case of the prosecution is untrue ;
and I am sorry to say that I firmly bslieve a large
portion of it is not only untrue, which implies
mistake and misapprehension, but I hope I shall
not be suspected of a want of charity when I say
that a large portion of it is evidently false, and I
desire that word to be understood in its legiti-
mate acceptation. I believe it is sought to be up-
held by the rankest perjury that was ever brought into
a Court cf Justice since the sun shone en Christendom.
This case, Gentleeren, involves not only the life of a
fellers-being, but the highest interests of two great ca-
tions, in the two hemispheres, which hold the first rank
in all Christendom, speak one common language, one
common people, one kith and kin ; and the object of
this
prosecution is to involve these two nations in a
bloody war. Believing this—and I doubt the power of
my learned adversaries, able as they are, to convince me
that such is not the character of the prosecution, and
that such are not the reasons and the motives for
its being brought, I confess frankly, I felt little
cbarity for those who sought to take the life
of M`Leod. Such must be nay apology for the man-
ner in which I may have conducted this de-
fence. I took occasion, Gentlemen of the Jury, in
opening this defence, to state to you that it would
be twofold—the one founded entirely on the broad
ground that the killing of Durfee was not murder