chicanery, incident to factitious morals, and cunningly devised systems of religion and policy.

I will not spend any more of your time by such an appeal as has been made by the counsel for the Defendant, who have preceded me. I will not invoke you to put aside your prejudices, if you have any; an appeal on this head is altogether nugatory, for if you will not obey the obligation which devolves upon you, from your situation resting on your consciences by the sacred solemnity of an oath, you are not to be reasoned into it, by the powers of rhetoric, I therefore consider it as improper to attempt it. I conceive that it must necessarily follow from the circumstances of your situation, that a verdict will be given upon the facts according to the rules of Law. To a jury, acquainted with the obligation of an oath, a caution against being led astray by their prejudices, is to caution them against acting corruptly, and against doing wilfully wrong; if their oath cannot guide their consciences, I should despair of guiding them by any thing that I can say. I should have spared myself these observations as altogether irrelevant to the issue, had not the Defendant's counsel gone largely and learnedly into the subject, and urged you to do your duty free from the influence of party preju dices, regardless of the clamours of News-paper writers, or addresses to the people. In this caution, the counsel for the Government heartily concur.

The misconduct of News-papers, in publishing matters relative to a trial, while it is pending, is to be deprecated; so is all conversation tending to spread false reports; yet such are the feelings of mankind, throughout the world, that they will talk and also print on such subjects where the press is free: It is one of those alloys, which mingle with the precious metals. Better it is to enjoy the freedom of the press, though attended with this inconvenience, than to restrain it by governmental laws, as is the case in every other Country. The impressions made in that way, are very inconsiderable; the enlightened minds of this jury are above all considerations, arising from that source, whatever you may have heard out of doors, is left at the threshold of this sanctuary of justice, and passes by like the idle wind, and is no more regarded than the whistling of a school boy, trudging along with his satchel in his hand. As the report of this cause will probably be published, the world will judge how far your decision is made up from the testimony you have heard at this bar; they will know how to estimate the various reports you have heard, and the News-paper clamours, and artfully devised handbills; these, with the papers themselves, will be consigned ultimately to the neglect they deserve.

One man has killed another; the law of God, and of our Government calls upon you to inquire, if he can excuse himself. This is no light subject. There is an omniscient judge before whose seat we shall all appear to answer for our conduct on this solemn day.

We must therefore decide with purity and integrity, if we expect to avoid the judgment pronounced against those who corrupt the tribunals of human justice.

I will place a mirror before your eyes, by which each of us may compare the fairness and justice of his intentions in the case, and perceive how far he is misled by his prejudices, or political principles.

Suppose the slander, which is said to be traced to the father of the deceased, was correct, and suppose 3. Austin to have gone forth armed with a deadly weapon in expectation of an assault from Selfridge, or his friends; that Selfridge had made an attack on him as young Austin did on Selfridge, and Austin the father had, with the weapon (carried as Selfridge carried his) killed him, at noon day in a crowded street, what would be your verdict on such a case? I flatter myself, your verdict would be the same as that which you will give in this cause. This is the standard of security, this the solid tenure, by which our fellow citizens hold their equal right to public justice, ensured to us by our Constitution and our Laws.

The counsel for the Defendant has addressed you with warmth and energy, as a politician; he supposes you to consist of two conflicting parties, and with elegance of manner, and strength of language, peculiar to himself, he has conjured you to lay aside all political impressions, whether they be favourable to the federal republican, or democratic party, he particularly addressed himself to those who are of the same way of thinking as himself. I will imitate him in some degree, but I will address you as being all of the same way of thinking as myself; for I believe none of you wish to subvert the government or infringe the law: If then, you mean to support our happy constitution, and obey the dictates of our holy religion, you are of the same party as myself. Would you break up the foundation of the great deep, and destroy the basis of the present federal government, and leave it to chance, when or how we should obtain another? (you may think the present constitution might be made better, but yet it might be made worse, and though like other human inventions, it has its imperfections) you would not unnecessarily encounter the hazard: I say then you are all of my party. If you prefer our democratic government, to a monar chy, an aristocracy, or a mixed government, then we all think alike. Is there one of you who would alter our system of jurisprudence, or relinquish the inestimable right of trial by jury; if there is not, then you all think as I do. If there is one of you who think the millions of money expended at the city of Washington in the public buildings, and improvements, for the accommodation of the general government, which serves to tie the several states of this continent in the indissoluble knot of perpetual union and amity; if you think that money well employed as a mean of producing that grand effect,

think so likewise, Is there one of you but believes the State House on Beacon-hill, was intended for, and will produce the happy purpose of combining the interests of the several parts of the state of Massachusetts? Although attended with expense, it may prove a blessing. All of you join in this belief. I also am of your opinion (the gentlemen who are strangers, and reporting this cause, will pardon me for being so local: they are not perhaps acquainted with our domestic politics; but I love and feel for my native state; and the circumstance I have alluded to, has been of importance.) If you think of our union at home, and our foreign relations, as Washington the great and good thought, and as he has written in his farewell address to the citizens of the United States, you will engrave it on the tablet of your memory, teach it to your children, and bind it as a talisman to your heart, in order to perpetuate the freedom of our common country to the end of time.

Is there one of you who would engage your country in foreign wars, in order to benefit a few great men who would become the leaders, as they have been the agitators of such a desperate measure? The consequences of war are known to many who hear me ; never more do I wish to see the parched earth of my country drenched with the blood of my fellow men: the tender mothers, wives and children, flying from their dwellings into the wilderness, to escape the foe. You, gentlemen of the jury, are friends to the peace of your country, and therein I cordially join with you. I address you as the lovers of your country, and there is no difference in our opinions.

To return from this episode to the question in the cause, I will proceed to inquire whether the fact of T. O, Selfridge's killing young Austin, is proved by the Government. That catastrophe has been clearly made manifest by the testimony of Doctor Danforth, Edward Howe, John Lane, Ichabod Frost, Isaac Warren, and many others. I will not attempt an argument on it.

The second question is, has the Defendant shown you, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the fact of killing was done under such cir. cumstances, as that it was lawful, and he is excuseable of blame?

In this enquiry (and certainly, it is an important one) we must have some guide, some settled rule, some law, some known, estab lished principles, or society no longer exists. A confused state of nature reigns! every man's arm, his art or his cunning is his own 'safety and every man is the avenger of his own wrongs.

Had I the sentiments expressed by my learned brother (Dexter) feeble and imbecile as I am, I would go forth from day to day in arms, trusting in mine own arm alone, with the aid of such weapons as my strength would bear: Magistrates should be avoided, and the volumes of laws become pavement for the soles of my shoes.

Many things are said by professional men, in the feelings and warmth of debate. which, in their cooler moments, they would gladly retract. Upon the manner and measure of resentment or self-defence, is there no law fixed, but the different feelings of men? Are there men, nay, a multitude of men, who have a natural right, from their feelings, and a high sense of honor, to defend themselves, when and where others of less feelings could not do it in the same manner? And is this the voice of nature, which makes the exception? Is this sense of honor, and those feelings, a privileged exception to those individuals, above the rules of the gospel? Is the rule, Do to others as you would be done unto, reduced to the standard, that a juror, shall acquit the Defendant, if he believes he should have acted himself by the same motives, or been seduced by the same temptation? Is there then a distinction between the would-be nobleman and the chimney sweeper, (for I suppose these, from the distinction taken by the Defendant's counsel to be the Alpha and Omega, the head and the tail, of the links that form civil society.) Is there a distinction between them as to the privilege of self-defence? And is the push of the sweep, or a stroke with his scraper, at the head of his com rade, to be murder in him, whilst the would-be noble, shall be allowed with his gold-hilted cane, or his elegantly mounted pistol, in defence of his honor, to play a secure but mortal game, and be justified in killing, on a like provocation, either his friend or his foe, or, as in this case, a man he is said hardly to know? You are not then to determine his case by the circumstances attending it, but by the nice sense of honor of the gentleman, or the distinction and dignity of his station in life. !!

What then has become of that part of the constitution which declares ours to be a government of laws, and not of men. If the law does not apply equally to A and B, and so through every letter of the alphabet, how can it be said that every man holds his life and fortune by the same tenure as his fellow citizens, whatever may be his rank or his condition, or standing, in society.

We are told that there are a number of men in society who will with their own arm vindicate their rights, and stand the guardians of their own honor. There may be such men, but I do not know them. I hope I shall not meet with any citizen who does not rely for his safety on the laws of the government, and the justice of civil society.

But we are told that the laws of christianity lend us a defence by our own arm; and we are asked how then the laws of society can regulate this matter? I do not admit this position to be just. All men are bound to surrender their natural rights upon entering into civil society, and the laws become the guardians of the equal rights of all men. Why, are duels criminal, if the men who engage in them have this privilege of maintaining their own honor.

It is said the Defendant was driven to such an awful crisis, that he could not extricate his honor; and his counsel ask, what could he do? I answer, appeal to the laws. But say they, the laws are ineffectual; suits are slow of remedy, and uncertain in their end. Where would such reasoning lead us? You have it in testimony, that the Defendant reasoned in this way; and that mode of reasoning brought on this sad event. You have heard his counsel, in a strain of eloquence, advance the same idea, and make a personal application of the principle. "No man," said he, "is bound to surrender his own honor: If I do, I wish my arm may be shriveled by the palsy, and drop from its socket. No, I will vindicate mine own honor to the death." I would rather that he should retain the use of his limbs, as well as the faculties of his mind, in order to employ them in the true field of honor, the defence of his country, when necessity may require their exertion. The Defendant's counsel are obliged to adopt the same erroneous course of reasoning in order to justify him. Have we then, as a civil society, higher authorities than our own law books to appeal to, on such an Occasion? Are they such as the counsel on the other side would not shrink from on the penalty of his life?

We will not take up the glove; we will rest our defence, both of the lives and honor of our fellow citizens, upon the laws of the land; we will trust to them rather than to a deadly weapon, for our protection. Such declarations as are made by the gentlemen on the other side, would countenance all the duels that have been fought in the world, and render unavailing all the laws that have been enacted for the punishment of illegal and savage combats. It is said that the Defendant adopted this course because the tardy steps of the law were too slow to keep pace with his rapid stride to obtain immediate vengeance. What if his fame and character had been injured? Has he superior privileges? Or, ought he not to take the common lot of his countrymen? Has he any excuse more than others? Has he the excuse even of an officer? He is both a lawyer and a gentleman; but this does not give him a right beyond what all the individuals of this society possess. If the Defendant suffers on this occasion, he will have to suffer no more than what every other person who should perpetrate a similar act must suffer, while controuled by the laws of his country. If he is innocent, he will be acquitted; if he is guilty, he will take the common lot of other men. I do not feel any interest in what your verdict may be, further than that justice in the common way, and on general principles, should be done.

Is the measure of a man's conduct, when he leaps the bounds of written established law, to receive a standard from the feelings of his wife and children, or the notions of honor in the congregation of fashionable men? and can a man appeal to heaven in this way, and be a pious christian? When I heard that this doctrine had been advised on this occasion, by professional men, I shuddered at it.