The next day a civil court was held, presided over by Judge Gaudion, to inquire into this affair of the death of the bullock. Captain Douglas was summoned to attend. A number of witnesses were examined, whose testimony it is not necessary for our purpose to enter into. Mr Bisset, the owner of the animal, who had connected its death with the firing heard upon the ramparts, produced a number of flattened bullets, broken percussion caps, and pieces of a newspaper addressed to Captain Douglas, which had been found upon the battery. After the judge had asked Captain Douglas whether he had any knowledge who had shot the bullock, and had received the decisive and truthful answer, that “he had not,” he proceeded—pointing to some pieces of newspaper lying on the table—to put the following question: “Can you account for the _Times_ newspaper to your address having been found in the battery, perforated evidently by ball practice?” To which Captain Douglas answered, “I am not accountable for my papers, as they travel through the barracks and into the town.” This absurd policy (for so we should characterise it) of concealment is adhered to, and with these unfortunate pieces of the _Times_ newspaper lying before him! His answer is understood as a denial of having been practising with his pistol on the battery, and there are those tell-tale fragments “evidently perforated with ball.” It is inconceivably absurd. He is getting into a scrape, and raising a scandal in the little island of Alderney, for no intelligible motive whatever. Mr Warren here defends the conduct of his late client on the legal principle or maxim, that no man is bound to criminate himself. He stood there in a court of justice “virtually as an accused party;” the court throws its shield over persons in such a position, cautions them, and would protect them even against their own indiscretion. Captain Douglas was fully justified in availing himself of this well-known privilege—in evading and warding off a question which he could not answer without supplying evidence against himself. Mr Warren will forgive us if we smiled, for a moment, at this instance of the inveterate habits of the lawyer, overpowering the natural shrewdness and sagacity of the man. This legal argument is manifestly inapplicable, and for this simple reason: in the circumstances of the case, there is nothing sufficiently grave—no impending charge of sufficient magnitude—to induce or warrant, in any reasonable man, a departure from, or a concealment of the truth, or any tampering with his honour. _If_ the evasive statement of Captain Douglas be considered as tantamount to a denial, and _if_ that virtual denial be considered as in some degree dishonourable, there can be no shelter for him in this maxim of law, because the fear of a false accusation of having accidentally shot a bullock, would not be accepted, by men of honour, as an excuse or justification.