How was this towering array of facts to be encountered, with these enlightened judges to conduct the inquiry, and guide the jury, and very able and determined counsel to elicit and arrange the facts, and enforce them on the jury--and _have the last word_ with the jury in so doing? We may well imagine how anxious and disheartening were the consultations of the prisoner's counsel before going into court. Neither they, nor their attorneys, could disguise from themselves the desperate nature of the case in which they were concerned. They would probably determine to cross-examine the witnesses very cautiously and rigorously, with a view to breaking down important links in the case; and it is likely that their paramount object in conducting the defence, would be to aim at supplying Frost with some other than _a general object_--something else than establishing the Charter as the law of the land. A hopeful prospect! But besides all this, it must have been determined, of course, to throw no single chance away, whereon--however, whenever it presented itself--to fight the fearful case for the Crown inch by inch, and foot by foot--contesting every technical point, with a view to detecting any possible slip in either the preliminary or any other part of the proceedings of the experienced and watchful Crown officers. Here, again, was a hopeful prospect! Their proceedings had been doubtless advised beforehand by the Attorney and Solicitor General, and conducted by Mr Maule, the Solicitor of the Treasury, in person--himself a barrister, and consummately qualified for his post. He was also a humane man, always anxious to discharge his duties firmly, but at the same time to afford a prisoner every degree of consideration and indulgence consistent with the public interest. By this time the reader may be aware how very serious a thing is the conduct, on the part of the Crown, of a prosecution of high treason, in every one of its stages--in the slightest particulars--especially where the great _facts_ of the case are so clear against the prisoner, as to compel his advocate to watch and test every link in the chain fixed around his client. Here, in fact, correlative duties are cast on the opposing parties--to _take_ every possible objection; and to be beforehand _prepared for_ every possible objection, by vigilant exactitude in complying with every legal requisite.