trial without being forced to the conclusion that he was either really mad, or, at the very least, the little evidence which alone he was permitted to adduce, relative to the state of his mind, was strong enough to have entitled him to a _deliberate and thorough investigation of his case_."[25] On Friday, March 3d, M'Naughten took his trial before the late Chief-justice Tindal, the late Mr Justice Williams, and Mr Justice Coleridge. The prosecution was conducted by the late Sir William Follett, then Solicitor-general, and the prisoner defended by the present Solicitor-general, then Mr Cockburn, Q. C. Nothing could exceed the temperate and luminous opening statement of Sir William Follett, who, in our judgment, laid down the rules of English law, applicable to the difficult and delicate subject with which he had to deal, with rigorous propriety. "If you believe," said he, "that the prisoner at the bar, at the time he committed this act, was not a responsible agent--that, when he fired the pistol, he was incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong--that he was under the influence and control of some disease of the mind which prevented him from being conscious that he was committing a crime--that he did not know he was violating the law both of God and man--then, undoubtedly, he is entitled to your acquittal. But it is my duty to tell you that nothing short of _that_ will excuse him, upon the principles of the English law. To excuse him, it will not be sufficient that he laboured under partial insanity upon some subjects--that he had a morbid delusion of mind upon some subjects, which could not exist in a wholly sane person; that is not enough, _if_ he had that degree of intellect which enabled him to know and distinguish between right and wrong--if he knew what would be the effects of his crime, and consciously committed it; and if, with that consciousness, he _wilfully_ committed it."