Again, then, as in the two former instances, we ask the reader, weighing well the evidence, and particularly the above observations upon it of Lord Meadowbank, to say _Ay_ or _No_ to the question, Were the documents contained in the De Porquet packet genuine or spurious? Bearing in mind that all three were the contributions of anonymous informants--the excerpt charter, sent to Mr Banks by--he knew not whom; the Le Normand papers, by--an exceedingly mysterious and exalted personage; and the De Porquet packet, by--a third mysterious unknown: the first sent to the confidential agent of the prisoner in Ireland; the second to one of his oldest and most confidential friends at Paris; the third to his bookseller in London. It may also be worth mentioning that neither Mr Banks, nor Mademoiselle Le Normand, nor either of the prisoner's sons, nor his sister, "Lady Eliza Pountney," was called as a witness by the prisoner, nor by the Crown. There remains to be determined, however, a question of infinite moment to the prisoner--whether, in the event of the foregoing documents, or any of them, being pronounced forgeries, he was guilty of either having forged them, or having used and uttered any of them, knowing them to have been forged? "This," said Lord Meadowbank, with an air of deepening solemnity, "is the heaviest part of the charge against the panel; and I assure you, gentlemen, that in the whole course of my life I never addressed a jury with greater anxiety than I do at present." Let us pause, however, for a moment, to see how this very grave question was first dealt with by the counsel for the Crown, and then for the prisoner.