a different matter when regard was had to the great number of other documents alleged to have been forged, or knowingly uttered as forged, by the prisoner. "Gentlemen," said Lord Meadowbank, "the prisoner _may_ have been _a dupe_ in all these transactions;... but you have it clearly made out that the only person who enjoyed the fruits of the imposition was the prisoner himself!... Gentlemen, I have now laid before you the whole case as it occurs to me. I have never bestowed more pains upon any case than I have upon this; and in none have I ever summed up the evidence with greater pain.... Our business is to do justice, and you, in particular, have to weigh the evidence calmly and deliberately; and, should you doubt of that evidence being sufficient to bring the present charge home to the prisoner, to give him the full benefit of that doubt. But, to entitle you to do so, these doubts must be well considered, and the circumstances on which they are founded deliberately weighed. To doubts that are not reasonable, you have no right whatever to yield. You are not entitled to require from the Procurator _direct proof_ of the facts laid in his charge. The circumstances laid in evidence must be put together; and it is your duty, then, to consider what is the reasonable inference to be drawn from the whole of them: in short, whether it be possible to explain them upon grounds consistent with the innocence of the party accused; or whether, on the contrary, they do not necessarily lead to a result directly the reverse." The jury, thus charged with their solemn responsibility, withdrew to consider their verdict; and as they were absent for FIVE HOURS, we have time to ask the reader what would have been _his_ decision, as one of that jury, on this deeply interesting, this most serious and remarkable case. _First_, Were any or all of these documents forgeries? _Secondly_, If they were, did the prisoner forge them? _Thirdly_, If forgeries, though not by the prisoner, did he use and utter them with a guilty knowledge of their being forgeries? We regard Lord Meadowbank's summing up as a dignified and righteous one, blinking no responsibility, and making difficult matters plain to the humblest capacity, and leaving no excuse for an inefficient performance of duty. At length, however, after their long absence from Court--a torturing five hours' absence--the return of the jury is announced; the four judges resume their seats with stern gravity and expectation; the agitated prisoner, still accompanied by his chivalrous friend, Colonel D'Aguilar, appears at the bar; the anxious crowd is hushed into silence; and the chancellor (or foreman) delivered in the following verdict:--