This was sufficient for my purposes. This witness, having at first denied that the members of that school were taught to read, when the question was pressed home, endeavored to escape the perils of his position by saying that _the ladies had all to do with that_! Oh, brave Mr. Sharp! You will henceforth be remembered in Norfolk as having crept under the ladies’ aprons in order to shelter yourself from the eye of the insulted law. But, even after this, he admitted that the scholars were in possession of books, for he, himself, examined them, and found that some of them could read very well. He could not be mistaken about this, because he allowed them to skip over the hard words. This was his own language, and I here leave him where he left himself. These books were, in many instances, the identical copies used in my school, and my only object in introducing this testimony was to show the jury that I had been doing only what was habitually done in this school, and that if I was guilty of a violation of the law, I had abundant precedents among the aristocracy of the city. This having been shown conclusively by the unwilling witness, Sharp, my case is ended. The Prosecuting Attorney, who treated me with the utmost respect and deference throughout the whole proceedings, gallantly waived his right to address the jury first, and I proceeded with my closing speech as follows:-- “GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY: “I now deem it right and proper that you should know something of Mrs. Douglass, who stands before you charged with violating your laws. I do not plead guilty to this charge, for, in my opinion, to be a violator of any law or laws, the individual must know that they are such, which I did not, and had abundant precedents among those who should have known it, if they were such, for what I did. I am a Southern woman by birth, education, and feeling. I have been a slaveholder myself, and I would be again, if I felt so disposed. I am a native of and have always resided in a Southern slave State. The house of my childhood is as dear to me as my life, and I am as deeply interested in the welfare of Virginia, and of the whole united Southern slave States, as I am in the State of South Carolina; yes, and a great deal more so than very many who call themselves men. I am no abolitionist, neither am I a fanatic, and I am by education as strongly opposed as you are to the interference of Northern anti-slavery men with our institutions, although I believe that their principles are based on a religious foundation. I deem it the duty of every Southerner, morally and religiously, to instruct his slaves, that they may know their duties to their masters, and to their common God. Let the masters first do their duty to them, for they are still our slaves and servants, whether bond or free, and can be nothing else in our community. Let us not quarrel with our neighbors, but rather look around us and see what we have ourselves to do that we have left undone so long.