Again, my Lord, a suspicion of this kind, which nothing but malevolence could entertain, and ignorance propagate, is violently opposed by my very situation at that time, with respect to health. For, but a little space before, I had been confined to my bed, and suffered under a very long and severe disorder, and was not able, for half a year together, so much as to walk. The distemper left me, indeed, yet slowly, and in part; but so macerated, so enfeebled, that I was reduced to crutches, and was so far from being well about the time I am charged with this fact, that I never to this day perfectly recovered. Could, then, a person in this condition take anything into his head so unlikely, so extravagant? I, past the vigour of my age, feeble and valetudinary, with no inducement to engage, no ability to accomplish, no weapon wherewith to perpetrate such a fact; without interest, without power, without motive, without means. Besides, it must needs occur to everyone that an action of this atrocious nature is never heard of, but, when its springs are laid open, it appears that it was to support some indolence or supply some luxury, to satisfy some avarice or oblige some malice, to prevent some real, or some imaginary want; yet I lay not under the influence of any one of these. Surely, my Lord, I may, consistent with both truth and modesty, affirm thus much; and none who have any veracity, and knew me, will ever question this. In the second plea, the disappearance of Clark is suggested as an argument of his being dead; but the uncertainty of such an inference from that, and the fallibility of all conclusions of such a sort, from such a circumstance, are too obvious and too notorious to require instances; yet, superseding many, permit me to produce a very recent one, and that afforded by this castle. In June, 1757, William Thompson, for all the vigilance of this place, in open daylight, and double-ironed, made his escape, and, notwithstanding an immediate inquiry set on foot, the strictest search, and all advertisements, was never seen or heard of since. If, then, Thompson got off unseen, through all these difficulties, how very easy was it for Clark, when none of them opposed him? But what would be thought of a prosecution commenced against any one seen last with Thompson? Permit me next, my Lord, to observe a little upon the bones which have been discovered. It is said, which, perhaps, is saying very far, that these are the skeleton of a man. It is possible, indeed it may; but is there any certain known criterion which incontestably distinguishes the sex in human bones? Let it be considered, my Lord, whether the ascertaining of this point ought not to precede any attempt to identify them.