For proving too much, a miserable subterfuge was tried to make appear that Copeland was deranged, was a maniac, and his statements entirely unworthy of credit. A more signal failure could not have been attempted. If he was non compos mentis, the law grievously erred in causing his execution. Those who knew him well, those who visited him long and often in his prison, can testify to his extraordinary strength of mind. Brave and undaunted, affable in deportment, a tenacious memory, with all other indications of mental vigor, the chances are very small of making impressions touching his insanity. And all this in the face of those localities which suffered so much from the depredations of the clan, which localities can vouch for the truth of his confessions. But the jury of inquest, on an artful plea raised at the time of his trial settles this question. A man with certain death before his eyes, with not even the remotest hope of any possibility of escape, is not governed as other men are under ordinary circumstances of business and duplicity. If, to the double-dealers and the reserved, his conduct appears strange in the exposure of his associates, how much more so in the reflections on his own mother? The testimony of a dying man, given freely and without any deceptive or compulsory force, is generally considered reliable. The circumstances under which he made his confessions, having in view his fast approaching end to all earthly scenes, the internal evidences of truth which they bear, the numerous localities which can confirm the facts as in them contained, all tend to produce convictions as to the substantial accuracy of his narrations. In his last moments before the fatal drop launched him into an endless eternity, in reference, read the following certificate, correctly transcribed, as given by an eye witness in reply to an application from the author: MOBILE, ALA., July 31st. 1873. This is to certify that I was present at the execution of James Copeland, who was executed at Augusta, Perry county, Miss., the 30th day of October, 1857; and heard the Sheriff, J. R. S. Pitts, ask him, the said James Copeland, if the detailed history and list of names given as members of the Wages and Copeland clan were correct, and he answered the Sheriff in the affirmative that they were. T. C. CARTER. Office 58, North Commerce st., Mobile, Ala. Other equally reliable certificates could be given to the same effect, but the one here transcribed will suffice. The person whose signature is above given, is respectfully known pretty much throughout the City of Mobile, as well as over the greater part of Mississippi, and whose veracity none will attempt to dispute.