"The prisoners were carried to the port of Falmouth and committed for trial, the charge being murder. Their excuse was that, if they had not killed the boy and fed upon his flesh, there being no sail in sight, they would have died of starvation before being rescued. They said that there was no chance of saving their lives, except by killing some one for the others to eat. The prisoners were committed for murder and sentenced to death, but appealed to the mercy of the court, pleading ignorance. It was found by the verdict that the boy was incapable of resistance, and authorities were then quoted to prove that, in order to save your own life, you have the right to take the life of an unjust aggressor in self-defence--a principle the truth of which is universally admitted. "But the evidence clearly showed that the defenceless boy was not an unjust aggressor against their lives, and, consequently, their only plea was that of expediency. "In a chapter in which he deals with the exception created by necessity, Lord Hale, quoted by Justice Coleridge, thus expresses himself: "'If a man be desperately assaulted and in peril of death, and cannot otherwise escape, except by killing an innocent person then present, the act will not acquit him of the crime and punishment of murder; for he ought rather to die himself than to kill an innocent.' "In the case of two men on a plank at sea, which can only support one, the right of one occupant to throw the other overboard to save his own life, and in the instance of sailors, to save themselves, throwing passengers in the sea, are equally condemned by Lord Coleridge as unjustifiable homicide. So that under no circumstances is it allowable to kill an innocent aggressor to save your own life. I say _innocent_ aggressor; but it is allowed, in self-defence, to kill, if necessary, an _unjust_ aggressor against your life. "This case is exactly analogous to that of the child lying helpless in its mother's womb. She causes its death by her consent to the act of her agent, the physician in attendance. "Remark that Brookes, one of the sailors, dissented to the killing of the sailor-boy. This may happen in consultation, when one of the consultants does not admit the right to kill an unborn child. Please also remember that the sailor-boy lay helpless at the bottom of the boat when his assailants killed him to save their own lives. "The child is not an unjust aggressor against the mother. It is placed in the womb without its consent and is defenceless. It is the mother who is, as it were, the aggressor from the obstacles caused by a deformed pelvis, tumors, etc.; and she has not the right to ask or consent to the killing of the child who does not attack her.