say now, gentlemen, what I religiously believe to be true,--when these slaves were ordered to come on deck after the capture, the prisoner was as much astonished as any body at the number of fishes that had got into his net. These, gentlemen, are the facts, and, as I believe, all the important facts pertaining to this case; and on these facts we claim that you must acquit the prisoner of the offence of larceny. NOTE. This case and one or two others were tried, and, in consequence of a series of most extraordinary rulings by the court, a verdict of “_guilty_” was rendered. Every lawyer knows that in the course of a trial, when counsel can have no time for examination or reflection, they take exceptions, wherever an objection to the decision of the judge seems probably, or even plausibly good. A clew, therefore, will be given to the course which the court pursued throughout these trials, when the fact is stated, that, on appeal to the Superior Court, _seventeen_ out of _twenty-four_ of the rulings of the judge to which exception had been taken were set aside. The cases for larceny were remanded to be tried anew, when a verdict of “not guilty” was rendered in them all. Drayton, the captain, and Sayres, his mate, were afterwards convicted of “transporting” the slaves, and were fined. English, the “boy,” though indicted in one hundred and fifteen indictments, was discharged without a trial. Part of Bell’s free family were ransomed; the rest were sold and sent to the South. Although the facts pertaining to the mob, the repeated attempts upon Drayton’s life, the besieging of the jail, and the expulsion of Drayton’s counsel from it when engaged in his defence, all came out before the grand jury that found these scores and hundreds of indictments, and though it was notorious who some of the ringleaders of the mob were, yet no bill of indictment was ever found against any of them. FOOTNOTES: [4] In attendance upon the trial, and stationing themselves as near as practicable to the counsel for the defence, were men who cocked pistols and drew dirks upon Drayton, in the mob that pursued him. LETTER TO THE WHIG CONVENTION, (AND ALSO TO THE FREE SOIL CONVENTION, _mutatis mutandis_,) ACCEPTING THEIR RESPECTIVE NOMINATIONS FOR THE THIRTY-FIRST CONGRESS. [_One paragraph of this Letter is omitted, as referring to a subject unconnected with the object of the present volume._] WEST NEWTON, Sept. 23, 1848. GENTLEMEN; I have received with lively emotions of gratitude a copy of the resolutions passed at a district convention, held at Dedham, on the -- inst.; from one of which it appears that I was unanimously nominated by the convention, as their candidate for the Thirty-first Congress of the United States. * * * * *