Still, this recantation is so unlike Mr. Webster, that one would almost doubt the testimony of so great an unknown as is the writer in the Courier. But Mr. Stuart removes all doubt, and says--"I merely add, that Mr. Webster himself has personally assured me that his speech was in accordance with the correction here made, and that he has now in his desk the amendments to which the corrector refers." So the retainers must bear the honor, or the shame, whichsoever it may be, of volunteering the advocacy of that remarkable bill. When Paul was persecuted for righteousness' sake, how easily might "the offence of the cross" have been made to cease, by a mere transposition! Had he pursued that plan, he need not have been let down from the wall in a basket: he might have had a dinner given him by forty scribes, at the first hotel in Jerusalem, and a doctor of the law to defend him in a pamphlet. But, alas! in Mr. Webster's case, admitting the transposition is real, the transubstantiation is not thereby effected; the transfer of the _which_ does not alter the character of the sentence to the requisite degree. The bill, which he volunteers to advocate, contains provisions to this effect: That the owner of a fugitive slave may seize his fugitive, and, on the warrant of any "judge, commissioner, clerk, marshal, postmaster, or collector," "residing or being" within the State where the seizure is made, the fugitive, without any trial by jury, shall be delivered up to his master, and carried out of the State. Now, this is the bill which Mr. Webster proposes "to support, with all its provisions, to the fullest extent." Let him transfer his _which_, it does not transubstantiate his statement so that he can consistently introduce a section which "provides expressly for the right of trial by jury." This attempt to evade the plain meaning of a plain statement, is too small a thing for a great man. I make no doubt that Mr. Webster had in his desk, at the time alleged, a bill designed to secure the trial by jury to fugitive slaves, prepared as it is set forth. But how do you think it came there, and for what purpose? Last February Mr. Webster was intending to make a very different speech; and then, I make no doubt, it was that this bill was prepared, with the design of introducing it! But I see no reason for supposing, that when he made his celebrated speech, he intended to introduce it as an amendment to Mr. Mason's or Butler's bill. It is said that he will present it to the Senate. Let us wait and see.[7]