but that they may incur your reproof. But "The flesh will quiver where the pincers tear, The blood will follow where the knife is driven." When, before this, did it ever fall to the lot of any subject to be borne down by the weight of calumny and obloquy, which now oppresses me. The press, which ought to be the shield of public liberty, the avenger of public wrongs--which above all should have exerted itself to preserve the purity of its favourite institution, the trial by jury--has directed its whole force to my injury and prejudice: it has heaped slander upon slander, and whetted the public appetite for slanders more atrocious: nay more, what in other men would serve to refute and repel the shaft of calumny, is made to stain with a deeper dye the villanies ascribed to me. One would have thought, that some time spent in the service of my country would have entitled me to some favour from the public under a charge of this nature. But no; in my case the order of things is changed--nature is reversed. The acts of times long since past have been made to cast a deeper shadow over the acts attributed to me within the last few days; and the pursuit of a profession hitherto held honourable among honourable men has been turned to the advantage of the accusation against me. You have been told that after the battle, I boasted of my inhumanity to a vanquished, yielding, wounded enemy--that I made a wanton sacrifice of my bleeding and supplicating foe, by striking him to the earth with my cowardly steel; and that after this deed of blood, I sat down to plunder my unhappy victim: nay more, that, with folly indescribable and incredible, I boasted of my barbarity as of a victory. Is there an English officer, is there an English soldier or an Englishman, whose heart would not have revolted with hatred against such baseness and folly? Far better, gentlemen, would it have been for me, rather than have seen this day, to have fallen with my honourable companions, stemming and opposing the tide of battle upon the field of my country's glory. Then my father and my family, though they would have mourned my loss, would have blessed my name, and shame would not have rolled its burning fires over my memory!--Before I recur to the evidence brought against my life, I wish to return my most sincere thanks to the high sheriff and the magistrates for their kindness shown to me. I cannot but express my unfeigned regret at a slight misunderstanding which has occurred between the Reverend Mr. Lloyd, the visiting magistrate, and my solicitor. As it was nothing more than a misunderstanding, I trust the bonds of friendship are again ratified between us all. My most particular gratitude is due to the Reverend Mr. Franklin, whose kind visits and pious consolations have inspired me with a deeper sense of the awful truths of religion, and have trebly armed my breast with fortitude to serve me on this day. Though last, not least--let me not forget Mr.