The prisoners read written defences, in which they declared it to have been their object to prevent the duel, and procure an apology from the deceased. A number of persons of high respectability gave them excellent characters, and the judge having summed up, the jury, after an absence of an hour and twenty minutes, returned a verdict of “Not guilty,” in favour of the prisoners; who, deeply affected by their awful situation, on hearing the decision, which restored them to society, all bowed their heads, as in gratitude to the Almighty for their deliverance. BETWEEN SIR ALEXANDER BOSWELL, BART., OF AUCHINLECK, AND MR. STUART, OF DUNCARN. March 26, 1822. About eleven o’clock, a meeting took place at Auchtertool, near Balmuto, in Fifeshire, between Sir Alexander Boswell, of Auchinleck, Bart. eldest son of James Boswell, the biographer of Dr. Johnson, and James Stuart, Esq. of Duncarn. Sir Alexander was attended by the Hon. John Douglas, brother of the Marquis of Queensberry, and Mr. Stuart by the Earl of Rosslyn. The ball of Mr. Stuart struck Sir Alexander in the shoulder, shattered the shoulder-blade, and was supposed to have entered the spine, as his limbs were quite paralysed. Sir Alexander was carried to Balmuto House, where he expired. The cause of this duel was a song which appeared in a Glasgow paper, called the Sentinel, on the 26th of December, and which Mr. Stuart ascertained to have been written by Sir Alexander. The manner in which Mr. Stuart became possessed of that information was through a person named Borthwick, concerned in the Sentinel at the time the article appeared in that paper. Borthwick delivered the papers into the hands of Mr. Stuart, and from these papers the discovery of the author of the article mentioned, as well as that of others, was made. On the 10th of June, the trial of Mr. Stuart, for the wilful murder of Sir Alexander, took place in the High Court of Justiciary, Edinburgh; present, the Lord Justice Clerk, Lord Hermand, Lord Gillies, Lord Pitmilly, and Lord Succoth. The indictment having been read, to which Mr. Stuart pleaded “Not guilty.” Mr. Cockburn opened the case on the part of the defender. He stated, that all who knew Sir Alexander Boswell must be aware that he possessed, in a very extraordinary degree, the talent of irony. He then detailed the facts relative to the establishment of the Beacon and the Sentinel newspapers, the contributions of the deceased to those publications, and the manner in which Mr. Stuart obtained the fatal evidence. He next dwelt upon the urbanity and peace-making disposition of Mr. Stuart, and showed that the deceased had received no provocation from him, to justify the calumny in which he had indulged against the accused. Having read the opprobrious passages of the song, he contended, that those indignities imposed on Mr. Stuart the necessity of acting as he had done.