Gentlemen of the Jury—Gentlemen, I must agree with my Learned Friend, in entreating you to bestow your most serious attention upon this case, and in requesting you to consider (which, indeed, my Learned Friend fairly confessed you ought to bear in mind), that as the charge is heavy the proof ought to be clear; and that you will take care that your indignation against the crime shall have no influence upon your judgment respecting the person accused. That is a duty, Gentlemen, which is one of the most important, for a Juryman to attend to in this species of case, but it in one of most difficult performance; for such is, and such I trust ever will be, the feeling of abhorrence which Englishmen entertain against this detestable crime, that it is extremely difficult indeed, when a person is accused of it, to consider the case which in laid before us, in that dispassionate and unprejudiced manner, which is essential to the administration of justice. We all wish that no such occurrences could exist; and if a wish could blot them out of existence, we should be almost tempted to form that wish: but, Gentlemen, when these cases do come before us, they claim our very serious attention; and more particularly on this account, that it is a charge which, whenever made upon an individual, depends almost always upon the testimony of one witness, and where there is but one witness to make the accusation,—I mean one witness to the fact charged, so that the person accused can have no witness in his defence;—that, however innocent a man may be who is accused of this crime, provided the party is in a situation in which he cannot shew that he was fifty miles off at the time, it is quite impossible for him to have a witness to negative the fact. It must stand or fall upon the testimony of the principal witness, whose testimony, however, I need not tell you, is to be watched most scrupulously, and to be compared with the evidence of other witnesses; and if found inconsistent with the testimony of other witnesses, it is hardly then to be carried to the extent of full credence and of conviction.