But attend to what follows. Early the next morning, Brodie sends for Robert Smith, his foreman, and asks him if he had heard any news concerning them; he tells Brodie that Smith, the pannel, and Ainslie were in prison, and so forth, and adds that he hoped his master was not concerned with them. Gentlemen, he knew that Smith and Ainslie were Mr. Brodie’s companions; and you cannot conceive that he would have presumed to put such a question to his master if he had not been convinced in his own mind of his master’s guilt. Mr. Brodie makes no answer to this question. Will it be said that a man conscious of his own innocence would have remained silent upon such an occasion? Gentlemen, I appeal to yourselves; how would any one of you have felt, or what answer would you have returned to a servant who dared put such a question to you? Brodie at this time tells Smith that he is going out of town for a few days; but you have it in evidence that he left this country, and fled to Flushing. In order to account for this flight you are told a story of a prosecution against him, at the instance of a chimney-sweep, for using false or loaded dice. This is a very strange circumstance to bring in exculpation. I have no hesitation to say that it is the most ignominious defence I ever remember to have heard maintained by a prisoner at that bar; but you cannot believe that that prosecution was the occasion of his flight. He was in no greater danger from it then than he had been in for months before; no step had been taken in that process which could alarm him at this critical time; and it is mere mockery, it is altogether a joke, to pretend that from such a circumstance the prisoner at the bar could have taken up the resolution of banishing himself from his country for ever. Besides, Mr. Brodie, in his declaration before the Sheriff, did not assign this as the cause of his flight. He said that, as he was intimate with Smith and Ainslie, he was afraid they would accuse him of being concerned with them in robbing the Excise Office. He did not so much as mention the defence now set up for him; but his counsel saw that it would be necessary to account for his conduct in some shape or other, and no other appearance of defence occurred but this process. It is impossible to believe this story; and indeed it is impossible to assign any cause for Mr. Brodie’s conduct consistent with his innocence of the crime charged against him.