I admit that the credibility of these witnesses is liable to suspicion, and that if the proof rested upon their evidence alone, I would not call upon you to find the prisoners guilty upon it, but in so far as their evidence is corroborated by the general tenor of the other unexceptionable parts of the proof they are entitled to credit. To Ainslie it has been objected that a corrupt bargain was made with him by the Sheriff, which, in other words, amounts to this, that he must be a false witness. If the prisoners’ counsel were serious in stating this objection, they ought certainly to have proved it; but, gentlemen, it proceeded entirely upon a mistake in point of fact--upon a supposition that Ainslie had not spoke out until Brodie was apprehended. Gentlemen, I hold Ainslie’s declaration in my hand, and which I offered to read, and which I would now read, if the forms of the Court would allow me, emitted a short while after the robbery was committed, and containing a full and complete disclosure of the whole transaction. But, gentlemen, you will not, you cannot, suspect that there was any such bargain; that there was anything in the present case out of the common course. A similar objection was made by the counsel for the prisoner to the evidence of Brown, with this addition, that he had been convicted of felony at the Old Bailey. The last part of this objection, gentlemen, is completely answered by the pardon which, by the law of England, where that sentence was pronounced, completely rehabilitated him. Brown is then in even a more favourable situation than Ainslie, for, as he never was charged with the crime for which the prisoners are tried, nor any intention taken up to prosecute him for it, he had even less temptation than Ainslie to swear falsely. There is therefore nothing in the objections stated to these witnesses, and accordingly the Court have found so. These men, gentlemen, have told you that Brodie was with them when the breaking into the Excise Office was originally planned that he met them at Smith’s house on the night when the robbery was committed, in which particular their evidence is corroborated by the testimony of Grahame Campbell; that he was with them at the commission of the crime, which is the time when he endeavours to prove an _alibi_; that some of the pistols carried to the Excise Office belonged to him, which pistols were afterwards found in his possession. They have likewise informed you that it was agreed upon that Brodie should be stationed within the door and Ainslie without, and this exactly corresponds with the testimony of James Bonar.