The unfortunate prisoner, Mr. Brodie, is by no means singular in his attachment to this vice; nor is it at all confined to the lower stations of life. People of the highest rank scruple not, in the course of their gambling, to mix with highwaymen and pickpockets, and to descend to practices of chicane and cunning which, in any other situation, they would themselves abhor. It was but the other day that a gentleman of Brighthelmstone, reputed worth three thousand pounds per annum, was detected in the very act of using loaded dice, and was obliged to fly the country for it; which is exactly Mr. Brodie’s situation.[25] But the gaming table levels all distinctions. There the high and the low, the rich and the poor, meet together. There, I admit--indeed, I have thought it necessary to prove the fact, in order to account for so strange a connection, from the bare existence of which strong arguments of his guilt have this night been drawn--there, I say, I admit that this unhappy, this misguided man, learned to endure, and at last to court, the society of those abandoned, those profligate wretches, who have this day come forward, in the most suspicious circumstances, to swear him their accomplice in the felony charged in the indictment. But though the prisoner at the bar acknowledges with contrition these habits of folly and dissipation, and the disgraceful connection in which, to that extent, it unhappily involved him, yet he trusts it will appear, from a full consideration of the evidence, that The very head and front of his offending Has this extent; no more. And he trusts to the candour and justice of you, gentlemen of the jury, that you will not allow this unfortunate connection to go further in your mind, as an ingredient of proof, than it justly ought; and far less to let suspicions supply the want of that legal evidence which the law of this free and happy country requires, in order to affect the life of any of its citizens, however dangerous to society the crimes charged may be, and however interested the public may be that they should be convicted. Gentlemen, with these general observations in view, I intreat you to attend to the proof on which a verdict is asked from you against the life of this unfortunate man.