But Jean Watt depones that Mr. Brodie came to her house at eight o’clock on the Wednesday evening, when the eight o’clock bell was ringing; her reason for recollecting these circumstances, too, is a very good one, it being the last time that ever Mr. Brodie slept in her house. Her evidence is corroborated by the servant-maid, who depones exactly to the same purpose. And there is a circumstance, gentlemen, in the deposition of this witness which well merits your attention. Upon being asked what bell was ringing, she said it was the bell of the Tron Church. Here the counsel on the other side of the bar appeared to hug themselves upon the mistake into which they supposed she had fallen, by mentioning a bell which, from the distance, she could not possibly hear. But the matter was cleared up in a moment, when, on being asked where the Tron Church was, she replied, in the Parliament Close. This, gentlemen, is the natural simplicity of truth; this proves her to be no tutored witness, brought forward to rehearse a tale made up beforehand, or to assign fictitious causes of knowledge. Both these witnesses concur in deposing that Mr. Brodie staid the whole night until next morning at nine o’clock in Mrs. Watt’s house; and their evidence is corroborated by that of Helen Alison, who saw him coming down stairs at nine on the Thursday morning. The evidence of this good woman, Helen Alison, is accompanied with circumstances the most natural and striking, and is confirmed by James Murray, one of the sheriff-officers employed in the search on the Thursday morning, who swears to her having at that time mentioned Mr. Brodie’s having been at Jean Watt’s all the night of the Wednesday and morning of the Thursday preceding. The whole of this evidence, taken together, affords a proof the most conclusive that Mr. Brodie could not be present at the robbery of the Excise Office. You find him in his own house till the hour of eight; from that hour till nine on the Thursday morning you find him in the house of Mrs. Watt. It is impossible then that he could have been at Smith’s a considerable time before the hour of eight, or that he could have been present at a robbery which took up an hour in the perpetration.