Now, to ascertain this point you have, in the first place, gentlemen, the evidence of Brown and Ainslie, and if they have sworn truth the prisoners must be guilty. To the admissibility of these witnesses there can be no objection. Were not evidence of this sort admissible, there would not be a possibility of detecting any crime of an occult nature. Had a corrupt bargain, indeed, been proved, by which they were induced to give their evidence, there might have been room for an objection to their admissibility. But no such bargain has even been alleged against the public prosecutor in the present case. And as to their being accomplices, this, gentlemen, is no objection at all. A proof by accomplices may display, it is true, a corruption of manners, which alone can render such proof necessary. But it is impossible to go into the idea that their testimony is therefore inadmissible. Nor is there, in the present case, any reason to suppose that they were under improper temptations to give their evidence. Each of them was separately called upon by the Court, and it was explained to each of them that they ran no hazard unless from not speaking the truth, and that their being produced as witnesses secured them from all punishment, except what would follow upon their giving false evidence. Under such circumstances, you cannot suppose, gentlemen, that they would be guilty of perjury without any prospect of advantage to themselves, and merely to swear away the lives of these prisoners at the bar. Their credibility, to be sure, rests with you, gentlemen; and if you find anything unnatural or contradictory in their evidence you will reject it. But there is nothing in it unnatural or contradictory. The principal objection was made against Brown, but his evidence is corroborated by that of Ainslie, and the evidence of Ainslie is again corroborated by that of Brown, and they are both corroborated by all the other circumstances deposed to. With regard to Smith, you have the best of all evidence against him, his own declarations, for it surely is not to be imagined that any man would criminate himself contrary to the truth. These declarations have been substantiated in your hearing, and where a _corpus delicti_ is established, as in the present case, to which these declarations refer, there cannot be a doubt of their being the very best evidence, and therefore you can be under no difficulty of returning a verdict against him. Gentlemen, to be sure these declarations are not legal evidence against Brodie. But they corroborate the evidence of Brown and Ainslie, who swear positively against him.