To the determining of this question each side accordingly addressed its strongest efforts, and the debate which followed will be found both lively and instructive. The authority of Sir George Mackenzie was quoted against the admission of the witnesses; but that venerable jurist was somewhat severely handled. The principal objection to Ainslie, as stated by the Dean of Faculty, was that he had been himself accused of the crime he was now to fasten upon another, and that the Sheriff of Edinburgh had offered him his life if he would criminate Brodie, of whose complicity he had hitherto said nothing. In the case of Brown, the battle was joined upon the precise effect of the pardon which had been obtained for that interesting criminal, and to what extent the pristine purity of his character was thereby restored. The Court, however, repelled the objections, and admitted both witnesses; and the evidence which they gave finally disposed of all chance of the panels’ acquittal. At the conclusion of Brown’s evidence the Lord Justice-Clerk addressed that truculent scoundrel as follows:--“John Brown, you appear to be a clever fellow, and I hope you will now abandon your dissipated courses, and betake yourself to some honest employment.” To which Brown suitably replied, “My Lord, be assured my future life shall make amends for my past conduct.” He then left the box, and so passes out of the story, of which he was undoubtedly “the greater villain,” and surely never did witness less merit judicial commendation than John Brown _alias_ Humphry Moore. The Crown case closed with the reading of the prisoners’ declarations and the Deacon’s letters, such portions of the former as related to matters unconnected with the trial being withheld from the jury. For the defence no witnesses were called for Smith, and an attempt to prove an _alibi_ made on behalf of Brodie was entirely unsuccessful, the principal witnesses to it being his brother-in-law, Matthew Sheriff, and his mistress, Jean Watt, both obviously friendly to the Deacon’s interests. At one o’clock on the morning of Thursday, 28th August, the exculpatory proof was closed, and the Lord Advocate began his address to the jury. His Lordship’s speech, while an able and convincing statement of the Crown case, was marred by one or two passages which would now be considered to exceed the limits of legitimate advocacy. Such are the references to facts “which would have been likewise sworn to by Smith’s wife, if she had been allowed to be examined”; the assumption that the Deacon’s foreman, Robert Smith, was convinced of his master’s guilt; the use made of Ainslie’s declaration, which that witness was told had been destroyed, and which was not before the Court; and the passage in the peroration referring to the “consequences to the inhabitants of this populous city” of the Deacon’s acquittal.