he is charged, inseparable from the nature of the proceedings, a man, reputed honourable, as unsuspecting himself as unsuspected by his fellow-citizens, may be dragged from his office and from the bosom of his family, with imminent risk to his business, and with still more fearful effect upon his dearest connexions; and under the shock of his own feelings, which so awful a situation must naturally produce, is conducted as a common felon under charge of the police to the station-house, and thence to the Old Bailey, whence he can only be suffered to depart (of course in exactly the same state of ignorance under which he entered the Court), when the person who arrested him shall have consented, and on such terms as he shall consent to; and then only will he be allowed to return to his distracted family and prepare his defence--against what? against a technical definition of some facts in which he has played some part, but which being so defined as to square with the application which may be meant to be made of a certain Act of Parliament, is sure to bear no kind of resemblance to the real manner in which the said facts occurred, and of course none at all to the impression which they left on the mind of the accused, or to the form in which alone they can present themselves to his mind; and, therefore, such a definition can convey no information of the nature of the depositions secretly made against him, and cannot consequently assist him in preparing evidence against them. He must launch into the regions of imagination for every possible construction which may be given by any man to those facts which have been really done by him, and prepare evidence upon every one of such possible constructions, at an expense and amidst perplexity which may be supposed, and after all most likely to no purpose, for probably the construction to which the proof will be directed by the prosecution may be one against which no counterproof has been prepared; and indeed it will be so, for with this very object the proof will be directed to the construction least likely to occur to the accused, and that upon which a counterproof will be most difficult--for all which the nature of the Act of Parliament has been seen to afford peculiar advantages.