therefore leaving the whole of the case open to this remark, that whilst it is not at all shown, either from your own acts, or from the facts themselves, that you in England must necessarily _have known_, there is an evident impropriety in pushing the witnesses to the extent of proving, that nothing but what they said to have happened on other occasions in other places, could have been the ultimate issue of an unaccomplished speculation, intercepted by one of the witnesses, to his evident advantage. It has lately been shown that such a case of probable knowledge, so made out, and so substantiated, will go to the Jury; and in going to the Jury nothing will avail you, as far as the law goes, but your being able to give “a plain and simple account of what was intended by a foreign merchant residing abroad,” whom you must even bring over to give evidence of what he intended to do with goods shipped by yourself in England, in consequence of a simple order as a mere commission-agent, or to show an impossibility of your being aware of that intent whatever it may be. Without complying with one or other of these two requirements, your case shall go to the Jury, accompanied by every unfavourable inference; and what should have been for your advantage is turned against you. The readiness and openness of the party accused in giving every explanation upon the very first intimation of a suspicion existing on the subject--the credit attached by every one capable of correctly estimating those explanations, whatever circumstances of a favourable nature may lie on the very surface of the case itself--the respectability of the accused, his rank in society, and high character, as vouched by men of the first standing, and who have every opportunity of knowing him and his acts--his wealth, his education, his knowledge--qualities peculiarly adapted to this kind of felony, which is intimated to be the felony of the honest, the wealthy, the educated, the well-informed--all these things seem in the exposition of the law to be literally against him. Nevertheless, these circumstances, combined with the impression produced by the inquisitorial nature of the original proceedings, together with the irresistible force of that axiom, that “a man must be proved to be guilty, and not called upon to prove himself innocent,” may--and thanks be to God, did, in the instance before us--blunt the edge of the murderous weapon brandished over the head of the accused.