The pannel submits that he is not bound to plead to, or to be tried upon a libel, which not only charges him with three unconnected murders, committed each at a different time, and at a different place, but also combines his trial with that of another pannel, who is not even alleged to have had any concern with two of the offences of which he is accused. Such an accumulation of offences and pannels is contrary to the general and the better practice of the Court; it is inconsistent with right principle, and indeed, so far as the pannel can discover, is altogether unprecedented; it is totally unnecessary for the ends of public justice, and greatly distracts and prejudices the accused in their defence. It is therefore submitted that the libel is completely vitiated by this accumulation, and cannot be maintained as containing a proper criminal charge. On the merits of the case, the pannel has only to state that he is not guilty, and that he rests his defence on a denial of the facts set forth in the libel. The defences for Helen M‘Dougal were next read as follows: If it shall be decided that the prisoner is obliged to answer to this indictment at all, her answer to it is, that she is not guilty, and that the Prosecutor cannot prove the facts on which his charge rests. But she humbly submits that she is not bound to plead to it. She is accused of one murder committed in October 1828, in a house in Portsburgh, and of no other offence. Yet she is placed in an indictment along with a different person, who is accused of other two murders, each of them committed at a different time, and at a different place, it not being alleged that she had any connection with either of these crimes. This accumulation of pannels and of offences is not necessary for public justice, and exposes the accused to intolerable prejudice, and is not warranted, so far as can be ascertained, even by a single precedent.