Mr. PATRICK ROBERTSON then addressed the Court in support of the defences. In this indictment there were two prisoners named, but these two prisoners did not appear on the face of it to have any connection with each other. The major proposition contained a simple charge of murder, without specifying any aggravation. In the minor proposition, however, there were three distinct and totally unconnected charges of murder. The first was against Burke alone, and was charged as having been committed in April last, in a house in the Canongate. But it was not stated that he had any accomplices. He was the sole person charged with that offence. It appeared, indeed, from the description of the crime, that he was charged “with the wicked, aforethought purpose and intent, of disposing of and selling the body, when murdered, as a subject for dissection, or with some other wicked and felonious purpose and intent to the Prosecutor unknown.” But, while, on the one hand, there was no aggravation laid in the major proposition; yet on the other the Prosecutor did not confine himself to one species of intent, but libelled two--the intent to sell the body to the surgeons, and some other sort of vague undefined species of intent to the Prosecutor himself unknown. The second article in the indictment charged another murder, alleged to have been committed in the month of October, in a place called Tanner’s Close, in Wester Portsburgh. In this charge also William Burke is the only person accused of that offence, and the intent laid is the same as in the former instance. Then there was a charge of a third murder, committed at a different place and time, viz. at a house in Portsburgh on the 31st October; in which charge both William Burke and Helen M‘Dougal were included: and, after describing the offence, the intent libelled is the same as in the two former cases. Thus we had three murders charged against the prisoners; two against Burke alone, and one against Burke in conjunction with M‘Dougal; all of which were committed at different times and in different places, without any connection whatever between them: and these charges were laid without any aggravation. Then five different declarations by Burke, and two by M‘Dougal, were also libelled on, together with eight articles to be adduced as evidence against the former, and six against both; and in addition to all this, they were served with a list of fifty-five witnesses by whom these different and totally unconnected charges were to be proved. Now the question was, whether this charge, involving such an accumulation of unconnected offences, was consistent with our practice, with the humane principles of our law, and with that sound and proper discretion which the Court was not only entitled, but bound to exercise. But the first and most material point was, whether the prisoners would suffer prejudice by the mode in which the libel had been framed; for if that could be made out, it would justify their Lordships in