But was this a legal proceeding? If there be a prejudice existing, the prisoner is entitled to the fairest possible defence. The more atrocious the offence, the more guarded and cautious ought to be the modes of procedure. So far, however, as they could discover from the records of the Court, this was the first case in which it had been attempted to charge three murders in the same indictment. There had been several instances of three persons slain at the same time, as in the Aberdeen riots, by a discharge of musketry, and in the case where a whole family was poisoned: these, however, as Mr. Hume observed, were all parts of the same foul and atrocious offence. But there was no example, in the history of the Court, of combining three unconnected offences against one person; far less of combining three against one person who was not alleged to have any connection with two of them, and was only implicated in a third, which had no manner of connection with those which preceded it. Sir George Mackenzie, who would not be suspected of any partiality to the prisoner, laid down the principle most clearly, that different parties ought not to be thus combined in an indictment. “A person accused,” says he, “was not obliged to answer of old but for one crime in one day, except where there were several pursuers, _Quoniam Attachiamenta, cap._ 65. by which, accumulation of crimes was expressly unlawful, _sed hodie aliter obtinet_, for now there is nothing more ordinar nor to see five or six persons in one summonds or indictment; and to see one accuser pursue several summondses; and yet seeing crimes are of so great consequence to the defender, and are of so great intricacy, it appears most unreasonable that a defender should be burthened with more than one defence at once; and it appears that accumulation of crimes is intended, either to læse the fame of the defender, or to distract him in his defence.” Title 19, § 7. Here the principle was brought out in the clearest manner--that salutary principle which says that no man ought to be called upon to answer to more than one crime in one libel; since the accumulation of crimes was calculated “either to læse the fame of the prisoner, or to distract him in his defence.” The learned Counsel then referred to the work of Mr. Baron Hume. That learned author treats of the accumulation of crimes under different heads: first, of those which are of one name and species, and of one class and general description; secondly, of those criminal acts, though of different kinds and appellations, have a natural relation and dependence; and, thirdly, of that sort of _cumulatio actionum_, which consists in the charging of _several persons_ in the same libel _with separate and unconnected crimes_. The first of these, he argued, had no relation to the present case, because it did not include murder. All the cases referred to were cases of housebreaking and theft; and though the former was a capital offence,