LORD PITMILLY.--The Court were peculiarly circumstanced in being called upon to give an opinion on an indictment in a case, part of which must unquestionably go to trial. He was quite clear that one of the charges must undergo an investigation; that the trial to that extent must proceed. But Counsel were by no means precluded from stating the objection they had brought forward, and which, appearing to them in the light it did, it became their duty to press upon the attention of the Court. This accordingly they had done with equal zeal and ability, in a manner which did honour to themselves, and reflected credit on the Bar of Scotland. But it was the duty of the Court to be calm and guarded; to express their opinions in a dignified and dispassionate manner; and to avoid any thing which was either calculated to unsettle the established principles of that law or to form a bad precedent for the future. He agreed that there were two different questions before the Court; the first of which was, whether Helen M‘Dougal ought to have been included in the indictment. And on that point he had no doubt of the Prosecutor’s right so to include her. He approved of what the Lord Advocate had done, and he had no hesitation in saying, that the trial should now proceed. The other question was of a very different nature; namely, whether it was competent, and also whether it was proper and fitting, that Burke should now go to trial upon an indictment, charging three murders, or should be tried on one or other of these charges. Of the competency he had no doubt whatever. His Lordship was much struck with the indictment when he first saw it, and he felt it to be his duty, as it is always the duty of the Court on such occasions, to inform his mind in regard to the principle on which it had been framed. He went to the authorities on the subject, and after a careful examination of them he had no doubt of the competency. When he looked at the cases of Beaumont and Gillespie, particularly the latter, where nine separate acts of forgery were charged, he could not have the smallest doubt as to the competency of including these several charges in the same indictment. Our practice on this point was too firmly fixed to admit of any question, that one individual may be charged with several crimes of the same nature, and committed at different times. The English cases referred to he put altogether out of view, because this was not a new point, now raised for the first time, and to be settled by a reference to principle or analogy, but a matter fixed by our own practice, and not again to be brought into dispute. He was therefore quite clear as to the competency. But where it was a question of discretion merely, and where that discretion, as in the present case, was strongly appealed to, the Court would interfere, because it was their bounden and sacred duty to prevent a prisoner from suffering prejudice in his defence. The present prisoners, by their