The jury were rising to withdraw, every eye was moistened with Isabella’s distress—while all felt conscious of her husband’s doom—when a humming noise arose amidst the spectators, and, “Let the jury stop!—let the jury stop!” cried many voices from the door. The skipper of the vessel in which Isabella had come to London pressed into the court; and, being sworn— “Weel, sir,” said he, “it isn’t much that the like o’ me has got to say; only, ye see, Mr Hamilton here, that ye ca’ a prisoner, is an auld owner’s son o’ mine. I have known him since he was the height o’ my knee, and he was always a guid and a cannie laddie; and I venture to say, had his father not been ower honest a man, and paid twenty shillings in the pound to every body, he wouldna hae been in his grave to-day. As for _the thing_ that is carrying on the prosecution against Mr Hamilton, I knaw something o’ him tae; and he may think himself weel off that it wasna a wife o’ mine that he shewed his blackguardism to, for had I been my auld maister’s son, hang me! after the insults I saw him offer to this bonny lady here, when they were both passengers on board o’ my ship, Jemmy Johnson, take me! if I wudna hae twisted his neck off his shoulders in a moment!” The counsel for the prosecution had risen to ridicule the evidence of the prisoner, when he was interrupted by a negro servant of the Honourable Edward Stafford, who had been touched by the fiery eloquence of Alexander and the distress of his wife, and who rose and exclaimed, while others attempted to keep him down—“Me will speak!—Massa be de grand villain! Me be black, but you won’t make me one black heart. De prisoner be innocent! Massa do owe him von hundred pound, for me carried it to massa, and massa did try to steal de wife ob Massa Hamilton; which, be bad—berry bad! Prisoner be de injured man, like de poor African!”