"My Lords, and gentlemen of the jury, this is a case of murder, whereto, so far as I can see, no defence or plea of justification, or even palliation, can be set up by the prisoner at the bar, unless it be that which is indeed an aggravation, that he did intend to kill one man against whom he entertained _malice prepense_, and slew another against whom he had no cause of quarrel. On the day preceding the commission of this murder, the prisoner at the bar was, in consequence of his outrageous and brutal conduct in the House of Gordon, occupied at present by Sir Willoughby Somerset, kicked by that honourable knight out of doors, whereby, being fiercely enraged, he impiously vowed a desperate revenge, the which, though he had taken it instanter and killed his enemy, _percitus rixa_, would still, by the just laws of this land, which make no distinction between forethought felony, and _chaude melée_, have been murder, and sufficient to subject the prisoner to the penal consequences of that heinous crime. But, my Lords, the prisoner cannot even plead _homicidium in rixa_; for he went home and meditated upon his crime; settled deliberately the _modus trucidandi_ in cool blood--or, as we say, _sanguine frigida_; and, on the following day, watched, _sanguinem sitiens_, for his victim; and more like a bloodhound, _canis vestigator_, than a human being, deprived him, whom he supposed to be his victim, of life. But revenge is known to be blind, and, instead of his enemy, the prisoner murdered, by shooting him through the body, a person who was not in any degree guilty of having offended him; but who was going about his private affairs, as any of us might have been, unconscious of meriting, standing in no fear of receiving, and knowing no reason for expecting such an awful fate as that which awaited him. This, I say, is an aggravation of the crime of murder, in so far as, while in the ordinary case there may, in man's estimation, be some palliation in consequence of the infliction of an injury--in this there can be none." The witnesses for the crown were then called. The death of Richard Forster, caused by a shot from a gun, was proved. It was also proved, that the gun found in the hedge was Adam Hunter's. The quarrel with Sir Willoughby Somerset was next established, as also the fact that the deceased wore, on that evening, the dress of his master. The macer of court then called out the name of the next witness, which was that of Margaret Williamson; but, before she had time to make her appearance, Adam Hunter rose from his seat and addressed the court in the following terms:--