570 Slide – American State Trials 1918 Volume X Leo Frank Document

538 X, AMERICAN STATE TRIALS,

The prisoner made an urgent appeal in a letter addressed
to De Peyster, one of his judges, in which he says:

“Believe me, sir, a5 you may give credit to the words of a dying
man, I die with a clear and good conscience, and 3 free of that hor-
Tid crime laid to my charge as the child yet unborn; and therefore
hope God’s merciful hand, who has never left nor forsaken me, will
continue to support me to the very last, and that I may look death
in the face, a8 a good christien ought to do; humbly submitting my
all to his most wise, most just, and most merciful dispensations; for
I am sensible there is no more than one death for me, and that, in
all probability, considering my age, it might have been very soon,
though this tribulation had not befallen me, I shall only add, that
I hope in God's mercy for the pardon of all my manifold sins and
transgressions, through the only merits of my saviour Jesus Christ;
and that when I shall be no more, he will continue his grace to my
dear wife, and my posterity; and, lastly, that my blood, which is
struck at (by your brother's own expressions to myself, and your
brother-in-law’s to others, both not long since), may be “the last to
‘be spilt on account of our dismal and unhappy divisions; though T
fear that ont of my ashes such further calamities may arise to this
poor bleeding provinee, as posterity will have cause long to lament;
for it is not to be expected, that all the plots, contrivances and in-
trigues used in this matter (many of which, I assure you, are already
discovered), will have their end with myself’; it had been more par-
donable to have stabbed me in my sleep, or with Joab’s hand, under
a pretence of friendship, than to do it with Ahab’s under a color
and cloak of justice; and of the two, I leave others to consider, if
this latter exceeds not the former; since it is not to be supposed,
that Abab’s was so much out of malice; but the vineyard being denied
him on his offering the worth of it in money, occasioned the innocent
to be arraigned and slain for a pretended crime of blasphemy and

high treason.”
March 16.

The Prisoner made a petition to the court, in which he set
forth the irregularity of the proceedings against him; firat,
that the indictment was not returned by twelve of the grand
jury; second, that the petit jury were all prejudiced against
him on account of the unhappy divisions in the province, and
they were extremely ignorant of the English language,
scarcely one of them being able to say the Lord's prayer in
the English language; that there waa no proof of the signing
or encouraging othera to sign the petitions, and that the peti-
tions contained nothing treagonable.

The Courr overruled the plea and said, ‘Col. Bayard,