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PEDRO GIBERT AND OTHERS. 757

instruct them in matters of right; they have had counsel of
their own selection; they have had the privilege of choosing
their own jury, from a large number of citizens collected from
all parts of the vicinity (and if ever there was a mode more
ealeulated to seeure the proper administration of justice, it
ia that adopted by us in this particular); they have had the
advantage of the purse of the government to procure any tes-
timony within the process of the court; all witnesses whose
testimony they desired are in attendance at the government
expense; and they have had counsel to aid them, not only in
relation to the law and the examination of witnesses, but also
to urge all matters as well of testimony as of the law, to the
jury. Have they not then had all the privileges which the
mildest system of laws could extend to them? Had this case,
which has already occupied the attention of this court twelve
days, at an average of six or seven hours per day, been tried
at the Old Bailey, it would have been decided between the
rising and the setting of the sun. This ia not all; besides the
indulgences already stated, they have had the benefit of a
most laborious, ingenious, and talented defense, The junior
counsel, who opened this case, did it with ability and feeling;
and presented, in my opinion, every point for the prisonera
of which the case was susceptible. His address was decked
with all the graces of a brilliant imagination; and with all
the attractions of the most persuasive eloquence. But the
most refined and elaborate texture of reasoning is too often
like the most beautiful fabric of art, necessarily composed of
the frailest materials. And if the defense be inconclusive to
establish the innocence of the prisoners, I may remark (to
use the words of Lord Bacon, on a similar occasion), that the
fault is in the stuff, and not in the workman. The closing
counsel brought to the cause his untiring zeal, his great in-
dustry, his various and profound learning; and exhibited a
labor, and I had almost said a desperation, which I think
must have satisfied you, gentlemen, that the cause pressed
heavily on him, and that he was fully conscious of the weight
of the load,—the dead lift,—he had undertaken to carry.

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