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

766 X. AMERICAN STATE TRIALS.

could we support our claims to property, or claims of any
other kind, but by human testimony? The only purpose for
which these cases ought ever to be called before a jury was in
the way of caution ; and if they were urged farther than this,
it wag an urging of the jury to betray their duty. He regret-
ted to aee them introduced into an American court, because
our tribunals were not characterized by a thirst after blood;
on the contrary, if we had any thing of which we could justly
boast, it was that, in our code of laws, there were few capital
erimes, and that the administration of that code was con-
ducted with the severest and most punctilions eaution. It
had been objected to us that we were even over-merciful,

There was another topic on which he must say a few words,
and that was the remarks which had been made in relation
to the manner in which the prisoners had been brought here,
and upon the cireumstancea of their capture. He should feel.
himself unworthy of the station he occupied, if he did not
advert to this topic, because, if he rightly understood the pris-
oners’ counsel, an attempt had been made to throw a great
deal of doubt over the motives and actions of Capt. Trotter,
and even of the British government itself, for having sent the
case to this country. The British government, on this oeca-
sion, finding persons in England in eustody of one of her own
officers, and accused of piracy on an American vessel, chose
to send those persons here, where the best evidence could be
obtained, and where the greatest facilities and advantage:
for their trial were to be found. Over piracy, all nations ex-
ercise equal jurisdiction, and the British government might
justly have exercised it in this case; but they preferred that
the offenders should be tried by the citizens of that country
against whom the offense had been committed. And I may
say that this conduct of the British government can acarcely
receive too much praise from an American citizen.

How could this cause have been decided in England. None
of the crew of the Mexican, nor her owner, were there. How
eould the evidence heard before this court, and which oc
cupied its attention during the three first days of the trial,