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PEDRO GIBERT AND OTHERS. T4

if it was sound. And we would have failed in our duty
had we not done this. Had we not acted thus, and had the
prisoners been convicted, that conviction would have been a
thing we never could have got over. The forms and coun-
tenances of these men would have dogged our noon-days steps,
haunted our midnight slumbers, and we never again should
have ‘known peace.

If the individuals before you gentlemen are innocent, is
there not something in their condition calculated to touch the
heart? They are here, after a long confinement, with searcely
a rag or serap of testimony in their favor.

They are in a foreign country, far from their friends, ard
now on trial for their lives, before a court to whose forms and
language they are strangers. They are sailora, who do not
understand forms, They have not even the advantage of the
law which says the accused shall be confronted with their
accusers, Their accusers are far distant. I have said, too,
that they do not understand our language; such is the case.
The very words I am pow using, fall, it is true, upon their
ears, but they awaken no corresponding feelings in their
souls. I look in vain for that in their countenances which to
an advoeate is at once his strongest stimulant, and his best
reward.

Mr, Hillard entered upon the facts of the ease and into a
review of the evidence adduced by the government. He said
the government was bound to prove that a piracy had been
committed by the prisoners, singly and individually. In ad-
verting to the testimony of the Captain and crew of the Mex-
ican, he remarked that such evidence was always to be re-
eeived with suspicion. Sailors were creatures of feeling, and
when under the influence of revenge, or any other exciting
eause, they would go a great way. They did not reflect, but
felt, There were remarkable instances of this, One was to
be found in the case of Capt. Toby, and the other in that of
Otis. In both cases the erew swore falsely.

The Covrr objected to Mr. Hilliard’s allusion to Otis, say-
ing that that one had not been disposed of.. A reprieve had

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