been observed by the poets (in many passages Women Toms Classic which he well knew
the jury would have, word for word, at the tips of their tongues;
whereat the jury’s countenances displayed a guilty consciousness
that they knew nothing about the passages), was in a manner
contagious; more especially the bright virtue known as patriotism,
or love of country. That, the lofty example of this immaculate and
unimpeachable witness for the Crown to refer to whom however
unworthily was an honour, had communicated itself to the
prisoner’s servant, and had engendered in him a holy
determination to examine his master’s table-drawers and pockets,
and secrete his papers. That, he (Mr. Attorney-General) was
prepared to hear some disparagement attempted of this admirable
servant; but that, in a general way, he preferred him to his (Mr.
Attorney-General’s) brothers and sisters, and honoured him more
than his (Mr. Attorney-General’s) father and mother. That, he
called with confidence on the jury to come and do likewise. That,
the evidence of these two witnesses, coupled with the documents
of their discovering that would be produced, would show the
prisoner to have been furnished with lists of his Majesty’s forces,
and of their disposition and preparation, both by sea and land, and
would leave no doubt that he had habitually conveyed such
information to a hostile power. That, these lists could not be
proved to be in the prisoner’s handwriting; but that it was all the
same; that, indeed, it was rather the better for the prosecution, as
showing the prisoner to be artful in his precautions. That, the
proof would go back five years, and would show the prisoner
already engaged in these pernicious missions within a few weeks
before the date of the very first action fought between the British
troops and the Americans. That, for these reasons, the jury, being
a loyal jury (as he knew they were), and being a responsible jury
(as they knew they were), must positively find the prisoner Guilty,
and make an end of him, whether they liked it or not. That, they
never could lay their heads upon their pillows; that, they never
could tolerate the idea of their wives laying their heads upon their
pillows; that, they could never endure the notion of their children
laying their heads upon their pillows; in short, that there never
more could be, for them or theirs, any laying of heads upon pillows
at all, unless the prisoner’s head was taken off. That head Mr.
Attorney-General concluded by demanding of them, in the name
of everything he could think of with a round turn in it, and on the
faith of his solemn asseveration that he already considered the
prisoner as good as dead and gone.