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TRIAL OF JOHN W. WEBSTER. 263
of justice left in it; and it shall be no fault of mine, if he does not
obtain
it. So far as my humble voice can bear witness to my convictions of his
truth, I should feel that I was false to every sentiment of justice, to
every principle of duty, if I did not give utterance to these convictions.
Where, then, do we show Mr. Littlefield to have been? And where
does the defence show him to have been? For, if he was not where the
Government proves him to have been, they could have called various
persons to contradict him. They could have called, at least, Drs. Holmes,
Jackson, and Hanaford, and Messrs. Harlow, Thompson, and Grant, to
show whether he spoke the truth: but we could not. I should have
added, also,-the members of the Suffolk Lodge,-where he went on the
Tuesday night, after the conversation with Dr. Webster about free-
masonry. His statements of his whereabouts during the entire week,
made as unreservedly and minutely as the counsel could desire, have all
been open to contradiction, if they were untrue. But there has not been a
syllable of conflict. A futile attempt, indeed, was made to show, by the
old man, Mr. Green, that Mr. Littlefield had said he was present when
the conversation took place with Dr. Parkman. But even he concludes,
upon the whole conversation, that he was mistaken in his first impres-
sion; and we have put upon the stand the very person to whom the state-
ment was alleged to have been made, Mr. Todd, and he has negatived
conclusively the idea of his having said any such thing.
Mr. Littlefield standing here thus entirely uncontradicted, let us see
what his conduct was in other respects:-And I shall go over it more
cursorily than I otherwise should, if I did not rely upon this proposition,
which you will assent to, that, in all that he has said, he has been open
to contradiction, if his testimony were susceptible of contradiction.
Whatever there is in his conduct that has been the subject of com-
ment, that looks unreasonable, in my view is explained by the fact of his
having conceived a suspicion of Dr. Webster so shortly after the disap-
pearance, of Dr. Parkman as he states that he did. Proceeding, then,
under the light of this most important theory, to an examination of his
conduct and his testimony, the fallacy of the learned counsel's argument
will, I think, be apparent.
Prior, however, to the adoption of that suspicion, counsel find fault
with some of his proceedings. "Extraordinary conduct," he exclaims,
"that Littlefield should have gone to Webster's room Friday night, after
coming home late in the evening!" He took that fact, without consider-
ing that he went, at the same time, according to his custom, round into
the dissecting-room and the entries, to fasten up the building. Why
should he not try Webster's rooms also?
As to other objections to his conduct after Sunday,-the receiving of
the turkey, the heat of the fire felt on his face as he passed through the
entry, &c.; are these suspicious and extraordinary actions? The fallacy
of the argument is, that the counsel proceeds upon the assumption that
Mr. Littlefield's suspicion, on Sunday night, was a settled conviction.
Mr. Littlefield has not the command of language. When he says he
had a suspicion of Dr. Webster, what is it? Consider the relations of
the two men. Here was the subordinate conceiving, on grounds which
I think you will justify, suspicions against his superior, upon whom he
was in some degree dependent for his daily bread. These were checked
by his wife. "For mercy's sake," says she, with a wife's natural solici-
tude, "don't ever say or think of such a thing again." And then, the
allusion to the possibility of its coming to the Professor's ears! But he
could not help thinking of it. Originally, when Dr. Webster told him,
that Sunday night, with downcast eyes, that he had paid Dr. Parkman,
and that Dr. Parkman grabbed the money and ran off without counting
it-when he found, in connection with this, that Dr. Webster pursued
the unusual course of keeping his doors closed against him,-why should
he not entertain the suspicion? When Dr. Webster went on through the
week in the same way,-when he was learning that public sentiment
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