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TRIAL OF JOHN W. WEBSTER. 265
Now, Gentlemen, if there is anything which, in administering the
law, lies at the foundation of all justice, it is that if a man is to be
put upon his trial, he shall first be accused. And that is what my friends
on the other side have been insisting upon. They say that we have not
charged Dr. Webster with sufficient precision in our indictment. They
did not undertake to charge Littlefield at all; and yet they undertake
to try him; and it is the breath of an advocate alone which is to fix and
fasten infamy upon an honest, though an humble man. Gentlemen, is
that justice?-Christian justice? Let them come out! Let this pris-
oner have coma out, and through his friends and counsel, in the open
face of day, have undertaken to fasten this charge upon Mr. Littlefield,
and it would have been met,-most successfully, decisively met! Remem-
ber, Gentlemen, that, at a critical period in the history of these events,
on the night of the arrest and the general visit to the College, this pris-
oner and this witness have once been together, face to face. Littlefield
has confronted Dr: Webster! The dependent has stood up before the
superior,-and the superior has been dumb before the dependent!
Remember, further, that according to the testimony of all the wit-
nesses who were at the College as early as the Tuesday of the week prior
to the arrest, when significant allusion was made to the privy and the
privy-key, that Littlefield, in a natural manner, stands up before the
defendant and says, "That is Dr. Webster's private privy. He is the
only person who has the key:" and Dr. Webster has nothing to say in
denial; but bows his visitors politely out of the door as soon as he can.
And when the key was asked for again, on the second more important
occasion after the arrest, Friday night, Mr. Littlefield said again, "Dr.
Webster keeps that key:-you must ask him for it." What then, does
Dr. Webster reply to Littlefield? To this man, whose accusation against
him is to strip him of name and reputation, perhaps peril life itself,-
what does he answer? He is dumb before his accuser, and opens not his
mouth.
When he gets to that dimly-lighted laboratory, standing off nine feet,
at the nearest, from the body upon whose identity he undertakes to pro-
nounce, what has he to say to Mr. Littlefield? Yet, he does not hesitate,
behind Mr. Littlefield's back, to charge him with conspiracy against
himself! But before his face, what does he do? What would an inno-
cent man have done, when face to face with the man whom he says he
always hated?-although it would seem that he began to manifest some
kindly feeling towards him on the Tuesday before, when he made him
the first and only present he had ever made, in an intimate intercourse
of seven years. When confronted there by him, if an innocent man,
would he not have said, "Why, Mr. Littlefield, you have had access to
my rooms; you can explain this"? But not a word!-not a word! When
the two men were together, there was fore-shadowed what has since been
followed up and made clear to every eye. Littlefield has spoken out
everything; Dr. Webster has spoken out nothing. Now, through the
breath of his counsel, is this witness to be attacked, before a jury and
before the world, as not being entitled to credit and belief? No, Gen-
tlemen! go down into your own hearts, and see what justice you would
demand for yourselves, in a case like this; and, what you would demand
for yourselves, extend to him! I ask no more.
I should have added another thing that was unmistakable in the con-
duct of Littlefield,-the demeanor exhibited by him when those remains
were found. He and his wife were examined here separately; apart
from each other. What a field was thus opened to the defendant for
detecting untruth and inconsistency; if any existed! It was impossible
for them to have imagined what questions would be asked them; and, if
there had been anything untrue in their answers, would not Mrs. Little-
field have crossed her husband's track, in the rigorous cross-.examina-
tion to which they were subjected? And yet there is not a particle of
conflict. "When he came up," says Mrs. Littlefield, in homely but truth-
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