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320 TRIAL OF JOHN W. WEBSTER.
this charge was true. The day of trial came; a Court was organized to
conduct it; a jury, almost of your own choosing, was selected in the
manner best calculated to insure intelligence and impartiality; counsel
were appointed to assist you in conducting your defence, who have done
all that learning, eloquence, and skill could accomplish, in presenting
your defence in its most favorable aspects; a very large number of wit-
nesses were carefully examined; and, after a laborious trial, of unpre-
cedented length, conducted, as we hope, with patience and fidelity, that
jury have pronounced you "Guilty."
To this verdict, upon a careful revision of the whole proceedings, I
am constrained to say, in behalf of the Court, that they can perceive no
just or legal ground of exception.
"Guilty!" How much, under all the thrilling circumstances which
cluster around the case and throng our memories in the retrospect, does
this single word import! The wilful, violent, and malicious destruc-
tion of the life of a fellow-man, in the peace of God and under the pro-
tection of the law; yes, of one in the midst of life, with bright hopes,
warm affections, mutual attachments, strong, extensive, and numerous,
making life a blessing to himself and others!
We allude thus to the injury you have inflicted, not for the purpose
of awakening one unnecessary pang in a heart already lacerated, but to
remind you of the irreparable wrong done to the victim of your cruelty,
in sheer justice to him whose voice is now hushed in death, and whose
wrongs can only be vindicated by the living action of the law. If,'there-
fore, you may at any moment think your case a hard one, and your
punishment too severe,-if one repining thought arises in your mind,
or one murmuring word seeks utterance from your lips,-think, oh!
think of him, instantly deprived of life by your guilty hand; then, if
not lost to all sense of retributive justice, if you have any compunctious
visitings of conscience, you may perhaps be ready to exclaim, in the
bitter anguish of truth,-"I have sinned against Heaven and my own
soul; my punishment is just; God be merciful to me, a sinner!"
God grant that your example may afford a solemn warning to all,
especially to the young! May it impress deeply upon every mind the
salutary lesson it is intended to teach; to guard against an indulgence
of every unhallowed and vindictive passion; to resist temptation to any
and every selfish, sordid and wicked purpose; to listen to the warning's
of conscience, and yield to the plain dictates of duty; and whilst all
instinctively shrink with abhorrence from the first thought of assail-
ing the life of another, may they learn to reverence the laws of God and
society, designed to secure protection to their own!
We forbear, for obvious considerations, from adding such words of
advice as may be sometimes thought appropriate, on occasions like this.
It has commonly been our province, on occasions like the present, to
address the illiterate, the degraded, the outcast, whose early life has
been cast among the vicious, the neglected, the abandoned; who have
been blessed with no means of moral and religious culture: who have
never received the benefits of cultivated society, nor enjoyed the sweet
and ennobling influences of home.
To such a one, a word of advice upon an occasion so impressive may
be a word fitly spoken, and tend to good. But in a case like this, where
the circumstances are all reversed, no words of ours could be more
efficacious than the suggestion of your own better thoughts, to which we
commend you.
But as we approach this last sad duty of pronouncing sentence, which
is indeed the voice of the law, and not our own, yet in giving it utterance,
we cannot do it with feelings of indifference, as a formal and official act.
God forbid that we should be prevented from indulging and expressing
these irrepressible feelings of interest, sympathy, and compassion, which
arise spontaneously in our hearts! and we do most sincerely and cor-
dially deplore the distressing condition into which crime has brought
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