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PREFACE. v
tance from the witness-stand and the bench, could not overhear all that
transpired, to say, that they do not and cannot lay claim to that com-
pleteness and accuracy of detail which ought to belong to a permanent
record of such a case as this. It may serve to show how far short they
all fall of completeness, that, out of the fifteen or more reports of Pro-
fessor Webster's address to the jury,-probably the most striking incident
of the trial, and whose fame will survive to the latest posterity as one of
the extraordinary performances of which he was capable,-no one of them,
contains more than two-thirds of the matter which the undersigned,
after a careful collation of them all, or the best of them, and a com-
parison of the recollection of those engaged in the trial with his own,
has set down as the Professor's genuine address.
The law-hearing supplementary to the jury-trial will possess some
interest for the legal reader, and has never been fully reported before.
The opinion of the Court was prepared by the Chief Justice himself, and
kindly furnished for publication. The arguments of counsel have also
been revised by their authors.
In the Appendix, besides other matters of interest not before pub-
lished, the reader will find letters of acknowledgment from Professor
Webster to Messrs. Merrick and Sohier, of which the undersigned was so
fortunate as to discover the existence, and of which he reluctantly
obtained copies from those gentlemen, just as the last sheets of the
Appendix were going to press.
As a whole, the undersigned presents the volume to the public, with
the hope that it will be regarded as at least a faithful endeavor to per-
petuate the particulars of one of the darkest incidents in legal or human
annals.
THE REPORTER.
Boston, November, 1850.
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