tion, the ravages of those times affected both the living and the dead. In search after imaginary treasures, coffins were broken up, graves and vaults dug open, monuments ransacked, and shrines demolished; and it ceased about the reign of Queen Elizabeth. I entreat your lordship, suffer not the violence, the depredations, and the iniquities of those times, to be imputed to this.

"Moreover, what gentleman here is ignorant that Knaresborough had a castle, which, though now a ruin, was once considerable both for its strength and garrison? All know it was vigorously besieged by the arms of the parliament; at which siege, in sallies, conflicts, flights, pursuits, many fell in all the places round it, and, where they fell, were buried; for every place, my lord, is burial earth in war; and many, questionless, of these rest yet unknown, whose bones futurity shall discover.

"I hope, with all imaginable submission, that what has been said will not be thought impertinent to this indictment; and that it will be far from the wisdom, the learning, and the integrity of this place, to impute to the living what zeal in its fury may have done-what nature may have taken off, and piety interred-or what war alone may have destroyed, alone deposited.

"As to the circumstances that have been raked together, I have nothing to observe but that all circumstances whatever are precarious, and have been but too frequently found lamentably fallible; even the strongest have failed. They may rise to the utmost degree of probability, yet they are but probability still. Why need I name to your lordship the two Harrisons recorded by Dr. Howel, who both suffered upon circumstances because of the sudden disappearance of their lodger, who was in credit, had contracted debts, borrowed money, and went off unseen, and returned a great many years after their execution? Why name the intricate affair of Jacques de Moulin, under King Charles II. related by a gentleman who was counsel for the crown? and why the unhappy Coleman, who suffered innocently, though convicted upon positive evidence; and whose children perished for want, because the world uncharitably believed the father guilty? Why mention the perjury of Smith, incautiously admitted king's evidence; who, to screen himself, equally accused Faircloth and Loveday of the murder of Dun; the first of whom, in 1749, was executed at Winchester; and Loveday was about to suffer at Reading, had not Smith been proved perjured,

to the satisfaction of the court, by the surgeon of Gosport hospital?

"Now, my lord, having endeavoured to show that the whole of this process is altogether repugnant to every part of my life; that it is inconsistent with my condition of health about that time; that no rational inference can be drawn that a person is dead who suddenly disappears; that hermitages were the constant repositories of the bones of a recluse; that the proofs of this are well authenticated; that the revolutions in religion, or the fortune of war, have mangled or buried the dead; the conclusion remains, perhaps, no less reasonably than impatiently wished for. I, at last, after a year's confinement, equal to either fortune, put myself upon the candour, the justice, and the humanity of your lordship; and upon yours, my countrymen, gentlemen of the jury."

B

sibly could have admitted a presumption of this nature but a depravity not inferior to that imputed to me. However, as I stand indicted at your lordship's bar, and have heard what is called evidence adduced in support of such a charge, I very humbly solicit your lordship's patience, and beg the hearing of this respectable audience, while I, single and unskilful, destitute of friends, and unassisted by counsel, say something, perhaps like argument, in my defence. I shall consume but little of your lordship's time: what I have to say will be short; and this brevity, probably, will be the best part of it: however, it is offered with all possible regard and the greatest submission to your lordship's consideration, and that of this honourable Court.

"First, my lord, the whole tenour of my conduct in life contradicts every particular of the indictment: yet had I never said this, did not my present circumstances extort it from me, and seem to make it necessary. Permit me here, my lord, to call upon malignity itself, so long and cruelly busied in this prosecution, to charge upon me any immorality of which prejudice was not the author. No, my lord, I concerted no schemes of fraud, projected no violence, injured no man's person or property; my days were honestly laborious, my nights intensely studious; and I humbly conceive my notice of this, especially at this time, will not be thought impertinent or unseasonable, but, at least, deserving some attention; because, my lord, that any person, after a temperate use of life, a series of thinking and acting regularly, and without one single deviation from sobriety, should plunge into the very depth of profligacy precipitately and at once, is altogether improbable and unprecedented, and absolutely inconsistent with the course of things. Mankind is never corrupted at once; villainy is always progressive, and declines from right, step after step, till every regard of probity is lost, and every sense of all moral obligation totally perishes.

"Again, my lord, a suspicion of this kind, which nothing but malevolence could entertain, and ignorance propagate, is violently opposed by my very situation at that time, with respect to health; for, but a little space before, I had been confined to my bed, and suffered under a very long and severe disorder, and was not able, for half a year together, so much as to walk. The distemper left me, indeed-yet slowly, and in part; but so macerated, so enfeebled, that I was reduced to crutches; and, so far from being well about the time I am charged with this fact, that I never, to this day, perfectly

recovered. Could, then, a person in this condition take any thing into his head so unlikely, so extravagant? I, past the vigour of my age, feeble and valetudinary, with no inducement to engage, no ability to accomplish, no weapon wherewith to perpetrate such a fact; without interest, without power, without motive, without means.

"Besides, it must needs occur to every one that an action of this atrocious nature is never heard of but when its springs are laid open; it appears that it was to support some indolence, or supply some luxury; to satisfy some avarice, or oblige some malice; to prevent some real or some imaginary want: yet I lay not under the influence of any of these. Surely, my lord, I may, consistently with both truth and modesty, affirm thus much; and none who have any veracity, and knew me, will ever question this.

"In the second place, the disappearance of Clarke is suggested as an argument of his being dead; but the uncertainty of such an inference from that, and the fallibility of all conclusions of such a sort from such a circumstance, are too obvious and too notorious to require instances; yet, superseding many, permit me to produce a very recent one, and that afforded by this castle.

"In June, 1757, William Thompson, for all the vigilance of this place, in open daylight, and double-ironed, made his escape; and, notwithstanding an immediate inquiry set on foot, the strictest search, and all advertisement, was never seen or heard of since. If then Thompson got off unseen, through all these difficulties, how very easy was it for Clarke, when none of them opposed him? But what would be thought of a prosecution commenced against any one seen last with Thompson ?

It

"Permit me next, my lord, to observe a little upon the bones which have been discovered. It is said (which, perhaps, is saying very far) that these are the skeleton of a man. is possible, indeed, it may; but is there any certain known criterion which incontestably distinguishes the sex in human bones. Let it be considered, my lord, whether the ascertaining of this point ought not to precede any attempt to identify them.

"The place of their depositum, too, claims much more attention than is commonly bestowed upon it; for, of all places in the world, none could have mentioned any one wherein there was greater certainty of finding human bones than a hermitage, except he should point out a church-yard; hermi