Besides Houver, Williams, Orme, Craig and Baker, another witness was called to testify as to the sale of the wood, and my having been in Washington the previous summer.  Many questions as to evidence arose, and the examination of these witnesses consumed about two days and a half.

In opening the defence, Mr. Mann commenced with some remarks on the peculiarity of his position, growing out of the unexpected urgency with which the case had been pushed to a trial, and the public excitement which had been produced by it.  He also alluded to the hardship of finding against me such a multiplicity of indictments,—­for what individual, however innocent, could stand up against such an accumulated series of prosecutions, backed by all the force of the nation?  Some observations on the costs thus unnecessarily accumulated, and, in particular, on the District Attorney’s ten-dollar fees, produced a great excitement, and loud denials on the part of that officer.

Mr. Mann then proceeded to remark that, in all criminal trials which he had ever before attended or heard of, the prosecuting officer had stated and produced to the jury, in his opening, the law alleged to be violated.  As the District Attorney had done nothing of that sort, he must endeavor to do it for him.  Mr. Mann then proceeded to call the attention of the jury to the two laws already quoted, upon which the two sets of indictments were founded.  Of both these acts charged against me—­the stealing of Houver’s slaves, and the helping them to escape from their master—­I could not be guilty.  The real question in this case was, Which had I done?

To make the act stealing, there must have been—­so Mr. Mann maintained—­a taking lucri causa, as the lawyers say; that is, a design on my part to appropriate these slaves to my own use, as my own property.  If the object was merely to help them to escape to a free state, then the case plainly came under the other statute.

In going on to show how likely it was that the persons on board the Pearl might have desired and sought to escape, independently of any solicitations or suggestions on my part, Mr. Mann alluded to the meeting in honor of the French revolution, already mentioned, held the very night of the arrival of the Pearl at Washington.  As he was proceeding to read certain extracts from the speech of Senator Foote on that occasion, already quoted, and well calculated, as he suggested, to put ideas of freedom and emancipation into the heads of the slaves, he was suddenly interrupted by the judge, when the following curious dialogue occurred: 

    “Judge Crawford.—­A certain latitude is to be allowed
    to counsel in this case; but I cannot permit any
    harangue against slavery to be delivered here.