According to the practice in the Maryland criminal courts,—­and the same practice prevails in the District of Columbia,—­the judge does not address the jury at all.  After the evidence is all in, the counsel, before arguing the case, may call upon the judge to give to the jury instructions as to the law.  These instructions, which are offered in writing, and argued by the counsel, the judge can give or refuse, as he sees fit, or can alter them to suit himself; but any such refusal or alteration furnishes ground for a bill of exceptions, on which the case, if a verdict is given against the prisoner, may be carried by writ of error before the Circuit Court of the District, for their revisal.

My counsel asked of the judge no less than fourteen instructions on different points of law, ten of which the judge refused to give, and modified to suit himself.  Several of these related to the true definition of theft, or what it was that makes a taking larceny.

It was contended by my counsel, and they asked the judge to instruct the jury, that, to convict me of larceny, it must be proved that the taking the slaves on board the Pearl was with the intent to convert them to my own use, and to derive a gain from such conversion; and that, if they believed that the slaves were received on board with the design to help them to escape to a free state, then the offence was not larceny, but a violation of the statute of 1796.

This instruction, variously put, was six times over asked of the judge, and as often refused.  He was no less anxious than the District Attorney to convict me of larceny, and send me to the penitentiary.  But, having a vast deal more sense than the District Attorney, he saw that the idea that I had carried off these negroes to sell them again for my own profit was not tenable.  It was plain enough that my intention was to help them to escape.  The judge therefore, who did not lack ingenuity, went to work to twist the law so as, if possible, to bring my case within it.  Even he did not venture to say that merely to assist slaves to escape was stealing.  Stealing, he admitted, must be a taking, lucri causa, for the sake of gain; but—­so he told the jury in one of his instructions—­“this desire of gain need not be to convert the article taken to his—­the taker’s—­own use, nor to obtain for the thief the value in money of the thing stolen.  If the act was prompted by a desire to obtain for himself, or another even, other than the owner, a money gain, or any other inducing advantage, a dishonest gain, then the act was a larceny.”  And, in another instruction, he told the jury, “that if they believed, from the evidence, that the prisoner, before receiving the slaves on board, imbued their minds with discontent, persuaded them to go with him, and, by corrupt influences and inducements, caused them to come to his ship, and then took and carried them down the river, then the act was a larceny.”

Upon these instructions of the judge, to which bills of exceptions were filed by my counsel, the case, which had been already near a week on trial, was argued to the jury.  The District Attorney had the opening and the close, and both my counsel had the privilege of speaking.  For the following sketch of the argument, as well as of the legal points already noted, I am indebted to the notes of Mr. Hildreth, taken at the time: