“District Attorney.—­I hope, gentlemen of the jury, you will rise above all out-of-door influence.  Make yourselves abolitionists, if you can; but look at the facts of the case.  And, looking at those facts, is it necessary for me to open my lips in reply?  In a case like this, sustained by such direct testimony, such overwhelming proof, I defy any man,—­however crazy on the subject of slavery, unless he be blinded by some film of interest,—­to hesitate a moment as to his conclusions. [The District Attorney here proceeded at great length, and with a great air of offended dignity, to complain of having been schooled and advised by the prisoner’s counsel, and to justify the use of the foul epithets he had bestowed on the prisoner.] This is not a place for parlor talk.  I had chosen the English words that conveyed my meaning most distinctly.  It was all very well for the prisoner’s counsel to smooth things over; but was I, instead of calling him a liar, to say, he told a fib?  When I call him a thief and a felon, do I go beyond the charge of the grand jury in the indictment?  If this is stepping over the limits of propriety, in all similar cases I shall do the same.  I do not intend to blackguard the prisoner,—­I do not delight in using these epithets.  My heart is not locked up; I am no Jack Ketch, prosecuting criminals for ten dollars a head.  I sympathize with the wretches brought here; but when I choose to call them by their proper names I am not to be accused of bandying epithets. [The District Attorney then proceeded also at great length, and in a high key, to justify his hundred and twenty-five indictments against the prisoner, and to clear himself from the imputation of mercenary motives, on the ground that the business of the year, independently of these indictments, would furnish the utmost amount to which he was entitled.  He next referred to the matter of the brig testified to by Captain Baker, which had been made the occasion of much ridicule by the prisoner’s counsel.  Part of the evidence which he had relied on in connection with the brig had been ruled out; and the law, as laid down by the court, according to which taking to liberate was the same as taking to steal, had made it unnecessary for him, so he said, to dwell on this part of the case.  Yet he now proceeded to argue at great length, from the testimony in the case, that there must have been a connection between the brig and the schooner; that, as the schooner was confessedly unseaworthy, and could not have gone out of the bay, it must have been the intention to put the slaves on board the brig, and to carry them off to Cuba or elsewhere and sell them.  The testimony to this effect he pronounced conclusive.]

“The United States (said the District Attorney) have laid before you the clearest possible case.  I have just gone through a pretty long term of this court; I see several familiar faces on the jury, and I rely on your intelligence.