If, peradventure, there was the slightest foundation for a doubt of your guilt, in the mind of the Court, judgment would be arrested, but there is none; and it now remains to the Court to pronounce the most painful duty that devolves upon a civil magistrate.  The Court is persuaded of your guilt; it can form no other opinion.  Testimony has been heard before the Court and Jury—­from that we must form our opinion.  We must proceed upon testimony, ascertain facts by evidence of witnesses, on which we must inquire, judge and determine as to guilt or innocence, by that evidence alone.  You have been found guilty.  You now stand for the last time before an earthly tribunal, and by your own acknowledgments, the sentence of the law falls just on your heads.  When men in ordinary cases come under the penalty of the law there is generally some palliative—­something to warm the sympathy of the Court and Jury.  Men may be led astray, and under the influence of passion have acted under some long smothered resentment, suddenly awakened by the force of circumstances, depriving him of reason, and then they may take the life of a fellow being.  Killing, under that kind of excitement, might possibly awaken some sympathy, but that was not your case; you had no provocation.  What offence had Thornby or Roberts committed against you?  They entrusted themselves with you, as able and trustworthy citizens; confiding implicitly in you; no one act of theirs, after a full examination, appears to have been offensive to you; yet for the purpose of securing the money you coolly determined to take their lives—­you slept and deliberated over the act; you were tempted on, and yielded; you entered into the conspiracy, with cool and determined calculation to deprive two human beings of their lives, and it was done.

You, Charles Gibbs, have said that you are not guilty of the murder of Roberts; but were you not there, strongly instigating the murderers on, and without stretching out a hand to save him?—­It is murder as much to stand by and encourage the deed, as to stab with a knife, strike with a hatchet, or shoot with a pistol.  It is not only murder in law, but in your own feelings and in your own conscience.  Notwithstanding all this, I cannot believe that your feelings are so callous, so wholly callous, that your own minds do not melt when you look back upon the unprovoked deeds of yourselves, and those confederated with you.

You are American citizens—­this country affords means of instruction to all:  your appearance and your remarks have added evidence that you are more than ordinarily intelligent; that your education has enabled you to participate in the advantages of information open to all classes.  The Court will believe that when you were young you looked with strong aversion on the course of life of the wicked.  In early life, in boyhood, when you heard of the conduct of men, who engaged in robbery—­nay more, when you heard of cold blooded murder—­how you must have shrunk from the recital.  Yet now, after having participated in the advantages of education, after having arrived at full maturity, you stand here as robbers and murderers.