Mr. Colman has given you a plain narrative, a consistent account, and has uniformly stated the same things.  He is not contradicted, except by the testimony of Phippen Knapp.  He is influenced, as far as we can see, by no bias, or prejudice, any more than other men, except so far as his character is now at stake.  He has feelings on this point, doubtless, and ought to have.  If what he has stated be not true, I cannot see any ground for his escape.  If he be a true man, he must have heard what he testifies.  No treachery of memory brings to memory things that never took place.  There is no reconciling his evidence with good intention, if the facts in it are not as he states them.  He is on trial as to his veracity.

The relation in which the other witness stands deserves your careful consideration.  He is a member of the family.  He has the lives of two brothers depending, as he may think, on the effect of his evidence; depending on every word he speaks.  I hope he has not another responsibility resting upon him.  By the advice of a friend, and that friend Mr. Colman, J. Knapp made a full and free confession, and obtained a promise of pardon.  He has since, as you know, probably by the advice of other friends, retracted that confession, and rejected the offered pardon.  Events will show who of these friends and advisers advised him best, and befriended him most.  In the mean time, if this brother, the witness, be one of these advisers, and advised the retraction, he has, most emphatically, the lives of his brothers resting upon his evidence and upon his conduct.  Compare the situation of these two witnesses.  Do you not see mighty motive enough on the one side, and want of all motive on the other?  I would gladly find an apology for that witness, in his agonized feelings, in his distressed situation; in the agitation of that hour, or of this.  I would gladly impute it to error, or to want of recollection, to confusion of mind, or disturbance of feeling.  I would gladly impute to any pardonable source that which cannot be reconciled to facts and to truth; but, even in a case calling for so much sympathy, justice must yet prevail, and we must come to the conclusion, however reluctantly, which that demands from us.

It is said, Phippen Knapp was probably correct, because he knew he should probably be called as a witness.  Witness to what?  When he says there was no confession, what could he expect to bear witness of?  But I do not put it on the ground that he did not hear; I am compelled to put it on the other ground, that he did hear, and does not now truly tell what he heard.