The action now before you is homicide; that is, the killing of one man by another.  The law calls it homicide; but it is not criminal in all cases for one man to slay another.  Had the prisoners been on the Plains of Abraham and slain a hundred Frenchmen apiece, the English law would have considered it as a commendable action, virtuous and praiseworthy; so that every instance of killing a man is not a crime in the eye of the law.  There are many other instances which I cannot enumerate—­an officer that executes a person under sentence of death, etc.  So that, gentlemen, every instance of one man’s killing another is not a crime, much less a crime to be punished with death.  But to descend to more particulars.

The law divides homicide into three branches; the first is “justifiable,” the second “excusable,” and the third “felonious.”  Felonious homicide is subdivided into two branches; the first is murder, which is killing with malice aforethought; the second is manslaughter, which is killing a man on a sudden provocation.  Here, gentlemen, are four sorts of homicide; and you are to consider whether all the evidence amounts to the first, second, third or fourth of these heads.  The fact was the slaying five unhappy persons that night.  You are to consider whether it was justifiable, excusable, or felonious; and if felonious, whether it was murder or manslaughter.  One of these four it must be.  You need not divide your attention to any more particulars.  I shall, however, before I come to the evidence, show you several authorities which will assist you and me in contemplating the evidence before us.

I shall begin with justifiable homicide.  If an officer, a sheriff, execute a man on the gallows, draw and quarter him, as in case of high treason, and cut off his head, this is justifiable homicide.  It is his duty.  So also, gentlemen, the law has planted fences and barriers around every individual; it is a castle round every man’s person, as well as his house.  As the love of God and our neighbor comprehends the whole duty of man, so self-love and social comprehend all the duties we owe to mankind; and the first branch is self-love, which is not only our indisputable right, but our clearest duty.  By the laws of nature, this is interwoven in the heart of every individual.  God Almighty, whose law we cannot alter, has implanted it there, and we can annihilate ourselves as easily as root out this affection for ourselves.  It is the first and strongest principle in our nature.  Justice Blackstone calls it “The primary canon in the law of nature.”  That precept of our holy religion which commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves does not command us to love our neighbor better than ourselves, or so well.  No Christian divine has given this interpretation.  The precept enjoins that our benevolence to our fellow-men should be as real and sincere as our affection to ourselves, not that it should be as great in degree.  A man is authorized,