Surer promise of aptitude for political debate was afforded by the skill with which the young speaker turned to account the recent trial for sedition, and death in prison, of Smith, the Demerara missionary; an event which was fatal to Slavery in the West Indies in the same degree as the execution of John Brown was its deathblow in the United States.  “When this country has been endangered either by arbitrary power or popular delusion, truth has still possessed one irresistible organ, and justice one inviolable tribunal.  That organ has been an English press, and that tribunal an English jury.  But in those wretched islands we see a press more hostile to truth than any censor, and juries more insensible to justice than any Star Chamber.  In those islands alone is exemplified the full meaning of the most tremendous of the curses denounced against the apostate Hebrews, ‘I will curse your blessings.’  We can prove this assertion out of the mouth of our adversaries.  We remember, and God Almighty forbid that we ever should forget, how, at the trial of Mr. Smith, hatred regulated every proceeding, was substituted for every law, and allowed its victim no sanctuary in the house of mourning, no refuge in the very grave.  Against the members of that court-martial the country has pronounced its verdict.  But what is the line of defence taken by its advocates?  It has been solemnly and repeatedly declared in the House of Commons that a jury composed of planters would have acted with far more injustice than did this court;—­this court which has never found a single lawyer to stake his professional character on the legality of its proceedings.  The argument is this.  Things have doubtless been done which should not have been done.  The court-martial sat without a jurisdiction; it convicted without evidence; it condemned to a punishment not warranted by law.  But we must make allowances.  We must judge by comparison.  ’Mr Smith ought to have been very thankful that it was no worse.  Only think what would have been his fate if he had been tried by a jury of planters!’ Sir, I have always lived under the protection of the British laws, and therefore I am unable to imagine what could be worse; but, though I have small knowledge, I have a large faith; I by no means presume to set any limits to the possible injustice of a West Indian judicature.  And since the colonists maintain that a jury composed of their own body not only possibly might, but necessarily must, have acted with more iniquity than this court-martial, I certainly shall not dispute the assertion, though I am utterly unable to conceive the mode.”