JET. 43.] THE TRIAL. 399 



that they might not look at Heaven, and that they 

 might do the purposes of unjust judgments/ But 

 they, though giving a clear, consistent, uncontradicted 

 story, were disappointed, and their victim was rescued 

 from their gripe by the trifling circumstance of a con- 

 tradiction about a tamarisk-tree. Let not man call 

 those contradictions or those falsehoods which false 

 witnesses swear to from needless and heedless false- 

 hood such as Sacchi about his changing his name ; 

 or such as Demont about her letters ; such as Majocchi 

 about the banker's clerk ; or such as all the other con- 

 tradictions and falsehoods, not going to the main body 

 of the case, but to the main body of the credit of the 

 witnesses, let not man rashly and blindly call these 

 things accidents. They are just rather than merciful 

 dispensations of that Providence which wills not that 

 the guilty should triumph, and which favourably pro- 

 tects the innocent. 



" Such, my Lords, is the case now before you ! Such 

 is the evidence in support of this measure evidence, 

 inadequate to prove a debt impotent to deprive of a 

 civil right ridiculous to convict of the lowest offence 

 scandalous if brought forward to support a charge 

 of the highest nature which the law knows mon- 

 strous to ruin the honour, to blast the name, of an Eng- 

 lish Queen ! What shall I say, then, if this is the 

 proof by which an act of judicial legislation, a Parlia- 

 mentary sentence, an ex post facto law, is sought to be 

 passed against this defenceless woman \ My Lords, I 

 pray you to pause. I do earnestly beseech you to take 

 heed ! You are standing upon the brink of a preci- 

 pice ; then beware ! It will go forth your judgment, if 

 sentence shall go against the Queen. But it will be 



