likely, therefore, to place it there as elsewhere. It was very material to consider that nothing was found in that part of the house which belonged to the defendants. Every thing was discovered in the father's apartments. They were not found, therefore, in the possession of the defendants, any more than if they had been discovered in any other house in the neighborhood. The two tenements, it was true, were under the same roof; but they were not on that account the same tenements: they were as distinct as any other houses. Now, how should it happen that the several parcels of money should all be found in the father's possession? He is not suspected-certainly there is no reason to suspect him-of having had any hand either in the commission of the robbery, or the concealing of the goods. He swears he had no knowledge of any part of this money being in his house. It is not easy to imagine how it came there, unless it be supposed to be put there by some one who did not know what part of the house belonged to the defendants, and what did not.

The witnesses on the part of the prosecution have testified that the defendants, when arrested, manifested great agitation and alarm; paleness overspread their faces, and drops of sweat stood on their temples. This satisfied the witnesses of the defendants' guilt, and they now state the circumstance as being indubitable proof. This argument manifests in those who use it equal want of sense and sensibility. It is precisely fitted to the feeling and the intellect of a bum-bailiff. In a court of justice it deserves nothing but contempt. Is there nothing that can agitate the frame, or excite the blood, but the consciousness of guilt? If the defendants were innocent, would they not feel indignation at this unjust accusation? If they saw an attempt to produce false evidence against them, would

they not be angry? And, seeing the production of such evidence, might they not feel fear and alarm? And have indignation, and anger, and terror, no power to affect the human countenance, or the human frame?

Miserable, miserable, indeed, is the reasoning which would infer any man's guilt from his agitation, when he found himself accused of a heinous offence; when he saw evidence, which he might know to be false and fraudulent, brought against him; when his house was filled, from the garret to the cellar, by those whom he might esteem as false witnesses; and when he himself, instead of being at liberty to observe their conduct and watch their motions, was a prisoner in close custody in his own house, with the fists of a catch-poll clenched upon his throat.

The defendants were at Newburyport the afternoon and evening of the robbery. For the greater part of the time, they show where they were and what they were doing. Their proof, it is true, does not apply to every moment. But when it is considered that, from the moment of their arrest, they have been in close prison, perhaps they have shown as much as could be expected. Few men, when called on afterward, can remember, and fewer still can prove, how they have passed every half-hour of an evening. At a reasonable hour they both came to the house where Laban had lodged the night before. Nothing suspicious was observed in their manners or conversation. Is it probable they would thus come unconcernedly into the company of others from a field of robbery, and, as they must have supposed, of murder, before they could have ascertained whether the stain of blood was not on their garments? They remained in the place a part of the next day. The town was alarmed; a strict inquiry was made of all strangers, and of the defendants, among others.

Nothing suspicious was discovered. They avoided no inquiry, nor left the town in any haste. The jury had had an opportunity of seeing the defendants. Did their general appearance indicate that hardihood which would enable them to act this cool, unconcerned part? Was it not more likely they would have fled?

From the time of the robbery to the arrest, five or six weeks, the defendants had been engaged in their usual occupations. They are not found to have passed a dollar of money to anybody. They continued their ordinary habits of labor. No man saw money about them, nor any circumstance that might lead to a suspicion that they had money. Nothing occurred tending in any degree to excite suspicion against them. When arrested, and when all this array of evidence was made against them, and when they could hope in nothing but their innocence, immunity was offered them again if they would confess. They were pressed, and urged, and allured, by every motive which could be set before them, to acknowledge their participation in the offence, and to bring out their accomplices. They steadily protested that they could confess nothing, because they knew nothing. In defiance of all the discoveries made in their house, they have trusted to their innocence. On that, and on the candor and discernment of an enlightened jury, they still relied.

If the jury were satisfied, that there was the highest improbability that these persons could have had any previous knowledge of Goodridge, or been concerned in any previous concert to rob him; if their conduct that evening and the next day was marked by no circumstances of-suspicion; if, from that moment until their arrest, nothing appeared against them; if they neither passed money, nor are found to have had money; if the manner of the search

of their house, and the circumstances attending it, excite strong suspicions of unfair and fraudulent practices; if, in the hour of their utmost peril, no promises of safety could draw from the defendants any confessions affecting themselves or others,-it would be for the jury to say whether they could pronounce them guilty.

OBITUARY ADDRESSES.

I.

SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES,

Tuesday, December 14, 1852.

AFTER various topics of the Message of the President had been referred to the appropriate committees, Mr. DAVIS rose, and addressed the Senate as follows:

Mr. PRESIDENT: I rise to bring to the notice of the Senate an event which has touched the sensibilities and awakened sympathies in all parts of the country, an event which has appropriately found a place in the message of the President, and ought not to be passed in silence by the Senate. Sir, we have, within a short space, mourned the death of a succession of men illustrious by their services, their talents, and worth. Not only have seats in this Chamber, in the other House, and upon the bench of the Court, been vacated, but death has entered the Executive Mansion and claimed that beloved patriot who filled the Chair of State.

The portals of the tomb had scarcely closed upon the remains of a great and gifted member of this House, before they are again opened to receive another marked man of our day-one who stood out with a singular prominence before his countrymen, challenging, by his extraordinary intellectual power, the admiration of his fellow-men.

DANIEL WEBSTER, (a name familiar in the remotest cabin upon the frontier,) after mixing actively with the councils

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