left this country, perhaps for ever, and commenced a very different career abroad. I committed offences; I eluded you; I committed what, in my case, was an act of duty; I am seized, and I perish. But the weakness of my body destroys me, not the strength of your malice. Had I—(and as the prisoner spake, the haughty and rapid motion, the enlarging of the form, produced by the passion of the moment, made impressively conspicuous to all the remarkable power of his frame,)—had I but my wonted health, my wonted command over these limbs, and these veins, I would have asked no friend, no ally, to favour my escape. I tell you, engines and guardians of the law, that I would have mocked your chains, and defied your walls, as ye know that I have mocked and defied them before. But my blood creeps now only in drops through its courses; and the heart that I had of old stirs feebly and heavily within me.—(The Prisoner paused a moment, and resumed in an altered tone.)—Leaving, then, my own character to the ordeal of report, I cannot perhaps do better than leave to the same criterion that of the witness against me. I will candidly
