Page:Paul Clifford Vol 3.djvu/296

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288
PAUL CLIFFORD.

nor at this moment, that it can avail him. All you have to consider is the evidence before you. All on which you have to decide is, whether the Prisoner be or be not guilty of the robbery of which he is charged. You must not waste a thought on what redeems or heightens a supposed crime—you must only decide on the crime itself. Put away from your minds, I beseech you, all that interferes with the main case. Put away also from your motives of decision all forethought of other possible indictments to which the Prisoner has alluded, but with which you are necessarily unacquainted. If you doubt the evidence, whether of one witness or of all, the Prisoner must receive from you the benefit of that doubt. If not, you are sworn to a solemn oath, which compels you to forego all minor considerations—which compels you to watch narrowly that you be not influenced by the infirmities natural to us all, but criminal in you, to lean towards the side of a mercy that would be rendered by your oath a perjury to God, and by your duty as impartial citizens, a treason to your country. I dismiss you to the grave consideration of the important case you have heard; and I trust that He to whom all hearts