approbation of mankind.

"I have now told you, Williams, what I think of your case. But I have no
right to assume to be your ultimate judge. Desperate as it appears to
me, I will give you one piece of advice, as if I were retained as a
counsel to assist you. Leave out of it whatever tends to the
disadvantage of Mr. Falkland. Defend yourself as well as you can, but do
not attack your master. It is your business to create in those who hear
you a prepossession in your favour. But the recrimination you have been
now practising, will always create indignation. Dishonesty will admit of
some palliation. The deliberate malice you have now been showing is a
thousand times more atrocious. It proves you to have the mind of a
demon, rather than of a felon. Wherever you shall repeat it, those who
hear you will pronounce you guilty upon that, even if the proper
evidence against you were glaringly defective. If therefore you would
consult your interest, which seems to be your only consideration, it is
incumbent upon you by all means immediately to retract that. If you
desire to be believed honest, you must in the first place show that you
have a due sense of merit in others. You cannot better serve your cause
than by begging pardon of your master, and doing homage to rectitude and
worth, even when they are employed in vengeance against you."

It is easy to conceive that my mind sustained an extreme shock from the
decision of Mr. Forester; but his call upon me to retract and humble
myself before my accuser penetrated my whole soul with indignation. I
answered:--

"I have already told you I am innocent. I believe that I could not
endure the effort of inventing a plausible defence, if it were
otherwise. You have just affirmed that it is not in the power of