appears to have reached the jury, almost all of them Campbells, who
sat at Inveraray, the Duke of Argyll on the bench, and made no
difficulty about finding James of the Glens 'Guilty.' To be sure,
James, if guilty, was guilty as an accessory to Allan, and that Allan
was guilty was not proved; he was not even before the court. It was
not proved that the bullets which slew Glenure fitted the bore of
James's small gun with which Allan was alleged to have perpetrated the
murder, but it was proved that the lock of that gun had only one
fault--it missed fire four times out of five, and, when the gun did
not miss fire, it did not carry straight--missed a blackcock, sitting!
_That_ gun was not the gun used in the murder.

The jury had the case for James of the Glens most clearly and
convincingly placed before them, in the speech of Mr. Brown for the
accused. He made, indeed, the very points on which I have insisted;
for example, that if James concerted a murder with Allan on May 11, he
would not begin to hunt for money for Allan's escape so late as May
14, the day of the murder. Again, he proved that, without any
information from James, Allan would _naturally_ send for money to
William Stewart, James's usual source of supply; while at Coalisnacoan
there was no man to go as messenger except the tenant, John Breck
MacColl. A few women composed his family, and, as John MacColl had
been the servant of James of the Glens, he was well known already to
Allan. In brief, there was literally no proof of concert, and had the
case been heard in Edinburgh, not in the heart of the Campbell
country, by a jury of Campbells, a verdict of 'Not Guilty' would have
been given: probably the jury would not even have fallen back upon
'Not Proven.' But, moved by clan hatred and political hatred, the
jury, on September 24, found a verdict against James of the Glens,
who, in a touching brief speech, solemnly asserted his innocence