"My lord, I have little to say, and I may at once relieve the anxiety of
my counsel, who now looks wistfully upon me, and add that that little
will scarcely embrace the object of defence. Why should I defend myself?
Why should I endeavour to protract a life that a few days, more or less,
will terminate, according to the ordinary calculations of chance? Such
as it is and has been, my life is vowed to the law, and the law will have
the offering. Could I escape from this indictment, I know that seven
others await me, and that by one or the other of these my conviction and
my sentence must come. Life may be sweet to all of us, my lord; and were
it possible that mine could be spared yet a while, that continued life
might make a better atonement for past actions than a death which, abrupt
and premature, calls for repentance while it forbids redress.

"But when the dark side of things is our only choice, it is useless to
regard the bright; idle to fix our eyes upon life, when death is at hand;
useless to speak of contrition, when we are denied its proof. It is the
usual policy of prisoners in my situation to address the feelings and
flatter the prejudices of the jury; to descant on the excellence of our
laws, while they endeavour to disarm them; to praise justice, yet demand
mercy; to talk of expecting acquittal, yet boast of submitting without a
murmur to condemnation. For me, to whom all earthly interests are dead,
this policy is idle and superfluous. I hesitate not to tell you, my lord
judge,--to proclaim to you, gentlemen of the jury,--that the laws which I
have broken through my life I despise in death! Your laws are but of two
classes; the one makes criminals, the other punishes them. I have
suffered by the one; I am about to perish by the other.

"My lord, it was the turn of a straw which made me what I am. Seven
years ago I was sent to the house of correction for an offence which I