What could have encouraged that demeanor your Lordships will, when
you reflect seriously upon this matter, consider. God forbid that the
authority either of the prosecutor or of the judge should dishearten the
prisoner so as to circumscribe the means or enervate the vigor of his
defence! God forbid that such a thing should even appear to be desired
by anybody in any British tribunal! But, my Lords, there is a behavior
which broadly displays a want of sense, a want of feeling, a want of
decorum,--a behavior which indicates an habitual depravity of mind, that
has no sentiments of propriety, no feeling for the relations of life, no
conformity to the circumstances of human affairs. This behavior does not
indicate the spirit of injured innocence, but the audacity of hardened,
habitual, shameless guilt,--affording legitimate grounds for inferring a
very defective education, very evil society, or very vicious habits of
life. There is, my Lords, a nobleness in modesty, while insolence is
always base and servile. A man who is under the accusation of his
country is under a very great misfortune. His innocence, indeed, may at
length shine out like the sun, yet for a moment it is under a cloud; his
honor is in abeyance, his estimation is suspended, and he stands, as it
were, a doubtful person in the eyes of all human society.
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