Select Speeches of Daniel Webster | Page 4

what the guilty might gain by it. They have lost those great privileges in their trial, which the law allows, in capital cases, for the protection of innocence against unfounded accusation. They have lost the right of being previously furnished with a copy of the indictment, and a list of the government witnesses. They have lost the right of peremptory challenge; and, notwithstanding the prejudices which they know have been excited against them, they must show legal cause of challenge, in each individual case, or else take the jury as they find it. They have lost the benefit of assignment of counsel by the court. They have lost the benefit of the Commonwealth's process to bring in witnesses in their behalf. When to these circumstances it is added that they are strangers, almost wholly without friends, and without the means for preparing their defence, it is evident they must take their trial under great disadvantages.
But without dwelling on these considerations, I proceed, Gentlemen of the Jury, to ask your attention to those circumstances which cannot but cast doubts on the story of the prosecutor.
In the first place, it is impossible to believe that a robbery of this sort could have been committed by three or four men without previous arrangement and concert, and of course without the knowledge of the fact that Goodridge would be there, and that he had money. They did not go on the highway, in such a place, in a cold December's night, for the general purpose of attacking the first passenger, running the chance of his being somebody who had money. It is not easy to believe that a gang of robbers existed, that they acted systematically, communicating intelligence to one another, and meeting and dispersing as occasion required, and that this gang had their head-quarters in such a place as Newburyport. No town is more distinguished for the general correctness of the habits of its citizens; and it is of such a size that every man in it may be known to all the rest. The pursuits, occupations, and habits of every person within it are within the observation of his neighbors. A suspicious stranger would be instantly observed, and all his movements could be easily traced. This is not the place to be the general rendezvous of a gang of robbers. Offenders of this sort hang on the skirts of large towns. From the commission of their crimes they hasten into the crowd, and hide themselves in the populousness of great cities. If it be wholly improbable that a gang existed in such a place for the purpose of general plunder, the next inquiry is, Is there any reason to think that there was a special or particular combination, for the single purpose of robbing the prosecutor? Now it is material to observe, that not only is there no evidence of any such combination, but also, that circumstances existed which render it next to impossible that the defendants could have been parties to such a combination, or even that they could have any knowledge of the existence of any such man as Goodridge, or that any person, with money, was expected to come from the eastward, and to be near Essex Bridge, at or about nine o'clock, the evening when the robbery is said to have been committed.
One of the defendants had been for some weeks in Newburyport, the other passed the bridge from New Hampshire at twelve o'clock on the 19th of December, 1816. At this time, Goodridge had not yet arrived at Exeter, twelve or fourteen miles from the bridge. How, then, could either of the defendants know that he was coming? Besides, he says that nobody, as far as he is aware, knew on the road that he had money, and nothing happened till he reached Exeter, according to his account, from which it might be conjectured that such was the case. Here, as he relates it, it became known that he had pistols; and he must wish you to infer that the plan to rob him was laid here, at Exeter, by some of the persons who inferred that he had money from his being armed. Who were these persons? Certainly not the defendants, or either of them. Certainly not Taber. Certainly not Jackman. Were they persons of suspicious characters? Was he in a house of a suspicious character? On this point he gives us no information. He has either not taken the pains to inquire, or he chooses not to communicate the result of his inquiries. Yet nothing could be more important, since he seems compelled to lay the scene of the plot against him at Exeter, than to know who the persons were that he saw, or who saw him, at that place. On the face of