Stirling peerage

STYMXO HIMSELF EAKL OF STIRLIXO. 279
are brought forward under suspicious circumstances, that
those documents may not have been taken out and thrown
aside, and others put in their place. It is for you to con-
sider whether they are worth any credit whatever.
These, gentlemen, are all the documents that I have to
comment upon ; and, in considering the question of forgery,
you should consider the extraordinary coincidence of two
packages of such vital importance to remove the obstacles in
the way of the prisoner's success, coming both of them by
anonymous letters, — one by post, and the other by two ladies
fashionably dressed, who secretly laid them down on Made-
moiselle Le Normand's cabinet. It is a matter for your con-
sideration to say whether there are any grounds for your
doubting that the English documents are forged also.
Before going into the question as to whether the prisoner
was the forger of these documents, or was art and part, I mit
it to you whether you will hear me on that point now, or
adjourn till to-morrow.
The Jury, after consulting among themselves, stated, that
even if his Lordship finished that night, they would require
some time to examine the documents, and consider their ver-
dict, and requested his Lordship to adjourn till the morrow at
nine o'clock.
The Court accordingly adjourned.
FIFTH DAY.
Friday, May 3, 1839.
This day the Court met at nine o'clock, and his Lordship
resumed his address to the Jury.
Gentlemen, I called your attention last night to the docu-
ments alleged in the indictment to be forged, and stated to you
the grounds on which it appeared to me to be your duty to look
narrowly to them in order to enable you to judge whether the
charge of forgery respecting them is well founded or not. I
had little to add on this branch of the case, when the proceed-
ings stopped last night. The principal defence made for the
prisoner was various statements of counsel founded on the
documents that were produced by De Pages, in order to exhi-
bit a similarity between the handwriting of Fenelon in the cer-
tificate on the ancient map, and his handwriting in those pro-
ductions which were brought by De Pages from Fi-ance. You
wdl observe that the whole of these observations presuppose that
3c