Page:Life and unparalleled voyages and adventures of Ambrose Gwinnett (1).pdf/24

 certainly should prove a very serious warning to both judges and juries when called on to administer the law in similar cases. Better far to allow fifty guilty individuals to escape, than permit one innocent person to suffer. And this is not a solitary case where evidence as clear-—but yet as false—-has been brought against the culprit; and the truth of his innocence has been discovered when it was impossible to repair the injury. Though obliged to quit his native land for dread of again being apprehended, it must have solaced Gwinnett’s mind when he reflected that he was innocent of the crime for which he had to fly. How different would his feelings have been had he been guilty of the foul deed! every tempest that blew, every difficulty he encountered, every hardship he experienced,—-and these were not few,—- would have kindled within his breast conscience sting, and would have made him cry out, like one of old,—-"My burden is heavier than I can bear. Oh! whither shall I flee to be freed from this perpetual tormentor!" Such, reader, is the difference between the feelings of the innocent and the guilty individual.

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