The Advocate- General for the prosecution made the opening speech.

He read the law in a plain, straightforward manner, and said that for a soldier to go to sleep at his post of duty, while so much depended upon him, was the most culpable of all crimes, and the most inexcusable.

I trembled in my boots, for on several occasions I knew I had taken a short nap, even on the very outpost.

The Advocate-General went on further to say, that the picket was the sentinel that held the lives of his countrymen and the liberty of his country in his hands, and it mattered not what may have been his record in the past.

At one moment he had forfeited his life to his country.