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THE DIRECT ARGUMENT TO PROVE THE CRIME.
We shall now proceed to state the argument against Lord Byron.
1st, There is direct evidence that Lord Byron was guilty of some unusual immorality.
The evidence is not, as the 'Blackwood' says, that Lushington yielded assent to the ex parte statement of a client; nor, as the 'Quarterly' intimates, that he was affected by the charms of an attractive young woman.
The first evidence of it is the fact that Lushington and Romilly offered to take the case into court, and make there a public exhibition of the proofs on which their convictions were founded.
2nd, It is very strong evidence of this fact, that Lord Byron, while loudly declaring that he wished to know with what he was charged, declined this open investigation, and, rather than meet it, signed a paper which he had before refused to sign.
3rd, It is also strong evidence of this fact, that although secretly declaring to all his intimate friends that he still wished open investigation in a court of justice, and affirming his belief that his character was being ruined for want of it, he never afterwards took the means to get it.

Instead of writing a private handbill, he might have come to England and entered a suit; and he did not do it.
That Lord Byron was conscious of a great crime is further made probable by the peculiar malice he seemed to bear to his wife's legal counsel.
If there had been nothing to fear in that legal investigation wherewith they threatened him, why did he not only flee from it, but regard with a peculiar bitterness those who advised and proposed it?
To an innocent man falsely accused, the certainties of law are a blessing and a refuge.
Female charms cannot mislead in a court of justice; and the atrocities of rumour are there sifted, and deprived of power.

A trial is not a threat to an innocent man: it is an invitation, an opportunity.

Why, then, did he hate Sir Samuel Romilly, so that he exulted like a fiend over his tragical death?
The letter in which he pours forth this malignity was so brutal, that Moore was obliged, by the general outcry of society, to suppress it.