Note 42 — CHAP. II.
Reading edition
For an account of this transaction, see the trial of Captain Macnamara for the murder of Colonel Montgomery; in which it will appear, that though the Captain admitted the fact, yet the jury acquitted him of the crime. Such complaisance on the part of juries is particularly favourable to this summary mode of terminating differences. Fatal duels are now become almost as common as highway robberies, and make almost as little impression upon the public mind. The murdered is carried to his grave, and the murderer received back into society, with the same honour, as if the one had done his duty in sacrificing his life, and the other had only done his in taking it away.