Argument of William H. Seward, in defence of Abel F. Fitch and others, under an indictment for arson, delivered at Detroit, on the 12th, 13th and 15th days of September, 1851.: Phonographically reported by T. C. Leland.

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With respect to all verbal admissions says Greenleaf (vol. I, p. 200) it may be.observed
that they ought to be received with great caution. The evidence consisting as it does in
the mere repetition of oral statements is subject to much imperfection or mistake, the
party himself either being misinformed, or not having clearly expressed his own meaning
or the witness having misunderstood him. It frequently hkappens also that the witness,
by unintentionally altering a few of the expressions realy used gives a completely different statement of what the party did say. The zeal too which so generally prevails to
detect offenders, especially in cases of aggravated guilt, and the strong disposition in the
persons engaged in pursuit of evidence to rely on slight grounds of suspicion which are
exaggerated into sufficient proof, together with the character of persons necessarily called
as witnesses in cases of secret and attrocious crimes, all tend to impair the value of this
kind of evidence, and sometimes to lead to its rejection, when in civil actions it would
have been received.
The weighty observation of Mr. Justice Foster is also to be kept in mind, that this evi
dence is not to be refuted in the ordinary course of things,in the way by which the proof o
p!ain facts may be obviated. (1 Greenleaf 213.) "Hasty confessions made to persons
having no authority to examine, are the weakest and most suspicious of all evidence.",
(Foster's Discources, 243.)
These principles apply with infinitely greater force when the alleged admissions are
procurred for hire and reward. I ask you now to assume a further principle, which the
court must charge you to be true and no one will gainsay, which is that no admission concludes against the fact. An admission does not bind, if the fact is not true. Thus an admission cannot bind if the fact be impossible, because if it is impossible it is not true. The
law is so tenacious of this principle, that if Gay should have declared that he burned the
depot, and if all the defendants should have confessed that he did so and that they had
employed him to burn it, and if it should appear in fact that the depot was not burned at
all, or that although it was burned yet that Gay was in Buffalo or in bed at the time of
the burning, the evidence of the confessions must be rejected.
Without reviewing now the admissions alleged in this case I shall shlow you, in the
first place, that they must be rejected and that the defendants must be acquitted, because
the manner in which the crime is confessed to have been committed was impossi ble, This
is a distinct and independent defence, for if it was impossible to burn the depot in the
manner described, then the defendants must be acquitted nevertheless, altholugh all other
positions assumed in their behalf should fail.
I proceed to show that it was impossible. This instrument is of the samue kind with
that with which the depot is alleged to have been burned. It is not the same instrument, for, of course, that one is assumed to have been destroyed by the fire it kindled.
But the description of that instrument is given us by the witness Phelps, as he obtained
it from Gay, the supposed incendiary, and from Fitch and Filly who, it is alleged in the
confessions proved by Phelps, delivered that instrument to Gay. This match is made
and furnished not only on the same plan and principle, but exactly in conformity to the
description given by Phelps. All question in regard to the identity of the instrument in
principle and in furniture is excluded, because this match now produced was found in the
possession of Gay, and is presented to us as one of two which he alleged to Phelps, he received from Fitch and which Fitch confessed to Phelps he had delivered to Gay in Febtary last, to be used in the burning of the new depot as soon as it should be constructed.
You see here a second instrument made and furnished on the same plan and principle. Phelps sayvs, this last one, was delivered to him by Fitch and Corwin on the night
of the 11th of April. to be used by him in burning the depot at Niles, and that it was actualy employedtwo days afterwards in setting fire to that depot. The admissions of Gay
that he burned the depot were admissions that he burned it with a match of this description. The admissio_ of the defendants that Gay did burn the depot and was hired
by them to do so were admissions that he burned it with a match made according to the
description which they gqe and the duplicate matches, which they deliveved, one to Gay
at Detroit and the othbrto Phelps at Michigan Centre, which dupl;cate matches I now
hold in my right and left hands, I call your attention now to this one, which was used
by Phelps in firing the Nileq depot, and is therefore called the' Niles' match. You see
it is a cylinder of white-wood, a foot long, that has a hollow tube bored with an anger in
the centre lengthwise from. one end to within an inch or more of the other end. Al ording to the descriptions, that central tube is coated with varnish and being thus coated is
filled with camphine. When that tube is filled the orifice is covered with a seal of
shoemaker's wax. Remember now that the tube is coated, not with glue, but with var