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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Next time we will go down to the old tavern there is plenty of brick there aud we
will give thsm hell."
The criminal and inhuman purpose here disclosed was the unconcerted and unp,emeditated thought of the defendant Corwin alone, and therefore the attempt to excite.it in
the manner described by the witness furnishes no evidence of the supposed conspiracy.
9. An attempt was madeto displace the rails east of the marsh, at Michigan Centre,
September, 1850, according to the statement of Woliver. He says, "Filley asked me to
go with him;' I am going to give'em hell to-night at the east end of the switch.
This was an hour after dark. Filley said,'I must look around and see if any one is coming. He tried to get the switch bar loose but failed. H:e then fixed the bars so that one
bar crossed the other, two or three inches. He said he' guessed that was enough.- We
can do no more, and we will go home." "His design was to iojure the Company all he
could, and he'd be damned if he didn't do it." Assumning this testimony to be true, this
fearful act began with Filley, and ended with him and Woliver only. The explanation
which accompanied it, showed that it was some motive of private malice or retaliation
that prompted the transaction. No one else advised it; no one else knew of it. It is a
transaction which deserves punishment in Jackson County, but it has nothing to do with
the case which you are trying here.
10. A lamp was broken in consequence of an obstruction Qof a culvert in 1850..Woli ver says, "we, (Filler and I,) went down west of Fitch's, and placed a tie in a culvert to
break the lamp, and a mud sill across the track, and went back to Filly's. Next morn ing Fitch told me that he went down to the cars, when they had stopped, and that after
the cars got under way, he and Filly got on behind and turned the breakls." Filly and
Woliver alone were engaged in this transaction. We learn from the testimony else.
where that Fitch arrived at home after the obstruction had occurred. The story of the
breaks is puerile. There is, I believe, only one break at the end of a car One man
turns it with ease and effect, when the cars are under a slow motion. The cars had. only
begun to move, and were on an ascending grade. A pressure upon the track through
the breaks could do no possible injury. They could have been used in this case cidv for a
petty annioyance. Dear to Abel F. Fitch a1 his vindlicati, tin thi, iast was declaraed by
him, in his dying hours, to be, eear s it is to th i com uiy. in whlih he'live alu ever more will be to me,-I am gladthat ths,charge, puerile and pitiable as it is, rests on the
authority of Woliver alone. How worthless that authority is, we shall have occasion to
: see in the sequel of this argument
11. It is alleged that te a were assailed wvith stones on the occasion of a ball
which came off at Leoni, on the 11th of August. The charge rests on the testimony of
Woliver Malone. -He says' "E. J. Price, L. Champlin, Hewitt Davis and I were in the
bait-room. Price said,'The cars are coming; let's go and stone them.' We four went.
Price and i together, Champlin and Davis further on together. Stones were thrown. I
threw none, but I heard the rattling of the stoies against the cars." Hewitt Davis says that
he attended the ball; thatno such transaction occurred; that he was in the arbor.n which
the ball was celebrated, and neither he nor Price nor Champlin left the ball for any such
outrage, nor proposed to do any such thing. Ira.W. Kellogg was door-keeper on that
oesasion, and he proves that Price, Champliu and Davis did not leave the ball-room, when
the cars passed. These witnesses agree that Woliver was in a state of absolute drunk enness in the bar room during the whole night, which rendered him unable to move,
and that he iever entered the ball-room at all. This aggression, then, must have
been an invention of the witness Woliver. Where a witness is found to have stated a
deliberate falsehood in regard to one material fact, the law applies the rule, Falsus in
unofalsus in omrnibus, and we are relieved therefore from all obligation to account, in this
cause, for any crimes resting upon the evidence of Woliver alone.
12. Woliver described an assault of the cars with stones on another occasion, much in
the same manner. He says, " We were together-the Price boys, Corwin and. Cor-t
win said the cars are coming; we will go and give'em hell.' We threw stones at the cars
firom Filly's orchard. I saw glass along the road the next day." If the fact of this as sault is to be assumed, then I have to remark only this: that it implicates Price and Cor win-that it was an unpremeditated and unconcerted act, obviously disconnected with all
other other outrages which preceded and followed, and it furnishes no evidence in sup port of the pretended conspiracy.
1-3. Thecars were again assailed with stones, according to Woliver, in September,
1850. He says, "The Prices, Corwins and I were together at Filley's house. The Prices
and Corwin3 proposed to stone the cars"-(Wolevar is always innocent! but he yields
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