spectable standing, who professed to have been robbed of a large sum of money, at about nine o'clock in the night of December 19, 1816, on the road between Exeter and Newburyport, soon after passing the Essex Merrimac Bridge, on his way from New Hampshire into Massachusetts. Among the proofs of the robbery was a pistol-shot through his left hand, received, as he said, before the robbers pulled him from his horse; he and one of his assailants discharging their pistols at each other on the same instant. He was then, according to his account, dragged from his horse, and across a fence into a field, robbed, and beaten until he was senseless. On his recovery he went back to the toll-house on the bridge, where he appeared to be for a time in a state of delirium. But he had sufficient self-possession to return to the place of the robbery with some persons who accompanied him with a lantern, where his watch, papers, and other articles were found scattered on the ground. On the following day, he went to Newburyport, and remained there ill, at intervals in a state of real or simulated frenzy, for several weeks. Having regained his health, he set about the discovery of the robbers; and so general was the sympathy for him in a very orderly community, that his plans were aided by the innocent zeal of nearly the whole country-side. His first charge was against the Kennistons, two poor men who dwelt in the town of New Market, New Hampshire, on the other side of the river. In their cellar he found a piece of gold, which he identified by a mark which he said he had placed on all his money, and a tendollar note which he also identified as his own. The Kennistons were arrested, examined, and held for trial. He next charged the toll-gatherer, one Pearson, as an accomplice; and on his premises, with the aid of a witch-hazel conjuror, he also found some of his gold and papers in which it had been wrapped. Pearson was arrested, examined before two magistrates, and discharged. He then complained against one Taber, a person who lived in Boston. Finally, he followed a man named Jackman to the city of New York, in whose house he swore that he also discovered some of his marked wrappers. The machinery of an Executive requisition was put in motion, and Jackman was brought into Massachusetts and lodged in jail. He and

Taber, and the Kennistons, were then indicted for the robbery, in the county of Essex.

So cunningly had this man contrived his story and arranged his proofs, that the popular belief was entirely with him. The witch-hazel part of his evidence probably did not disincline the populace to believe him. But it is even said that there were few members of the county bar who did not regard the case of the Kennistons as desperate. There were some, however, who believed Goodridge's story to be false; and these persons sent for Mr. Webster to undertake the defence of the accused. The indictment against Taber was nol. pross'd. That against the Kennistons came on for trial at Ipswich, in April, 1817. They had nothing on which to rely but their previous good character, the negative fact that since the supposed robbery they had not passed any money or been seen to have any, and the improbabilities which their advocate could. develop in the story of Goodridge. The theory of the defence was, that Goodridge was his own robber, and had fired the pistol-shot through his own hand.

In the power of cross-examining witnesses Mr. Webster had no superior in his day; and his reputation in this respect doubtless aided the impression which he produced upon this jury. There were traditions which had come over the border from New Hampshire, of his terrible skill in baffling the deepest plans of perjury and fraud, which excited the jury to the closest attention to his method of dealing with Goodridge. They saw his well-concocted story laid bare, in all its improbable features, while every aid was given to him by Mr. Webster to develop suggestions which could be set off against the theory that the latter meant to maintain. But when all the evidence for and against Goodridge's narrative had been drawn out, and it came to the summing up, there remained two obvious difficulties in the way of that hypothesis. One of them was, that no motive had been shown for so strange an act as a man's falsely pretending to have been robbed, and charging the robbery upon innocent people; the other, that the theory of Goodridge being himself the robber, apparently made it necessary to believe that he had proceeded, in his fraudulent manufacture of proofs, to the extremity of shooting a pistol-bullet

through his own hand. These were very formidable difficulties; for the law of evidence, as administered in our criminal jurisprudence, very properly regards the absence of motive for an act, the commission of which depends on circumstantial proof as one of the important things to be weighed in favor of innocence; and as to the shooting, it was certainly in a high degree improbable that a man would maim himself, in order to maintain a false statement that he had been robbed and maimed by some one else. But in grappling with these difficulties, Mr. Webster told the jury that the range of human motives is almost infinite; that a desire to avoid payment of his debts, if he owed debts, or a whimsical ambition for distinction, might have been at the bottom of Goodridge's conduct; and that having once announced himself to the community as a man who had been robbed of a large sum and beaten nearly to death, he had to go on and charge somebody with the act. This was correct reasoning, but still no motive had been shown for the original pretence; and, if there had not been some decisive circumstances developed on the evidence, it is not easy to say how this case ought to have been decided. These circumstances made it unnecessary to believe that, although Goodridge himself discharged the pistol which wounded him, he intended that result. His story was, that the pistol of the robber went off at the moment when he had grasped it with his left hand. Yet, according to the testimony of the physicians who attended him, there were no marks of powder on his hand; and the appearance of the wound led to the conclusion that the muzzle of the piece must have been three or four feet from his hand, while there were marks of powder on the sleeve of his coat, and the ball passed through the coat as well as the hand. This state of the evidence justified Mr. Webster's remark that "all exhibitions are subject to accidents. Whether serious or farcical, they do not always proceed exactly as they are designed to do." Goodridge, he argued, intended to shoot the ball through his coat-sleeve, and it accidentally perforated his hand also. This discredited his story more than any thing else, and convinced the jury that, if he found any of his money on the premises of the Kennistons, he placed it there himself. The Kennistons were acquitted. Goodridge returned to the charge;

Jackman was put on trial at the next term of the court, and the jury disagreed. At his second trial, Mr. Webster defended him, and he was acquitted. These criminal proceedings were followed by an action for a malicious prosecution, instituted by Pearson against Goodridge. Mr. Webster was of counsel for the plaintiff in this case. The evidence was now still more clear against Goodridge; a verdict for a large amount was recovered against him, and the public at last saw the fact judicially established that he had robbed himself. He left New England a disgraced man. No clew to his motive was

ever discovered.

Twenty years afterward, Mr. Webster was travelling in the western part of the State of New York; he stopped at a tavern, and went in to ask for a glass of water. The man behind the bar exhibited great agitation as the traveller approached him, and when he placed the glass of water before Mr. Webster his hand trembled violently, but he did not speak. Mr. Webster drank the water, turned without saying another word, and reëntered his carriage. The man was Goodridge.

CHAPTER IX.

1820-1822.

MR. CALHOUN'S VISIT TO BOSTON-PROFESSIONAL

THE

PLYMOUTH

POSITION-CON

VENTION TO REVISE THE CONSTITUTION OF MASSACHUSETTS-ORATION-CASE OF LA JEUNE EUGENIEDEFENCE OF JUDGE JAMES PRESCOTT-ELECTED ΤΟ CONGRESS FROM BOSTON.

IN

N the summer of 1820, while Mr. Webster was diligently occupied in the practice of his profession, Mr. Calhoun, who was then Secretary of War, made an official tour to the North, for the purpose of examining the forts and arsenals of the Federal Government. His reception by Mr. Webster in Boston is thus described by Mr. Ticknor:

"When Mr. Calhoun came to Boston in the summer of 1820, as Secretary of War, to examine the arsenals and forts, Mr. Webster, who then lived in Somerset Street, was particularly hospitable and attentive to him. They had always been on good and kindly terms, even during the war, when they were leading in opposite parties. Whatever collisions they might have had on the floor of the House, were all forgotten at the time of Mr. Calhoun's visit to Boston. Mr. Webster was then earnestly devoted to the practice of his profession, but he was unquestionably not without political aspirations. He was much with Mr. Calhoun; went with him to the arsenal at Watertown, and passed the rest of the only day he could be with him in driving about the neighborhood. A large party of the principal persons in this portion of the country, I recollect, waited long for them at Mr. Webster's to dinner. Mr. Calhoun talked much and most agreeably at table, and it was evident to all of us that Mr. Webster desired to draw him out and show him under the most favorable aspects to his friends. After dinner, a considerable number of young men, particularly