Our prerogative as Suzerain and Liege would permit us to
condemn to death at once; but in this instance, my Lords and holy
Fathers, we confess ourselves unwilling and incapable of pronouncing
judgment solely on our own responsibility. The accused is a friendless
foreigner, to whom we have been enabled to show some kindness, and
therefore one towards whom we cannot feel indifference: he has,
moreover, done us such good service both in Spain and Sicily, that
even the grave charge brought against him now, cannot blot out the
memories of the past. We find it difficult to believe that a young,
high-spirited, honorable warrior, in whose heart every chivalric
feeling appeared to beat, could become, under any temptation, under
any impulse, that base and loathsome coward--a midnight murderer! On
your counsels, then, we implicitly depend: examine, impartially and
deliberately, the proofs for and against, which will be laid before
you. But let one truth be ever present, lest justice herself be but a
cover for prejudice and hate. Let not Europe have cause to say, that
he who, flying from the enemies and tyrants of his own land, took
refuge on the hearths of our people, secure there of kindness and
protection, has found them not. Were it a countryman we were about to
judge, this charge were needless; justice and mercy would, if it were
possible, go hand in hand.
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