Some months having passed without Sparks having made any confession,
or the discovery of any new fact whereby his guilt might be
established, his prosecutors found themselves reluctantly compelled
to bring him to trial. They had not a tittle of evidence, except some
strange locks and implements found in the shop, and which proved the
talent, but not the guilt, of the mechanic. But these were so
various, and executed with such elaborate art, and such an evident
expenditure of labour, that but few, even of the judges, jury, or
spectators, could be persuaded that a man so poor would have devoted
himself so sedulously to such an employment, unless he had had some
other object in view than mere instruction or amusement. His friends
and neighbours gave him an excellent character; but on their
cross-examination, all admitted his entire devotion to his favourite
pursuit. The counsel for the banker exerted himself with considerable
ability. Calculating in some degree on the state of the public mind,
and upon the influence which vague rumours, coupled with the
evidences of the mechanic's handicraft exhibited in court, might
have on the mind of the jury, he dwelt upon every ward and
winding--on the story of the iron chest--on the evident poverty of
the locksmith, and yet his apparent waste of time--and asked if all
this work were not intended to insure success in some vast design? He
believed that a verdict would be immediately followed by a
confession, for he thought Amos guilty, and succeeded in making the
belief pretty general among his audience.
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