That the business is complicated, and judgment most difficult, I acknowledge, and therefore gladly avail myself of any remaining point on which the scale may turn.

Sworn as I am to administer impartial justice, prejudice against the prisoner I can have none; but the point we have until now overlooked, appears sufficient to decide not only individual but general opinion.

I mean the _premeditated vengeance_ sworn by the prisoner against the deceased--long indulged and proclaimed enmity, and premeditated determination to take his life or lose his own.
Don Ferdinand Morales--be his soul assoilized!--was so universally beloved, so truly the friend of all ranks and conditions of men, that to believe in the existence of any other enmity towards his person is almost impossible.

We have evidence that the prisoner was at feud with him--was harboring some design against him for weeks.

It may be he was even refused by Don Ferdinand the meeting he desired, and so sought vengeance by the midnight dagger.