There is no authority or precedent which would have warranted the admission of the evidence, sought to be introduced on behalf of the defendant in this case. Upon no principle was it admissible, on a trial upon the plea of not guilty, to go into the question, upon what evidence the Grand Jury found the indictment. The issue upon that plea was, guilty or not guilty of the offence as charged in that indictment. The evidence proposed was not only wholly foreign to the issue ; but it was proposed to institute an inquiry into the proceedings of the Grand Jury, as unwarranted as it would have been novel and unprecedented. The indictment itself afforded the best, and the only evidence which could be received, of the
Judgment affirmed.