The testimony phase of the lawsuit over, the pages and pages of handwritten material taken down by the note-takers as well as the evidence or proofs submitted to the court by both sides, Janet's punishment-marked history book and Jane's “grudge” book being the notable exceptions, were sent to the printers. Judges and lawyers reassembled in court on June 10, 1811, for closing arguments. Henry Erskine spoke first, addressing his peers in the lovely voice that was his hallmark. He made a number of points, arguing first that since his client's intent in informing the other parents about the teachers was to prevent damage, not to spread a malicious story, the pursuers had no grounds for suing her for defamation. On the topic of same-sex passion, he opined that as with males, so with females. “Lusts arise … in persons early in life—boys—in presence of one another—girls the same,” he stated. He then added that so-called unnatural passion was nothing more than an odd taste. Just as he personally knew a man, otherwise perfectly unremarkable, “whose only delight was with deformed,” so he begged the judges to consider that it was perfectly possible for “ladies of the best character” to find their delight in sexual relationships with each other.

In other words, Erskine was making the argument that moral character and sexual preference were independent of each other. Women could desire women for the same reason that men desired men, because of a natural inclination; the most that one could conclude about such an inborn predilection was that it was uncommon. The large point was that same-sex couples had sexual relationships that ended in mutual gratification, just like heterosexual couples. Like all circumstantial arguments, it was weak, for it did not prove that Woods and Pirie were in fact a sexually active lesbian pair.

Since the keyhole story had been exploded and there was no witness who could corroborate the Portobello tryst, Erskine had no direct evidence to support Jane's assertion that the teachers had been physically intimate. So he made the most of what nobody denied: that they had met at night.