Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN < 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 SPEECHES 
 
 OF 
 
 THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 
 
 JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN, 
 
 MASTER OF THE ROLLS IN IRELAND, 
 
 OS THE LATE TERY INTERESTING 
 
 FOURTH EDITION, WITH ADDITIONS. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR I.ONGMAX, Ht'HST, REES, ORME, AND BROMX, 
 PAl'tRNOSTKR. IIOW. 
 
 1U15.
 
 E. Blackader, Printer, 
 Took** Court, Chancery Lane, London.
 
 DA 
 
 PREFACE C1AH 
 
 11 IS 
 
 TO 
 
 THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 JLT was formerly imagined that the study of the 
 English law from its nature rendered its pro- 
 fessors incapable of eloquence. 
 
 Hume seems to have been a convert to the 
 opinion; and though in one of his essays he al- 
 most prophecies, that at a future day eloquent 
 orators would arise in the British Senate; yet with 
 respect to the bar he does not even insinuate a 
 similar prediction. At that time the notion ap- 
 peared sanctioned by experience, and eloquent 
 barristers not having previously existed, the 
 thing was deemed impossible. The period of an 
 Erskine and a Curran* will be hereafter consi- 
 dered a new sera in the eloquence of the bar of 
 these kingdoms. Before their time the publica- 
 tion of the state trials exhibits nothing of the 
 orator in the pleadings of the lawyers; even the 
 
 * Dunning and Burgh preceded them and were for a short 
 time their contemporaries ; they were as inferior to these as 
 Cotta and Hortensius to Cicero, 
 
 a 2 cause
 
 l PREFACE. 
 
 cause of the seven bishops, on the event of which 
 depended the liberties of England, could not ex- 
 cite energy in their advocates. Their speeches 
 are excellent in legal reasoning: they have no 
 pretension to eloquencet The alteration of the 
 law, at the revolution, by permitting an address 
 to a jury in cases of high treason, enlarged the 
 field for the barrister. Notwithstanding which, 
 in the numerous prosecutions of the adherents 
 of the pretender, the counsel for the accused 
 were insensible to the valuable privilege, and 
 their languid defences would warrant the con- 
 clusion, that the magnitude of the crime with 
 \vhich the client was charged, extinguished the 
 talents of his advocate,- and deprived him of the 
 benefit afforded by the legislature. The genius 
 of Erskine, after nearly the lapse of a century, 
 called forth that inestimable statute into the full 
 vigour of operation. On the trial of lord George 
 Gordon, he seized the opportunity, and with 
 honour to himself and advantage to his country 
 laid the foundation of that professional rank and 
 character, which he has always so ably a.nd inde- 
 pendently maintained. 
 
 It is much to be regretted that Mr. Erskine J s 
 speeches as an advocate have not yet been pub- 
 lished in a separate volume. They are only to. 
 be found in the printed reports of the trials in 
 which he was engaged. And from the difficulty 
 which the editor of the present volume expe- 
 rienced in collecting those of Mr. Curran, it is 
 
 probable
 
 PREFACE. Ill 
 
 probable in a few years to procure Mr. Erslvine's 
 may be impossible.* From a similar neglect, few 
 memorials are now to be had of the professional 
 eloquence of Dunning* And of the forensic exer- 
 tions of Burgh, nothing remains except an imper- 
 fect note of the speech he delivered at the bar of 
 the Irish house of lords in theValentia cause. To 
 prevent the same fate attending those efforts of 
 the talents of Mr. Curran, the memorials of which 
 time has not yet destroyed, the editor gives this 
 volume to the public. It appears under the dis- 
 advantage of being neither revised nor corrected 
 by Mr. Curran himself. His professional avo- 
 cations would have prevented him from yielding 
 to such an application, had it been made; and 
 had he even enjoyed leisure for the task, it is 
 more than probable, the modesty of genius, which 
 always under-values its own productions, would 
 have dictated a refusal. The editor determined 
 not to request, what he apprehended would not 
 have been granted. This collection is therefore 
 offered to the public, extracted from the printed 
 ephemeral reports of the trials in which the 
 speeches were delivered. Mr. Curran is respon- 
 sible neither for this publication nor for its de- 
 merits. And the editor has studiously avoided 
 the alteration of the most apparent inaccuracies, 
 from the indelicacy that would attend encroach- 
 ing on the privilege which should be left to every 
 
 * Since the second edition of this work appeared, Mr 
 Erskine's speeches have been published, 
 
 public
 
 IV PREFACE. 
 
 public man, of correcting his own production, 
 if at any time he should be disposed to exert it. 
 His defences of Finney and Bond were consi- 
 dered by the bar as his ablest performances at the 
 state trials of the year 1798. But unfortunate- 
 ly, the imperfect reports, which from accident 
 or design were given to the public, are rather 
 memorandums of facts, than specimens of the 
 talents of the advocate. If better could have 
 been procured, the public should have had them. 
 
 The- anonymous editor of the volume of Ed- 
 mund Burke's parliamentary speeches, which 
 appeared long before the edition of his works, 
 sanctioned by himself, did not labour under the 
 same disadvantage. Each of them had been pre- 
 viously sent into the world, touched and re- 
 touched by the orator himself into the highest 
 state of polish and improvement. Perhaps, the 
 anxiety of finish is too apparent, and notwith- 
 standing many fine strokes of the sublime, they 
 are rather elegant political essays, than eloquent 
 harangues. The orations of Cicero are come 
 down to us in a state much superior to what 
 they were then delivered, and it is clearly ascer- 
 tained that the one against Verres, that for 
 Milo, and the second Phillippic, are not those 
 which were spoken at the time, but the compo- 
 sitions of subsequent retirement and study. And 
 if our Irish advocate, in the period of his old age, 
 in that interval' between finishing the business 
 <f one world and' entering upon the other, that 
 
 period
 
 PREFACE. V 
 
 period to which we all look forward as the season 
 of the noblest enjoyment, should have leisure and 
 inclination to follow the example of the Roman 
 orator, this volume, by bringing to his recollec- 
 tion what might otherwise have been irrecover- 
 ably lost, may afford him the opportunity of 
 leaving to posterity a memorial worthy of him- 
 self. If the smallest fragments of the eloquence 
 of Crass us, who directed the education of Cicero, 
 of Cotta and Hortensius, who were his contem- 
 poraries and rivals, could now be procured, at 
 what expense would they be purchased, with 
 what avidity would they be read by every lover 
 of polite literature. 
 
 This volume, going down to future times even 
 with all its manifold errors and imperfections, 
 must be highly valuable. It will create a per- 
 manent interest in a name, which might only be 
 known by tradition ; and the eloquence of the 
 Irish bar will be supported by better evidence 
 than an " Andivi Hiberniam olim Jloruisse elo* 
 quenlia" as nothing similar will then exist to 
 induce a belief of the fact. 
 
 Ireland has still to experience the advantage 
 of the union. If any such now exists, it is " a 
 " speck not yet visible, a small seminal principle 
 " rather than a formed body ;" but the extinction 
 of an assembly, in which the liberty, the honour 
 and happiness of the country were the subjects 
 of debate, must be the eternal mildew of the ge- 
 nius
 
 VI EREFACE. 
 
 nius of the land. Such topics call forth every 
 noble propensity of our nature, every generous 
 affection of the heart, and stimulate every power 
 of the mind. The splendid examples of parlia- 
 mentary eloquence kindled the emulation of the 
 bar. Flood preceded Burgh, Curran. followed 
 .Grattan. England possessed a Pulteney, a Chat- 
 ham, and a Fox, before she had a Dunning and 
 an Erskine. They who fled for refuge against 
 party squabbles, and civil dissentions, to the abo- 
 lition of the parliament, were sadly mistaken. A 
 spiritless tranquillity may be obtained; but the 
 mind of man, to improve, must be agitated: and 
 it is better occasionally to hear the dashing of 
 the waves, than continually to exhale the pesti- 
 lential effluvia of stagnant waters. The voices of 
 the parliament were perishable, because man is 
 not immortal. Had the institution remained, 
 its virtues would have been permanent. For 
 half a century before the union, we had been 
 running a generous race of honourable friendly 
 rivalship with England, in every thing 'great and 
 good. We had acquired commerce and consti- 
 tution. In the production of public character 
 we were not inferior. If Britain boasted of Pul- 
 teney, Chatham, Townshend, Fox, Grey, Dun- 
 ning and Erskine, Ireland could enumerate 
 Boyle, Malone, Perry, Flood, Grattan, Daly, 
 Ponsonby, Burgh, and Curran These men will 
 have no successors when but boys, their minds 
 were expanded, and their honourable ambition 
 was inflamed, with the growing grandeur of their 
 ',;* country 5
 
 PREFACE. Vli 
 
 Country; and they came into the world fitted and 
 prepared to discharge the duties imposed upon 
 them by their station. Many of them are long 
 since removed from the stage of life. Little did 
 they imagine that, from the tree which they 
 had planted, withering almost ere it blossomed, 
 no descendant of theirs should gather the fruit. 
 Little did they imagine that Ireland was 
 to rise only to fall with but a moment of inter- 
 val between her glory and her abasement. The 
 physical and moral productions of man are go- 
 verned by the same laws; the work of accom- 
 plishment is slow the work of destruction is 
 rapid. The skill of the architect and the labour 
 of an age erect the majestic edifice; a succes- 
 sion of talents, of wisdom, of integrity, form a 
 constitution : the pick-axe of an ignorant work- 
 man levels the one with the dust, and the vote 
 of a venal senate eternally annihilates the other. 
 The Roman senate existed till the complete sub- 
 version of the western empire; but the parlia- 
 ment of Ireland yielded to the English minister, 
 what Rome, in the days of her greatest dege- 
 neracy, never surrendered to the vices or the 
 virtues of her emperors. 
 
 The only apology for this digression, if in truth 
 it can be called such, is that the writer is one, 
 who when not more than a child, has shed the 
 tear of the heart, while listening to the eloquence 
 of a Flood and a Grattan, successfully contend- 
 ing for the rights of their native land. He was 
 
 then
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 then of an age to understand such things, and 
 cannot now forget that such things were: he is 
 one whose feelings time has not yet subdued- 
 but who, wishing to jprevent his children being 
 miserable, will think it a parental duty to edu- 
 cate them in sentiments more congenial to the 
 humbler fortunes of their country. It is only 
 by degrees the mind of man is reconciled to his 
 situation and it is to be hoped that these ob- 
 servations will be patiently endured, when 
 even the flatterers of Angustus could without 
 fear of offence style the death of Cato nobile 
 lethum andcall Brutus and Cassius ultimi Ro- 
 manorum. 
 
 These are neither the sentiments of a bad 
 Irishman nor a bad subject. The man who de- 
 plores the extinction of the Irish parliament, to 
 be consistent with himself, must ardently wish 
 success to England, in her present contest with 
 France. The British empire in the existing 
 state of things is the great bulwark of the liber- 
 ties of Europe. And Ireland has still something 
 well worth defending. 
 
 To enter upon a criticism of Mr. Curran's elo- 
 quence would exceed the limits of a preface. To 
 assert that it is without defect would be absurd. 
 The greatest orators of antiquity perceived and 
 acknowledged their own deficiencies. The pe- 
 rusal of many of the following speeches, however 
 inadequately reported, will enable the reader to 
 
 form
 
 PREFACE. IX 
 
 form a better judgment than any elaborate cri- 
 tique. The editor, who has often observed him 
 in the different branches of professional exertion, 
 cannot omit that in the cross-examination of a 
 witness he is unequalled. The most intricate 
 web that fraud, malice or corruption ever wove 
 against the life, fortune or character of an indi- 
 vidual, he can unravel. Let truth and false- 
 hood be ever so ingeniously dove -tailed into each 
 other, he separates them with facility. He sur- 
 veys his ground like a skilful general, marks every 
 avenue of approach; knows when to attack, when 
 to yield; instantly seizes the first inconsistency 
 of testimony, pursues his advantage with dex- 
 terity and caution 'till at last he completely in- 
 volves perjury in the confusion of its contradic- 
 tions. And while the bribed and suborned witness 
 is writhing in the mental agony of detected false- 
 hood, he wrings from him the truth, and snatches 
 the devoted victim from the altar. It is when in 
 a case of this kind he speaks to a jury that h<5 
 appears as if designed by Providence to be the 
 refuge of the unfortunate, and the protector of 
 the oppressed. In the course of his eloquence, 
 the classic treasures of profane antiquity are ex- 
 hausted. He draws fresh supplies from the sa- 
 cred fountain of living water. The records of 
 holy writ afford him the sublimest allusions. It 
 is then he stirs every principle that agitates the 
 heart or sways the conscience, carries his audi- 
 tory whither he pleases, ascends from man to the 
 Deity, and again almost seems to call down to 
 
 earth
 
 X . PREFACE, 
 
 earth fire from heaven; while they who listen, filled 
 with a sense of inward greatness, feel the high 
 nobility of their nature in beholding a being of 
 the same species gifted with such transcendant 
 qualities, and wrapt in wonder and delight, have 
 a momentary belief, that to admire the talents, 
 is to participate in the genius of the orator. 
 
 Mr. Curraii has from his first mixing with the 
 world enjoyed the intimate acquaintance of many 
 who hold the first rank in England and Ireland, 
 for private integrity, public spirit, fine genius and 
 literary acquirement, and is connected with some 
 of them (not the least distinguished) in the bonds 
 of the strictest friendship. In private life his 
 manners are cheerful, sportive and good-natured, 
 never over-valuing himself. The most limited 
 talents in private intercourse were never forced 
 by him into a feeling of inferiority, nor has he 
 ever in the most unrestrained hours of social 
 mirth pained the heart of any one who were pre- 
 sent: so well is his wit tempered by the urbanity 
 of his disposition. It is much superior to that 
 species which must always have an object to 
 ridicule, and, to amuse a company, render one of 
 the party miserable. Nor is it of that second- 
 rate mongrel kind, which always dwells in anec- 
 dote, to create an opportunity of quoting itself; 
 it is of the purest, genuine nature, flowing spon- 
 taneously from the subject of conversation. 
 
 The descendants of Mr. Curran, to the re- 
 motest
 
 PREFACE. XI 
 
 motest period, may pride themselves on being 
 sprung from a man, who, during seventeen years 
 of public life, never voted in parliament contrary 
 to the interest or liberty of his country; who, 
 governing his political conduct by the maxims of 
 an English whig and an Irish patriot, shewed 
 himself a genuine friend to the British empire 
 from one, wh.6 never on any occasion was frowned 
 by power or seduced by mean ambition into an 
 abandonment of his client, but in every situation 
 intrepidly performed the duty of an advocate* : 
 from one who if he had been a man " quoque 
 Jacinore properans clarescere" instead of disdain- 
 ing to acquire honours by means which would 
 have rendered him unworthy of wearing them, 
 might early in life have attained the proudest 
 professional situations. 
 
 The bar of Ireland will long hold in affectionate 
 recollection, the man who always lived in an 
 ingenuous and honourable intercourse with his 
 competitors for fame, as Cicero did with Horten- 
 sius; who cherished with the kindest notice every 
 appearance of excellence in the junior part of 
 the profession ; who never ostentatiously display- 
 ed his superiority ; who, conscious of his great 
 talents, bestowed praise wherever it was de- 
 served j and was incapable of meanly detracting 
 
 * Mr. Erskine is entitled to similar praise, though he has 
 never been placed in situations equally trying. The state of 
 England in 17U4, and that of Ireland in 1798, were very dif- 
 ferent, 
 
 from
 
 XII PREFACE. 
 
 from the merit of another to enhance his own. 
 They will never forget him, who, on every oc- 
 casion, proudly asserted the dignity and inde- 
 pendence of the advocate, and never servilely 
 surrendered even the least privilege of the pro- 
 fession. His name will live for ever hallowed 
 in the grateful remembrance of his country, un- 
 less the heart of man shall become so corrupt, and 
 his mind so perverted, that public virtue will nei- 
 ther be felt nor understood. 
 
 PREFACE
 
 PREFACE 
 
 TO 
 
 THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 J. HE demand of the public for Mr. Curran's 
 speeches, notwithstanding that three thousand 
 copies, (including the whole of the first edition) 
 have been sold, induced the editor to publish a 
 third edition. A few of Mr. Cumin's parliamen- 
 tary speeches are added to the collection con- 
 tained in the first edition, which only consisted 
 of those he delivered in the discharge of his pro- 
 fessional duty. They are extracted from the 
 Irish parliamentary debates ; and indifferent as 
 the notes of the speeches delivered in the courts 
 of law may appear, these are still worse. The 
 disappointment expressed by almost every pur- 
 chaser, at not finding any of the parliamentary 
 speeches in the first induced the editor to admit 
 them into the present edition. They are given 
 for the gratification of the public, although the 
 editor is convinced, that they are in most in- 
 stances inferior to the genius of Mr. Curran. In 
 all of them, however, enough appears to enable 
 the reader to form an idea, though probably an 
 imperfect one, of Mr. Curran's eloquence in a 
 popular assembly. It is to be regretted that the 
 note of the speech on the catholic question, in the 
 year 1793, is so defective, that it was impossible 
 to venture to publish it, though it was one of the 
 
 best
 
 11 PREFACE. 
 
 best he ever delivered in the house of commons. 
 It contained a description of the rise, progress 
 and extinction of liberty in the nations of the 
 world formerly most celebrated ; given with all 
 the glowing energy of a Burke, without any of his 
 eccentricity. The editor, from despair of ob- 
 taining it, did not solicit the correction of the 
 orator for the former edition: The duties of the 
 high station in which Mr. Curran, is now placed,* 
 rendering the hope of success in such an appli- 
 cation now less probable, it was not made on the 
 present occasion. The editor, notwithstanding 
 the imperfections of the work, is confident of its 
 favourable reception with the public. And he 
 feels an honourable pride, that by this publica- 
 tion he may be the humble instrument of per- 
 petuating to posterity the productions of a man, 
 who will always be esteemed as one of the 
 greatest ornaments of the age and the country 
 in which he lived. 
 
 * Mr. Curran, during the administration of Mr. Fox and 
 Bord Grenville was made master of the rolls iu Ireland, and 
 bas at last experienced that an independent spirit, public in- 
 tegrity, accompanied 1 by great talents arc not insuperable ob~ 
 stades to professional advancement. 
 
 Ireland has much cause to lament the dismissal of that 
 idministration : enlightened, liberal, aud sagacious, the men 
 who composed it understood the true interest of the British 
 empire, and had entered upon the work of making Ireland a 
 happy and united country, truly formidable to the enemy of 
 Britajn. They by whose means they have been supplanted 
 have the merit of interrupting the labours of such men.
 
 TO THE 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 
 THE following passages are selected from the Edinburgh Re- 
 view, of the month of October, 1808, in which is reviewed 
 fhe second edition of this work, which the writer of the ar- 
 ticle calls most properly an unauthenticated volume. The 
 editor is sensible that the same epithet is equally applicable 
 to the present edition. It. is, in fact, nothing more than a 
 re-printing of the second editidii ; and the editor has persisted, 
 in abstaining from the correction of errors, which are evi- 
 dently the mistakes of the reporters, from a wish of leaving 
 uninfringed to Mr. Curran the full power of revising his owu 
 productions, if, at any time, he should be disposed to exert it. 
 And it is to be ardently wished that the advocate may yet, 
 before his mortal course is finished, enable some future editor 
 to give the world a memorial more worthy of his talents. 
 
 The wits of Queen Anne's time practised a sort of polite 
 writing, characterised by purity, smoothness, and a kind of 
 simple and temperate elegance. Their reasoning was correct 
 luminous, and their raillery terse and refined ; but they never 
 so much as aimed at touching the greater passioas, or rising 
 to the loftier graces of composition. Their sublimity was 
 little more than a gentle and graceful solemnity; their invec- 
 tive went no further than polished sarcasm, and their vehe- 
 mence than pretty vivacity. Even the older writers who dealt 
 in larger views and stronger language, the Hookers and Tay- 
 lors, and Barrows and Milton*, although they possessed, beyond 
 
 ail
 
 ii ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 all doubt, an original and commanding eloquence, had little 
 of nature or rapid movement of passion about them. Their 
 diction though powerful, is loaded and laborious; and their 
 imagination, though rich and copious, is neither playful nor 
 popular. Even the celebrated orators of England have been 
 deficient in some of their characteristics. The rhetoric of 
 Fox was his logic ; the eloquence of Pitt consisted mainly in 
 his talent for sarcasm and for sounding amplification. Neither 
 of them had much pathos, and but little play of fancy. 
 
 Yet the style of which we are speaking is now familiar to 
 the English public. But it was introduced by an Irishman ; 
 and may be clearly traced to the genius of Burke. There was 
 no such composition knowu in England before his day. Bo- 
 lingbroke, whom he is sometimes said to have copied, had 
 none of it. He is infinitely more careless, he is infinitely 
 less impassioned. He has no such variety of imagery, no 
 such flights of poetry, no such touches of tenderness, no 
 such visions of philosophy. The style has been defiled since, 
 indeed, by base imitations and disgusting parodies; and, in 
 its more iinitable parts, has been naturalized and transfused 
 into the recent literature of our country ; but it was of Irish 
 origin, and still attains to its highest honours only in its native 
 soil. For this we appeal to the whole speaking and writing 
 of that nation, to the speeches of Mr. G rattan, and even to 
 the volume before us. With less of deep thought than the 
 corrected compositions of Burke, and less of point and polish 
 than the magical effusions of Grattan, it still bears the im- 
 pression of that inflamed fancy which characterizes the elo- 
 quence of both, and is distinctly assimilated to them by those 
 traits of national resemblance. 
 
 The Review, then, among other passages of the work, se- 
 lects the following from the report of the trial in the action 
 brought by Hevey, against major Sirr. It is deemed un- 
 necessary to give any more extracts from the Review, as those 
 sufficiently speak the opinion of the critic. 
 
 Mr.
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. IH 
 
 Mr. Curran then proceeds to the immediate cailse of the 
 action in question. 
 
 " On the 8th of September last, Mr. Hevey was sitting in 
 a public coffee-house. Major Sirr was there. Mr. Hevev was 
 informed that the major had at that moment said, that he 
 (Hevey 1 ) ought to have been hanged. The plaintiff was fired 
 at the charge; he fixed his eye on Sirr, and asked if he had 
 dared to say so ? Sirr declared that he had, and had said 
 truly. Hevey answered, that he was a slanderous scoundrel. 
 At the instant Sirr rushed upon him, and assisted by three or 
 four of his satellites, who had attended him in disguise, se- 
 cured him and sent him to the co.ifje guard, desiring that a 
 receipt might be given for the villain. He was sent thither. 
 The officer of the guard chanced to be an Englishman, but 
 lately arrived in Ireland ; he said to the bailiffs, if this was in 
 England, I should think this gentleman entitled to bail, but I 
 don't know the laws of this country. However, I think you 
 had better loosen those irons on bis wrists, or I think they 
 may kill him. 
 
 " Here he was flung into a room of about thirteen feet by 
 twelve; it was called the hospital of the provost; it was oc- 
 cupied by six beds, in which were to lie fourteen or fifteen 
 miserable wretches, some of them sinking under contagious 
 diseases. Here he passed the first night without bed or food. 
 The next morning his humane keeper, the Major, appeared. 
 The plaintiff demanded, " why he was so imprisoned ?" com- 
 plained of hunger, and asked for the gaol allowance. Major 
 Sandys replied, with a torrent of abuse, which he concluded 
 by saying " Your crime is your insolence to major Sirr : 
 however, he disdains to trample upon you; you may appease 
 him by proper and contrite submission; but unless you do so, 
 you shall rot where you are. I tell you this, that if govern- 
 ment will not protect us, by God, we will not protect them. 
 You will probably (for I know your insolent and ungrateful 
 hardiness) attempt to get out by an habeas corpus ; but in 
 that you will find yourself mistaken, as such a rascal de- 
 serves." Hevey was insolent enough to issue an*habaes cor- * 
 
 pus.
 
 pus, and a return was made upon it ; that Hevey was in cus- 
 tody under a warrant from General Craig, on a charge of 
 treason. This return was a gross falsehood fabricated by 
 tfrrr," p. 350352. 
 
 If it be the test of supreme genius to produce strong and 
 permanent emotions, the passages which we have quoted must 
 b in the very highest style of eloquence. There is not a sub- 
 ject of these kingdoms, we hope, that can read them, with- 
 out feeling his blood boil, and his heart throb with indigna- 
 tion; and without feeling, that any government which could 
 tolerate or connive at such proceedings, held out a bounty to 
 rebellion, which it wouUHLl' almost dastardly to reject. The 
 eloquence of these passages is the facts which they recite ; 
 and it is far more powerful than that which depends upon the 
 mere fancy or art of the orator. There are passages how- 
 ever, of this more ornate description in the speech before us, 
 which deserve to be quoted. The following is among the most 
 striking. Mr. Curran is endeavouring to show, that the ge- 
 neral publication of this transaction may be of use, as the 
 means of letting England know the real condition and state of 
 government in Ireland ; and that the detail of a single authen- 
 ticated fact is more likely to make an impression, than a more 
 comprehensive but general picture. He then says, 
 
 " If, for instance, you wished to convey to the mind of an 
 English matron the horrors of that direful period, when in de- 
 fiance of the remonstrance of the ever to be lamented Aber. 
 crombie, our people were surrendered to the licentious bru- 
 tality of the soldiery, by the authority of the state; you 
 would vainly eudeavour to give her a general picture of lust, 
 and rapine, and murder, and conflagration. Instead of exhi- 
 biting the picture of an entire province, select a single object ; 
 and even in that single object do not release the imagination 
 of your hearer from its task, by giving more than au outline ; 
 take a cottage; place the affrighted mother of her orphan 
 daughters at the door, the paleness of death upon her face, 
 arid more than its agonies in her heart ; her aching eye, her 
 anxious ear, struggle through the mists of closing day, to 
 
 catch
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. * 
 
 catch the approaches of desolation and dishonour. The ruf- 
 fian gang arrives ; the feast of plunder begins ; the cup of mad- 
 ness kindles in its circulation. The wandering glances of the 
 ravisher become concentrated upon the shrinking and devoted 
 victim. You need not dilate, you need not expatiate ; the 
 unpolluted mother, to whom you tell the story of horror, 
 beseeches you not to proceed ; she presses her child to her 
 heart ; she drowns it in her tears ; her fancy catches more 
 than an angel's tongue could describe ; at a single view sh 
 takes in the whole miserable succession of force, of profana- 
 tion, of despair, of death. So it is in the question before us* 
 If any man shall hear of this day's transaction, he cannot be 
 so foolish as to suppose that we have been confined to a sin- 
 gle character, like those now brought before you. p. 358, 
 359.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAfiS 
 
 ON the right of election of lord mayor of the city of 
 Dublin, between alderman Howison and James, be- 
 fore the lord lieutenant and privy council of Ire- 
 land 1 
 
 On moving that it is the exclusive privilege of the house 
 
 of commons to originate money bills 59 
 
 On attachments 65 
 
 On the commercial resolutions 73 
 
 On the bill for regulating the commercial intercourse 
 
 between Great Britain end Ireland 87 
 
 On Mr. Forbes presenting a bill to limit the amount 
 
 of pensions 93 
 
 On pensions 101 
 
 On catholic emancipation 109 
 
 In behalf of Archibald Hamilton Rowan, Esq. for a 
 
 libel 181 
 
 In behalf of Mr. Patrick Finneyfor high treason" 218 
 
 In behalf of Mr. Peter Finnertyfor a libel 242 
 
 In behalf of Oliver Bond, Esq. for high treason 294 
 
 In
 
 W CONTENTS. 
 
 PAG E 
 
 In behalf of lady Pamela FitzGerald and children, 
 against the bill of attainder of lord Edward 
 FitzGerald 322 
 
 lu the action for false imprisonment by Mr. John 
 
 Hevey against major Sirr 340 
 
 In the trial of Owen Kirwan for high treason 362 
 
 Jn the action brought by the rev. Charles Massy against 
 the marquis of Headfort, for crim. con. with the 
 plaintiff's wife 395 
 
 Jn the cause of the king against the hon. Mr. justice 
 
 JeJinson . ... 411 
 
 Jn the cause of Merry tersus Rt. rtc. doctor John Power, 
 
 R. C. bishop of Watcrford. -^ . . . . . 477
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN, ESQ. 
 
 ON THE RIGHT OF ELECTION OF 
 
 LORD MAYOR OF THE CITY OF DUBLIN, 
 
 DELIVERED 
 
 BEFORE THE LORD LIEUTENANT, 
 
 AND 
 
 PRIVY COUNCIL OF IRELAND, 1790. 
 
 MY LORDS, 
 
 A HAVE the honour to appear before you as 
 counsel for the commons of the corporation of the 
 metropolis of Ireland, and also for Mr. alderman 
 Howison, who hath petitioned for your approba- 
 tion of him as a fit person to serve as lord mayor, 
 in virtue of his election by the commons to that 
 high office; and in that capacity I rise to address 
 you on the most important subject that you have 
 ever been called upon to discuss. Highly in- 
 teresting and momentous indeed, my lords, must 
 every question be, that, even remotely and event- 
 ually may affect the well-being of societies, or the 
 freedom, or the repose of nations : but that ques- 
 tion, the result of which, by an immediate and 
 direct necessity, must decide, either fatally or 
 fortunately, the life or the death of that well- 
 being, of that freedom, and that repose, is surely 
 the most important subject on which human 
 
 }j wisdom
 
 wisdom can be employed, if any subject on this 
 side the grave can be entitled to that appellation. 
 
 You cannot therefore, my lords, be surprised 
 to see this place crowded by such numbers of our 
 fellow citizens: heretofore they were attracted 
 hither by a strong sense of the value of their 
 rights, and of the injustice of the attack upon 
 them; they felt all the magnitude of the contest; 
 but they were not disturbed by any fear for the 
 event; they relied securely on the justice of their 
 cause, and the integrity of those who were to de- 
 cide upon it. But the public mind is now filled 
 with a fear of danger, the more painful and alarm- 
 ing, because hitherto unforeseen; the public are 
 now taught to fear, that their cause may be of 
 doubtful merits, and disastrous issue; that rights, 
 which they considered as defined by the wisdom, 
 and confirmed by the authority of written law, 
 may, now, turn out to be no more than ideal 
 claims, without either precision or security; that 
 acts of parliament themselves are no more than 
 embryos of legislation, or at best but infants, 
 whose first labours must be, not to teach, but to 
 learn; and which, even after thirty years of pupil- 
 age, may have thirty more to pass under that 
 guardianship, which the wisdom of our policy 
 has provided for the protection of minors. Sorry 
 am I, my lords, that I can offer no consolation to 
 my clients on this head; afnd that I can only join 
 them in bewailing,, that the question, whose result 
 must decide upon their freedom or servitude, is 
 
 perplexed
 
 3 
 
 perplexed with difficulties, of which we never 
 dreamed before, and which we are now unable 
 to comprehend. Yet surely, my lords, that ques- 
 tion must be difficult, upon which the wisdom of 
 the representative of our dread sovereign, aided 
 by the learning of his chancellor and his judges, 
 assisted also by the talents of the most conspicu- 
 ous of the nobles and the gentry of the nation, has 
 been twice already employed, and employed in 
 vain. We know, my lords, that guilt and op- 
 pression may stand irresolute for a moment ere 
 they strike, appalled by the prospect of danger, 
 or pierced with the sentiment of remorse ; but 
 to you, my lords, it were presumption to impute 
 injustice: we must therefore suppose that you 
 have delayed your determination, not because it 
 was dangerous, but because it was difficult to de- 
 cide: and indeed, my lords, a firm belief of this 
 difficulty, however undiscoverable by ordinary ta- 
 lents, is so necessary to the character which this 
 august assembly ought to possess andto meritfrom 
 the country, that I feel myself bound to atchieve 
 it by an effort of my faith, if I should not be able 
 to do so by any exertion of my understanding. 
 
 In a question therefore so confessedly obscura 
 as to baffle so much sagacity, I am not at liberty 
 to suppose, that certainty could be attained by 
 a concise examination. Bending then, as I do, 
 my lords, to your high authority, I feel this 
 difficulty as a call upon me to examine it at 
 large; and I feel it as an assurance, that I 
 shall be heard with, patience. 
 
 B <2 The
 
 The lord mayor of this city hath from time im- 
 memorial been a magistrate, not appointed by 
 the crown, but elected by his fellow-citizens. 
 From the history of the early periods -of this cor- 
 poration, and a view of its charters and by-laws, 
 it appears, that the commons had from the re- 
 motest times participated the important right of 
 election to that high trust; and it was natural 
 and just, that the whole body of citizens, by 
 themselves, or their representatives, should have 
 a share in electing those magistrates, who were 
 to govern them : as it was their birth-right to be 
 ruled only by laws, which they had a share in 
 enacting. 
 
 The aldermen, however, soon became jealous 
 of this participation, encroached by degrees upon 
 the commons, and at length succeeded in en- 
 grossing to themselves the double privilege of eli- 
 gibility and of election; of being the only body, 
 out of which, and by which, the lord mayor 
 could be chosen. Nor is it strange, that in those 
 times a board, consisting of so small a number 
 as twenty-four members, with the advantages of 
 a more united interest, and a longer continuance 
 in office, should have prevailed, even contrary to 
 so evident principles of natural justice and con* 
 stitutional right, against the unsteady resistance 
 of competitors, so much less vigilant, so much 
 more numerous, and therefore so much less 
 united. It is the common fate of the indolent to 
 see their rights become a prey to the active. The 
 condition upon which God hath given liberty to 
 
 man
 
 man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he 
 break, servitude is at once the consequence of 
 his crime, and the punishment of his guilt. 
 
 In this state of abasement the commons re- 
 mained for a number of years ; sometimes su- 
 pinely acquiescing under their degradation ; 
 sometimes, what was worse, exasperating the 
 fury, and alarming the caution of their oppres- 
 sors, by ineffectual resistance: The slave that 
 struggles without breaking his chain, provokes 
 the tyrant to double it; and gives him the plea 
 of self-defence for extinguishing what, at first, 
 he only intended to subdue. 
 
 In the year 1672, it was directed by one of the 
 new rules, made by the lord lieutenant and privy 
 council, under the authority of the act of expla- 
 nation, that " No person should be capable of 
 " serving in the office of lord mayor, until ap- 
 " proved of by the lord lieutenant and council;" 
 and this was a power given after the unhappy 
 civil commotions in this country, to prevent any 
 person, who was not a loyal subject, from hold- 
 ing so important a trust; and upon this single 
 ground, namely disloyalty, have you, my lords, 
 any authority to withhold your approbation. 
 
 From that time, till the year 1 759, no farther 
 alteration appears to have taken place in the 
 mode of electing the chief magistrate. At this 
 latter period the act of the 33 G. II. was passed: 
 
 the
 
 the occasion and the object of that law arc uni. 
 versally known. A city so increased in popula- 
 tion, in opulence, and in consequence, could not 
 tamely submit to have its corporate rights mono- 
 polized by a few, who were at once the tyrants 
 of the metropolis, and the slaves of the govern* 
 ment. Magistrates, elected by the board of alder, 
 men, were in fact nominated by the court, and 
 were held in derision and abhorrence by the 
 people. The public peace was torn by unseemly 
 dissensions; and the authority of the law itself 
 was, lost in the contempt of the magistrate. The 
 legislature felt itself called upon to revive the 
 constitution of the city, to restore and ascertain 
 the rights of the commons, and thereby to re^ 
 deem the metropolis from the fatal effects of op* 
 pression, of servitude, and of anarchy. In say- 
 ing this, my lords, I am founded on the preamble 
 of the act itself. " Whereas dissensions and dis^ 
 '* putes have, from a dissatisfaction as to some 
 " parts of the present constitution of the corpo- 
 " ration of the city of Dublin, arisen, and for 
 " some years past subsisted among several citi- 
 " zens of the said city, to the weakening the 
 " authority of the magistrates thereof, who are 
 " hereby rendered the less able to preserve the 
 " public peace within the said city: Therefore, 
 " for remedying the aforesaid mischiefs and in-- 
 " conveniences, and for restoring harmony and 
 " mutual good will among the citizens of the said 
 " city, and for preserving peace and good order 
 " therein: At the humble petition of the lord 
 
 '* mayor
 
 ** mayor, sheriffs, commons and citizens of the 
 *' city of Dublin, be it enacted," &c. 
 
 Here are stated the mischief acknowledged, 
 and the remedy proposed: with this view, the 
 statute has ascertained the constituent parts of 
 the corporation, their respective members, their 
 rights, and the mode of their election, with so 
 minute and detailed an exactness, as even to 
 enact many of those regulations which stood 
 upon the authority of the new rules, or the an- 
 tient charters and by-laws, and in which no 
 alteration whatsoever was intended to be made ; 
 and this it did, that the city might not be left to 
 explore her rights by uncertain deduction from 
 obscure or distant sources, but that she might see 
 the whole plan in a single view, comprised within 
 the limits of a single statute, and that so intelli- 
 gibly to every common understanding, as to pre- 
 clude all possibility of doubt, and thereby alJ 
 further danger of cavil or dissension. 
 
 For this purpose it enacts, " That the com- 
 " mon council of the city of Dublin, consisting 
 " of the lord mayor and twenty-four aldermen, 
 " sitting apart by themselves as heretofore, and 
 " also of the sheriffs of the said city for the time 
 " being, and sheriffs' peers not exceeding forty- 
 " eight, and of ninety-six freemen, who are to 
 " be elected into the said common council out 
 " of the several guilds or corporations of the 
 " said city in manner hereafter mentioned, be 
 
 " ami
 
 8 
 
 
 
 "and for ever hereafter shall be deemed and 
 " taken to be the common council of the said 
 " city and the representative body of the cor- 
 " poration thereof." 
 
 It then prescribes the mode of electing repre- 
 sentatives of the several guilds and the time of 
 their service, in which the right of the commons 
 is exclusive and without control. 
 
 It then regulates the election of sheriffs: The 
 commons nominate eight freemen, the mayor 
 and aldermen elect two from that number. 
 
 Then of aldermen ; The mayor and aldermen 
 nominate four sheriffs' peers ; the commons elect 
 one of them. 
 
 And here, my lords, give me leave to observe, 
 that this exclusive right of electing their own 
 representatives, and this participation in the elec- 
 tion of their magistrates is given to the popular 
 part of the corporation to be exercised, as all 
 right of suffrage is exercised by the constitution 
 of this country; that is, according to the dictates 
 of judgment or of affection, and without any 
 authority vested in any human tribunal, of cate- 
 chising as to the motives that may operate on 
 the mind of a free elector in the preference of 
 one candidate or the rejection of another. 
 
 I will now state to your lordships that part of 
 the statute which relates to the subject of this day. 
 
 "And
 
 " And be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, 
 " That the name of every person who shall 
 " hereafter be elected by the lord mayor and 
 " aldermen of the said city, or the usual quorum 
 " of them, to serve in the office or place of 
 " lord mayor of the said city, shall be returned 
 " by them to the commons . of the common 
 " council of the said city for their approbation; 
 " without which approbation such person shall 
 " not be capable of serving in the office or place 
 ** of lord mayor; and if it shall happen, that 
 " the said commons shall reject or disapprove 
 *' of the person so returned to them, the lord 
 " mayor and aldermen of the said city, or the 
 " usual quorum of them, shall from time to time 
 " elect another person to serve in the office or 
 " place of lord mayor of the said city and shall 
 " from time to time return the name of the 
 " person so by them elected to the commons of 
 " the common council of the said city for their 
 " approbation, and so from time to time until 
 " the said commons shall approve of the person 
 " returned by the lord mayor and aldermen of 
 " the said city, or the usual quorum of them; 
 <f provided always, that such election into the 
 " said office of lord mayor shall be of someper- 
 " son from among the aldermen, and that the 
 " commons shall approve of some one person so 
 " elected and returned to them for their appro- 
 ^i bation. 
 
 " And
 
 10 
 
 "/ And for the preventing the mischiefs and 
 " inconveniences which may arise from a failure 
 " of the corporation of the said city in the ap- 
 " pointmentof necessary officers; be it enacted 
 " by the authority aforesaid, That if either the 
 *' lord mayor and aldermen, or the commons of 
 " the said city, shall omit or refuse to assemble 
 " at or within the usual times for the electing 
 " the lord mayor, aldermen and sheriffs respec- 
 M tively; or being assembled shall omit or refuse 
 " to do what is hereby required to be done by 
 " them respectively, for the election and appoint- 
 " ment of the said officers; then, and as often as 
 " the case shall happen, it shall and may be law- 
 " ful for the commons in case such default shall 
 " be in the lord mayor and aldermen, or for the 
 " aldermen in case such default shall be in the 
 " commons, or for the usual quorum of them re- 
 " spectively, without any summons for that pur- 
 " pose, to assemble themselves at the tholsel of 
 " the said city on next following day, (not being 
 " Sunday:) or in case the same shall happen to be 
 '* on Sunday, then on the Monday next follow- 
 " ing, and then and there to elect the said offi- 
 " cers respectively as the case shall require; and 
 " every such election, so made, shall and is 
 " hereby declared to be valid and effectual to all 
 " intents and purposes. 
 
 " Provided always, and be it further enacted 
 " by the authority aforesaid, That every election 
 " by the said several guilds, for the constituting 
 
 " of
 
 11 
 
 " of their representatives in the common coun- 
 " cil of the said city, and every election made 
 " or approbation given by the commons of the 
 " said common council by virtue of this act 
 " shall be by ballot, and not otherwise. 
 
 " Provided always, that notwithstanding any 
 " thing in this act contained, no person or per- 
 " sons shall be enabled or made capable to serve 
 " in or execute the office or place of lord mayor 
 " or sheriff, recorder or town clerk of the said 
 " corporation, until he or they shall respectively 
 " be approved of by the lord lieutenant or other 
 " chief governor or governors and privy council 
 " of this kingdom, in such manner as hath here- 
 " tofore been usual." 
 
 Under this act, at the Easter quarter assem- 
 bly, held on the 16th day of April, 179O, the 
 lord mayor and aldermen sent down the name 
 of Mr. alderman James to the commons, who re- 
 jected him; the lord mayor and aldermen elected 
 seven other persons, who were sent dow r n to the 
 commons and successively rejected; the lord 
 mayor and aldermen then broke up their meeting 
 without sending down the name of any other 
 person, or conceiving that they had any right 
 whatsoever to question the commons touching 
 their reasons for rejecting those who had been 
 so rejected. 
 
 T 
 
 The
 
 13 
 
 The sheriffs and commons, thinking that the 
 lord mayor and aldermen had omitted to do what 
 was required of them by the statute to do, namely 
 to proceed by sending down the name of another 
 person, and so from time to time, &c. assembled 
 and elected Mr. alderman Howison, whom they 
 returned for the approbation of this board.< The 
 lord mayor and aldermen returned Mr. James 
 also as duly elected; the claims of both parties 
 were heard by their counsel, and this board did 
 not think proper to approve of either candidate; 
 the city proceeded to a new election ; the name 
 of Mr. James was again sent down, and rejected 
 as before; the message was then sent to demand 
 of the commons the reason of their disapproba- 
 tion ; they declined giving any answer, but that 
 it was their legal right to do as they had done: 
 Mr. James was accordingly returned as duly 
 elected by the lord mayor and aldermen ; the 
 sheriffs and commons, as before, elected and re T 
 turned, Mr. Howison; the claims of the can- 
 didates were again debated before this honour- 
 able board, but nothing was decided. 
 
 A third assembly has since been held, in 
 which the lord mayor and aldermen have 'acted 
 as before and returned Mr. James; the sheriffs 
 and commons have elected Mr. Howison, who 
 has petitioned for your approbation in virtue of 
 that election. 
 
 I trust,
 
 13 
 
 I trust, my lords, you will think it now time 
 to decide the question ; my client calls for that 
 decision; his opponents cannot wish for longer 
 procrastination; in the progress of their pre- 
 tentions hitherto they have found the fears, and 
 odium, and reprobation of the public increasing 
 upon them. 
 
 It is full time to compose the disquietude of 
 that public : the people do not always perceive 
 the nature or the magnitude of a question at a 
 single glance, but they now completely compre- 
 hend its merits and importance, they are now 
 satisfied that every thing that can be of value to 
 men may be lost or secured by the event of the 
 present contest. 
 
 The claim of my clients has been impeached 
 upon an alleged meaning of this act, and also 
 upon certain facts stated by the learned counsel 
 on the other side, and admitted as proved; of 
 which facts, and the arguments upon them, I 
 will take notice in their proper place. 
 
 As to the invective so liberally bestowed upon 
 my fellow-citizens, it best becomes the unhired, 
 voluntary advocate of their rights to pass them 
 without remark.* I feel them of too high re- 
 
 Mr. Curran here alludes to certain abusive passages con- 
 tains! in the speech of Dr. Duigenan, \rlro appeared before 
 the council as advocate for alderman Jaim>; and the board 
 i aldermen. 
 
 spect
 
 14 
 
 pect to be protected by panegyric or avenged by 
 invective ; I shall therefore treat those sallies of 
 the learned gentleman's imagination as I would 
 the flights of their doves, they come abroad only 
 animo revertendi, and ought to be suffered to 
 return unmolested to their owners. 
 
 The right of Mr. Howison is confessed by 
 the counsel for his opponents to be warranted by 
 the letter of the law. The mayor and aldermen 
 sent down Mr. James; he was rejected by the 
 commons, who sent to request that another 
 might be sent down; the board did not send 
 down another, but demanded a reason for the re- 
 jection of Mr. James, which by the letter of the 
 act they were certainly not warranted in doing* 
 But it is said that by the sound construction of 
 that law, the commons have a right to reject 
 only for good cause, and that having refused to 
 assign such cause, they have been guilty of de- 
 fault which has transferred the sole right of 
 election to the lord mayor and aldermen, who 
 have accordingly elected Mr. James. 
 
 Lord Chancellor. The question here is, " can 
 " a mere right of rejection or approbation su- 
 " persede a right of election.*' 
 
 Mr. Curran. -If I can satisfy this board that 
 that is not the question, I trust I shall be heard 
 with patience as to what I conceive to be the 
 question. 
 
 I say
 
 15, 
 
 I say, my lords, that is not the question; because, 
 1st. The mode and the rights of election in 
 this case turn not upon my general doctrine of 
 the common law, but upon an express statute, 
 which statute would never have been made, had 
 it not been intended by the legislature to pre- 
 scribe rules of direction, different from those of 
 the common law. 
 
 2dly, The rule alluded to relates to offices in 
 corporations, as in the case cited, who have a 
 naked authority to admit, but can reject only 
 for a plain defect of right in the candidate, and 
 who, if a mandamus is directed to him requiring 
 him to admit, must return a legal cause of his 
 disapprobation, that the truth of the fact, or the 
 validity of the cause may be duly tried. 
 
 But there is clearly no analogy between such 
 an officer and the great body of the commons 
 of this city. 
 
 1st. That officer has no elective authority 
 whatsoever; it is admitted that the act gives to 
 the commons at least a concurrent elective con- 
 trol, and, if the mayor and aldermen " make 
 default," an exclusive right to elect, which shall 
 be " valid to all intents and purposes!" 
 
 2dly. That officer has a sort of judicial power, 
 which is well placed in a single permanent indi- 
 vidual, who is capable of, and responsible for 
 
 the
 
 is 
 
 the exercise of a judicial power; but it would 
 be monstrous to give a judicial power to a fluctu- 
 ating multitude; for they cannot be presumed 
 capable of exercising it, nor could they be re- 
 sponsible for such exercise by any course of law; 
 for, suppose a mandamus directed to them re- 
 quiring them to approve, how is it possible to 
 make any true return to such writ? How can 
 any man assign a cause for that rejection which 
 the law requires to be by ballot, and consequently 
 secret? Or, suppose a party of the commons are 
 practised upon to return a cause, and that de- 
 signedly an invalid one, how shall the residue 
 of the commons be able to justify themselves 
 by alleging the true and valid cause of their 
 disapprobation? 
 
 To try it therefore by such a rule is to try it 
 by a rule clearly having no general analogy to 
 the subject, nor even a possible application, ex- 
 cept so far only as it begs the question. 
 
 My lords, it is absurd to ask how a simple 
 power of approbation or rejection for cause, 
 shall be controlled, unless it is first determined 
 whether the commons have that simple power 
 only, or whether they have, what I think ^they 
 cleary have under the statute, a peremptory 
 right of approving or rejecting without any 
 control whatsoever. 
 
 If they have but a simple right to reject for 
 cause, and ought to have assigned such cause 
 
 wider
 
 under the law, they have been guilty of a default, 
 and the sole right to elect devolves to the board 
 of aldermen, who, of course, have duly elected. 
 If they are not bound to assign such a reason, 
 manifestly the aldermen have acted against law, 
 and by their default have lost this power, and 
 the commons have duly elected Mr. Howison. 
 
 Now, my lords, in examining this question, 
 you must proceed by the ordinary rule of con- 
 struction, applicable alike to every statute; that 
 of expounding it by the usual acceptation and 
 natural context of the words in which it is con- 
 ceived. Do the words then, my lords, or the 
 natural context of this act, describe a limited 
 power of rejecting only for cause to be assigned, 
 or a peremptory power of rejecting without any- 
 such cause? says the act, " If it shall happen 
 " that the commons shall reject or disapprove:" 
 The law describes this accidental rejection in lan- 
 guage most clearly applicable to the acts of men 
 assembled, not as judges, but as electors, not to 
 judge by laws which they have never learned, 
 but to indulge their affections, or their caprice; 
 and therefore justly speaks of a rejection, not 
 the result of judgment but of chance. 
 
 " If it shall happen that they shall reject or 
 " disapprove :" my lords, you cannot say these 
 words are synonymous; in acts every word must 
 have its meaning if possible; " To reject" con- 
 tra-distinguished to " disapprove" is to reject 
 
 c by
 
 18 
 
 by an act of the will; to disapprove, supposes 
 some act of the judgment also, 
 
 The act then clearly gives a right of rejecting, 
 distinct from disapprobation, which by no possi- 
 bility can be other than a peremptory right 
 without limit or control. 
 
 But here, if a reason must be had, the law 
 Tvo-uld naturally prescribe some mode of having 
 it demanded: this, however, unluckily cannot 
 be done without a direct violation of the act, 
 which enjoins, that the two bodies shall " sit 
 4< apart, and by themselves as heretofore;" but 
 at least it might have left the board of aldermen 
 the means of making a silent struggle for the 
 approbation of their favourite candidate, by 
 sending him down again for reconsideration. 
 But, on the contrary, the law is express, that 
 "if the commons shall happen to reject or dis- 
 ** approve the first," they must then proceed to 
 send down the name, not of him, but of another, 
 rand so on. How long, my lords? Until a good 
 reason shall be assigned for the rejection of the 
 first? No, my lords, it is " until the commons 
 " shall approve osome one person, so sent down;" 
 and to this right of rejection, which the law has 
 supposed might happen so often, the law has 
 opposed the limit of a single proviso only, ap- 
 plicable enough to a peremptory right of rejec- 
 tion, but singular indeed, if applied to rejection 
 for cause; " provided always, that such election 
 
 " into
 
 19 
 
 *' into the said office of lord mayor shall be of 
 " some person from among the aldermen, and 
 " that the commons shall approve of some one 
 " person so elected and returned to them for their 
 " approbation." A rejection without cause to 
 be assigned, being a mere popular privilege, may 
 be limited in its extent by reasons of expediency; 
 but a judicial power of rejecting for legal cause 
 cannot be so controlled without the grossest ab- 
 surdity. It is like a peremptory challenge, which 
 is given to a prisoner by the indulgence of the 
 law, and may be therefore restricted within rea- 
 sonable bounds. But a challenge for cause is 
 given of common right, and must be allowed as 
 often as it shall be found to exist, even though 
 the criminal should remain for ever untried, and 
 the crime for ever unpunished. 
 
 Permit me now, my lords, to try this con- 
 struction contended for by another test. Let 
 us put it into the form of a proviso, and see how 
 it accords with the proviso, which you find ac- 
 tually expressed: " Provided always, that the 
 " commons shall be obliged to approve of the 
 " first person whose name shall be sent down to 
 " them, unless they shall assign good legal cause 
 " for their rejection." The proviso expressed is, 
 * Provided that they shall approve," not of the 
 first person, " but of some one person so elect- 
 " ed." Can any thing be more obvious than 
 the inconsistency of two such provisoes? 
 
 c 2 Give
 
 20 
 
 Give me leaVe, my lords, to compare this sup- 
 posed proviso with the enacting part of the sta- 
 tute. It says, that if the first person sent down 
 be rejected, the lord mayor and aldermen shall 
 " then proceed to elect another and send down 
 ** his name;" but if this supposed proviso were 
 to make a part of the act, they would not be ob- 
 liged to send down " another name," but would 
 be authorized to insist upon the claim of the 
 first candidate, by demanding a reason for his 
 rejection. This supposed proviso) therefore, and 
 of course this superinduced construction, are 
 directly incompatible both with the body and 
 the proviso of the statute itself. 
 
 But see further, my lords, what you do by 
 such a construction ; you declare that the benefit 
 of this statute, which is given expressly to the 
 commons, is given upon a tacit condition, by 
 the breach of which that benefit is utterly for- 
 feited. Do you think, my lords, you shall a<rt 
 consistently with the spirit of the constitution, 
 or of the law of Ireland, if you declare and en- 
 force a cause of forfeiture written in no law what- 
 soever, and devised only by your own interpre- 
 tation? or do you not feel, my lords, to what 
 a wretched state of* servitude the subject is re- 
 duced, if criminality and forfeiture^ e to depend, 
 not on the plain and permanent meaning of the 
 law, but upon the dreams and visions of caprici- 
 ous interpretators? If a constructive cause of 
 forfeiture can be warranted, by which any part, 
 
 or
 
 21 
 
 err any individual, of a corporation shall be ad- 
 judged to have lost their franchise; by the same 
 principle may a constructive offence and for- 
 feiture be devised, by which a whole corporation 
 shall be stripped of its charter. Says the law, 
 " If they shall omit or refuse to do what they 
 " are required to do by this act," they lose the 
 benefit thereof: but this curious construction 
 would declare, that the commons have forfeited 
 the benefit of the statute, by refusing to do that 
 which they are not required by this or any other 
 .act to do. 
 
 If then, my lords, you call this pow r er of re- 
 jection or disapprobation, a power to be regu- 
 lated by technical maxims of the common law, 
 and to be exerted only for legal cause to be as- 
 signed; what is it but to give the law a mean- 
 ing which the legislature never spoke ? what is 
 it but to nullify a statute made for the benefit 
 of the people, by an arbitrary construction, sup- 
 ported only by the most pitiful of all argumen- 
 tative fallacies, an assumption of what cannot 
 be proved; or, to describe it in terms more 
 suited to its demerit, that mixture of logical po- 
 verty, and ethical meanness, which stoops to beg 
 what it has not industry to acquire, nor crafti- 
 ness to steal, nor force to extort. 
 
 But see, my lords, whether this infallible 
 rule of the common law, upon which the whole 
 merits of this case have been rested, will not, if 
 
 admitted*
 
 admitted, be subversive of the authority which 
 it would seem to support. 
 
 By one of the new rules, and by a clause in 
 this act of parliament, no person can serve as 
 mayor without the approbativn of this board. 
 This power of approving was notoriously given 
 for the security of the government ; and hath 
 now for upwards of a century been exercised 
 upon no other ground whatever. By a clause in 
 this act, no person can serve as mayor without 
 the approbation of the commons, and this right 
 of approbation, as notoriously, was given to in- 
 crease the power of the people; and the com- 
 mons have accordingly so exercised it uniformly 
 for thirty years; it is observable that this right 
 of approbation is given to them in language 
 more emphatical than it is to your lordships, but 
 for argument's sake I will suppose the \vords the 
 same: now if by the common law, all right of 
 approving or rejecting can be founded only upon 
 legal cause to be assigned, what becomes of 
 your lordships' decisjon? You have already re- 
 fused your approbation to the two present peti- 
 tioners, having both exactly the same pretensions 
 to your approbation which they have at present; 
 you have refused your approbation, and you 
 have assigned no cause: but let me ask a much 
 more material question, what in that case becomes 
 of your lordships' .power? The same words in the 
 same act of parliament cannot have two different 
 constructions : If the commons are bound to as- 
 sign a legal cause for rejection, you, my lords, 
 
 must
 
 25 
 
 must be similarly bound j and the law wDl then 
 coerce the commons,, and coerce your lordships, 
 in a manner directly contrary to the itention of 
 the act; it will then cease to be a law for the 
 protection of liberty on the one hand, or the se- 
 curity of government on the other; for, being 
 equally confined to a rejection for legal cause, 
 the commons may be obliged to approve a can- 
 didate, not legally disqualified, though an enemy 
 to their liberty, and your lordships be restrained 
 from rejecting a candidate, ot legally disquali- 
 fied, though an enemy to the state* See then, my 
 lords, to what you will be reduced: you must 
 either admit, that the statute has confined you 
 both equally to decide upoa the mere question of 
 legal capacity or incapacity only,, of which they 
 are clearly incapable of judging, and on which 
 it is here admitted you are incompetent to de- 
 cide, and has thus elevated them and degraded 
 your lordships from good citizens- and wise 
 statesmen into bad judges; or if, in opposition to 
 this construction, you do your duty to yor so- 
 vereign, and refuse to admit to the magistracy a 
 man whom you have a good reason to believe 
 disaffected to the state, though subject to no- 
 legal incapacity; what do you do, my lords? You 
 give two different expositions to the same words, 
 in the same act of parliament ; that is, an en- 
 larged exposition in favour of yourselves, and a 
 confined one against the people; that is^ in fact, 
 you are driven to incur the odium of repealing 
 the law as against the crow/i, and enforcing it 
 
 against
 
 24 
 
 against the subject*. See on the other hand, 
 my lords, how by the plain and hitherto adopted 
 construction, all these mischiefs are avoided. 
 You judge of the candidate with respect to his" 
 loyalty, the commons with regard to his in- 
 tegrity and independence ; neither of you with 
 any relation to his legal capacity or incapacity; 
 thus will every object of the law, of the people, 
 and of the government be completely obtained: 
 the commons will enjoy their power in deciding 
 upon the popularity of the candidate for ma- 
 gistracy, you will do your duty in deciding upon 
 his loyalty, and the courts of justice will retain 
 their natural exclusive jurisdiction in every 
 question that can touch his legal qualification ; 
 thus will it be impossible for any man to have 
 the power of the city in his hands, who is not 
 free from all legal objections, and who is not 
 also deserving the confidence of his sovereign, 
 as well as of his fellow-subjects. 
 
 Thus far, my lords, have I examined this 
 law, with respect to the present question, by 
 the general rule of construction, applicable ge-> 
 nerally to all statutes, that is, of seeking for 
 the meaning of the legislature in the ordinary 
 and natural context of the words they have 
 
 * This would really be the case, supposing the act of par-. 
 liament had confined the right of the privy council to disap- 
 prove, and that of the common council to reject, to the legal 
 cause of incapacity, and the privy council claimed for itself 
 an unqualified power of disapproving, while it denied to the 
 common council a similar power of rejecting. 
 
 thought
 
 25 
 
 thought proper to adopt;, and this, I thought, 
 I might do with still more confidence in a law, 
 professedly made for the direction of men unac- 
 quainted with legal difficulty, unversed in the 
 subtilty of legal distinction, and acting in a situ- 
 ation which precludes them from the advantage 
 of all legal assistance, but I am aware that what 
 hath been satisfactory to my mind, hath not been 
 so to some of your lordships. I feel myself, 
 therefore, obliged to enter upon a more minute 
 examination of this statute, upon principles and 
 circumstances peculiar to itself. 
 
 I am sorry, my lords, to trespass upon your 
 patience ; but I am speaking upon a subject, in 
 which if I do not succeed, the people of this 
 country will have lost what is of infinitely more 
 value than anytime, however precious, that may 
 be wasted in their defence. 
 
 This act, my lords, professes to be a remedial 
 act, and as such must be construed according to 
 the rules peculiar to remedial laws : that is, in 
 three points of view; first, the former state of 
 the law; secondly, the mischief of such former 
 state ; and thirdly, the remedy proposed for the 
 cure of that mischief. 
 
 As to the first point: at the time of this statute 
 the lord mayor and aldermen exercised the exclu- 
 sive power of election to the chief magistracy, 
 "without any interference of the commons. The 
 
 immediate
 
 26 
 
 immediate [mischief of such a constitution, with 
 respect to the metropolis itself, I have touched 
 upon before ; the people were borne down; the 
 magistracy was depraved; the law was relaxed, 
 and the public tranquillity at an end. These 
 mischiefs were more than enough to induce the 
 citizens of Dublin to call loudly, as they did, upon 
 the justice of the legislature for parliamentary re- 
 dress. But the w r isdom of that legislature formed 
 an estimate of the mischief from considerations 
 that probably did not enter into the minds of the 
 contending parties ; namely, from the then state 
 of Ireland as an individual, and as a connected 
 country; as an individual depressed in every thing 
 essential to the support of political or civil inde- 
 pendency; depressed in commerce, in opulence, 
 and in knowledge ; distracted by that civil and reli- 
 gious discord, suggested by ignorance and bigotry, 
 and inflamed by the artifice of a cruel policy, 
 which divided in order to destroy, con scions that 
 liberty could be banished only by disunion, and 
 that a generous nation could not be completely 
 stripped of her rights, until one part of the people 
 was deluded into the foolish and wicked idea that 
 its freedom and consequence could be preserved 
 or supported only by the slavery or depression of 
 the other. In such a country it was peculiarly 
 necessary to establish at least some few incorpo- 
 rated bodies, which might serve as great reposi- 
 tories of popular strength : our ancestors learned 
 from Great Britain to understand their use and 
 their importance j in that country they hftd been 
 
 hoarded
 
 27 
 
 hoarded up with the wisest forecast, and pre- 
 served with a religious reverence, as an unfailing 
 resource against those times of storm, in which 
 it is the will of Providence that all human affairs 
 should sometimes fluctuate; and as such, they 
 had been found at once a protection to the people 
 and a security to the crown. My lords, it is by 
 the salutary repulsion of popular privilege that 
 the power of the monarchy is supported in its 
 sphere; withdraw that support and it falls in ruin 
 upon the people, but it falls in a ruin no less fatal 
 to itself, by which it is shivered to pieces. 
 
 Our ancestors must therefore have been sensible 
 that the enslaved state of the corporation of the 
 metropolis was a mischief that extended its effects 
 to the remotest borders of the island. In the con- 
 federated strength, and the united councils of great 
 cities, the freedom of the country may find a safe- 
 guard which extends itself even to the remote in- 
 habitant who never put his foot within their gates. 
 
 But, my lords, how must these considerations 
 have been enforced by a view of Ireland, as a con- 
 nected country, deprived as it was of almost all the 
 advantages of an hereditary monarch : the father 
 of his people residing at a distance, and the pater- 
 nal beam reflected upon his children through such 
 a variety of mediums, sometimes too languidly to 
 warm them, sometimes so intense! vas to consume; 
 a succession of governors differing from one ano- 
 ther in their tempers, in their talents, and in their 
 virtue?, and of course in their systems of adminis- 
 tration;
 
 41 
 
 tration ; unprepared in general for rule by any 
 previous institution, and utterly unacquainted 
 with the people they were to govern, and with the 
 men through whose agency they were to act. 
 Sometimes, my lords, 'tis true, a rare individual has 
 appeared among us, as if sent by the bounty of 
 Providence in compassion to human miseries, 
 marked by that dignified simplicity of manly cha- 
 racter, which is the mingled result of an enlight- 
 ened understanding, and an elevated integrity; 
 commanding a respect that he laboured not to in- 
 spire; and attracting a confidence which it was 
 impossible he could betray.* It is but eight years, 
 my lords, since we have seen such a man amongst 
 us, raising a degraded country from the condition 
 of a province to the rank and consequence of a 
 people, worthy to be the ally of a mighty empire, 
 forming the league that bound her to Great Bri- 
 tain, on the firm and honourable basis of equal li- 
 berty and a common fate, " standing and falling 
 *' with the British empire;*' and thus stipulting for 
 that freedom which alone contains the principle 
 of her political life, in the covenant of her foederal 
 connection. But how short is the continuance 
 of those auspicious gleams of public sunshine! 
 how soon are they passed, and perhaps for ever! 
 In what rapid and fatal revolution has Ireland seen 
 the talents and the virtues of such men give place 
 to a succession of sordid parade, and empty pre- 
 tension, of bloated promise, and lank perform- 
 
 * The duke of Portland, under whose adminstration Ire- 
 land obtained a free constitution. 
 
 ance,
 
 2? 
 
 ance, of austere hypocrisy and peculating eco- 
 nomy!* Hence it is, my lords, that the admini- 
 stration of Ireland so often presents to the reader 
 of her history, the view not of a legitimate go- 
 vernment, but rather of an encampment in the 
 country of a barbarous enemy ; where the object 
 of the invader is not dominion but conquest; 
 where he is of course obliged to resort to the 
 corrupting of clans, or of single individuals, 
 pointed out to his notice by public abhorrence, 
 and recommended to his confidence only by a 
 treachery so rank and consummate, as precludes 
 all possibility of their return to private virtue or 
 to public reliance, and, therefore only, put into 
 authority over a wretched country, condemned 
 to the torture of all that petulant unfeeling as- 
 perity, with which a narrow and malignant mind 
 will bristle in unmerited elevation; condemned 
 to be betrayed, and disgraced, and exhausted by 
 the little traitors that have been suffered to. nestle 
 and to grow within it, making it at once the 
 source of their grandeur, and the victim ofiheir 
 vices, reducing it to the melancholy necessity of 
 
 * The. duke of Rutland and the marquis of Buckingham 
 \jnickly followed His Grace. The first was marked by a love 
 of dissipation, and undignified extravagance. The Marquis, 
 upon his arrival in Ireland, led the country to expect a general 
 retrenchment in the public expenses. This expectation was 
 terminated by the creation of fourteen new places for the pur- 
 pose of parliamentary influence, countervailed indeed by a cur- 
 tailment of the fuel allowed to the old soldiers of the royal hos- 
 pital by the public bounty, and by abortive speculations upon 
 the practicability of making one pair of boots serve for two 
 troopers. 
 
 gup-
 
 .supporting their consequence, and of sinking 
 under their crimes, like the lion perishing by 
 the poison of a reptile that finds shelter in the 
 mane of the noble animal, while it is stinging 
 him to death. 
 
 By such considerations as these, my lords 
 might the makers of this statute have estimated 
 the danger to which the liberty of Ireland was ex- 
 posed; and of course the mischief of having that 
 metropolis enslaved, by whose independency 
 alone those dangers might be averted. But in this 
 estimate they had much more than tlieory, or the 
 observation of foreign events to shew them, that 
 the rights of the soverign and of the subject 
 were equally embarked in a common fate with 
 that independency. When in the latter part ot the 
 reign of queen Anne, an infernal conspiracy was 
 formed, by the then chancellor (sir Constantine 
 Phipps,) and the privy council, to defeat that 
 happy succession which for three generations 
 hath shed its auspicious influence upon these 
 realms, they commenced their diabolical project 
 with an attack upon the corporate rights of the 
 citizens of Dublin, by an attempt to impose a 
 disaffected lord mayor upon them contrary to the 
 law. Fortunately, my lords, this wicked conspi- 
 racy was defeated by the virtue of the people; I 
 will read to your lordships the resolutions of acorn- 
 mittee of the house of commons on the subject. 
 
 " First, resolved, that it is the opinion of 
 *' this committee, that soon after the arrival of 
 
 " sit-
 
 31 
 
 " sir Constant! ne Phipps, late lord chancellor, 
 ** and one of the lords justices in this kingdom, 
 ** in the year 1710, a design was formed and car- 
 ** ried on to subvert the -constitution and free- 
 ** dom of elections of magistrates of corpora- 
 *' tions within the new rules, in order to procure 
 " persons to be returned for members of p'arlia- 
 '* ment, disaffected to the settlement of the 
 '* crown, or his majesty and his royal issue." 
 
 " 2d. Resolved, that it is the opinion of this 
 " committee, that, in pursuance of that design, 
 " indirect and illegal methods were taken to sub- 
 " vert the ancient and legal course of electing 
 " magistrates in the city of Dublin. 
 
 " 3d. Resolved, that it is the opinion of this 
 " committee, that the said sir Constantine Phipps, 
 " and those engaged in that evil design, in less 
 *' than five months, in the year 1711, procured 
 " six aldermen duly elected lord mayors, and 
 " fourteen substantial citizens duly elected she- 
 " riffs, and well known to be zealously affect- 
 " ed to the protestant succession, and members 
 " of the established church, to be disapproved, 
 4 ' on the pretence that alderman Robert Constan- 
 " tine, as senior alderman, who had not been 
 *' mayor, had a right to be elected lord mayor. 
 
 4th. Resolved, that it is the opinion of this 
 " committee, that the senior alderman, who had 
 " not served as mayor, had not any right by 
 
 " charter
 
 52 
 
 *' charter, usuage, or by law, in force in the city of 
 " Dublin, as such, to be elected lord mayor. 
 
 " 5th. Resolved, that it is the opinion of this 
 " committee, that the said sir Constantino 
 " Phipps, and his accomplices, being unable to 
 4t support the pretended right of seniority, did, 
 4c in the year 1713, set up a pretended custom 
 " or usage for the mayor in being, to nominate 
 " three persons to be in election for lord mayor, 
 " one of whom the aldermen were obliged to 
 " choose lord mayor." 
 
 Lord Chancellor. Can you think, Mr. Cur- 
 ran, that these resolutions of a committee of 
 the house of commons can have any relation 
 whatsoever to the present subject? 
 
 
 Mr. Curran. I hope, my lords, you will think 
 they have much relation indeed to the subject 
 before you. The weakness of the city was the 
 mischief which occasioned the act of parlia- 
 ment in question ; to give the city strength, was 
 the remedy. You must construe the law so as to 
 suppress the former, and advance the latter. What 
 topics then, my lords, can bear so directly upon 
 the point of your enquiry, as the perils to be ap- 
 prehended from that weakness, and the advan- 
 tages to be derived from that strength? What ar- 
 gument then can be so apposite, as that which 
 is founded on undeniable facts? Or what autho- 
 rity so cogent as the opinipn of the representa- 
 
 tive
 
 33 
 
 live wisdom of the nation, pronounced upon 
 those facts, and transmitted to posterity upon 
 record? On grounds like those, for I can con- 
 ceive no other, do I suppose, the rights of the 
 city were defended in the time to which I have 
 alluded ; for it appears by the records which I 
 have read, that the city was then heard by her 
 counsel; she was not denied the form of defence, 
 though she was denied the benefit of the law. In 
 this very chamber did the chancellor and judges 
 sit, Avith all the gravity and affected attention 
 to arguments in favour of that liberty and those 
 rights which they had conspired to destroy. But 
 to what end, my lords, offer argument to such 
 men? A little and a peevish mind may be ex- 
 asperated, but how shall it be corrected by refu- 
 tation? How fruitless would it have been to re- 
 present to that wretched chancellor, that he was 
 betraying those rights which he was sworn to 
 maintain, that he was involving a government in 
 disgrace; and a kingdom in panic and conster- 
 nation; that lie was violating every sacred duty, 
 and every solemn engagement that bound him to 
 himself, his country, his sovereign, and his God! 
 Alas, my lords, by what argument could any 
 man hope to reclaim or dissuade a mean, illiberal, 
 and unprincipled minion of authority, induced 
 by his profligacy to undertake, and bound by his 
 avarice and vanity to persevere? He would pro- 
 bably have replied to the most unanswerable ar- 
 guments, by some curt, contumelious and tin- 
 meaning apophthegm, delivered with the fretful 
 smile of irritated self-sufficiency and disconcerted 
 
 D arrogance;
 
 34 
 
 arrogance; or, even if he could be dragged by Ins 
 fears to a consideration of the question, by what 
 miracle could the pigmy capacity of a stunted 
 pedant be enlarged to a reception of the subject? 
 The endeavour to approach it would have only 
 removed him to a greater distance than he was 
 before: as a little hand that strives to grasp a 
 mighty globe is thrown back by the re-action of 
 its own effort to comprehend. It may be given, 
 to a Halej or a Hardwicke, to discover and re- 
 tract a mistake; the errors of such men are only 
 specks that arise for a moment upon the surface 
 of a splendid luminary; consumed by its heat, or 
 irradiated by its light, they soon purge and dis- 
 appear; but the perverseness of a mean and nar- 
 row intellect, are like the excrescences that grow 
 upon a body naturally cold and dark: no fire to 
 waste them, and no ray to enlighten, they assi- 
 milate and coalesce with those qualities so con- 
 genial to their nature, and acquire an incorrigible 
 permanency in the union with kindred frost and 
 kindred opacity. Nor indeed, my lords, except 
 where the interest of millions can be affected by 
 the folly or the vice of an individual, need it be 
 much regretted, that, to things not worthy of 
 being made better, it hath not pleased Provi- 
 dence to afford the privilege of improvement. 
 
 Lord Chancellor. Surely, Mr. Curran, a 
 gentleman of your eminence in your profession 
 must see that the conduct of former privy coun- 
 cils has nothing to do with the question before 
 us. The question lies in the narrowest compass; 
 
 it
 
 35 
 
 it is merely whether the commons have a right 
 of arbitrary and capricious rejection, or are ob- 
 liged to assign a reasonable cause for their dis- 
 approbation. To that point you have a right to 
 be heard; but I hope you do not mean to lecture 
 the council.* 
 
 Mr. Curran. I mean, my lords, to speak to 
 the case of my clients, and to avail myself of 
 every topic of defence which I conceive appli- 
 cable to that case. I am not speaking to a dry 
 point of law, to a single judge, and on a mere 
 forensic subject; I am addressing a very large 
 auditory, consisting of co-ordinate members, of 
 whom the far greater number is not versed in 
 law: were I to address such an audience on the 
 interests and rights of a great city, and address 
 them in the hackneyed style of a pleader, I 
 should make a very idle display of profession, 
 with very little information to those I address, or 
 benefit to those on whose behalf I have the ho- 
 nour to be heard. I am aware, my lords, that 
 truth is to be sought only by slow and painful 
 progress; I know also that error is in its nature 
 flippant and compendious, it hops with airy and 
 fastidious levity over proofs and arguments, and 
 perches upon assertion, which it calls conclusion. 
 
 * From the frequent interruptions experienced by Mr. Cur- 
 ran in this part of his speech, it would appear that lord Clare 
 perceived that the description of sir Constantino Phipps was 
 intended lor himself. Those who best knew his lordship can 
 judge of the justness of the representation. 
 
 D 2 Here
 
 36 
 
 Here the lord chancellor moved to have the 
 chamber cleared; after some time the doory 
 were opened.* 
 
 My lords, I was regretting the necessity which 
 I am under of trespassing so much on that in- 
 dulgent patience with which I feel I am so 
 honoured; let me not however, my lords, be 
 thought so vainly presumptuous as to suppose 
 that condescension bestowed merely upon me; 
 I feel how much more you owe it to your own 
 dignity and justice, and to a full conviction that 
 you could not be sure of deciding with justice, 
 if you did not hear with temper. 
 
 As to my part, my lords, I am aware that no 
 man can convince by arguments which he can- 
 not clearly comprehend, and make clearly intel- 
 ligible to others; I consider it therefore, not only 
 an honour, but an advantage to be stopped when 
 I am not understood. So much confidence have 
 I in the justice of my cause, that I wish any noble 
 lord in this assembly would go with me step by 
 step through the argument; one good effect 
 would inevitably result, I should either have the 
 honour of convincing the noble lord, or the public 
 would, by my refutation, be satisfied that they 
 
 * During the exclusion of strangers, it was understood that 
 lord Clare moved the council, that Mr. Curran should be re- 
 strained by their lordships' authority from proceeding farther 
 in that line of argument he \vas then pursuing; but his lord- 
 *hip being over-ruled, Mr, Curran proceeded, 
 
 are
 
 87 
 
 are in the wrong: with this wish, and, if I may 
 presume to say so, with this hope, I will proceed 
 to a further examination of the subject. 
 
 It is a rule of law, that all remedial acts shall 
 be so construed as to suppress the mischief, and 
 advance the remedy; now a good cause of rejec- 
 tion can mean only a legal cause; that is, a cause 
 working an incapacity in the person executing 
 a corporate franchise ; that is, of course, such a 
 cause as would justify a judgment of ouster 
 against him by a court of law, if actually in pos- 
 session of such franchise; or warrant his amoval, 
 by an act of the corporation itself. There are 
 three sorts of offences for which a corporator may 
 be amoved; first, such as have no immediate re- 
 lation to his office, but are in themselves of so 
 infamous a nature as to render the offender unfit 
 to exercise any public franchise ; secondly, such 
 as are only against his oath, and the duty of his 
 office as a corporator, and amount to a breach 
 of the tacit condition annexed to his franchise 
 or office; the third sort of offence for which an 
 officer or corporator may be displaced is of a 
 mixed nature, as being an offence, not only 
 against the duty of his office, but also a matter 
 indictable at common law. 
 
 For the first species of offences, a corpora- 
 tion can in no case amove without a previous 
 indictment and conviction in a court of com- 
 mon law. For the other offences, it has a power 
 of trial, as well as a motion. 
 
 To
 
 38 
 
 To this let me add, that the office of alderman 
 is as much a corporate office as that of lord mayor, 
 and the legal cause that disqualifies the one must 
 equally disqualify the other j but the person 
 chosen to be mayor must be an alderman at the 
 time of his election, and the law, of course, cannot 
 suppose a man, actually in possession of a cor- 
 porate franchise to labour under any corporate or 
 legal incapacity : does it not then, my lords, 
 follow irresistibly, that the law cannot intend to 
 confine the power of rejection, which it expressly 
 gives, to a legal incapacity, which without the 
 grossest absurdity it cannot suppose to exist? 
 
 But let us assume, for argument's sake, how- 
 ever in defiance of common sense, that the legis- 
 lature did suppose it possible, that such an inca- 
 pacity might exist; what new privilege does a 
 power of rejection for such cause give to the com- 
 mons? And it is admitted by the learned counsel, 
 *' that this statute made a great enlargement, in- 
 " deed, in their powers.'* Before the act was 
 made, any corporator, subject to a personal dis- 
 qualification, was removeable by the ordinary 
 course of law; to give the commons, therefore, 
 only a power of preventing a man, legally dis- 
 qualified, from serving a corporate office, was 
 giving them nothing which they had not before. 
 
 What sort of construction then, my lords, 
 must that be which makes the legislature fall into 
 the ridiculous absurdity of giving a most super- 
 fluous
 
 S9 
 
 fluous remedy for a most improbable mischief? 
 And yet it is not in a nursery of children, nor a 
 bedlam of madmen; but it is in an assembly, the 
 most august that this country knows of, that I 
 am obliged to combat this perversion of sense 
 and of law. In truth, my lords, I feel the de- 
 gradation of gravely opposing a wild chimera, 
 that could not find a moment's admission into 
 any instructed or instituted mind; but I feel also, 
 that they who stoop to entertain it only from the 
 necessity of exposing and subduing it, cannot at 
 least be the first objects of that degradation. 
 
 Let me then, my lords, try this construction 
 contended for, by another test. If the act must 
 be construed so as to say that the commons can 
 reject only for a legal cause to be assigned, it 
 must be so construed, as to provide for all that 
 is inseparably incident, and indispensably neces- 
 sary to carrying that construction into effect : 
 that is, it must provide a mode, in which four 
 things may be done: 
 
 First, a mode in which such cause shall be 
 assigned. 
 
 Secondly, a mode in which the truth of the 
 fact of such cause shall be admitted or contro- 
 verted. 
 
 Thirdly, a mode by which the truth of such 
 fact, if controverted, shall be tried; and, 
 
 Fourthly
 
 40 
 
 Fourthly, a mode by which the validity of 
 such cause, when ascertained in fact, shall be 
 judged of in law. 
 i Judl ,'io av/oirf VTJUUQO tiiit indt i u^r:,; :K.c 
 
 To suppose a construction requiring a reason 
 to be assigned, without providing for these in- 
 evitable events, would be not the error of a 
 lawyer, but would sink beneath the imbecility 
 of an infant. 
 
 Then, my lords, as to tl*e first point : how is 
 the cause to be assigned? The law expressly pre- 
 cludes the parties from any means of conference 
 by enacting, that they shall " sit apart and by 
 " themselves." The same law says, that " the 
 ff rejection or disapprobation shall be by ballot 
 " cxnly and not otherwise." Now when the law 
 gives the commons a power of rejecting by bal- 
 lot, it gives each individual a protection against 
 the enmity which he would incur from the re- 
 jected candidate ; but if you say that the rejec- 
 tion shall be null and void,, unless fortified by 
 the assignment of legal cause, see, my lords, 
 what you labour to effect : under this supposed 
 construction, you call upon the voters who 
 reject by a secret vote, to relinquish that pro- 
 tection of secrecy, which the law expressly 
 gives them; unless, my lords, the sagacity, that 
 lias broached this construction can find out 
 some way, by which the voter can justify why 
 he voted against a particular candidate, without 
 disclosing also, that he did in fact vote against 
 that candidate. 
 
 Let
 
 41 
 
 Let me, however suppose that inconsistency 
 reconciled, and follow the idea. 
 
 The name of alderman James is sent down, 
 and the commons certify his rejection ; an am- 
 bassador is then sent to demand of the commons 
 the cause of this rejection; they answer, ' Sir 
 we have rejected by ballot, and they who have 
 voted against him are protected by the law from 
 discovering how they voted* to which the am- 
 bassador replies, ' very true, gentlemen, but 
 you mistake their worships' question, they do 
 not desire you to say who rejected Mr. James, 
 for in that they well know they could not be war- 
 ranted by law ; they only desire to know why a 
 majority has voted against Mr. alderman James.' 
 This, my lords, I must suppose to be a mode 
 of argument not unbecoming the sagacity of al- 
 dermen, since I find it gives occasion to a seri- 
 ous question before so exalted an assembly as I 
 have now the honour to address; I will, therefore, 
 suppose it conclusive with the commons; a legal 
 reason must be assigned for their rejection. 
 Pray, my lords, who is to assign that legal rea- 
 son ? Is it the minority who voted for the rejected 
 candidate? I should suppose not; it must be 
 then the majority who voted for the rejection. 
 Pray, my lords, who are they? By what means 
 shall they be discovered? 
 
 But I will suppose that every member of the 
 commons is willing to adopt the rejection, and 
 
 to
 
 42 
 
 to assign a cause for it. One man, suppose a 
 friend of the rejected candidate, alleges a cause 
 of a rejection in which he did not in reality con- 
 cur, and which cause he takes care shall be in- 
 valid and absurd; as for instance, the plumpness 
 of the person of Mr* James;* if he did not vote 
 for the rejection, he can have no right to assign 
 a cause for it ; the question then is, did he vote 
 for the rejection? I beg leave, my lords to 
 know how this is to be tried? 
 
 But suppose, to get rid of a difficulty, other- 
 wise insurmountable, it shall be agreed in direct 
 contradiction to common sense and justice, that 
 everymemberofthe commons shall be authorised 
 to assign a legal cause of rejection; (and in truth 
 if he may assign one he may assign more than 
 one, if he is disposed to do so;) suppose then, my 
 lords, that one hundred and forty-six causes are 
 assigned, for such may be the number, though 
 no one member assigns more than a single cause; 
 if they maybe all assigned, they must be all dis- 
 posed of according to law; but which shall be 
 first put into a course of trial? How shall the 
 right of precedence be decided? But I will sup- 
 pose that also settled, and a single cause is as- 
 signed ; that cause must be a legal disability of 
 some of the kinds which I have already mention- 
 ed; for there cannot be any other. The cause 
 
 * The person of the alderman is of the full regulation di- 
 mensions. He might well say of himself M'ilh relation to his 
 brother justices, " Quorum pars magna fui." 
 
 then
 
 43 
 
 then assigned, in order to prevail, must be true 
 in fact and valid in law, and amount to a legal 
 incapacity. And here, let me observe, that a 
 legal cause of incapacity, as it can be founded 
 only on the commission of an infamous crime, or 
 of some fact contrary to the duty and oath of a 
 corporator, must, if allowed, imprint an indeli- 
 ble stigma on the reputation of the man so re- 
 jected. I ask, then, is the accusation of malig- 
 nity, or credulity, or folly to be taken for true? 
 Or shall the person have an opportunity of de- 
 fending himself against the charge? The cause 
 for which he can be rejected is the same with the 
 cause for which he can be disfranchised; they arc 
 equally causes working an incapacity to hold a 
 corporate franchise, their consequences are the 
 same to the person accused; loss of franchise, 
 and loss of reputation. The person accused there- 
 fore, if by the construction of a statute he is ex- 
 posed to accusation, must by the same construc- 
 tion be entitled to every advantage in point of de- 
 fence, to which a person so accused is intitled 
 by the general law of the land. What, then, are 
 those advantages to which a corporator is enti- 
 tled, w r hen charged with any fact as a foundation 
 of incapacity or disfranclusemcnt? He must have 
 due and timely notice of the charge, that he may 
 prepare for his defence; every corporator must 
 have timely and express notice of the specific 
 charge against him, that nothing may be done 
 by surprise on either side. Now, my lords, you 
 condescend to observe, that the time sup-
 
 44 
 
 posed by this statute for the whole business of 
 election is a single day; is it then possible to give 
 every member of the board of aldermen, for each 
 of them may be a candidate, due notice of every 
 charge of legal disability that may be possibly 
 made against them? Or if it be not, as it mani- 
 festly is not, will you, my lords, create a con- 
 struction which exposes any subject of the land 
 to trial without notice, and to conviction and 
 forfeiture without that opportunity of defence 
 to which he is entitled of natural justice and 
 common right? 
 
 But I will suppose that your lordships may 
 adopt this construction, however it may super- 
 sede the right of the subject and the law of the 
 land; I will suppose that the candidate may be 
 accused at a moment's warning Is bare accusa- 
 tion to hold the place of conviction? Shall the 
 alderman, whose name is sent down, and who is 
 rejected for an alleged personal disability, have 
 an opportunity of defending himself against the 
 charge of the commons ? He cannot have the pri- 
 vilege of the meanest felon, of standing before his 
 accuser, for, as an alderman, he must remain 
 with his brethren, " separate and apart by them- 
 " selves." He cannot then plead for himself in 
 person, nor by the law can he depute an attorney 
 to defend in his name, for the commons are not 
 authorised to admit any strangers amongst them. 
 It is therefore utterly out of his power to deny 
 the charge against him, however false in fact it 
 may happen to be. 
 
 But
 
 45 
 
 But I will suppose, if you please, that the 
 charge is denied, and issue joined upon the fact ; 
 I beg leave to ask, if this supposed construction 
 provides any mode of calling the jury, or sum- 
 moning the witnesses, on whose testimony, and 
 on whose verdict a citizen is to be tried upon a 
 charge of corporate or legal culpability? But let 
 me, my lords, with the profoundest respect, press 
 this wicked and silly nonsense a little farther: 
 suppose the charge admitted in fact, but the va- 
 lidity of it denied; who, my lords, is to judge 
 of it by virtue of this construction? A point of 
 law is to be decided between the lord mayor and 
 aldermen who have chosen, and the commons 
 who have rejected. What is the consequence? 
 If the lord mayor and aldermen decide, they 
 judge in their own cause; if the commons de- 
 cide, they judge in their own cause, contrary 
 to the maxim " Nemo judex in proprid causa;" 
 can you then, my lords, think yourselves war- 
 ranted in adopting a construction, which sup- 
 poses a legal charge to be made, in which the 
 accused has not the advantage of notice, or the 
 means of defence, or of legal trial, and on which 
 if any judgment be pronounced, it must be pro- 
 nounced by the parties in the cause, in direct 
 opposition to the law of the land? 
 
 But, my lords, it seems all these defects in 
 point of accusation, of defence, of trial and of 
 judgment, as the ingenious gentlemen have ar- 
 gued, are cured by the magical virtue of those
 
 46 
 
 beans, by whose agency the whole business must 
 be conducted. 
 
 If the law had permitted a single word to be 
 exchanged between the parties, the learned coun- 
 sel confess that much difficulty might arise in the 
 events which I have stated ; but they have found 
 out that all these difficulties are prevented or re- 
 moved by the beans and the ballot. According 
 to these gentlemen, we are to suppose one of those 
 unshaven demagogues, whom the learned counsel 
 have so humourously described, rising in the com- 
 mons when the name of alderman James is sent 
 down ; he begins by throwing out a torrent of se- 
 ditious invective against the servile profligacy 
 and liquorish venality of the board of aldermen 
 this he does by beans: having thus previ- 
 ously inflamed the passions of his fellows, and 
 somewhat exhausted his own, his judgment col- 
 lects the reins that floated on the neck of hi& 
 imagination, and he becomes grave, compressed, 
 .sententious, and didactic; he lays down the law 
 of personal disability, and corporate criminality, 
 and corporate forfeiture, with great precision, 
 with sound emphasis and good discretion, to the 
 great delight and edification of the assembly 
 and this he does by beans. He then proceeds, 
 iny lords, to state the specific charge against the 
 unfortunate candidate for approbation, with all 
 the artifice and malignity of accusation, scalding 
 the culprit in tears of affected pity, bringing 
 forward the blackness of imputed guilt through 
 
 the
 
 47 
 
 the varnish of stimulated commiseration; be- 
 wailing the horror of his crime, that he may 
 leave it without excuse ; and invoking the sym- 
 pathy of his judges, that he may steel them 
 against compassion and this, my lords, the un- 
 shaved demagogue doth by beans. The accused 
 doth not appear in person, for he cannot leave 
 his companions, nor by attorney, for his attorney 
 could not be admitted but he appears and de- 
 fends by beans. At first, humble and deprecato- 
 ry, he conciliates the attention of his judges to 
 his defence, by giving them to hope that it may 
 be without effect; he does not alarm them by any 
 indiscreet assertion that the charge is false, but 
 he slides upon them arguments to shew it impro- 
 bable; by degrees, however, he gains upon the 
 assembly, and denies and refutes, and recrimi- 
 nates and retorts all by beans, until at last he 
 challenges his accuser to a trial, which is accord- 
 ingly had, in the course of which the depositions 
 are taken, the facts tried, the legal doubts pro- 
 posed and explained by beans; and in the 
 same mariner the law is settled with an exactness 
 and authority that remains a record of jurispru- 
 dence, for the information of future ages; while 
 at the same time the "harmony" of the metropolis 
 is attuned by the marvellous temperament of jar- 
 ring discord; and the " good will" of the citizens 
 is secured by the indissoluble bond of mutual 
 crimination, and reciprocal abhorrence. 
 
 By this happy mode of decision, one hundred 
 
 and
 
 48 
 
 and forty-six causes of rejection (for of so many 
 do the commons consist, each of whom must be 
 entitled to allege a distinct cause) are tried in 
 the course of a single day, with satisfaction to 
 all parties. 
 
 With what surprise and delight must the heart 
 of the fortunate inventor have glowed, when he 
 discovered those wonderful instruments of wisdom 
 and of eloquence, which, without being obliged 
 to commit the precious extracts of science, or 
 persuasion, to the faithless and fragile vehicles 
 of words or phrases, can serve every process of 
 composition or abstraction of ideas, and every 
 exigency of discourse or argumentation, by the 
 resistless strength and infinite variety of beans, 
 white or bl#ck, or boiled, or raw; displaying 
 all the magic of their powers in the mysterious 
 exertion; of dumb investigation, and mute dis- 
 cussion; of speechless objection and tongue- 
 tied refutation I 
 
 Nor should it be forgotten, my lords, that 
 this noble discovery does no little honour to the 
 sagacity of the present age, by explaining a 
 doubt that has for so many centuries perplexed 
 the labour of philosophic enquiry ; and furnish- 
 ing the true reason why the pupils of Pythago- 
 ras were prohibited the use of beans : it cannot, 
 I think, my lords, be doubted that the great au- 
 thor of the metempsychosis found out that those 
 mystic powers of persuasion, which vulgar na- 
 turalists
 
 40 
 
 turalists supposed to remain lodged in minerals^ 
 or fossils, had really transmigrated into beans ; 
 and he could not, therefore, but see that it would 
 have been fruitless to preclude his disciples from 
 mere oral babbling, unless he had also debarred 
 them from the indulgence of vegetable loquacity. 
 
 My lords, I have hitherto endeavoured to 
 shew, and I hope not without success, that this 
 act of parliament gives to the commons a pe- 
 remptory right of rejection; that the other con- 
 struction gives no remedy whatsoever for the 
 mischief which occasioned its being passed; and 
 cannot by any possible course of proceeding be 
 carried into etfect. I \vill take the liberty now 
 of giving an answer to some objections relied 
 upon by the counsel for Mr. James, and I will 
 do it with a conciseness, not I trust dispropor- 
 tioned to their importance. 
 
 They say, that a peremptory rejection in the 
 commons takes away all power whatsoever from 
 the board of aldermen : to that I answer, that 
 the fact and the principle is equally against 
 them: the fact, because that board is the only 
 body from which a lord mayor can be chosen ; 
 and has therefore, the very great power, that 
 results from exclusive eligibility; the principle, 
 because if the argument be, that the lord mayor 
 and aldermen ought to have some power in such 
 election, by a parity of reason, so ought the 
 commons, who, if they can reject only for a 
 
 F. .legal
 
 50 
 
 legal incapacity, will be ousted of all authority 
 whatsoever in such election, and be reduced to a 
 state of* disfranchisement by such a construction. 
 
 The gentlemen say, that your lordships cah 
 only enquire into the prima fade title, and that 
 the claim of Mr. James is, prima Jacie, the 
 better claim. 
 
 I admit, my lords, that you are not compe- 
 tent to pronounce any judgment that can bind 
 the right. But give me leave to observe, first, 
 that the question, upon which you yourselves 
 have put this enquiry, is a question applicable 
 only to the very right, and by no possibility ap- 
 plicable to a prima faclt title. 
 
 One of your lordships has declared the ques- 
 tion to be, " Whether by the common law, a 
 " mere power of approbation or rejection can 
 " supersede a power of election?" If that ques- 
 tion is warranted in assuming the fact, give me 
 leave to say, that the answer to it goes directly 
 to the right, and to nothing else; for if the 
 commons are bound by law to assign a cause of 
 rejection, and have not done so, Mr. James had 
 clearly the legal right of election, and Mr. 
 Howison has no right or title whatsoever. 
 
 But I say further: The mode of your enquiry 
 makes it ridiculous to argue, that you haVe 
 not entered into any disquisition of the right: 
 
 Why,
 
 51 
 
 Why, my lords, examine witnesses on both sides? 
 Why examine the books of the corporation? 
 Why examine into every fact relating to the 
 election ? 
 
 I cannot suppose, my lords, that you en- 
 quired into facts, upon which you thought your- 
 selves incompetent to form any decision : I 
 cannot suppose you to admit an extra judicial 
 enquiry, by which the members of a corporation 
 may be drawn into admission, that may expose 
 them to the future danger of prosecution or dis- 
 franchisement. 
 
 I hope, my lords, I shall not be deemed so 
 presumptuous, as to take upon me to say, why 
 you have gone into these examinations ; it is 
 not my province to justify your lordships' pro- 
 ceedings: it stands upon your own authority; 
 I am only answering an argument, and I an- 
 swer it by shewing it inconsistent with that pro- 
 ceeding. 
 
 Let me, my lords, pursue the idea a little 
 further. Are you only enquiring into a primit 
 Jade title? What is a primd facie title? I conceive 
 it to be a title, not which may possibly be found 
 a good one upon future examination ; but, which 
 is good and valid, and must prevail, unless it be 
 opposed and defeated by another, which may 
 possibly be adduced, but which does not then 
 appear. So in an ejectment at law, for instance, 
 
 F. 2 a plaintiff
 
 52 
 
 a plaintiff must make a title, or he is non-suited. 
 If he makes out a legal title m omnibus, the court 
 declares it a prima facie title, that is, a title con- 
 clusive as to the right, unless a better shall be 
 shewn; and accordingly calls on the defendant 
 to shew such better title if he can : the moment 
 the defendant produces his title, the question of 
 prima facie title is completely at an end; and the 
 court has no longer any question to decide upon, 
 but the very merits; and this for a plain reason: 
 The question, whether prima facie a good title 
 or not, is decided upon the single ground that 
 no other title then appears with which the title 
 shewn can be compared; in short, my lords, 
 whether primti facie good, is a question confined 
 only to the case of a single title, and cannot be 
 applied, without the grossest absurdity, to a case 
 where you have both the titles actually before 
 you. It may be the question in case of a single 
 return ; in case of a double return, as here, it 
 cannot by any possibility be the question. 
 
 But, my lords, let me carry this a little far- 
 ther yet. You have both the titles before you. 
 You have yourselves declared, that the question 
 turns upon the construction of this act of parlia- 
 ment, which enacts also, " That it shall be 
 " deemed a public act, in all courts, and in all 
 " places." 
 
 Now it is contended, the construction of the 
 act is prima facie, in favour of Mr. James. 
 
 Mav
 
 53 
 
 May I presume to ask, what does the prima 
 Jade construction of a statute import? It must 
 import, if it import any tiling, that meaning 
 which, for aught then appearing, is true, but 
 may possibly, because of something not then 
 appearing, turn out not to be so. Now, no- 
 thing can possibly be opposed to that primd facie 
 construction, save the act itself. A primd Jade 
 construction of a statute, therefore, can be no- 
 thing but the opinion that rises in the mind of a 
 man, upon a single reading of it, who does not 
 choose to be at the trouble of reading it again. 
 In truth, my lords, I should not have thought it 
 necessary to descend to this kind of argumenta- 
 tion, if it had not become requisite for me to do 
 so, by an observation coming from one of your 
 lordships.* " That the letter of the act would 
 ** bear out the commons in their claim, but that 
 " the sound construction might be a very dif- 
 " ferent thing." I will, therefore, add but ano- 
 ther word upon this subject: If a prima facie 
 construction be sufficient to decide, and if the 
 commons have the letter of the law in their 
 favour, I would ask with the profoundest humi- 
 lity, whether your lordships will give the sanc- 
 tion of your high authority to a notion, that, in 
 statutes made to secure the liberties of the 
 people, the express words in which they are 
 written shall not be at least a priwa facie evi- 
 dence of their signification ? 
 
 * Lord Clare. 
 
 My
 
 54 
 
 My lords, the learned counsel have been 
 pleased to make a charge against the citizens of 
 Dublin, " for their tests and their cavalcadings" 
 on a late occasion; and they have examined 
 witnesses in support of their accusation. It is 
 true, my lords, the citizens did engage to the 
 public and to one another, that they would not 
 vote for any candidate for corporate office or 
 popular representation, who had any place in 
 the police establishment. But I would be glad 
 to know by what law it is criminal in freemen 
 .to pledge themselves to that conduct which they 
 think indispensably necessary to the freedom of 
 their country. The city of Dublin is bound to 
 submit to whatever mode of defence shall be 
 devised for her by law, while such law shall con- 
 tinue unrepealed; but I would be glad to learn, 
 by what law they are bound not to abhor the po- 
 lice institution, expensive, and ineffectual, in- 
 adequate to their protection, and dangerous to 
 their liberty; and that they do think it so can- 
 not be doubted. Session after session has the 
 floor of the senate been covered with their pe- 
 titions, praying to be relieved against it, as an 
 oppressive, a corrupt, and therefore an exe- 
 crable establishment. 
 
 True it is also, my lords, they have been 
 guilty of those triumphant processions, which 
 the learned counsel have so heavily condemned. 
 The virtue of the people stood forward to op- 
 pose an attempt to seize upon their representa- 
 
 t^on,
 
 55 
 
 tion, by the exercise of a dangerous and uncon- 
 stitutional influence, and it succeeded in the 
 conflict; it routed and put to flight that corrup- 
 tion, which sat, like an incubus, on the heart of 
 the metropolis, chaining the current of its blood, 
 and locking up every healthful function and 
 energy of life. The learned counsel might have 
 seen the city pouring out her inhabitants, as if 
 to share the general joy of escaping from some 
 great calamity, in mutual gratulation and public 
 triumph.* But why does the learned counsel 
 insist upon this subject before your lordships? 
 Does he think such meetings illegal? He knows 
 his profession too well, not to know the reverse. 
 But does he think it competent to the lord 
 lieutenant and council of Ireland to take cogni- 
 zance of such facts, or to pronounce any opinion 
 whatever concerning the privileges of the people? 
 He must know it is not. Does he then mean 
 that such things may be subjects of your resent- 
 ment, though not of your jurisdiction? It would 
 have been worth while, before that point had 
 been pressed, to consider between what parties 
 it must suppose the present contest to subsist. 
 To call upon the government of the country to 
 let their vengeance fall upon the people for their 
 resistance of unconstitutional influence is surely 
 
 * The cavalcadings here spoken of took place on the elec- 
 tion of Mr. (j rattan and lord H. Fitzgerald, who had been 
 returned for the city of Dublin in opposition to the court 
 candidates, one of whom was aldermau Warren, then at the 
 head of the police establishment. 
 
 an
 
 56 
 
 an appeal not very consistent with the virtuolis, 
 impartiality of this august assembly. It is only 
 for those who feel defeat, to cherish resentment^ 
 or to think of vengeance. 
 
 But suppose for a moment, (and there never 
 .ought to be reason to suppose it) that the oppo- 
 sition of the city had been directly to the views 
 or the wishes of the government; why are you, 
 therefore, called upon to seize its corporate 
 rights into your hands., or to force an illegal 
 magistrate upon it? Is it insinuated that it can 
 be just to punish a want of complaisance, by an 
 jict of lawless outrage and arbitrary power? 
 Does the Briti3h constitution, my lords, know 
 of such offences, or does it warrant this species 
 of. tyrannical reprisal? And, my lords, if the 
 injustice of it is without defence, what argu- 
 ment can be offered in support of its prudence 
 or policy? It was once the calamity of England 
 to Jiave such an experiment made by the last of 
 the Stuart?, and the last of that unhappy race 
 because of such experiments. The several cor- 
 porations of that country were stript of their 
 charters : and wjiat was, the consequence ? I 
 need not state them; they are notorious; } r et, 
 my lords, there was a time when that sovereign 
 was willing to relinquish what he had so weakly 
 and wickedly undertaken; but^there is a time 
 when concession comes too late to restore either 
 public quiet, or public confidence, and when it 
 amounts to nothing more than an acknowledg- 
 ment
 
 57 
 
 mcnt of injustice ; when the people must see, 
 that it is only the screen behind which oppres- 
 sion changes her attack from force to fraud, from 
 the battery to the mine. See then, my lords, 
 how such a measure comes recommended ; its 
 principle injustice, its motive vengeance, its 
 adoption sanctioned by the authority of a tyrant, 
 or the example of a revolution, 
 
 My lords, the learned counsel has made ano- 
 ther observation which I cannot pass without re- 
 mark; it is the last with which I shall trouble 
 you. He says, the commons may apply to the 
 law, and bring an information in quo "ucarranto 
 against Mr. James, though you should give him 
 your approbation; that is, my lords, your judg- 
 ment does not bind the right, it only decides 
 the possession of the office. To this I answer, 
 that in this case, to decide on the possession is 
 in fact to decide the contest ; and I found that 
 answer on the high authority of the noble lord, 
 who was pleased to say, that " when the city 
 had spent three years in the king's bench, she 
 would probably grow sick of the contest."* I 
 was not surprised, my lords, to hear an expres- 
 sion of that regret which must arise in every 
 worthy mind, and which I am sure the noble 
 lord sincerely felt, at the distress of a people, 
 reduced to defend those rights which ought 
 never to have been attacked, and to defend them 
 jn a way by which they could not possibly suc- 
 
 * The lord chancellor. 
 
 ceed.
 
 58 
 
 ceed. The truth is, as the noble lord has stated, 
 the time of Mr. James's mayoralty would expire 
 in a year, and the question of law could not be 
 terminated in three ; the present contest, there- 
 fore, cannot be decided by law. How then, my 
 lords, is it to be decided? Are the people to sub- 
 mit tamely to oppression, or are they to struggle 
 for their liberties? I trust, my lords, you will 
 think they have not done any thing so culpable 
 as can justify the driving them to so calamitous 
 a necessity; for fatal must that struggle be, in 
 whatsoever country it shall happen, in which the 
 liberties of a people can find no safety but in the 
 efforts of vindictive virtue; fatal to* all parties, 
 whatsoever may be the event. But, my lords, I 
 feel this to be a topic on which it is neither 
 my province nor my wish to expiate, and I 
 leave it the more willingly, because I know that 
 I have already trespassed very long upon your 
 patience, and also, because I cannot relinquish 
 an hope, that the decision of your lordships this 
 day will be such as shall restore the tranquillity 
 of the public mind, the mutual confidence be- 
 tween the government and the people, and make 
 it unnecessary for any man to pursue so painful 
 a subject. 
 
 The lord lieutenant and privy council confirmed 
 the election of the commons, in the person of alder* 
 man Hotvisonfor lord mayor. 
 
 SPEECH
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN, ESQ. 
 
 ON MOVING THAT IT IS 
 
 THE EXCLUSIVE PRIVILEGE 
 OP 
 
 THE HOUSE OF COMMONS 
 
 TO ORIGINATE 
 
 MONF.Y BILLS. 
 
 TUESDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1783, 
 
 31 R. CURRAN. While I reflect that the mo- 
 tion I am now going to make is of the utmost im- 
 portance to the honour, and even existence of 
 this house, and that I have given full notice of 
 my intention, I am much surprized at the little 
 regard that seems intended to be paid to it, as is 
 manifest from the emptiness of those benches 
 This, sir, is not a question of party; I never did, 
 nor ever will attach myself to party; and though 
 I mean to move the resolution from this side of 
 the house, yet it concerns both sides equally; 
 it goes to assert the privileges of the people of 
 
 Ireland
 
 60 
 
 Ireland represented in this house of commons, 
 and I say every party, and every description of 
 men in this house are equally concerned in sup- 
 porting it. I say it is the sole and exclusive right 
 of the commons of Ireland to originate and frame 
 money bills in such manner as they shall think 
 proper, and the resolution I intend to propose 
 is only to vindicate this privilege from the en- 
 croachments of a neighbouriug assembly, which 
 has lately, by certain resolutions, invaded thi s 
 right, this palladium of the constitution, which 
 I trust every man in the house will think himself 
 bound to defend. 
 
 I am sorry to say that the constitution of Ire- 
 land is so young, that I need not go back to a 
 very remote period, to prove that the exclusive 
 right of originating and framing money bills has 
 always resided in this house ; but for thirty years 
 back it certainly has, and in England, from 
 whence we derive our constitution, it always has 
 been the practice. The peers and the crown 
 possess an undoubted right of rejecting such bills 
 in toto, but, in the commons alone resides the 
 power of originating or framing them ; the very 
 mode of giving the royal assent to such bills 
 demonstrates that the commons alone are the 
 source from which they flow. His majesty thanks 
 his faithful commons, accepts their benevolence, 
 and wills it to be so; and this mode obtains both 
 in Britain and here. To whom should the peo- 
 ple of Ireland look for the redress of grievances, 
 
 for
 
 61 
 
 for the encouragement of arts, for the promotion 
 of commerce, but to their representatives in 
 this house? What powerful engine has this 
 house, by which it can obtain the redress of 
 grievances, the encouragement of arts, or the pro- 
 motion of commerce, but by including those ob- 
 jects in the bill of supply? And if the right be 
 once given up, or wrested from the commons, 
 they cease to be the patrons and representatives 
 of the people ; another assembly will assume that 
 power; the people will learn to look for that 
 encouragement and support from the aristo- 
 cratic, which they now receive from the demo- 
 cratic branch of the state ; this house will be- 
 come a very cypher, and its members, instead 
 of possessing the power of encouraging arts, 
 rewarding merit, or, in a word, of serving the 
 country, will become the humble solicitors of 
 another assembly. 
 
 From the reign of Henry the Third the power 
 of annexing the redress of grievances to money 
 bills has been the constitutional privilege of the 
 commons of England; the practice of inserting 
 such clauses as the commons have deemed pro- 
 per has obtained in Ireland for more than thirty 
 years, and, to any person acquainted with our 
 constitution, must, at the slightest view, appear 
 to be their inherent right: I cannot therefore 
 suppose this house will be silent when this pri- 
 vilege is invaded by another assembly. No man 
 entertains a higher opinion of that assembly 
 
 than
 
 62 
 
 than I do, and am persuaded, that so great is 
 their lordships' wisdom, that when this matter 
 is duly considered by them, they will see the im- 
 propriety of two resolutions which appear upon 
 their journals of the fourth and fifth of the pre- 
 sent month, to this effect, " That all grants made 
 " to private manufacturers ought to be made in 
 *' separate acts, and that enacting clauses in bills 
 " of supply, the matter of which is foreign to the 
 " bill, is unparliamentary, and tends to destroy 
 " the constitution of this kingdom." That the il- 
 lustrious assembly to which I allude have passed 
 such a resolution is notorious, and cannot be de- 
 nied, it is inserted in their journals, and has 
 been seen by many members of this house ; the 
 formality therefore of appointing a committee to 
 inspect their lordships' journals is unnecessary, 
 and all that remains for the commons is to vin- 
 dicate their own privileges by a mild and tem- 
 perate resolution which I shall propose to the 
 house; for even admitting that sometimes a 
 house of commons has erred in making improper 
 grants, we should rather reform ourselves, and 
 determine not to err again, than submit to have 
 a monitor over us. 
 
 If I were addressing a house of commons the 
 most virtuous, or the most corrupt, I should ex- 
 pect to be supported in this measure ; for I would 
 say to a virtuous house of commons, the privi- 
 lege of originating and framing money bills is 
 the palladium of your liberty, the great engine 
 
 to
 
 63 
 
 to restrain oppression, to redress grievances, or 
 to encourage merit. I would say to a corrupt 
 house of commons, it is the palladium of your 
 corruption, the security of the wages of your ve- 
 nality, the means by which you may obtain the 
 reward of your prostitution ; or if I were address- 
 ing a house containing both descriptions, both 
 kinds of argument would be applicable. But to 
 the house before which I stand, surely the argu- 
 ments which I have first used, the arguments of 
 virtue and honour will be sufficient; to them 
 therefore I shall trust. 
 
 I lament that a learned and right honourable 
 member, with whom I oiace had the happiness 
 of. living on terms of friendship, is now absent; 
 because I think I might rely upon his support- 
 ing the resolution I intend to propose; that 
 support would perhaps renew the- intercourse 
 of our friendship, which has lately been in- 
 terrupted. And I must beg the indulgence of 
 the house to say, that that friendship was on 
 the footing of perfect equality, not imposed by 
 obligation on the one side, or bound by gratitude 
 on the other; for I thank God, when that 
 friendship commenced, I was above receiving 
 obligation from any man, and therefore our 
 friendship, as it was more pure and disinterested, 
 as it depended on a sympathy of minds and a 
 congeniality of sentiments, I trusted would have 
 endured the longer. I think myself bound 
 to make this public declaration, as it has gone 
 
 forth
 
 forth from this house, that I am a man of ingra- 
 titude, and to declare, that for any difference of 
 opinion with my learned and right honourable 
 friend I cannot be taxed with ingratitude; for 
 that I never received any obligation from him, 
 but lived on a footing of perfect equality, save 
 only so far as his great talents and erudition out- 
 went mine. 
 
 I confess my obligation to the house for this 
 indulgence of speaking a few words foreign to 
 the debate, but which every man must think I 
 owed to my own character; and that I may de- 
 tain gentlemen no longer, I shall briefly move : 
 
 " That it is the sole and undoubted privilege 
 " of the commons of Ireland to originate all 
 *' bills of supply and grants of public money, in 
 *' such manner and with such clauses as they 
 shall think proper." 
 
 SPEECH
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN, ESQ. 
 
 ON 
 
 ATTACHMENTS. 
 
 THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1785. 
 
 R. CURRAX said he hoped he might say a 
 few words on this great subject, without dis- 
 turbing the sleep of any right honourable mem- 
 ber, (the attorney general having fallen a-sleep 
 on his seat) and yet, perhaps, added he, I ought 
 rather to envy, than blame the tranquillity of 
 the right honourable gentleman. I do not feel 
 myself so happily tempered, as to be lulled to 
 repose by the storms that shake the land. If they 
 invite rest to any, that rest ought not to be la- 
 vished on the guilty spirit. He said, he never 
 more strongly felt the necessity of a perfect, 
 union with Britain, of standing or falling with 
 her in fortune and constitution, than on this oc- 
 casion. She was the parent, the archetype of 
 Irish liberty, which she had preserved inviolate 
 in its grand points, while among us it has been 
 violated and debased. He then called upon the 
 house to consider the trust reposed in them, as 
 the great inquest of the people. He respected 
 
 F judges
 
 66 
 
 judges highly; they ought to be respected, and 
 feel their dignity and freedom from reprehension, 
 while they did what judges ought to do; but 
 their station should not screen them, when they 
 passed the limit of their duty. 
 
 Whether they did, or not, was the question? 
 The house was the judge of those judges; and 
 it would betray the people to tyranny, and abdi- 
 cate their representation, if they did not act 
 with probity and firmness. ' 
 
 In their proceedings against Reilly he thought 
 they had transgressed the law, and made a pre- 
 cedent which, while it remained, was subversive 
 of the trial by jury, and of course, of liberty. 
 He regarded the constitution, he regarded the 
 judges, three of that court at least, and for their 
 sakes he would endeavour to undo what they 
 had done. 
 
 The question was, whether that court had 
 really punished their own officer for a real con- 
 tempt; or whether it had abused that power 
 for the illegal end of punishing a supposed of- 
 fence against the state, by a summary proceed- 
 ing, without a trial by jury? 
 
 He said the question was plain, whether as a 
 point of constitution, or as of law ; as the for- 
 mer, it is plain and obvious; but he would first 
 consider it in the former view. When he felt 
 
 the
 
 er 
 
 the constitution rocking over his head, his first 
 anxiety was to 'explore the foundation, to see if 
 the great arches that supported the fabrick had 
 fallen in but he found them firm, on the solid 
 and massy principle of common law. He then 
 observed, that the principle of legal liberty was, 
 that offence, and trial, and punishment should 
 be fixed ; it was sense ; it was Magna Charta ; 
 a trial by jury as to fact an appeal from judges 
 as to law. 
 
 He admitted attachment an exception to the 
 general rule, as founded in necessity, for the sup* 
 port of courts, in administering justice, by a 
 summary control over their officers acting un- 
 der them* 
 
 But the necessity that gave rise to it was also 
 the limit. If it was entered farther, it would ex- 
 tend to all criminal cases not capital, and* in the 
 room of a jury, crimes would be created by a 
 judge, the party accused by him, found guilty 
 by him, punished by the utter loss of his liberty 
 and property for life, by indefinite fine and im- 
 prisonment, without remedy or appeal. If he 
 did not answer, he was guilty; even if he did, 
 the court might think or say it thought the 
 answer evasive, and so convict him for imputed 
 prevarication. 
 
 The power of attachment, he said, was wisely 
 confined by the British laws, and practised with- 
 
 F '2 in
 
 in that limit. The crown lawyers had not 
 dnced a single case, where the King's-bench in 
 England had gone beyond it. They had ranged 
 through the annals of history; through every 
 reign of folly, and of blood; through the proud 
 domination of the Tudors, and the blockhead 
 despotism of the Stuarts, without finding a sin- 
 gle case to support their doctrine. He consider- 
 ed the office of sheriff as judicial and ministerial. 
 He said Ileilly's offence did not fall within any 
 summary control, in either capacity. It was 
 not' a judicial act; it was not colore qfficii. An 
 act colore qfficii must either be an act done by the 
 actual exercise of an abused or an usurped au- 
 thority, neither of which could it be called; for 
 where the sheriff summonses his county, he does 
 it by command, by authority, under pain of fine 
 and imprisonment to those who disobey. 
 
 Was the appointment of a meeting any such 
 active exertion of authority? Did any man sup- 
 pose he was obliged to attend ? That he would 
 be fined, if he refused to attend ? No. Did the 
 sheriff hold out any such colourable authority? 
 Clearly ' L not. The contrary: He explained the 
 purpose of the intended meeting: he stated at 
 whose instance he appointed such meeting, and 
 thereby shewed to every man in his senses, that 
 he was not affecting to convene them by colour 
 of any compulsive authority. 
 
 If then there was any guilt in the sheriff's 
 
 conduct
 
 (39 
 
 conduct, it was not punishable by attachment. 
 They who argued from its enormity, were guilty 
 of a shabby attempt to mislead men from the 
 question, which was not, whether he ought to 
 be punished at all; but whether he had been 
 punished according to law ? 
 
 You have heard no man adduce a single case 
 to support their assertion; but we have the uni- 
 form practice of the KingVbench in England in 
 our favour: the uniform practice, both there and 
 here, during these last years. Had they not meet- 
 ings there and here ? Was not the crown re- 
 ceiving petitions and addresses from such assem- 
 blies? Why, during that time, no motion for 
 an attachment in either kingdom? 
 
 If an English attorney-general had attempted 
 such a daring outrage on public liberty and law 
 lie must have found some friend to warn him not 
 to debase the court, and make it appear to all 
 mankind as the odious engine of arbitrary power; 
 not to put it into so unnatural a situation, as that 
 of standing between the people and the crown, 
 or between the people and their representatives. 
 
 He would warn him not to bring public hatred 
 on the government, by the adoption of illegal pro- 
 secution; that if he shewed himself afraid of pro- 
 ceeding against offenders by the ordinary mode, 
 then offenders would be exalted by arbitrary per- 
 secution of them j they would become suffering 
 
 patriots,
 
 patriots, from being mere petty offenders ; their 
 cries would become popular. He would be wjirn- 
 ed how he led the court into an illegality, whick 
 the commons could never endure: that no honest 
 representative could sacrifice his fame and his 
 duty, by voting in support of a proceeding sub- 
 versive of liberty; that he would shrink from the 
 reproach of the most insignificant of his con- 
 stituents, if that constituent could say to him, 
 * when thou sawest the thief of the constitution, 
 ' thou consentedst unto him,' 
 
 tt * / |f t)y ', ,'l.''iV , "'.* ' ?II! '.' ,' 
 
 Such would be the motion suggested to an 
 English attorney-general, and accordingly we 
 find no instance of his ever venturing on such a 
 measure. 
 
 Without case then or precedent, or principle, 
 what is the support of such a conduct here? The 
 distinction of a judge? And what is that dis- 
 tinction? it is different in different men; it is 
 different in the same man at different times it 
 is the folly of a fool, and the fear of a coward 
 it is the infamy of the young, and the dotage of 
 age ; in the best man it is very weakness that 
 human nature is subject to, and in the worst it is 
 very vice. Will you then tell the people that 
 you have chosen this glorious distinction in the 
 place of fixed laws, offences and fixed punish- 
 ment, and in the place of that great barrier be- 
 tween the prerogative and the people a trial by 
 jury. 
 
 But
 
 71 
 
 But it is objected that the resolution is a cen- 
 sure on the judges, and a charge of corruption: 
 I deny it, and I appeal to your own acts. 
 
 He then called to the clerk, who read from 
 the journals a vote of censure passed upon Mr. 
 Justice Robinson, for imposing a fine illegally in 
 a county when on circuit, without view or evi- 
 dence. Was their resolution founded on any cor- 
 ruption of that judge? No; you would, if so, 
 have addressed to remove him. I called for the re- 
 solution, therefore, not to charge him with guilt, 
 I am persuaded he acted merely through error ; 
 but to vindicate him, to vindicate you, and to 
 exhort you to be consistent. You thought a much 
 smaller violation of law was deserving your re- 
 probation. Do not abandon yourselves and your 
 country to slavery, by suffering so much a grosser 
 and more dangerous transgression of the con- 
 stitution to become a precedent for ever. In ten- 
 derness even to the judges, interpose. Their re- 
 gret, which I am sure they now feel on reflection, 
 cannot undo what they have done ; their hands 
 cannot wash away what is written in their re- 
 cords j but you may repair whatever has been in- 
 jured: if your friend had unwillingly plunged a 
 dagger into the breast of a stranger, would you 
 prove his innocence by letting the victim bleed 
 to death? The constitution has been wounded 
 deeply, but I am persuaded innocently; it is you 
 only, who, by neglecting to interpose, can make 
 the consequences fatal, and the wound ripen into 
 murder. 
 
 I would
 
 72 
 
 I would wish, I own, that the liberty of Ire- 
 land should be supported by her own children ; 
 but if she is scorned and rejected by them, when 
 her all is at stake, I will implore the assistance 
 even of two strangers; I will call on the right 
 honourable secretary to support the principles of 
 the British constitution. Let him not render his 
 administration odious to the people of Ireland, by 
 applying his influence in this house to the ruin of 
 their personal freedom. Let him not give a pre- 
 tence to the enemies of his friend in a sister coun- 
 try, to say that the son of the illustrious Chatham 
 is disgracing the memory of his great father; 
 that the trophies of his Irish administration are 
 the introduction of an inquisition among us, and 
 the extinction of a trial by jury; let them not say 
 that the pulse of the constitution beats only in the 
 heart of the empire, but that it is dead in the ex- 
 tremities. He concluded with declaring his 
 hearty concurrence in the resolution proposed. 
 
 The attorney-general (Fitzgibbon), in a speech 
 of much personality, opposed Mr. Curran's mo- 
 tion. 
 
 Mr. Curran, in reply, thanked the right ho- 
 nourable gentleman for restoring him to his good 
 humour, and for having with great liberality and 
 parliamentary decency answered his arguments 
 with personality ! Some expressions could not 
 heat him, when coming from persons of a certain 
 distinction. He would not interrupt the right 
 
 honourable
 
 73 
 
 honourable gentleman in the fifth repetition of 
 his speech. He would prevent his arguments by 
 telling him he had not in one instance alluded to 
 Mr. Reilly. The right honourable gentleman said, 
 he had declared the judges guilty; but he had said 
 no such thing. He said, if any judge was to act 
 in the manner he mentioned, it would be an ag- 
 gravation of his guilt. The right honourable 
 gentleman had said, that the house of commons 
 had no right to investigate the conduct of judges; 
 if so, he would ask the learned serjeant, why he 
 sat in that chair? he would ask why the resolution 
 had been just read from the journals? The gen- 
 tleman had called him a babbler; he could not 
 think that was meant as a disgrace, because in 
 another parliament, before he had the honour of a 
 seat in that house, but when he was in the gallery, 
 he had heard a young lawyer named Babbler. 
 He did not recollect that there were sponsors at 
 the baptismal font, nor was there any occasion, 
 as the infant had promised and vowed so many 
 things in his own name. Indeed he found it dif- 
 ficult to reply, for he was not accustomed to pro- 
 nounce panegyric upon himself; he did not well 
 know how to do it; but since he could not tell 
 them what he was, he could tell them what he 
 was not: He was not a man whose respect in 
 person and character depended upon the impor- 
 tance of his office; he was not a young man who 
 thrust himself into the foreground of a picture 
 which ought to be occupied by a better figure ; 
 he was not a man who replied with invective when
 
 74 
 
 sinking under the weight of argument ; he was 
 not a man who denied the necessity of a parlia- 
 mentary reform at the time he proved the expe- 
 diency of it, by reviling his own constituents, 
 the parish clerk, the sexton, and grave-digger ; 
 and if there was any man who could apply what 
 he was not to himself, he left him to think of it 
 in the committee, and to contemplate upon it 
 when he went home. 
 
 SPEECH
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN, ESQ. 
 
 ON THE 
 
 COMMERCIAL RESOLUTIONS. 
 
 HOUSE OF COMMONS, SATURDAY, JULY 23, 1735. 
 
 CURRAN. I can easily excuse some in- 
 consistencies in the conduct of the right honour- 
 able secretary, for some accidents have befallen 
 him: when we met last, he desired us to ad- 
 journ for three weeks ; we did so ; and now 
 wants above a fortnight more. But will that help 
 forward the business before the house? will it 
 expedite the progress of a bill, to say, let us 
 wait till the packet comes in from England, and 
 perhaps we shall have some news about the pro- 
 positions. Did the British minister act in this 
 manner? no; when he postponed from time to 
 time the consideration of the propositions, he did 
 not postpone the other business of the house: 
 he did not say, let it wait till the packet comes 
 from Dublin. This the Irish minister is forced to 
 
 do
 
 76 
 
 do: I say forced, for I am sure it is not his in- 
 clination; it must distress him greatly; and I 
 sincerely feel for and pity his distress. 
 
 When we had the eleven propositions before 
 us, we were charmed with them. Why? because 
 we did not understand them. Yes, the endear- 
 ing word reciprocity rang at every corner of the 
 streets. We then thought that the right honour- 
 able gentleman laid the propositions before us by 
 authority; but the English minister reprobates 
 them as soon as they get to England, and the 
 whole nation reprobates them : thus, on one hand 
 we must conclude the English minister tells the 
 Irish minister to propose an adjustment, and 
 when it goes back alters every part ; or, that the 
 Irish minister proposed it without any authority 
 at all. I am inclined to believe the latter, for it 
 would add to the gentleman's distress to suppose 
 the former. 
 
 Now let us mark another inconsistency into 
 which the right honourable gentleman is driven, 
 no doubt against his will. Time to deliberate was 
 refused us, when we had something to deliberate 
 upon; and now, when we are told we have no- 
 thing before us to consider, we are to have a fort- 
 night's recess to enable us to think about nothing. 
 And time indeed it will take, before we can think 
 to any purpose. It will take time for the propo- 
 sitions to go through, and perhaps to be again 
 altered in the house of lords. It will take time 
 
 for
 
 77 
 
 for them to be reconsidered in the British com- 
 mons. It will take time for them to come over 
 here. It will take time for us to consider them, 
 though that time is likely to be very short. It 
 will take time to send them back to England. It 
 will take time for them to be returned to us 
 again; and then time will be required to carry 
 them into execution. 
 
 But a rumour hath gone abroad of a studied 
 design to delay the discussion of this business 
 until there shall be no members in town. But 
 away with such a suspicion ; I think too honour- 
 ably of the right honourable gentleman; but 
 yet I should be glad to hear him say, there is 
 not even an idea of the base design of forcing 
 them down our throats. 
 
 Mr. secretary Orde moved, that the house do 
 adjourn to Tuesday se'nnight. 
 
 Mr. Curran. Sir, the adjournment proposed is 
 disgraceful to parliament, and disgraceful to the 
 nation. I must explain myself, by stating a few 
 facts, though they relate to a subject that I own I 
 cannot approach but with reluctance. The right 
 honourable gentleman early in the session pro- 
 duced a set of propositions, w r hich he was autho- 
 rised to present to us as a system of final and 
 permanent commercial adjustment between the 
 two kingdoms. As a compensation for the ex- 
 pected advantages of this system, we were called 
 
 upon
 
 78 
 
 upon to impose *l 40,000 a year on this exhaust-* 
 ed country. Unequal to our strength, and enor- 
 mous as the burden was, we submitted ; we were 
 willing to strain every nerve in the common cause, 
 and to stand or fall with the fate of the British 
 empire. But what is the event? I feel how 
 much beneath us it would be to attend to the un- 
 authenticated rumours of what may be said or 
 done in another kingdom ; but it would be a ri- 
 diculous affectation in us not to know that the 
 right honourable gentleman's- system has been re-* 
 probated by those under whose authority he was 
 supposed to act, and that he himself has been de- 
 serted and disavowed. I cannot, for my own part, 
 but pity the calamity of a man who is exposed to 
 the contempt of the countries as an egregious 
 dupe, or to their indignation as a gross impostor ; 
 for even he himself now abandons every hope of 
 those propositions returning to this house in the 
 form they left it. On the contrary, lie now only 
 hopes that he may be able to bring something for- 
 ward that may deserve our approbation on some 
 future day. He requests an adjournment for ten 
 days, and he promises that he will give a week's 
 notice, when the yet undiscovered something is to 
 be proposed, which something he promises shall 
 be agreeable to this nation, and authorised by the 
 English minister. On what his confidence of this 
 is founded I know not, unless he argues, that be- 
 cause he has been disavowed and exposed in his 
 past conduct by his employers, he may rely on 
 tlieir supporting him in future. But however the 
 
 right
 
 79 
 
 right honourable gentleman may fail in drawing 
 instruction from experience or calamity, we ought 
 to be more wise; we should learn caution from 
 disappointment. We relied on the right honour- 
 able gentleman's assurances we found them fal- 
 lacious: we have oppressed the people with a 
 load of taxes, as a compensation for a commer- 
 cial adjustment; we have not got that adjustment; 
 we confided in our skill in negociating, and we 
 are rendered ridiculous by that confidence. We 
 looked abroad for the resources of Irish com- 
 merce, and we find that they are to be sought for 
 only at home, in the industry of the people, in 
 the honesty of parliament, and in our learning 
 that negociation must inevitably bring derision on 
 ourselves, and ruin on our constituents. But you 
 are called on to depend on the right honourable 
 gentleman's regard for his own reputation : 
 when the interest of the people is at stake, can 
 we be honest in reposing on so despicable a se- 
 curity ? Suppose this great pledge of the right 
 honourable gentleman's character should chance 
 to become forfeited, where w T ill you look for it? 
 When he sails for England, is it too large to 
 carry with him? Or, if you would discover in 
 what parish of Great Britain it may be found, 
 will the sacrifice be an atonement to the people 
 who have already been betrayed by trusting to so 
 contemptible a pledge? See then what we do by 
 consenting to this short adjournment: we have 
 been abased already, and we neglect every other 
 duty, in order to solicit a repetition of that abuse. 
 
 If
 
 so 
 
 If this something should arrive at all, it will be 
 proposed when the business of the country will 
 engage every county member at the assizes : for 
 as to his week's notice, it either cannot reach 
 him in time, or, if it should, he cannot possibly 
 obey it. Is it then our wish to have a new sub- 
 ject of such moment, as a contract that is to bind 
 us for ever, concluded in half a house, and with- 
 out a single representative for a county in the 
 number? Is it wise to trust to half the house in 
 a negociation in which the wisdom of the whole 
 has been already defeated? But what is the neces- 
 sity that induces us to acquiesce in a measure of 
 so much danger and disgrace? Is this nation 
 brought to so abject a condition by her represen- 
 tatives as to have no refuge from ruin, but in the 
 immediate assistance of Great Britain? Sir, I do 
 not so far despair of the public weal: oppressed 
 as we were, we found a resource for our consti- 
 tution in the spirit of the people; abused as we 
 now find ourselves, our commerce cannot fail of 
 a resource in our virtue and industry, if we do not 
 suffer ourselves to be diverted from those great 
 and infallible resources, by a silly hope from ne- 
 gociation, for which we are not adapted, and in 
 which we can never succeed. And if this great 
 hope still is left, why fill the public mind with 
 alarm and dismay? Shall we teach the people to 
 think, that something instantly must be done, to 
 save them from destruction? Suppose that some- 
 thing should not, cannot be done, may not the 
 attempt, instead of uniting the two countries, in- 
 volve
 
 81 
 
 volve them in the consequence of discord and 
 dissention ? Bat, if your compliance with the 
 right honourable gentleman's requisition does 
 not sink the people into despair of their own situ- 
 ation, does it not expose the honour and integri- 
 ty of this house to suspicion and distrust? For 
 what can they suppose we intend by this delay? 
 The right honourable gentleman may find it worth 
 his while to secure the continuance in his office 
 by an expedient, however temporary and inef- 
 fectual ; but, sir, if we are supposed to concur in 
 such a design, our character is gone with the 
 people ; for, if we are honest, it can be of no mo- 
 ment to us whether this secretary or that minister 
 shall continue in office or not. I know it has 
 been rumoured that the right honourable gentle- 
 man may take advantage of a thin house, to im- 
 pose upon this country the new set of resolutions 
 that have passed the commons of Great Britain. 
 Sir, I do not suspect any such thing, nor would I 
 encourage such a groundless apprehension. Sir, 
 I do not think it would be easy to find a man who 
 would stand within the low-water mark of our 
 shore, and read some of those resolutions above 
 his breath, without feeling some uneasiness for 
 his personal safety ; neither can I think, if a 
 foreign usurpation should come crested to our 
 bar, and demand from the treachery of this house 
 a surrender of that constitution which has been 
 established by the virtue of the nation, that we 
 would answer such a requisition by words. 
 
 c But,
 
 But, sir, though the people should not appre- 
 hend such extreme perfidy from us, they will be 
 justly alarmed if they see us act with needless 
 precipitation; after what is past, we cannot be 
 surprised at not meeting with the most favour- 
 able interpretations of our conduct. 
 
 On great subjects, the magnitude of the ideas'* 
 to be compared may cause some confusion in the 
 minds of ordinary men; they will, therefore, ex- 
 amine our conduct by analogy to the more fre- 
 quent occurrences of common life: such cases 
 happen every day. Will you permit me to sup- 
 pose a very familiar one, by which our present 
 situation may be illustrated to a common mind. 
 
 I will suppose then, sir, that an old friend 
 that you loved, just recovering from a disease 
 in 'which he had been wasted almost to death, 
 should prevail Upon you to take the trouble of 
 buying him a horse for the establishment of his 
 health ; and I the more freely presume to repre- 
 sent you for a moment in an office so little cor- 
 responding with the dignity of your station* 
 from a consciousness that my fancy cannot put 
 you in any place to which you will not be fol- 
 lowed by my utmost respect. I will, therefore, 
 suppose that you send for a horse-jockey, who 
 does not come himself, but sends his foreman. 
 .doii/;". -LuJji.' f ' i h i'i 
 
 Says the foreman, " sir, I know what you 
 want; my master has a horse that will exactly 
 
 match
 
 83 
 
 match your friend; he is descended from Ra- 
 belais' famous Johannes Caballus, that got a 
 doctor of physic's degree from the college of 
 Kheims ; but your friend must pay his price. 
 My master knows he has no money at present, 
 and will therefore accept his note for the amount 
 of what he shall be able to earn while he lives, 
 allowing him, however, such moderate subsist- 
 ence as may prevent him from perishing. If 
 you are satisfied I will step for the horse and 
 bring him instantly, with the bridle and saddle, 
 which you shall have in the bargain." But, 
 friend, say you, are you sure that you are au- 
 thorised to make this bargain? What, sir, cries 
 the foreman, w r ould you doubt my honour? 
 Sir, I can rind three hundred gentlemen who 
 never saw r me before, and yet have gone bail for 
 me at the first view of my face. Besides, sir, 
 you have a greater pledge ; my honour, sir, 
 my renown is at stake. Well, sir, you agree, 
 the note is passed ; the foreman leaves you, and 
 returns without the horse. What, sir! where 
 is the horse ? Why, in truth, sir, answers he, 
 I am sorry for this little disappointment, but 
 my mistress has taken a fancy to the horse, so 
 your friend cannot have him. But we have a 
 nice little mare that will match him better ; as 
 to the saddle he must do without that, for little 
 master insists on keeping it ; however, your 
 friend has been so poor a fellow that he must 
 have too thick a skin to be much fretted by 
 riding bare-backed j besides the mare is so low that 
 G 2 his
 
 his feet will reach the ground when he rides her; 
 and still further to accommodate him, my master 
 insists on having :a chain locked to her feet, of 
 which lock my faster is to have a key to lock 
 or unlock as he pleases, and your friend shall 
 also have a key so formed that he cannot unlock 
 the chain, but with which he may double-loci* 
 it if he thinks fit. 
 
 What, sirrah, do you think I'll betray my old 
 friend to such a fraud ? Why really, sir, you 
 are impertinent, and your friend is too peevish; 
 it w r as only the other day that he charged my 
 master with having stolen his cloak, and grew 
 angry, and got a ferrule and spike to his staff. 
 W r hy, sir, you see how good-humouredly my 
 master gave back the cloak. Sir, my master 
 scorns to break his word, and so do I ; sir, my 
 character is your security. Now, as to the mare, 
 you are too hasty in objecting to her, for I am not 
 sure that you can get her ; all I ask of you now 
 is to wait a few hours in the street, that I may 
 try if something may not be done; but let me 
 say one word to you in confidence: 
 
 I am to get two guineas if I can bring your 
 friend to be satisfied with what we can do for 
 him ; now if you assist me in this, you shall have 
 half the money; for to tell you the truth, if I 
 fail in my undertaking, I shall either be dis- 
 charged entirely or degraded to my former 
 place of helper in the stable. 
 
 Now
 
 85 
 
 Now, Mr. Speaker, as I do not presume to 
 judge of your feelings by my own, I cannot be 
 sure that you would beat the foreman, or abuse 
 him as an impudent lying imposter: I rather 
 think you would for a moment be lost in reflect- 
 ing, and not without a pang, how the rectitude 
 of your heart and the tenderness of your head 
 had exposed you to be the dupe of improbity and 
 folly. But, sir, I know you would leave the 
 wretch who had deceived you, or the fool who 
 was deceived by his master, and you would re- 
 turn to your friend. And methinks you would 
 say to him, we have been deceived in the course 
 \ye have adopted ; for, my good friend, you must 
 look to the exertions of your own strength for 
 the establishment of your health. You have 
 great stamina still remaining, rely upon them, 
 and they will support you. Let no man per- 
 suade you to take the ferrule or spike from your 
 staff. It will guard your cloak. Neither quar- 
 rel with the jockey, for he cannot recover the 
 contents of the note, as you have not the horse; 
 and he may yet see the policy of using you ho- 
 nestly, and deserving to be your friend. If so, 
 embrace him, and let your staff be lifted iu de- 
 fence of your common safety, and in the mean 
 time, let it be always in readiness to defend 
 yourself. 
 
 Such, sir, is the advice you would offer to 
 your friend, and which I would now offer to this 
 house. There is no ground for despairing; let 
 
 1:5
 
 86 
 
 us not therefore alarm the people. If a closer 
 connexion with Great Britain is not now practi- 
 cable, it may become practicable hereafter. But 
 \ve shall ruin every hope of that kind by precipi- 
 tation. I do therefore conjure gentlemen not to 
 run the risk of forcing us at a week's notice to 
 enter on a subject, on which every man in the 
 nation ought to be allowed the most unlimited 
 time for deliberation. I do conjure them not to 
 assent to a measure that can serve nobody but 
 the proposer of it ; that must expose the mem- 
 bers of this house to the distrust of their con- 
 stituents, and which may in its consequences en- 
 danger the harmony of two kingdoms, whose 
 interests and fortunes ought never to be se- 
 parated.
 
 SPEECH 
 
 or 
 
 JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN, ESQ. 
 
 ON THE BILL FOR REGULATING THE 
 
 COMMERCIAL INTERCOURSE, 
 
 BETWEEN 
 
 GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 
 
 HOUSE OF COMMONS, FRIDAY, AUGUST 12, 1785. 
 
 lfj.R. ORDE moved for leave to bring in the 
 bill. 
 
 Mr. Curran said, he was too much exhausted 
 to say much at that hour (six o'clock) on the sub- 
 ject. His zeal had survived his strength. He 
 wished his present state of mind and body might 
 not be ominous of the condition to which Ireland 
 would be reduced, if this bill should become a 
 law. He could not therefore yield even to his 
 weakness. It was a subject which might animate 
 the dead. He then took a view of the progress 
 of the arrangement, and arraigned the insidious 
 conduct of administration. In Ireland it was 
 proposed by the minister; in England it was re- 
 probated by the same minister. Ho had known 
 children learn to play at cards, by playing the 
 right hand against the left : he had never before 
 heard of a negociation being learned in that way. 
 
 He
 
 88 
 
 He said, a bill was not a mode of negotiating; 
 our law spoke only to ourselves bound only 
 ourselves ; it was absurd therefore to let a bill 
 proceed. But the commercial part was out of 
 the question ; for this bill portended a surrender 
 of the constitution and liberty of Ireland. If, 
 said he, we should attempt so base an act, it 
 would be void, as to the people. We may ab- 
 dicate our representation, but the right remains 
 with the people, and can be surrendered only 
 by them. We may ratify our own infamy; we 
 cannot ratify their slavery. He feared the Bri- 
 tish minister was mistaken in the temper of Ire- 
 land, and judged of it by former times. Former- 
 ly the business here was carried on by purchase 
 of majorities; there was a time when the most in- 
 famous measure was sure of being supported by 
 as infamous a majority. But things were chang- 
 ed; the people were enlightened and strong; 
 they would not bear a surrender of their rights, 
 which, he said, would be the consequence if they 
 submitted to this bill. It contained a covenant 
 to enact such laws as England should think pro- 
 per, that would annihilate the parliament of Ire- 
 land. The people here must go to the bare of 
 the English house of commons for relief; and 
 for a circuitous trade to England, we were ac- 
 cepting, he said, a circuitous constitution. 
 
 He said it was different totally from the cases 
 to \\hich it had been compared, the settlement 
 of 1779, or the Methuen treaty: there all was 
 specific
 
 89 
 
 specific and defined; here all was fustian and un- 
 certain. A power to bind externally would in- 
 volve a power also of binding internally; this 
 law gave the power to Great Britain of judging 
 what would be a breach of the compact, of con- 
 struing it, in fact of taxing us as she pleased, 
 while it gave her new strength to enforce our 
 obedience. In such an event, he said, we must 
 either sink into utter slavery, or the people must 
 wade to a re-assumption of their rights through 
 civil blood, or be obliged to take refuge in an 
 union, which, he said, would be the annihilation 
 of Ireland, and what he suspected the minister 
 was driving at. Even the Irish minister, he said, 
 no longer pretended to use his former language 
 on this subject; formerly we were lost in a foolish 
 admiration at the long impediraented march of 
 oratoric pomp with which the secretary display- 
 ed the magnanimity of Great Britain. That 
 kind of eloquence, he supposed, was formed 
 upon some model, but he suspected that the light 
 of political wisdom was more easily reflected 
 than the heat of eloquence; yet we were in 
 raptures even with the oratory of the honour- 
 able gentleman. However he now had descend- 
 ed to an humble style. He talked no more of 
 reciprocity, no more of emporium. 
 
 He then went into general observations to 
 shew that this treaty would give no solid advan- 
 tages to Ireland, but was a revocation of the 
 grant of 1770. He said, he loved the liberty 
 of Ireland; he would therefore vote against the 
 
 bill,
 
 90 
 
 bill, as subversive of that liberty; he would also 
 vote against it as leading to a schism between 
 the two nations, that must terminate in a civil 
 war, or in an union at best. He was sorry, he 
 said, that he troubled them so long, but he fear- 
 ed it might be the last time he should ever have 
 an opportunity of addressing a free parliament ; 
 and if, said he, the period is approaching when 
 the boasted constitution of Ireland will be no 
 more, I own I feel a melancholy ambition in de- 
 serving that my name may be enrolled with those 
 who endeavoured to save it in its last moment. 
 Posterity will be grateful for the last effort, 
 though it should have failed of success. 
 
 House of Commons, Monday, August 15, 1785. 
 
 THE Right Hon. Thos. Orde having intimated 
 that he would not press the further considera- 
 tion of the commercial regulation bill during 
 the session, which was in fact giving up the bill, 
 and Mr. Flood having moved the following re- 
 solution : 
 
 i 
 
 " Resolved, That we hold ourselves bound 
 " not to enter into any engagement to give up 
 " the sole and exclusive right of the parliament 
 " of Ireland to legislate for Ireland in all cases 
 <c whatsoever, as well externally as commercial- 
 *' ly and internally." 
 
 Mr. Cur ran
 
 91 
 
 Mr. Curran expressed the effusions of his joy 
 upon the victory this country had obtained. He 
 said he would support the resolution proposed by 
 the honourable member, because he thought it 
 necessary to declare to the people, that their 
 rights had not been solely supported by 1 1O in- 
 dependent gentlemen, but that if eight or ten of 
 them had been absent, that those who had coun- 
 tenanced the measure would have abandoned 
 every idea of prosecuting it further. It had ever 
 been the custom of our ancestors, when the con. 
 stitution had been attacked, to enter into some 
 spirited step for its support. Why was Magna 
 Charta passed ? It was passed not to give free- 
 dom to the people, but because the people were 
 already free. Why was the repeal of the 6th of 
 Geo. I. ? Not to give independence to the men of 
 Ireland, but because Ireland was in itself an in- 
 dependent nation. This resolution did not go to 
 give rights but to declare that we will preserve 
 our rights. We were told to be cautious how we 
 commit ourselves with the parliament of Great 
 Britain : whether this threat carried with it more 
 of prudence or timidity, he should leave gentle- 
 men to determine. He rejoiced that the cloud 
 which had lowered over them had passed away, 
 and he declared he had no intention to wound 
 the feelings of the minister, by triumphing in 
 his defeat; on the contrary, he might be said 
 to rise with some degree of self-denial, when he 
 gave to others an opportunity of exulting in the 
 victory. The opposition in England had thrown 
 
 many
 
 92 
 
 many impediments in the way, but he would 
 remember with gratitude, that the opposition 
 there had supported the liberties of Ireland. 
 When he saw them reprobating the attacks made 
 upon the trial by jury j when he saw them sup- 
 porting the legislative rights of Ireland, he 
 could not refrain from giving them his applause. 
 They well knew that an invasion of the liberty 
 of Ireland would tend to an attack upon their 
 own. The principle of liberty, thank Heaven, 
 still continued in those countries : that princi- 
 ple which had stained the fields of Marathon, 
 stood in the pass to Thermopylae, and gave to 
 America independence. Happy it was for Ire- 
 land, that she had recovered her rights by vic- 
 tory, not stained by blood rnot a victory bathed 
 in the tears of a mother, a sister, or a wife 
 not a victory hanging over the grave of a War- 
 ren or a Montgomery, and uncertain whether 
 to triumph in what she had gained, or to mourn 
 over what she had lost! 
 
 He said, as to the majority who had voted for 
 bringing in the bill, the only way they could jus- 
 tify themselves to their constituents was by voting 
 for the resolution. As to the minority who had 
 saved the country, they needed no vindication; 
 but those who voted for the introduction of the 
 bill must have waited for the committee, to shew 
 the nation that they would never assent to the 
 fourth proposition. That opportunity, he said, 
 could never arrive. The bill was at an end. 
 
 The
 
 93 
 
 The cloud that had been collecting so long, and 
 threatening to break in tempest and ruin on our 
 heads, had passed harmless away. The siege that 
 was drawn round the constitution was raised, and 
 the enemy was gone. Juvat ire, et Dorica castra, 
 and they might now go abroad without fear, and 
 trace the dangers they had escaped ; here was 
 drawn the line of circumvallation, that cut them 
 off for ever from the Eastern world: and there 
 the corresponding one, that enclosed them from 
 the West. Nor let us, said he, forget in our ex- 
 ultation to whom we are indebted for the deli- 
 verance. Here stood the trusty mariner [Mr. 
 Conolly] on his old station the mast head, and 
 gave the signal. Here [Mr. 'Flood] all the wis- 
 dom of the state was collected, exploring your 
 weakness and your strength, detecting every am- 
 buscade, and pointing to the hidden battery, that 
 was brought to bear on the shrine of freedom. 
 And there [Mr. Grattan] was exerting an elo- 
 quence more than human, inspiring, forming, 
 directing, animating, to the great purposes of 
 your salvation, &c. But I feel, said he, that I 
 am leaving the question, and the bounds of mo- 
 deration ; but there is an ebullition in great ex- 
 cesses of joy that almost borders on insanity. I 
 own I feel something like it in the profuseness 
 with which I share in the general triumph. 
 
 It was not, however, a triumph which he wish- 
 ed to enjoy at the expense of the honourable gen- 
 tleman who had brought in the bill, he was will- 
 ing
 
 94 
 
 ing to believe, with the best intention. What- 
 ever he might have thought before, he now felt 
 no trace of resentment to the honourable gentle- 
 man. On the contrary, he wished that that 
 day's intercourse, which would probably be their 
 last, might be marked on his part, with kindness 
 and respect. 
 
 He was for letting the right honourable gentle- 
 man easily down; he was not for depressing him 
 with the triumph, but he was for calling him to 
 share in the exultation. Upon what principle 
 could the gentlemen who supported the previous 
 question defend their conduct, unless it was iu 
 contradiction to the general rule of adhering to 
 measures, not to the man ? Here it was plain 
 they were adhering to the man, not to the mea- 
 sure; the measure had sunk, but the man was^ 
 still afloat. Perhaps they thought it decent to 
 pay a funeral compliment to his departure; yet 
 he warned them how they pressed too eagerly 
 forward, for as there could not be many bearers, 
 some of them might be disappointed of the scarf 
 or the cypress. He besought them now to let 
 all end in good humour, ajid, like sailors, who 
 had pursued different objects, when they got 
 into port, shake hands with harmony. 
 
 SPEECH
 
 OF 
 
 JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN, ESQ. 
 PENSIONS. 
 
 HOUSE OF COMMONS, MARCH 13, 1786. 
 
 FORBES presented a bill to limit the 
 amount of pensions j which was received and 
 read the first time. 
 
 Mr. Mason moved, " That the second reading 
 "of the bill be postoned to the first of Au- 
 gust." 
 
 Sir Boyle Roche opposed the bill, and said 
 he " would not stop the fountain of Royal fa- 
 " vour, but let it flow freely, spontaneously, and 
 " abundantly, as Holywell in Wales, that turns 
 
 " so many mills." 
 
 i 
 
 Mr. Curraa. I object to adjourning this bill 
 to the first of August, because I perceive in the 
 present disposition of the house, that a proper de- 
 cision will be made upon it this night. We have 
 
 set
 
 96 
 
 set out upon pur enquiry in a manner so honour* 
 able, and so consistent, that we have reason to 
 expect the happiest success, which I w r ould not 
 wish to see baffled by delay. 
 
 We began with giving the full affirmative of 
 this house, that no grievance exists at all ; we 
 considered a simple matter of fact, and adjourn- 
 ed our opinion, or rather we gave sentence on 
 the conclusion, after having adjourned the pre- 
 mises. But I do begin to see a great deal of ar- 
 gument in what the learned baronet has said, and 
 I beg gentlemen will acquit me of apostacy if I 
 offer some seasons why the bill should not be 
 admitted to a second reading. 
 
 I am surprised that gentlemen have taken up 
 such a foolish opinion, as that our constitution is 
 maintained by its different component parts, mu- 
 tually checking and controling each other: -they 
 seem to think with Hobbes, that a state of nature 
 is a state of warfare, aqd that, like Mahomet's 
 coffin, the constitution is suspended between the 
 attraction of different powers. My friends seem 
 to think that the crown should be restrained from 
 doing wrong by a physical necessity, forgetting 
 that if you take away from man all p6Ver to do 
 wrong, you at the same time take away from him 
 all merit of doing right, and by making it im- 
 possible for men to run into slavery, you enslave 
 them most effectually. But if instead of the three 
 different parts of our constitution drawing forci- 
 bly
 
 97 
 
 bly in right lines, at opposite directions, they 
 were to unite their power, and draw all one way, 
 in one right line, how great would be the effect 
 of their force, how happy the direction of this 
 union. The present system is not only contrary 
 to mathematical rectitude, but to public -har- 
 mony; but if instead of privilege setting up his 
 back to oppose prerogative, he was to saddle his 
 back and invite prerogative to ride, how com- 
 fortably they might both jog along; and there- 
 fore it delights me to hear the advocates for the 
 royal bounty flowing freely and spontaneously 
 and abundantly, as Holywell in Wales. If the 
 crown grants double the amount of the revenue 
 in pensions, they approve of their royal master, 
 for he is the breath of their nostrils. 
 
 But we shall find that this complaisance, this 
 gentleness between the crown and its true ser- 
 vants, is not confined at home, it extends its in- 
 fluence to foreign powers. Our merchants have 
 been insulted in Portugal, our commerce inter- 
 dicted; what did the British lion do? Did he whet 
 his tusks? Did he bristle up and shake his mane? 
 Did he roar? No; no such thing the gentle 
 creature wagged his tail for six years at the court 
 of Lisbon, and now we hear from the Delphic 
 oracle on the treasury bench, that he is w r agging 
 his tail in London to chevalier Pinto, who, he 
 hopes soon to be able to tell us, will allow his la- 
 dy to entertain him as a lap-dog; and when she 
 does, no doubt the British factory will furnish 
 
 ii some
 
 98 
 
 SK)me of their softest woollens to make a cushion 
 for him to lie upon. But though the gentle beast 
 has continued so long fawning and couching, I 
 believe his vengeance will be great as it is slow, 
 and that posterity, whose ancestors are yet un- 
 born-, will be surprised at the vengeance he 
 will take. 
 
 This polyglot of wealth, this museum of cu- 
 riosities, the pension list, embraces every link 
 in the human chain,, every description of men, 
 women and children, from the exalted excel- 
 lence of. a'Hawke or a Rodney, to the debased 
 situation of the lady who humbleth herself that 
 she may be exalted. But the lessons it incul- 
 cates form its greatest perfection:- it teacheth, 
 that sloth and vice may eat that bread which vir- 
 tue and honesty may starve for after they had 
 earned it. It teaches the idle and dissolute to look 
 up for that support which they are too proud to 
 stoop and earn. It directs the minds of men to 
 an entire reliance on the ruling power of the 
 state, who feed the ravens of the royal aviary, 
 that cry continually for food. It teaches them 
 to imitate those saints on the pension list that 
 are like the lilies of the field they toil not, nei- 
 ther do they spin, and yet are arrayed like Solo- 
 mon in his glory. In h'ne, it teaches a lesson 
 which indeed they might have learned from 
 Epictetus that it is sometimes good not to be 
 over virtuous: it shews, that in proportion as our 
 distresses increase, the munificence of the crown 
 
 increases
 
 99 
 
 increases also in proportion as our clothes are 
 rent, the royal mantle is extended over us. 
 
 But notwithstanding that the pension list, like 
 charity, covers a multitude of sins, give me leave 
 to consider it as coming home to the members 
 of this house give me leave to say, that the 
 crown, in extending its charity, Its liberality, 
 its profusion, is laying a foundation for the in- 
 dependence of parliament; for hereafter, instead 
 of orators or patriots accounting Jfor their con- 
 duct to such mean and unworthy persons as free- 
 holders, they will learn to despise them, and look 
 to the first man in the state, and they will by so 
 doing have this/security for their independence, 
 that while any man in the kingdom has a shilling 
 they will not want one. 
 
 Suppose at any future period of time the bo- 
 roughs of Ireland should decline from their pre- 
 sent flourishing and prosperous state suppose 
 they should fall into the hands of men who would 
 wish to drive a profitable commerce, by having 
 members of parliament to hire or let; in such 
 a case a secretary would find great difficulty if 
 the proprietors of members should enter into a 
 combination to form a monopoly ; to prevent 
 which in time, the wisest way is to purchase up 
 the raw material, young members of parliament, 
 just rough from the grass, and when they are a 
 little bitted, and he has got a pretty stud, per- 
 haps of seventy, he may laugh at the slavc-mcr- 
 
 H 2 chant :
 
 100 
 
 chant: some of them he may teach to sound 
 through the nose, like a barrel organ ; some, in 
 the course of a few months, might be taught to 
 cry hear! hear! some, chair! chair! upon occa- 
 sion, though, those latter might create a little con- 
 fusion, if they were to forget whether they were 
 calling inside or outside of those doors. Again, 
 he might have some so trained that he need only 
 pull a string, and up gets a repeating member ; 
 and if they were so dull that they could neither 
 speak nor make orations, (for they are different 
 things) he might have them taught to dance, pe- 
 dibus ire in sententM. This improvent might 
 be extended; he might have them dressed in 
 coats and shirts all of one colour, and of a Sun- 
 day he might march them to church two by two, 
 to the great edification of the people and the ho- 
 nour of the Christian religion; afterwards, like 
 ancient Spartans, or the fraternity of Kilmain- 
 ham, they might dine all together in a large 
 hall. Good heaven I what a sight to see them 
 feeding in public upon public viands, and talk- 
 ing of public subjects for the benefit of the pub- 
 lie. It is a pity they are not immortal; but I 
 hope they will flourish as a corporation, and that 
 pensioners will beget pensioners to the end of 
 the chapter. 
 
 SPEECH
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN, ESQ. 
 
 ov 
 
 PENSIONS. 
 
 HOUSE OF COMMONS, MONDAY, MARCH 12, 1787. 
 
 JTJ.R. FORBES presented a bill to limit pensions; 
 it was read a first time: he then moved, that it 
 be read a second time on the following day; this 
 was opposed by the Chancellor of the Exche- 
 quer, who moved, that the bill should be read a 
 second time on the first of August. 
 
 Mr. Curran said he felt too much respect for 
 the excellent mover of the bill, and too strong a 
 sense of the necessity of the measure, to give it 
 only a silent support. He rejoiced, he said, in 
 the virtuous perseverance of his honourable friend 
 in labouring for the establishment of our con- 
 stitution, by securing the independence of par- 
 liament. He would offer some reason in defence- 
 of the bill, though he felt the full force of the 
 policy adopted by administration, to make any 
 
 attempt
 
 attempt of that kind either ridiculous or impos- 
 sible. He observed the gentlemen, he said, don- 
 suiting whether to bury the question under a 
 mute majority, or whether to make a sham oppo- 
 sition to it by setting up the old gladiator of ad- 
 ministration, new polished and painted for the 
 field. They expected, he supposed, that men 
 should shrink in silence and disgust from such a 
 competition. He would, he said, defend the prin- 
 ciple of the bill on the grounds of oeconomy, but 
 still more of constitution. He adverted to the 
 frame of our civil state, it depended on an exact 
 balance of its parts, but he^said, from our pecu- 
 liar situation, that equipoise on which our liberty 
 depends must be continually losing ground, and 
 the power of the crown continually increasing. 
 A single individual can be vigilant and active^ 
 improving every occasion of extending his power ; 
 the people are not so, they are divided in senti- 
 ment, in interest without union, and therefore 
 without co-operation, and from the necessity of 
 bringing the constitution frequently back to its 
 first principles; but this, he said, was doubly ne- 
 cessary to do by law, in a country where a long 
 system of dividing the people had almost extin- 
 guished that public mind, that public vigilance 
 and jealousy, with which the conduct of the 
 crown was watched over in Great Britain. But 
 further, he said, it was rendered necessary by 
 the residence of our king in another country.- 
 His authority must be delegated first to a vice- 
 roy,
 
 103 
 
 roy, and next it fell to a secretary, who could 
 have no interest in the good of the people; no 
 interest in future fame, no object to attract him 
 but the advancement of his dependants. Then, 
 he said, the responsibility that binds an English 
 king to moderation and frugality was lost here 
 in the confusion of persons, or in their insignifi- 
 cance. This, he said, might be deemed an un- 
 usual language in that house, but he assured the 
 right honourable secretary, he did not speak with 
 any view of disturbing his personal feelings ; he 
 did not admire, nor would he imitate the cruelty 
 of the Sicilian tyrant? who amused himself with 
 putting insects to the torture; he was therefore 
 stating facts. What responsibility, said he, can 
 be found or hoped for in an English secretary? 
 estimate them fairly, not according to the adula- 
 tion that lifts them into a ridiculous importance 
 while they are among you, or the alike unme- 
 rited contumely that is heaped upon them by 
 disappointment and shame when they leave you. 
 But what have they been in fact? why a suc- 
 cession of men, sometimes \\ith heads, some- 
 times with hearts, oftener with neither. 
 
 But as to the present right honourable secre- 
 tary, he said, it was peculiarly ridiculous to talk 
 of his responsibility or his (economy to the 
 people: his (economy was only to be found in 
 redacting the scanty pittance which profusion 
 had left for the encouragement of our manufac- 
 ture-;
 
 104 
 
 lures; or in withholding from the undertakers of 
 a great national object that encouragement that 
 had been offered them on the express faith of 
 parliament; unless, perhaps, it were to be looked 
 for in the pious plan of selling the materials of 
 houses of religious worship on a principle of 
 ceconomy. But where will you look, said he, for 
 his responsibility as a minister? You will remem- 
 ber his commercial propositions. They were 
 proposed to this country on his responsibility. 
 You cannot forget the exhibition he made; you 
 cannot have yet lost his madrigal on reciprocity: 
 but what was the event? He went to Great Bri- 
 tain with ten propositions, and he returned with 
 double the number, disclaimed and abandoned 
 by those to whom he belonged ; and shorn of every 
 pretension to responsibility; but look for it in the 
 next leading feature of his administration. 
 
 We gave an addition of ^140,000 in taxes on 
 the express compact and condition of confining 
 expense within the limits of revenue. Already 
 has that compact been shamefully evaded : but 
 what says the responsible gentleman? Why he 
 stood up in his place, and had the honest confi- 
 dence boldly to deny the fact. Now, said he, I 
 should be glad to ask who that right honourable 
 gentleman is? Is he the whole house of com- 
 mons? If he be, he proposed the compact. Is 
 he the king? he accepted it by his viceroy. Is 
 he the viceroy? he accepted by himself. In every 
 
 character
 
 10$ 
 
 character that could give such a compact either 
 credit, or dignity, or stability, he has either 
 proposed or ratified it; in what character then 
 does the right honourable gentleman deny it? 
 why in his own ; in that of a right honourable 
 gentleman. Can any man then, said he, be so 
 silly as to think that so barefaced a spirit of pro- 
 fusion can be stopt by any thing less than a 
 law? Or can any man point out any ground on 
 which we can confide in the right honourable 
 gentleman's affection to the interest or even 
 the peace of this country? At a time when we 
 are told that the people are in a state of tumult 
 little short of rebellion, when you ought to 
 wish to send an angel to recall the people to 
 their duty, and restore the credit of the laws, 
 what does he do? he keeps three judicial places, 
 absolute, vacant, or sinecure places, as if in this 
 country not officers but offices are to become 
 superannuated; and he sends the commission 
 with a job tacked to it, to be displayed in the 
 very scene of this supposed confusion. Would 
 this contemptuous trifling with the public be 
 borne in Great Britain? No, sir; but what the 
 substance of an English minister, with all his 
 talents, would not dare to attempt in that coun- 
 try, his fetch is able to atchieve, and with im- 
 punity, in this. 
 
 But a right honourable member opposes the 
 principle of the bill, as being in restraint of the 
 
 royal
 
 106 
 
 royal bounty. I agree with him in this senti- 
 ment, but I differ from this argument. It be- 
 comes the dignity and humanity of a generous 
 people to leave it in the power of the sovereign 
 to employ some part of the pulic w r ealth for ho- 
 nourable purposes, for rewarding merit, for en- 
 couraging science : Nor would it become us to 
 enquire too narrowly into every casual or minute 
 misapplication ; but a gross and general appli- 
 cation of the people's money to the encourage- 
 ment of every human vice is a crying grievance 
 that calls on every man to check it; not by re- 
 straining the bounty of the crown, but curbing 
 the profusion of Irish administrations. The pen- 
 sion list, at the best of times, was a scandal to 
 this country ; but the present abuses of it, he 
 said, went beyond all bounds, and almost justi- 
 fied what he would formerly have considered as 
 shameful. If a great officer of state, for in- 
 stance, finds that the severity of business requires 
 the consolation of the tender passion, he courts 
 through the pension list, and the lady, very 
 wisely, takes hold of the occasion, which, per- 
 haps, could not be taken of the lover, and seizes 
 time by the forelock. Why, sir, we may pass 
 over a little treaty of that sort ; it may naturally 
 enough fall under the articles of concordatum 
 or contingencies ; but that unhappy list has 
 been degraded by a new species of prostitution 
 that was unknown before: the granting of ho- 
 nours and titles, to lay the foundation for the 
 
 grant
 
 107 
 
 grant of a pension; the suffering any man to 
 steal a dignity, for the purpose that a barren 
 beggar steals a child. It was reducing the ho- 
 nours of the state from badges of dignity to 
 badges of mendicancy. 
 
 He then adverted to the modern practice of 
 doubling the pensions of members of that house, 
 who were unhappily pensioners already. Was 
 the secretary, he said, afraid of their becoming 
 converts? Was it necessary to double-bolt them 
 with pensions? Was there really so much dan- 
 ger, that little fricksay would repent and go into 
 a nunnery, that the kind keeper must come 
 down with another hundred to save her from 
 becoming honest. 
 
 But a right honourable gentleman, he said, 
 had made another objection rather inconsistent 
 with his former: he feared it would take away 
 the controul of parliament on pensions within 
 the limits of the act proposed. The objection 
 was not, therefore founded in fact, at the same 
 time that the argument admitted that the unli- 
 mited power of pensioning was a grievance that 
 ought to be remedied by some effectual con- 
 troul; such he said, was the principle and the 
 effect of this bill, if carried into a law. It would 
 not restrain the crown ; it would not restrain a 
 3ord lieutenant; it would only restrain a secre- 
 tary from that shameful profusion of the public 
 treasure, unimputable and unknown to his ma- 
 jesty
 
 108 
 
 jesty or his viceroy, which was equally disgrace- 
 ful to the giver and receiver. It was a bill to 
 preserve the independence of parliament; it was 
 a bill to give us the constitution of Great Bri- 
 tain when we had it not before. It was pecu- 
 liarly necessary when we had adopted a penal 
 law of Great Britain, giving a new force to the 
 executive magistrate, that we should also adopt 
 that law of Great Britain, which might secure 
 the rights of the people : it was a law necessary 
 as a counterpoise to the riot -act : it was a law 
 of invention, and if necessary, prevention ; for 
 if, said he, you wait till the evil, which my right 
 honourable friend is anxious to guard against, 
 shall have actually fallen upon this country, the 
 corruption will be universal, and the remedy 
 impossible. 
 
 SPEECH
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN, ESQ. 
 
 OK 
 
 CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION. 
 
 HOUSE OF COMMONS, MONDAY, OCTOBER 17, 179<J. 
 
 31 R. GRATTAN moved the following resolution: 
 " That the admissibility of persons professing 
 " the Roman Catholic religion to seats in par- 
 " liament is consistent with the safety of the 
 " crown, and the connection of Ireland with 
 " Great Britain." 
 
 Seconded by Mr. G. Ponsonby. 
 
 Mr. G. Ogle voted for the order of the day, 
 
 Mr. Curran began, by declaring, that he had 
 no words to express the indignation he felt at the 
 despicable attempt to skulk from the discussion 
 of so important and so necessary a question, by 
 the affectation of an appeal to our secrecy and 
 
 our
 
 110 
 
 our discretion ; the ludicrous, the ridiculous se- 
 crecy of a public assembly; the nonsense of pre- 
 tending to conceal from the world what they 
 know as well, or better, than ourselves ; the rare 
 discretion of an Irish parliament hiding from the 
 executive directory of the French republic the 
 operations of their own armies ; concealing from 
 them their victories in Italy, or their humiliation 
 of Great Britain ; concealing from them the vari- 
 ous coquetry of her negociations, and her now 
 avowed solicitations of a peace. As ridic ulous and 
 as empty was the senseless parade of affecting to 
 keep our own deliberations a secret. Rely upon 
 it, sir, said he, if our enemies condescend to feel 
 any curiosity as to our discussion, you might as 
 well propose to conceal from them the course of 
 the Danube, or the course of the Rhine, as the 
 course of a debate in this assembly, as winding, 
 perhaps, and perhaps as muddy as either. But 
 the folly of the present advocates for silence and 
 for secrecy went still farther : it proposed to keep 
 all these matters a profound secret from ourselves; 
 it went to the extravagant length of saying, that 
 if we were beaten we were not to deliberate upon 
 the means of repairing our disasters, because that 
 would be to own that we were beaten ; that if the 
 enemy was at our gates, it wouid not be prudent 
 to acknowledge so terrifying a fact, even in con- 
 sidering the means of repelling him ; that if our 
 people were disaffected, we ought to be peculi- 
 arly cautious of any measures that could possi- 
 bly
 
 Ill 
 
 bly tend to conciliation and union, because the 
 adoption, or even the discussion of such mea- 
 sures, would be in effect to tell ourselves, and to 
 tell all the world, that the people were disaffect- 
 ed. He said, that the infatuation or the presump- 
 tion of ministers went even farther than this: 
 that it insisted upon the denial and avowal of 
 the very same facts; that we were to be alarmed 
 with an invasion, for the purpose of making us 
 obsequious to all the plans of ministers for in- 
 trenching themselves in their places; that we were 
 to be panic-struck for them, but disdainful for 
 ourselves, that our people were to be disaffected, 
 and the consequences of that disaffection to be 
 the most dangerous and the most imminent, for 
 the purpose of despoiling ourselves of our best 
 and most sacred privileges. So eminent was this 
 danger, that it was declared by ministers and by 
 their adherents, that, in order to preserve our 
 liberties for ever, it was absolutely necessary to 
 surrender them for a time ; the surrender had been 
 actually made. So frightfully disunited and di- 
 vided were we, that we could not venture to trust 
 ourselves with the possession of our freedom, but 
 we were all united as one man against redressing 
 the grievances of the great majority of ourselves; 
 we were all united as one man against the concili- 
 ation of our animosities, and the consolidation of 
 our strength. He declared, that, for one, he 
 never would submit to be made the credulous 
 dupe of an impostor so gross and so impudent: he 
 
 knew
 
 112 
 
 knew that the times were critical indeed; he 
 knew that it was necessary to open our eyes to 
 our danger, and to meet it in the front; to con- 
 sider what that danger was, and to consider of 
 the best and perhaps the only, possible means of 
 averting it. For these reasons he considered the 
 resolution not only a measure of justice and of 
 honesty, but of the most pressing necessity. 
 
 He knew, he said, that a trivial subject of the 
 day would naturally engage them more deeply, 
 than any more distant object of however greater 
 importance ; but he begged they would recollect 
 that the petty interest of party must expire with 
 themselves, and that their heirs must be, not 
 statesmen, nor placemen, nor pensioners, but 
 the future people of the country at large. He 
 knew of no so awful a call upon the justice and 
 wisdom of an assembly, as the reflection that 
 they were deliberating on the interests of pos- 
 terity. 
 
 The first step of -ministers was to create a divi- 
 sion among the Catholics themselves; the next 
 was to hold them up as a body formidable to the 
 English government, and to their protestant fel- 
 low subjects ; but he conjured the house to be 
 upon their guard against those despicable at- 
 tempts to traduce their people, to alarm their 
 fears, or to inflame their resentment. Gentlemen 
 have talked as if the question was, whether. we 
 
 may
 
 113 
 
 may with safety to ourselves, relax or repeal the 
 laws which have so long concerned our catholic 
 fellow subjects ? The real question is, whether 
 you can, with safety to the Irish constitution, 
 refuse such a measure? It is not a question 
 merely of their sufferings or their relief, it is a 
 question of your own preservation. There are 
 some maxims, which an honest Irishman will 
 never abandon, and by which every public mea- 
 sure may be fairly tried. These are, the pre 
 servation of the constitution upon the principles 
 established at the revolution, in church and 
 state ; and next, the independency of Ireland, 
 connected with Britain as a confederated people, 
 and united indissolubly under a common and 
 inseparable crown. If you wish to know how 
 these great objects may be affected by a repeal 
 of those laws, see how they were affected by their 
 enaction. Here you have the infallible test of 
 fact and experience ; and wretched indeed must. 
 you be, if false shame, false pride, false fear, 
 false spirit, can prevent you from reading that 
 lesson of wisdom which is'written in the blood 
 and the calamities of your country. Here Mr. 
 Curran w r ent into a detail of the property laws as 
 they affected the catholics of Ireland. He de- 
 scribed them as destructive of arts, of industry, 
 of private morals and public order, as extirpat- 
 ing even the Christian religion among them, 
 and reducing them to the condition of savages 
 and rebels, disgraceful to humanity, andformida- 
 
 i ble
 
 114 
 
 able to the state. Having traced the progress 
 and effects of those laws from the revolution to 
 1779; let me now ask you, said he, how have 
 those laws affected the protestant subject and the 
 protestant constitution ? In that interval were 
 they free ? did they possess that liberty which 
 they denied to their brethren? No, sir, w r here 
 there are inhabitants, but no people, there can bo 
 no freedom ; unless there be a spirit, and what 
 may be called a pull in the people, a free govern- 
 ment cannot be kept steady or fixed in its seat. 
 You had indeed a government, but it was planted 
 in civil dissension, and watered in civil blood, 
 and whilst the virtuous luxuriance of its branches 
 aspired to heaven, its infernal roots shot down- 
 ward to their congenial regions, and were inter- 
 twined in hell. Your ancestors thought them- 
 selves the oppressors of their fellow-subjects, 
 but they were only their jailors ; and the justice 
 of Providence would have been frustrated, if 
 their own slavery had not been the punishment 
 of their vice and their folly. 
 
 But are those facts for which we must appeal 
 to history ? You all remember the year one thou- 
 sand seven hundred and seventy-nine. What 
 were you then ? Your constitution, without re- 
 sistance, in the hands of the British parliament ; 
 your trade in many parts extinguished, in every 
 part coerced. So low were you reduced to beg- 
 gary and servitude, as to declare, that unless the 
 
 mercy
 
 113 
 
 mercy of England was extended to your trade, 
 you could not subsist. Here you have an infalli- 
 ble test of the ruinous influence of those laws in 
 the experience of a century ; of a constitution 
 surrendered, and commerce utterly extinct. But 
 can you learn nothing on this subject from the 
 events that followed? In 1778, you somewhat re-, 
 laxed the severity of those laws, and improved, 
 in some degree, the condition of the catholics* 
 What was the consequence even of a partial 
 union with your countrymen ? The united efforts 
 of the two bodies restored that constitution which 
 had been lost by their separation. In 1782 you 
 became free. Your catholic brethren shared the 
 danger of the conflict ; but you had not justice 
 or gratitude to let them share the fruits of the 
 victory. You suffered them to relapse into their 
 former insignificance and depression. And let 
 me ask you, has it not fared with you accord- 
 ing to your deserts ? Let me ask you, if the 
 parliament of Ireland can boast of being now less 
 at the feet of the British minister, than at that 
 period it was of the British parliament? Here he 
 animadvertedontheconduct of the administration 
 for some years part, in the accumulation of pub- 
 lic burdens and parliamentary influence ; but, 
 said he, it^is not the mere increase of debt ; it is 
 not the creation of one hundred and ten placemen 
 and pensioners that forms the real cause of the 
 public malady. The real cause is the exclusion 
 of your people from all influence upon the re- 
 
 i 2 presentative.
 
 116 
 
 preservative. The question therefore is, whether 
 you will seek your own safety in the restoration 
 of your fellow-subjects, or whether you will chuse 
 rather to perish than to be just ? He then pro- 
 ceeded to examine the objections to a general 
 incorporation of the catholics. On general prin- 
 ciples, no man could justify the deprivation of civil 
 rights on any ground but that of forfeiture for 
 some offence. The papist of the last century 
 might forfeit his property for ever, for that was 
 his own ; but he could not forfeit the rights and 
 capacities of his unborn posterity. And let me 
 observe, said he, that even those laws against the 
 offender himself were enacted while injuries were 
 recent, and while men were not unnaturally alarm- 
 ed by the consideration of a French monarchy, 
 a pretender, and a pope ; things that we now 
 read of, but can see no more. But are they dis- 
 affected to liberty ? On what ground can such an 
 imputation be supported ? Do you see any in- 
 stance of any man's religious theory governing 
 his civil or political conduct ? Is popery an 
 enemy to freedom? look to France, and be ans- 
 wered. Is protestantism necessarily its friend ? 
 You are protestants, look to yourselves, and be 
 refuted. But look further? do you find even the 
 religious sentiments of sectaries marked by the 
 supposed characteristics of their sects ? Do you 
 find that a protestant Briton can be a bigot with 
 only two sacraments, and a catholic Frenchman 
 a deist, admitting seven ? But you aliect to think 
 . < vour
 
 117 
 
 your property in danger by admitting them into 
 the state. That has been already refuted, but 
 you have yourselves refuted your own objection. 
 Seventeen years ago you expressed the same 
 fear, yet you made the experiment; you opened 
 the door to landed property, and the fact has 
 shewn the fear to be without foundation. 
 
 But another curious topic has been stated 
 again ; the protestant ascendancy is in danger. 
 What do you mean by that word ? Do you ineap 
 the right, and property, and dignities of the 
 church ? If you do, you must feel they are safe. 
 They are secured by the law, by the coronation 
 oath, by a protestant parliament, a protestant 
 king, a protestant confederated nation. Do you 
 mean the free and protected exercise of the pro- 
 testant religion ? You know it has the same se- 
 curity to support it. Or do you mean the just and 
 honourable support of the numerous and merito- 
 rious clergy of our own country, who really dis- 
 charge the labours and duties of the ministry ? 
 As to that, let me say, that if we felt on that sub- 
 ject as w r e ought, we should not have so many 
 men of talents and virtues struggling under the 
 difficulties of their scanty pittance, and feeling 
 the melancholy conviction that no virtues or ta- 
 lents can give them any hope of advancement. 
 If you really mean the preservation of every right 
 and every honour that can dignify a Christian 
 priest, and give authority to his function, I will 
 
 protect
 
 118 
 
 protect them as zealously as you. I will ever 
 respect and revere the man who employs himself 
 in diffusing light, hope, and consolation. But if 
 you mean by ascendancy the power of persecu- 
 tion, I detest and abhor it. If you mean the as- 
 cendancy of an English school over an Irish uni- 
 versity, I cannot look upon it without aversion. 
 An ascendancy of that form raises to my mind a 
 little greasy emblem of stall-fed theology, im- 
 ported from some foreign land, with the graces 
 of a lady's maid, the dignity of a side-table, the 
 temperance of a larder, its sobriety the dregs of 
 a patron's bottle, and its wisdom the dregs of a 
 patron's understanding, brought hither to devour, 
 to degrade, and to defame. Is it to such a thing 
 you would have it thought that you affixed the 
 idea of the protestant ascendancy? But it is s*id, 
 admit them by degrees, and do not run the risque 
 of too precipitate an incorporation. I conceive 
 both the argument and the fact unfounded. In 
 a mixed government, like ours, an increase of the 
 democratic power can scarcely ever be danger- 
 ous. Not one of the three powers of our constitu- 
 tion acts singly in the line of its natural direction; 
 each is necessarily tempered and diverted by the 
 action of the other two : and hence it is, that 
 though the power of the crown has, perhaps, far 
 transcended the degree to which theory might 
 confine it, the liberty of the British constitution 
 may not he in much danger. An increase of 
 power to any of the three, acts finally upon the 
 
 state
 
 119 
 
 state with a very diminished influence, and there- 
 fore, great indeed must be that increase in any 
 one of them which can endanger the practical 
 balance of the constitution. Still, however, I 
 contend not against the caution of a gradual ad- 
 mission. But let me ask you, can you admit 
 them any otherwise than gradually ? The strik- 
 ing and melancholy symptom of the public 
 disease is, that if it recovers at all, it can 
 be only through a feeble and lingering con- 
 valescence. Yet even this gradual admission 
 your catholic brethren do not ask, save under 
 every pledge and every restriction, which your 
 justice and wisdom can recommend to your 
 adoption. 
 
 He called on the house to consider the 
 necessity of acting with a social and concilia- 
 tory mind, remarking, that contrary conduct 
 may perhaps protract the unhappy depression 
 of our country, but a partial liberty cannot long 
 subsist. A disunited people cannot long sub- 
 sist. With infinite regret must any man 
 look forward to the alienation of three millions 
 of our people, and to a degree of subserviency 
 and corruption in the fourth : I am sorry, 
 said he, to think it is so very easy to conceive, 
 that in case of such an event the inevitable 
 consequence would be, AN UNION WITH GREAT 
 JJiuTAix. And if any one desires to know 
 what that would be, I will tell him : IT WOULD 
 
 UK
 
 120 
 
 BE THE EMIGRATION OF EVERY MAN OF CONSE- 
 QUENCE FROM IRELAND ; IT WOULD BE THE PAR- 
 TICIPATION OF BRITISH TAXES WITHOUT BRITISH 
 TRADE ; IT WOULD BE THE BXf 1NCTION OF THE 
 
 IRISH NAME AS A PEOPLE. WE SHOULD BECOME 
 A WRETCHED COLONY, PERHAPS LEASED OUT TO A 
 COMPANY OF JEWS, AS WAS FORMERLY IN CON- 
 TEMPLATION, AND GOVERNED BY A FEW TAX- 
 GATHERERS AND EXCISEMEN, UNLESS POSSIBLY 
 YOU MAY ADD FIFTEEN OR TWENTY COUPLE OF 
 IRISH MEMBERS, WHO MIGHT BE FOUND EVERY 
 SESSION SLEEPING IN THEIR COLLARS UNDER THE 
 MANGER OF THE BRITISH MINISTER. 
 
 Mr. Curran then entered largely into the 
 state of the empire and of its allies ; of the dispo- 
 sition of our enemies towards Great Britain ; of 
 the nature of their political principles ; and, of the 
 rapid dissemination of those principles. He de- 
 clared that it was difficult to tell whether the dis- 
 semination of those principles was likely to be 
 more encouraged by the continuance of the war 
 or by the establishment of a peace ; and if the 
 war was, as has been repeatedly insisted on, a war 
 on our part for the preservation of social order 
 and of limited monarchy, he strongly urged the 
 immediate necessity of making those objects the 
 common interest and the common cause of every 
 man in the nation. He reprobated the idea of 
 any disloyalty in the catholics, an idea which, he 
 said, was sometimes more than intimated, and 
 
 sometimes
 
 sometimes as vehemently disclaimed by the ene- 
 mies of catholic emancipation ; but, he said, the 
 catholics were men, and were of course sensible 
 to the impression of kindness, and injury, and of 
 insult ; that they knew their rights, and felt their 
 wrongs, and that nothing but the grossest ignor- 
 ance, or the meanest hypocrisy could represent 
 them as cringing with a slavish fondness to those 
 who oppressed and insulted them. He sought, 
 he said, to remove their oppressions, in order to 
 make the interests of the whole nation one and 
 the same ; and to that great object, the resolution, 
 moved by his right honourable friend manifestly 
 tended ; and he lamented exceedingly, that so 
 indecent and so disingenuous a way of evading 
 that motion had been resorted to, as passing to 
 the order of the day, a conduct, that, however 
 speciously the gentlemen who had adopted it 
 might endeavour to excuse, he declared, could 
 be regarded by the catholics, and by the public, 
 no otherwise than as an expression of direct hos- 
 tility to the catholic claims. He animadverted, 
 with much severity, upon an observation from 
 the other side of the house, that the catholics 
 were already in possession of political liberty, 
 and were only seeking for political power. He 
 asked, what was it tlien that we were so anxi- 
 ously withholding, and so greedily monopoliz- 
 ing ; and declared, that the answer which had 
 been given to that observation, by a learned and 
 honourable friend near him (Mr. Wm. Smith) 
 
 was
 
 12$ 
 
 was that of a true patriot, and of a sound con- 
 stitutional lawyer; namely, that civil liberty 
 was a shadow, without a sufficient portion of 
 political power to protect it. 
 
 Having replied to the arguments of several 
 members that had preceded him in the debate, 
 Mr. Curran came to the speech that had been de- 
 livered by Dr. Duigenan, and entertained the 
 house, for about half an hour, with one of the 
 most lively sallies of wit and humour that we re- 
 member to have heard. He said, that the learned 
 doctor had made himself a very prominent figure 
 in the debate ! Furious indeed had been his anger, 
 and manifold his attack ; what argument, or what 
 man, or what thing, had he not abused ? Half 
 choaked by his rage in refuting those who had 
 spoke, he had relieved himself by attacking those 
 who had not spoke ; he had abused the catholics, 
 he had abused their ancestors, he had abused the 
 merchants of Ireland, he had abused Mr. Burke, 
 he had abused those who voted for the order of 
 the day. I do not know, said Mr. Curran, but I 
 ought to be obliged to the learned doctor, for 
 Honouring me with a place in the invective ; he 
 has called me the bottle-holder of my right ho- 
 nourable friend ; sure I am, said he, that if I had 
 been the bottle-holder of both, the learned doctor 
 would have less reason to complain of me than 
 my right honourable friend; for him I should have 
 left perfectly sober, whilst it would very clearly 
 
 appear,
 
 123 
 
 appear, that, with respect to the learned doctor, 
 the bottle had not only been managed fairly, but 
 generously; and, that if, in furnishing him with 
 liquor, I had not furnished him with argument, I 
 had, at least, furnished him with a good excuse 
 for wanting it; with the best excuse for that con- 
 fusion of history, and divinity, and civil law, and 
 canon law, that rollocking mixture of politics, and 
 theology, and antiquity, with which he has over- 
 whelmed, the debate, for the havoc and carnage 
 he has made of the population of the last age, 
 and the fury with which he seemed determined to 
 exterminate, and even to devour the population 
 of this ; and which urged him, after tearing and 
 gnawing the characters of the catholics, to spend 
 the last efforts of his rage with the most unrelent- 
 ing ferocity, in actually gnawing their names, [al- 
 luding to Dr. Duigenan's pronunciation of the 
 name of Mr. Keogh, and which Mr. Curran said, 
 was a kind of pronuntiatory defamation.] In truth 
 sir, said he, I felt some surprise, and some regret, 
 when I heard him describe the sceptre of lath, and 
 the tiara of straw, and mimic his bedlamite em- 
 peror and pope with such refined and happy gesti- 
 culation, that he could be prevailed on to quit so 
 congenial a company. I should not, however, said 
 he, be disposed to hasten his return to them, or to 
 precipitate the access of his fit, if by a most un- 
 lucky felicity of indiscretion, he had not dropped 
 some doctrines which the silent approbation of the 
 minister seemed to have adopted. Mr. Curran 
 
 saidj
 
 124 
 
 said, he did not mean amongst these doctrines to 
 place the learned doctor's opinions touching the 
 revolution, nor his wise and valorous plan, in 
 case of an invasion, of arming the beadles and 
 the sextons, and putting himself in wind for an 
 attack upon the French by a massacre of the 
 papists; the doctrine he meant was, that ca- 
 tholic franchise was inconsistent with British con- 
 nection. Strong, indeed, said he, must the mi- 
 nister be in, so wild and desperate a prejudice, if 
 he can venture, in the fallen state of the empire, 
 under the disasters of the war, and with an enemy 
 at the gate, if he can dare to state to the great 
 body of the Irish nation, that their slavery is the 
 condition of their connection with England; that 
 she is more afraid of yielding to Irish liberty than 
 of losing Irish connection; and the denunciation, 
 he said, was not yet upon record, it might yet 
 be left with the learned doctor, who, he hoped, 
 had embraced it only to make it odious, had hug- 
 ged it in his arms with the generous purpose of 
 plunging with it into the deep, and exposing it 
 to merited derision, even at the hazard of the 
 character of his own sanity. It was yet in the 
 power of the minister to decide, whether a blas- 
 phemy of this kind should pass for the mere rav- 
 ings of frenzy, or for the solemn and mischiev- 
 ous lunacy of a minister: he called therefore 
 again, to rouse that minister from his trance, and 
 in the hearing of the two countries, to put that 
 question to him, which must be heard by a third, 
 
 Whether
 
 125 
 
 Whether at no period, upon no event, at no ex- 
 tremity, we were to hope for any connection with 
 Britain, except that of the master and the slave ; 
 and this even without the assertion of any fact 
 that could support such a proscription? It was 
 necessary, he found, to state the terms and the 
 nature of the connection; it had been grossly 
 misrepresented; it was a great federal contract 
 between perfectly equal nations, pledging them- 
 selves to equal fate, upon the terms of equal li- 
 berty, upon perfectly equal liberty. The motive 
 to that contract was the mutual benefit to each; 
 the object of it, their mutual and common be- 
 nefit ; the condition of the compact was, the ho- 
 nest and fair performance of it, and from that 
 only, arose the obligation of it. Jf England 
 shewed a decided purpose of invading our liber- 
 tv, the compact by such an act of foulness and 
 perfidy was broken, and the connection utterly 
 at an end: but, he said, the resolution moved for 
 by his right honourable friend to the test of this 
 connection, to invade our liberty, was a dissolu- 
 tion of it. But what is liberty as known to our 
 constitution? It is a portion of political power ne- 
 cessary to its conversation ; as, for instance, the 
 liberty of the commons of those kingdoms is that 
 right, accompanied with a portion of political 
 power to preserve it against the crown and against 
 the aristocracy. It is by invading the power 
 that the right is attacked in any of its consti- 
 tuent parts; hence it is, that if the crown shews 
 
 a deliberate
 
 126 
 
 r ~-fv 
 
 a deliberate design of so destroying it, it is an 
 abdication; and let it be remembered, that by 
 our compact we have given up no constitutional 
 right. He said, therefore, that he was warrant- 
 ed, as a constitutional lawyer, in stating, that 
 if the crown or its ministers, by force or by 
 fraud, destroyed that fair representation of the 
 people, by which alone they could be protected 
 in their liberty, it was a direct breach of the 
 contract of connection; and he could not scru- 
 ple to say, that if a house of commons could be 
 so debauched as as to deny the right stated in the 
 resolution, it was out of their own mouths con- 
 clusive evidence of the fact. He insisted that 
 the claim of the catholics to that right, was di- 
 rectly within the spirit of the compact ; and 
 what have been the arguments advanced against 
 the claim? One was an argument which, if 
 founded in fact, would have some weight ; it was 
 that the catholics did not make the claim at all. 
 Another argument was used, which he thought 
 had as little foundation in fact, and was very easy 
 to be reconciled to the other ; it was that the 
 catholics made their claim with insolence, and 
 attempted to carry their object by intimidation. 
 Let gentlemen take this fact if they please, in 
 opposition to their own denial of it. The catho- 
 lics then do make the demand ; is their demand 
 just? Is it just that they should be free? Is it 
 just that they should have franchise? The justice 
 is expressly admitted; why not given then? The 
 
 answer
 
 127 
 
 answer is, they demand it with insolence. Sup- 
 pose that assertion, false as it is in fact, to be 
 true, is it any argument with a public assembly, 
 that any incivility of demand can cover the injus- 
 tice of refusal. How low must that assembly be 
 fallen, which can suggest as an apology for the 
 refusal of an incontestible right, the answer 
 which a bankrupt buck might give to the de- 
 mand of his tailor ; he will not pay the bill, be- 
 cause, " the rascal had dared to threaten his ho- 
 nour." As another argument against their claims, 
 their principles had been maligned ; the experi- 
 ence of a century \vas the refutation of the as- 
 persion. The articles of their faith had been op- 
 posed by the learned doctor to the validity of their 
 claims. Can their religion, said he, be an ob- 
 jection, where a total absence of all religion, 
 where atheism itself is none ? The learned doctor, 
 no doubt, thought he was praising the mercy 
 with which they had been governed, when he di- 
 lated upon their poverty ; but can poverty be an 
 objection in an assembly, whose 'bumble and 
 Christian condescension shut not its doors even 
 against the common beggar? He had traduced 
 some of them by name ; " Mr. Byrne and Mr. 
 Keogh, and four or five ruffians from the Liberty:" 
 but, said Mr. Curran, this is something better than 
 frenzy : this is something better than the want of 
 mere feeling and decorum; there could not, per- 
 haps, be a better way of evincing a further and 
 more important want of the Irish nation, the 
 
 want
 
 128 
 
 want of a reformed representation of the people 
 in parliament. For, what can impress the ne- 
 cessity of it more strongly upon the justice, upon 
 the humanity, the indignation, and the shame 
 of an assembly of Irish gentlemen, than to find 
 the people so stripped of all share in the repre- 
 sentation, as that the most respectful class of 
 our fellow-citizens, men who had acquired 
 wealth upon the noblest principle, the practice 
 of commercial industry and integrity, could be 
 made the butts of such idle and unavailing, such 
 shameful abuse, without the possibility of having 
 an opportunity to vindicate themselves j when 
 men of that class can be exposed to the degra- 
 dation of unanswered calumny, or the more bit- 
 ter degradation of eleemosynary defence? Mr. 
 Curran touched upon a variety of other topics, 
 and concluded with the most forcible appeal to 
 the minister, to the house, and to the country, 
 upon the state of public affairs at home and 
 abroad. He insisted that the measure was not, 
 as hvhadbeen stated to be, a measure of mere in- 
 terna\policy; it was a measure that involved the 
 questio^i of right and wrong, of just and unjust: 
 but it wjis more, it was a measure of the most 
 absolute necessity, which could not be denied, 
 and which could not safely be delayed. He could 
 not, he said, foresee future events 5 he could not 
 be appalled by the future, for he could not see 
 it j but the present he could see, and he could 
 not but see that it was big with danger; it might 
 
 be
 
 129 
 
 be the crisis of political life, or political extinc- 
 tion; it was a time fairly to state to the country, 
 whether they had any thing, and what to fight 
 for; whether they are to struggle for a connec- 
 tion of tyranny, or of privilege; whether the 
 administration of England will let us condescend 
 to forgive the insolence of her happier days ; or 
 whether, as the beams of her prosperity have 
 wasted and consumed us, so even the frost of 
 her adversity shall perform the deleterious effects 
 of fire, and burn upon our privileges and our 
 hopes for ever. 
 
 SPEECH
 
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 di o) **JuJ o1 $iii;i ,...; sar.^ 
 lfi o* jrf .v L r :.': /uniff) ^w: ' voif) - 
 
 TfdL ot'ir i.-ila oi 'in '( f -ij i-jff.Joaj/ ;iol 
 iv ;: i/riq 'io 10 e vn,nfiivi'to uoii 
 
 itf'] [ 'idifio oonsbgiii 9flJ dvfio'i oj 
 
 io({ 'io a 
 
 io iaoil srij .i>/) 02 t 
 gj^ofto ^froho ';Li>. ri nno'hon i ' "fl? vjigrr/ 
 bnu eogolivl'i.'i 'mo aoqif i/ind
 
 SPEECH 
 
 JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN, ESQ. 
 
 IN BEHALF OP 
 
 ARCHIBALD HAMILTON ROWAN, ESQ. 
 
 A LIBEL, 
 
 THE COURT OF KING'S B^NCH, 
 
 IRELAND, 
 
 
 
 ON THE 29TH OP JANUARY, 1704.
 
 
 TKKQt 
 
 THAT the reader may better understand several passages 
 of the following speech, an abstract of the information filed 
 by the attorney-general against Mr. Rowan is prefixed. 
 
 :LUT 
 
 t a 'AI. 
 
 At
 
 THE 
 
 SOCIETY 
 
 of 
 
 UNITED IRISHMEN AT DUBLIN, 
 
 to THE 
 
 WILLIAM DRENNAN, CHAIRMAN, 
 ARCHIBALD HAMILTON ROWAN, SECRETARY. 
 
 BE it remembered, that the right honourable 
 Arthur Wolfe, attorney-general of our present 
 sovereign lord the king, gives the court 
 here to understand and be informed, that 
 Archibald Hamilton Rowan, of the city of 
 Dublin, Esq. being a person of a wicked and 
 turbulent disposition, did on the~$ixteenth day 
 of December, in the thirty-third year of the 
 reign of our present sovereign lord George the 
 third, publish a certain false, wicked, mali- 
 cious, scandalous, and seditious libel, that 
 is to say : 
 
 rt Clf IZENS SOLDIERS, 
 
 XOU first took up arms to protect your 
 " country from foreign enemies and from domes- 
 " tic disturbance ; for the same purposes it now 
 
 " become,?
 
 134 
 
 " becomes necessary that you should resume 
 " them; a proclamation has been issued in Eng- 
 " land for embodying the militia, and a pro- 
 " clamation has been issued by the lord lieute- 
 " nant and council in Ireland, for repressing all 
 " seditious associations. In consequence of both 
 " these proclamations it is reasonable to appre- 
 " hend danger from abroad and danger at 
 " home ; from whence but from apprehended 
 " danger are these menacing preparations for 
 " war drawn through the streets of this capital? 
 " from whence, if not to create that internal com- 
 " motion which was not found, to shake that 
 " credit which was not affected, to blast that 
 " volunteer honour which was hitherto inviolate, 
 " are those terrible suggestions afid rumours, and 
 " w r hispers that meet us at every corner, and 
 " agitate at least our old men, our women, and 
 " our children ? whatever be the motive, or from 
 " whatever quarter it arises, alarm has arisen ; 
 " and you, volunteers of Ireland, are therefore 
 " summoned to arms at the instance of govern- 
 " ment, as well as by the responsibility attached 
 " to your character, an4 the : permanent obliga 
 " tions of your institution. We will not at this 
 " day condescend to quote authorities for the 
 " right of having and of using arms, but we will 
 " cry aloud, even amidst the storm raised by the 
 "witchcraft of a proclamation, that to your for- 
 " mation was owing the peace and protection of 
 " this island, to your relaxation has been owing 
 
 "its
 
 135 
 
 " its relapse into impotence and insignificance, 
 " to your renovation must be owing its future 
 " freedom and its present tranquillity : you are 
 " therefore summoned to arms, in order to pre- 
 " serve your country in that guarded quiet which 
 " may secure it from external hostility, and to 
 " maintain that internal regimen throughout the 
 " land, which, superseding a notorious police 
 " or a suspected militia, may preserve the bles- 
 " sings of peace by a vigilant preparation for 
 " war. Citizens soldiers, to arms ! Take up the 
 " shield of freedom and the pledges of peace 
 " peace, the motive and end of your virtuous 
 " institution war, an occasional duty, ought 
 " never to be made an occupation ; every man 
 " should become a soldier in the defence of his 
 " rights ; no man ought to continue a soldier for 
 " offending the rights of others : the sacrifice of 
 " life in the service of our country is a duty much 
 " too honourable to be intrusted to mercenaries ; 
 " and at this time, when your ceyntry has, by 
 " public authority, been declared in danger, we 
 " conjure you by your interest, your duty, and 
 " your glory, to stand to your arms, and in 
 " spite of a police, in spite of a fencible militia, 
 " in virtue of two proclamations, to maintain 
 41 good order in your vicinage, and tranquillity 
 " in Ireland : it is only by the military array of 
 " men in whom they confide, whom they have 
 " been accustomed to revere as the guardians of 
 " domestic peace, the protectors of their liber- 
 
 " tie*
 
 136 
 
 " ties and lives, that the present agitation of the 
 " people can be stilled, that tumult and licenti- 
 " ousness can be repressed, obedience secured 
 " to existing law, and a calm confidence diffused 
 " through the public mind in the speedy resur- 
 " rection of a free constitution, of liberty and 
 " of equality, words which we use for an op- 
 " portunity of repelling calumny, and of saying, 
 " that by liberty we never understood unlimited 
 *' freedom, nor by equality the levelling of 
 " property or the destruction of subordination ; 
 " this is a calumny invented by that faction, 
 " or that gang, which misrepresents the king 
 " ta the people, and the people to the king, 
 *' traduces one half of the nation to cajole the 
 " other, and by keeping up mistrust and division 
 " wishes to continue the proud arbitrators of the 
 " fortune and fate of Ireland : liberty is the exer- 
 " cise of all our rights, natural and political, e- 
 " cured to us and our posterity by a real repre- 
 " sentation of the people ; and equality is the ex- 
 " tension of the constituent to the fullest dimen- 
 " sions of the constitution, of the elective fran- 
 " chise to the whole body of the people, to- 
 " the end that government, which is collective 
 " power, maybe guided by collective will, and that 
 * 4 legislation may originate from public reason, 
 " keep pace with public improvement, and ter- 
 " minate in public happiness. If our constitu- 
 " tion be imperfect, nothing but a reform in 
 " repregeritation will rectify its abuses ; if it be 
 
 " perfect,
 
 " perfect, nothing but the same reform will per- 
 " petuate its blessings. We now address you 
 " as citizens, for to be citizens you became sol- 
 " diers, nor can we help wishing that all soldiers, 
 " partaking the passions and interest of the pea* 
 " pie, would remember, that they were once 
 " citizens, that seduction made them soldiers, but 
 " nature made them men. We address you with- 
 " out any authority save that of reason ; and if 
 " we obtain the coincidence of public opinion* 
 " it is neither by force nor stratagem, for we 
 " have no power to terrify, no artifice to cajole, 
 * e no fund to seduce; here we sit without mace 
 " or beadle, neither a mystery, nor a craft, nor 
 " a corporation ; in four words lies all our power 
 " universal emancipation and representative 
 " legislature yet we are confident, that on the 
 " pivot of this principle, a convention, still less 
 " a society, still less a single man, will be able 
 *' first to move and then to raise the world: we 
 " therefore wish for catholic emancipation with* 
 " out any modification, but still we consider this 
 " necessary enfranchisement as merely the portal 
 " to the temple of national freedom; wide as this 
 " entranceis, wide enough to admit three millions, 
 " it is narrow when compared to the capacity and 
 " comprehension of our beloved principle, which 
 " takes in every individual erf the Irish nation, 
 ** casts an equal eye over the whole island, em- 
 " braces all that think, and feels for all that suffer; 
 14 the catholic cause is subordinate to our cause, 
 
 " and
 
 13S 
 
 *' and included in it; for, as united Irishmen, tve 
 46 adhere to no sect, but to society to no cause, 
 " but Christianity to no party, but the whole 
 *' people. In the sincerity of our souls do we 
 " desire catholic emancipation: but were it ob- 
 " tained to-morrow, to-morrow would we go on 
 " as we do to-day, in the pursuit of that reform, 
 *' which would still be wanting to ratify their 
 *' liberties as well as our own. For both these 
 " purposes it appears necessary that provincial 
 *' conventions should assemble preparatory to the 
 <c convention of the protestant people; the dele- 
 " gates of the catholic body are not justified in 
 " communicating with individuals or even bodies 
 " of inferior authority, and therefore an assem- 
 " bly of a similar nature and organization is ne- 
 " cessary to establish an intercourse of senti- 
 " ments, an uniformity of conduct, an united 
 " cause and an united nation; if a convention on 
 " the one part does not soon follow, and is not 
 "soon connected with that on the other, the 
 " common cause will split into the partial in- 
 " terest, the people will relapse into inattention 
 " and inertness, the union of affection and ex- 
 " ertion, will dissolve, and too probably some 
 * local insurrections, instigated by the malignity 
 " of our common enemy, may commit the cha- 
 " racter, and risque the tranquillity of the island, 
 " which can be obviated only by the influence 
 " of an assernblv arising from, assimilated with 
 
 J O 
 
 " the people, and whose spirit may be, as it 
 
 " were
 
 139 
 
 " were, knit with the soul of the nation: unless 
 ** the sense of the protestant people be on their 
 " part as fairly collected, and as judicially di- 
 " rected, unless individual exertion consolidates 
 " into collective strength, unless the particles 
 " unite into one mass; we may, perhaps, serve 
 " some person or some party for a little, but the 
 " public not at all: the nation is neither insolent, 
 " nor rebellious, nor seditious; while it knows its 
 " rights, it is unwilling to manifest its powers; 
 " it would rather supplicate administration to 
 '* anticipate revolution by well-timed reform, and 
 " to save their country in mercy to themselves* 
 " The fifteenth of February approaches, a day 
 " ever memorable in the annals of the country as 
 44 the birth-day of new Ireland: let parochial 
 " meetings be held as soon as possible, let each 
 " parish return delegates, let the sense of Ulster 
 11 be again declared from Dungannon on a day 
 " auspicious to union, peace, an.d freedom, and 
 " the spirit of the North will again become the 
 " spirit of the nation. The civil assembly ought 
 " to claim the attendance of the military associ- 
 " ations; and we have addressed you, citizens 
 " soldiers, on this subject, from the belief, that 
 " your body, uniting conviction with zeal, and 
 " zeal with activity, may have much influence 
 " over your countrymen, your relations, and 
 " friends. "\Ve offer only a general outline in the 
 " public, and, meaning to address Ireland, pre- 
 ;< sume not at present to fill up the'plan, or pre- 
 
 " occupy
 
 HO 
 
 ** occcpy the mode of its execution. We have 
 " thought it our duty to speak ; answer us by 
 " actions; you have taken time for considera- 
 " tion ; fourteen long years have elapsed since 
 " the rise of your associations; and in 1782 did 
 " you imagine that in 1792 this nation would 
 *' still remain unrepresented? How many nations 
 " in this interval have gotten the start of Ire- 
 " land ? How many of your countrymen have 
 " sunk into the grave?** 
 
 A jury being sworn, the attorney-general 
 stated the case on the part of the crown; the 
 evidence being gone through on both sides, Mr* 
 spoke as follows: 
 
 Gentlemen of the jury. When I consider 
 the period at which this prosecution is brought 
 forward; when I behold the extraordinary safe- 
 guard of armed soldiers resorted to,* no doubt 
 for the preservation of peace and order; when 
 I catch, as I cannot but do, the throb of public 
 anxiety which beats from one end to the ot^ier 
 of this hall; when I reflect on what may be the 
 fate of a man of the most beloved personal cha- 
 racter, of one of the most respected families of* 
 
 * A few moments before Mr. Curran entered into his client's 
 defence, a guard was brought into the court-house by the 
 sheriff. 
 
 our
 
 141 
 
 our country, himself the only individual of that 
 iamily, I may almost say of that country, who 
 can look to that possible fate with unconcern? 
 Feeling as I do all these impressions, it is in the 
 honest simplicity of my heart I speak, when I say, 
 that I never rose in a court of justice with so much 
 embarrassment, as upon this occasion. 
 v/ofrxl ^.mrtrjov :..:") ^-jrumrror, ;:/.: ..::;. s..- 
 If, gentlemen, I could entertain a hope of 
 finding refuge for the disconcertion of my mind 
 in the perfect composure of yours ; if I could 
 suppose that those awful vicissitudes of human 
 events, which have been stated or alluded to, 
 could leave your judgment undisturbed and your 
 hearts at ease, I know I should form a most er- 
 roneous opinion of your character: I entertain 
 no such chimerical hope ; I form no such unwor- 
 thy opinion; I expect not that your hearts can 
 be more at ease than my own; I have no right 
 to expect it; but I have a right to call upon you, 
 in the name of your country, in the name of the 
 living GOD, of whose eternal justice you are now 
 administering that portion, which dwells with us 
 on this side of the grave, to discharge your breasts 
 as far as you are able, of every bias of prejudice 
 or passion ; that if my client be guilty of the of- 
 fence charged upon him, you may give tranquil- 
 lity to the public by a firm verdict of conviction; 
 or, if he be innocent, by as firm a verdict of 
 acquittal; and that you will do this in defiance of 
 the paltry artifices and senseless clamours that 
 
 have
 
 142 
 
 have been resorted to, in order to bring him to 
 his trial with anticipated conviction. And, gen. 
 tlemen, I feel an additional necessity of thus con- 
 juring you to be upon your guard, from the able 
 and imposing statement, which you have just 
 heard on the part of the prosecution. I know 
 well the virtues and talents of the excellent 
 person who conducts that prosecution.* I know 
 how much he would disdain to impose on you by 
 the trappings of office; but I also know how 
 easily we mistake the lodgment which character 
 and eloquence can make upon our feelings, for 
 those impressions that reason and fact and proof 
 only ought to work upon our understandings. 
 .=j ikorn s molt LLsada I on>( 1 ,o?i )frf 
 
 Perhaps, gentlemen, I shall act not unwisely 
 in waving any further observation of this sort, 
 and giving your minds an opportunity of grow- 
 ing cool and resuming themselves, by coming to 
 a calm and uncoloured statement of mere facts, 
 premising only to you, that I have it in strictest 
 injunction from my client, to defend him upon 
 facts and evidence only, and to avail myself of 
 no technical artifice or subtility that could with- 
 draw his cause from the test of that enquiry 
 which it is your province to exercise, and to 
 which only he wishes to be indebted for an ac- 
 quittal. 
 
 - fa " yd i ,10 
 
 In the month of December 1792, Mr. Rowan 
 was arrested on an information, charging him 
 * The late lord Kityardeq, then attorney-general. 
 
 with
 
 143 
 
 with the offence for which he his now on his trial. 
 He was taken before an honourable personage 
 now on that bench, and admitted to bail.* 
 
 He remained a considerable time in this city, 
 soliciting the present prosecution, and offering 
 himself to a fair trial by a jury of his country; 
 but it was not then thought fit to yield to that .so- 
 licitation; nor has it now been thought proper 
 to prosecute him in the ordinary way, by send- 
 ing up a bill of indictment to a grand jury, 
 
 I do not mean by this to say that informations 
 ex officio are always oppressive or unjust; but I 
 cannot but observe to you, that when a petty 
 jury is called upon to try a charge not previous- 
 ly found by the grand inquest, and supported by 
 the naked assertion only of the king's prosecu- 
 tor, that the accusation labours under a weak- 
 ness of probability which it is difficult to assist, 
 If the charge had no cause of dreading the light 
 if it was likely to find the sanction of a grand 
 jury, it is not easy to account why it deserted the 
 more usual, the more popular, and the more con- 
 stitutional mode, and preferred to come forward 
 in the ungracious form of an ex vfficio information. 
 
 If such a bill had been sent up and found, Mr. 
 Rowan would have been tried at the next com- 
 mission; but a speedy trial was not the wish of 
 
 * The honourable justice Downes. 
 
 his
 
 144 
 
 i 
 
 his prosecutors. An information was filed, and 
 when he expected to be tried upon it, an error, 
 it seems, was discovered in the record. Mr. Rowan 
 offered to wave it, or consent to any amendment 
 desired. No that proposal could not be ac- 
 cepted a trial must have followed. That infor- 
 mation, therefore, was withdrawn, and a new 
 one filed: that is, in fact, a third prosecution 
 was instituted upon the same charge. This last 
 was filed on the 8th day of last July. 
 
 Gentlemen, these facts cannot fail of a due 
 impression upon you. You will find a material 
 part of your enquiry must be, whether Mr. 
 Rowan is pursued as a criminal, or hunted down 
 as a victim. It is not, therefore, by insinuation 
 or circuity, but it is boldly and directly that I as- 
 sert, that oppression has been intended and 
 practised upon him, and by those facts which I 
 have stated, I am warranted in the assertion. 
 
 His demand, his entreaty to be tried was re- 
 fused, and why? A hue and cry was to be raised 
 against him ; the sword was to be suspended over 
 his head; some time was necessary for the public 
 mind to become heated by the circulation of art- 
 ful clamours of anarchy and rebellion; these same 
 clamours, which with more probability, but not 
 more success, had been circulated before through 
 England and Scotland. In this country the causes 
 and the swiftness of their progress were as obvi- 
 ous, as their folly has since becomes to every man 
 
 of
 
 145 
 
 of the smallest observation I have been stopped 
 myself, with, " Good God, sir, have you heard 
 the news?" " No, sir; what?' 1 " Why one French 
 emissary was seen travelling through Connaught 
 in a post-chaise, and scattering from the win- 
 dows as he passed little doses of political poison, 
 made up in square bits of paper another was 
 actually surprised in the fact of seducing our good 
 people from their allegiance, by discourses upon 
 the indivisibility of French robbery and massacre, 
 which he preached in the French language to a 
 congregation of Irish peasants." 
 
 Such are the bugbears and spectres to be raised 
 to warrant the sacrifice of whatever little public 
 spirit may remain amongst us. But time has also 
 detected the imposture of these Cock-lane appa- 
 ritions, and you cannot now, with your eyes 
 open, give a verdict without asking your con- 
 sciences this question j is this a fair and honest 
 prosecution? is it brought forward with the 
 single view of vindicating public^ justice, and 
 promoting public good ? And here let me remind 
 you, that you are not convened to try the guilt 
 of a libel, affecting the personal character of any 
 private man: I know no case in which a jury 
 ought to be more severe, than where personal 
 calumny is conveyed through a vehicle, which 
 ought to be consecrated to public information ; 
 neither, on the other hand, can I conceive any 
 case in which the firmness and the caution of a 
 jury should be more exerted, than when a subject
 
 is prosecuted for a libel on the state. The pecu- 
 liarity of the British constitution, (to which in ite 
 fullest extent we have an undoubted right, how- 
 ever distant we may be from the actual enjoy- 
 ment) and in which it surpasses every known 
 government in Europe, is this ; that its only pro- 
 fessed object is the general good, and its only 
 foundation the general will; hence the people have 
 a right acknowledged from time immemorial, 
 fortified by at pile of statutes, and authenticated 
 by a revolution that speaks louder than them 
 all, to see whether abuses have been committed, 
 and whether their properties and their liberties 
 have been attended to as they ought to be. 
 
 This is a kind of subject which I feel myself 
 overawed when I approach; there are certain 
 fundamental principles which nothing but neces- 
 sity should expose to public examination ; they 
 are pillars, the depth of whose foundation you 
 cannot explore without endangering their 
 strength ; but let it be recollected that the dis- 
 cussion of such topics should not be condemned 
 in me, nor visited upon my client : the blame, if 
 any there be, should rest only with those who 
 have forced them into discussion. I.say, there- 
 fore, it is the right of the people to keep an eternal 
 watch upon the conduct of their rulers ; and in 
 order to that, the freedom of the press has been 
 cherished by the law of England. In private 
 defamation let it never be tolerated ; in wicked 
 ami wanton aspersion upon a good and honest 
 
 administration
 
 147 
 
 administration let it never be supported. Not 
 that a good government can be exposed to dan- 
 ger by groundless accusation, but because a bad 
 government is sure to find in the detected false- 
 hood of a licentious press a security and a credit, 
 which it could never otherwise obtain* 
 
 I said a good government cannot be endanger- 
 ed ; I say so again, for whether it is good or bad, 
 it can never depend upon assertion : the question 
 is decided by simple inspection : to try the tree 
 look at its fruit ; to judge of the government look 
 at the people. What is the fruit of a good govern- 
 ment ? The virtue and happiness of the people. 
 Do four millions of people in this country gather 
 those fruits from that government, to whose 
 injured purity, to whose spotless virtue and vio- 
 lated honour, this seditious and atrocious libeller 
 is to be immolated upon the altar of the consti- 
 tution? To you, gentlemen of the jury, who are 
 bound by the most sacred obligation to your 
 country and your God, to speak nothing but the 
 truth, I put the question Do the people of this 
 country gather those fruits ? Are they orderly, 
 industrious, religious, and contented ? Do you 
 find them free from bigotry and ignorance, those 
 inseparable concomitants of systematic oppres- 
 sion ? Or, to try them by a test as unerring as 
 any of the former, are they united ? The period 
 has now elapsed in which considerations of this 
 extent would have been deemed improper to a 
 jury 5 happily for those countries, the legislature 
 
 JL 2 Of
 
 of each lias lately changed, or, perhaps to speak 
 more properly, revived and restored the law re- 
 specting trials of this kind. For the space of 
 thirty or forty years a usage had prevailed in 
 Westminster-hall, by which the judges assumed 
 to themselves the decision of the question, whether 
 libel or not ; but the learned counsel for the 
 prosecution are now obliged to admit that this is 
 a question for the jury only to decide. You will 
 naturally listen with respect to the opinion of the 
 court, but you will receive it as a matter of 
 advice, not as a matter of law ; and you will give 
 it credit, not from any adventitious circumstances 
 of authority, but merely so far as it meets the 
 concurrence of your own understandings. 
 
 Give me leave now to state to you the charge, 
 as it stands upon the record : It is, " that Mr. 
 " Rowan, being a person of a wicked and turbu- 
 " lent disposition, and maliciously designing and 
 " intending to excite and diffuse among the sub- 
 " jects of this realm of Ireland, discontents, jea- 
 " lousies and suspicions of our lord the king and 
 " his government, and disaffection and disloyalty 
 " to the person and government of our said lord 
 " the king, and to raise very dangerous seditions 
 " and tumults within this kingdom of Ireland, 
 " and to draw the government of this kingdom 
 " into great scandal, infamy and disgrace, and 
 " to incite the subjects of our said lord the king 
 " to attempt, by force and violence, and with 
 " arms, to make alterations in the government, 
 
 " state
 
 " state, and constitution of this kingdom, and to 
 " incite his majesty's said subjects to tumult and 
 " anarchy, and to overturn the established con- 
 " stitution of this kingdom, and to overawe and 
 " intimidate the legislature of this kingdom by 
 " an armed force ;" did " maliciously and sedi- 
 '* tiously" publish the paper in question. 
 
 Gentlemen, without any observation of mine, 
 you must see that this information contains a 
 direct charge upon Mr. Rowan ; namely, that he 
 did, with the intents set forth in the information, 
 publish this paper ; so that here you have in fact 
 two or three questions for your decision : First, 
 the matter of fact of the publication ; namely, 
 did Mr. Rowan publish that paper? If Mr. Rowan 
 did not in fact publish that paper, you have no ' 
 longer any question on which to employ your 
 minds : if you think that he was in fact the 
 publisher, then and not till then arises the great 
 and important subject to which your judgments 
 must be directed. And that coifies shortly and 
 simply to this : Is the paper a libel ? and did he 
 publish it with the intent charged in the informa- 
 tion? For whatever you may think of the 
 abstract question, whether the paper be libellous 
 or not, ami of which paper it has not even been 
 insinuated that he is the author, there can be 
 no ground for a verdict against him, unless you 
 also are persuaded that what he did was done, 
 with a criminal dcsisrn. 
 
 o 
 
 I wish, gentlemen, to simplify and not to per- 
 plex ;
 
 150 
 
 plex ; I therefore say again, if these three cir- 
 cumstances conspire, that he published it that 
 it was a libel rand that it was published with 
 the purposes alleged in the information, you 
 ought unquestionably to find him guilty : if on 
 the other hand, you do not find that all these 
 circumstances concurred ; if you cannot upon 
 your oaths say that he published it ; if it be 
 not in your opinion a libel ; and if he did not 
 publish it with the intention alleged : I say, 
 upon the failure of any one of these points, my 
 client is entitled, in justice, and upon your 
 oaths, to a verdict of acquittal. 
 
 -' '. /I'': ' V- <T*. . 
 
 Gentlemen, Mr .Attorney-general has thought 
 proper to direct your attention to the state and 
 circumstances of public affairs at the time of this 
 transaction ; let me also make a few retrospective 
 observations on a period, at which he has but 
 slightly glanced ; I speak of th events which 
 took place before the close of the American war. 
 
 You know, gentlemen, that France had 
 espoused the cause of America, and we became 
 thereby engaged in a war with that nation. 
 
 Heu nescia mens hominiimfuturt / 
 
 Little did that ill-fated monarch know that he 
 was forming the first causes of those disastrous 
 events, that were to end in the subversion of his 
 throne, in the slaughter of his family, and the 
 deluging of his country with the blood of his 
 
 people
 
 151 
 
 people. You cannot but remember that, at a 
 time when we had scarcely a regular soldier for 
 our defence; when the old and young were alarm- 
 ed and terrified with apprehensions of descent 
 upon our coasts; that Providence seemed to have 
 worked a sort of miracle in our favour. You saw 
 a band of armed men come forth at the great 
 call of nature, of honour, and their country. You 
 saw men of the greatest wealth and rank; you 
 saw every class of the community give up its 
 members, and send them armed into the field, to 
 protect the public and private tranquillity of Ire- 
 land. It is impossible for any man to turn back 
 to that period, without reviving those sentiments 
 of tenderness and gratitude, which then beat in 
 the public bosom: to recollect amidst what ap- 
 plause, what tears, what prayers, what benedic- 
 tions, they walked forth amongst spectators, agi- 
 tated by the mingled sensations of terror and of 
 reliance, of danger and of protection, imploring 
 the blessings of heaven upon their heads, and its 
 conquest upon their swords. That illustrious, 
 and adored, and abused body of men stood for- 
 ward and assumed the title, which, I trust, the 
 ingratitude of their country will never blot from 
 its history, " THE VOLUNTEERS OF IRELAND." 
 
 Give me leave now, with great respect, to put 
 this question to you: Do you think the assemb- 
 ling of that glorious band of patriots was an in- 
 surrection? do you think the invitation to that as- 
 sembling would have been sedition? they came 
 
 under
 
 152 
 
 under no commission but the call of their coun- 
 try; unauthorized and unsanctioned, except by 
 public emergency and public danger. I ask was 
 that meeting insurrection or not? I put another 
 question : If any man then had published a call 
 on that body, and stated that war was declared 
 against the state; that the regular troops were 
 withdrawn; that our coasts were hovered round 
 by the ships of the enemy; that the moment was 
 approaching, when the unprotected feebleness of 
 age and sex, when the sanctity of habitation 
 would be disregarded and profaned by the brutal 
 ferocity of a rude invader; if any man had then 
 said to them, " Leave your industry for a while, 
 " that you may return to it again, and come forth 
 " in arms for the public defence." I put the 
 question boldly to you It is not the case of the 
 volunteers of that day ; it is the case of my client 
 at this hour, which I put to you Would that 
 call have been then pronounced in a court of 
 justice, or by a jury on their oaths, a criminal and 
 seditious invitation to insurrection? If it would 
 not have been so then, upon what principle can 
 it be so now? What is the force and perfection of 
 the law? It is the permanency of the law; it is, 
 that whenever the fact is the same, the law is also 
 the same; it is, that the law remains a written, 
 monumented and recorded letter, to pronounce 
 the same decision, upon the same facts whenever 
 they shall arise. I will not affect to conceal it: you 
 know there has been artful, ungrateful, and blas- 
 phemous clamour raised against these illustrious 
 
 characters,
 
 153 
 
 characters, the saviours of the kingdom of Ire- 
 land. Having mentioned this, let me read a few 
 words of the paper alleged to be criminal. " You 
 *' first took up arms to protect your country from 
 " foreign enemies, and from domestic disturb- 
 " ance. For the same purposes it now becomes 
 " necessary that you should resume them," 
 
 I should be the last man in the world to im- 
 pute any want of candour to the right honour- 
 able gentleman, who has stated the case on behalf 
 of the prosecution: but he has certainly fallen 
 into a mistake, which, if not explained, might be 
 highly injurious to my client. He supposed that 
 this publication was not addressed to those an- 
 cient volunteers, but to new combinations of 
 them, formed upon new principles, and actuated 
 by different motives. You have the words to 
 which this construction is imputed upon the re- 
 cord ; the meaning of his mind can be collected 
 only from those words which he has made use of 
 to convey it. The guilt imputable to him can 
 only be inferred from the meaning ascribable to 
 those words. Let his meaning then be fairly col- 
 lected by resorting to them. Is there a foun- 
 dation to suppose that this address was directed 
 to any such body of men, as has been called a 
 banditti, (with what justice it is unnecessary to 
 inquire,) and not to the old volunteers? 
 
 As to the sneer at the words citizens soldiers, I 
 should feel that I was treating a very respected 
 
 friend
 
 154 
 
 friend with an insidious and unmerited unkind- 
 ness, if I affected to expose it by any gravity of 
 refutation. I may, however, be permitted to ob- 
 serve, that those who are supposed to have dis- 
 graced this expression by adopting it, have taken 
 it from the idea of the British constitution, " that 
 " no man in becoming a soldier ceases to be a 
 " citizen." Would to God, all enemies as they 
 are, that that unfortunate people had borrowed 
 more from that sacred source of liberty and vir- 
 tue j and would to God, for the sake of humani- 
 ty, that they had preserved even the little they 
 did borrow I If ever there could be an objection 
 to that appellation, it must have been strongest 
 when it was first assumed.* To that period the 
 writer manifestly alludes; he addresses " those 
 " who first took up arms:" " You first took up 
 " arms to protect your country from foreign ene- 
 " mies and from domestic disturbance. For the 
 " same purposes it now becomes necessary that 
 " you should resume them." Is this applicable 
 to those who had never taken up arms before ? 
 ** A proclamation," says this paper, " has been 
 *' issued in England for embodying the militia, 
 " and a proclamation has been issued by the lord 
 " lieutenant and council of Ireland, for repress* 
 " ing all seditious associations. In consequence 
 " of both these proclamations, it is reasonable 
 " to apprehend danger from abroad, and danger 
 * at home." God help us, from the situation of 
 
 * In the resolutions and addresses of the old volunteers, at 
 and prior to 1?83, the terms citizens soldiers, and citizen sol- 
 diery , \jere uo uncommon appellations. 
 
 Europe
 
 155 
 
 Europe at that time; we were threatened with 
 too probable danger from abroad, and I am afraid 
 it was not without foundation we were told of 
 our having something to dread at home. 
 
 I find much abuse has been lavished on the 
 disrespect with which the proclamation is treat- 
 ed, in that part of the paper alleged to be a libel. 
 To that my answer for my client is short : I do 
 conceive it competent to a British subject if he 
 thinks that a proclamation has issued for the pur- 
 pose of raising false terrors; I hold it to be not 
 only the privilege, but the duty of a citizen, to 
 set his countrymen right, with respect to such 
 misrepresented danger; and until a proclamation 
 in this country shall have the force of law, the 
 reason and grounds of it are surely at least ques- 
 tionable by the people. Nay, I will go farther, 
 if an actual law had passed, receivin^ihe sanc- 
 tion of the three estates, if it be exceptionable 
 in any matter, it is warrantable to any man in 
 the community to state, in a becoming manner, 
 his ideas upon it. And I should be at a loss to 
 know, n the positive laws of Great Britain are 
 thus questionable, upon what grounds the pro- 
 clamation of an Irish government should not be 
 open to the animadversion of Irish subjects. 
 
 " Whatever be the motive, or from what- 
 " ever quarter it arises," says this paper, " alarm 
 ' has arisen." Gentlemen, do you not know that 
 to be fact? It has been stated by the attorney- 
 general
 
 156 
 
 general, and most truly, that the most gloomy ap- 
 prehensions were entertained by the whole coun- 
 try. " You volunteers of Ireland are therefore 
 " summoned to arms at the instance of govern- 
 
 o 
 
 " ment, as well as by the responsibility attached 
 " to your character, and the permanent obliga- 
 *' tions of your institution." I am free to con- 
 fess, if any man, assuming the liberties of a Bri- 
 tish subject to question public topics, should, 
 under the mask of that privilege, publish a pro- 
 clamation inviting the profligate and seditious, 
 those in want, and those in despair, to rise up 
 in arms to overawe the legislature, to rob us of 
 whatever portion of the blessing of a free govern- 
 ment we possess; I know of no offence involving 
 greater enormity. But that, gentlemen, is the 
 question you are to try. If my client acted with 
 an honest mind and fair intention, and having, 
 as he believed, the auihority of government to 
 support him in the idea that danger was to be 
 apprehended, did apply to that body of so known 
 and so revered a character, calling upon them 
 by their former honour, the principles of their 
 glorious institution, and the great stake tn ey pos- 
 sessed in their country: if he interposed, not 
 upon a fictitious pretext, but a real belief of ac- 
 tual and imminent danger, and that their arming 
 at that critical moment was necessary to the 
 safety of their country; his intention was not 
 only innocent, but highly meritorious. It is a 
 question, gentlemen, upon which you only can 
 decide; it is for you to say, whether it was cri- 
 minal
 
 157 
 
 minal in the defendant to be misled, and whe- 
 ther he is to fall a sacrifice to the prosecution of 
 that government by which he was so deceived. I 
 say again, gentlemen, you can look only to his 
 words as the interpreters of his meaning; and to 
 the state and circumstances of his country, as 
 he was made to believe them, as the clue to his 
 intention. The case then, gentlemen, is shortly 
 and simply this : a man of the first family, and 
 fortune, and character, and property among you, 
 reads a proclamation, stating the country to be 
 in danger from abroad and at home; and thus 
 alarmed thus upon the authority of the prose- 
 cutor alarmed, applies to that august body, be- 
 fore whose awful presence sedition must vanish 
 and insurrection disappear. You must surrender 
 I hesitate not to sav, vour oaths to unfounded 
 
 > 7 v 
 
 assertion, if you can submit to say, that such an 
 act, of such a man, so warranted, is a wicked 
 and seditious libel. If he was a dupe, let me ask 
 you, who was the impostor? I blush and shrink 
 with shame and detestation from that meanness 
 of dupery and servile complaisance, which could 
 make that dupe a victim to the accusation of 
 impostor. 
 
 You perceive, gentlemen, that I am going into 
 the merits of this publication, before I apply my- 
 self to the question which is first in order of time, 
 namely, whether the publication in point of fact, 
 is to be ascribed to Mr. Rowan or not. I have 
 been unintentionally led into this violation of or- 
 der
 
 158 
 
 der. I should effect no purpose of either brevity 
 or clearness, by returning to the more methodi- 
 cal course of observation. I have been natural- 
 ly drawn from it by the superior importance of 
 the topic I am upon, namely, the merit of the 
 publication in question. 
 
 This publication, if ascribed at all to Mr. Row- 
 an, contains four distinct subjects: the first, the 
 invitation to the volunteers to arm; upon that I 
 have already observe*!: but those that remain are 
 surely of much importance, and no doubt are 
 prosecuted as equally criminal. The paper next 
 states the necessity of a reform in parliament: it 
 states, thirdly, the necessity of an emancipation 
 of the catholic inhabitants of Ireland; and as ne- 
 cessary to the atchievement of all these objects, 
 does, fourthly, state the necessity of a general 
 delegated convention of the people. 
 
 It has been alleged that Mr. Rowan intended 
 by this publication to excite the subjects of this 
 country to effect an alteration in the form of your 
 constitution. And, here, gentlemen, perhaps, you 
 may not be unwilling to follow a little farther than 
 Mr. Attorney-general has done the idea of a late 
 prosecution in Great Britain upon the subject of 
 a public libel. It is with peculiar fondness I look 
 to that country for solid principles of constitu- 
 tional liberty and judicial example. You have 
 been pressed in no small degree with the manner 
 in which this publication marks the different orders 
 
 of
 
 159 
 
 of our constitution, and comments upon them. 
 Let me shew you what boldness of animadversion 
 on such topics is thought justifiable in the British 
 nation, and by a British jury. I have in my hand 
 the report of the trial of the printers of the Morn- 
 ing Chronicle, for a supposed libel against the 
 state, and of their acquittal: let me read to 
 you some passages from that publication, which 
 a jury of Englishmen were in vain called upon 
 to brand with the name of libel. 
 
 " Claiming it as our indefeisible right to asso* 
 ** ciate together, in a peaceable and friendly man- 
 " ner, for the communication of thoughts, the 
 " formation of opinions, and to promote the ge- 
 " neral happiness, we think it unnecessary to offer 
 " any apology for inviting you to join us in this 
 " manly and benevolent pursuit; the necessity of 
 " the inhabitants of every community endeavour- 
 " ing to procure a true knowledge of their rights, 
 " their duties, and their interests, will not be 
 " denied, except by those who are the slaves of 
 " prejudice, or interested in the continuation 
 ** of abuses. As men who wish to aspire to the 
 " title of freemen, we totally deny the wisdom 
 " and the humanity of the advice, to approach. 
 ** the defects of government with * pious awe and 
 " trembling solicitude.' What better doctrine 
 " could the pope or the tyrants of Europe desire? 
 " We think, therefore, that the cause of truth and 
 "justice can never be hurt by temperate and 
 " honest discussions; and that cause which will 
 
 <; not
 
 160 
 
 " not bear such a scrutiny 4imst be systematic 
 " caliy or practically bad. We are sensible 
 " that those who are not friends to the general 
 " good have attempted to inflame the public 
 " mind with the cry of * Danger,' whenever men 
 " have associated for discussing the principles of 
 " government; and we have little doubt but such 
 " conduct will be pursued in this place ; we would 
 " therefore caution every honest man, who has 
 " really the welfare of the nation at heart, to 
 " avoid being led away by the prostituted cla- 
 " mours of those who live on the sources of cor- 
 *' ruption. We pity the fears of the timorous, 
 *' and we are totally unconcerned respecting the 
 *' false alarms of the venaL 
 
 " We view with concern the frequency of 
 
 *' wars. We are persuaded that the interests of 
 
 "" the poor can never be promoted by accession of 
 
 '" territory, when bought at the expence of their 
 
 " labour and blood; and we must say, in the lan- 
 
 " guage of a celebrated author * We, who are 
 
 '"'only the people, but who pay for wars with our 
 
 ** substance and our blood, will not cease to tell 
 
 " kings,' or governments, ' that to them alone 
 
 " wars are profitable; that the true and just con- 
 
 " quests are those which each makes at home, by. 
 
 " comforting the peasantry, by promoting agri- 
 
 " culture and manufactories, by multiplying men 
 
 " and the other productions of nature; that then it 
 
 " is that kings may call themselves the image of 
 
 "God
 
 161 
 
 " God, whose will is perpetually directed to the 
 " creation of new beings. If they continue to 
 " make us fight and kill one another in uniform, 
 '* we will continue to write and speak, until na- 
 " tions shall be cured of this folly.' We are cer- 
 " tain our present heavy burthens are owing, in 
 " a great measure, to cruel and impolitic wars, 
 *' and therefore we will do all on our part, as 
 " peaceable citizens who have the good of the 
 '* community at heart, to enlighten each other, 
 " and protest against them. 
 
 ** The present state of the representation of 
 " the people calls for the particular attention of 
 " every man who has humanity sufficient to feel 
 " for the honour and happiness of his country; 
 " to the defects and corruptions of which we are 
 " inclined to attribute unnecessary wars, &c. &c. 
 " We think it a deplorable case when the poor 
 " must support a corruption which is calculated 
 " to oppress them ; when the labourer must give 
 " his money to afford the means of preventing 
 " him having a voice in its disposal; when the 
 " lower classes may say, We give you our 
 " money, for which we have toiled and sweat, and 
 " which would save our families from cold and 
 " hunger; but we think it more hard that there 
 " is nobody whom we have delegated, to see that 
 " it is not improperly and wickedly spent; we 
 " have none to watch over our interests ; the 
 " rich only are represented." 
 
 M " An
 
 162 
 
 -r" An equal and uncorrupt representation 
 " would, we are persuaded, save us from heavy 
 " expences, and deliver us from many oppres- 
 " sions; we will therefore do our duty to pro- 
 " cure this reform, which appears to us of the 
 " utmost importance. 
 
 "In short, we see, with the most lively con- 
 " cern, an army of placemen, pensioners. &c. 
 " fighting in the cause of corruption and preju- 
 " dice, and spreading the contagion far and 
 *' wide. 
 
 " We see with equal sensibility the present 
 " outcry against reforms, and a proclamation 
 " (tending to cramp the liberty of the press, and 
 " discredit the true friends of the people), re- 
 " ceiving the support of numbers of our country. 
 * men. 
 
 " We see burthens multiplied the lower 
 classes sinking into poverty, disgrace, and ex- 
 cesses, and the means of those ? shocking 
 abuses increased for the purposes of revenue. 
 
 " We ask ourselves * Are we in England?' 
 " Have our forefathers fought, bled, and con- 
 " quered for liberty? And did they not think that 
 " the fruits of their patriotism would be more 
 " abundant in peace, plenty, and happiness ? 
 
 " Is the condition of the poor never to be 
 improved? Great Britain must have arrived at 
 
 " the
 
 163 
 
 " the highest degree of national happiness and 
 " prosperity, and our situation must be too good 
 "to be mended, or the present outcry against 
 * c reforms and improvements is inhuman and cri* 
 " minal. But we hope our condition will be 
 " speedily improved, and to obtain so desirable 
 " a good is the object our present association : 
 " an union founded on principles of benevolence 
 " and humanity ; disclaiming all connexion 
 " with riots and disorder, but firm in our pur- 
 " pose, and warm in our affections for liberty. 
 
 " Lastly We invite the friends of freedom 
 <c throughout Great Britain to form similar socie- 
 " ties, and to act with unanimity and firmness, 
 " till the people be too wise to be imposed upon; 
 * and their influence in the government be com- 
 " mensurate with their dignity and importance: 
 
 " THEN SHALL WE BE FREE AND HAPPY." 
 
 J 
 
 Such, gentlemen, is the language which a sub- 
 ject of Great Britain thinks himself warranted to 
 hold, and upon such language has the corrobo- 
 rating sanction of a British jury been stamped by 
 a verdict of acquittal. Such was the honest and 
 manly freedom of publication, in a country too 
 where the complaint of abuses has not half the 
 foundation it has here. I said I loved to look to 
 England for principles of judicial example; I 
 cannot but say to you that it depends on your 
 spirit, whether I shall look to it hereafter with 
 M 2 sympathy
 
 164 
 
 sympathy or with shame. Be pleased, now. 
 gentlemen, to consider whether the statement 
 of the imperfection in your representation has 
 been made with a desire of inflaming an attack 
 upon the public tranquillity, or with an honest 
 purpose of procuring a remedy for an actually 
 existing grievance. 
 
 It is impossible not to revert to the situation 
 of the times; and let me remind you, that what- 
 ever observations of this kind I am compelled 
 thus to make in a court of justice, the uttering 
 of them in this place is not imputable to my 
 client, but to the necessity of defence imposed 
 upon him by this extraordinary prosecution. 
 
 ^, Gentlemen, the representation of our people is 
 the vital principle of their political existence ; 
 without it they are dead, or they live only to ser- 
 vitude; without it there are two estates acting 
 upon and against the third, instead of acting in 
 co-operation with it ; without it, if the people are 
 oppressed by their judges, where is the tribunal 
 to which their judges can be amenable? without, 
 it, if they are trampled upon and plundered by 
 a minister, where is the tribunal to which the 
 offender shall be amenable ? without it, where is 
 the ear to hear, or the heart to feel, or the hand 
 
 ^j, to redress their sufferings? Shall they be found, 
 lot me ask you, in the accursed bands of imps 
 and minions that bask in their disgrace, and 
 fatten upon their spoils, and flourish upon their 
 
 ruin?
 
 165 
 
 ruin? But let me not put this to you as a merely 
 speculative question. It is a plain question of 
 fact: rely upon it, physical man is every where 
 the same ; it is only the various operation of 
 moral causes that gives variety to the social or 
 individual character and condition. How other- 
 wise happens it, that modern slavery looks quiet- 
 ly at the despot, on the very spot where Leo- 
 nidas expired? The answer is, Sparta has not 
 changed her climate, but she has lost that go- 
 vernment, which her liberty could not survive. 
 
 I call you, therefore, to the plain question of 
 fact. This paper recommends a reform in par- 
 liament: I put that question to your consciences; 
 do you think it needs that reform? I put it boldly 
 and fairly to you, do you think the people of Ire- 
 land are represented as they ought to be? Do 
 you hesitate for an answer? If you do, let me re- 
 mind you, that until the last year three millions of 
 your countrymen have by the Express letter of 
 the law been excluded from the reality of actual, 
 and even from the phantom of virtual represen- 
 tation. Shall we then be told that this is only the 
 affirmation of a wicked and seditious incendiary? 
 If you do not feel the mockery of such a charge, 
 look at your country; in what state do you find 
 it? Is it in a state of tranquillity and general sa- 
 tisfaction? These are traces by which good are 
 ever to be distinguished from bad governments, 
 without any very minute enquiry or speculative 
 refinement. Do you feel that a veneration for 
 
 the
 
 166 
 
 the law, a pious and humble attachment to the 
 constitution, form the political morality of your 
 people? Do you find that comfort and compe- 
 tency among your people, which are always to 
 be found where a government is mild and mo- 
 derate ; where taxes are imposed by a body, who 
 have an interest in treating the poorer orders 
 with compassion, and preventing the weight of 
 taxation from pressing sore upon them? 
 
 Gentlemen, I mean not to impeach the state 
 of your representation, I am not saying that it is 
 defective, orthatitoughttobealtered oramended; 
 nor is this a place for me to say, whether I think 
 that three millions of the inhabitants of a country, 
 whose whole number is but four, ought to be ad- 
 mitted to any efficient situation in the state. It 
 may be said, and truly, that these are not questions 
 for either of us directly to decide ; but you can- 
 not refuse them some passing consideration at 
 least; when you remember that on this subject 
 the real question for your decision is, whether 
 the allegation of a defect in your constitution is 
 so utterly unfounded and false, that you can as- 
 cribe it only to the malice and perverseness of a 
 wicked mind, and not to the innocent mistake of 
 an ordinary understanding; whether it may not 
 be mistake; whether it can be only sedition. 
 
 And here, gentlemen,' I own I cannot but 
 regret, that one of our countrymen should be 
 criminally pursued for asserting the necessity of 
 
 a reform,
 
 167 
 
 areform, at the very moment, when that neces- 
 sity seems admitted by the parliament itself; that 
 this unhappy reform shall at the same moment 
 be a subject of legislative discussion, and crimi- 
 nal prosecution. Far am I from imputing any 
 sinister design to the virtue or wisdom of our 
 government; but who can avoid feeling the de- 
 plorable impression that must be made on the 
 public mind, when the demand for that reform 
 is answered by a criminal information! 
 
 I am the more forcibly impressed by this con- 
 sideration, when I consider, that when this infor- 
 mation was first put on the file, the subject was 
 transiently mentioned in the house of commons. 
 Some circumstances retarded the progress of the 
 inquiry there, and the progress of the informa- 
 tion was equally retarded here. On the first day of 
 this session, you all know, that subject was again 
 brought forward in the house of commons, and, as 
 if they had slept together, this prosecution was 
 also revived in the court of king's-bench; and that 
 before a jury, taken from a pannel partly com- 
 posed of those very members of parliament, who, 
 in the house of commons, must debate upon this 
 subject as a measure of public advantage, which 
 they are here called upon to consider as a public 
 crime.* 
 
 This paper, gentlemen, insists upon the neces- 
 sity of emancipating the catholics of Ireland, and 
 
 * Among the n^racs on the pannel were several members of 
 parliament, 
 
 thai
 
 168 
 
 that is charged as part of the libel. If they 
 had waited another year, if they had kept this 
 prosecution impending for another year, how 
 much would remain for a jury to decide upon, I 
 should be at a loss to discover. It seems as if 
 the progress of public information was eating 
 away the ground of the prosecution. Since the 
 commencement of the prosecution, this part of 
 the libel has unluckily received the sanction of 
 the legislature. In that interval our catholic 
 brethren have obtained that admission, which it 
 seems it was a libel to propose ; in what way -to 
 account for this, I am really at a loss. Have 
 any alarms been occasioned by the emancipation 
 of our catholic brethren? has the bigoted malig- 
 nity of any individuals been crushed? or has the 
 stability of the government, or that of the coun- 
 try been weakened; or is one million of subjects 
 stronger than four millions? Do you think that 
 the benefit they received should be poisoned by 
 the sting of vengeance? If you think so, you 
 must say to them, " you have demanded eman- 
 " cipation and you have got it ; but we abhor 
 " your persons, we are outraged at your success 
 " and we will stigmatize by a criminal prosecu- 
 " tion the adviser of that relief which you have 
 " obtained from the voice of your country." I 
 ask you, do you think, as honest men, anxious 
 for the public tranquillity, conscious that there 
 are wounds not yet completely cicatrized, that 
 you ought to speak this language at this time, 
 to men who are too much disposed to think that 
 in this very emancipation they have been saved 
 
 from
 
 169 
 
 from their own parliament by the humanity of 
 their sovereign? Or do you wish to prepare 
 them for the revocation of these improvident 
 concessions? Do you think it wise or humane at 
 this moment to insult them, by sticking up in a 
 pillory the man who dared to stand forth as their 
 advocate? I put it to your oaths; do you think, 
 that a blessing of that kind, that a victory ob- 
 tained by justice over bigotry and oppression, 
 should have a stigma cast upon it by an igno- 
 minious sentence upon men bold and honest 
 enough to propose that measure? to propose the 
 redeeming of religion from the abuses of the 
 church, the reclaiming of three millions of men 
 from bondage, and giving liberty to all who had 
 a right to demand it; giving, I say, in the so 
 much censured words of this paper, giving 
 "UNIVERSAL EMANCIPATION !" I speak 
 in the spirit of the British law, which makes li- 
 berty commensurate with and inseparable from 
 British soil; which proclaims even to the stranger 
 and sojourner, the moment he sets his foot upon 
 British earth, that the ground on which he treads 
 is holy, and consecrated by the Genius of UNI- 
 VERSAL EMANCIPATION. No matter in 
 what language his doom may have been pro- 
 nounced; no matter what complexion incom- 
 patible with freedom, an Indian or an African 
 sun may have burnt upon him; no matter in 
 what disastrous battle his liberty may have been 
 cloven down; no matter with what solemnities 
 he may have been devoted upon the altar of sla- 
 very ;
 
 170 ' 
 
 very; the first moment he touches the sacred 
 soil of Britain, the altar and the god sink toge- 
 ther in the dust; his soul walks abroad in her 
 own majesty ; his body swells beyond the mea- 
 sure of his chains, that burst from around him, 
 and he stands redeemed, regenerated, and dis- 
 enthralled, by the irresistible Genius of UNI- 
 VERSAL EMANCIPATION. 
 
 [Here Mr. Curran was interrupted by a sudden 
 burst of applause from the court and hall, which 
 was repeated for a considerable length of time; 
 silence being at length restored, he proceeded.^ 
 
 i^v; 1 ,jfc.';-:ji.. Rnf'p'i ; '?r-"'.r > r <!: utf 
 
 Gentlemen, I am not such a fool, as to as- 
 cribe any effusion of this sort to any merit of 
 mine. It is the mighty theme, and not the in- 
 considerable advocate, that can excite interest 
 in the hearer! What you hear is but the testi- 
 mony which nature bears to her own character ; 
 it is the effusion of her gratitude to that power, 
 which stampt that character upon her. 
 
 And, permit me to say, that if my client 
 had occasion to defend his cause by any mad or 
 drunken appeals to extravagance or licentious- 
 ness, I trust in God I stand in that situation, that, 
 humble as I am, he would not have resorted to 
 me to be his advocate. I was not recommended 
 to his choice by any connection of principle or 
 party, or even private friendship; and saying 
 this, I cannot but add, that I consider not to be 
 
 acquainted
 
 171 
 
 acquainted with such a man as Mr. Rowan, a 
 want of personal good fortune. But upon this 
 great subject of reform and emancipation, there 
 is a latitude and boldness of remark, justifiable 
 in the people, and necessary to the defence of 
 Mr. Rowan, for which the habits of professional 
 studies, and technical adherence to established 
 forms, have rendered me unfit. It is however 
 my duty, standing here as his advocate, to make 
 some few observations to yeu, which I conceive 
 to be material. 
 
 Gentlemen, you are sitting in a country which 
 has a light to the British constitution, and which 
 is bound by an indissoluble union with the Bri- 
 tish nation. If you were now even at liberty 
 to debate upon that subject; if you even were 
 not by the most solemn compacts, founded upon 
 the authority of your ancestors and of yourselves, 
 bound to that alliance, and had an election now 
 to make j in the present unhappy state of Eu- 
 rope, if you had been heretofore a stranger to 
 Great Britain, you would now say, we will en 
 ter into society and union with you; 
 
 Unasalus ambobus erit, commune periculum. 
 
 But to accomplish that union, let me tell you, 
 you must learn to become like the English peo- 
 ple. It is vain to say, you will protect their 
 freedom, if you abandon your own. The pillar 
 whose base has no foundation, can give no sup- 
 port
 
 172 
 
 port to the dome under which its head is placed; 
 and if you profess to give England that assistance 
 which you refuse to yourselves, she will laugh at 
 your folly, and despise your meanness and insin- 
 cerity. Let us follow this a little further, I know 
 you will interpret what I say with the candour in 
 which it is spoken. England is marked by a na- 
 tural avarice of freedom, which she is studious to 
 engross and accumulate, but most unwilling to 
 impart; whether from any necessity of her po- 
 licy, or from her weakness, or from her pride, 
 I will not presume to say, but so is the fact; 
 you need not look to the east, nor to the west, 
 you need only look to yourselves. )//iH 
 
 ;.! ..-t " '( f.i yif ivrnocl **: 
 
 In order to confirm this observation, I would 
 appeal to what fell from the learned counsel for 
 the crown, " that notwithstanding the alliance 
 * 6 subsisting for two centuries past between the 
 " two countries, the date of liberty in one goes 
 " no farther back than the year 1784.",^ -if 
 
 (' , ' < . f r , ' ;> ' l f )'(~- ". i ' j 
 
 If it acquired additional confirmation, I should 
 state the case of the invaded American, and the 
 subjugated Indian, to prove that the policy of 
 England has ever been to govern her connexions 
 more as colonies than as allies; and it must be 
 owing to the great spirit indeed of Ireland if she 
 shall continue free. Rely upon it she will ever 
 have to hold her course against an adverse cur- 
 rent; rely upon it, if the popular spring does 
 not continue strong and elastic, a short interval 
 
 of
 
 173 
 
 of debilitated nerve and broken force will send 
 you down the stream again, and reconsign you 
 to the condition of a province. 
 
 If such should become the fate of your con- 
 stitution, ask yourselves what must be the motive 
 of your government ? It is easier to govern a 
 province by a faction, than to govern a co-ordi- 
 nate country by co-ordinate means. I do not 
 say it is now, but it will always be thought easi- 
 est by the managers of the day, to govern the 
 Irish nation by the agency of such a faction, as 
 long as this country shall be found willing to let 
 her connexion with Great Britain be presevered 
 only : by her own degredation. In such a preca- 
 rious and wretched state of things, if it shall ever 
 be found to exist, the true friend of Irish liberty, 
 and British connexion, will see, that the only 
 means of saving both must be, as lord Chatham 
 expressed it, " the infusion of new health and 
 " blood into the constitution." He will see how 
 deep a stake each country has in the liberty of 
 the other ; he will see what a bulwark he adds to 
 the common cause, by giving England a co-or- 
 dinate, and co-interested ally, instead of an op- 
 pressed, enfeebled and suspected dependant ; he 
 will see how grossly the credulity of Britain is 
 abused by those, who make her believe that her 
 interest is promoted by our depression ; he will 
 see the desperate precipice to which she ap- 
 proaches by such conduct, and with an animated 
 and generous piety he will labour to avert her 
 danger. 
 
 But
 
 174 
 
 But, gentlemen of the jury, what is likely to be 
 his fate? The interest of the sovereign must be 
 for ever the interest of his people; because his in- 
 terest lives beyond his life: It must live in his 
 fame, it must live in the tenderness of his solici- 
 tude for an unborn posterity; it must live in 
 that heart-attaching bond by which millions of 
 men have united the destinies of themselves and 
 their children with his, and call him by the en- 
 dearing appellation of KING AND FATHER OF - HIS 
 PEOPLE. 
 
 But what can be the interest of such a go- 
 vernment as I have described? Not the interest of 
 the king, not the interest of the people; but the 
 sordid interest of the hour; the interest in deceiv- 
 ing the one, and in oppressing and defaming the 
 other: the interest of unpunished rapine and un- 
 merited favour: that odious and abject interest, 
 that prompts them to extinguish public spirit in 
 punishment or in bribe, and to pursue every man, 
 even to death, who has sense to see, and inte- 
 grity and firmness enough to abhor and to op- 
 pose them. What therefore, I say, will be the 
 fate of the man, who embarks in an enterprise 
 of so much difficulty and danger ? I will not an- 
 swer it. Upon that hazard has my client put 
 every thing that can be dear torn an ; his fame, 
 his fortune, his person, his liberty, and his chil- 
 dren ; but with what event your verdict only can 
 answer, and to that I refer your country. 
 
 There
 
 175 
 
 There is a fourth point remaining. Says this pa- 
 per, " For both these purposes, it appears neces- 
 "sary,that provincials convention should assemble 
 " preparatory to the convention of the protestant 
 " people. The delegates of the catholic body are 
 " not justified in communicating with individuals, 
 " or even bodies of inferior authority, and there- 
 " fore an assembly of a similar nature and organi- 
 " zation is necessary to establish an intercourse 
 " of sentiment, an uniformity of conduct, an 
 *' united cause, and an united nation. If a con- 
 " vention on the one part does not soon follow, 
 " and is not soon connected with that on the 
 " other, the common cause will split into the par- 
 ' tial interest ; the people will relax into inat- 
 " tion and inertness, the union of affection and 
 " exertion will dissolve, and too probably some 
 " local insurrection, instigated by the malignity 
 *' of our common enemy, may commit the cha- 
 " racter and risque the tranquillity of the island, 
 " which can be obviated only by the influence of 
 " an assembly arising from, assimilated with the 
 f * people, and whose spirit may be, as it were knit 
 *' with the soul of the nation, unless the sense of 
 " the protestant people be on their part as fairly 
 " collected and as judiciously directed, unless 
 " individual exertion consolidates into collective 
 " strength, unless the particles unite into one 
 " mass, we may perhaps serve some person or 
 u some party for a little, but the public not at all : 
 " the nation is neither insolent, nor rebellious, 
 ** nor seditious j while it knows its rights, it is un- 
 
 i: willing
 
 to manifest its powers; it would rather 
 <e supplicate administration to anticipate revolu- 
 " tion by well-timed reform, and to save their 
 *' country in mercy to themselves." 
 
 Gentlemen, it is with something more than 
 common reverence, it is with a species of terror 
 that I am obliged to tread this ground. But 
 what is the idea, put in the strongest point of 
 view? We are willing not to manifest our powers, 
 but to supplicate administration to anticipate 
 revolution, that the legislature may save the 
 country in mercy to itself. 
 >jrt?t*H'M; ,-..;--uri. : 'UiHiaa^e^iVM&fel? 
 
 Let me suggest to you, gentlemen, that there 
 are some circumstances, which have happened 
 in the history of this country, that may better 
 serve as a comment upon this part of the case 
 than any I can make. I am not bound to defend 
 Mr. Rowan as to the truth or wisdom of the opi- 
 nions he may have formed. But if he did really 
 conceive the situation of the country such, as 
 that the not redressing her grievances might lead 
 to a convulsion, and of such an opinion not even 
 Mr. Rowan is answerable here for the wisdom, 
 much less shall I insinuate any idea of my own 
 upon so awful a subject; but if he did so con- 
 ceive the fact to be, and acted from the fair and 
 honest suggestion of a mind anxious for the pub- 
 lic good, I must confess, gentlemen, I do not 
 know in what part of die British constitution to 
 find the principle of his criminality. 
 
 But
 
 177 
 
 But, be pleased further to consider, that he 
 cannot be understood to put the fact on which 
 he argues on the authority of his assertion* 
 The condition of Ireland was as open to the 
 observation of every other man, as to that of 
 Mr. Rowan ; what then does this part of the 
 publication amount to ? In my mind, simply to 
 this : The nature of oppression in all countries 
 is such, that, although it may be borne to a 
 certain degree, it cannot be borne beyond that 
 degree. You find that exemplified in Great 
 Britain ; you find the people of England patient 
 to a certain point, but patient no longer. That 
 infatuated monarch, James II. experienced this. 
 The time did come, when the measure of popular 
 sufferings and popular patience was fuD ; when a 
 single drop was sufficient to make the waters of 
 bitterness to overflow. I think this measure in 
 Ireland is brimful at present ; I think the state of 
 the representation of the people in parliament 
 is a grievance ; I think the utter exclusion of 
 three millions of people is a grievance of that 
 kind that the people are not likely long to 
 endure, and the continuation of which may 
 plunge the country into that state of despair 
 which wrongs exasperated by perseverance never 
 fail to produce. But to whom is even this lan- 
 guage addressed ? Not to the body of the people 
 on whose temper and moderation, if once ex- 
 cited, perhaps not much confidence could be 
 placed ; but to that authoritative body, whose 
 influence and power would' have restrained the 
 
 N excesses
 
 178 
 
 excesses of the irritable and tumultuous; and 
 for that purpose expressly does this publication 
 address the volunteers. We are told that we are 
 in danger; I call upon you, the great constitu- 
 tional saviours of Ireland, to defend the country 
 to which you have given political existence, and 
 to use whatever sanction your great name, your 
 sacred character, and the weight you have in the 
 community, must give you to repress wicked 
 designs, if any there are. We feel ourselves 
 strong. The people are always strong ; the public 
 chains can only be rivetled by the public hands. 
 Look to those devoted regions of southern 
 despotism ; behold the expiring victim on his 
 knees, presenting the javelin reeking with his 
 blood to the ferocious monster who returns it 
 into his heart. Call not that monster the tyrant : 
 he is no more than the executioner of that 
 inhuman tyranny, which the people practice 
 upon themselves, and of which he is only re- 
 served to be a later victim than the wretch he has 
 sent before. Look to a nearer country, where the 
 sanguinary characters are more legible ^ whence 
 you almost hear the groans of death and torture. 
 Do you ascribe the rapine and murder in France 
 to the few names that we are execrating here? 
 or do you not see that it is the phrensy of 
 an infuriated multitude, abusing itsown strength, 
 and practising those hideous abominations 
 upon itself. Against the violence of this 
 strength, let your virtue and influence be our 
 safeguard. 
 
 What
 
 179 
 
 What criminality, gentlemen of the jury, can 
 you find in this ? what at any time ? but I ask 
 you, peculiarly at this momentous period, what 
 guilt can you find in it ? My client saw the scene 
 of horror and blood which covers almost the face 
 of Europe: he feared that causes, which he thought 
 similar, might produce similareffects, andheseeks 
 to avert those dangers by calling the united virtue 
 and tried moderation of the country into a state of 
 strength and vigilance. Yet this is the conduct 
 which the prosecution of this day seeks to punish 
 and stigmatise; and this is the language for which 
 this paper is reprobated to-day, as tending to turn 
 the hearts of the people against their sovereign, 
 and inviting them to overturn the constitution. 
 
 Letusnow gentlemen, consider the concluding 
 part of this publication.lt recommends a meeting 
 of the people to deliberate on constitutional me- 
 thods of redressing grievances. Upon this subject 
 I am inclined to suspect that I have in my youth 
 taken up crude ideas, not founded, perhaps, in 
 law; but I did imagine, that when the bill of rights 
 restored the right of petitioning for the redress 
 of grievances, it was understood that the people 
 might boldly state among themselves that griev- 
 ances did exist; I did imagine it was understood 
 that the people might lawfully assemble them- 
 selves in such manner as they might deem most 
 orderly and decorous. I thought 1 had collected 
 it from the greatest luminaries of the law. The 
 power of petitioning seemed to me to imply the 
 
 N 2 right
 
 180 
 
 right of assembling for the purpose of deliberation. 
 The law requiring a petition to be presented by 
 a limited number, seemed to me to admit that 
 the petition might be prepared by any number 
 whatever, provided, in doing so, they did not 
 commit any breach or violation of the public 
 peace. I know that there has been a law passed 
 in the Irish parliament of last year, which may 
 bring my former opinion into a merited want of 
 authority. The law declares that no body of men 
 may delegate a power to any smaller number, to 
 act, think, or petition for them. If that law had 
 not passed I should have thought that the assem- 
 bling by a delegate convention was recommended, 
 in order to avoid the tumult and disorder of a 
 promiscuous assembly of the whole mass of the 
 people. I should have conceived before that 
 act, that any law to abridge the orderly ap- 
 pointment of the few to consult for the interest 
 of the many, and thus force the many to con- 
 sult by themselves, or not at all, would in fact 
 be a law not to restrain but to promote insurrec- 
 tion. But that law has spoken, and my error 
 must stand corrected. 
 
 Of this, however, let me remind you, you are 
 to try this part of the publication by what the 
 law was then, not by what it is now. How was 
 it understood until last session of parliament ? 
 You had both in England and Ireland, for the 
 last ten years, these delegated meetings. The 
 volunteers of IrGhnd,in 1783, met by delegation; 
 
 they
 
 181 
 
 theyframed a plan of parliamentary reform ; they 
 presented it to the representative wisdom of the 
 nation ; it was not received ; but no man ever 
 dreamed that it was not the undoubted right of 
 the subject to assemble in that manner. They 
 assembled by delegation at Dungannon, and to 
 shew the idea then entertained of the legality of 
 their public conduct, that same body of volun- 
 teers was thanked by both houses of parliament, 
 and their delegates most graciously received at 
 the throne. The other day, you had delegated 
 representatives of the catholics of Ireland, publicly 
 elected by the members of that persuasion, and 
 sitting in convention in the heart of your capital, 
 carrying on an actual treaty with the existing 
 government, and under the eye of your own 
 parliament, which was then assembled ; you have 
 seen the delegates from that convention carry 
 the complaints of their grievances to the foot of 
 the throne ; from whence they brought back to 
 that convention the auspicious tidings of that 
 redress which they had been refused at home. 
 
 Such, gentlemen, have been the means of 
 popular communication and discussion, which 
 until the last session have been deemed legal in 
 this country j as happily for the sister kingdom, 
 they are yet considered there. 
 
 I do not complain of this act as any infraction 
 of popular liberty ; I should not think it becom- 
 ing in me to express any complaint against a law, 
 
 when
 
 when once become such. I observe only, that 
 one mode of popular deliberation is thereby 
 taken utterly away, and you are reduced to 
 a situation in which you never stood before. 
 You are living ,in a country, where the con- 
 stitution is rightly stated to be only ten years 
 old ; where the people have [not the ordinary 
 rudiments of education. It is a melancholy 
 story, that the lower orders of the people here 
 have less means of being enlightened than the 
 same class of people in any other country. If 
 there be no means left by which public measures 
 can be canvassed, what will be the consequence ? 
 Where the press is free and discussion unre- 
 strained, the mind, by the collision of inter- 
 course, gets rid of its own asperities, a sort of 
 insensible perspiration takes place in the body 
 politic, by which those acrimonies, which would 
 otherwise fester and inflame, are quietly dis- 
 solved and dissipated. But now, if any aggre- 
 gate assembly shall meet, they are censured ; if 
 a printer publishes their resolutions, he is punish- 
 ed. Rightly to be sure in both cases, for it has 
 been lately done. If the people say, let us not 
 create tumult, but meet in delegation, they cannot 
 do it ; if they are anxious to promote parlia- 
 mentary reform in that way, they cannot do it ; 
 the law of the last session has for the first time 
 declared such meetings to be a crime. What then 
 remains ? The liberty of the press ONLY ; that 
 sacred palladium, which no influence, no power, 
 no minister, no government, which nothing but 
 
 the
 
 183 
 
 the depravity, or folly, or corruption of a jury, 
 can ever destroy. And what calamities are the 
 people saved from by having public communica- 
 tion left open to them ? I will tell you, gentlemen, 
 what they are saved from, and what the govern- 
 ment is saved from ; I will tell you also to what 
 both are exposed by shutting up that communica- 
 tion. In one case sedition speaks aloud, and 
 walks abroad; the demagogue goes forth.; the 
 public eye is upon him ; he frets his busy hour 
 upon the stage; but soon either weariness, 
 or bribe or punishment, or disappointment, 
 bears him down, or drives him oft', and he 
 appears no more. In the other case, how does 
 the work of sedition go forward ? Night after 
 night the muffled rebel steals forth in the dark, 
 and casts another and another brand upon the 
 pile, to which, when the hour of fatal maturity 
 shall arrive, he will apply the flame. If you 
 doubt of the horrid consequences of suppressing 
 the effusion even of individual discontent, look 
 to those enslaved countries where the protection 
 of despotism is supposed to be secured by such 
 restraints. Even the person of the despot there 
 is never in safety. Neither the fears of the despot, 
 nor the machinations of the slave have any 
 slumber, the one anticipating the moment of peril, 
 the other watching the opportunity of aggression. 
 The fatal crisis is equally a surprise upon both ; 
 the decisive instant is precipitated without 
 warning, by folly on the one side, or by phrensy 
 en the other, and there is no notice of the treason 
 
 till
 
 184 
 
 till the trait, or acts. In those unfortunate coun- 
 tries (one cannot read it without horror) there 
 are officers, whose province it is, to have the 
 water, which is to be drunk by their rulers, 
 sealed up in bottles, lest some wretched mis- 
 creant should throw poison into the draught. 
 
 But, gentlemen, if you wish for a nearer and 
 more interesting example, you have it in the 
 history of your own revolution ; you have it at 
 that memorable period, when the monarch foun4 
 a servile acquiescence in the ministers of his 
 folly ; when the liberty of the press was trodden 
 under foot ; when venal sheriffs returned packed 
 juries to carry into effect those fatal conspiracies 
 of the few against the many ; when the devoted 
 benches of public justice were rilled by some of 
 those foundlings of fortune, who, overwhelmed 
 in the torrent of corruption at an early period, 
 lay at the bottom like drowned bodies, while 
 soundness or sanity remained in them j but at 
 length, becoming buoyant by putrefaction, they 
 rose as they rotted, and floated to the surface 
 of the polluted stream, where they were drifted 
 along, the objects of terror, and contagion, and 
 abomination. 
 
 In that awful moment of a nation's travail ; of 
 the last gasp of tyranny, and the first breath of 
 freedom, how pregnant is the example? The 
 press extinguished, the people enslaved, and the 
 prince undone. As the advocate of society, there-, 
 
 fore
 
 185 
 
 fore of peace, of domestic liberty, and the lasting 
 union of the two countries, I conjure you to 
 guard the liberty of the press, that great centinel 
 of the state, that grand detector of public impos- 
 ture: guard it, because, when it sinks, there 
 sinks with it, in one common grave, the liberty 
 of the subject, and the. security of the crown. 
 
 Gentlemen, I am glad that this question has 
 not been brought forward earlier ; I rejoice for 
 tfre sake of the court, of the jury, and of the 
 public repose, that this question has not been 
 brought forward till now. In Great Britain 
 analagous circumstances have taken place. At 
 the commencement of that unfortunate war 
 which has deluged Europe with blood, the spirit 
 of the English people was tremblingly alive to 
 the terror of French principles ; at that moment 
 of general paroxysm, to accuse was to convict. 
 The danger loomed larger to the public eye, 
 from the misty region through which it was 
 surveyed. We measure inaccessible heights by 
 the shadows which they project, where the low- 
 ness and the distance of the light form the 
 length of the shade. 
 
 There is a sort of aspiring and adventurous 
 credulity, which disdains assenting to obvious 
 truths, and delights in catching at the improba- 
 bility of circumstances, as its best ground of faith. 
 To what other cause, gentlemen, can you ascribe 
 that in the wise, the reflecting, and the philoso- 
 phic
 
 186 
 
 phic nation of Great Britain, a printer hag been 
 gravely found guilty of a libel, for publishing 
 those resolutions to which the present minister 
 of that kingdom had actually subscribed his 
 name ? To what other cause can you ascribe, 
 what in my mind is still more astonishing, in 
 such a country as Scotland a nation cast in the Lf 
 happy medium between the spiritless acquies- 
 cence of submissive poverty, and the sturdy 
 credulity of pampered wealth ; cool and ardent ; 
 adventurous and persevering; winging her 
 eagle flight against the blaze of every science, 
 with an eye that never winks, and a wing that 
 never tires ; crowned as she is with the spoils of 
 every art, and decked with the wreath of every 
 muse, from the deep and scrutinizing researches 
 of her Hume, to the sweet and simple, but not 
 less sublime and pathetic morality of her Burns // 
 how, from the bosom of a country like that, 
 genius, and character, and talents, should be 
 banished to a distant barbarous soil ;* condemned 
 to pine under the horrid communion of vulgar 
 vice and baseborn profligacy, for twice the period 
 that ordinary calculation gives to the continuance 
 of human life ? 
 
 But I w*ill not further press any idea that is 
 painful to me, and I am sure must be painful to 
 you : I will only say, you have now an example, 
 of which neither England nor Scotland had the 
 
 * Mr. Curran alludes to the sentence of transportation 
 passed ui Scotland upon Mr. Muir, &c. &c. 
 
 advantage ;
 
 187 
 
 advantage; you have the example of the panic, 
 the infatuation, and the contrition of both. It 
 is now for you to decide, whether you will profit 
 by their experience of idle panic and idle regret, 
 or whether you meanly prefer to palliate a ser- 
 vile imitation of their frailty, by a paltry affec- 
 tation of their repentance. It is now for you to 
 shew, that you are not carried away by the same 
 hectic delusions to acts, of which no tears can 
 wash away the fatal consequences, or the inde- 
 lible reproach. 
 
 Gentlemen, I have- been warning you by in- 
 stances of public intellect suspended or obscured; 
 let me rather excite you by the example of that 
 intellect recovered and restored. In that case 
 which Mr. Attorney-general has cited himself, I 
 mean that of the trial of Lambert in England, is 
 there a topic of invective against constituted au- 
 thorities; is there a topic of abuse against every 
 department of British government, that you do 
 not find in the most glowing and unqualified 
 terms in that publication, for which the printer 
 of it was prosecuted, and acquitted by an English 
 jury? See too what a difference there is be- 
 tween the case of a man publishing his own opi- 
 nion of facts, thinking that he is bound by duty 
 to hazard the promulgation of them, and without 
 the remotest hope of any personal advantage, 
 and that of a man who makes publication his 
 trade. And saying this, let me not be misunder- 
 stood.
 
 188 
 
 stood. It is not my province to enter into any 
 abstract defence of the opinions of any man 
 upon public subjects. I do not affirmatively 
 state to you that these grievances, which this 
 paper supposes, do in fact exist: yet I cannot but 
 say, that the movers of this prosecution have 
 forced this question upon you. Their motives and 
 their merits, like those of all accusers, are put in 
 issue before you ; and I need not tell you how 
 strongly th6 motive and merits of any informer 
 ought to influence the fate of his accusation. 
 
 I agree most implicitly with Mr. Attorney-ge- 
 neral, that nothing can be more criminal than 
 an attempt to work a change in the government 
 by armed force; and I entreat that the court 
 will not suffer any expression of mine to be con- 
 sidered as giving encouragement or defence to 
 any design to excite disaffection, to overawe or 
 to overturn the government. But I put my 
 client's case upon another ground: if he was 
 led into an opinion of grievances, where there 
 were none ; if he thought there ought to be a 
 reform, where none was necessary, he is an- 
 swerable only for his intention. He can be 
 answerable to you in the same way only that 
 he is answerable to that God, before whom the 
 accuser, the accused, and the judge must ap- 
 pear together; that is, not for the clearness 
 of his understanding, but for the purity of his 
 heart. 
 
 - Gentlemen,
 
 189 
 
 Gentlemen, Mr. Attorney-general has said, 
 that Mr. Rowan did by this publication (sup- 
 posing it be his) recommend, under the name 
 of equality, a general indiscriminate assumption 
 of public rule by every the meanest person in the 
 state. Low as we are in point of public informa- 
 tion, there is not, I believe any man, who thinks 
 for a moment, that does not know, that all which 
 the great body of the people, of any country, can 
 have from any government, is a fair encourage- 
 ment to their industry, and protection for the 
 fruits of their labour. And there is scarcely any 
 man, I believe, who does not know, that, if a peo- 
 ple could become so silly as to abandon their 
 stations in society, under pretence of governing 
 themselves, they would become the dupes and 
 the victims of their own folly. But does this pub- 
 lication recommend any such infatuated aban- 
 donment, or any such desperate assumption? I 
 will read the words which relate to that subject: 
 " By liberty we never understood unlimited free- 
 " dom, nor by equality the levelling of property 
 " or the destruction of subordination." I ask you, 
 with what justice, upon what principle of com- 
 mon sense, you can charge a man with the pub- 
 lication of sentiments, the very reverse of what 
 his words avow? and that, when there is no col- 
 lateral evidence, where there is no foundation 
 whatever, save those very words, by which his 
 meaning can be ascertained? or if you do adopt 
 an arbitrary principle of imputing to him your 
 meaning instead of his own, what publication 
 
 can
 
 be guiltless or safe? It is a sort of accusation 
 that I am ashamed and sorry to see introduced 
 in a court acting on the principles of the British 
 constitution. 
 
 In the bitterness of reproach it was said, 
 C Out of thine own mouth will I condemn thee-," 
 from the severity of justice I demand no more. 
 See if in the words that have been spoken, you 
 can find matter to acquit, or to condemn: " By 
 4 ' liberty we never understood unlimited free- 
 " dom, nor by equality the levelling of pro- 
 " perty, or the destruction of subordination. 
 ** This is a calumny invented by that faction or 
 " that gang, which misrepresents the king to 
 *' the people, and the people to the king, tra- 
 * c duces one half of the nation to cajole the other, 
 " and, by keeping up distrust and division, 
 " wishes to continue the proud arbitrator of the 
 *' fortune and fate of Ireland.*' Here you find 
 that meaning disclaimed as a calumny, which is 
 artfully imputed as a crime. 
 
 I say therefore, gentlemen of the jury, as to 
 the four parts into which the publication must 
 be divided, I answer thus. It calls upon the 
 volunteers. Consider the time, the danger, the 
 authority of the prosecutors themselves for be- 
 lieving that danger to exist, the high character, 
 the known moderation, the approved loyalty of 
 that venerable institution the similarity of the 
 circumstances between the period at which they 
 
 were
 
 191 
 
 were summoned to take arms, and that in which 
 they have been called upon to re-assume them. 
 Upon this simple ground, gentlemen, you will 
 decide, whether this part of the publication was 
 libellous and criminal, or not. 
 
 As to reform, I could wish to have said no- 
 thing upon it: I believe I have said enough: if 
 Mr. Rowan in disclosing that opinion thought 
 the state required it, he acted like an honest 
 man. For the rectitude of the opinion he was 
 not answerable; he discharged his duty in telling 
 the country that he thought so. 
 
 As to the emancipation of the catholics, I 
 cannot but say that Mr. Attorney-general did 
 very wisely in keeping clear of that subject. Yet, 
 gentlemen, I need not tell you how important a 
 h'gure it was intended to make upon the scene ; 
 though, from unlucky accidents, it has become 
 necessary to expunge it during the rehearsal.* 
 
 Of the concluding part of this publication; 
 the convention which it recommends, I have 
 spoken already. I wish not to trouble you with 
 saying more upon it. I feel that I have already 
 trespassed much upon your patience. In truth, 
 upon a subject embracing such a variety of topics, 
 a rigid observance either of conciseness or ar- 
 rangement could perhaps scarcely be expected. 
 
 * Between the period of the publication and prosecution, 
 the legislature had, by the recommendation of the crown, 
 removed the principal grievances of the catholic code. 
 
 It
 
 192 
 
 It is however with pleasure I feel I am drawing 
 to a close, and that only one question remains, 
 to which I would beg your attention. 
 
 Whatever, gentlemen, may be your opinion 
 of the meaning of this publication, there yet re- 
 mains a great point for you to decide upon : 
 namely, whether, in point of fact, this publication 
 be imputable to Mr. Rowan or not? whether he 
 did publish it or not? Two witnesses are called to 
 that fact : one of the name of Lyster, and the 
 other of the name of Morton. You must have 
 observed that Morton gave no evidence upon 
 which that paper could have even been read; he 
 produced no paper, he identified no paper, he said 
 that he got some paper, but that he had given it 
 away. So that, in point of law, there was no evi- 
 dence given by him, on which it could have gone 
 to a jury, and therefore, it turns entirely upon 
 the evidence of the other witness. He has stated 
 that he went to a public meeting, in a place where 
 there was a gallery crouded with spectators ; and 
 that he there got a printed paper, the same which 
 has been read to you. I know you are well ac- 
 quainted with the fact, that the credit of every 
 witness must be considered by, and rest with the 
 jury. They are the sovereign judges of that, and 
 I will not insult your feelings, by insisting on the 
 caution with which you should watch the testi- 
 mony of a witness that seeks to affect the liberty, 
 or property, or character of your fellow-citizens. 
 Under what circumstances does this evidence 
 
 come
 
 193 
 
 before you ? The witness says he has got a com- 
 mission in the army by the interest of a lady from 
 a person then high in administration. He told you 
 that he made a memorandum upon the back of 
 that paper, it being his general custom, when he 
 got such papers, to make an indorsement upon 
 them ; that he did this from mere fancy; that he 
 had no intention of giving any evidence on the 
 subject; he " took it with no such view." There is 
 something whimsical enough in this curious story. 
 Put his credit upon the positiveevidence adduced 
 to his character. Who he is I know not, I know 
 not the man ; but his credit is impeached. Mr. 
 Blake was called, he said he knew him. I asked 
 him, " Do you think, Sir, that Mr. Lyster is or is 
 not a man deserving credit upon his oath?*' If 
 you find a verdict of conviction, it can be only 
 upon the credit of Mr. Lyster. What said 
 Mr. Blake? Did he tell you that he considered 
 him a man to be believed upon his oath ? He 
 did not attempt to say that he did. The best he 
 could say was, that he " woul^ hesitate," Do 
 you believe Blake ? Have you the same opi- 
 nion of Lyster's testimony that Mr. Blake has? 
 Do you know Lyster? If you do know him, 
 and know that he is credible, your knowledge 
 should not be shaken by the doubts of any man. 
 But if you do not know him, you must take his 
 credit from an unimpeached witness, swearing 
 that he would hesitate to believe him. In my 
 mind there is a circumstance of the strongest 
 nature that came out from Lyster on the table. 
 
 o I am
 
 194 
 
 I am aware that a most respectable man, if i!n- 
 peached by surprise, may not be prepared to 
 repel a wanton calumny ^by contrary testimony: 
 but was Lyster unapprized of this attack upon 
 him? What said he? " I knew that you had 
 "Blake to examine against me, you have brought 
 *' him here for that purpose." He knew the very 
 witness that was to be produced against him, he 
 knew that his credit was impeached, and yet he 
 produced no person to support that credit. What 
 said Mr. Smyth ? " From my knowledge of him 
 " I would not believe him upon his oath." 
 
 But what said Mrs. Hatchell ? Was the pro- 
 duction of that witness a surprise upon Mr. Lys- 
 ter? Her cross-examination shews the fact to be 
 the contrary. The learned counsel, you see, was 
 perfectly apprized of a chain of private circum- 
 stances to which he pointed his questions: this 
 lady's daughter was married to the elder brother 
 of the witness Lyster. Did he know these cir- 
 cumstances by inspiration? no; they could 
 come only from Lyster himself. I insist, there- 
 fore, that the gentleman knew his character was 
 to be impeached, his counsel knew it, and not 
 a single witness has been produced to support it. 
 Then consider, gentlemen, upon what ground 
 can you find a verdict of conviction against my 
 client, when the only witness produced to the 
 fact of publication is impeached, without even 
 an attempt to defend his character. Many 
 
 hundreds
 
 195 
 
 hundreds, he said were at that meeting: Why 
 not produce one of them to swear to the fact of 
 such a meeting ? One he has ventured to name, 
 but he was certainly very safe in naming a per- 
 son, who he has told you is not in the kingdom, 
 and could not therefore be called to confront 
 him. 
 
 Gentlemen, let me suggest another observa- 
 tion or two, if still you have any doubt as to the 
 guilt or innocence of the defendant. Give me 
 leave to suggest to you, what circumstances you 
 ought to consider in order to found your verdict. 
 You should consider the character of the person 
 accused; and in this your task is easy. I will 
 venture to say, there is not a man in this nation 
 more known than the gentleman who is the sub- 
 ject of this prosecution, not only by the part he 
 has taken in public concerns, and which he has 
 taken in common with many, but still more so, 
 by that extraordinary sympathy for human afflic- 
 tion, which, I am sorry to think, he shares with 
 so small a number. There is not a day that you 
 hear the cries of your starving manufacturers in 
 your streets, that you do not also see the advo- 
 cate of their sufferings that you^do not see his 
 honest and manly figure, with uncovered head, 
 soliciting for their relief; searching the frozen 
 heart of charity for every string that can be 
 touched by compassion, and urging the force of 
 every argument and every motive,save that which 
 his modesty suppresses the authority of his own 
 o 2. generous
 
 196 
 
 generous example. Or if you see him not there;, 
 you may trace his steps to the private abode of 
 disease, and famine, and despair; the messenger 
 of heaven, bringing with him food, and medicine, 
 and consolation. Arethese the materials of which 
 you suppose anarchy and public rapine to be 
 formed? Is this the man, on whom to fasten the 
 abominable charge of goading on a frantic popu- 
 lace to mutiny and bloodshed? Is this the man 
 likely to apostatise from every principle that can 
 bind him to the state ; his birth, his property, 
 his education, his character, and his children? 
 Let me tell you, gentlemen of the jury, if you 
 agree with his prosecutors, in thinking that there 
 ought to be a sacrifice of such a man, on such 
 an occasion, and upon the credit of such evi- 
 dence, your are to convict him never did you, 
 never can you give a sentence, consigning any 
 man to public punishment with less danger to his 
 person or to- his fame : for where could the hire- 
 ling be found to fling contumely or ingratitude 
 at his head, whose private distresses he had not 
 endeavoured to alleviate, or whose public con- 
 dition he had not laboured to improve? 
 
 I cannot, however, avoid averting to a cir- 
 cumstance that distinguishes the case of Mr. 
 Rowan from that of the late sacrifice in a neigh- 
 bouring kingdom.* 
 
 * Srotland, from M henco Mfftsrs. Muir, Palmer, and others, 
 \vprc transported for sedition. 
 
 The
 
 197 
 
 The severer law of that country, it seems, and 
 happy for them that it should, enables them to 
 remove from their sight the victim of their infa- 
 tuation. The more merciful spirit of our law 
 deprives you of that consolation; his sufferings 
 must remain for ever before our eyes, a continual 
 call upon your shame and your remorse. But 
 those sufferings will do more; they will not rest 
 satisfied with your unavailing contrition, they will 
 challenge the great and paramount inquest of so- 
 ciety : the man will be weighed against the charge,* 
 the witness, and the sentence; and impartial jus- 
 tice will demand, why has an Irish jury done this 
 deed? The moment he ceases to be regarded as 
 a criminal, he becomes of necessity an accuser: 
 and let me ask you, what can your most zealous 
 defenders be prepared to answer to such a charge? 
 When your sentence shall have sent him forth to 
 that stage, which guilt alone can render infamous, 
 let me tell you, he will not be like a little statue 
 upon a mighty pedestal, diminishing by eleva- 
 tion ; but he will stand a striking and imposing 
 object upon a monument, which, if it does not. 
 (and it cannot) record the atrocity of his crime, 
 must record the atrocity of his conviction. Upon 
 this subject, therefore, credit me when I say, that 
 I am still more anxious for you, than I can pos- 
 sibly be for him. I cannot but feel the puculi*- 
 arity of your situation. Not the jury of his own 
 choice, which the la\^of England allows, but 
 which ours refuses; collected in that box by a 
 
 person
 
 198 
 
 person, certainly no friend to Mr. Rowan, cer- 
 tainly not very deeply interested in giving him a 
 very impartial jury. Feeling this, as I am per- 
 suaded you do, you cannot be surprized, how- 
 ever you may be distressed, at the mournful pre- 
 sage, with which an anxious public is led to fear 
 the worst from your possible determination. But 
 I will not for the justice and honour of our com- 
 mon country, suffer my mind to be borne away 
 by such melancholy anticipation. I will not re- 
 Minquish the confidence that this day will be the 
 period of his sufferings; and, however mercilessly 
 he has been hitherto pursued, that your verdict 
 will send him home to the arms of his family, 
 and the wishes of his country. But if, which 
 heaven forbid, it hath still been unfortunately de- 
 termined, that because he has not bent to power 
 and authority, because he would not bow down 
 before the golden calf and worship it, he is to be 
 bound and cast into the furnace j I do trust in 
 God, that there is a redeeming spirit in the con- 
 stitution, which will be seen to walk with the 
 sufferer through the flames, and to preserve him 
 unhurt by the conflagration. 
 
 Upon the candusion of this speech Mr. Curran 
 
 was again for many minutes loudly applauded by 
 
 the auditors; and upon leaving the court was 
 
 drawn home by tJie populace, who took the horses 
 
 Jrom his carriage."] 
 
 COURT
 
 199 
 
 COURT OF KING'S BENCH, 
 Tuesday, February 4>th, 1794. 
 
 THE Recorder applied to set aside the verdict 
 given in the case of Archibald Hamilton Rowan, 
 Esq. His application was grounded upon dif- 
 ferent affidavits sworn in court, charging, 1st. 
 one of the JURORS with a declaration against Mr. 
 Rotcan, previous to trial. 2dly. Partiality in one 
 of the HIGH SHERIFFS. 3dly. That John Lyster, 
 the PRINCIPAL EVIDENCE, was not to be believed 
 upon his oath 9 he, as the affidavits stated, having 
 been guilty of perjury. And 4thly. the learned 
 gentleman rested his case, upon the misdirection 
 of t/ie court. He was followed on the same side 
 by Mr. Curran, who said : 
 
 It was an early idea, that a verdict in a criminal 
 Case could not be set aside inconsulto regc, but the 
 law had stood otherwise without a doubt to im- 
 peach its principle for the last two reigns. 
 
 Common sense would say, that the discretion of 
 the court should go at least as far in criminal as in 
 civil cases, and very often to go no further would 
 be to stop far short of what was right, as iq those 
 great questions where theprosecution may be con- 
 sidered either as an attempt to extinguish liberty 
 or a a necessary measure for the purpose of re- 
 pressing
 
 200 
 
 pressing the virulence of public licentiousness 
 and dangerous faction ; where there can be no 
 alternative between guilt or martyrdom, where 
 the party prosecuted must either be considered as 
 a culprit sinking beneath the punishment of his 
 own crimes, or a victim sacrificed to the vices of 
 others. But when it clearly appears that the 
 party has fallen a prey to persecuting combina- 
 tion there remains but one melancholy question, 
 how Jar did that combination reach ? 
 
 There have been two cases lately decided in 
 this very court; the King and Pentland, where the 
 motion was made and refused; and the King and 
 Bowen, where it was granted ; both of which 
 shew, that captious sophistry, and technical pe- 
 dantry, had here, as well as in England, given 
 way to liberal and rational enquiry; and that the 
 court would not now, in their discretion, refuse 
 a motion of this kind, unless they could at the 
 same time, lay their hands upon their hearts, and 
 say, they believed in their consciences that jus- 
 tice had been done: such was the manly lan- 
 guage of one of their lordships (Mr. Justice 
 Downes); and such the opinion of the court on 
 a former occasion. 
 
 He then cited 7 modern 57. as referred to in 
 Bacon, tit. Trial, to shew that w r here there was 
 good ground of challenge to a juror, not known 
 at the trial, it was sufficient cause for setting 
 aside the verdict. 
 
 In
 
 201 
 
 In England they have a particular act of par- 
 liament, entitling the party to strike a special 
 jury to try the fact, and then he has time be- 
 tween the striking and the trial to question the 
 propriety of that jury: here my client had no 
 previous information till the instant of trial who 
 his jurors were to be. 
 
 There are certain indulgences granted at 
 times perhaps by the connivance of humanity, 
 which men, who are not entitled to demand 
 them in an open court, obtain nevertheless by 
 sidelong means; and perhaps the little breach 
 which affords that light to the mind of the man 
 accused, is a circumstance concerning which the 
 court would feel pain, even if called upon, to 
 say, that it should in all cases be prevented : 
 but to overturn principles and authorities, for 
 the purpose of oppressing the subject, is what 
 this court will never do. 
 
 The first of the affidavits I shall consider, is 
 that of the traverser. I do not recollect whether 
 it states the sheriff, in avowed terms, to be an 
 emissary or a hireling agent of the castle, there- 
 fore I do not state it from the affidavit ; but he 
 swears, that he does believe that he did labour to 
 bring into the box a jury full of prejudices, and 
 of the blackest impressions ; instead of having, 
 as they ought, fair and impartial minds, and 
 souls like white paper. 
 
 This
 
 202 
 
 This sheriff now stands in court, he might 
 have denied it if he would, he had an opportu- 
 nity of answering it; but he has left it an un- 
 denied assertion he was not certainly obliged 
 to answer it, for no man is bound to convict 
 himself. But there is a part of that charge 
 which amounts, at least, to this, " Your heart 
 " was poisoned against me, and you collected 
 " those to be my judges, who, if they could not 
 " be under the dominion of bad dispositions, 
 " might be at least the dupes of good," The 
 most favourable thing that can be said is this, 
 you sought to bring against me honest preju- 
 dices, but you brought against me wicked ones. 
 The very general charge, that he sought for 
 persons who he knew were most likely to bring 
 prejudices with them into the jury box, is a part 
 of the affidavit that it was incumbent on him to 
 answer if he could. 
 
 I do not contend, that what is charged in the 
 affidavit would have been a ground of principal 
 challenge to the array ; but I hold it to be the 
 better opinion, that a challenge to the array 
 for favour does well lie in the mouth of the de- 
 fendant. 
 
 The antient notion was, you shall not chal- 
 lenge the array for favour where the king is 
 a party; the king only can challenge for fa- 
 vour, for the principle was, that every man 
 ought to be favourable to the crown j but, thank 
 
 God,
 
 203 
 
 God, the advancement of legal knowledge, and 
 the growing understanding of the age, have 
 dissipated such illiberal and mischievous con- 
 ceptions. 
 
 But I am putting too much stress upon such 
 technical, discarded, and antiquated scruples. 
 The true question has been already stated from 
 the authority of Mr. Justice Downes, and that 
 question is, Has justice been done ? 
 
 It is a matter upon which scarce any under- 
 standing would condescend to hesitate, whether 
 a man had been fairly tried, whose triors had 
 been collected together by an avowed enemy, 
 whose conduct had been such, as to leave no 
 doubt that he had purposely brought prejudiced 
 men into the box. 
 
 In every country, where freedom obtains, 
 there must subsist parties. In this country and 
 Great Britain I trust there never will be a time 
 when there shall not be men found zealous for 
 the actual government of the day. So, on the 
 other hand, I trust, there will never be a time, 
 when there will not be found men zealous and 
 enthusiastic in the cause of popular freedom 
 and of the public rights. If, therefore, a per- 
 son in public office suffers his own prejudices, 
 however honestly anxious he may be for a pro- 
 secution carried on by those to whom he is 
 attached, to influence him so far as to choose 
 
 men,
 
 204 
 
 men, to his knowledge, devoted to the prin- 
 ciples he espouses, it is an error which a high 
 court of judicature, seeking to do right justice, 
 will not fail to correct. 
 
 A sheriff, in such a case, might not have 
 perceived the partiality of his conduct, because 
 he was surveying through the medium of pre- 
 judice and habitual corruption : but it is impos- 
 sible to think that this sheriff meant to be im- 
 partial, it is an interpretation more favourable 
 than his conduct will allow of; if he deserves 
 any credit at all, it is not answering the charge 
 mada against him : at the same vtime, that, by 
 not answering it, he has left unimpeached the 
 credit of the charge itself. 
 
 [Here the sheriff tendered some form of an affi- 
 davit \ which the court refused to have sworn or read, 
 for the same reason that those sworn and tendered 
 by the defendant's counsel, had been before refused. 
 Mr. Curran, however, consented to its being sworn 
 and read; but the attorney -general declined it, be- 
 ing unacquainted with the contents, anduninstructed 
 as to its tendency; it therefore was not sworn.~\ 
 
 Mr. Curran. Is this then the way to meet a 
 fair application to the court, to see whether jus- 
 tice has been done between the subject and the 
 crown. I offer it again, let the affidavit be read. 
 And let me remind the court, that the great rea- 
 son for sending a cause buck to a jury is, that 
 
 new
 
 205 
 
 new light must be shed upon it; and how must 
 your lordships feel, when you see that indul- 
 gence granted to the conscience of the jury, 
 denied to the court? 
 
 Mr. Attorney-general. I am concerned that 
 any lawyer should make a proposition in the 
 manner Mr. Curran has done ; he proposes to 
 have an affidavit read, provided we consent 
 that others, which the court have already re- 
 fused, should be now read.* I did not hear 
 it offered ; but is it to be presumed I will con- 
 sent to have an affidavit read, about which I 
 know nothing. Yesterday, without any com- 
 munication with a human being, I did say, 
 that I conceived it unnecessary to answer any 
 of the affidavits, thinking that they were not 
 sufficient to ground the application made to the 
 court. And it is presumed I am so mad as to 
 consent to the reading of affidavits which I 
 have not seen. 
 
 [Here some altercation took place, and lord 
 Clonmel, chief justice, interposed, saying, that 
 the counsel had certainly a right to argue it upon 
 the ground., that the sheriff was biassed, and did 
 return a jury prejudiced against the traverser.J 
 
 Mr. Curran was then proceeding to observe 
 
 * It may not be improper to observe that Mr. Attorney- 
 general mistook Mr. Cunan'.s proposal, which was an unqua- 
 lified oftcr to have Mr. Gi Hard's affidavit read. 
 
 upon
 
 206 
 
 upon the expression of one of the jury, sworn 
 to in another affidavit, " that there would be 
 * c no safety in the country, until the defendant 
 " was either hanged or banished;" when it was 
 asked by the court, whether the time of its 
 coming to the knowledge of the traverser, that 
 tfie sheriff was biassed, was stated in his affi- 
 davit? 
 
 Mr. Curran answered, he was in prison, and 
 could not have the attendance of those counsel, 
 whose assistance he had in court; and besides, 
 from the nature of the circumstances, it was 
 impossible he could have been sufficiently ap- 
 prized of its consequences, for he saw not that 
 pannel till the day 'of the trial, when he could 
 not have had time to make any enquiry into the 
 characters, dispositions, or connections of the 
 jury. Mr. Curran then reverted to his argu- 
 ment on the expression of the juror. 
 
 If triers had been appointed to determine 
 the issue, favourable or not, what would have 
 been their finding? Could they say upon their 
 oaths, that he was not unfavourable to that 
 party against whom he could make such a de- 
 claration ? 
 
 Favour is not cause of principal challenge, 
 which if put upon a pleading, would conclude 
 the party. Favour is that which makes the 
 man, in vulgar parlance, unfit to try the ques- 
 tion.
 
 tion. And as to the time these facts came to 
 his knowledge, he has sworn that he was utterly 
 ignorant of them at the time of his coming into 
 court to take his trial. 
 
 I will not glance at the character of any ab- 
 sent noble person, high in office; but let it be 
 remembered, that it is a government prosecu- 
 tion, and that the witness has, from a low and 
 handicap situation, scraped himself into prefer- 
 ment, perhaps, for I will put the best construction 
 upon it, by offering himself as a man honestly 
 anxious for the welfare of his country; in short, 
 it is too obvious to require any comment, what 
 the nature of the whole transaction has been, that 
 he had got his commission as a compensation, 
 pro labors impendendo, and came afterwards into 
 court to pay clown the stipulated purchase. 
 
 Had this then been an unbiassed jury, was 
 there not something in all these circumstances, 
 that might have afforded more deliberation than 
 that of one minute per man, for only so long 
 was the jury out; and had this been a fair wit- 
 ness, would he have lain down under a charge, 
 which if true, ought not only to damn this ver- 
 dict, but his character for ever? What would 
 a corps of brother officers think of a person 
 charged, upon oath, with the commission of 
 two wilful perjuries, and that charge remaining 
 undenied? Here is an undenied charge in point 
 of fact; and although I do not. call upon the 
 
 court,
 
 208 
 
 court to say, that this is a guilty and abominable 
 person, yet surely the suspicion is strongly so, 
 and must be considered. This was at least a 
 verdict, where the evidence went to the jury 
 under slighter blemishes than it will if my client 
 has the advantage of another trial, for then he 
 will put out of the power of man to doubt that 
 this witness has been perjured. This witness, 
 who has had notice, both here and at the trial, 
 of the aspersions on his character, and yet has 
 not called a human being to say that he enter- 
 tained a contrary opinon of him. 
 
 Was he known any where? Did he crawl un- 
 observed to the castle? Was it without the aid or 
 knowledge of any body, that that gaudy plumage 
 grew on him, in which he appeared in court? If 
 he was known for any thing else than what he is 
 stated to be, it \vas, upon that day, almost a physi- 
 cal impossibility, in a court-house which almost 
 contained the country, not to have found some 
 person, to give some sort of testimony respecting 
 his general character. For though no man is 
 bound to be ready at all times to answer particular 
 charges, yet every man is supposed to come with 
 his public attestation of common and general pro- 
 bity. But he has left that character, upon the 
 merits of which my client is convicted, unsup- 
 ported, even by his own poor corporal swearing. 
 You are called upon, then, to say, whether upon 
 the evidence of a being of this kind, such a man 
 as that is to be convicted, and sentenced to 
 
 punishment,
 
 209 
 
 punishment, in a country where humanity is the 
 leading feature even of the criminal law. 
 
 He then observed upon the second witness. 
 A man coming to support the credit of another 
 collaterally is himself particularly pledged ; then 
 what was his testimony ! He did not know 
 whether Mr. Giffard Was concerned in the 
 newspaper!!! And now, you have the silencfc of 
 Giffard himself in not answering Mr. Rowan's 
 affidavit to contradict that. And next, he did 
 not know whether his own cousin-german was 
 the relation of their common uncle!!! I call 
 upon you, my lords, in the name of sacred justice, 
 and your country, to declare whether the melan- 
 choly scenes and murderous plots of the Meal- 
 tub and the Rye-house are to be acted over 
 again ? And whether every Titus Gates that 
 can be found is to be called into your courts, 
 as the common vouchee of base and perjured 
 accusation ? 
 
 He then proceeded to another ground, namely, 
 that the direction of the court was not, as he con- 
 ceived, agreeable to the law of Ireland. The 
 defence of my client (he added) was rested 
 upon this, that there was no evidence of the 
 tact of publication 5 upon the incredibility of 
 the fact, and the circumstances of discredit in 
 the character of the witness ; yet the court made 
 this observation : " gentlemen, it scarcely lies 
 in the mouth of Mr. Rowan to build a defence 
 
 p " upon
 
 210 
 
 ' upon objections of this kind to the characters 
 " of witnesses, because the fact was public ; 
 " there were many there ; the room was 
 ** crowded below ; the gallery was crowded 
 " above ; and the publicity of the fact enabled 
 " him to produce a number of witnesses to 
 " falsify the assertion of the prosecutor, if in 
 " fact it could be falsified !" Is that the prin- 
 ciple of criminal law ? Is it a part of the British 
 law that the fate of the accused shall abide, not 
 the positive establishment of guilt by the pro- 
 secutor, but the negative proof of innocence by 
 himself? Why has it been said in foolish old 
 books, that the law supposes the innocence of 
 every man 'till the contrary is proved ? How has 
 it happened that that language has been admired 
 for its humanity, and not laughed at for its 
 absurdity, in which the prayers of the court are 
 addressed to heaven for the safe deliverance of 
 the man accused ? How comes it that so much 
 public time is wasted in going into evidence of 
 guilt, if the bare accusation of a man did call 
 upon him to go into evidence of his innocence? 
 The force of the observation is this Mr. Rowan 
 impeaches the credit of a witness, who has sworn 
 that he saw him present, and doing certain acts 
 at a certain meeting ; but it is asked, has he sub- 
 stantiated that discredit, by calling all the per- 
 sons, who were present, to prove his absence from 
 that meeting, which is only stated to have 
 existed by a witness whom he alleges to have 
 perjured himself? I call upon the example of 
 
 judicial
 
 211 
 
 judicial character ; upon the faith of that high 
 office which is never so dignified as when it sees 
 its errors and corrects them, to say, that the 
 court was for a moment led away, so as to 
 argue from the most seductive of all sophisms, 
 that of the positio principii. 
 
 See what meaning is to be gathered from such 
 words : we say the whole that this man has 
 sworn is a consummate lie;, shew it to be so, 
 says the court, by admitting a part of it to be 
 true. It is a false swearing ; it is a conspiracy 
 of two witnesses against this defendant ; well 
 then, it lies upon him to rebut their testimony, 
 by proving a great deal of it to be true ! Is con- 
 jecture then, in criminal cases, to stand in the 
 place of truth and demonstration ? Why were 
 not some of those (I will strip the case of the 
 honour of names which I respect) but why 
 were not some of those, who knew that these 
 two persons were to be brought, forward, and 
 that there were to be objections to their credit 
 if, as it is stated, it happened in the presence 
 of a public crowd, rushing in from motives of 
 curiosity, why were not numbers called on to 
 establish that fact ? On the contrary, the court 
 have said to this effect : Mr. Rowan, you say you 
 were not there ; produce any of those persons 
 with whom you were there, to swear you were not 
 there ! You say it was a perjury ; if so, produce 
 the people that he has perjured himself in swearing 
 to have been there ! But as to your own being 
 
 p 2 there,
 
 iti 
 
 there, you can easily shew the contrary of that, 
 by producing some man that you saw there ! 
 Yoti say you were not there? Yes. There 
 were one hundred and fifty persons there : now 
 produce any tme of those to Swear they saw 
 you there .' 
 
 It is impossible for the human mind to suppose 
 a case, in which infatuation must have prevailed 
 in a more progressive degree, than when a jury 
 are thus, in fact, directed to receive no refuta- 
 tion nor proof of the perjury of the witness, 
 but only of his truth. We will permit you to 
 deny the charge by establishing the fact : we 
 will permit yon to prove that they swore falsely 
 to your being there, by producing another 
 witness to pYove to "a certainty that you were 
 there. [Interrupted by lord Clonmell.] 
 
 i> J U~~* j.jyv^r J i i. UTJlil . . . _1 
 
 Lord Clonmell, chief justice. The reasoning 
 of the court was strong Upon that point : this is 
 a transaction stated by the witness to have hap- 
 pened in open day, in a crowded assembly in the 
 capital, amidst a number of persons dressed in 
 the uniform of Hamilton Rowan. There has been 
 nothing suddenly brought forward to surprise the 
 travel-set; yet what has he done, did he offer as 
 in the common course to prove an alibi ? It is 
 stated to be, at such a day ; the witness swears 
 at such on ho'uf the place is sworn to have been 
 full of people, of Mr. Rowan* s friends : but if 
 there was even it partial assembly, it would be 
 
 easy
 
 easy still to produce some one of those persons 
 who were present to say, that the fact did not 
 happen which has been sworn to, or if you say 
 Mr. Rowan was not there, it is easier still to 
 prove it by shewing where he was ; as thus : I 
 breakfasted with him, I dined with him, I supped 
 with him, he waswith me, he was not at Pardon's ; 
 disprove that assertion by proving an affirmation 
 inconsistent with it. 
 
 Mr. Curran. I beg leave to remind the 
 court of what fell from it. " He may call'* 
 (said the court) " any of those persons ; he has 
 46 not produced one of them j" upon this, I 
 think, a most material point does hang. " He 
 " might have called them, for they were all of 
 " his own party." 
 
 Lord Clonmell. That is, if there were such 
 persons there ; or if there was no meeting at all, 
 he might have proved that. 
 
 Mr. Curran. There was no such idea put to 
 the jury, as whether there was a meeting or not : 
 it was said they were all of his party, he might 
 have produced them, and the non-production of 
 them was a "volume of evidence" upon that point. 
 No refinement can avoidthis conclusion, that even 
 as your lordship now states the charge, the fate of 
 the man must depend upon proving the negative. 
 
 Until the credit of the witness was established 
 
 he
 
 214 
 
 he could not be called upon to bring asy contrary 
 evidence. What does the duty of every counsel 
 dictate to him, if the case is not made out by his 
 adversary or prosecutor? Let it rest; the court is 
 bound to tell the jury so, and the jury are bound to 
 find him not guilty. It is a most unshaken maxim, 
 that nenio tenetur prodere se ipsum. And it would 
 indeed be a very inquisitorial exercise of power, 
 to call upon a man to run the risque of confirming 
 the charge, under the penalty of being convicted 
 by nil dicit. Surely at the criminal side of this 
 court, as yet, there has been no such judgment 
 pronounced. It is only when the party stands 
 mute of malice, that such extremes can be resorted 
 to. I never before heard an intimation from any 
 judge to a jury, that bad evidence liable to any and 
 every exception ought to receive a sanction from 
 the silence of the party. The substance of the 
 charge was neither more nor less than tin's: that 
 the falsehood of the evidence shall receive support 
 and credit from the silence of the man accused. 
 With anxiety for the honour and religion of the 
 law, I demand it of you, must not the jury have 
 understood that this silence was evidence to go to 
 them; is the meaning contained in the expression 
 " a volume of evidence" only insinuation ! I do 
 not know where any man could be safe. I do 
 not know what any man could do to screen him- 
 self from prosecution ; I know not how he could 
 be sure, even when lie was at his prayers before 
 the throne of Heaven, that he was not passing 
 that moment of his life, on which he was to be 
 
 charged
 
 215 
 
 charged with the commission of some crime, to be 
 expiated to society by the forfeiture of his liberty 
 or of his life. I do not know what shall become 
 of the subject, if a jury are to be told that the 
 silence of the man charged is a " volume of 
 " evidence" that he is guilty of the crime : 
 where is it written ? I know there is a place 
 where vulgar frenzy cries out, that the public 
 instrument must be drenched in blood; where 
 defence is gagged, and the devoted wretch must 
 perish. But even there the victim of such 
 tyranny is not made to fill, by voluntary silence, 
 the defects of his accusation, for his tongue is 
 tied, and therefore no advantage is taken of him 
 by construction; it cannot be there said that Jiis 
 not speaking is a volume of evidence to prove 
 his guilt. 
 
 But to avoid all misunderstanding, see what is 
 the force of my objection: is it that the charge of 
 the court cannot receive a practicable interpreta- 
 tion, that may not terrify men's minds with ideas 
 such as I have presented? No I am saying no 
 such thing: I have lived too long and observed 
 too much not to know, that every word in a phrase 
 is one of the feet upon which it runs, and how 
 the shortening or lengthening of one of those 
 feet will alter the progress or direction of its mo- 
 tion. I am not arguing that the charge of the 
 court cannot by any possibility be reconciled to 
 the principles of law; I am agitating a bigger 
 question; I am putting it to the conscience of 
 
 the
 
 216 
 
 the court, whether a jury may not have probably 
 collected the same meaning from it, which I have 
 affixed to it, and whether there ought not to have 
 been a volume of explanation, to do away the 
 fatal consequences of such mistake. 
 
 On what sort of a case am I now speaking? on 
 one of that kind, which it is known has been 
 beating the public heart for many months : which 
 from a single being in society has scarcely re- 
 ceived a cool or tranquil examination. I am 
 making that sort of application, which the expan- 
 sion of liberal reason and the decay of technical 
 bigotry have made a favoured application. 
 
 In earlier tiroes it might have been thought sa- 
 crilege to have meddled with a verdict once pro- 
 nounced; since then, the true principles of jus- 
 tice have been better understood; so that now, 
 the whole wisdom of the whole court will have an 
 opportunity of looking over that verdict, and set- 
 ting right the mistake which has occasioned it. 
 
 Mr. Curran made other observations, either 
 to corroborate his own, or to answer the oppo- 
 site counsel; of which it is impossible to give an 
 exact detail ; and concluded : You are standing 
 ou the scanty isthmus that divides the great ocean 
 of duration; on one side of the past, on the other 
 of the future: a ground, that while you yet hear 
 me, is washed from beneath our feet. Let me 
 
 remind
 
 217 
 
 remind you, my lords, while your determina- 
 tion is yet in your power, dum versatur adhuc 
 infra penetralia Vestce, that on that ocean of 
 future you must set your judgment afloat. And 
 future ages will assume the same authority, which 
 you have assumed; posterity feel the same emo- 
 tions which you have felt, when your little hearts 
 have beaten, and your infant eyes have over- 
 flowed, at reading the sad history of the suffer- 
 ings of a Russel or a Sidney. 
 
 [The conclusion of Mr. Curran's speech 'was 
 marked by another burst of applause, similar to 
 those which accompanied his former exertions in 
 this cause.] 
 
 The application to set aside the verdict was re- 
 
 fused by the court; and Mr. Rowan was sentenced 
 
 to pay ajine of .500, to be imprisoned two years, 
 
 and to Jind security for good behaviour, fiimself 
 
 in 2000 and two sureties in ^1000 each. 
 
 SPEECH
 
 SPEECH 
 
 Of 
 
 JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN, ESQ. 
 
 IN DEFENCE OP 
 
 MR. PATRICK FINNEY, 
 
 ON TUESDAY r JANUARY 16, 1798. 
 
 ABSTRACT OF THE INDICTMENT. 
 
 .T IRST count. " That Patrick Finney, yeoman, 
 " on the thirtieth day of April, in the thirty. 
 " seventh year of the king, and divers other 
 " days, at the city of Dublin, being a false 
 " traitor, did compass and imagine the death 
 " of our said lord the king, and did traitorously 
 " and feloniously intend our said lord the king 
 " to kill, murder, and put to death.*' 
 
 The overt acts laid were as follow: " 1. Ad- 
 " hering to the persons exercising the powers of 
 " government in France, in case they should 
 " invade, or cause to be invaded, this kingdom 
 
 of
 
 219 
 
 " of Ireland, they being enemies to the king, 
 " and at war. 2. That the conspirators afore- 
 " said did meet, &c. confer, consult, and deli- 
 *' berate, about adhering to the persons exer- 
 " cising the powers of government in France. 
 " 3. Adhering to the persons exercising the 
 " powers of government in France. 4. Con- 
 " spiring that one or more persons should be 
 " sent into France to excite an invasion of Ire- 
 " land. 5. Conspiring that one or more persons 
 " should be sent into France to excite an inva- 
 " sion of this kingdom and to make war therein; 
 " and for that purpose did ask, levy, and re- 
 " ceive, &c. from other traitors, money, to wit, 
 " from each ,20, to defray the expenses of the 
 " persons to be sent. 6. That conspiring, &c. 
 " they did send into France four persons un- 
 41 known, to excite the persons exercising the 
 " powers of government in France to invade 
 41 this kingdom, and make war therein. 7. Con- 
 " spiring to send, and sending four persons into 
 " France to persuade invasion, and to aid them 
 " in invading, and raising, and making war ; 
 " and Finney, then and there, demanding and 
 " receiving money, viz. ,20, todefray the charges 
 " of said persons. 8. That said Patrick Finney 
 ** became an United Irishman for the purpose 
 *' of assisting the persons exercising the powers 
 " of government in France, and being met to 
 *' the number of forty-eight other traitors, did 
 " divide into four splits, which each contained 
 " twelve traitors, and each split did then choose 
 
 one
 
 220 
 
 " one to be secretary, to consult on behalf thereof 
 *' with other splits, under the denomination of 
 *' baronial meetings, for the purpose of adhering 
 " and making war, in case of an invasion of 
 44 Ireland from France, and then and there con- 
 *' spiring an attack upon the castle of Dublin, 
 " &c. and to deprive his majesty of the stores 
 4C and ammunition therein ; and said Finney, to 
 *' facilitate such attack, did advise and com- 
 ** mend other traitors to view White' s-court, &c. 
 ' and give their opinion to their several splits, 
 " so that their secretaries might report the same 
 '* to their baronial meetings. 9. Adhering to 
 " the persons exercising the powers of govern- 
 " ment in France, &c. and with forty-eight other 
 " conspirators, divided into four splits, each 
 44 containing twelve, each split choosing a secre- 
 " tary to confer for the purpose of adhering to 
 " the enemy in case of invasion, and confeder- 
 ** ating and agreeing that a violent attack 
 " should be made on the ordnance stores, &c. 
 " 10. Consulting, &c. to procure an invasion. - 
 *' 11. Consulting to raise insurrection, rebel- 
 " lion, and war, in case of invasion of Ireland 
 " or Great Britain from France. 12. Con- 
 ** spiring to assist the persons exercising the 
 " powers of government in France, in case 
 " of their invading this realm, with ships and 
 *' arms.'* 
 
 There was a second count, for " adhering to 
 " the king's enemies within the realm," and in 
 
 support
 
 support of this count, .the overt acts laid were 
 exactly the same as those above recited. 
 
 A jury being sworn, the attorney-general 
 stated the case on the part of the crown, the 
 evidence being gone through on both sides, Mr. 
 Curran spoke as follows: 
 
 MY LORDS, AND GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY. 
 
 In the early part of this trial, I thought I should 
 have had to address you on the most important 
 occasion possible, on this side of the grave, a 
 man labouring for life, on the casual strength of 
 an exhausted, and at best, a feeble advocate. 
 But, gentlemen, do not imagine that I rise under 
 any such impressions do not imagine that I 
 approach you, sinking under the hopeless diffi- 
 culties of my cause. I am not now soliciting 
 your indulgence to the inadequacy of my powers, 
 or artfully enlisting your passions at the side of 
 my client. No! gentlemen, but I rise with 
 what of law, of conscience, of justice, and of 
 constitution, there exists within this realm at 
 my back, and, standing in front of that great 
 and powerful alliance, I DEMAND a verdict of ac- 
 quittal for my client! What is the opposition 
 of evidence! It is a tissue which requires no 
 strength to break through, it vanishes at the 
 touch, and is sundered into tatters. 
 
 The right honourable gentleman who stated 
 
 the
 
 222 
 
 the case in the first stage of this trial, has been 
 so kind as to express a reliance, that the counsel 
 for the prisoner would address the jury with the 
 same candour which he exemplified on the part 
 of the crown; readily and confidently do I ac- 
 cept the compliment, the more particularly, as 
 in my cause I feel no temptation to reject it. Life 
 can present no situation wherein the humble 
 powers of man are so awfully and so divinely 
 excited, as in defence of a fellow-creature placed 
 in the circumstances of my client: and if any 
 labours can peculiarly attract the gracious and 
 approving eye of heaven, it is when God looks 
 down on a human being assailed by human turpi- 
 tude, and struggling with practices against which 
 the Deity has placed his special canon when he 
 said " Thou shalt not bear false nihiess against 
 " thy neighbour thou shalt do no murder!" 
 
 Gentlemen, let me desire you again and again 
 to consider all the circumstances of this man's 
 case, abstracted from the influence of prejudice 
 and habit, and if aught of passion assumes do- 
 minion over you, let it be of that honest, gener- 
 ous nature, that good men must feel when they 
 see an innocent man depending on their verdict 
 for his life: to this passion I feel myself insensibly 
 yielding; but unclouded, though not unwarmed, 
 I shall, I trust, proceed in my great duty. 
 Wishing to state my client's case with all possible 
 succinctnesss which the nature of the charge ad- 
 mits
 
 223 
 
 mils, I am glad my learned colleague has ac- 
 quitted himself on this head already to such an 
 extent, and with such ability, that any thing I 
 can say will chance to be superflous in truth, 
 that honesty of heart, and integrity of principle, 
 for which all must give him credit, uniting 
 with a sound judgment and sympathetic heart, 
 have given to his statement all the advantages it 
 could have derived from these qualities. He has 
 truly said, that " the declaratory act, the twenty. 
 " fifth of Edward III. is that on which all charges 
 " of high treason are founded," and I trust the 
 observation will be deeply engraven on your\ 
 hearts. It is an act made to save the subject 
 from the vague and wandering uncertainty of 
 the law. It is an act which leaves it no longer 
 doubtful whether a man shall incur conviction by 
 his own conduct, or the sagacity of crown con- 
 struction : whether he shall sink beneath his own 
 guilt, or the cruel and barbarous refinement of 
 crown prosecution; It has been most aptly 
 called the blessed act; and oh! may the great 
 God of justice and of mercy give repose and 
 eternal blessing to the souls of those honest men 
 by whom it was enacted! By this law no man shall 
 be convicted of high treason, but on proveable evi- 
 dence; the overt acts of treasons, as explained 
 in this law, shall be stated clearly and distinctly 
 in the charge ; and the proof of these acts shall 
 be equally clear and distinct, in order that no 
 mail's life may depend on partial and wicked 
 allegation* 
 
 It
 
 224. 
 
 It does every thing for the prisoner, which he 
 could dp himself it does every thing but uttering 
 the verdict, -which alone remains with you, and 
 which, I trust, you will give in the same pure, 
 honest, saving spirit, in which that act was 
 formed. Gentlemen, I would call it an omni- 
 potent act, if it could possibly appal the informer 
 from our courts of justice ; but law cannot do 
 it religion cannot do it the feelings of human 
 nature, frozen in the depraved heart of the 
 wretched informer cannot be thawed! 
 
 '. ... j !.t JL -.-I--- -.ii - * I *j Ol ?mj - -V 
 
 Law cannot prevent the envenomed arrow from 
 being pointed at the intended victim; but it ha* 
 given him a shield in the integrity of a jury! 
 Every thing is so clear in this act, that all must 
 understand: the several acts of treason must be 
 recited, and proveable conviction must follow. 
 What is proveable conviction? Are you at a loss 
 to know ? Do you think if a man comes on the 
 table, and says " By virtue of my oath, I know 
 " of a conspiracy against the state, and such and 
 " such persons are engaged in it" Do you think 
 his mere allegation shall justify you in a verdict 
 of conviction? A witness coming on this table of 
 whatsoever description, whether the noble lord 
 who has been examined, or the honourable judges 
 on the bench, or Mr. James O'Brien, who shall 
 declare upon o'ath that a man boiight powder, 
 ball, and arms, intending to kill another this is 
 not proveable conviction, the unlawful intention 
 
 shall
 
 225 
 
 shall be attached by cogency of evidence, and 
 the credit of the witness must stand strong and 
 unimpeached. 
 
 The law means not, that infamous assertion 
 or dirty ribaldry is to overthrow the character 
 of a man; even in these imputations flung against 
 the victim, there is fortunately, something de- 
 tergent, that cleanses the character it was des- 
 tined to befoul. 
 
 In stating the law, gentlemen, I have told you 
 that the overt acts must be laid and proved by 
 positive testimony of untainted witnesses, and in 
 so saying I have only spoken the language of the 
 most illustrious writers on the law of England. 
 I should, perhaps, apologize to you for detaining 
 your attention so long on these particular points, 
 but that in the present disturbed state of the 
 public mind, and in the abandonment of prin- 
 ciple which it but too frequently produces, I 
 think I cannot too strongly impress you with the 
 purity of legal distinction, so that your souls 
 shall not be harrowed with those torturing re- 
 grets which the return of reason would bring 
 along with it, were you, on the present occasion, 
 for a moment to resign it to the subjection of 
 your passions; for these, though sometimes amia- 
 ble in their impetuosity, can never be dignified 
 and just, but under the controul of reason. The 
 charge against the prisoner is two-fold com- 
 passing and imagining the king's death, and ad- 
 
 <^ hering
 
 226 
 
 herini; to the kind's enemies. To be accurate 
 
 o o 
 
 on this head is not less my intention than it is 
 my interest; for if I fall into errors, they will 
 not escape the learned counsel who is to come 
 after me, and whose detections will not fail to 
 be made in the correct spirit of crov/n prosecu- 
 tion. Gentlemen, there are no fewer than thir- 
 teen overt acts, as described, necessary to sup- 
 port the indictment ; these, however, it is not 
 necessary to recapitulate. The learned counsel 
 for the crown has been perfectly candid and cor- 
 rect in saying, that if any of them support either 
 species of treason charged in the indictment, it 
 will be sufficient to attach the guilt. I do not 
 complain that on the part of the crown it was 
 not found expedient to point out which act or 
 acts went to support the indictment; neither will 
 I complain, gentlemen, if you fix your attention 
 particularly on the circumstance. Mr. Attorney- 
 general has been pleased to make an observation, 
 which drew a remark from my colleague, with 
 whom I fully agree, that the atrocity of a charge 
 should make no impression on you; it was the 
 judgment of candour and liberality, and should 
 be yours nor though you should more than an- 
 swer the high opinion I entertain of you, and 
 though youi* hearts betray not the consoling con- 
 fidence which your looks inspire, yet do not dis- 
 dain to increase your stock of candour and liber- 
 alily, from whatsoever source it flows; and 
 though the abundance of my client's innocence 
 may render him, independent of its exertions, 
 
 your
 
 your country wants it all. You are not to suffer 
 impressions of loyalty, or an enthusiastic love for 
 the sacred person of the king, to give your judg- 
 ments the smallest bias. You are to decide from 
 the evidence which you have heard, and if the 
 atrocity of the charge were to have any influence 
 with you, it should he that of rendering you 
 more incredulous to the possibility of its truth. 
 I confess, I cannot conceive a greater crime 
 against civilized society, be the form of govern- 
 ment what it may, whether monarchical, republi- 
 can, or, I had almost said, despotic, than attempt 
 to destroy the life of the person holding the exe- 
 cutive authority the counsel for the crown can- 
 not feel a greater abhorrence against it than I 
 do; and happy am I, at this moment, that I can 
 do justice to my principles, and the feelings of 
 my heart, without endangering the defence of my 
 client, and that defence is, that your hearts 
 would not feel more reluctant to the perpetra- 
 tion of the crimes with which he is charged, than 
 the man who there stands at the bar of his coun- 
 try, waiting until you shall clear him from the 
 foul and unmerited imputation until your ver- 
 dict, sounding life and honour to his senses, 
 shall rescue him from the dreadful fascination of 
 the informer's eye. The overt acts in the charge 
 against the prisoner are many, and all apparently 
 of the same nature, but they, notwithstanding, 
 admit of a very material distinction ; this want 
 of candour I attribute to the base imposition of 
 the prosecutor on those who brought him for- 
 Q 2 -*-ard.
 
 228 
 
 ward. You find at the bottom of the charge a 
 foundation-stone attempted to be laid by O'Brien 
 the deliberations of a society of united Irish- 
 men, and on this are laid all the overt acts. I 
 said the distinction was of moment, because it 
 is endeavoured to be held forth to the public 
 to all Europe, that, at a time like this of peril 
 and of danger, there are, in one province alone, 
 one hundred and eleven thousand of your coun- 
 trymen combined for the purpose of destroying 
 the king, and the tranquillity of the country 
 which so much depends on him an assertion 
 which you should consider of again and again 
 before you give it any other existence than it de- 
 rives from the attainting breath of the informer, 
 if nothing should induce that consideration but 
 the name of IRISHMAN, the honours of which you 
 share; a name so foully, and, as I shall demon- 
 strate, so falsely aspersed. 
 
 If you can say that one fact of O'Brien's tes- 
 timony deserves belief, all that can from thence 
 be inferred is, that a great combination of mind 
 and will exists on some public subject. What 
 says the written evidence on that subject? What 
 are the obligations imposed by the test-oath of 
 the society of united Irishmen ? Is it unjust 
 to get rid of religious differences and distinction? 
 Would to God it were possible! Is it an offence 
 against the state, to promote a full, free, and 
 adequate representation of all the people of Ire- 
 land in parliament? If it be, the text is full of 
 
 its
 
 229 
 
 its own comment, it needs no comment of mine. 
 As to the last clause, obliging to secrecy. Now, 
 gentlemen of the jury, in the hearing of the 
 court, I submit to the opposite counsel this ques- 
 tion, I will make my adversary my arbiter 
 Taking the test-oath, as thus written, is there 
 any thing of treason in it? However objec- 
 tionable it may be, it certainly is not treason- 
 able: I admit there may be a colourable com- 
 bination of words to conceal a real bad design, 
 but to what evils would it not expose society, if, 
 in this case, to suppose were to decide. An high 
 legal authority thus speaks on this subject: 
 " strong indeed must the evidence be, which 
 " goes to prove that any man can mean by words 
 " any thing more, than what is conveyed in 
 *' their ordinary acceptation." If the test of 
 any particular community were an open one; 
 if, like the London corresponding society, it 
 was to be openly published, then, indeed, there 
 might be a reason for not using words in their 
 common application but, subject to no pub- 
 lic discussion, at least not intended to be so 
 why should the proceedings of those men, or the 
 obligation by which they are connected, be ex- 
 pressed in the phraseology of studied conceal- 
 ment? 
 
 If men meet in secret, to talk over how best 
 the French can invade this country, to what 
 purpose is it that they take an engagement dif- 
 ferent in meaning? Common sense rejects the 
 
 idea !
 
 230 
 
 idea ! Gentlemen, having stated these distinc- 
 tions, I am led to the remaining divisions of 
 the subject your are to consider. I admit, that 
 because a man merely takes this obligation of 
 union, it cannot prevent his becoming a traitor 
 if he pleases; but the question for you to de- 
 cide on would then be, whether every man who 
 takes it must necessarily be a traitor ? Inde- 
 pendent of that engagement, have any super- 
 added facts been proved against the prisoner ? 
 What is the evidence of O'Brien? What has he 
 stated? Here, gentlemen, let me claim the be- 
 nefits of that great privilege, which distin- 
 guishes trial by jury in this country from all the 
 world. 
 
 Twelve men, not emerging from the must 
 and cobwebs of a study, abstracted from human 
 nature, or only acquainted with its extrava- 
 gancies; but twelve men, conversant with life, 
 and practiced in those feelings which mark the 
 common and necessary intercouse between man 
 and man. -Such are you, gentlemen ; how, 
 then, does Mr. O'Brien's tale hang together? 
 Look to its commencement. He walks along 
 Thonras-street, in the open day (a street, not 
 the least populous in this city,) and is accosted 
 by a man, who, without any preface, tells him, 
 he'll be murdered before he goes half the street, 
 unless he becomes a united Irishman! Do you 
 think this a probable story ? Suppose any of 
 you, gentlemen, be a united Irishman, or a free^ 
 
 mason,
 
 231 
 
 mason, or a friendly brother, and that you met 
 me walking innocently along, just like Mr. 
 O'Brien, and meaning no harm, would you say, 
 " Stop, Mr. Curran, don't go further, you'll be 
 " murdered before you go half the street, if you 
 " you do not become a united Irishman, a free 
 " mason, or a friendly brother." Did you ever 
 hear so coaxing an invitation to felony as this ? 
 " Sweet Mr. James O'Brien! come in and save 
 " your precious life, come in and take an oath, 
 " or you'll be murdered before you go half the 
 *' street! Do, sweetest, dearest Mr. James 
 " O'Brien, come in, and do not risk your valu- 
 " able existence." What a loss had he been to 
 his king, whom he loves so marvellously! Well, 
 what does poor Mr. O'Brien do ? Poor, dear 
 man, he stands petrified with the magnitude 
 of his danger all his members refuse their 
 office he can neither run from the danger, nor 
 call out for assistance; his tongue cleaves to his 
 mouth ; and his feet incorporate with the paving 
 stones it is in vain that his expressive eye si- 
 lently implores protection of the passenger ; he 
 yields at length, as greater men have done, and 
 resignedly submits to his fate he then enters 
 the house, and being led into a room, a parcel 
 of men make faces at him but mark the meta- 
 morphosis well may it be said that *' Miracles 
 " will never cease," he who feared to resist in 
 open air, and in the face of the public, becomes 
 a bravo, when pent up in a room, and environed 
 by sixteen men, aqd one is obliged tor bar the 
 
 door,*
 
 232 
 
 door, whileanother swears him, which, after some 
 resistance, is accordingly done, and poor Mr. 
 O'Brien becomes a united Irishman, for no earthly 
 purpose whatever, but merely to save his sweet 
 life ! But this is not all the pill so bitter to the 
 precipiency of his loyal palate, must be washed 
 down, and lest he should throw it off his sto- 
 mach, he is filled up to the neck with beef and 
 whiskey. What further did they do ? 
 
 Mr. O'Brien, thus persecuted, abused, and 
 terrified, would have gone and lodged his sor- 
 rows in the sympathetic bosom of the major, 
 but to prevent him even this little solace, they 
 made him drunk. The next evening they used 
 him in the like barbarous manner, so that he 
 was not only sworn against his will, but, poor 
 man, he was made drunk against his inclination. 
 Thus was he besieged with united beef-steaks 
 and whiskey, and against such potent assailants 
 not even Mr. O'Brien could prevail. 
 
 Whether all this whiskey that he has been 
 forced to drink has produced the effect or not, 
 Mr. O'Brien's loyalty is better than his memory. 
 In'the spirit of loyalty he became prophetic, 
 and told to lord Portarlington the circumstances 
 relative to the intended attack on the ordnance 
 stores full three weeks before he had obtained the 
 information through moral agency Oh! honest 
 James O'Brien ! honest James O'Brien ! Let 
 
 others
 
 233 
 
 other;? vainly argue on logical truth and ethical 
 falsehood, but if I can once fasten him to the 
 ring of perjury, I will bait him at it, until his 
 testimony shall fail of producing a verdict, al- 
 though human nature were as vile and monstrous 
 in you as she is in him! He has made a mistake! 
 but surely no man's life is safe if such evidence 
 were admissible; what argument can be founded 
 on his testimony, when he swears he has per- 
 jured himself, and that any thing he says must 
 be false ; I must not believe him at all, and by a 
 paradoxical conclusion, suppose, against " the 
 " damnation" of his own testimony, that he is an 
 honest man! [Another of the prisoner's counsel 
 having here suggested something to Mr. Curran, 
 he continued] My learned friend supposed me 
 to be mistaken, and confounding the evidences 
 of O'Brien and Clark, but I am not; I advert 
 to what O'Brien said to lord Portarlington, re- 
 specting the attack on the arsenal. 
 
 Strongly as I feel my interest keep pace with 
 that of my client, I would not defend him at 
 the expence of truth ; I seek not to make him 
 worse than he is; whatever he may be, God 
 Almighty convert his mind! May his reproba- 
 tion, but I beg his pardon, let your verdict 
 stamp that currency on his credit; it will have 
 more force than any casual remarks of mine. How 
 this contradiction in Mr. O'Brien's evidence oc- 
 curred I am at no loss to understand. He started 
 from the beginning with an intention of inform- 
 ing
 
 234 
 
 ing against some person, no matter against 
 whom; and whether he ever saw the prisoner 
 at the time he gave the information to lord 
 Portarlington is a question ; but none, that he 
 fabricated the story for the purpose of im- 
 posing on the honest zeal of the law officers of 
 the crown. 
 
 Having now glanced at a part of this man's 
 evidence, I do riot mean to part with him en- 
 tirely, I shall have occasion to visit him again ; 
 but before I do, let me, gentlemen, once more 
 impress upon your minds the observation which 
 my colleague applied to the laws of high treason, 
 that if they are not explained on the statute 
 book, they are explained on the hearts of all ho- 
 nest men ; and, as St. Paul says, " though they 
 " know not the law, they obey the statutes there- 
 '* of." The essence of the charge submitted to 
 your consideration tends to the dissolution of the 
 connexion between Ireland and Great Britain. 
 
 I own, it is with much warmth and self-gra- 
 tulation, that I feel this calumny answered by 
 the attachment of every good man to. the British 
 constitution. I feel, I embrace its principles ; 
 and when I look on you, the proudest benefit of 
 that constitution, I am relieved from the fears 
 of advocacy, since I place my client under the 
 influence of its sacred shade. This is not the idle 
 sycophancy of words It is not crying " Lord! 
 " Lord!" but doing "the will of my father who 
 
 " is
 
 235 
 
 *' is in heaven." If my client were to be tried 
 by a jury of Ludgate-hill shop-keepers, he would 
 ere now be in his lodging. The law of England 
 would not suffer a man to be cruelly butchered 
 in a court of justice. The law of England recog- 
 nises the possibility of villains thirsting for the 
 blood of their fellow-creatures; and the people 
 of Ireland have no cause to be incredulous of the 
 fact. Thus it is, that in England two witnesses 
 are essential to the proof of high treason; and 
 the poorest wretch that crawls on British ground, 
 has this protection between him and those vam- 
 pi/res who crawl out of their graves in search of 
 human blood. If there be but one witness, there 
 is the" less possibility of contradicting him he 
 the less fears any detection of his murderous tale, 
 having only infernal communication between 
 him and the author of all evil ; and when on the 
 table, which he makes the altar of his sacrifice, 
 however common men may be affected at sight 
 of the innocent victim, it cannot be supposed 
 that the prompter of his perjury will instigate him 
 to retribution: this is the law in England, and 
 God forbid that Irishmen should so differ, in the 
 estimation of the law, from Englishmen, that 
 their blood is not equally worth preserving. 
 
 I do not, gentlemen, apply any part of this 
 observation to you; you are Irishmen your- 
 selves, and, I know you will act proudly and 
 honestly. Why the law of England renders two 
 witnesses-necessary, and one witness insufficient, 
 
 to
 
 236 
 
 to take away the life of a man, on a charge of 
 high-treason, founded on the principle of com- 
 mon sense, and common justice ; for, unless the 
 subject were guarded by this wise prevention, 
 every wretch who could so pervert the powers 
 of invention, as to trump up a tale of treason 
 and conspiracy, would have it in his power to 
 defraud the crown into the most abominable and 
 afflicting acts of cruelty and oppression. 
 
 Gentlemen of the jury, though from the evi- 
 dence which has been adduced against the pri- 
 soner they have lost their value, yet, had they 
 been necessary, I must tell you, that my client 
 came forward under a disadvantage of great mag- 
 nitude, the absence of two witnesses, very ma- 
 terial to his defence I am not now at liberty to 
 say, what, I am instructed, would have been 
 proved by May, and Mr. Roberts Why is not 
 Mr. Roberts here? Recollect the admission of 
 O'Brien, that he threatened to settle him, and 
 you will cease to wonder at his absence, when, if 
 he came, the dagger was in preparation to be 
 plunged into his heart. I said Mr. Roberts was 
 absent, I correct myself No! in effect he is 
 here, I appeal to the heart of that obdurate man, 
 what would have been his testimony if he had 
 dared to venture a personal evidence on this trial? 
 Gracious God! Is a tyranny of this kind to 
 be borne with, where law is said to exist! Shall 
 the horrors which surround the informer, the fe- 
 rocity of his countenance, and the terrors of his 
 
 voice,
 
 23? 
 
 voice, cast such a wide and appalling influence, 
 that none dare approach and save the victim 
 which he marks for ignominy and death! 
 
 Now, gentlemen, be pleased to look to the 
 rest of O'Brien's testimony: he tells you there 
 are one hundred and eleven thousand men, in 
 one province added to ten thousand of the inha- 
 bitants of the metropolis, ready to assist the ob- 
 ject of an invasion. What! gentlemen, do you 
 think there are so many in one province so 
 many in your city, combined against their coun- 
 try? At such a time as this, do you think it a wise 
 thing to say, on the evidence of the abominable 
 O'Brien, that if the enemy was to invade this 
 country, there are one hundred and eleven thou- 
 sand men ready to run to his standard? But this 
 is not the most appalling view of the question : 
 For its importance, and its novelty, this is the 
 most unprecedented trial in the annals of this 
 country. I recollect none bearing any affinity to 
 it, save that of the unhappy wanderer, Jackson : 
 and, promising that I mean not the smallest allu- 
 sion to the conduct of public measures in this 
 country, are you prepared, I ask you seriously, 
 are you prepared to embark your respectable 
 characters in the same bottom with this detestable 
 INFORMER ? Are you ready on such evi- 
 dence to take away, one by one, the lives of an 
 hundred thousand men, by prosecutions in a 
 court of justice? Are you prepared, when 
 O'Brien shall come forward against ten thousand 
 
 of
 
 of your fellow-citizens, to assist him in digging 
 the graves, which he has destined to receive 
 them one by one? No! could your hearts yield 
 for a moment to the suggestion, your own re- 
 flections would vindicate the justice of God, and 
 the insulted character of man; you would fly 
 from the secrets of your chamber, and take re- 
 fuge in the multitude, from those " compunc- 
 " tious visitings," which meaner men could not 
 look on without horror. Do not think I am 
 speaking disrespectfully of you when I say that 
 while an O'Brien may be found, it may be the 
 lot of the proudest among, you to be in the 
 &}^ instead of the jury box; how then on such 
 an occasion would any of you feel, if such evi- 
 dence as has been heard this day were adduced 
 against you? 
 
 The application affects you you shrink from 
 the imaginary situation remember then the 
 great mandate of your religion, and " do unto 
 '* all men as you would they should do unto 
 " you." Why do you condescend to listen to 
 me with such attention? why so anxious, if even 
 from me any thing should fall tending to en- 
 lighten you on the present awful occasion? it is, 
 because, bound by the sacred obligations of an 
 oath, your heart will not. allow you to forfeit it; 
 Have you any doubt that it is the object of 
 O'Brien to take down the prisoner for the re- 
 ward that follows? Have you not seen with what 
 more than instinctive keenness this blood-hound 
 
 has
 
 239 
 
 has pursued his victim? how he has kept him 
 in view from place to place until he hunts him 
 through the avenues of the court to where the 
 unhappy man stands now, hopeless of all suc- 
 cour but that which your verdict shall afford. I 
 have heard of assassination by sword, by pistol, 
 and by dagger, but here is a wretch who would 
 dip the evangelists in blood if he thinks he 
 has not sworn his victim to death, he is ready to 
 swear, without mercy and without end 5 but oh! 
 do not, I conjure you, suffer him to take an 
 oath; the arm of the murderer should not pol- 
 lute the purity of the gospel; if he will s^ear, 
 let it be on the knife, the proper symbol of his 
 profession ! Gentlemen, I am reminded of the 
 tissue of abomination, with which this deadly 
 calumniator, this O'Brien, has endeavoured to 
 load so large a portion of your adult country, 
 men. He charges one hundred thousand Irish,- 
 men with the deliberate cruelty of depriving 
 their fellow-creatures of their eyes, tongues, and 
 hands! Do not believe the infamous slander! If 
 J were told that there was in Ireland one man 
 who could so debase human nature, I should 
 hesitate to believe that even O'Brien were he. 
 I have heard the argument made use of, that, 
 in cases of a very foul nature, witnesses cannot 
 be found free from imputation; this admitted in 
 its fullest extent, it does not follow, that such 
 evidence is to be accredited without other sup- 
 port. In such cases strong corroboration is 
 necessary, and you would be the most helpless 
 
 and
 
 240 
 
 and unfortunate men in the world, if you were 
 under the necessity of attending to the solitary 
 testimony of such witnesses. In the present pro- 
 secution two witnesses have been examined; for 
 the respectable character of lord Portarlington 
 must not be polluted by a combination with 
 O'Brien: if his lordship had told exactly the same, 
 story with O'Brien, it could not, however, be con- 
 sidered as corroborating O'Brien, who might as 
 easily have uttered a falsehood to lord Portar- 
 lington as he did here; but how much more 
 strongly must you feel yourselves bound to re- 
 ject his evidence, when, appealing to his lord- 
 ship, he is materially contradicted, and his per- 
 jury established. With respect to Clark, he fixes 
 no corroborative evidence whatever to the overt 
 acts laid in the indictment. In endeavouring to 
 slide in evidence of a conspiracy to murder 
 Thompson, what might be the consequence if 
 such a vile insinuation took possession of your 
 minds I am not blinking the question, I come 
 boldly up to it there is not the most remote 
 evidence to connect the fate of Thompson with 
 the present case, and nothing could shew the 
 miserable paucity of his evidence more than 
 seeking to support it on what did not at all re- 
 late to the charge. Five witnesses, as if by the 
 interference of Providence, have discredited 
 O'Brien to as many facts. 
 
 What did the simple and honest evidence of 
 Johu Clarke of Blue-bell amount to against 
 
 O'Brien?
 
 241 
 
 O'Brien? It attached the double crime of arti- 
 fice and perjury, and added robbery to the per- 
 sonification. See now in Dublin there are at this 
 moment thousands and ten thousands of your 
 fellow-citizens, anxiously by, waiting to know if 
 you will convict the prisoner on the evidence of 
 a wilful and corrupt perjurer, whether they are, 
 each in his turn, to feel the fatal effects of his 
 condemnation, or whether they are to find pro- 
 tection in the laws from the machinations of the 
 informer. [Mr. Curran having been reminded 
 to observe on the recipe for coining.] No! con- 
 tinued he, let him keep his coining for himself; 
 it will not pass in common with other pieces 
 it suits him well, and is the proper emblem of 
 his conscience, copper washed. Would you let 
 such a fellow as this into your house as a servant 
 under the impressions which his evidecce must 
 make on your minds? 
 
 If you would not take his services in exchange 
 for wages, will you take his perjury in exchange 
 for the life of a fellow creature? How will you 
 feel, if the assignats of such evidence pass cur- 
 rent for human blood! How will you bear the 
 serrated and iron fangs of remorse, gnawing at 
 your hearts, if, in the moment of abandonment, 
 YOU suffer the victim to be massacred even ia 
 
 V 
 
 our arms. But has his perjury stopped here? 
 What said the innocent countryman, Patrick Ga- 
 vanagh? Pursuing the even tenor of his way, in 
 the paths of honest industry, he is ia the act of 
 R fulfilling
 
 242 
 
 fulfilling the decree of his Maker, he is earning 
 his bread by the sweat of his brow; when this 
 villain, less pure than the arch-fiend who brought 
 this sentence of laborious action on mankind, 
 enters the habitation of peace and humble in* 
 dustry, and, not content with dipping his tongue 
 in perjury and blood, robs the poor man of two 
 guineas ! Can you wonder that he crept into the 
 hole of the multitude when the witness would 
 have developed him? do you wonder that he 
 endeavoured to shun your eyes ? 
 
 At this moment even the bold and daring vil- 
 lainy of O'Brien stood abashed; he saw the eye 
 of heaven in that of an innocent and injured 
 man, perhaps the feeling was consummated by a 
 glance from the dock his heart bore testimony 
 to his guilt, and he fled for the same! Gracious 
 God! have you been so soiled in the vile inter- 
 course, that you will give him a degree of credit, 
 which you will deny to the candid and untaint- 
 ed evidence of so many honest men? But I have 
 not done with him yet while an atom of his 
 vileness hangs together, I will separate it, lest 
 you should chance to be taken by it. Was there 
 a human creature brought forward to say he is 
 any other than a villain? did his counsel venture 
 to ask our witnesses, why they discredited him ? 
 did he dare to ask on what they established their 
 assertions? no! by this time it is probable Mr. 
 O'Brien is sick of investigation. You find him 
 coiling himself in the scaly circles of his cautious 
 
 perjury,
 
 243 
 
 perjury, making anticipated battle against any 
 one who should appear against him but you 
 see him sinking before the proof. 
 
 Do you feel, gentlemen, that I have been 
 wantonly aspersing this man's character? Is he 
 not a perjurer, a swindler? and that he is not a 
 murderer, will depend on you. He assumes the 
 character of a king's officer, to rob the king's 
 people of their money, and afterwards, when 
 their property fails him, he seeks to rob them 
 of their lives! What say you to his habitual fel- 
 lowship with baseness and fraud? He gives a 
 recipe instructing to felony, and counterfeiting 
 the king's coin, and when questioned about it, 
 what is his answer? why truly, that it was 
 " only a light, easy way of getting money only 
 " a little bit of a humbug." Good God ! I ask 
 you, has it ever come across you to meet with 
 such a constellation of infamy ! 
 
 Beside the perjury Clark had nothing to say, 
 scarcely ground to turn on. He swears he was 
 not in the court yesterday what then? why, 
 he has only perjured himself! well, call little 
 skirmish up again? why, it was but a mistake! 
 a little puzzled or so, and not being a lawyer, 
 he could not tell whether he was in court or 
 not! Mr. Clark is a much better evidence than 
 my lord Portarlington his lordship, in the im- 
 providence of truth, bore a single testimony; 
 while Clark, wisely providing against contin- 
 gencies, swore at both sides of the gutter, but 
 
 B 2 te
 
 244 
 
 the lesser perjurer is almost forgotten in the 
 greater. No fewer than FIVE perjuries are esta- 
 blished against the loyal Mr. O'Brien, who has 
 been " united to every honest man" if indicted 
 on any one of these, I must tell you, gentleman, 
 that he could not be sworn in a court of justice; 
 on the testimony of five witnesses, on his own 
 testimony, he stands indicted before you; and, 
 gentlemen, you must refuse him that credit, not 
 to be squandered on such baseness and profli- 
 gacy. The present cause takes in the entire 
 character of your country, which may suffer in 
 the eyes of all Europe by your verdict. This is 
 the first prosecution of the kind brought forward 
 to view. It is the great experiment of the in- 
 formers of Ireland, to ascertain how far they 
 can carry on a traffick in human blood! This can- 
 nibal informer, this daemon, O'Brien, greedy 
 after human gore, has fifteen other victims in 
 reserve, if, from your verdict, he receives the 
 unhappy man at the bar ! Fifteen more of your 
 fellow-citizens are to be tried on his evidence! 
 Be you then their saviours, let your verdict 
 snatch them from his ravening maw, and inter- 
 pose between yourselves and endless remorse! 
 
 I know, gentlemen, I should but insult you, if 
 I were to apologize for detaining you thus long; 
 if I have apology to make to any person, it is to 
 my client, for thus delaying his acquittal. Sweet 
 is the recollection of having done justice, in that 
 hour, when the hand of death presses on the hu- 
 man heart ! Sweet is the hope which it gives birth 
 
 to!
 
 245 
 
 to! From you I demand that justice for my 
 client, your innocent and unfortunate fellow- 
 subject at the bar, and may you have for it a more 
 lasting reward than the perishable crown we read 
 of, which the ancients placed on the brow of him 
 who saved in battle the life of a fellow-citizen. 
 
 If you should ever be assailed by the hand of 
 the informer, may you find an all-powerful re- 
 fuge in the example which you shall set this day; 
 earnestly do I pray that you may never experi- 
 ence what it is to count the tedious hours in cap- 
 tivity, pining in the damps and gloom of the 
 dungeon, while the wicked one is going about at 
 large, seeking whom he may devour. There is 
 another than a human tribunal, where the best 
 of us will have occasion to look back on the little 
 good we have done. In that awful trial, oh! 
 may your verdict this day assure your hopes, and 
 give you strength and consolation in the pre- 
 sence of an ADJUDGING GOD. 
 
 [Here ended Mr. Curran's address : and to say 
 that the reporter has done it justice, is a presump- 
 tion that he disclaims. To keep pace with the ra- 
 pid Jlow of his eloqueilce is impossible ; the hearer 
 stands in astonishment and rapture, viewing the 
 majesty of its course ; and he who most admires it, 
 is lea stable to record it. ~\ 
 
 MR. FINNEY WAS ACQUITTED. 
 
 SPEECH
 
 SPEECH 
 
 or 
 
 JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN, ESQ. 
 
 IN DEFENCE OF 
 
 ON FBIDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1797. 
 
 ABSTRACT OF THE INDICTMENT. 
 
 R. PETER FINNERTT being put to the bar, 
 the pannel of the petty jurors was called; theje 
 appeared above one hundred and forty names 
 on it. 
 
 MJUOfj -.-. 
 
 The clerk of the crown then gave Mr. Fin- 
 nerty in charge of the jury upon an indictment, 
 stating, " That at a general assizes and general 
 " goal delivery holden at Carrickfergus, in and 
 " for the county of Antrim, on the seventeenth 
 *' of April, in the thirty-seventh year of the king, 
 " before the honourable Mathias Finucane, one 
 " of the judges of his majesty's court of com- 
 " mon pleas in Ireland, and the honourable 
 " Denis George, one of the barons of his majes- 
 " ty's court of exchequer in Ireland, justices and 
 
 com-
 
 247 
 
 '* commissioners assigned to deliver the goal of 
 " our said lord the king in and for the county 
 " of Antrim of the several prisoners and male- 
 " factors therein, one William Orr, late of Far- 
 " ranshane, in said county of Antrim, yeoman, was 
 " in lawful manner indicted for feloniously ad- 
 " ministering a certain oath and engagement, up- 
 " on a book, to one Hugh Wheatly; which oath 
 " and engagement imported tobind thesaidHugh 
 " Wheatly, who then and there took the same, 
 " to be of an association, brotherhood and so- 
 " ciety, formed for seditious purposes; and also 
 " for feloniously causing, procuring, and in- 
 " ducing said Hugh Wheatly to take an oath 
 " of said import last mentioned; and also for fe- 
 " loniously administering to said Hugh Wheatly 
 " another oath, importing to bind said Hugh 
 " Wheatly not to inform or give evidence against 
 " any brother, associate or confederate of a cer- 
 *' tain society then arid there formed ; and also 
 " for feloniously causing, procuring and seducing 
 " said Hugh Wheatly to take an oath of said import 
 " last mentioned. And afterwards at Carrick- 
 " fergus aforesaid, before the right honourable 
 " Barry lord Yelverton, lord chief baron of his 
 " majesty's court of exchequer in Ireland, and 
 " the honourable Tankerville Chamberlaine, one 
 " of his majesty's justices of his court of chief 
 <e pleas in Ireland, at a general assizes, &c. on the 
 " sixteenth day of September, in the thirty-se- 
 " veuth year of the king, said William Orr, by 
 " the verdict of a certain jury of said county of 
 
 " Antrim,
 
 248 
 
 *' Antrim, between our said lord the king and 
 " said William Orr, taken of and for the felony 
 " aforesaid in due manner, was tried, convicted, 
 " and attainted, and for the same was duly ex- 
 " ecuted; and that he, well knowing the pre- 
 " mises, but being a wicked and ill-disposed per- 
 w son, and of unquiet conversation and disposi- 
 '* tion, and devising and intending to molest and 
 " disturb the peace and public tranquillity of 
 " this kingdom of Ireland ; and to bring and 
 "" draw the trial aforesaid, and the verdict there- 
 ^' on, for our said lord the king, against this 
 *" William Orr given, and the due course of law 
 ke in that behalf had, as aforesaid, into hatred, 
 *" contempt, and scandal with all the liege sub- 
 " jects of our said lord the king, and to persuade, 
 " and cause the subjects of our said lord the 
 * e kin"- to believe that the trial aforesaid was un- 
 
 o 
 
 " duly had, and that the said William Orr did 
 *' undeservedly die in manner aforesaid; and 
 " that his excellency John Jeffrys, earl Camden, 
 " the lord lieutenant of this kingdom, after the 
 " conviction aforesaid, ought to have extended 
 c< to the said William Orr, his majesty's gracious 
 " pardon of the felonies aforesaid; and that in 
 " not so extending such pardon, he, the said 
 " lord lieutenant, had acted inhumanly, wick- 
 " edly, and unjustly, and in a manner unwor- 
 " thy of the trust which had been committed 
 " to him by our said lord the king in that 
 " behalf; and that the said lord lieutenant, 
 
 "in
 
 249 
 
 " in his government of this kingdom, had acted 
 " unjustly, cruelly, and oppressively to his ma- 
 "jesty's subjects therein: And to fulfil and 
 " bring to effect his most wicked and detestable 
 " devices and intentions aforesaid, on the twenty- 
 " sixth of October, in the thirty-seventh year of 
 " the king, at Mountrath-street aforesaid, city 
 " of Dublin aforesaid, falsely, wickedly, mali- 
 " ciously, and seditiously, did print and pub- 
 " lish, and cause and procure to be printed and 
 " published, in a certain newspaper entitled ' the 
 " * press,' a certain false, wicked, malicious, and 
 " seditious libel, of and concerning the said 
 " trial, conviction, attainder and execution of 
 " the said William Orr, as aforesaid, and of and 
 " concerning the said lord lieutenant and his 
 " government of this kingdom, and his majesty's 
 " ministers employed by him in his government 
 " of this kingdom, according to the tenor and 
 " effect following to wit. ' The death of Mr. 
 " ' Orr (meaning the said execution of the said 
 " 6 William Orr) the nation has pronounced one 
 " ' of the most sanguinary and savage acts that 
 " * had disgraced the laws. In perjury, did you 
 " ' not hear, my lord, (meaning the said lord 
 " ' lieutenant) the verdict (meaning the verdict 
 " ' aforesaid) was given? Perjury accompanied 
 " * with terror, as terror has marked every step 
 " ' of your government (meaning the govern* 
 " c ment, of this kingdom aforesaid, by the said 
 " ' lord lieutenant.) Vengeance and desolation 
 " * were to fall on those who would not plunge 
 
 " * themselves
 
 250 
 
 " ' themsefres in blood. These were not strong 
 " ' enough : Against the express law of the land, 
 ** * not only was drink introduced to the jury 
 " ' (meaning the jury aforesaid), but drunken- 
 " ' ness itself, beastly and criminal drunkenness, 
 " * was employed to procure the murder of a bet- 
 " * ter man (meaning the said execution of the 
 " ' said William Orr) than any that now surrounds 
 " ' you (meaning the said lord lieutenant).' And 
 " in another part thereof, according to tenor 
 " and effect following to wit. * Repentance, which 
 " * is a slow virtue, hastened however to declare 
 " ' the innocence of the victim, (meaning the said 
 " * William Orr) the mischief (meaning the said 
 " c conviction of the said William Orr) which 
 *' ' perjury had done, truth now stept forward to 
 *' ' repair. Neither was she too late, had huma- 
 " ' nity formed any part of your counsels, (mean- 
 " ' ing the counsels of the said lord lieutenant.) 
 " ' Stung with remorse, on the return of reason, 
 " ' part of his jury, (meaning the jury aforesaid) 
 " * solemnly and soberly made oath, that their 
 " * verdict (meaning the verdict aforesaid) had 
 " * been given under the unhappy influence of 
 " ' intimidation and drink ; and in the most seri- 
 " * ous affidavit that ever was made, by acknow^ 
 " ' ledging their crime, endeavoured to atone to 
 " * God and to their country, for the sin into 
 '* * which they had been seduced.' And in ano^ 
 " ther part thereof, according to the tenor and 
 " effect following, to wit. ' And though the in- 
 " < nocence of the accused (meaning the said 
 
 " William
 
 251 
 
 " c William Orr) had even remained doubtful, it 
 " * was your duty (meaning the duty of the said 
 " ' lord lieutenant), my lord, and you (meaning 
 " * the said lord lieutenant) had no exemption 
 " ' from that duty, to have interposed your 
 " ' arm, and saved him (meaning the said Wil- 
 " * liam Orr) from the death (meaning the exe- 
 " * cution aforesaid) that perjury, drunkenness, 
 " * and reward had prepared for him (meaning 
 " c the said William Orr). Let not the nation 
 " be told that you (meaning the lord licute- 
 " c nant) are a passive instrument in the hands 
 " * of others; if passive you be, then is your 
 " * office a shadow indeed. If an active instru- 
 " e ment, as you ought to be, you (meaning the 
 " ' said lord lieutenant) did not perfom the duty 
 " ' which the laws required of you; you (mean- 
 " * ing the said lord lieutenant) did not exer- 
 " ' cise the prerogative of mercy; that mercy 
 " * which the constitution had entrusted to you 
 " c (meaning the said lord lieutenant) for the 
 " c safety of the subject, by guarding him from 
 " e the oppression of wicked men. Innocent it 
 " * appears he (meaning the said William Orr) 
 " ' was, his blood (meaning the blood of the 
 " ( said William Orr) has been shed, and the 
 " * precedent indeed is awful.' And in another 
 " part thereof, according to the tenor and effect 
 " following, to wit. ' But suppose the evidence 
 *' ' of Wheatly had been true, what was the 
 " ' offence of Mr. Orr (meaning the said Wil- 
 " 'liam Orr)? Not that he had taken an oath 
 
 " e of
 
 " 
 
 252 
 
 ' of blood and extermination for then he had 
 ' not suffered; but that he (meaning the said 
 * c ' William Orr) had taken an oath of charity 
 " * and of union, of humanity artd of peace, 
 " c he (meaning the said William Orr) has suf- 
 " c fered. Shall we then be told that your go- 
 " c vernment (meaning the government of this 
 " ' kingdom aforesaid, by the said lord lieute- 
 *' ' nant) will conciliate public opinion, or that 
 <c * the people will not continue to look for a 
 "'better?' And in another part thereof, ac- 
 " cording to the tenor and effect following, that 
 " is to say: * Is it to be wondered that a suc- 
 " ' cessor of lord Fitzwilliam should sign the 
 " c death-warrant of Mr. Orr (meaning the said 
 * 6 ' William Orr). Mr. Pitt had learned that a 
 " ' merciful lord lieutenant was unsuited to a 
 ic e government of violence. It was no compli- 
 " ' ment to the native clemency of a Camden, 
 " ' that he sent you (meaning the said lord 
 " ' lieutenant) into Ireland and what has been 
 *' * our portion under the change, but massacre 
 * e ' and rape, military murders, desolation and 
 " * terror.' And in another part thereof, ac- 
 * c cording to the tenor and effect here following, 
 * c that is to say: ' Feasting in your castle in the 
 " ' midst of your myrmidons and bishops, you 
 <e ' (meaning the said lord lieutenant) have little 
 " * concerned yourself about the expelled and 
 " ' miserable cottager, whose dwelling, at the 
 cc c moment of your mirth, was in flames, his 
 " ' wife and his daughter than under the viola- 
 
 " ' tion
 
 ** 
 
 253 
 
 < tion of some commissioned ravager, his son 
 ' agonizing on the bayonet, and his helpless 
 "'infants crying in vain for mercy. These 
 " * are lamentations that stain not the house of 
 " e carousal. Under intoxicated counsels (mean- 
 " ' ing the counsels of the said lord lieutenant) 
 " ' the constitution has reeled to its centre, jus- 
 " ' tice is not only blind drunk, but deaf, like 
 " ' Festus, to the words of soberness and truth.* 
 " And in another part thereof according to the 
 '* tenor and effect here following, to wit. * Let 
 * c ' however the awful execution of Mr. Orr 
 " (meaning the execution aforesaid of the said 
 " ' William Orr,) be a lesson to all unthinking 
 " * juries, and let them cease to flatter them- 
 " ' selves that the soberest recommendation of 
 " ' theirs, and of the presiding judge, can stop 
 " e the course of carnage, which sanguinary, 
 c * e and, I do not fear to say, unconstitutional 
 " ' laws have ordered to be loosed. Let them 
 " ' remember that, like Macbeth, the servants 
 " ' of the crown have waded so far in blood 
 " * that they find it easier to go on than to go 
 " * back :' in contempt, &c. and against the 
 ** peace." 
 
 There were other counts charging the publi- 
 cation in different ways. 
 
 The
 
 254 
 
 The evidence for the prosecution being gone 
 through, and some witnesses having been pro- 
 duced on the part of the traverser, the examina- 
 tion of whom was successively stopt by the 
 court, it appearing that they were examined to 
 prove the truth of the facts stated in the pub- 
 lication. 
 
 MR. CURRAN. 
 
 Never did I feel myself so sunk under the im- 
 portance of any cause: to speak to a question of 
 this kind at any time would require the greatest 
 talent and the most matured deliberation ; but 
 to be obliged without either of those advantages 
 to speak to a subject that hath^so deeply shaken 
 the feelings of this already irritated and agitated 
 nation, is a task that fills me with embarrassment 
 and dismay. 
 
 Neither my learned colleague nor myself re- 
 ceived any instruction or license until after the 
 jury were actually sworn, and we both of us 
 came here under an idea that we should not 
 take any part in the trial. This circumstance I 
 mention, not as an idle apology for an effort 
 that cannot be the subject of either praise or 
 censure, but as a call upon you, gentlemen of 
 the jury, to supply the defects of my efforts, by 
 a double exertion of your attention.
 
 255 
 
 Perhaps I ought to regret that I cannot begin 
 with any compliment, that may recommend me 
 or my client personally to your favour. A more 
 artful advocate would probably begin his address 
 to you by compliments on your patriotism, and 
 by felicitating his client upon the happy selection 
 of his jury, and upon that unsuspected imparti- 
 ality in which, if he was innocent, he must be safe* 
 You must be conscious, gentlemen, that such 
 idle verbiage as that could not convey either my 
 sentiments or my client's upon that subject. 
 You know and we know upon what occasion 
 you are come, and by whom you have been cho- 
 sen ; you are come to try an accusation profess- 
 edly brought forward by the state, chosen by a 
 sheriff who is appointed by our accuser. 
 
 (Here Mr. Attorney -general said, the slieriff 
 was elected by the city, and that that observation, 
 was therefore unfounded.} 
 
 Be it so: I will not now stop to inquire whose 
 property the city may be considered to be, but 
 the learned gentleman seems to forget, that the 
 election by that city, to whomsoever it may be- 
 long, is absolutely void without the approbation 
 of that very lord lieutenant, who is the prose- 
 cutor in this case. I do not therefore repeat, 
 gentlemen, that not a man of you has been called 
 to that box by the voice of my client ; that he 
 has had no power to object to a single man 
 among you, though the crown has : and that you 
 
 yourselves
 
 256 
 
 yourselves must feel under what influence you 
 are chosen, or for what qualifications you are 
 particularly selected. At a moment when this 
 wretched land is shaken to its centre by the dread- 
 ful conflicts of the different branches of the com- 
 munity ; between those who call themselves the 
 partizans of liberty, and those that call themselves 
 the partizans of power ; between the advocates 
 of infliction, and the advocates of suffering; upon 
 such a question as the present, and at such a 
 season, can any man be at a loss to guess from 
 what class of character and opinion a friend to 
 either party would resort for that jury, which 
 was to decide between both? I trust, gentle- 
 men, you know me too well to suppose that I 
 could be capable of treating you with any per- 
 sonal disrespect ; I am speaking to you in the 
 honest confidence of your fellow-citizen. When 
 I allude to those unworthy imputations of sup- 
 posed bias, or passion, or partiality, that may 
 have marked you out for your present situation, 
 I do so in order to warn you of the ground on 
 which you stand, of the point of awful respon- 
 sibility in which you are placed, to your con- 
 science, and to your country ; and to remind 
 you, that if you have been put into that box from 
 any unworthy reliance on your complaisance or 
 your servility, you have it in your power before 
 you leave it to refute and to punish so vile an 
 expectation by the integrity of your verdict; to 
 remind you that you have it in your power to 
 shew to as many Irishmen as yet linger in this 
 
 country,
 
 257 
 
 country, that all law and justice have not taken 
 their flight with our prosperity and peace ; that 
 the sanctity of an oath, and the honesty of a 
 juror are not yet dead amongst us; and that if 
 our courts of justice are superseded by so many 
 strange and terrible tribunals, it is not because 
 they are deficient either in wisdom or virtue. 
 
 Gentlemen, it is necessary that you should 
 have a clear idea, first of the law, by which this 
 question is to be decided; secondly of the na- 
 ture and object of the prosecution. As to the 
 first, it is my duty to inform you that the law 
 respecting libels has been much changed of late. 
 Heretofore, in consequence of some decisions 
 of the judges in Westminster-hall, the jury was 
 conceived to have no province but that of find- 
 ing the truth of the innucndos and the fact of 
 publication ; but the libellous nature of that 
 publication, as well as the guilt or innocence of 
 the publication, were considered as exclusively 
 belonging to the court. In a system like that of 
 law, which reasons logically, no one erroneous 
 principle can be introduced, without producing 
 every other that can be deducible from it. If in 
 the premises of any argument you admit one 
 erroneous proposition, nothing but bad reason- 
 ing can save the conclusion from falsehood. So 
 it has been with this encroachment, of the court 
 upon the province of the jury with respect to 
 libels. The moment the court assumed as a 
 s principle
 
 58 
 
 principle that they, the court, were to decide 
 upon every thing but the publication ; that is, 
 that they were to deride upon the question of 
 libel or no libel, and upon the guilt or innocence of 
 the intention, which must form the essence of 
 every crime; the guilt or innocence must of ne- 
 cessity have ceased to be material. You see, 
 gentlemen, clearly, that the question of inten- 
 tion is a mere question of fact. Now the mo- 
 ment the court determined that the jury was not 
 to try that question, it followed of necessity that 
 it was not to be tried at all; for the court cannot 
 try a question of fact. When the court said that 
 it was not triable, there was no way of fortifying 
 that extraordinary proposition, except by assert- 
 ing that it was not material. The same errone- 
 
 O 
 
 cms reasoning carried them another step, still 
 more mischievous and unjust: if the intention 
 had been material, it must have been decided 
 upon as a mere fact under all its circumstances. 
 Of these circumstances the meanest understand- 
 ing can see that the leading one must be the 
 truth or the falsehood of the publication; but 
 having decided the intention to be immaterial, 
 it followed that the truth must be equally imma- 
 terial and under the law so distorted, any 
 man in England who published the most unde- 
 niable truth, and with the purest intention, might 
 l)e punished for a crime in the most ignominous 
 manner, without imposing on the prosecutor the 
 necessity of proving his guilt, or getting any op- 
 portunity
 
 259 
 
 portunity of shewing his innocence. I am not 
 in the habit of speaking of legal institutions 
 with disrespect; but I am warranted in con- 
 demning that usurpation upon the right of juries, 
 by the authority of that statute, by which your 
 jurisdiction is restored. For that restitution of 
 justice the British subject is indebted to the 
 splendid exertions of Mr. Fox and Mr. Erskine, 
 those distinguished supporters of the constitu- 
 tion and of the law; and I am happy to say to 
 you, that though we can claim no share in the 
 glory they- have so justly acquired, we have the 
 full benefit of their success ; for you are now 
 sitting under a similar act passed in this country, 
 which makes it your duty and right to decide 
 upon the entire question upon the broadest 
 grounds and under all its circumstances, and of 
 course to determine, by your verdict, whether 
 this publication be a false and scandalous libel : 
 false in fact, and published with the seditious 
 purpose alleged of bringing the government into 
 scandal, and instigating the people to insur- 
 rection. 
 
 Having stated to you, gentlemen, the great and 
 exclusive extent of your jurisdiction, I shall beg 
 leave to suggest to you a distinction that will 
 strike you at first sight; and that is, the distinc- 
 tion between public animadversions upon the cha- 
 racter of private individuals, and those which are 
 "written upon measures of government, and the 
 s 2 persons
 
 260 
 
 persoiis who conduct them. The former may be 
 called personal, and the latter political publica- 
 tions. No two things can be more different in their 
 nature, nor in the point of view in which they 
 are to be looked on by a jury. The criminality 
 of a mere personal libel consists in this, that it 
 tends to a breach of the peace; it tends to all 
 the vindictive paroxysms of exasperated vanity, 
 or to the deeper or more deadly vengeance of 
 irritated pride. The truth is, few men see at once 
 that they cannot be hurt so much as they think by 
 the mere battery of a newspaper. They do not 
 reflect that every character has a natural station, 
 from which it cannot be effectually degraded, and 
 beyond which it cannot be raised by the bawling 
 of a news-hawker. If it is wantonly aspersed, it 
 is but for a season, and that a short one, when it 
 emerges like the moon from a passing cloud to 
 its original brightness. It is right, however, that 
 the law and that you should hold the strictest 
 hand over this kind of public animadversion, 
 that forces humility and innocence from their re- 
 treat into the glare of public view; that wounds 
 and terrifies ; that destroys the cordiality and 
 the peace of domestic life; and that without 
 eradicating a single vice, or single folly, plants 
 a thousand thorns in the human heart. 
 
 In cases of that kind I perfectly agree with the 
 law, as stated from the bench ; in such cases, I 
 hesitate not to think, that the truth of a charge 
 ought not to justify its publication. If a private 
 
 man
 
 261 
 
 man is charged with a crime, he ought to be pro- 
 secuted in a court of justice, where he may be 
 punished if it is true, and the accuser if it is 
 false ; but far differently do I deem of the free- 
 dom of political publication. The salutary re- 
 straint of the former species, which I talked o 
 is found in the general law of all societies what- 
 ever; but the more enlarged freedom of the 
 press, for which I contend in political publica- 
 tion, I conceive to be founded in the peculiar na- 
 ture of the British constitution, and to follow di- 
 rectly from the contract on which the British go- 
 vernment hath been placed by the revolution. By 
 the British constitution, the power of the state is a 
 trust, committed by the people, upon certain con- 
 ditions: by the violation of which, it maybe abdi- 
 cated by those who hold, and resumed by those 
 who conferred it. The real security therefore 
 of the British sceptre is the sentiment and opi- 
 nion of the people, and it is consequently their 
 duty to observe the conduct of the government; 
 and it is the privilege of every man to give them 
 full and just information upon that important 
 subject. Hence the liberty of the press is in- 
 separably twined with the liberty of the people. 
 The press is the great public monitor; its duty 
 is that of the historian and the witness, that " nil 
 Jalsi audeat, nil rcri non audcat dicere ;" that its 
 horizon shall extend to the farthest verge and 
 limit of truth; that it shall speak truth to the 
 king in the hearing of the people, and to the peo- 
 ple in the hearing of the king; that it shall not 
 
 perplex
 
 262 
 
 perplex either the one or the other with false 
 alarm, lest it lose its characteristic veracity, and 
 become an unheeded warner of real danger ; lest 
 it should vainly warn them of that sin, of which 
 the inevitable consequence is death. This, gen- 
 tlemen, is the great privilege upon which you are 
 to decide ; and I have detained you the longer, 
 because of the late change of the law, and because 
 of some observations that have been made, which 
 J shall find it necessary to compare with the 
 principles I have now laid down. 
 
 And now, gentlemen, let us come to the imme- 
 diate subject of the trial, as it is brought before 
 you, by the charge in the indictment, to which it 
 ought to have been confined ; and also, as it is 
 presented to you by the statement of the learned 
 counsel, who has taken a much wider range than 
 the mere limits of the accusation, and has endea- 
 voured to force upon your consideration extrane- 
 ous and irrelevant facts, for reasons which it is not 
 my duty to explain. The indictment states sim- 
 ply that Mr. Finnerty has published a false and 
 scandalous libel upon the lord lieutenant of Ire- 
 land, tending to bring his government into dis- 
 repute and to alienate the affections of the people; 
 and one would have expected, that, without stating 
 any other matter, the counsel for tjie crown 
 would have gone directly to the proof of this al- 
 legation ; but he has not done so ; he has gone to 
 a most extraordinary length indeed of prelimi- 
 nary observation, and an allusion to facts, and 
 
 sometimes
 
 263 
 
 sometimes an assertion of facts, at which I own I 
 was astonished, until I saw the drift of these al- 
 lusions and assertions. "Whether you have bee<n 
 fairly dealt with by him, or are now honestly 
 dealt with by me, you must be judges. He has 
 been pleased to say that this prosecution is 
 brought against this letter signed Marcus, merely 
 as a part of what he calls a system of attack 
 upon the government by the paper called the 
 PRESS. As to this I will only ask you whether 
 you are fairly dealt with? Whether it is fair 
 treatment to men upon their oaths, to insinuate 
 to them, that the general character of a news- 
 paper (and that general character founded mere- 
 ly upon the assertion of the prosecutor,) is to 
 have any influence upon their minds, when they 
 are to judge of a particular publication? I will 
 only ask you, what men you must be supposed 
 to be, when it is thought that even in a court of 
 justice, and with the eyes of the nation upon 
 you, you can be the dupes of that trite and ex- 
 ploded expedient, so scandalous of late in this 
 country, of raising a vulgar and mercenary cry 
 against whatever man, or whatever principle, it 
 is thought necessary to put down j and I shall 
 therefore merely leave it to your own pride to 
 suggest upon what foundation it could be hoped, 
 that a senseless clamour of that kind could be 
 echoed back by the yell of a jury upon their 
 oaths. I trust, you see that tin's is nothing to do 
 with the question. 
 
 Gentlemen
 
 264 
 
 Gentlemen of the jury, other matters have 
 been mentioned, which I must repeat for the 
 same purpose ; that of shewing you that they 
 have nothing to do with the question. The 
 learned counsel has been pleased to say, that he 
 comes forward in this prosecution as the real ad- 
 vocate for the liberty of the press, and to pro- 
 tect a mild and a merciful government from its 
 licentiousness; and he has been pleased to add, 
 that the constitution can never be lost while its 
 freedom remains, and that its licentiousness alone 
 can destroy that freedom. As to that, gentle- 
 men, he might as well have said, that there is 
 only one mortal disease of which a man can die ; 
 I can die the death inflicted by tyranny; and 
 when he comes forward to extinguish this paper 
 in the ruin of the printer, by a state prosecution, 
 in order to prevent its dying of licentiousness, 
 you must judge how candidly he is treating you, 
 both in the fact and in the reasoning. Is it in 
 Ireland, gentlemen, that we are told licentious- 
 ness is the only disease that can be mortal to the 
 press ? Has he heard of nothing else that has 
 been fatal to the freedom of publication ? I know 
 not whether the printer of the Northern Star may 
 have heard of such things in his captivity, but I 
 .know that his wife and his children are well ap- 
 prized that a press may be destroyed in the open 
 day, not by its own licentiousness, but by the licen- 
 tiousness of a military force. As to the sincerity 
 of the declaration that the state has prosecuted 
 in order to assert the freedom of the press, it starts 
 
 a train
 
 265 
 
 a train of thought, of melancholy retrospect and 
 direful prospect, to which I did not think the 
 learned counsel would have wished to commit 
 your minds. It leads you naturally to reflect at 
 what times, from what motives, and with what 
 consequences, the government has displayed its 
 patriotism, by prosecutions of this sort. As to 
 the motives; does history give you a single in- 
 stance in which the state has been provoked to 
 these conflicts, except by the fear of truth, and 
 by the love of vengeance? Have you ever seen 
 the rulers of any country bring forward a prose- 
 cution from motives of filial piety, for libels up- 
 on their departed ancestors? Do you read that 
 Elizabeth directed any of those state prosecu- 
 tions against the libels which the divines of her 
 times had written against her catholic sister, or 
 against the other libels which the same gentlemen 
 had written against her protestant father ? No, 
 gentlemen, we read of no such thing ; but we 
 know she did bring forward a prosecution from 
 motives of personal resentment ; and we know 
 that a jury was found time-serving and mean 
 enough to give a verdict, which she was ashamed 
 to carry into effect. I said the learned counsel 
 drew you back to the times that have been marked 
 by these miserable conflicts. I see you turn your 
 thoughts to the reign of the second James. I 
 see you turn your eyes to those pages of govern- 
 mental abandoment, of popular degradation, of 
 expiring liberty, of merciless and sanguinary 
 persecution ; to that miserable period, in which 
 
 the
 
 266 
 
 the fallen and abject state of man might have 
 been almost an argument in the mouth of the 
 atheist and the blasphemer against the existence 
 of an all-just and an all- wise First Cause ; if the 
 glorious asra of the revolution that followed it had 
 not refuted the impious inference, by shewing 
 that if man descends, it is not in his own proper 
 motion ; that it is with labour and with pain, and 
 that hecan continue tosink onlyuntil, by the force 
 and pressure of the descent, the spring of his im- 
 mortal faculties acquires that recuperative energy 
 and effort that hurries him as many miles aloft 
 he sinks but to rise again. It is at that period 
 that the state seeks for shelter in the destruction 
 of the press ; it is in a period like that, that the 
 tyrant prepares for an attack upon the people, by 
 destroying the liberty of the press; by taking 
 away that shield of wisdom and of virtue, behind 
 which the people are invulnerable ; in whose pure 
 and polished convex, ere the lifted blow has fallen, 
 he beholds his own image, and is turned into 
 stone. It is at those periods that the honest man 
 dares not speak, because truth is too dreadful to 
 be told; it is then humanity has no ears, because 
 humanity has no tongue. It is then the proud 
 man scorns to speak, but like a physician baffled 
 by the wayward excesses of a dying patient, re- 
 tires indignantly from the bed of an unhappy 
 wretch, whose ear is too fastidious to bear the 
 sound of wholesome advice, whose palate is too 
 debauched to bear the salutary bitter of the me- 
 dicine that might redeem him 5 and, therefore 
 
 leaves
 
 267 
 
 leaves him to the felonious piety of the slaves that 
 talk to him of life, and strip him before he is cold. 
 
 I do not care, gentlemen, to exhaust too 
 much of your attention, by following this subject 
 through the last century with much minuteness; 
 but the facts are too recent in your mind not to 
 shew you, that the liberty of the press and the 
 liberty of the people sink and rise together; that 
 the liberty of speaking and the liberty of acting 
 have shared exactly the same fate. You must 
 have observed in England that their fate has 
 been the same in the successive vicissitudes of 
 their late depression ; and sorry I am to add, 
 that this country has exhibited a melancholy 
 proof of their inseparable destiny, through the 
 various and further stages of deterioration down 
 to the period of their final extinction ; when the 
 constitution has given place to the sword, and 
 the only printer in Ireland, who dares to speak 
 for the people, is now in the dock. 
 
 *. 
 
 Gentlemen, the learned counsel has made the 
 real subject of this prosecution so small a part 
 of his statement, and has led you into so wide a 
 range, certainly as necessary to the object, as 
 inapplicable to the subject of this prosecution ; 
 that I trust you will think me excusable in having 
 somewhat followed his example. Glad am I to 
 find that I have the authority of the same ex- 
 ample for coming at last to the subject of this 
 trial. I agree with the learned counsel, that the 
 
 charge
 
 268 
 
 charge made against the lord lieutenant of Ire- 
 land is that of having grossly and inhumanly 
 abused the royal prerogative of mercy, of which 
 the king is only the trustee for the benefit of the 
 people. The facts are not controverted. It has 
 been asserted that their truth or falsehood is in- 
 different, and they are shortly these, as they ap- 
 pear in this publication. 
 
 William Orr was indicted for having adminis- 
 tered the oath of a united Irishman Every man 
 now knows what that oath is: that it is simply 
 an engagement, first, to promote a brotherhood 
 of affection among men of all religious distinc- 
 tions; secondly, to labour for the attainment of 
 a parliamentary reform ; and thirdly, an obliga- 
 tion of secrecy, which was added to it when the 
 convention law made it criminal and punishable 
 to meet by any public delegation for that pur- 
 pose. After remaining upwards of a year in goal 
 Mr. Orr was brought to his trial; was prosecuted 
 by the state ; was sworn against by a common 
 informer of the name of Wheatly, who himself 
 had taken the obligation, and was convicted un- 
 der the insurrection act, which makes the admi- 
 nistering such an obligation felony of death the 
 jury recommended Mr. Orr to mercy; the judge, 
 with an humanity becoming his character, trans- 
 mitted the recommendation to the noble prose- 
 cutor in this case. Three of the jurors made so- 
 lemn affidavit in court that liquor had been con- 
 veyed into their box ; that they were brutally 
 
 threatened
 
 269 
 
 threatened by some of their fellow-jurors with 
 capital prosecution if they did not find the pri- 
 soner guilty; and that under the impression of 
 those threats, and worn down by watching and 
 intoxication, they had given a verdict of guilty 
 against him, though they believed him in their 
 conscience to be innocent. That further en- 
 quiries were made, which ended in a discovery of 
 the infamous life and character of the informer; 
 that a respite was therefore sent once, and twice, 
 and thrice, to give time, as Mr. Attorney-general 
 has stated, for his excellency to consider whe- 
 ther mercy could be extended to him or not; 
 and that, with a knowledge of all these circum- 
 stances, his excellency did finally determine that 
 mercy should not be extended to him, and that 
 he was accordingly executed upon that verdict. 
 Of this publication, which the indictment charges 
 to be false and seditious, Mr. Attorney-general is 
 pleased to say, that the design of it is to bring 
 the courts of justice into contempt. As to this 
 point of fact, gentlemen, I beg to set you right. 
 
 To the administration of justice, so far as it 
 relates to the judges, this publication has not 
 even an allusion in any part mentioned in this 
 indictment; it relates to a department of justice, 
 that cannot begin until the duty of the judge 
 closes. Sorry should I be, that, with respect to 
 this unfortunate man, any censure should be 
 flung on those judges who presided at this trial, 
 with the mildness and temper that became them, 
 
 upon
 
 upon so awful an occasion as the trial of life 
 and death. Sure am I, that if they had been 
 charged with inhumanity or injustice, and if 
 they had condescended at all to prosecute the 
 reviler, they would not have come forward in the 
 face of the public to say, as has been said this day, 
 that it was immaterial whether the charge was 
 true or not. Sure I am, their first object would 
 have been to shew that it was false, and readily 
 should I have been an eye witness of the fact, to 
 have discharged the debt of ancient friendship, of 
 private respect, and of public duty, and upon my 
 oath to have repelled the falsehood of such an im- 
 putation. Upon this subject, gentlemen, the pre- 
 sence of those venerable judges restrains what I 
 might otherwise have said, nor should I have 
 named them at all if I had not been forced to do 
 so, and merely to undeceive you if you have been 
 made to believe their characters to have any com- 
 munity of cause whatever with the lord lieutenant 
 of Ireland. To him alone it is confined, and 
 against him the charge is made, as strongly, I 
 suppose, as the writer could find words to ex- 
 press it, that the viceroy of Ireland has cruelly 
 abused the prerogative of royal mercy, in suffer- 
 ing a man under such circumstances to perish 
 like a common malefactor. For this Mr. Attor- 
 ney-general calls for your conviction as a false 
 and scandalous libel, and after stating himself 
 every fact that I have repeated to you,' either 
 from his statement, or from the evidence, he 
 tells you that you ought to find it false and scan- 
 dalous.
 
 271 
 
 dalous, though he almost in words admits that 
 it is not false, and has resisted the admission of 
 the evidence by which we offered to prove every 
 word of it to be true. 
 
 And here, gentlemen, give me leave to remind 
 you of the parties before you. The traverser is 
 a printer, who follows that profession for bread, 
 and who at a time of great public misery and 
 terror, when the people are restrained by law 
 from debating under any delegated form ; when 
 the few constituents that we have are prevented 
 by force from meeting in their own persons, to 
 deliberate or to petition ; when every other 
 newspaper in Ireland is put down by force, or 
 purchased by the administration; (though here, 
 gentlemen, perhaps I ought to beg your pardon 
 for stating without authority I recollect when 
 we attempted to examine as to the number of 
 newspapers in the pay of the castle, that the 
 evidence was objected to,) at a season like this, 
 Mr. Finnerty has had the courage, perhaps the 
 folly, to print the publication in question, from 
 no motive under heaven of malice or vengeance, 
 but in the mere duty which he owes to his fa- 
 mily, and to the public. His prosecutor is the 
 king's minister in Ireland; in that character 
 does the learned gentleman mean to say, that 
 his conduct is not a fair subject of public obser- 
 vation? where does he find his authority for that, 
 in the law or practice of the sister country? have 
 the. virtues, or the exalted station, or the general 
 love of his people preserved the sacred person 
 
 even.
 
 even of the royal master of the prosecutor, from 
 the asperity and the intemperance of public cen- 
 sure, unfounded as it ever must be, with any per- 
 sonal respect to his majesty, in justice or truth? 
 have the gigantic abilities of Mr. Pitt, have the 
 more gigantic talents of his great antagonist, Mr. 
 Fox, protected either of them from the insolent 
 familiarity, and for aught we know, the injustice 
 with which writers have treated them? What la-* 
 titude of invective has the king's minister escaped 
 upon the subject of the present war? Is there an 
 epithet of contumely, or of reproach, that ha- 
 tred or that fancy could suggest, that is not pub- 
 licly lavished upon them ? Do you not find the 
 words, advocate of despotism, robber of the pub- 
 lic treasure, murderer of the king's subjects, de- 
 baucher of the public morality, degrader of the 
 constitution, tarnisher of the British empire, by 
 frequency of use lose all meaning whatsoever, 
 and dwindle into terms, not of any peculiar re- 
 proach, but of ordinary appellation? And why, 
 gentlemen, is this permitted in that country? 
 I'll tell you why; because in that country they 
 are yet wise enough to see, that the measures 
 of the state are the proper subject for the free- 
 dom of the press; that the principles relating 
 to personal slander do not apply to rulers or to 
 ministers ; that to publish an attack upon a pub- 
 lic minister, without any regard to truth, but 
 merely because of its tendency to a breach of 
 the peace, would be ridiculous in the extreme. 
 What breach of the peace, gentlemen, I nray 
 you in such a case? is it the tendency of such 
 
 publications
 
 273 
 
 publications to provoke Mr. Pitt or Mr. Dundas 
 to break the head of the writer, if they should 
 happen to meet him? No, gentlemen, in that 
 country this freedom is exercised, because the 
 people feel it to be their right; and it is wisely 
 suffered to pass by the state, from a conscious- 
 ness that it would be vain to oppose it ; a con- 
 sciousness confirmed by the event of every incau- 
 tious experiment. It is suffered to pass from a 
 conviction, that, in a court of justice at least, the 
 bulwarks of the constitution will not be surren- 
 dered to the state, and that the intended victim, 
 whether clothed irt the humble guise of honest 
 industry, or decked in the honours of genius, 
 and virtue, and philosophy, whether a Hardy, or 
 a Tooke, will find certain protection in the ho- 
 nesty and spirit of an English jury. 
 
 But, gentlemen, I suppose Mr. Attorney-general 
 will scarcely wish to carry his doctrine altogether 
 so far. Indeed, I remember, he declared himself 
 a most zealous advocate for the liberty of the 
 press. 1 may, therefore, even according to him, 
 presume to make some observations on the con- 
 duct of the existing government. I should wish 
 to know how far he supposes it to extend; is it to 
 the composition of lampoons and madrigals, to 
 be sung down the grates by ragged ballad mon- 
 gers to kitchen-maids and footmen? I will not 
 suppose that he means to confine it to the ebul- 
 litions of Billingsgate, to those cataracts of ribal- 
 dry and scitrrilty, that arc daily spouting upon 
 
 T the
 
 274 
 
 the miseries of our wretched fellow-sufferers, and 
 the unavailing efforts of those who have vainly 
 laboured in their cause. I will not suppose that 
 he confines it to the poetic licence of a birth-day 
 ode; the laureat would not use such language! 
 In which case I do not entirely agree with him, 
 that the truth or the falsehood is as perfectly im- 
 material to the law, as it is to the laureat; as per- 
 fectly unrestrained by the law of the land, as it 
 is by any law of decency or shame, of modesty or 
 decorum. But as to the privilege of censure or 
 blame, I am sorry that the learned gentleman has 
 not favoured you with his notion of the liberty 
 of the press. Suppose on Irish viceroy acts a very 
 little absurdly may the press venture to be re- 
 spectfully comical upon that absurdity? The 
 learned counsel does not, at least in terms, give a 
 negative to that. But let me treat you honestly, 
 and go further, to a more material point : sup- 
 pose an Irish viceroy does an act that brings scan- 
 dal upon his master that fills the mind of a rea- 
 sonable man with the fear of approaching despo- 
 tism ; that leaves no hope to the people of preserv- 
 ing themselves and their children from chains, 
 but in common confederacy for common safety. 
 What is that honest man in that case to do? I am 
 sorry the right honourable advocate for the liberty 
 of tJie press has not told you his opinion, at least in 
 any express words. I will therefore venture to 
 give you my far humbler thought upon the sub- 
 ject. I think an honest man ought to tell the 
 people frankly and boldly of their peril; and I 
 
 must
 
 275 
 
 must say I can imagine no villainy greater than 
 that of his holding a traitorous silence at such a 
 crisis, except the villainy and baseness of prose- 
 cuting him, or of finding him guilty for such an 
 honest discharge of his public duty. And I found 
 myself on the known principle of the revolution 
 of England,, namely, that the crown itself may be 
 abdicated by certain abuses of the trust reposed, 
 and that there are possible excesses of arbitary 
 power, which is not only the right but the 
 bounden duty of every honest man to resist at the 
 risque of his fortune and his life* Now, gentle- 
 men, if this reasoning be admitted, and it cannot 
 be denied, if there be any possible event in which 
 the people are obliged to look only to themselves, 
 and are justified in doing so, can you be so ab- 
 surd as to say that it is lawful to the people to 
 act upon it when it unfortunately does arrive, 
 but that it is criminal in any man to tell them 
 that the miserable event has actually arrived, or 
 is imminently approaching? Far am I, gentle- 
 men, from insinuating that (extreme as it is) our 
 misery has been matured into any deplorable 
 crisis of this kind, from which I pray that the al- 
 mighty God may for ever preserve us! But I am 
 putting my principles upon the strongest ground, 
 and most favourable to my opponents, namely, 
 that it never can be criminal to say any thing of 
 the government but what is false, and I put this 
 in the extreme in order to demonstrate to you 
 a fortiori, that the privilege of speaking truth to 
 the people which holds in the last extremity, must 
 
 T 2 also
 
 276 
 
 also obtain in every stage of inferior importance j 
 and that, however a court may have decided, be- 
 fore the late act, that the truth was immaterial 
 in case of libel, since that act no honest jury can 
 foe governed by such a principle. 
 
 Be pleased now, gentlemen, to consider the 
 grounds upon which this publication is called a 
 libel, and criminal. Mr. Attorney-general tells you 
 it tends to excite sedition and insurrection. Let me 
 again remind you, that the truth of this charge is 
 not denied by the noble prosecutor. What is it 
 then, that tends to excite sedition and insurrec- 
 tion ? " The act that is charged upon the prose- 
 *' cutOr, and is not attempted to be denied." 
 And, gracious God! gentlemen of the jury, is 
 the public statement of the king's representative 
 this? " I have done a deed that must fill the mind 
 of every feeling or thinking man with horror and 
 indignation, that must alienate every man that 
 knows it from the king's government, and en- 
 danger the separation of this distracted empire; 
 the traverser has had the guilt of publishing this 
 fact, which I myself acknowledge, and I pray 
 you to find him guilty." Is this the case which 
 the lord lieutenant of Ireland brings forward ? Is 
 this the principle for which he ventures, at a 
 dreadful crisis like the present, to contend in a 
 court of justice? Is this the picture which he 
 wishes to hold out of himself to the justice and 
 humanity of his own countrymen? Is this the 
 history which he wishes to be read by the poor 
 
 Irishman
 
 277 
 
 Irishmen of the south and of the north, by the 
 sister nation, and the common enemy? 
 
 With the profoundest respect, permit me hum- 
 bly to defend his excellency, even against his own 
 opinion. The guilt of this publication he is pleas- 
 ed to think consists in this, that it tends to in- 
 surrection. Upon what can such a fear be sup- 
 ported? After the multitudes that have perished 
 in this unhappy nation within the last three years, 
 unhappiness which has been borne with a patience 
 not paralleled in the history of nations, can any 
 man suppose that the fate of a single individual 
 could lead to resistance or insurrection ? But sup- 
 pose that it might what ought to be the conduct 
 of an honest man? Should it not be to apprize the 
 government and the country of the approaching 
 danger? Should it not be to say to the viceroy, 
 you will drive the people to madness if you per- 
 severe in such bloody councils, you will alienate 
 the Irish nation, you will distract the common 
 force, and you will invite the common enemy. 
 Should not an honest man say to the people, the 
 measure of your affliction is great, but you need 
 not resort for remedy to any desperate expedients. 
 If the king's minister is defective in humanity 
 or wisdom, his royal master, and your beloved 
 .sovereign, is abounding in both ; at such a mo- 
 ment, can you be so senseless as not to feel, that 
 any one of you ought to hold such language, 
 or is it possible you could be so infatuated, as to 
 punish the man who was honest enough to hold 
 
 it?
 
 278 
 
 it ? Or is it possible that you could bring your- 
 selves to say to your country, that at such a sea- 
 son the press ought to sleep upon its post, or to 
 tict like the perfidious watchman on his round, 
 that sees the villain wrenching the door, or the 
 flames bursting from the windows, while the in- 
 'habitant is wrapt in sleep, and cries out that 
 '* 'tis past five o'clock, the morning is fair, and 
 -"all well." -*'' 
 
 On this part of the case I shall only put one 
 question to you. I do not affect to say it is simi- 
 lar in all its points ; I do not affect to compare 
 the humble fortunes of Mr. Orr with the sainted 
 names of Russel or Sydney; still less am I willing 
 to find any likeness between the present period 
 and the year 1683. But I will put a question to 
 you, completely parallel in principle. When that 
 unhappy and misguided monarch had shed the 
 sacred blood, which their noble hearts had ma- 
 tured into a fit cement of revolution, if any honest 
 Englishman had been brought to trial for daring 
 to proclaim to the world his abhorrence of such a 
 deed; what would you have thought of the Eng- 
 lish jury that could have said, we know in our 
 hearts what he said was true and honest, but we 
 will say upon our oaths that it was false and cri- 
 minal, and we will by that base subserviency 
 add another item to the catalogue of public 
 wrongs, and another argument for the necessity 
 of an appeal to heaven for redress. 
 
 Gentlemen,
 
 279 
 
 Gentlemen, I am perfectly aware that what 
 I say may be easily misconstrued, but if you 
 listen to me with the same fairness that I ad- 
 dress you, I cannot be misunderstood. When 
 I shew you the full extent of your political 
 rights and remedies; when I answer those slan- 
 derers of British liberty, who degrade the mo- 
 narch into a despot, who pervert the stedfast- 
 ness of law into the waywardness of will ; when 
 I shew you the inestimable stores of political 
 wealth so dearly acquired by our ancestors, and 
 so solemnly bequeathed ; and when I shew you 
 how much of that precious inheritance has yet 
 survived all the prodigality of their posterity, I 
 am far from saying that I stand in need of it 
 all upon the present occasion. No, gentlemen, 
 far am I indeed from such a sentiment. No 
 man more deeply than myself deplores the pre- 
 sent melancholy state of our unhappy country. 
 Neither does any man more fervently wish for 
 the return of peace and tranquillity, through 
 the natural channels of mercy and of justice. 
 1 have seen too much of force and of violence 
 to hope much good from the continuance of 
 them on one side, or retaliation from another. 
 I have of late seen too much of political re- 
 building, not to have observed that to demolish 
 is not the shortest way to repair. It is with pain 
 and anguish that I should search for the miserable 
 right of breaking ancient ties, or going in quest 
 of new relations, or untried adventures. No, 
 gentlemen, the case of my client rests not upon 
 
 these
 
 280 
 
 these sad privileges of despair. I trust that as 
 to the fact, namely, the intention of exciting 
 insurrection, you must see it cannot be found 
 in this publication; that it is the mere idle, un- 
 supported imputation of malice, er panic, or 
 falsehood* And that as to the law, so far has 
 he been from transgressing the limits of the 
 constitution, that whole regions lie between him 
 and thoge limits which he has not trpd; and 
 >phieh I pray to heayen it may never be neces- 
 s,ary for any of us to tread. 
 
 . 
 
 Gentlemen, Mr. Attorney-general has been 
 pleased tQ open another battery upon this pub- 
 lication, which I do trust I shall silence, unless 
 I flatter myself top much in supposing that hi. 
 t&erto. my resistance has not been utterly un- 
 successful. He abuses it for the foul and inso- 
 lent familiarity of its address. I do clearly 
 understand his idea; he considers the freedom 
 of the press tp be the license of offering that 
 paltry adulation which no man ought to stoop 
 to utter or to hear; he supposes the freedom of 
 the press ought to be like the freedom of a king's 
 jester, who instead of reproving the faults of 
 which majesty ought to be ashamed, is base 
 and cunning enough, under the mask of servile 
 and adulatory censure, to stroke down and 
 pamper those vices of which it is foolish e'nough 
 to be vain. He would not have the press pre- 
 sume to tell the viceroy, that the prerogative of 
 mercy is a trust for the benefit of the subject, 
 
 and
 
 281 
 
 and not a gaudy feather stuck into the diadem 
 to shake in the wind, and by the waving of the 
 gorgeous plumage to amuse the vanity of the 
 wearer. He would not have it to say to him 
 that the discretion of the crown as to mercy is 
 like the discretion of a court of justice as to law s 
 and that in the one case as well as the other, 
 wherever the propriety of the exercise of it ap- 
 pears, it is equally a matter of right. He would 
 have the press all fierceness to the people, and 
 all sycophancy to power; he would have it con- 
 sider the mad and phrenetic depopulations of 
 authority like the awful and inscrutable dispen- 
 sations of Providence, and say to the unfeeling 
 and despotic spoiler in the blasphemed and in- 
 sulted language of religious resignation the 
 Lord hath given, and the Lord hath taken away, 
 blessed be the name of the Lord!!! But let me 
 condense the generality of the learned gentle- 
 man's invective into questions that you can con- 
 ceive. Does he mean that the air of this pub- 
 lication is rustic and uncourtly ? Does he mean, 
 that when Marcus presumed to ascend the steps 
 of the castle, and to address the viceroy, he did 
 not turn out his toes as he ought to have done ? 
 But, gentlemen, you are not a jury of dancing- 
 masters: or does the learned gentleman mean 
 that the language is coarse and vulgar? If this 
 be his complaint, my client has but a poor ad- 
 vocate. I do not pretend to be a mighty gram- 
 marian or a formidable critic, but I would beg 
 leave to suggest to you in serious humility, that 
 
 a frees
 
 282 
 
 a free press can be supported only by the ardour 
 of men who feel the prompting sting of real or 
 supposed capacity; who write from the enthu- 
 siasm of virtue, or the ambition of praise, and 
 over whom if you exercise the rigour of a gram- 
 matical censorship, you will inspire them with 
 as mean an opinion of your integrity as of your 
 wisdom, and inevitably drive them from their 
 post and if you do, rely upon it, you will re*, 
 duce the spirit 6f publication, and with it the 
 press of this country, to what it for a long in- 
 terval has been, the register of births, and fairs, 
 and funerals, and the general abuse of the 
 people and their friends. 
 
 But, gentlemen, in order to bring this charge 
 of insolence and vulgarity to the test, let me 
 ask you, whether you know of any language 
 \vhich could have adequately described the idea 
 of mercy denied, where it ought to have been 
 granted, or of any phrase vigorous enough to 
 convey the indignation which an honest man 
 tvould have felt upon such a subject? Let me 
 beg of yoi* for a moment to suppose that any 
 one of you had been the writer of this v ery se- 
 vere expostulation with the viceroy, and that 
 you had been the witness of the whole progress 
 of this never to be forgotten catastrophe. Let 
 me suppose that you had known the charge 
 upon which Mr. Orr was apprehended, tlie 
 charge of abjuring that bigotry which had torn 
 and disgraced his country, of pledging himself 
 
 to
 
 to restore the people of his country to their place 
 in the constitution, and of binding himself never 
 to be the betrayer of his fellow-labourers in that 
 enterprise; that you had seen him upon that 
 charge removed from his industry, and confined 
 in a gaol ; that through the slow and lingering 
 progress of twelve tedious months you had seen 
 him confined in a dungeon, shut out from the 
 common use of air and of his own limbs; that 
 day after day you had marked the unhappy cap- 
 tive cheered by no sound but the cries of his 
 family, or the clinking of chains ; that you had 
 seen him at last brought to his trial ; that you 
 had seen the vile and perjured informer de- 
 posing against his life ; that you had seen the 
 drunken, and worn out, and terrified jury give 
 in a verdict of death ; that you had seen the 
 same jury, when their returning sobriety had 
 brought back their conscience, prostrate them- 
 selves before the humanity of the bench, and 
 pray that the mercy of the crown might save 
 their characters from the reproach of an invo- 
 luntary crime, their consciences from the tor- 
 ture of eternal self-condemnation, and their souls 
 from the indelible stain of innocent blood. Let 
 me suppose that you had seen the respite given, 
 and that contrite and honest recommendation 
 transmitted to that seat where mercy was pre- 
 sumed to dwell ; that new and before unheard 
 of crimes are discovered against the informer; 
 that the royal mercy seems to relent, and that 
 a new respite is sent to the prisoner; that time 
 
 is
 
 284 
 
 is taken, as the learned counsel for the crown 
 has expressed it, to see whether mercy could 
 be extended or not! that, after that period of 
 lingering deliberation passed, a third respite is 
 transmitted; that the unhappy captive himself 
 feels the cheering hope of being restored to a 
 family that he had adored, to a character that 
 he had never stained, and to a country that he 
 had ever loved; that you had seen his wife and 
 children upon their knees, giving those tears to 
 gratitude, which their locked and frozen hearts 
 could not give to anguish and despair, and im- 
 ploring the blessings of eternal providence upon 
 his head, who had graciously spared the father, 
 and restored him to his children; that you had 
 seen the olive branch sent into his little ark, but 
 no sign that the waters had subsided. " Alas ! 
 nor wife, nor children more shall he behold, nor 
 friends, nor sacred home!" No seraph mercy un- 
 bars his dungeon, and leads him forth to light 
 and life; but the minister of death hurries him to 
 the scene of suffering and of shame; where, un- 
 moved by the hostile array of artillery and armed 
 men collected together, to secure, or to insult, 
 or to disturb him, he dies with a solemn declara- 
 tion of his innocence, and utters his last breath 
 in a prayer for the liberty of his country. Let 
 me now ask you, if any of you had addressed 
 the public ear upon so foul and monstrous a sub- 
 ject, in what language would you have conveyed 
 the feelings of horror and indignation? would 
 you have stooped to the meanness of qualified 
 
 complaint ?
 
 285 
 
 complaint? would you have been mean enough? 
 but I entreat your forgiveness I do not think 
 meanly of you; had I thought so meanly of you, 
 I could not suffer my mind to commune with you 
 as it has done ; had I thought you that base and 
 vile instrument, attuned by hope and by fear into 
 discord and falsehood, from whose vulgar string 
 no groan of suffering could vibrate, no voice of 
 integrity or honour could speak, let me honestly 
 tell you, I should have scorned to fling my hand 
 across it; I should have left it to a fitter minstrel: 
 if I do not therefore grossly err in my opinion of 
 you, I could use no language upon such a subject 
 as this, that must not lag behind the rapidity of 
 your feelings, and that would not disgrace those 
 feelings, if it attempted to describe them. 
 
 Gentlemen, I am not unconscious that the 
 learned counsel for the crown seemed to address 
 you with a confidence of a very different kind; 
 he seemed to expect from you a kind and respect- 
 ful sympathy with the feelings of the castle, and 
 with the griefs of chided authority. Perhaps, 
 gentlemen, he may know you better than I do; 
 if he does he has spoken to you as he ought; he 
 has been right in telling you, that if the repro- 
 bation of this writer is weak, it is because his 
 genius could not make it stronger; he has been 
 right in telling you that his language has not 
 been braided and festooned as elegantly as it 
 might, that he has not pinched the miserable 
 plaits of his phraseology, nor placed his patches 
 
 and
 
 286 
 
 irid feathers with that correctness of millinery 
 which became so exalted a person. If you agree 
 with him, gentlemen of the jury, if you think that 
 the man, who ventures at the hazard of his own 
 life to rescue from the deep the drowned honour 
 of his country, must not presume upon the guilty 
 familiarity of plucking it up by the locks, I have 
 no more to say; do a courteous thing.- Upright 
 and honest jurors, find a civil and obliging verdict 
 against the printer! Andw r hen you have done so 
 march through the ranks of your fellow citizens to 
 your own homes, and bear their looks as they pass 
 along; retire to the bosom of your families and 
 your children, and when you are presiding over 
 the morality of the parental board, tell those infants 
 who are to be the future men of Ireland, the his- 
 tory of this day. Form their young minds by 
 your precepts and confirm those precepts by your 
 own example ; teach them how discretely alle- 
 giance may be perjured on the table, or loyalty be 
 foresworn in the jury-box; and when you have 
 done so, tell them the story of Orr ; tell them of 
 his captivity, of his children, of his crime, of his 
 hopes, of his disappointments, of his courage and 
 of his death; and when you find your little hearers 
 lianging from your lips, when you see their eyes 
 overflow with sympathy and sorrow, and their 
 young hearts bursting with the pangs of antici- 
 pated orphanage, tell them that you had the bold- 
 ness and the justice to stigmatize the moneter 
 who had dared to publish die transaction! Gen- 
 tlemen, I believe I told you before that the 
 
 conduct
 
 28? 
 
 conduct of the viceroy was a. small part indeed 
 of the subject of this trial. If the vindication 
 of his mere personal character had been, as it 
 ought to have been, the sole object of this pro- 
 secution, I should have felt the most respectful 
 regret at seeing a person of his high considera- 
 tion come forward in a court of public justice, 
 in one and the same breath to admit the truth, 
 and to demand the punishment of a publication 
 like the present; to prevent the chance he might 
 have had of such an accusation being disbe- 
 lieved, and by a prosecution like this to give to 
 the passing stricture of a newspaper that life 
 and body, and action and reality, that proves it 
 to all mankind and makes the record of it inde- 
 lible. Even as it is I do own I feel the utmost 
 concern that his name should have been soiled 
 by being mixed in a question of which it is the 
 mere pretext and scape-goat. Mr. Attorney- 
 general was too wise to state to you the real 
 question or the object which he wished to be 
 answered by your verdict. Do you remember 
 that he was pleased to say that this publication 
 was a base and foul misrepresentation of the 
 virtue and wisdom of the government, and a 
 false and audacious statement to the world that 
 the king's government in Irelandwasbase enough 
 to pay informers for taking away the lives of the 
 people! When I heard this statement to-day, I 
 doubted whether you were aware of its tendency 
 or not. It is now necessary that I should ex- 
 plain it to you more at large. 
 
 You
 
 288 
 
 You catinot be ignorant of the great conflict 
 between prerogative ami privilege which hath 
 convulsed the country for the last fifteen years; 
 when I say privilege, you Cannot suppose that I 
 mean the privilege of the house of commons, I 
 mean the privileges of the people. You are no 
 strangers to the various modes by which the 
 people laboured to approach their object. Dele- 
 gations, conventions, remonstrances, resolutions, 
 petitions totheparliament,petitionsto thethrone. 
 It might not be decorous in this place to state ta 
 you with any sharpness the various modes of re- 
 sistance that were employed on the other side; 
 but you all of you seem old enough to remember 
 the variety of acts of parliament that have been 
 made, by which the people were deprived* session 
 after session, of what they had supposed to be the 
 known and established fundamentals of the con- 
 stitution; the right of public debate, the right of 
 public petition, the right of bail, the right of trial, 
 the right of arms for self-defence; until the last, 
 even the relics of popular privilege became super- 
 seded by a military force; the press extinguished; 
 and the state found its last entrenchment in the 
 grave of the constitution. As little can you be 
 strangers to the tremendous confederations of 
 hundreds of thousands of our countrymen, of the 
 nature and the objects of which such a variety of 
 opinions have been propagated and entertained. 
 
 The writerof thisletterhad presumed toccnsure 
 the recall of lord Fitzwillium, as well as the mea> 
 
 sure
 
 289 
 
 sures of the present viceroy. Into this subject T 
 do not enter ; but you cannot yourseles forget 
 that the conciliatory measures of the former noble 
 lord had produced an almost miraculous unanimi- 
 ty in this country; and much do I regret, and sure 
 I am that it is not without pain you can reflect, 
 how unfortunately the conduct of his successor 
 has terminated. His intentions might have been 
 the best ; I neither know them nor condemn them, 
 but their terrible effects you cannot be blind to. 
 Every new act of coercion has been followed by 
 some new symptoms of discontent, and every new 
 attack provoked some new paroxysm of resent- 
 ment or some new combination of resistance. In 
 this deplorable state of affairs, convulsed and dis- 
 tracted within, and menaced by a most formida- 
 ble enemy from without, it was thought that pub- 
 lic safety might be found in unipn and concilia- 
 tion, and repeated applications were made to the 
 parliament of this kingdom for a calm enquiry 
 into the complaints of the people ; these applica- 
 tions were made in vain. Impressed' by the same 
 motives Mr. Fox brought the same subject before 
 the commons of England, and ventured to ascribe 
 the perilous state of Ireland to the severity of its 
 government. Even his stupendous abilities, ex- 
 cited by the liveliest sympathy with our suffer- 
 ings, and animated by the most ardent zeal t<i> 
 restore the strength with the union of the empire, 
 were repeatedly exerted without success. The 
 fact of discontent was denied; the fact of coer- 
 cion was denied; and the consequence was, the co- 
 ir ercion
 
 ercion became more implacable, and the discon- 
 tent more threatening and irreconcileable. A simi- 
 lar application was made in the beginning of this 
 session in the lords of Great Britain by our illus- 
 trious countryman, of whom I do not wonder that 
 my learned friend should have observed, how 
 much virtue can fling pedigree into the shade; or 
 how much the transient honour of a body inhe- 
 rited from man, is obscured by the lustre of an 
 intellect derived from God. He, after being an 
 eye-witness of this country, presented the miser- 
 able picture of what he had seen; and to the 
 astonishment of every man in Ireland, the exist- 
 ence of those facts was ventured to be denied; the 
 conduct of the present viceroy was justified and 
 applauded; and the necessity of continuing that 
 conduct was insisted upon, as the only means of 
 preserving the constitution, the peace, and the 
 prosperity of Ireland. The moment the learned 
 counsel had talked of this publication as a false 
 statement of the conduct of the government, and 
 the condition of the people, no man could be at 
 a loss to see that the awful question, which had 
 been dismissed from the commons of Ireland, and 
 from the lords and commons of Great Britain, is 
 now brought forward to be tried by a side wind, 
 and in a collateral way, by a criminal prosecution. 
 
 I tell you therefore, gentlemen of the jury, 
 it is not with respect to Mr. Orr that your ver- 
 dict is now sought; you are called upon on your 
 oaths to say, that the government is wise and 
 
 merciful,
 
 merciful, that the people are prosperous and 
 happy, that military law ought to be continued, 
 thatjthe British constitution could not with safety, 
 be restored to his country, and that the state- 
 ments of a contrary import by your advocates in 
 either country were libellous and false. I tell 
 you these are the questions, and I ask you, can 
 you have the front to give the expected answer 
 in the face of a community who know the coun- 
 try as well as you do? Let me ask you, how could 
 you reconcile with such a verdict, the goals, 
 the tenders, the gibbets, the conflagrations, the 
 murders, the proclamations that we hear of every 
 day in the streets, and see every day in the coun- 
 try? What are the processions of the learned 
 counsel himself circuit after circuit? Merciful 
 God! what is the state of Ireland, and where 
 shall you find the wretched inhabitant of this 
 land ! You may find him perhaps in gaol, the 
 only place of security, I had almost said of or- 
 dinary habitation; you may see him flying by 
 the conflagration of his own dwelling; or you 
 may find his bones bleaching on the green fields 
 of his country; or he maybe found tossing upon 
 the surface of the ocean, and mingling his groans 
 with those tempests, less savage than his perse- 
 cutors, that drift him to a returnless distance from 
 his family and his home. And yet with these 
 facts ringing in the ears and starting in the face 
 of the prosecutors you are called upon to say, on 
 your oaths, that these facts do not exist. You 
 are called upon, in defiance of shame, of truth, of 
 v 2 honour
 
 292 
 
 honoqr> tp deny the sufferings under which you 
 groan, and to flatter the persecution that tram- 
 ples you under foot. 
 .'A}C.' ';:'.! Mill Bite ,-;?. 'ni;oo' air; c: L 
 
 But the learned gentleman is further pleased to 
 say that, the traverser has charged the govern- 
 ment with the encouragement of informers. This, 
 gentlemen, is another small fact that you are to 
 deny at the hazard of your souls, and upon the 
 solemnity of your oaths. You are upon your 
 oaths to say to the sister country, that the go- 
 vernment of Ireland uses no such abominable in- 
 struments of destruction as informers. Let me 
 ask you honestly, what do you feel, when in my 
 hearing, when in the face of this audience, you 
 are called upon to give a verdict that every man 
 of us, and every man of you know by the testi- 
 mony of your own eyes to be utterly and abso- 
 lutely false? I speak not now of the public pro- 
 clamation of informers with a promise of secrecy 
 and of extravagant reward; I speak not of the 
 fate of those horrid wretches whahavebeen so of- 
 ten transferred from the table to the dock, and 
 from the dock to the pillory; I speak of what 
 your own eyes have seen day after day during 
 the course of this commission from the box where 
 you are now sitting; the number of horrid 
 miscreants who avowed upon their oaths that they 
 had come from the very seat of government 
 from the castle, where they had been worked 
 upon by the fear of death and the hopes of com- 
 pensation, to give evidence against their fellows 
 that the mild and wholesome councils of this go- 
 vernment
 
 293 
 
 vernment, are holden over these catacombs of 
 living; death, where the wretch that is buried a 
 
 c5 
 
 man, lies till his heart has time to fester and dis- 
 solve, and is then dug up a witness. 
 
 Is this fancy, or is it fact ? Have you not seen 
 him, after his resurrection from that tomb, after 
 having been dug out of the region of death and 
 corruption, make his appearance upon the table, 
 the living image of life and of death, and the su- 
 preme arbiter of both ? Have you not marked 
 when he entered, how the stormy wave of the 
 multitude retired at his approach? Have you not 
 marked how the human heart bowed to the su- 
 premacy of his power, in the undissembled ho- 
 mage of deferential horror? How his glance, like 
 the lightning of heaven, seemed to rive the body 
 of the accused, and mark it for the grave, while 
 his voice warned the devoted wretch of woe and 
 death; a death which no innocence can escape, 
 no art elude, no force resist, no antidote prevent: 
 -there was an antidote ajuror'soath but even 
 that adamantine chain, that bound the integrity 
 of man to the throne of eternal justice, is solved 
 and melted in the breath that issues from the in- 
 former's mouth; conscience swings from her 
 moorings, and the appalled and affrighted juror 
 consults his own safety in the surrender of the 
 victim: 
 
 Et qure sibi quisque timebat, 
 
 Lniusiu miseri oxitium convorsa tulcre. 
 
 Gentlemen, I feel I must have tired your pa- 
 tience, but I have been forced into this length by 
 
 the
 
 294 
 
 the prosecutor who has thought fit to introduce 
 those extraordinary topics, and to bring a ques- 
 tion of mere politics to trial under the form of a 
 criminal prosecution. I cannot say I am sur- 
 prised that this has been done, or that you should 
 be solicited by the same inducements, and from 
 the same motives, as if your verdict was a vote 
 of approbation. I do not wonder that the go- 
 vernment of Ireland should stand appalled at the 
 state to which we are reduced. 1 wonder not 
 that they should start at the public voice, and 
 labour to stifle or contradict it. I wonder not 
 that at this arduous crisis when the very exist- 
 ence of the empire is at stake, and when its 
 strongest and most precious limb is not girt with 
 the sword for battle, but pressed by the tourni- 
 quet for amputation ; when they find the cold- 
 ness of death already begun in those extremities 
 where it never ends, that they are terified at 
 what they have done, and wish to say to the sur- 
 viving parties of that empire, " they cannot say 
 " that we did it." I wonder not that they should 
 consider their conduct as no immaterial ques- 
 tion for a court of criminal jurisdiction, and wish 
 anxiously, as on an inquest of blood, forthe kind 
 acquittal of a friendly jury. I wonder not that 
 they should wish to close the chasm they have 
 opened by flinging you into the abyss. But trust 
 me, my countrymen, you might perish in it, but 
 you could not close it; trust me, if it is yet 
 possible to close it, it can be done only by truth 
 and honour ; trust me, that such an effect could 
 no more be wrought by the sacrifice of a jury, 
 
 than.
 
 295 
 
 than by the sacrifice of Orr. As a state measure, 
 the one \vould be as unwise and unavailing as 
 the other; but while you are yet upon the brink, 
 while you are yet visible, let me, before we part, 
 remind you once more of your awful situation. 
 The law upon this subject gives you supreme 
 dominion. Hope not for much assistance from his 
 lordship. On such occasions perhaps the duty 
 of the court is to be cold and neutral. I can- 
 not but admire the dignity he has supported 
 during this trial ; I am grateful for his pa- 
 tience. But let me tell you, it is not his pro- 
 vince to fan the sacred flame of patriotism in the 
 jury-box; as he has borne with the little extra- 
 vagancies of the law, do you bear with the little 
 failings of the press. Let me therefore remind 
 you, that, though the day may soon come when 
 our ashes shall be scattered before the winds of 
 heaven, the memory of what you do cannot die; 
 it will carry down to your posterity your honour 
 or your shame. In the presence and in the name 
 of that ever-living God, I do therefore conjure 
 you to reflect, that|you have your characters, your 
 consciences, that you have also the character, 
 perhaps the ultimate destiny of your country in 
 your hands. In that awful name I do conjure 
 you to have mercy upon your country and your- 
 selves, and so judge now, as you will hereafter 
 be judged; and I do now submit the fate of my 
 client, and of that country which we have yet in 
 common, to your disposal. 
 
 / 1 . Finncrty was found guilty* 
 
 SPEECH
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN, 
 
 IN DEFENCE OF 
 
 MR. OLIVER BOND, 
 
 FOR 
 
 HIGH TREASON. 
 
 ON TUESDAY, JULY 24, 1798. 
 
 ABSTRACT OF THE INDICTMENT. 
 tt 
 
 R.OLIVER BOND, you standindicted,for that 
 " not having the fear of God before your eyes, 
 " nor the duty of your allegiance considering, 
 " but being moved and seduced by the instiga- 
 " tion of the devil, you did, with other false trai- 
 ' tors, conspire and meet together, and contriving 
 " and imagining with all your strength this king- 
 " dom to disturb, and to overturn by force of 
 " arms, &c. the government of this kingdom, on 
 " the 20th day of May, in the thirty-eighth 
 " year of the reign of the present king, in the 
 
 " parish
 
 297 
 
 <c parish of St. Michael the archangel, did con- 
 " spire and meet together about the means of 
 " overturning the government; and his majesty 
 " of and from his royal state, power and go- 
 " vernment of this country to deprive and put; 
 " and that you, Oliver Bond, with other false 
 " traitors, did meet together and make resolu- 
 " tions to procure arms and ammunition for the 
 <c purpose of arming men to wage war against 
 " our sovereign lord the king; and did conspire 
 " to overturn by force the lawful government 
 " of this kingdom, and to change by force the 
 * e government thereof ; and did assemble and 
 <e meet together to raise a rebellion in this king- 
 " dom; to procure arms to aid and assist in 
 *' said rebellion; and that you, Oliver Bond, 
 " did aid and cause Thomas Reynolds to be a 
 " colonel in the county of Kildare, to aid and 
 " assist in the said rebellion, and did administer 
 * c unlawful oaths to said Thomas Reynolds, and 
 " to certain other persons, to be united Irish- 
 " men, for the purpose of overturning by force 
 " the government of this kingdom; and you, the 
 * 6 said Oliver Bond, did collect sums of money 
 w to furnish arms and ammunition to the persons 
 " in said rebellion, against the duty of your 
 " allegiance, contrary to his majesty's peace, 
 4 his crown and dignity, and contrary to the 
 " form of the statute in that case made and pro- 
 ** vided. And whereas a public war, both by 
 " land and sea, is, and hath been carried on by 
 " persons exercising the powers of government 
 
 " in
 
 298 
 
 " in France, you, the said Oliver Bond, not 
 " having the fear of God before your eyes, did 
 " aid and assist the French and men of France 
 " to invade this kingdom, to overturn by force 
 " the government of this kingdom, and to com- 
 *' pass and imagine the death of the king, and 
 " so forth. On this indictment you, Oliver Bond, 
 " have been this day arraigned, and have pleaded 
 " not guilty, and for trial have put yourself ori 
 ** God and your country." 
 
 MR. CURRAN. 
 
 MY LORDS, AND GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY, I am 
 
 counsel for the prisoner at the bar it is my duty 
 to lay his case before you. It is a duty that at 
 any time would be a. painful one to me, but at pre- 
 sent peculiarly soj having, in the course of this 
 long trial, experienced great fatigue both of mind 
 and of body, a fatigue I have felt in common 
 with the learned judges who preside on the 
 bench, and with my brethren of the bar: I feel 
 as an advocate for my client the duty of the awful 
 obligation that has devolved upon me. I do not 
 mean, gentlemen of the jury, to dilate on my 
 own personal fatigues, for I am not in the habit 
 of considering my personal ill state of health, or 
 the anxiety of my mind, in discharging my duty 
 to clients in such awful situations as in the pre- 
 sent momentous crisis; I have not been in the 
 
 habit,
 
 299 
 
 habit, gentlemen of the jury, to expatiate to you 
 on personal ill-health; in addressing myself to 
 jurors on any common subject, I have not been 
 in the habit of addressing myself to the inter- 
 position of the court, or to the good-natured 
 consideration of the jury, on behalf of my client. 
 I have mentioned indeed my own enfeebled 
 worn out body, and my worn out state of mind, 
 not out of any paltry respect to myself, nor to 
 draw your attention to myself, but to induce 
 you to reflect upon this; that in the weakness 
 of the advocate, the case of my client, the pri- 
 soner at the bar, is not implicated; for his case 
 is so strong in support of his innocence, that it is 
 not to be weakened by the imbecility, or the 
 
 fatigue of the advocate. 
 
 } 
 
 Gentlemen of the jury, I lament that this case 
 has not been brought forward in a simple, and 
 in the usual way, without any extraneous matter 
 being introduced into it, as I think in justice, 
 and as I think in humanity, it ought to have been. 
 I lament that any little artifices should be em- 
 ployed upon so great and solemn a case as this, 
 more especially in desperate times, than upon 
 more ordinary occasions; and some allegations 
 of criminality have been introduced, as to per- 
 sons and things, that ought not in my opinion to 
 have been adverted to in a case like this. What, for 
 instance, has this case to do with the motion made 
 by lord Moira in the house of lords in Ireland in 
 February last, or the accidental conversations 
 
 with
 
 (300 
 
 with lord Edward Fitz Gerald? If you have a feel- 
 ing for virtue, I trust that lord Moira will be re*- 
 vered as a character that adds a dignity to the 
 peerage. What made that noble character forego 
 his great fortune, quit his extensive demesnes, 
 and the tranquillity of the philosophic mind, but 
 the great and glorious endeavour to do service to 
 his country? I must repeat, he is an honour to 
 the Irish peerage. Let me ask, why was the name 
 of lord Moira, or lord Wycombe (who happened 
 to dine at sir Duke GifTard's) introduced into this 
 trial? what has that motion which lord Moira in- 
 troduced in the house of lords to do with the 
 trial of. Mr. Oliver Bond on a charge of high 
 treason? Gentlemen of the jury, you have been 
 addressed as against a person by whom a nre has 
 been supposed to have been kindled, and this too 
 at the period of its being extinguished. (Some 
 ignorant persons in the crowded gallery having 
 created some noise in the court prevented the 
 learned advocate a few minutes from proceed- 
 ing The court said they would punish any per- 
 son who dared to interrupt the counsel for the 
 prisoner, and said they hoped Mr. Curran would 
 be able to proceed in stating the prisoner's case.) 
 Mr. Curran, in continuing I have very little 
 hope to be able to discharge my duty, but I im- 
 pute the interruption to mere accident ; I cannot 
 suppose it was levelled against me, but I am 
 afraid it was excited by prejudice, (The court 
 remarked, they would maintain the peace and 
 decorum of the court, and they would guard the 
 
 prisoner
 
 SOI 
 
 prisoner from any prejudice. " Mr. Curran, you 
 will state the facts of the prisoner's case to the 
 jury, and shall not be interrupted/') Mr. Cur- 
 ran, in continuation. Gentlemen of the jury, I 
 was cautioning you against being prejudiced 
 against my unfortunate client; I fear there is 
 much reason why I should caution you against 
 the influence of any prejudice against the prisoner 
 at the bar. ,You are to decide on your verdict, 
 by the evidence given and the evidence that on 
 the part of the prisoner will be laid before you, 
 and you will see that the evidence does not sup- 
 port the prosecution. You will banish any pre- 
 judices, and let your verdict be the result of cool 
 and deliberate investigation, and not given in 
 the heat of the season when mens* min^s may be 
 inflamed by the circumstances of the times. I 
 shall lay before you the case of my client, to con- 
 trovert the evidence given on the part of the 
 prosecution, and shall offer to your consideration 
 some observations in point of law, under the ju- 
 dicial controul of the court as to matter of law. 
 I will strip my client's case from the extraneous 
 matter that hath been attempted to be fastened 
 on it. I feel, gentlemen, the more warm, when I 
 speak to you in favour of my client's innocency, 
 and to bring his innocency home to your judg- 
 ments. I know the honesty and rectitude of 
 your characters, and I know my client has no- 
 thing to fear from your understanding. It is my 
 duty to state to you, we have evidence to prove 
 to you, that the witness on the part of the pro- 
 secutor
 
 302 
 
 secutor is undeserving of credit, and it is' my 
 duty to apprize you, that it is your duty to exa- 
 mine into the moral character of the witness that 
 has been produced; and it is of the utmost con- 
 cern you should do this, as your verdict is to de- 
 cide on the life or death, the fame or dishonour 
 of the prisoner at the bar. With respect to prose- 
 cutions brought forward by the state, I have ever 
 been of opinion that the decision is to be by the 
 jury, and that as to any matter of law the jury do 
 derive information from the court; for jurors 
 have by the constitution a fixed and permanent 
 power to decide on matter of fact, and the letter 
 of the law the sovereign leaves to be expounded 
 by the mouth of the king's judges. Some censure 
 upon some former occasions hath fallen on former 
 judges, from a breach of this doctrine. Upon a 
 former occasion I differed in my opinion from 
 the learned judge who then presided, as to what 
 I conceived to be the law, as to what is to be 
 construed in the law of high treason, as to com- 
 passing or imagining the death of the king; I am 
 not ashamed of the opinion in a point of law I 
 entertained, I never shall be ashamed of it. I am 
 extremely sorry I should differ from the bench 
 in opinion on a point of law, but judges have had 
 different opinions upon the same subject: where 
 an overt-act is laid of compassing and imagining 
 the death of the king it does not mean in con- 
 struction of law the natural dissolution of the 
 king, but where there was not the fact acted up- 
 on, but confined inerely to the intention a man 
 
 had;
 
 303 
 
 had; the proof of such intention must, according 
 to lord Coke and sir M. Foster, be proved by two 
 witnesses in England; the statute of Edward III. 
 provides against the event of the death of the 
 king by any person levying war, whereby his life 
 might become endangered. The proof of such 
 overt-act must in England be substantiated by 
 two witnesses; how it comes not to be settled and 
 required in Ireland, is not accounted for. Before 
 the statute of Edward III. the law relative to 
 high treason was undefined, which tended to op- 
 press and harrass the people, for, by the common 
 law of England, it was formerly a matter of 
 doubt, whether it was necessary to have two wit- 
 nesses to prove an overt-act of high treason. Lord 
 Coke says, that in England there must be two 
 witnesses to prove an overt-act; it seems he was 
 afterwards of a contrary opinion ; but in the reign 
 of William III. a statute passed, and by that sta- 
 tute it appears there must be two witnesses, but' 
 when that statute came to be enacted here, the 
 clause relative to there being two witnesses to an 
 overt-act of high treason was not made the law 
 in Ireland, but why it was not required in Ireland 
 is not explained. By the English act of Wil- 
 liam III. in England, the overt-act must be proved 
 by two witnesses in England but it does not say 
 in Ireland: but as the common law of England 
 and the common law of Ireland are the same, the 
 consciences of an Irish jury ought to be fully satis- 
 tied by the testimony of two witnesses to an overt- 
 act ; but, on this point, however, some of the 
 
 Irish
 
 304 
 
 Irish judges are of opinion, that two witnesses are 
 not in Ireland required to substantiate an overt- 
 act, therefore their opinion must be acquiesced 
 in. Let me suppose that Confucius, Plato, Solon, 
 or Tully, or any other great philosopher, was of 
 opinion, on any particular point, as suppose for 
 instance, that on the statute of William III. in 
 order to have a just and equal trial there must be 
 two witnesses to prove an overt act; Blackstone 
 and Montesquieu are of opinion we should have 
 the equal protection to our liberties ; why then 
 should not a jury in Ireland require the same evi- 
 dence* i. e. two witnesses here, as well as in Eng- 
 land? The learned counsel referred to the statute 
 of Edward III. act of king William IU. on high 
 treason, Blackstone's commentaries, Montes- 
 quieu's spirit of laws, Coke on Littleton, and sir 
 Michael Foster's pleas of the crown. 
 
 Gentlemen of the jury, let me state to you in 
 the clearest point of view the defence of the pri- 
 soner at the bar, and see what has been the na- 
 ture of the evidence adduced the prisoner at the 
 bar is accused of compassing or imagining the 
 death of the king, and of adhering to the king's 
 enemies the evidence against him is parole and 
 written evidence. Now, gentlemen of the jury, I 
 will venture to observe to you, that as to the writ* 
 ten* evidence, if suffered to go before you by tie 
 court, it is only as evidence at large; but as to th& 
 credibility of it, that is for you to decide upon. 
 Mr. Reynolds, in his parole testimony, has sworn, 
 
 that
 
 305 
 
 that he was made a united Irishman by the pri- 
 soner at the bar. Mr. Reynolds says, he was 
 sworn to what he considered to be the objects of 
 that society he stated them to you; but whe- 
 ther true or false is for you to determine, by the 
 credit you may give to his testimony. This is the 
 third time Mr. Reynolds has appeared in a court 
 of justice, to prosecute the prisoners. He says, 
 the objects of the united Irishmen are to overturn 
 the present government, and to establish a re- 
 publican form of government in its stead, and to 
 comfort and abet the French, on their invading 
 this kingdom, should such an event take place. 
 You have heard his testimony, let me ask, do you 
 think him incapable of being a villain? do you 
 think him to be a villain? you observed with 
 what kind of pride he gave his testimony do 
 you believe his evidence by the solemn oath that 
 yon have taken? or do you believe it was a blasted 
 perjury? can you give credit to any man of a 
 blasted character? It has been the misfortune 
 of many former jurors to have given t,heir verdict 
 founded upon the evidence of a perjured witness, 
 and on their death-bed they repented of their 
 credulity, in convicting a man upon false testi- 
 mony; the history of former ages is replete with 
 such conduct, as may be seen in the state trials, 
 in the case of lord Kimbolton and Titus Gates 
 the then jurors convicted that nobleman, but 
 some time after his death, the jurors discovered 
 they had given implicit credit to a witness un- 
 worthy of it ; and the lawyers of those times 
 
 x might
 
 SOG 
 
 might have said " I thank God they have done 
 the deed.'* Does not the history of human in- 
 firmity give many instances of this kind? Gen- 
 tlemen, let me bring you more immediately to 
 the case before you; had we no evidence against 
 Reynolds but his own solitary evidence; from 
 the whole of his evidence, you cannot establish 
 the guilt of the prisoner at the bar; take the 
 whole of his evidence into your consideration, it 
 may appear he is unworthy of credit. He told 
 you he got information from M'Cann on the Sun- 
 day morning, that the meeting was to be on Mon- 
 day morning at ten o'clock. Reynolds goes im- 
 mediately to Mr. Cope and gives him that infor- 
 mation. On Sunday afternoon he goes to lord 
 Edward FitzGerald, and shews him the orders 
 issued by captain Saurin to the lawyers' corps : 
 then, said lord Edward, I fear government intend 
 to arrest me, I will go to France, and hasten them 
 to invade this country. Government has no in- 
 formation of the meeting of the provincial dele- 
 gates at Bond's; no, no, says Reynolds, that is 
 impossible. Reynolds wrote to Bond that he 
 could not attend the meeting, as his wife was ill ; 
 Reynolds did not go to the meeting. Bond was 
 arrested on the Monday morning; on Monday 
 evening at eight at night Reynolds goes to lord 
 Edward in Aungier-street, meets him, and goes 
 again to him the next night, and lord Edward 
 conversed with Reynolds about his (lord Ed- 
 ward,) going to France. Reynolds then went to 
 Kildare, he gave the most solemn assurance to 
 
 the
 
 307 
 
 the delegates at a meeting there, that he never 
 gave information of the meeting at Bond's: now 
 see how many oaths Reynolds has taken; he ad- 
 mits he took two of the oaths of the obligations 
 to the society of united Irishmen. He told you 
 lord Edward advised him to accept of being a 
 colonel of Kildare united Irishmen's army, and 
 yet he says, he afterwards went to Bond's, and 
 Bond advised Reynolds to be a colonel. It ap- 
 peared in evidence that Reynolds was treasurer; 
 he took two more oaths, one as colonel, and one 
 as treasurer, and he took the oath of allegiance 
 also, and he took oath to the truth of his testi- 
 mony, at the two former trials and at thisj on 
 which do you give him credit? Gentlemen, in 
 order to narrow the question under you consi- 
 deration, I may observe that what Reynolds said, 
 relative to lord Edward's conversation, is totally 
 out of this case, it can have no weight at all on 
 the trial of Mr. Bond for high treason, in the 
 linding of your verdict. How, or in what man- 
 ner, is the prisoner at the bar to be affected by 
 it? I submit to your lordship that the declaration 
 of lord Edward to Reynolds, when Bond was not 
 present, is not attachable to the prisoner. Mr. 
 Reynolds has given you a long account of a con- 
 versation he had with Mr. Cope, relative to the 
 proceedings of the society of united Irishmen, 
 and Mr. Cope said, if such a man could be found, 
 as described by Mr. Reynolds, who wouldcome for- 
 ward and give information, he would deserve the 
 epithet of ^viour of his country: thus by 11 ey- 
 
 x 2 nolds's
 
 308 
 
 nolds's evidence, it wouM seem that Mr. Cope 
 was the little poney of repentance to drive away 
 the gigantic climes of the colossus Reynolds: 
 but remember, said Mr. Reynolds, though I give 
 information I won't sacrifice my morality ; I 
 won't come Forward to prosecute any united 
 Irishman. No, no; like a bashful girl, higgling 
 about the price of her virginity, I am determined, 
 says Reynolds, to preserve my character J will 
 give the communications, but do not think I will 
 descend to be all in'fonner I will acquaint you 
 of every thing against the united Irishmen, but 
 I must preserve my credit I tell you the design 
 of the united Irishmen is to overturn the consti- 
 tution I will lead you to the threshold of dis- 
 covery, but I won't name any price for reward 
 pray don't mention it at all. Says Mr. Cope ; a 
 man would deserve a thousand, or fifteen hun- 
 dred a year and a seat in parliament, or any thing, 
 if he could give the information you mention 
 No such thing is required, no such thing, says 
 Reynolds you mistake me; I will have nothing 
 in the world but merely a compensation for losses 
 do you think I would take a bribe? I ask only 
 of you to give me leave to draw a little bit of a 
 'note on you for five hundred guineas, only by 
 way of indemnity, that is all, merely for indem- 
 nity of losses I have sustained, or am liable to 
 sustain. Gentlemen of the jury, don't you see 
 the vast distinction between a bribe and grati- 
 fication? What says Foigard? consider my con- 
 science, do you think I would take a bribe ? it 
 
 would
 
 309 
 
 would grieve ray conscience if I was to take a 
 Jbribe to be a member of parliament and 
 declare for the ayes or the noes I will 
 accept of no bribe I wjll only take a little 
 indemnity for claret that may be spilt ; for a 
 little furniture that may be destroyed 5 for a 
 little wear and tear, for boots and for shoes, for 
 plate destroyed ; for defraying the expences of 
 some pleasurable jaunts, when out of this 
 country ; for if I become a public informer 
 against the united Irishmen, and should con- 
 tinue here for some time, I may chance at some 
 time to be killed by some of them for I have 
 sworn to be true to them, and I also took the 
 oath of allegiance to be true to my sovereign - 
 I have taken all sorts of oath ; if I frequent the 
 company of those who are loyal to the king, 
 they will despise the man who broke his oath of 
 allegiance, and between the loyalist and the 
 united Irishmen, I may chance to be killed 
 As I am in the habit of living in the world, says 
 Mr. Reynolds to Mr. Cope, you will give me 
 leave to draw a bit of paper on you, only for 
 three hundred guineas at present ; it will operate 
 like a bandage to a sore leg, though it won't 
 cure the sore, or the rottenness of the bone, it 
 may hide it from the public view. I will, says 
 Mr. Reynolds, newly be baptised for a draft of 
 three hundred guineas, and become a public 
 informer, and for a further bit of paper only, 
 for another two hundred guineas, yet I trust 
 you will excuse me, I will not positively take 
 
 any
 
 310 
 
 any more. He might, I imagine, be compared 
 to a bashful girl, and say, What, shall the 
 brutal arms of man attack a country maid, and 
 she not stipulate for full wages ; when her gown 
 shortens, and her apron bursts asunder, and 
 she shrinks at the view of public prostitution ! 
 perhaps he practised upon her virtue, when she 
 thought he was gaining the affections of that 
 innocent dupe in private. Do you think that 
 Reynolds would touch a bribe, and become an 
 informer ? no, no, he said he would be no 
 informer but did he not consent to do a little 
 business in private and did he not get money 
 for it? Perhaps he said, I thought to be no 
 villain I would not have the world think me a 
 villain, yet as Ij can confide in myself, why 
 should I mind what the world says of me, 
 though it should call me villain ? but is it not a 
 real fact ? Even though I should become the 
 talk of all the porter-houses, though I should 
 become the talk of all the tea-tables, yet perjury 
 is not brought home to me. No ; no human 
 being has knowledge of what is rankling within ? 
 Has it not been said, I was an honest man, to 
 come upon the public board as a public informer ? 
 they did call me an honest man, and a worthy, 
 a respectable informer, and thus my character 
 is at bay. The world indeed heard of the pro- 
 gress of these crimes, and that I was unfortu- 
 nately an united Irishman. He told you there 
 was a, provincial meeting of delegates, but he has 
 not ventured to tell you where the provincial 
 
 committee
 
 committee met ; he has simply said, there was 
 a provincial committee. It was a question of 
 great concern ; I have doubts about it. It is 
 not stated to me what these important con- 
 sultations were about. From M'Cann he heard 
 that a baronial meeting was to be at Bond's on 
 the 12th of March, and that there was material 
 business to transact, and desired Reynolds to 
 attend that is all that Reynold's heard from 
 M'Cann, and M'Cann is now no more, and 
 this part of the case is in doubt and obscurity. 
 For my part I am not satisfied that any thing 
 criminal did pass at the meeting at Bond's on 
 the 12th of March no man can say so on 
 the evidence produced, they do not say that, 
 they only suppose there was. Was the jury 
 to judge of their own present view, I do not 
 think they would come justly, with their verdict 
 of condemnation. The question is not, whether 
 there was any meeting at Bond's, but what 
 was the object of that meeting ? Bond was in 
 the ware-house in the custody of the guard, 
 afterwards he came up to the room with Mr. 
 Swan. At Bond's there was a meeting of the 
 united Irishmen, and though Bond was not 
 taken in that room, yet Bond's charge is mixed 
 with the guilt of that meeting. The overt-act 
 in the indictment is, of conspiring to levy war, 
 $'c. It is material to observe, in this part 
 of the case, it was a bare conspiracy/ to levy war ; 
 it is not, as I conceive, high treason ; the bare 
 
 intention
 
 312 
 
 intention does not amount to compassing or 
 imagining the death of tfye king it is not ad- 
 hering^ to the king's enemies; under certain 
 circumstances, this is not high treason, of com- 
 passing the death of the king. This is the 
 grectt hinge, as I apprehend^ in this case. Gentle- 
 men, .what was the evidence given ? that there 
 WQ.S .& meeting, for a dangerous purpose 
 M'Cann said, there was to be a meeting of the 
 Delegates at Bond's on the 12th of March ; he 
 did not tell Reynolds th& purport of that meeting 
 therefore, gentlemen, my objection is, was 
 that & provincial meeting? it rests on that evidence 
 of the informer, and no other witness. It was 
 M'Cann told Reynolds, you must be at the con- 
 vention on the 12th of March, to compass the 
 death of the king, arid overturn the government; 
 but I^pnd did not; tell him any such thing 
 Bond oylyj&vid, M'Cann was able to give informa- 
 tion of what was going forward at that meeting ; 
 but Boq4: knew nothing about it though ad- 
 mitting a meeting was held in Bond's house for 
 a guilty purpose, yet Bond ; might be perfectly in- 
 nocent ) he was not in the room till Mr. Swan 
 earno- there was to be a watch-word, is M'Cann 
 here ? -.from thence it would seem it was a meet- 
 ing at JVl'Cann's suggestion Mr. Bond probably 
 did not know the motive, why he gave the use of 
 the rooga; f^r there was notonew r ord of conver- 
 sation between Bond and Reynolds. Reynolds 
 says, M'Cann told him the watch-word, M'Cann 
 
 did
 
 313 
 
 did not gel the watch-ivor d from Bond, the prisoner 
 nt the bar, the watch -word was, is M'Cann 
 here ; it w r as for the admission of no person, that 
 M'Cann did not know ; it had no relation to Mr. 
 Bond. Has this no weight with you, gentlemen 
 of the jury? do you feel anxious to investigate 
 the truth? If you believe Reynolds, the meet- 
 ing was for the worst purpose, but was it with 
 the knowledge of Bond? for Bond said to Rey- 
 nolds, I can give you no. information, go to M'Cann, 
 he can inform you Upon the evidence therefore 
 of Reynolds rests this man's life, for the written 
 evidence found in the room cannot in my appre- 
 hension affect Bond, he \vas not in the room ; if 
 you, as no doubt you will, be of opinion, Bond 
 was not in the room, where the papers were found. 
 There is not any evidence of the conversation 
 before Mr. Swan came, and he found on the ta- 
 ble a paper written on and the ink not dry. " / 
 A B was duly elected" -it was not found upon the 
 prisoner at the bar: the papers found might af- 
 fect the persons in the room but at the time of 
 the seizure of the papers Bond was in the ware- 
 house in custody of sergeant Dugan, and was not 
 brought up stairs untill after the arrest. The 
 papers found upon Bond might be read in evi- 
 dence against him, but I conceive not those found 
 in the room. What was the intention of men- 
 tioning the letter from Reynolds, found on tho 
 prisoner at the bar ? It was stated, but not read 
 in evidence, merely to apologize for Reynolds's 
 
 not
 
 314 
 
 not attending the meeting on the 1 2th of March : 
 Reynolds says he got it again, and burnt it. 
 Reynolds did not pretend to state to you, he knew 
 from Bond, what the object of the meeting was; 
 and it is material to observe, that Bond's name 
 was not found entered in the list of the persons 
 vrho made returns, and attended the meeting: 
 Bond has been resident in this city twenty years; 
 in your walks of life, gentlemen of the jury, you 
 never heard any thing to his prejudice, before 
 this charge. I know my duty to my client, and 
 must tell you, If you have had prejudices, I know 
 you will discard them ; I am not paying you any 
 compliment; I have spoken under the feelings of 
 an Irishman, during the course of these trials; I 
 have endeavoured to speak to your understand- 
 ings ; I have not ventured to entreat you on be- 
 half of my client, because I am sure you will give 
 your justice and your merits free operation, in 
 your minds and consciences at this trial. I am 
 sure you will try the cause fairly, and admit every 
 circumstance into your reflections ; in a case 
 between the crown and the prisoner, I have not 
 ventured to address you on the public feelings, at 
 this important crisis ; you will preserve the sub- 
 ject for the sake of the law, and preserve the law 
 for the sake of the crown. You are to decide by 
 your sober and deliberate understandings, and 
 hold the balances equal between the crown and 
 the subject, for you are called upon to pronounce 
 your sentence of condemnation ox acquittal of 
 
 the
 
 315 
 
 the prisoner at the bar. If you should be mis- 
 taken in your verdict, it cannot shake the safety 
 of the state ; you are called upon, with the less 
 anxiety, because which ever way your verdict 
 may be, you are not to be told, remember the 
 safety of your king, or your 6wn safety, you are 
 to have in recollection your solemn oath, to de- 
 cide according to the evidence, and give such a 
 verdict, as may also be satisfactory to your con- 
 sciences, at the last moment of your existence. 
 The court will tell you, it is your province to 
 decide on matter of fact, and as to opinion on 
 matter of law, the court will explain that to you. 
 Your verdict can never die. As to my opinions 
 of the law, whatever they may be, I shall never 
 have an opportunity of uttering them to you 
 again : your verdict will stamp infamy on the pri- 
 soner, or support the throne of the law; I need not 
 remind you that the present moment is awful. 
 My friends, if you suffer your consciences to be 
 influenced, to be degraded, into opinions of the 
 consequences of your verdict ; you are bound to 
 decide by the evidences, the glorious privilege of 
 trial by jury!!! If martial law must cut the 
 throat of brotherly affection, the necessity of it 
 will cease, for verdicts of honest jurors will re- 
 store your country to peace and tranquillity; 
 and the liberties of your country will by that 
 means be secured. The supreme government 
 of a nation must be protected and supported 
 whatever the form of that government may be : 
 
 let
 
 31(5 
 
 let me however ask^ is there no species of law 
 to be resorted to but terror ? let me observe to 
 you, that the moral law is destroyed, when it is 
 stained with the effusion of blood, and it is much 
 to be regretted, when the terrors of the criminal 
 law are obliged to be resorted to, to enforce obe- 
 dience to the common law of the land, by the 
 people, for the sword may cover the land with 
 millions of deluded men. Is it become neces- 
 sary to hurl destruction round the land, till it 
 shivers into a thousand particles, to the destruc- 
 tion of all moral law, and all moral obligations ? 
 By the common law of the land, no subject is 
 to be deprived of life, but by a a trial of his fel- 
 low subjects; but in times when rebellion pre- 
 vails in any country, many suffer without the sem- 
 blance of a trial by their equals. From the earliest 
 period of history down to the present time, there 
 have been seen in some parts of the earth in- 
 stances where jurors have done little more than 
 record the opinions given by them to the then 
 judges; but that is the last scene of departing 
 liberty. I have read that, in the period of the re- 
 bellion, in the last century in England, jurors on 
 trials, by the common law of the land, have been 
 swayed in their determination by the unsupported 
 evidence of an informer; and after-times have 
 proved their verdict was ill founded, and the in- 
 nocency of the convicted persons afterwards ap- 
 peared; trials on charges of high treason are of 
 the utmost moment to the country, not merely 
 
 in
 
 317 
 
 in respect of any individual, but of the necessity 
 there is that the public should know the bless- 
 ings of trial by jury, and that the jurors should 
 solely determine on theirverdict by the evidences, 
 and maturely weigh the credit of the witnesses 
 against any prisoner. Several of these trials of 
 late date some of you have been present at, and 
 you know that the object of the court and the 
 jurors is to investigate the truth from the evi- 
 dences produced; and the jurors are sworn to 
 decide, and to bring in a true verdict according 
 to the evidences. One witness has been ex- 
 amined on this trial, who I think does not de- 
 serve credit, but it is you who are the sole judges 
 as to whom you will give credit to; but though 
 you know this witness has given evidence on two 
 former trials, and though the then jury did give 
 credit to his testimony, yet you are not to deter- 
 mine on your verdict on the faith or precedent of 
 any former jurors, but you are to be solely guided 
 by your own consciences; and you will observe 
 we have had here two more witnesses to impeach 
 the character of Mr. Reynolds, that were not 
 produced on the former trials; and you will no 
 doubt, throw Out of your minds whatever did not 
 come this day before you in evidence, on the 
 part of the prosecution; and which will come 
 before you on part of the prisoner's defence. 
 You will find your verdict flowing from con- 
 scious integrity, and from the feelings of ho- 
 nourable minds; notwithstanding the evidence 
 
 of
 
 318 
 
 of the witness, Mr. Reynolds, who has been ex- 
 amined upon the table, and whose testimony I 
 need not repeat to you ; perhaps you may be in- 
 clined to think, he is a perjured witness, perhaps 
 you will not believe the story he has told against 
 the prisoner at the bar, and of his own turpitude : 
 you will do well to consider it was through a 
 perjured witness, that a Russel and a Sydney 
 were convicted in the reign of James II. If 
 juries are not circumspect to determine only by 
 the evidence adduced before them, and not from 
 any extraneous matter, nor from the slightest 
 breath of prejudice, then what will become of our 
 boasted trial by jury; then what will become of 
 our boasted constitution of Ireland? In former 
 times when jurors decided contrary to evidence, 
 it created great effusion of blood. Let me ask, 
 will you, gentlemen, give a verdict through in- 
 firmity of body, or through misrepresentations, 
 or through ignorance? you by your verdict, will 
 give an answer to this. Gentlemen of the jury, 
 you will weigh in your minds, that many inhu- 
 man executions did take place in former times; 
 though the then accused underwent the solem- 
 nity of a trial, the verdicts of those jurors are not 
 in a state of annihilation, for they remain on the 
 page of history, as a beacon to future jurors; 
 the judges before 'whom the then accused were 
 tried, have long since paid the debt of nature; 
 they cannot now be called to account, why they 
 shrunk from their duty I call upon you, gen- 
 tleman of the jury, to be firm in the exercise of the 
 
 solemn
 
 319 
 
 solemn duty you are now engaged in ; should you 
 be of opinion to bring in a verdict of condemna- 
 tion against my unfortunate client, for myself I 
 ought to care nothing, what impressions may ac- 
 tuate your minds to find such a verdict; it little 
 regardeth me, but it much regardeth you, to con- 
 sider what kind of men you condemn to die; and, 
 before you write their bloody sentence, consider 
 maturely whether the charge against the prisoner 
 is fully proved. If you should on the evidences 
 you have heard condemn the prisoner to death, 
 and afterwards repent it, I shall not live among 
 you to trace any proof of your future repentance. 
 I said I rose to tell you what evidences we 
 had to produce on behalf of my client, the pri- 
 soner at the bar; we shall lay evidence before 
 you, from which you can infer, that the witness 
 produced this day was a perjured man; we have 
 only to shew to you, as honest men, that the wit- 
 ness is not deserving of credit on his oath ; we 
 have nothing more to offer on behalf of my client, 
 the prisoner at the bar. It is your province to 
 deliberate in your consciences on what evidence 
 you have heard, and whether you will believe the 
 witness you have heard, on his oath, or not. 
 Let me ask, will you, upon the evidence you 
 have heard, take away the life of the prisoner 
 at the bar, separate him from his wife and from 
 his little children for ever? I told you I was 
 to state to you the evidences which we had to 
 bring forward on behalf of my unfortunate client; 
 I tell you it is to discredit the testimony of Mr. 
 
 Reynolds;
 
 320 
 
 Reynolds ; when you have heard our evidences 
 to this point, I cannot suppose you will give 
 your verdict to doom to death the unhappy and 
 unfortunate prisoner at the bar, and entail in- 
 famy on his posterity. We will also produce re- 
 spectable witnesses to the hitherto unimpeached 
 character of the prisoner at the bar, and prove 
 that he was a man of fair honest character ; you, 
 gentlemen of the jury, have yourselves known 
 him a number of years in this city; let me ask 
 you, do you not know r that the prisoner at the 
 bar has always borne the character of a man of 
 integrity, and of honest fame ? and, gentlemen 
 of the jury, I call upon you to answer my ques- 
 tion by your verdict. I feel myself imprest with 
 the idea in my breast, that you will give your 
 verdict of acquittal of the prisoner at the bar; 
 arid that by your verdict you will declare on 
 your oaths, that you do not believe one syllable 
 that Mr. Reynolds has told you. Let me entreat 
 you to put in one scale, the base, the attainted, 
 the unfounded, the perjured witness ; and in the 
 opposite scale, let me advise you to put the tes- 
 timony of the respectable witnesses produced 
 against Mr. Reynolds, and the witnesses on the 
 prisoner's hitherto unimpeached character; and 
 you will hold the balances with justice, tempered 
 with mercy, as your consciences in future will 
 approve. Let me depart from the scene of be- 
 holding human misery, should the life of my 
 client by your verdict be forfeited; should he 
 live by your verdict of acquittal 9 he would rank 
 
 as
 
 321 
 
 as the kindest father, and protector of his little 
 children, as the best of husbands, and of friends, 
 and ever maintain that irreproachable character, 
 he has hitherto sustained in private life. Should 
 our witnesses not exculpate the prisoner from 
 the crimes charged on him, to the extent as 
 charged in the indictment, I pray to God to give 
 you the judgment and understanding to acquit 
 him. Do not imagine I have made use of any 
 arguments to mislead your consciences, or to dis- 
 tress your feelings: no but if you conceive a 
 doubt in your minds, that the prisoner is inno- 
 cent of the crime of high treason, I pray to God 
 to give you firmness of mind to acquit him. I 
 now leave you, gentlemen of the jur/, to the free 
 exercise of your own judgments in the verdict 
 you may give. I have not, by way of supplica- 
 tion, addressed you in argument; I do not wish 
 to distress your feelings by supplications ; it 
 would be most unbefitting to your candour and 
 understanding; you are bound by your oaths 
 to find a true verdict according to the evidence; 
 and you do not deserve the station of jurors, in 
 which the constitution has placed you, if you do 
 not discharge the trust the contitution has vested 
 in you, to give your verdict freely and indif- 
 ferently, according to your consciences- 
 
 Mr. Bond was found guilty. 
 
 SPEECH
 
 
 ... 
 
 S P E EC H 
 
 :vfu' .piil 2>syhq o^istiiiu <'/: 
 
 6* 
 
 t'^xs srl) oj ^M no fcr-'g'H.rfo 
 
 JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN, ESQ. 
 ,-;",< gnibostsiat&nu Irn: Jnant^hu^ odj 
 
 IN. DEFENCE OK 
 
 PAMELA^ITZGERALD 
 
 Ofio^hq an) jjBtfl t ai>nzci i 
 
 /nq I jio-'fis-'ii rf^ifl 'lo s>mh^ 
 &EU tNFANT CHILDREN, 
 
 ' .<r-[ ( OIulo TJfri'-^ -: f L'OY O/S^I %YOfl 
 
 . : A fi.?Jf ir, 
 
 BAR OF THE HOUSE .OF. COMAS' ;I$ ' IRELAND. 
 
 Of 
 
 rnfl uv 
 
 IJORD EDWARD FITZGERALD having died in pri- 
 son before trial, of the wound he received in re- 
 sisting the person who apprehended him, a bili 
 was brought into parliament to attaint him after 
 his death. Mr. Curran was heard at the bar of 
 the house of commons against the bill, as counsel 
 for the widow and infant children of that noble- 
 man, (the eldest of whom was only four years 
 old,) on which occasion Mr. Curran delivered 
 the following speech. 
 
 Mr.
 
 323 
 
 Mr. Curran said, he rose in support of a peti- 
 tion presented on behalf of lord Henry Fitz- 
 Gerald, brother of the deceased lord Edward 
 FitzGerald; of Pamela, his widow; Edward, his 
 only son and heir, an infant of the age of four 
 years; Pamela, his eldest daughter, of the age of 
 two years; and Lucy, his youngest child, of the 
 age of three months, against the bill of attainder 
 then before the committee. The bill of attain- 
 der he said, had formed the division of the sub- 
 ject into two parts. It asserted the fact of the 
 late lord Edward's treason, and secondly, it pur- 
 ported to attaint him, and to vest his property 
 in the crown. He would follow the same order. 
 As to the first bill, he could not but remark upon 
 the strange looseness of the allegation: the bill 
 stated that he had, during his life, and since the 
 first of November last, committed several acts of 
 high treason; without stating what, or when, or 
 where, or with whom: it then affected to state 
 the different species of treason of which he had 
 been guilty, namely, conspiring to levy war, and 
 endeavouring to persuade the enemies of the 
 king to invade the country; the latter allega- 
 tion was not attempted to be proved! the con- 
 spiring, without actually levying war, was clearly 
 no high treason, and had been repeatedly so 
 determined. Upon this previous and important 
 question, namely, the guilt of lord Edward, 
 (and without the full proof of which no punish- 
 ment can be just) he had been asked by the com- 
 
 x 2 mitt;ee,
 
 324 
 
 mittee, if he had any defence to go into ? he was 
 confounded by a question which he could not 
 answer; but upon a very little reflection, he saw 
 in that very confusion the most conclusive proof 
 of the injustice of the bill. For what, he said, 
 can be more flagrantly unjust, than to enquire 
 into a fact, of the truth or falsehood of which, 
 no human being can have knowledge, save the 
 informer who comes forward to assert it. Sir, 
 said he, I now answer the question. I have no 
 defensive evidence! I have no case! it is impos- 
 sible I should, I have often of late gone to the 
 dungeon of the captive; but never have I gone 
 to the grave of the dead to receive instructions 
 for his defence nor in truth have I ever before 
 been at the trial of a dead man? I offer there- 
 fore no evidence upon this enquiry; against the 
 perilous example of which, I do not protest on be- 
 half of the public, and against the cruelty and 
 injustice of which I do protest in the name of 
 the dead father, whose memory is SOUGHT to be 
 dishonoured, and of his infant orphans, whose 
 bread is SOUGHT to be taken away. Some ob- 
 servations, and but a few, upon the assertions 
 of Reynolds, I will make. (Mr. Ctirran then 
 observed upon the credit of Reynolds by his own 
 confession.) I do verily believe him in that in- 
 stance, even though I have heard him assert it 
 upon his oath, by his own confession, an in- 
 former and a bribed informer ; a man whom 
 even respectable witnesses had sworn in a court 
 
 of
 
 325 
 
 of justice upon their oaths not to be credible on 
 his oath ; a man upon whose single testimony no 
 jury ever did, nor ever ought to pronounce a 
 verdict of guilty; a kind of man to whom the 
 law resorts with abhorrence and from necessity, 
 in order to set the criminal against the crime, 
 but who is made use of by the law upon the same 
 reason that the most noxious poisons are resorted 
 to in medicine. If such the man, look for a mo- 
 ment at his story; he confines himself to mere 
 conversation only, with a dead man. He ven- 
 tures not to introduce any third person, living 
 or even dead ! he ventures to state no act what- 
 ever done, he wishes indeed to asperse the con- 
 duct of lady Edward FitzGerald, but he well 
 knew, that, even were she in the country, she 
 could not be adduced as a witness to disprove 
 him. 
 
 See therefore if there be any one assertion to 
 which credit can be given, except this, that he 
 has sworn, and forsworn, that he is a traitor, 
 that he has received five hundred guineas to be 
 an informer, and that his general reputation is, 
 to be utterly unworthy of credit. 
 
 As to the papers, it was sufficient to say, that 
 no one of them, nor even all of them, were even 
 asserted to contain any positive proof against lord 
 Edward; that the utmost that could be deduced 
 from them was nothing more than doubt or con- 
 jecture, which, had lord Edward been living, 
 
 might
 
 326 
 
 might have been easily explained, to explain 
 which was now impossible, and upon which to 
 found a sentence of guilt would be contrary to 
 every rule of justice or humanity. 
 
 He would therefore pass to the second ques- 
 tion. Was this bill of attainder warranted by 
 the principles of reason? the principles of for- 
 feiture in the law of treason? or the usage of par-, 
 liament in bills of attainder? The subject was of 
 necessity very long, it had nothing to attract at- 
 tention, but much to repel it. But he trusted that 
 the anxiety of the committee for justice, notwith- 
 standing any dulness either in the subject or in 
 the speaker, w^ould secure to him their attention, 
 Mr Curran then went into a minute detail of the 
 principles of the law of forfeiture for high trea- 
 son. The laws of the Persians and Macedonians, 
 extended the punishment of traitor to the extinc- 
 tion of all his kindred. The law subjected the 
 property and life of every man to the most com- 
 plicated despotism, because the loyalty of every 
 individual of his kindred was as much a matter 
 of wild caprice, as the will of the most arbitrary 
 despot could be. 
 
 This principle was never adopted in any period 
 of our, law : at the earliest times of the Saxons, 
 the law of treason acted directly only on the per- 
 son of the criminal, it took away from him what 
 he actually had to forfeit his life and property. 
 But as to his children, the law disclaimed to affect 
 
 them
 
 327 
 
 them directly; they suffered, but they suffered by 
 a necessary consequence of their father's punish- 
 ment, which the law could not prevent and never 
 directly intended. It took away the inheritance, 
 because the criminal, at the time of taking it 
 away, had absolute dominion over it, and might 
 himself have conveyed it away from his family. 
 This he said, was proved by the instances of ad- 
 ditional fees, at the common law, and estates tail 
 since the statute de Donis. In the former case, the 
 tenant did not forfeit, until he had acquired an 
 absolute dominion over the estate by the perform- 
 ance of the condition. Neither in the latter case 
 was the estate tail made forfeitable, until the te- 
 nant in tail had become enabled in two ways to ob- 
 tain the absolute dominion, by a common recovery 
 or by a fine. Until then the issue in tail, though 
 not only the children of the tenant, but taking 
 from him his estate by descent, could not be dis- 
 inherited by liis crime. Here is a decisive proof, 
 that even the early law of treason never intended 
 to extend the punishment of the traitor to his chil- 
 dren as such; but even this direct punishment 
 upon the traitor himself was to take effect only 
 upon a condition suggested by the unalterable 
 rules of natural justice, namely, a judgment 
 founded upon conviction, against which lie might 
 have made his defence, or upon an outlawry, 
 where he refused to abide his trial. In that case 
 he was punished because during his life the fact 
 was triable, because during his life the punish- 
 ment could act directly upon his person; because 
 
 during
 
 S28 
 
 during his life the estate was his to convey, and 
 therefore his to forfeit. 
 
 But if he died without attainder, a fair trial 
 was impossible, because a fair defence was im 
 possible ; a direct punishment upon his person 
 was impossible, because he could not feel it; an4 
 a confiscation of his estate was equally impos- 
 sible, because it was then no longer his, but was 
 vested in his heir, to whom it belonged by a title 
 as good as that by which it had ever belonged to 
 him in his life time, namely, the known law of 
 the country. 
 
 As to a posthumous forfeiture of lands, that 
 appears to have been attempted by inquest after 
 death. But so early as the eighth of Edward the 
 third the legality of such presentments was disal- 
 lowed by the judges. And there is no lawyer at 
 this day who can venture to deny, that since the 
 twenty-fifth and thirty-fourth of Edward the third 
 no estate of inheritance can regularly be forfeited 
 save by attainder in the life of the party, there- 
 fore the law of the country being, that unless the 
 descent was interrupted by an actual attainder in 
 the life time of the criminal, it became vested in 
 the heir. The moment it did descend, the heir 
 became seised by a title the most favoured in law. 
 He might perhaps have been considered as a pur- 
 chaser for the most valuable consideration, his 
 mother's marriage, of which he was the issue. 
 Why then was posthumous attainder excluded 
 
 from
 
 329 
 
 from the protective law of treason? Why has it 
 never since been enacted by a prospective law? 
 clearly for this reason! that in its own nature it 
 is inhuman, impolitic, and unjust. 
 
 But it is said, this maybe done by a bill of at- 
 tainder ; that the parliament is omnipotent and 
 therefore may do it; and that it is a proceeding 
 familiar to our constitution. As to the first, it 
 could not be denied that the parliament was in 
 the power of the country; but an argument from 
 the existence of a power to the exercise of it in 
 any particular instance, is ridiculous and absurd. 
 From such an argument it would follow, that it 
 must do whatever it is able to do; and that it 
 must be stripped of the best of all power, the 
 power of abstaining from what is wrong. 
 
 Mr. Curran then endeavoured to shew that 
 such a bill ought not to pass : first, because every 
 argument against the justice or the policy of a 
 prospective, was tenfold strong against a retro- 
 spective law. Because every ex post facto law 
 was in itself an exercise of despotical power; 
 when it altered the law of property it was pecu- 
 liarly dangerous; when it punished the innocent 
 for the guilty it was peculiarly unjust: when it 
 affected to do that which the criminal, as it then 
 stood, could not do, it acted peculiarly against 
 the spirit of the constitution: which was to con- 
 tract and restrain penal law by the strictest con- 
 struction, and not to add to it by vindictive in- 
 novation.
 
 330 
 
 novation. But, he said, he was warranted to go 
 much farther upon the authority of the British 
 legislature itself, and to say, that the principle 
 of forfeiture, even in the prospective law, was 
 altogether repugnant to the spirit of the British 
 constitution. 
 
 The statutes of Anne and of George the se- 
 cond have declared, that after the death of the 
 Pretender and of his sons, no such forfeiture 
 should or ought to exist. In favour of that high 
 authority, every philosophical and theoretic wri- 
 ter, baron Montesquieu, the marquis Beccaria, 
 and many others might be cited. Against it, no 
 one writer of credit or character, that had come 
 to his hands. Of the late Mr. York he did not 
 mean to speak with disrespect; he was certainly 
 a man of learning and genius; but it must be ob- 
 served, he wrote for a party and for a purpose ; 
 he wrote against the repeal of the law of forfeiture 
 more than for its principle; of that principle he 
 expressly declines entering into a direct defence. 
 But for the extending of that principle farther 
 than it is already law, the slightest insinuation 
 cannot be found in his treatise. 
 
 But, said Mr. Curran, it is asserted to be the 
 usage of the constitution in both countries. Of 
 bills of attainder, he said, the instances were cer- 
 tainly many, and most numerous in the worst 
 times, and rising above each other in violence and 
 injustice. The most tolerable of them was that 
 
 which
 
 331 
 
 which attainted the man who fled from justice, 
 which gave him a day to appear, had he chosen 
 to do so, and operated as a legislative outlawry. 
 That kind of act had been passed, though but 
 rarely, within the present century. There have 
 been many acts of attainder when the party 
 was willing but not permitted to appear and 
 take his trial. In these two kinds of bills of 
 attainder, however, it is to be observed, that 
 they do not any violence to the common law, by 
 the declaring of a new crime or a new punish- 
 ment, but only by creating a new jurisdiction, 
 and a new order of proceeding. Of the second 
 kind that has been mentioned, many instances 
 are to be found in the violent reigns of the Plan- 
 tagenets and the Tudors, and many of them 
 revised by the wisdom of cooler and juster 
 times. Of such unhappy monuments of human 
 frailty, lord Coke said, ' auferat oblivio, si non 
 silentium tegat.' 
 
 I beg leave, said Mr. Curran, to differ in that 
 from the learned judge : I say, let the record 
 upon which they are written be indelible and 
 immortal : I say, let the memory that preserves 
 them have a thousand tongues to tell them ; 
 and when justice, even late and slow, shall have 
 robbed their fellow principle of life, let them 
 be interred in a monument of negative instruc- 
 tion to posterity for ever. 
 
 A third kind of bill of attainder might be 
 
 found,
 
 S32 
 
 found, which for the first time declared the law, 
 and attainted the criminal upon it ; such was 
 the attainder of Strafford. A fourth, which did 
 not change the law as to the crime, but as to 
 the evidence upon which it was to be proved ; 
 such was the attainder of sir John Fenwick. Of 
 these two last species of attainder, no lawyer 
 has ever spoken with respect; they were the 
 cruel effect of the rancour and injustice of party 
 spirit, nor could any thing be said in their 
 excuse, except that they were made for the 
 direct punishment of the actual criminals, and 
 whilst they were yet living. The only other 
 attainder that remained possible to be added to 
 this catalogue, was that of a bill like the present, 
 which affects to try after the party's death, 
 when trial is impossible ; to punish guilt when 
 punishment is impossible ; to inflict punishment 
 where crime is not even pretended. 
 
 To change the settled law of property ; to 
 confiscate the widow's pittance ! to plunder the 
 orphan's cradle ! and to violate the religion of 
 the dead man's grave ! For this too there was a 
 precedent; but for the honour of humanity let 
 it be remembered, that an hundred and forty 
 years had elapsed in which that precedent had 
 not been thought worthy of imitation in Great 
 Britain : he meant, he said, the attainder of 
 the regicides; upon the restoration four of 
 them were included in that bill of attainder, 
 "which was passed after their death. 
 
 Mr.
 
 333 
 
 Mr. Curran then adverted pretty much at 
 large upon the circumstances of that period. 
 A king restored, and by his nature disposed to 
 mercy ; a ministry of uncommon wisdom, feel- 
 ing that the salvation of the state could be 
 secured only by mildness and conciliation ; a 
 bigoted, irritated, and interested faction in 
 parliament ; the public mind in the highest 
 state of division and agitation. For what then 
 is that act of attainder resorted to as a pre- 
 cedent ? surely it cannot be as a precedent of 
 that servile paroxysm of simulated loyalty with 
 which the same men, who a few days before 
 had shouted after the wheels of the good pro- 
 tector, now raked out the grave of the traitorous 
 usurper, and dragged his wretched carcass 
 through the streets ; that servile and simulated 
 loyalty, which affected to bow in obsequious 
 admiration of the salutary lenity which their 
 vindictive folly was labouring to frustrate ; 
 that servile and interested hypocrisy, which 
 gave a hollow and faithless support to the power 
 of the monarch, utterly regardless alike of his 
 character or his safety. 
 
 That the example which this act of attainder 
 held forth was never respected, appears from 
 this, that it never has been followed in Great 
 Britain, although that country has since that 
 time been agitated by one revolution, and 
 vexed by two rebellions ! 
 
 So
 
 334 
 
 So far from extending forfeiture or attainder 
 beyond the existing law, the opinion of that wise 
 and reflecting country was gradually maturing 
 into a. dislike of the principle altogether : until at 
 last, by the statutes of Anne and George the 
 second, she declares, that no forfeiture or attain- 
 der for treason should prejudice any other than 
 the actual offender, nor work any injury to the 
 heir or other person, after the death of a pre- 
 tender to the throne. Why, said Mn Curran, has 
 Great Britain thus condemned the principle of 
 forfeiture? because she felt it to be unjust, 
 and because she found it to be ineffectual. 
 . _; fcu -> ekar.w c-:, v !k J^ijorl* teif 
 
 Here Mr. Curran went into many reasons to 
 prove the impolicy of severe penal laws. They 
 have ever been found,jiie said, more to exaspe- 
 rate than to restrain : when the infliction is be- 
 yond the crime, the horror of the guilt is lost 
 in the horror of the punishment, the sufferer 
 becomes an object of commiseration, and the 
 injustice of the state, of public odium. It 
 was well observed, that in England the high- 
 wayman never murdered, because there the 
 offender was not condemned to torture ! but in 
 France, where the offender was broken on the 
 wheel, the traveller seldom or never escaped ! 
 what then is it in England that sends the 
 traveller home with life, but the comparative 
 mildness of English law ? what but the merciless 
 cruelty of the French law, that gives the 
 
 atrocious
 
 335 
 
 atrocious aggravation of murder to robbery? 
 the multiplication of penal laws lessens the 
 value of life, and when you lessen the value of 
 life, you lessen the fear of death. 
 
 Look to the history of England upon this 
 subject with respect to treason : notwithstand- 
 ing all its formidable array of death, of Saxon 
 forfeiture, and of feudal corruption of blood ; 
 in what country do you read of more treasons 
 or of more rebellions ? and why ? because 
 these terrors do not restrain the traitor. Beyond 
 all other delinquents he is likely to be a person 
 of that ardent, enthusiastic and intrepid spirit, 
 that is roused into more decisive and desperate 
 daring by the prospect of peril. 
 
 Mr. Yorke thinks the child of the traitor, may 
 be reclaimed to his loyalty by the restitution of 
 his estate. Mr. Yorke perhaps might have rea- 
 soned better if he had looked to the still greater 
 likelihood of making him a deadly enemy to the 
 state, by the deadly ignominy inflicted on his 
 father, and by the loss of his own inheritance. 
 
 How keenly did Hannibal pursue his ven- 
 geance which he had sworn against Home ? 
 how much more enthusiastically would he have 
 pursued his purpose, had that oath been taken 
 upon a father's grave ? for the avenging of a 
 father's sufferings ! for the avenging of what he 
 
 would have called a father's wrongs ! 
 
 It
 
 336 
 
 If 1 am called upon, said he, to give more 
 reasons, why this precedent has not been for 
 more than a century and a half repeated, I will 
 say, that a bill of attainder is the result of an 
 unnatural union of the legislative and judicial 
 functions ; in which the judicial has no law to 
 restrain it ; in which the legislative has no rule 
 to guide it, unless passion and prejudice which 
 reject all rule and law, and be called ruled 
 and laws : it puts the lives and properties of 
 men completely at the mercy of an arbitrary 
 and despotic power. 
 
 Such were the acts of posthumous attainder in 
 Ireland, in the reign of the arbitrary Elizabeth, 
 who used these acts as a mere mode of robbing 
 an Irish subject for the benefit of an English 
 minion. Such was the act of the ninth of William 
 III. not passed for the same odious and de- 
 spicable purpose, but for a purpose equally 
 arbitrary and unjust, the purpose of transferring 
 the property of the country from persons pro- 
 fessing one religion into the hands of those 
 professing another, a purpose manifested and 
 avowed by the remarkable clause in that act, 
 which saves the inheritance to the heir of the 
 traitor, provided that heir be a protestant ! nor 
 so brutally tyrannical in its operation, in as much 
 as it gave a right to traverse and a trial by jury 
 to every person claiming a right, and protected 
 the rights of infants, until they should be of 
 age, and capable to assert those rights. 
 
 There
 
 337 
 
 There were Vet, Mr. Curran said, other rea- 
 sons why that precedent of the regicides was not 
 followed in Great Britain. A government that 
 means honestly will appeal to the affection, not 
 to the fears of the people. A state must be driven 
 to the last gasp, when it is driven to seek protec- 
 tion in the abandonment of the law in that me- 
 lancholy avowal of its weakness and its fear. 
 
 Therefore it was not done in the rebellion of 
 1715, nor in that of 1745. He had hitherto, 
 he said, abstained from adverting to the late 
 transactions of Ireland ; but he could not de- 
 fraud his clients, or their cause of so pregnant 
 an example. In this country penal laws had 
 been tried beyond any example of any former 
 times : what was the event ? the race between 
 penalty and crime was continued, each growing 
 fiercer in the conflict, until the penalty could 
 go no further, and the fugitive turned upon the 
 breathless pursuer, 
 
 From what a scene of wretchedness and horror 
 have we escaped ? But, said he, I do not wish 
 to annoy you by the stench of those unburied and 
 unrottened examples of the havoc and the impo- 
 tence of penal Idtv pushed to its extravagance. 
 I am more pleased to turn your attention to the 
 happy consequences of temperate conciliatory 
 government of equal law. Compare the latter 
 with the former, and let your wisdom decide 
 between the tempest and the calm ! 
 
 z I know
 
 338 
 
 Iknow it is a delicate subject, but let ttie pre- 
 sume to -suggest what must be the impression 
 upon this grieved and anxious country, if the 
 rigour. of the parliament shall seem at war with 
 the mildness of the government, if the people 
 shall have refuge in the mercy of the crown 
 from the rigour of their own representatives. 
 
 But if at the same moment they shall see the 
 convicted and the attainted secured in their lives 
 and in their property by the wise lenity of the 
 crown, while the parliament is visiting shame,and 
 misery, and want, upon the cradle of the unpro- 
 tected infant, who could not have offended But 
 I will not follow the idea, I will not see the inaus- 
 picious omen j I pray that Heaven may avert it. 
 
 One topic more, said he, you will permit me to 
 add. Every act of the sort ought to have a prac- 
 tical morality flowing from its principle : if loy- 
 alty and justice require that these infants should 
 be deprived of bread 1 must it not be a violation 
 of that principle to give them food or shelter ? 
 must not every loyal and just man wish to see 
 them, in the words of the famous Golden Bull, 
 * c always poor and necessitous, and for ever ac- 
 companied bythe infamy of their father, languish- 
 ing in continued indigence, and finding their 
 punishment in living and their relief in dying.** 
 ' ;!.. *,7;, f ' ' };'.<">.; Y- *:":". r '.'r;nov | Qfg 
 
 If the widowed mother should carry the 
 orphan heir of her unfortunate husband to the 
 
 gate 
 
 * - .
 
 339 
 
 gate of any man, who might feel himself touched 
 with the sad vicissitudes of human affairs ; who 
 might feel a compassionate reverence for the 
 noble blood that flowed in his veins; nobler than 
 the royalty thatjirst ennobled it : that like a rich 
 stream rose till it ran and hid its fountain : If 9 
 remembering the many noble qualities of his 
 unfortunate father, his heart melted over the 
 calamities of the child, if his heart swelled, if 
 his eyes overflowed, if his too precipitated hand 
 was stretched out by his pity, or his gratitude 
 to the poor excommunicated sufferers, how 
 could he justify the rebel tear, or the tr alter ous 
 humanity ? 
 
 I shall trespass no longer upon the patience 
 for which I am grateful, one word only, and 
 I have dorte. And that is, once more, earnestly 
 and solemnly to conjure you to reflect that the 
 fact ; I mean the fact of guilt or innocence, 
 (which must be the foundation of this bill,) is 
 not now, after the death of the party, capable 
 of being tried, consistently with the liberty of a 
 free people, or the unalterable rules of eternal 
 justice. 
 
 And that as to the forfeiture and the ignominy 
 which it enacts, that only can be punishment 
 which lights upon guilt, and that can be only 
 vengeance which breaks upon INNOCENCE!!! 
 
 2 2
 
 SPEECH 
 
 or 
 
 JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN, ESQ. 
 
 IN DEFENCE OF 
 
 MR. JOHN HEVEt, PLAINTIFF ; 
 CHARLES HENRY SIRR, ESQ> DEFENDANT; 
 
 Off 
 
 AN ACTION FOR AN ASSAULT 
 
 AND 
 
 FALSE IMPRISONMENT. 
 COURT OF KING'S BENCH T 
 
 ON MONDAY, MAY 17, 1802. 
 
 J>XR. CURRAN stated the case for the plain- 
 tiff, in substance nearly to the following effect : 
 
 He began by telling the jury, it was the most 
 extraordinary action he had ever met with. It 
 must have proceeded from the most unexampled 
 impudence in the plaintiff, if he has brought it 
 wantonly ; or the most unparelleled miscreancy 
 in the defendant, if it shall appear supported by 
 proof. And the event must stamp the most 
 
 condign
 
 341 
 
 condign and indelible disgrace on the guilty 
 defendant, unless an unworthy verdict should 
 shift the scandal upon another quarter. On 
 the record the action, he said, appeared short 
 and simple ; it was an action of trespass, vi et 
 armis, for an assault, battery, and false imprison- 
 ment. But the facts that led to it, that explain 
 its nature, and its enormity, and of course that 
 should measure the damages, were neither 
 short nor simple ; the novelty of them might 
 surprise, the atrocity must shock their feelings, 
 if they had feelings to be shocked : but, he 
 said, he did not mean to address himself to any 
 of their proud feelings of liberty ; the season 
 for that was past. There was indeed, he said, 
 a time when, in addressing a jury upon very 
 inferior violations of human rights, he had felt his 
 bosom glow and swell with the noble and elevat- 
 ing consciousness of being a free-man, speaking 
 to free-men, and in a free country ; where, if 
 he was not able to communicate the generous 
 flame to their bosoms, he was not at bast so cold 
 as not to catch it from them. But that was a 
 sympathy, which he was not now so foolish as to 
 affect either to inspire or to participate. He 
 would not insult them by the bitter mockery of 
 such an affectation ; buried as they were, he did 
 not wish to conjure up the shades of departed 
 freedom to flutter round their tomb, to haunt or 
 to reproach them. Where freedom is no more, it 
 is a mischievous profanation to use her language ; 
 because it tends to deceive the man who is no 
 
 longer 
 

 
 342 
 
 longer free, upon the most important of all 
 points, that is, the nature of the situation to 
 which he is reduced 5 and to make him con 
 found the licentiousness of words with the real 
 possession of freedom. He meant not therefore, 
 he said, to call for a haughty verdict, that 
 might humble the insolence of oppression, or 
 assert the fancied rights of independence. Far 
 from it ; he only asked for such a verdict, as 
 might make some reparation for the most ex-r 
 treme and unmerited suffering, and might also 
 tend to some probable mitigation of the public 
 and general destiny. For this purpose, he sai<J 
 he must carry back their attention to the inelan^ 
 choly period of 1798. It was at that sad crisis, 
 that the defendant, from an obscure individual, 
 started into notice and consequence. It is in 
 the hot-bed of public calamity, that such por- 
 tentous and inauspicious products are accelerated 
 without being matured. From being a town*- 
 major, a name scarcely legible in the list of 
 public incumbrances, he became at once in* 
 vested with all the real powers of the most ab- 
 solute authority. The life and the liberty of every 
 man seemed to be given up to his disposal. With 
 this gen tleman's extraordinary elevation began the 
 story of the sufferings and ruin of the plaintiff! 
 It seems, a man of the name of M'Guire was pro- 
 secuted for some offence against the state. Mr. 
 Hevey, the plaintiff by accident was in court ; 
 he was then a citizen of wealth and credit, a 
 brewer in the first line of that business. Unfortu- 
 nately
 
 343 
 
 nately for him, he had heretofore employed the 
 witness for the prosecution, and found him a 
 man of infamous character. Unfortunately for 
 himself he mentioned this circumstance in 
 court. The counsel for the prisoner insisted on 
 his being sworn ; he was so. The jury were 
 convinced, that no credit was due to the witness 
 for the crown ; and the prisoner was accordingly 
 acquitted. In a day or two after, Major Sirr 
 met the plaintiff in the street, asked how he 
 dared to interfere in his business, and swore by 
 God he would teach him how to meddle with 
 " his people." Gentlemen, said Mr. Curran, 
 there are two classes of prophets, one that derive 
 their predictions from real or fancied inspiration, 
 and who are sometimes mistaken. And another 
 who prophecy what they are determined to 
 bring about themselves. Of this second, and 
 by far the most authentic class, was the major ; 
 for heaven you see has no monopoly of pre- 
 diction. On the following evening, poor Hevey 
 was dogged in the dark into some lonely alley ; 
 there he was seized, he knew not by whom, nor 
 by what authority and became in a moment, 
 to his family, and his friends, as if he had 
 never been. He was carried away in equal 
 ignorance of his crime, and of his destiny; whe- 
 ther to be tortured, or hanged, or transported. 
 His crime he soon learned ; it was the treason 
 which he had committed against the majesty of 
 major Sirr. He was immediately conducted to 
 a new place of imprisonment in the castle- 
 yard,
 
 '344 
 
 yard,~calle<l the provost. Of this mansion of 
 misery, of which you have since heard so much, 
 major Sandys was, and I believe yet is, the 
 keeper : a gentleman of whom I know how 
 dangerous it is to speak ; and of whom every 
 prudent man will think, and talk with all due 
 reverence. He seemed a twin-star of the de- 
 fendant equal in honour, in confidence ; equal 
 also (for who could be superior ?) in probity and 
 humanity. To this gentleman was my client 
 consigned, and in his custody he remained 
 about seven weeks, un thought of by the world, 
 as if he had never existed. The oblivion of the 
 buried is as profound as the oblivion of the 
 dead ; his family may have mourned his absence 
 or his probable death ; but why should I mention 
 so paltry a circumstance ? The fears, or the 
 sorrows of the wretched give no interruption to 
 the general progress of things. The sun rose and 
 the sun set, just as it did before the business 
 of the government, the business of the castle, of 
 the feast, or the torture, went on with their usual 
 exactness and tranquillity. At last Mr. Hevey 
 was discovered among the sweepings of the prison; 
 and was at last to be disposed of. He was at last 
 honoured with the personal notice of major 
 Sandys. " Hevey, (says the major,) I have seen 
 you ride I think a smart sort of a mare ; you can't 
 use her here ; you had better give me an order for 
 her." The plaintiff, you may well suppose, by 
 this time had a tolerable idea of his situation ; he 
 thought he might have much to fear from arefusal, 
 
 and
 
 345 
 
 and something to hope from compliance; at all 
 events, he saw it would be a means of apprizing 
 his iamily that he was not dead: he instantly 
 gave the order required. The major graciously 
 accepted it, saying, your courtesy will not cost 
 you much, you are to be sent down to-morrow to 
 Kilkenny to be tried for your life; you will most 
 certainly be hanged; and you can scarely think 
 that your journey to the other world will be per- 
 formed on horseback. The humane and honour- 
 able major was equally a prophet with his com- 
 peer. The plaintiff on the next day took leave 
 of his prison, as he supposed for the last time, 
 and was sent under a guard to Kilkenny, then 
 the head-quarters of sir Charles Asgil, there to 
 be tried by court- martial for such crime as might 
 chance to be alleged against him. In any other 
 country the scene that took place on that occa- 
 sion might excite no little horror and astonish- 
 ment; but with us, these sensations have become 
 extinguished by frequency of repetition. I am 
 instructed, that a proclamation was sent forth, 
 offering a reward to any man, who would come 
 forward, and give any evidence against the trai- 
 tor Hevey. An unhappy wretch, who had been 
 shortly before condemned to die, and was then 
 lying ready for execution, was allured by the 
 proposal. His integrity was not firm enough to 
 hesitate long, between the alternative proposed; 
 pardon, favour, and reward, with perjury, on 
 one side; the rope and the gibbet on the other. 
 His loyalty decided the question against his soul. 
 
 He
 
 346 
 
 He was examined, and Hevey was appointed by 
 the sentence of a mild, and, no doubt, enlight- 
 ened court-martial, to take the place of the wit- 
 ness, and succeeded to the vacant halter. Hevey, 
 you may suppose (continued Mr, Cufran,) now 
 thought his labours at an end ; but he was mis- 
 taken : his hour was not yet come. You are pro- 
 bably, gentlemen, or you, my lords, are account- 
 ing for his escape, by the fortunate recollection 
 of some early circumstances that might have 
 smote upon the sensibility of sir Charles Asgil, 
 and made him believe, that he was in debt to 
 Providence for the life of one innocent though 
 convicted victim. But it was not so; his escape 
 was purely accidental. The proceedings upon 
 this trial happened to meet the eye of lord Corn- 
 wallis. The freaks of fortune are not alwavs 
 
 v 
 
 cruel; in the bitterness of her jocularity, you 
 see she can adorn the miscreancy of the slave, 
 in the trappings of power, and rank, and wealth. 
 But her playfulness is not always inhuman ; she 
 will sometimes, in her gambols, fling oil upon 
 the wounds of the sufferer; she will sometimes 
 save the captive from the dungeon and the grave, 
 were it not only, that she might afterwards re- 
 consign him to his destiny, by the reprisal of 
 capricious cruelty upon fantastic commiseration. 
 Lord Cornwallis read the transmiss of Hevey's 
 condemnation; his heart recoiled from the detail 
 of stupidity and barbarity. He dashed his pen 
 across the odious record, and ordered that Hevey 
 should be forthwith liberated. I cannot but highly 
 
 honour
 
 347 
 
 honour him for his conduct in this instance; nor, 
 when I recollect his peculiar situation at that 
 disastrous period, can I much blame him for not 
 having acted towards that court with the same 
 vigour and indignation, which he hath since 
 shewn with respect to those abominable jurisdic- 
 tions. Hevey was now a man again he shook 
 the dust off his feet against his prison gate: his 
 heart beat the response to the anticipated em- 
 brace of his family, and his friends, and he re- 
 turned to Dublin. On his arrival here, one of 
 the first persons he met with was his old friend, 
 major Sandys. In the eye of poor Hevey, jus- 
 tice and humanity had shorn the major of his 
 beams he no longer regarded him with respect 
 or terror. He demanded his mare; observing, 
 that though he might have travelled to heaven on 
 foot, be thought it more comfortable to perform 
 his earthly journies on horseback. Ungrateful 
 villain, says the major; is this the gratitude you 
 shew to his majesty and to me, for our clemency 
 to you ? You shan't get possession of the beast, 
 which you have forfeited by your treason ; nor 
 can I suppose, that a noble animal, that had been 
 honoured with conveying the weight of duty and 
 allegiance, could condescend to load her loyal 
 loins with the vile burden of a convicted traitor. 
 As to the major (said Mr. Curran) I am not sur- 
 prised that he spoke and acted as he did. He was 
 no doubt astonished at the impudence and novel- 
 ty of culling the privileges of official plunder into 
 question. Hardened by the numberless instances 
 
 of
 
 S48 
 
 of that mode of unpunished acquisition, he had 
 erected the frequency of impunity into a sort of 
 warrant of spoil and rapine. One of these in- 
 stances, I feel, I am now bringing to the memory 
 of your lordship. A learned and respected bro- 
 ther barister had a silver cup; the major heard 
 that for many years it had borne an inscription 
 of " Erin go brack" which meant " Ireland for 
 ever." The major considered this perseverance 
 in guilt for such a length of years as a forfeiture 
 of the delinquent vessel. My poor friend was 
 accordingly robbed of his cup. But upon writ- 
 ing to the then attorney-general, that excellent 
 officer felt the outrage, as it was his nature to 
 feel every thing that was barbarous or base; and 
 the major's loyal sideboard was condemned to 
 the grief of restitution. And here, (said Mr. 
 Curran) let me say in my own defence, that this 
 is the only occasion, upon which I have ever 
 mentioned this circumstance with the least ap- 
 pearance of lightness. \ have often told the 
 story in a way that it would not become to tell 
 it here, I have told it in the spirit of those feel- 
 ings, which were excited at seeing, that one man 
 could be sober and humane, at a crisis, when so 
 many thousands were drunk and barbarous. And 
 probably my statement was not stinted by the 
 recollection, that I held that person in peculiar 
 respect and regard. But little does it signify, 
 whether acts of moderation and humanity are 
 blazoned by gratitude, by flattery, or by friend* 
 ship; they are recorded in the heart from which 
 
 they
 
 349 
 
 they sprung ; and in the hour of adverse vicissi- 
 tude, if it should ever come, sweet is the odour 
 of their memory, and precious is the balm of their 
 consolation. But to return i Hevey brought an 
 action for his mare. The major not choosing 
 to come into court, and thereby suggest the pro- 
 bable success of a thousand actions, restored the 
 property, and paid the costs of the suit to the 
 attorney of Mr. Hevey. It may perhaps strike 
 you, my lord, said Mr. Curran, as if I was stating 
 what was not relevant to the action. It is ma- 
 terially pertinent ; I am stating a system of con- 
 certed vengeance and oppression. These two men 
 acted in concert; they were Archer and Aim- 
 well. You master at Litchiield, and I at Coven- 
 try. You plunderer in the gaol, and I tyrant in 
 the street. And in our respective situations we 
 will co-operate in the common cause of robbery 
 and vengeance. And I state this (said Mr. Cur- 
 ran) because I see Major Sandys in court: and 
 because I feel I can prove the fact, beyond the 
 possibility of denial. If he does not dare to ap- 
 pear, so called upon, as I have called upon him, 
 I prove it by his not daring to appear. If he does 
 Venture to come forward, I will prove it by his 
 own oath, or if he ventures to deny a syllable 
 that I have stated, I will prove by irrefragable 
 evidence that his denial was false and perjured. 
 Thus far, gentlemen, (said Mr, Curran) we have 
 traced the plaintiff through the strange vicissi- 
 tudes of barbarous imprisonment, of atrocious 
 condemnation, and of accidental deliverance. 
 
 (Here
 
 350 
 
 (Here Mr. Curran described the feelings of th 
 plaintiff and of his family upon his restoration ; 
 his difficulties on his return ; his struggle against 
 the aspersions on his character ; his renewed in- 
 dustry ; his gradual success; the implacable ma- 
 lignity of Sirr and of Sandys; and the immediate 
 cause of the present action.) Three years, said 
 Mr. Curran, had elapsed since the deliverance of 
 my client ; the public atmosphere had cleared 
 the private destiny of Hevey seemed to have 
 brightened, but the malice of his enemies had 
 not been appeased. On the 8th of September 
 last, Mr. Hevey was sitting in a public coffee- 
 house, major Sirr was there. Mr. Hevey was 
 informed that the major had at that moment said, 
 that he (Hevey) ought to have been hanged. 
 The plaintiff was fired at the charge; he fixed his 
 eye on Sirr, and asked, if he had dared to say so? 
 Sirr declared that he had, and had said truly* 
 Hevey answered, that he was a slanderous scoun- 
 drel. At the instant Sirr rushed upon him, and 
 assisted by three or four of his satellites, who had 
 attended him in disguise, secured him and sent 
 him to the castle guard, desiring that a receipt 
 might be given for the villain. He was sent 
 thither. The officer of the guard chanced to be 
 an Englishman, but lately arrived in Ireland ; he 
 said to the bailiffs, if this was in England, I 
 should think this gentleman entitled to bail, but 
 I don't know the laws of this country. However 
 I think you had better loosen those irons on his 
 wrists, or I think they may kill him. 
 
 Major
 
 351 
 
 Major Sirr, the defendant, soon arrived, went 
 into his office, and returned with an order which 
 he had written, and by virtue of which Mr. Hevey 
 was conveyed to the custody of his old friend and 
 goalor, major Sandys. Here he was flung into a 
 room of about thirteen feet by twelve it was 
 called the hospital of the provost. It was occu- 
 pied by six beds, in which were to lie fourteen 
 or fifteen miserable wretches, some of them sink- 
 ing under contagious diseases. On his first en- 
 trance, the light that was admitted by the open- 
 ing of the door, disclosed to him a view of the sad 
 fellow-sufferers, for whose loathsome society he 
 was once more to exchange the chearful haunts 
 of men, the use of open air, and of his own limbs; 
 and where he was condemned to expiate the dis- 
 loyal hatred and contempt, which he had dared 
 to' shew to the overweening and felonious arro- 
 gance of slaves in office, and minions in autho- 
 rity; here he passed the first night, without bed 
 or food. The next morning his humane keeper, 
 the major, appeared. The plaintiff demanded, 
 " why he was so imprisoned," complained of hun- 
 ger, and asked for the goal allowance. Major 
 Sandys replied, with a torrent of abuse, which he 
 concluded by saying, " Your crime is your in- 
 solence to major Sirr ; however, he disdains to 
 trample upon you you may appease him by pro- 
 per and contrite submission ; but unless you do 
 so, you shall rot where you are. I tell you this, 
 that if government will not protect us, by God, 
 we will not protect them. You will probably, 
 
 (for
 
 352 
 
 (for I know your insolent and ungrateful hardi- 
 ness,) attempt to get out by an habeas corpus; 
 but in that you will find yourself mistaken, as 
 such a rascal deserves." Hevey was insolent 
 enough to issue an habeas corpus, and a return 
 was made upon it " that Hevey was in custody 
 under a warrant from general Craig, on a charge 
 of treason." That this return was a gross false- 
 hood, fabricated by Sirr, I am instructed to as- 
 sert. Let him prove the truth of it if he can. 
 The judge, before whom this return was brought, 
 felt that he had no authority to liberate the un- 
 happy prisoner; and thus, by a most inhuman 
 and malicious lie, my client was again remanded 
 to the horrid mansion of pestilence and famine. 
 Mr. Curran proceeded to describe the feelings- 
 of Mr. Hevey, the despair of his friends 
 the ruin of his affairs the insolence of Sandys~ 
 his offer to set him at large, on condition of 
 making an abject submission to Sirr the indig- 
 nant rejection of Hevey, the supplication of 
 his father and sister, rather to submit to any 
 enemy, however base and odious, than perish 
 in such a situation ; the repugnance of Hevey 
 the repetition of kind remonstrances: and 
 the final submission of Hevey to their entrea- 
 ties; his signing a submission, dictated by 
 Sandys, and his enlargement from, confinement* 
 Thus, said Mr. Curran, was he kicked from 
 his goal into the common mass of his fellow 
 slaves, by yielding to the tender entreaties of the 
 
 kindred
 
 353 
 
 kindred that loved him, to sign, what was in fact, 
 a release of his claim to the common rights of 
 a human creature, by humbling himself to the 
 brutal arrogance of a pampered slave. But he 
 did suffer the dignity of his nature to be subdued 
 by its kindness; he has been enlarged, and he has 
 brought the present action. As to the facts that 
 he had stated, Mr. Curran said, he would make 
 a. few observations : it might be said for the de- 
 fendant, that much of what was stated may not 
 appear in proof. To that, he answered, that he 
 would not have so stated, if he had not seen major 
 Sandys in court ; he had therefore put the facts 
 against him in a way, which he thought the most 
 likely to rouze him to a defence of his own cha- 
 racter, if he dared to be examined as a witness. 
 He had, he trusted, made him feel, that he had no 
 way of escaping universal detestation, but by de- 
 nying those charges, if false ; and if they were not 
 denied, being thus publickly asserted, his entire 
 case was admitted his original oppression in the 
 provost was admitted his robbery of the cup was 
 admitted his robbery of the mare was admitted 
 the lie so audaciously forged on the habeas 
 corpus wasadmitted the extortion of the infamous 
 apology was admitted. Again, said Mr. Curran, 
 I challenge this worthy compeer of a worthy 
 compeer to make his election, between proving 
 his guilt by his own corporal oath, or by the more 
 credible modesty of his silence. And now, said 
 Mr. Curran, I have given you a mere sketch of 
 this exl raordinary history. Xo country governed 
 
 2 A bv
 
 354 
 
 by any settled laws, or treated with common hu- 
 manity, could furnish any occurrences of such 
 unparalleled atrocity ; and if the author of Caleb 
 Williams, or of the Simple Story, were to read 
 the tale of this man's sufferings, it might, I think, 
 humble the vanity of their talents, (if they are not 
 too proud to be vain,) when they saw how a much 
 more fruitful source of incident could be found 
 in the infernal workings of the heart of a malig- 
 nant slave, than in the richest copiousness of the 
 most fertile and creative imagination. But it is 
 the destiny of Ireland to be the scene of such hor- 
 rors, and to be stung by such reptiles to mad- 
 ness and to death. And now, said Mr. Curran, 
 I feel a sort of melancholy pleasure, in getting 
 nearly rid of this odious and nauseous- subject. It 
 remains to me only to make a few observations 
 as to the damages you ought to give, if you be* 
 lieve the case of the plaintiff ta be as I have 
 stated. I "told you before, that neither pride nor 
 spirit belong to our situation ; I should be sorry 
 to influence you into any apish affectation of the 
 port or stature of freedom or independence. But 
 my advice to you is, to give the full amount of 
 the damages laid in the declaration ; and I'll tell 
 you why I give you that advice : I think no 
 damages could be excessive, either as a compen- 
 sation for the injury of the plaintiff, or as a 
 punishment of the savage barbarity of the de- 
 fendant ; but my reasons for giving you this 
 advice lie much deeper than such considera- 
 tions j they spring from a view of our present 
 
 most
 
 353 
 
 > 
 
 most forlorn and disastrous situation. You are 
 now in the hands of another country ; that 
 country has no means of knowing your real con- 
 dition, except by information that she may acci- 
 dentally derive from transactions of a public 
 nature. No printer would dare to publish the 
 thousand instances of atrocity, which we have 
 witnessed as hideous as the present, nor any one of 
 them, unless he did it in some sort of confidence, 
 that he could scarcely be made a public sacrifice 
 by brutal force, for publishing what was openly 
 proved in a court of justice. Mr. Curran here 
 made some pointed observations on the state of 
 a country, where the freedom of the press is 
 extinguished, and where another nation, by 
 whose indolent mercy, or whose instigated fury, 
 we may be spared or sacrificed, can know nothing 
 of the extent of our sufferings, or our delin- 
 quency, but by casual hearsay. I know, said 
 he, that those philosophers have been abused, 
 who think that men are born in a state of war. 
 T confess I go further, and firmly think they 
 cannot be reclaimed to a state of peace. When 1 
 see the conduct of man to man, I believe it. 
 When I see the list of offences in every criminal 
 code in Europe when I compare the enormity 
 of their crimes with the still greater enormity 
 of their punishments, I retain no doubt upon 
 the subject. But if I couJd hesitate as to men 
 in the same community, I have no doubt of the 
 inextinguishable malignity that will for ever 
 inflame nation against, nation. Well was it said, 
 2 A '2 that
 
 356 
 
 that a " nation has no heart ;" towards each 
 other nations are uniformly envious, vindictive, 
 oppressive, and unjust. What did Spain feel 
 for the murders or the robberies of the west ? 
 nothing. And yet, at that time, she prided 
 herself as much as England ever did on the 
 elevation of her sentiment, and the refinement 
 of her morality. Yet what an odious spectacle 
 did she exhibit? her bosom burning with all the 
 fury of rapine and tyranny ; her mouth full of 
 the pious praises of the living God, and her hands 
 red with the blood of his innocent and devoted 
 creatures. When I advise you therefore to mark 
 your feelings of the case before you, do not think 
 I mean, that you could make any general im- 
 pression on the morality, or tenderness of the 
 country, whose property we are become. I am 
 not so foolish as to hope any such effect : prac- 
 tical justice and humanity are virtues that require 
 laborious acts, and mortifying privations ; expect 
 not therefore to find them ; appeal not to them. 
 But there are principles and feelings substituted 
 in their place, a stupid preference and admiration 
 of self, an affectation of humility, and a fondness 
 for unmerited praise ; these you may find, for 
 they cost nothing ; and upon them you may pro- 
 duce some effect. When outrages of this kind are 
 held up to the world, as done under the sanction 
 of their authority, they must become odious to 
 mankind, unless they let fall some reprobation on 
 the immediate instruments and abetters of such 
 deeds. An Irish lord-lieutenant will shrink from 
 
 the
 
 357 
 
 the imputation of countenancing them. Great 
 Britain will see, that it cannot be her interest to 
 encourage such an infernal spirit of subaltern 
 barbarity, that reduces man to a condition lower 
 than that of the beast of the field. They will be 
 ashamed of employing such instruments as the 
 present defendant. When the government of 
 Ireland lately gave up the celebrated O'Brien to 
 the hands of the executioner, I have no little 
 reason to believe that they suffered as they de- 
 served on the occasion. I have no doubt, but 
 that your verdict of this day, if you act as you 
 ought to do, will produce a similar effect. And 
 as to England, I cannot too often inculcate 
 upon you, that she knows nothing of our situa- 
 tion. When torture was the daily and ordinary 
 system of the executive government, it was 
 denied in London, with a profligacy of effrontery, 
 equal to the barbarity with which it was ex- 
 hibited in Dublin ; and, if the facts that shall 
 appear to-day should be stated at the other side 
 of the water, I make no doubt, that very near 
 one hundred worthy persons would be ready to 
 deny their existence upon their honour, or, if 
 necessary, upon their oaths. 
 
 I cannot also but observe to you, continued 
 Mr. Curran, that the real state of one country is 
 more forcibly impressed on the attention of ano- 
 ther, by a verdict on such a subject as this, than 
 it could be by any general description. When you 
 endeavour to convey an idea of a great number 
 of barbarians, practising a great variety of cruel- 
 ties
 
 358 
 
 ties upon an incalculable multitude of sufferers, 
 nothing defined or specific finds its way to the 
 heart, nor is any sentiment excited, save that of 
 a general erratic unappropriated commisseration. 
 If, for instance, you wished to convey to the mind 
 of an English matron the horrors of that direful 
 period, when, in defiance of the remonstrance of 
 the ever to be lamented Abercromby, our poor 
 people were surrendered to the licentious bru- 
 tality of the soldiery, by the authority of the 
 state ; yon would vainly endeavour to give her a 
 generalpictureof lust, andrapine, and murder, and 
 conflagration. By endeavouring to comprehend 
 every thing, you would convey nothing. When 
 the father of poetry wishes to pourtray the move- 
 ments of contending armies, and an embattled 
 field, he exemplifies only, he does not describe ; 
 he does not venture to describe the perplexed 
 and promiscuous conflicts of adverse hosts, but 
 by the acts and fates of a few individuals he con- 
 veys a notion of the vicissitudes of the fight, and 
 the fortunes of the day. So should your story to her 
 keep clear of generalities ; instead of exhibiting 
 the picture of an entire province, select a single 
 object ; and even in that single object do not re- 
 lease the imagination of your hearer from its task, 
 by giving more than an outline ; take a cottage ; 
 place the affrighted mother of her orphan daugh- 
 ters at the door, the paleness of death upon her 
 face, and more than its agonies in her heart ; 
 her aching eye, her anxious ear, struggle through 
 the mist of closing day, to catch the approaches 
 of desolation and dishonour. The ruffian gang 
 
 arrives,
 
 359 
 
 arrives, the feast of plunder begins, the cup of 
 madness kindles in its circulation. The wander- 
 ing glances of the ravisher become concentrated 
 upon the shrinking and devoted victim. You 
 need not dilate, you need not expatiate ; the 
 unpolluted mother, to whom you tell the story of 
 horror, beseeches you not to proceed ; she presses 
 her child to her heart, she drowns it in her tears, 
 her fancy catches more than an angel's tongue 
 could describe ; at a single view she takes in the 
 whole miserable succession of force, of profana- 
 tion, of despair, of death. So it is in the question 
 before us. If any man shall hear of this day's 
 transaction, he cannot be so foolish as to suppose 
 that we have been confined to a single character, 
 like those now brought before you. No, gentle- 
 men $ far from it ; he will have too much common 
 sense, not to know, that outrages like this are 
 never solitary, that, where the public calamity 
 generates imps like those, their number is as the 
 sands of the sea, and their fury as insatiable as 
 its waves. I am therefore anxious, that our masters 
 should have one authenticated example of the 
 treatment which our unhappy country suffers 
 under the sanction of their authority ; it will put 
 a strong question to their humaHity, if they have 
 any, to their prudence, if their pride will let them 
 listen to it ; or, at least, to that anxiety for repu- 
 tation, to that pretension to the imaginary virtues 
 of mildness and mercy, which even those coun- 
 tries the most divested of them are so ready to 
 assert their claim, ui|d so credulously disposed 
 to believe that claim allowed. 
 
 There
 
 360 
 
 There are some considerations respecting your- 
 selves, and the defendant, to which I should wish 
 to say a word. You may perhaps think your per- 
 sons unsafe, if you find a verdict against so con- 
 siderable a person. I know his power, as well as 
 you do I know he might send you to the provost, 
 as he has done the plaintiff, and forge a return on 
 any writ you might issue for your deliverance I 
 know there is no spot in the devoted nation, (ex- 
 cept that on which we now are), where the story 
 of oppression can be told or heard ; but I think 
 you can have no well founded apprehensions. 
 There is a time, when cruelty and oppression be- 
 come satiated and fatigued ; in that satiety at least 
 you will find yourselves secure. But there is still 
 a better security for you : the gratitude of the 
 worthy defendant if any thing could add to his 
 honours and his credit, and his claims, it would 
 be your verdict for the plaintiff; for in what in- 
 stance have you ever seen any man so effectually 
 accredited and recommended, as by the public ex- 
 ecration ? what a man, for instance, might not 
 O'Brien have been, if the envy of the gibbet had 
 not arrested the career of his honours and prefer- 
 ments ? In very point of view, therefore, I re- 
 commend to you to find, and to find liberally for 
 the plaintiff. I have founded my advice upon the 
 real circumstances of your situation ; 1 have not 
 endeavoured to stimulate you into any silly hectic 
 of fancied liberty. I do not call upon you to ex- 
 pose yourselves by the affectation of vindicating 
 the cause of freedom, and humanity ; much less 
 do I wish to exhibit ourselves to those, whose pro- 
 perty
 
 361 
 
 perty we are, as indignant or contumacious under 
 their authority. Far from it, they are unquestion- 
 ably the proprietors of us, they are intitled of 
 right to drive us, and to work us ; but we may be 
 permitted modestly to suggest, that, for their own 
 sakes, and for their own interest, a line of modera- 
 tion may be drawn. That there are excesses of 
 infliction, that human nature cannot bear. With 
 respect to her western negroes, Great Britain |has 
 had the wisdom, and humanity to feel the justice 
 of this observation, and in some degree to act 
 upon it ; and I have too high an opinion of that 
 great, and philosophic nation, not to hope, that 
 she might think us not undeserving of equal mild- 
 ness ; provided it did not interfere with her just 
 authority over us. It would, I should even think, 
 be for her credit, that having the honour of so 
 illustrious a rider, we should be kept in some sort 
 of condition, somewhat bordering upon spirit, 
 which cannot be maintained if she suffers us to be 
 utterly broken down, by the malicious wantonness 
 of her grooms and jockeys. Mr. Curran concluded 
 by saying, that the cause was of noinconsiderable 
 expectation ; and that in whatever light the jury 
 regarded it whether with respect to the two coun- 
 tries, or to Ireland singly, or to the parties con- 
 cerned, or to their own sense of character and 
 public duty, or to the natural consequences that 
 must flow from the event, they ought to con- 
 sider it with the most profound attention, before 
 they agreed upon their verdict. 
 
 Verdict for the Plaintiff > l 50. Damages and Costs. 
 
 SPEECH
 
 OF 
 
 JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN, Es<a. 
 
 IN DEFENCE OF 
 
 ^t^pWEN KIRWAN, ^f 
 
 FOR 
 
 HIGH TREASON} 
 
 AT THE 
 
 SESSIONS-HOUSE, GREEN-STREET,- 
 
 ON SATURDAY, OCTOBEH 1, 1803. 
 
 R. CURRAN rose and said, that ithadbecome his 
 duty to state to the court and jury the defence of 
 the prisoner. He said he had been chosen for^that 
 very unpleasant task, without his concurrence or 
 knowledge but as soon as he was apprised of it, 
 he accepted it without hesitation. To assist a 
 human being, labouring under the most awful of 
 all situations, trembling in the dreadful alterna- 
 tive of honourable life, or ignominious death, was 
 what no man, worthy of the name, could refuse 
 to man but it would be peculiarly base in any 
 person who had the honour of wearing the king's 
 
 gown,
 
 563 
 
 gown, to leave the king's subject undefended, un- 
 til a sentence pronounced upon him had shewn, 
 that neither in fact, nor in law, could any de- 
 fence avail him. He could not, however, but 
 confess, that he felt no small consolation when 
 he compared his present with his former situation 
 upon similar occasions. In those sad times to 
 which he alluded, it was frequently his fate to 
 come forward to the spot where he then stood, 
 with a body sinking under infirmity and disease, 
 and a mind broken with the consciousness of pub- 
 lic calamity, created, and exasperated by public 
 folly. It had pleased heaven that he should live 
 to survive both those afflictions, and he was grate- 
 ful to its mercy. I now, said he, come here 
 through a composed and quiet city I read no 
 expression in any face, save such as marks the 
 ordinary feelings of social life, or the various cha- 
 racters of civil occupation I see no frightful 
 spectacle of infuriated power, or suffering huma- 
 nity I see no tortures I hear no shrieks I no 
 longer see the human heart charred in the flame 
 of its^own wild and paltry passions black and 
 bloodless capable only of catching and commu- 
 nicating that destructive fire by which it devours, 
 and is itself devoured. I no longer behold the 
 ravages of that odious bigotry by which we were 
 deformed, and degraded, and disgraced a bigo-> 
 try against which no honest man should ever 
 miss an opportunity of putting his countrymen, 
 of all sects and of all descriptions, upon their 
 guard it is the accursed and promiscuous pro- 
 geny
 
 364 
 
 geny of servile hypocrisy, of remorseless lust 
 of power of insatiate thirst of gain labouring 
 for the destruction of man, under the specious 
 pretences of religion her banner stolen from 
 the altar of God, and her allies congregated from 
 the abysses of hell, she acts by votaries to be re- 
 strained by no compunctions of humanity for 
 they are dead to mercy; to be reclaimed by no 
 voice of reason for refutation is the bread op 
 which their folly feeds they are outlawed alike 
 from their species and their Creator; the object of 
 their crime is social life and the wages of their 
 sin is social death for though it may happen 
 that a guilty individual should escape from the 
 law that he has broken, it cannot be so with na- 
 tions their guilt is too unwieldly for such escape 
 they may rest assured that Providence has, in 
 the natural connexion between causes and their 
 effects, established a system of retributive justice, 
 by which the crimes of nations are sooner or later 
 avenged by their own inevitable consequences. 
 But that hateful bigotry that baneful discord, 
 which fired the heart of man, and steeled it against 
 his brother, has fled at last, and I trust for ever. 
 Even in this melancholy place I feel myself re- 
 stored and re-created by breathing the mild at- 
 mosphere of justice, mercy, and humanity I 
 feel I am addressing the parental authority of 
 the law I feel I am addressing a jury of my 
 countrymen, my fellow subjects, and my fellow 
 Christians against whom my heart is waging no 
 concealed hostility from whom my face is dis- 
 guising
 
 365 
 
 guising no latent sentiment of repugnance of 
 disgust. I have not now to touch the high 
 strung chords of an angry passsion in those that 
 hear me nor have I the terror of thinking, that 
 if those chords cannot be snapt by the stroke, 
 they will be only provoked into a more instigated 
 vibration. 
 
 Mr. Curran then proceeded to observe, that 
 this happy change in the minds and feelings of 
 all men was the natural consequence of that sys- 
 tem of mildness and good temper which had been 
 recently adopted, and which he strongly ex- 
 horted the jury to imitate, and to improve upon 
 that they might thereby demonstrate to our- 
 selves, to Great Britain, and to the enemy, that 
 we were not that assemblage of fiends which we 
 had been alledged to be unworthy of the ordi- 
 nary privilege of regular justice, or the lenient 
 treatment of a merciful government. He said, 
 it was of the utmost importance to be on their 
 guard against the wicked and mischievous repre- 
 sentation of the circumstances which called them 
 then together they ought not to take from anv 
 unauthenticated report those facts which they 
 could have directly from sworn evidence. He 
 had heard much of the dreadful extent of the 
 conspiracy against this country of the narrow 
 escape of the government. They now saw the 
 fact as it was. By the judicious adoption of a 
 mild and conciliatory system of conduct, what 
 
 was
 
 366 
 
 was six years ago a formidiable rebellion, had 
 now dwindled down to a drunken, riotous insur- 
 rection disgraced, certainly, by some odious 
 atrocities its objects, whatever they were, no 
 doubt, highly criminal; but as an attack upon 
 the state, of the most contemptible insignificance. 
 He did not wonder that the patrons of burn- 
 ing and torture should be vexed that their fa- 
 vourite instruments were not employed in re- 
 cruiting for the rebellion. He had no doubt that 
 had they been so employed, the effect would 
 have followed, and that an odious, 'drunken in 
 surrection, would have been easily swelled into 
 a. formidable rebellion nor was it strange that 
 persons so, mortified should vent themselves in 
 wanton exaggerated misrepresentation, and in 
 unmerited censure in slandering the nation 
 in the person of the viceroy and the viceroy 
 in the character of the nation and that they 
 should do so, without considering that they were 
 weakening the common resources against com-, 
 mon danger, by making the different parts of 
 the empire odious to each other; and by holding 
 out to the enemy, and falsely holding out, that we 
 were too much absorbed in civil discord tobe capa- 
 ble of effectual resistance. In making this obser- 
 vation, he said his wish was merely to refute a 
 slander upon his country. He had no preten- 
 sion to be the vindicator of the lord lieutenant 
 of Ireland, whose person he did not know that 
 he had ever seen : at the same time he said, that 
 
 when
 
 367 
 
 when he was so necessarily forced upon the sub- 
 ject, he felt no disposition to conceal the respect 
 and satisfaction with which he saw the king's' 
 representative comport himself as he did, at a 
 crisis of no little anxiety, though of no consi- 
 derable danger, if we may believe the evidence 
 we heard. He thought it was a proof of his ex- 
 cellency's firmness and good sense, not to dis- 
 credit his own opinion of his confidence in the 
 public safety, by an ostentatious display of un- 
 necessary open preparation ; and he thought he 
 did himself equal honour by preserving his usual 
 temper, and not suffering himself to be exaspe- 
 rated by the event, when it did happen, into the 
 adoption of any violent or precipitate measures. 
 Perhaps he (Mr. Curran) might even be ex- 
 cused if he confessed that he was not wholly 
 free from some professional vanity, when he saw 
 that the descendant of a great lawyer was capa- 
 ble of remembering, what, without the memory 
 of such an example, he perhaps might not have 
 done, that even in the moment of peril the law 
 is the best safeguard of the constitution. At all 
 events, he felt, that a man, who at all times had 
 so freely censured the extravagancies of power 
 and force as he had done, was justified, if not 
 bound, by the consistency of character, to give 
 the fair attestation of his opinion to the exercise 
 of wisdom and humanity wherever he found them; 
 whether in a friend or in a stranger. He hoped, 
 he said, that these preliminary observations were 
 
 not
 
 368 
 
 not wantonly and irrelevantly delaying them 
 from the question which they were to try, and 
 which he was ready to enter into ; but there 
 still remained a circumstance to be observed 
 upon for a moment before they proceeded to the 
 real subject of their enquiry, the guilt or inno- 
 cence of the prisoner; the fact that had been so 
 impressedly stated : the never to be too much 
 lamented fate of that excellent man lord Kil- 
 warden (and here Mr. Curran drew a cha- 
 racter of him, as marked by the most scrupu- 
 lous anxiety for justice, as by the mildest and 
 tenderest feelings of humanity) But, said he, 
 let us not wantonly slander the character of the 
 nation by giving any countenance to the notion, 
 that the horror of such a crime could be ex- 
 tended farther than the actual perpetration of 
 the deed. The general indignation, the tears that 
 were shed at the sad news of his fate, shew that 
 we are not that nest of demons on whom any 
 general stigma could attach from such an event; 
 the wicked wretch himself, perhaps, has cut off 
 the very man, through whose humanity he might 
 have escaped the consequences of other crimes ; 
 and by an hideous aggravation of his guilt, has 
 given another motive to Providence to trace the 
 murderer's steps, and secure the certainty of his 
 punishment; but on this occasion the jury should 
 put it out of their minds, and think nothing of 
 that valuable man, save his last advice, " that no 
 person should perish but by the just sentence of 
 the law;" and that advice he hoped they would 
 
 honour
 
 369 
 
 honour, not by idle praise, but by strict ob- 
 servance. 
 
 Mr. Curran now proceeded to state the 
 charge in the indictment, and the evidence ad- 
 duced ; and contended that the testimony shewed 
 no fact of conspiracy no adopted object of 
 treason no actual attack no number of per- 
 sons engaged that could possibly be adequate 
 to the accomplishment of such an object. He 
 strongly reprobated the idea of acting upon 
 what was called notoriety of rebellion notoriety 
 was "at best but another name for reputation, 
 which could not, even bv law, be given in evi- 
 dence in any criminal case, and which, a fortiori, 
 could not sustain a verdict of conviction ; but, 
 he said, if the actual evidence of the guilt was 
 thus w r eak, it was not unfair to consider the 
 probability of such a conspiracy at the present 
 time. It w T as clear from the evidence that it 
 could not be imputed to any particular sect, or 
 party, or faction, because no sect or faction 
 could fail, had they acted in it, of engaging 
 one hundred times the number of deluded in- 
 struments in their design. We may then fairly 
 ask, is it likely that the country at large, setting 
 even apart all moral tie of duty, or allegiance, 
 or the difficulty, or the danger, could see any 
 motive of interest to recommend to them the 
 measure of separating from England, or frater- 
 nizing with France ? Was there any description 
 
 2 B of
 
 370 
 
 of men in Ireland who could expect any ad- 
 vantage from such a change ? And this reasoning, 
 he said, was more pertinent to the question, be- 
 cause politics were not now, as heretofore, a dead 
 science, in dead language ; they had now be- 
 come the subject of the day, vernacular and uni- 
 versal, and the repose which the late system of 
 Irish government had given the people for reflec- 
 tion had enabled them to consider their, own 
 condition, and what they, or any other country, 
 could have to hope from France, or rather from 
 its present master. He said he scorned to allude 
 to that personage merely to scold or to revile 
 him ; unmeaning obloquy may shew that we do 
 not love the object, but certainly that we do not 
 fear him. He then adverted to the present con- 
 dition of Bonaparte ; a stranger an usurper 
 getting possession of a numerous, proud, volatile, 
 and capricious people ; getting that possession by 
 military force able to hold it only by force : to 
 secure his power he found, or thought he found 
 it necessary to abolish all religious establishments, 
 as well as all shadow of freedom. He had com- 
 pletely subjugated all the adjoining nations. Now, 
 said Mr. Curran, it is clear that there are but two 
 modes of holding states or the members of the 
 same state together, namely, community of in- 
 terest or predominance of force the former is 
 the natural bond of the British empire,; their in- 
 terest, their hopes, their dangers can be no other 
 than one and the same, if they are not stupidly 
 
 blind
 
 371 
 
 blind to their own situation ; and stupidly blind 
 indeed must they be, and justly must they incur 
 the inevitable consequences of that blindness 
 and stupidity, if they have not fortitude and 
 magnanimity enough to lay aside those mean 
 and narrow jealousies, which have hitherto 
 prevented that community of interest and unity 
 of effort, by which alone we can stand, and 
 without which we must fall together. But force 
 only can hold the requisitions of the French 
 consul ; what community of interest can he 
 have with the different nations that he has sub- 
 dued and plundered? clearly none. Can he 
 venture to establish any regular and protected 
 system of religion amongst them ? Wherever he 
 erected an altar, he would set up a monument 
 of condemnation and reproach upon those wild 
 and fantastic speculations which he is pleased 
 to dignify with the name of Philosophy, but 
 which other men, perhaps, because they are 
 endowed with a less aspiring intellect, conceive 
 to be a desperate anarchical atheism, giving to 
 every man a dispensing power for the gratifica- 
 tion of his passion, teaching him that he may 
 be a rebel to his conscience with advantage, 
 and to his God with impunity. Just as soon 
 would the government of Britain venture to 
 display the Crescent in their churches, as an 
 honorary member of all faiths to shew any re- 
 verence to the Cross in his dominions. Apply 
 the same reasoning to liberty : can he venture 
 to give any reasonable portion of it to his subjects 
 
 2 B 2 at
 
 372 
 
 at home, or his vassals abroad? The answer is 
 obvious : sustained merely by military force, 
 his unavoidable policy is to make the army every 
 thing, and the people nothing. If he ventured 
 to elevate his soldiers into citizens, and his 
 wretched subjects into freemen, he would form 
 a confederacy of mutual interest between both, 
 against which he could not exist a moment. If 
 he relaxed in like manner with Holland, or 
 Belgium, or Switzerland, or Italy, and with- 
 drew his armies from them, he would excite and 
 make them capable of instant revolt. There is 
 one circumstance which just leaves it possible 
 for him not to chain them down still more 
 rigorously than he has done, and that is, the 
 facility with which he can pour military reinforce- 
 ments upon them in case of necessity. But 
 destitute as he is of a marine, he could look to 
 no such resource with respect to any insular 
 acquisition, and of course he should guard 
 against the possibility of danger by so complete 
 and merciless a thraldom as would make any 
 effort of resistance physically impossible. 
 Perhaps, my lords, and. gentlemen, continued 
 Mr. Curran, I may be thought the apologist, 
 instead of the reviler of the ruler of France. I 
 affect not either character I am searching for 
 the motives of his conduct, and not for the 
 topics of his justification. I do not affect to trace 
 those motives to any depravity of heart or of 
 mind v which accident may have occasioned for 
 the season, and which reflection or compunction 
 
 may
 
 may extinguish or allay, and thereby make him 
 a completely different man with respect to 
 France and to the world ; I am acting more fairly 
 and more usefully by my country, when I shew, 
 that his conduct must be so swayed by the per- 
 manent pressure of his situation, by the controul 
 of an unchangeable and inexorable necessity, 
 that he cannot dare to relax or relent without 
 becoming the certain victim of his OWTI humanity 
 or contrition. I may be asked, are these merely 
 my own speculations, or have others in Ireland 
 adopted them ; I answer freely, non metis hie 
 sermo est. It is, to my own knowledge, the 
 result of serious reflection in numbers of our 
 countrymen. In the storm of arbitrary sw r ay, 
 in the distraction of torture and suffering, the 
 human mind had lost its poise and its tone, and 
 was incapable of sober reflection ; but, by re* 
 moving those terrors from it, by holding an 
 even hand between all parties, by disdaining 
 the patronage of any sect or faction, the people 
 of Ireland were left at liberty to consider her 
 real situation and interest, and happily for her- 
 self, I trust in God, she has availed herself of the 
 opportunity. With respect to the higher orders 
 even of those who thought they had some cause 
 to complain, I know this to be the fact ; they are 
 not so blind as not to see the difference between 
 being proud and jealous, and punctilious in any 
 claim of privilege or right between themselves and 
 their fellow-subjects, and the mad and desperate 
 depravity of seeking the redress of any dissatis- 
 faction
 
 374 
 
 faction that they might feel, by an appeal to 
 force, or by the dreadful recourse to treason and 
 to blood. As to the humbler orders of our 
 people, for whom I confess I feel the greatest 
 sympathy, because there are more of them to 
 be undone, and because, from want of educa- 
 tion, they must be more liable to delusion ; I am 
 satisfied the topics to which I have adverted 
 apply with still greater force to them than to 
 those who are raised above them. I have not 
 the same opportunity of knowing their actual 
 opinions ; but if their opinions be other than I 
 think they ought to be, would to God they were 
 present in this place, or that I had the opportu- 
 nity of going into their cottages, and they well 
 know I should not disdain to visit them, and to 
 speak to them the language of affection and 
 candour on the subject ; I should have little 
 difficulty in shewing to their quick and appre- 
 hensive minds, how easy it is when the heart is 
 incensed to confound the evils which are insepa- 
 rable from the destiny of imperfect man, with 
 those which arise from the faults or errors of his 
 political situation : I would put a few questions 
 to their candid and unadulterated sense : I would 
 ask them Do you think that you have made no 
 advance to civil prosperity within the last twenty 
 years ?, Are your opinions of modern and subju- 
 gated France the same that you entertained of 
 popular and revolutionary France fourteen years 
 ago ? Have you any hope, that if the first consul 
 ffot possession of your island, he would treat you 
 
 half
 
 375 
 
 half so well as he does those countries at his door 
 whom he must respect more than he can respect 
 or regard you ? And do you know how he treats 
 those unhappy nations ? You know that in Ire- 
 land there is little personal wealth to plunder 
 that there are few churches to rob. Can you 
 then doubt that he would reward his rapacious 
 generals and soldiers by parcelling out the soil 
 of the island among them, and by dividing you 
 into lots of serfs to till the respective lands to 
 whicli they belonged ? Can you suppose that 
 the perfidy and treason of surrendering your 
 country to an invader would to your new master 
 be any pledge of your allegiance? Can you 
 suppose that while a single French soldier was 
 willing to accept an acre of Irish ground, that 
 he would leave that acre in the possession of a 
 man, who had shewn himself so wickedly and 
 so stupidly dead to the suggestions of the most 
 obvious interest, and to the ties of the most 
 imperious moral obligations ? To what do you 
 look forward with respect to the aggrandisement 
 of your sect ? Are you protestants ? He has 
 abolished protestantism with Christianity. Are 
 you catholics ? Do you think he will raise you 
 to the level of the pope? Perhaps, and I 
 think, he would not ; but if he did, could you 
 hope more privilege than he has left his holiness ? 
 And what privilege has he left him ? he has re- 
 duced his religion to be a mendicant for con- 
 temptuous toleration, and he has reduced his 
 person to beggary and to rags. Let me ask you a 
 
 further
 
 376 
 
 urtlier question Do you think he would feel any 
 kind hearted sympathy for you ? Answer your- 
 selves by asking, what sympathy does he feel 
 for Frenchmen, whom he is ready by thousands 
 to bury in the ocean, in the barbarous gambling 
 .of his wild ambition ? What sympathy then could 
 bind him to you ? He is not your countryman 
 the scene of your birth and your childhood is not 
 endeared to his heart by the reflection, that it 
 was also the scene of his : he is not your fellow 
 Christian he is not, therefore, bound to you by 
 any similarity of duty in this world, or by any 
 union of hope beyond the grave. What then 
 could you suppose "the object of his visit, or the 
 consequence of his success ? Can you be so 
 foolish as not to see, that he would use you as 
 slaves, while he held you, and that when he grew 
 weary, which he soon would become, of such a 
 worthless and precarious possession, he would 
 carry you to market in some treaty of peace, 
 barter you for .some more valuable concession, 
 and surrender you to expiate by your punish- 
 ment and degradation, the advantage you had 
 given him byyour follies and your crimes? There 
 is another topic on which a few words might be 
 addressed to the deluded peasant of this country: 
 he might be asked What could you hope from 
 the momentary success of any effort to subvert 
 the government by mere intestine convulsion ? 
 Could you look forward to the hope of liberty or 
 property ; where are the characters, the capaci- 
 ties, and the motives of those that have embarked 
 
 in
 
 ^n those chimerical projects you see them a 
 despicable gang of needy adventurers ; des- 
 perate from guilt and poverty; uncountenanced 
 by a single individual of probity or name; ready 
 to use you as the instruments, and equally ready 
 to abandon you by treachery or flight, as the 
 victims of their crimes. For a short interval 
 murder and rapine might have their sway ; but 
 do not be such fools as to think, that though rob- 
 bing might make a few persons poor, it could 
 make many persons rich. Do not be so silly as 
 to confound the destruction of property with the 
 partition of wealth. Small must be your share 
 of the spoil, and short your enjoyment of it. 
 Soon, trust me, very soon wpuld such a state of 
 things be terminated by the very atrocities of 
 its authors. Soon would you find yourselves sub- 
 dued, ruined, and degraded. If you looked back, 
 it would be to character destroyed, to hope ex- 
 tinguished. If you looked forward, you could 
 see only the dire necessity you had imposed upon 
 your governors of acting towards you with no 
 feelings but those of abhorrence, and of self-pre- 
 servatiojiof ruling you by a system of coer- 
 cion, of which alone you would be worthy and 
 of loading you with taxes (that is, selling the 
 food and raiment which your honest labour might 
 earn for your family) to defray the expense of 
 that force, by which only you could be res- 
 trained. 
 
 Say not, gentlemen, that I am inexcusably 
 
 vain
 
 378 
 
 vain when I say, would to God that I had an op- 
 portunity of speaking this plain, and I trust, not 
 absurd language to the humblest orders of my 
 countrymen. When I see what sort of mission- 
 aries can preach the doctrines of villainy and 
 folly with success, I cannot think it very vain to 
 suppose, that they would listen with some atten- 
 tion and some respect to a man who was address- 
 ing plain sense to their minds, whose whole life 
 ought to be a pledge for his sincerity and affec- 
 tion who had never in a single instance de- 
 ceived, or deserted, or betrayed them who had 
 never been seduced to an abandonment of their 
 just rights, or a connivance at any of their ex- 
 cesses, that could threaten any injury to their 
 character. 
 
 But perhaps, said Mr. Curran, I have tres- 
 passed too much upon your patience by what 
 may appear a digression from the question. The 
 motive of my doing so, I perceive by your indul- 
 gent hearing, you perfectly comprehend. But I 
 do not consider what I have said as a mere irre- 
 levant digression with respect to the immediate 
 cause before you. The reasoning comes to this: 
 the present state of this country shews, that no- 
 thing could be so stupidly and perversely wicked 
 as a project of separation or of French connexion 
 and, of course, nothing more improbable than 
 the adoption of such a useless project. If it be 
 then so senseless, and therefore so improbable, 
 how strong ought the evidence be on which you 
 
 would
 
 379 
 
 would be warranted in attesting on your oaths, 
 to England and to France, so odious an imputa- 
 tion on the good sense and loyalty of your coun- 
 try. Let me revert again to the evidence which 
 you have heard to support so incredible a charge. 
 I have already observed on the contemptible 
 smallness of the, number a few drunken pea- 
 sants assembled in the outlets ; there, in the fury 
 of intoxication, they committed such atrocities 
 as no man can be disposed to defend or to extenu- 
 ate ; and having done so, they flee before a few 
 peace-officers, aided by the gallantry of Mr. jus- 
 tice Drury who, even if he did retreat, as has 
 been insinuated, has at least the merit of having 
 no wish to shed the blood of his fellow-christians, 
 and is certainly intitled to the praise of pre- 
 serving the life of a most valuable citizen and 
 loyal subject. 
 
 In this whole transaction, no attempt, how- 
 ever feeble or ill-directed, is made on any place 
 belonging to or connected with the government. 
 They never even approach the barrack, the cas- 
 tle, the magazines. No leader whatsoever ap- 
 pears ; nothing that I can see to call for your 
 verdict, except the finding the bill and the un- 
 corroborated statement of the attorney-general. 
 In that statement, too, I must beg leave to guard 
 you against mistake in one or two particulars: 
 as to what he said of my lord Kilwarden, it was 
 not unnatural to feel as he seemed to do at the 
 recollection, or to have stated that sad event as 
 
 a fact
 
 a fact that took place on that occasion but I am 
 satisfied, he did not state it with the least inten- 
 tion of agitating your passions, or of letting it 
 have the smallest influence on your judgment in 
 your inquiry into a charge of treason. I must 
 beg leave also to say, that no recital in any sta- 
 tute is any evidence whatsoever of the existence 
 of any particular fact of treason or treasonable 
 conspiracy. I must further desire you to blot 
 completely from your minds the reference which 
 he was pleased to make to the verdict of yester- 
 day. And in truth, when I see the evidence 
 on which you are to decide reduced to what is 
 legal or admissible, I don't wonder that Mr. At- 
 torney-general himself should have treated this 
 doughty rebellion with the laughter and con- 
 tempt it deserved. 
 
 Where now is this providential escape of the 
 government and the castle? why, simply in this, 
 that nobody attacked either the one or the other; 
 and that there were no persons that could have 
 attacked either. It seems not unlike the escape 
 which a young man had of being shot through 
 the head at the battle of Dettingen, by the pro- 
 vidential interference by which he was sent 
 twenty miles off on a foraging party only ten 
 days before the battle. 
 
 I wish from my heart that there may be now 
 present some worthy gentleman, who may trans- 
 mit to Paris a faithful account of what has this 
 
 day
 
 381 
 
 day passed. If so, I think some loyal absentee 
 may possibly find an account of it in the Pub* 
 liciste or the Moniteur and perhaps somewhat 
 in this way " On the 23d of July last, a most 
 splendid rebellion displayed her standard in the 
 metropolis of Ireland, in apart of the city which 
 in their language is called the Poddle. The band 
 of heroes that came forth at the call of patriot- 
 ism, capable of bearing arms, at the lowest cal- 
 culation must have amounted to little less than 
 two hundred persons. The rebellion advanced 
 with a most intrepid step till she came to the 
 site of the old four courts, and tholsel. There 
 she espied a decayed pillory, on which she 
 mounted, in order to reconnoitre, but she found 
 to her great mortification that the rebels had staid 
 behind. She therefore judged it right to make 
 her escape, which she effected in a masterly man- 
 ner down Dirty-lane. The rebels at the same 
 time retiring in some disorder from the Poddle, 
 being hard pressed by the poles and lanterns of 
 the watchmen, and being additionally galled by 
 Mr. justice Drury, who came to a most unerring 
 aim upon their rear, on which he played without 
 any intermission, with a spy-glass from his din- 
 ing-room window Raro antecedentem scelestnm 
 demerit Pwiiapede claudo. It is clearly ascertained, 
 that she did not appear in her own clothes, for 
 she threw away her regimental jacket before she 
 fled, which has been picked up, and is now to be 
 seen at Mr. Carleton's, at sixpence a head for 
 grown persons, and three-pence for a nurse and 
 
 child.
 
 382 
 
 child. It was thought at first to be the work of 
 an Irish artist, who might have taken measure in 
 the absence of the wearer, but by a bill and re- 
 ceipt found in one of the pockets it appears to 
 have been made by the actual body tailor of her 
 august highness the consort of the first consul. 
 At present it is but poorly ornamented, but it is 
 said that the Irish volunteers have entered into a 
 subscription to trim it, if it shall be ever worn 
 again." Happy, most happy, is it for these 
 islands, said Mr. Curran, that those rumours 
 which are so maliciously invented and circulated 
 to destroy our/ confidence in each other, to in- 
 vite attack and dispirit resistance, turn out on 
 enquiry to be so ludicrous and contemptible, that 
 we cannot speak of them without laughter, or 
 without wonder that they did not rather form the 
 materials of a farce in a puppet-shew, than of a 
 grave prosecution in a court of justice. 
 
 Mr. Curran said, there was still another topic 
 material to remind the jury of this was the first 
 trial for treason that had occurred since the 
 union of these islands. He said no effectual 
 union could be atchieved by the mere letter of 
 statute ; do not imagine (said he) that bigotry 
 could blend with liberality, or barbarism with 
 civilization. If you wish to be really united with 
 Great Britain, teach her to respect you, and do 
 so by shewing her that you are fit objects of 
 wholesome laws by shewing that you are capa- 
 ble of rising to a proud equality with her in the 
 
 exercise
 
 383 
 
 exercise of social duties and civil virtues, as 
 many parts of the globe have proved you to be 
 in her fleets and her armies; shew her that you 
 can try this cause as she would try it; that you 
 have too much sense and humanity to be borne 
 away in your verdict by despicable panic or bru- 
 tal fury; shew her that in prosecutions by the 
 state you can even go a step beyond her, and 
 that you can discover and act upon those eternal 
 principles of justice, which it has been found 
 necessary in that country to enforce by the co~ 
 ercion of law: you cannot, said he, but feel that 
 I allude to their statute that requires two wit- 
 nesses in treason. Our statute does not con- 
 tain that provision; but if it was wise to enact it 
 there as a law, it cannot be other than wise to 
 adopt it here as a principle; unless you think it 
 discreet to hold it out as your opinion, that the 
 life of man is not so valuable here, and ought 
 not to be so secure, as in the other part 
 of the empire; unless you wish to prove your 
 capability of equal rights and equal liberty 
 with Britain, by consigning to the scaffold your 
 miserable fellow-subject, who, if tried in Eng- 
 land on the same charge and the same evidence, 
 would by law be entitled to a verdict of ac- 
 quittal. I trust you will not so blemish your- 
 selves; I trust you will not be satisfied even with 
 a cold imitation of her justice ; but on this oc- 
 casion you will give her an example of magna- 
 nimity by rising superior to the passion or the 
 panic of the moment. It' in any ordinary case, 
 
 in
 
 384 
 
 in any ordinary time, you have any reasonable 
 doubt of guilt, you are bound by every principle 
 of law and justice to acquit. But I would ad- 
 vise you, at a time like this, rather to be lavish 
 than parsimonious in the application of that 
 principle even though you had the strongest 
 suspicion of his culpability, I would advise you 
 to acquit you would shew your confidence in 
 your own strength that you felt your situation 
 too high to be affected in the smallest degree by 
 the fate of so insignificant an individual; turn to 
 the miserable prisoner himself tainted and 
 blemished, as he possibly may be even him 
 you may retrieve to his country and his duty by 
 a salutary effort of seasonable magnanimity. 
 You will inspire him with reverence for that in- 
 stitution, which knows when to spare, as well 
 as when to inflict and which, instead of sacri- 
 ficing him to a strong suspicion of his crimi- 
 nality, is determined, not by the belief, but by 
 the possibility of his innocence, and dismisses 
 him with indignation and contemptuous mercy. 
 
 Mr, Kirwan was found guilfy. 
 
 SPEECH
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN, ESQ. 
 
 IN DEFENCE OF 
 
 THE REV. CHARLES MASSY 
 
 AGAINST 
 
 THE MARQUIS OF HEADFORT, 
 
 FOR 
 CRIMINAL CONVERSATION 
 
 WITH 
 
 PLAINTIFF'S WIFE. 
 AT ENNIS ASSIZES, Co. CLARE, 
 
 ON THE 27th OF JULY, 1804. 
 
 Damages laid at 40,000. Verdict 10,000. 
 
 MR. CURRAN. 
 
 EVER so clearly as in the present instance 
 have I observed that safeguard of justice, which 
 providence hath placed in the nature of man. 
 Such is the imperious dominion with which truth 
 and reason wave their sceptre over the human in- 
 tellect, that no solicitations, however artful, no 
 talent, however commanding, can reduce it from 
 
 2 c its
 
 386 
 
 its allegiance. In proportion to the humility of 
 our submission to its rule do we rise into some 
 faint emulation of that ineffable and presiding 
 divinity, whose characteristic attribute it is 
 ta be coerced and bound by the inexorable 
 laws of its own nature, so as to be all-wise and 
 till-just from necessity, rather than election. 
 You have seen it in the learned advocate who 
 nas preceded me most peculiarly and strikingly 
 illustrated you have seen even his great talents, 
 perhaps the first in any country, languishing 
 tinder a cause too weak to carry him, and too 
 heavy to be carried by him. He was forced 
 to dismiss his natural candour and sincerity, 
 and, having no merits in his case, to substitute 
 the dignity of his own manner, the resources 
 of his own ingenuity, Over the overwhelming 
 difficulties with which he was surrounded. 
 Wretched client! unhappy advocate! what a 
 combination do you form ! But such is the 
 condition of guilt -its commission mean and 
 tremulous its defence artificial and insincere 
 its prosecution candid and simple its condemna- 
 tion dignified and austere. Such has been the 
 defendant's guilt such his defence such shall 
 be my address, and such, I trust, your verdict. 
 The learned counsel has told you, that this un- 
 fortunate woman is not to be estimated at forty 
 thousand pounds fatal and unquestionable is the 
 truth of this assertion. Alas ! gentlemen, she is 
 BO longer worth any thing faded, fallen, de- 
 graded, and disgraced, she is worth less than 
 
 nothing !
 
 387 
 
 nothing ! But it is for the honour, the hope, 
 the expectation, the tenderness, and the com- 
 forts that have been blasted by the defendant, 
 and have fled for ever, that you are to remu- 
 nerate the plaintiff, by the punishment of the 
 defendant. It is not her present value which 
 you are to weigh but it is her value at that 
 time, when she sat basking in a husband's love, 
 with the blessing of heaven on her head, and 
 its purity in her heart ; when she sat amongst 
 her family, and administered the morality of 
 the parental board : estimate that past value 
 compare it with its present deplorable diminu- 
 tion and it may lead you to form some judg- 
 ment of the severity of the injury, and the 
 requisite extent of the compensation. 
 
 The learned counsel has told you, you ought 
 to be cautious, because your verdict cannot be 
 set aside for excess. The assertion is just, but 
 has he treated you fairly by its application ? His 
 cause would riot allow him to be fair for, why 
 is the rule adopted in this single action ? Be- 
 cause, this being peculiarly an injury to the mosf. 
 susceptible of all human feelings it leaves the 
 injury of the husband to be ascertained by the 
 sensibility of the jury, and does not presume to 
 measure the justice of their determination by 
 the cold and chilly exercise of his own discretion. 
 In any other action it is easy to calculate. If 
 a tradesman's arm is cut off, you can measure 
 the loss which he has sustained bub the wound 
 
 of
 
 388 
 
 of feeling, and the agony of the heart, cannot 
 be judged by any standard with which I am ac- 
 quainted. And you are unfairly dealt with, when 
 you are called on to appreciate the present 
 suffering of the husband by the present guilt, 
 delinquency, and degradation of his wife. As 
 well might you, if called on to give compensa- 
 tion to a man for the murder of his dearest 
 friend find the measure of his injury, by 
 weighing the ashes of the dead. But it is not, 
 gentlemen of the jury, by weighing the ashes of 
 the dead, that you would estimate the loss of 
 the survivor. 
 
 The learned counsel has referred you to other 
 cases, and other countries, for instances of mo- 
 derate verdicts. I can refer you to some au- 
 thentic instances of just ones. In the next 
 country, .l5,OOO. against a subaltern officer. In 
 Travers and McCarthy, ,5000. against a servant. 
 In Tighe against Jones, lO,OOO. against a man 
 not worth a shilling. What then ought to be the 
 rule, where rank, and power, and w r ealth, and sta- 
 tion, have combined to render the example of his 
 crime more dangerous to make his guilt more 
 odious to make the injury to the plaintiff more 
 grievous, because more conspicuous ? I affect no 
 levelling familiarity, when I speak of persons 
 in the higher ranks of society distinctions of 
 orders are necessary, and I always feel disposed 
 to treat them with respect but when it is my 
 duty to speak of the crimes by which they are 
 
 degraded,
 
 389 
 
 degraded, I am not so fastidious as to shrink 
 from their contact, when to touch them is 
 essential to their dissection. In this action, the 
 condition, the conduct, and circumstances of 
 the party, are justly and peculiarly the objects 
 of your consideration. Who are the parties ? 
 The plaintiff, young, amiable, of family and 
 education. Of the generous disinterestedness 
 of his heart you can form an opinion even from 
 the evidence of the defendant, that he declined 
 an alliance, which would have added to his 
 fortune and consideration, and which he rejected 
 for an unportioned union with his present wife. 
 She too, at that time young, beautiful and ac- 
 complished; and feeling her affection for her 
 husband increase, in proportion as she remem- 
 bered the ardour of his love, and the sincerity of 
 his sacrifice. Look now to the defendant ! I 
 blush to name him ! I blush to name a rank 
 which he has tarnished and a patent that he has 
 worse than cancelled. High in the army high 
 in the state the hereditary counsellor of the king 
 of wealth incalculable and to this last I ad- 
 vert with an indignant and contemptuous satisfac- 
 tion, because, as the only instrument of his guilt 
 and shame, itwill be the means of his punishment, 
 and the source of compensation for his guilt. 
 
 But let me call your attention distinctly to the 
 questions you have to consider. The first is the 
 fact of guilt. Is this noble lord guilty ? His coun- 
 sel knew too well how they would have mortified
 
 390 
 
 his vanity, had they given the smallest reason to 
 doubt the splendor of his atchievement. Against 
 any such humiliating suspicion he had taken the 
 most studious precaution by the publicity of 
 the exploit. And here, in this court, and be- 
 fore you and in the face of the country, has he 
 the unparalleled effrontery of disdaining to 
 resort even to a confession of innocence His guilt 
 established, your next question is, the damages 
 you should give. You have been told, that the 
 amount of the damages should depend on cir- 
 cumstances. You will consider these circum- 
 stances, whether of aggravation or mitigation. 
 His learned counsel contend, that the plaintiff 
 has been the author of his own suffering, and 
 ought to receive no compensation for the ill 
 consequences of his own conduct. In what 
 part of the evidence do you find any foundation 
 for that assertion ? He indulged her, it seems, 
 in dress generous and attached, he probably 
 indulged her in that point beyond his means ; 
 and the defendant now impudently calls on you 
 to find an excuse for the adulterer in the fond- 
 ness and liberality of the husband. But you have 
 been told, that the husband connived. Odious 
 and impudent aggravation of injury to add ca- 
 lumny tounsult, and outrage to dishonour. From 
 whom, but a man hackneyed in the paths of shame 
 and vice from whom, but from a man having no 
 compunctions in his own breast to restrain him, 
 could you expect such brutal clisregardforthe feel- 
 ings of others from whom, but the cold-blooded 
 
 veteran
 
 391 
 
 veteran seducer from what, but from the ex- 
 hausted mind the habitual community with 
 shame from what, but the habitual contempt 
 of virtue and of man, could you have expected 
 the arrogance, the barbarity, and folly of so 
 foul because so false an imputation ? He 
 should have reflected and have blushed, before 
 he suffered so vile a topic of defence to have 
 passed his lips. But, ere you condemn, let him 
 have the benefit of the excuse, if the excuse be 
 true. You must have observed how his counsel 
 fluttered and vibrated between what they 
 called connivance and injudicious confidence ; 
 and how, in affecting to distinguish they 
 have confounded them both together. If the 
 plaintiff has connived, I freely say to you, do 
 not reward the wretch who has prostituted his 
 wife, and surrendered his own honour do not 
 compensate the pander of his own shame, and the 
 willing instrument of his own infamy. But as 
 there is no sum so low to which such a defence, 
 if true, -ought not to reduce your verdict, so 
 neither is any so high to which such a charge 
 ought not to inflame it, if such a charge be false. 
 Where is the single fact in this case on which the 
 remotest suspicion of connivance can be hung? 
 Odiously has the defendant endeavoured to make 
 the softest and most amiable feelings of the heart 
 the pretext of his slanderous imputations. An 
 ancient and respectableprelate, the husband of his 
 wife's sister, chained down to the bed of sickness, 
 perhaps to the bed of death. In that distressing 
 
 situation
 
 392 
 
 situation, my client suffered that wife to be the 
 bearer of consolation to the bosom of her sister 
 he had not the heart to refuse her and the 
 softness of his nature is now charged on him 
 as a crime. He is now insolently told, that 
 he connived at his dishonour, and that he 
 ought to have foreseen, that the mansion of 
 sickness and of sorrow would have been made 
 the scene of assignation and of guilt. On this 
 charge of connivance I will not farther weary 
 you or exhaust myself I will add nothing more, 
 than that it is as false as it is impudent that in 
 the evidence it has not a colour of support ; and 
 that by your verdict you should mark it with 
 reprobation. The other subject, namely, that 
 he was indiscreet in his confidence, does, I 
 think, call for some discussion for I trust you 
 see that I affect not a,ny address to your passions, 
 by which you may be led away from the subject 
 I presume merely to separate the parts of this 
 affecting case, and to lay them item by item be- 
 fore you, with the coldness of detail, and not with 
 any colouring or display of fiction or of fancy. 
 Honourable to himselfwas his unsuspecting confi- 
 dence, but fatal must we admit it to have been, 
 when we look to the abuse committed upon it; but 
 where was the guilt of this indiscretion ? He did 
 admit this noble lord to pass his threshold as his 
 guest. Now the charge which this noble lord 
 builds on this indiscretion is " thou fool thou 
 hadst confidence in my honour and that 
 was a guilty indiscretion thou simpleton, thou 
 
 thoughtest
 
 393 
 
 thoughtest that an admitted and cherished guest, 
 would have respected the laws of honour and 
 hospitality, and thy indiscretion was guilt. 
 Thou thoughtest that he would have shrunk from 
 
 o 
 
 the meanness and barbarity of requiting kindness 
 with treachery, and thy indiscretion was guilt." 
 
 Gentlemen, what horrid alternative in the 
 treatment of wives would such reasoning recom- 
 mend? Are they to be immured by worse than 
 eastern barbarity ? Are their principles to be de- 
 praved, their passions sublimated, every finer 
 motive of action extinguished by the inevitable 
 consequences of thus treating them like slaves? 
 Or is a liberal and generous confidence in them to 
 be the passport of the adulterer, and the justifi- 
 cation of his crimes? 
 
 Honourably, but fatally for his own repose, he 
 was neither jealous, suspicious, nor cruel. He 
 treated the defendant with the confidence of a 
 friend and his wife with the tenderness of a hus- 
 band. He did leave to tlie noble marquis the phy- 
 sical possibility of committing against him the 
 greatest crime which can be perpetrated against a 
 being of an amiable heart and refined education. 
 In the middle of the day, at the moment of di- 
 vine worship, when the miserable husband was on 
 his knees, directing the prayers and thanksgiving 
 of his congregation to their God that moment 
 did the remorseless adulterer choose to carry off 
 the deluded victim from her husband from her 
 
 child
 
 child from her character from her happiness, 
 as if not content to leave his crime confined 
 to its miserable aggravations, unless he gave it a 
 cast and colour of factitious sacrilege and impiety. 
 Oh! how happy had it been when he arrived at 
 the bank of the river with the ill-fated fugitive, 
 ere yet he had committed her to that boat, of 
 which, like the fabled bark of Styx, the exile 
 was eternal, how happy at that moment, so teem- 
 ing with misery and with shame, if you, my lord, 
 had met him, and could have accosted him in the 
 character of that good genius which had aban- 
 doned him. How impressively might you have 
 pleaded the cause of the father, of the child, of 
 the mother, and even of the worthless defendant 
 himself. You would have said, " is this the re- 
 quital that you are about to make for respect and 
 kindness, and confidence in your honour? Can 
 you deliberately expose this young man in the 
 bloom of life, w T ith all his hopes before him ? 
 Can you expose him, a wretched outcast from so- 
 ciety to the scorn of a merciless world ? Can 
 you set him adrift upon the tempestuous ocean 
 of his own passions, at this early season when 
 they are most headstrong; and can you cut him 
 out from the moorings of those domestic obliga- 
 tions by whose cable he might ride at safety 
 from their turbulence? Think of, if you can con- 
 ceive it, what a powerful influence arises from 
 the sense of home, from the sacred religion of the 
 hearth in quelling the passions, in reclaiming the 
 Wanderings, in correcting the discords of the hu- 
 man
 
 395 
 
 man heart; do not cruelly take from him the 
 protection of these attachments. But if you 
 have no pity for the father, have mercy at least 
 upon his innocent and helpless child ; do not con- 
 demn him to an education scandalous or ne- 
 glected, do not strike him into that most dread- 
 ful of all human conditions, the orphanage that 
 springs not from the grave, that falls not from 
 the hand of Providence, or the stroke of death ; 
 but comes before its time, anticipated and in- 
 flicted by the remorseless cruelty of parental 
 guilt. For the poor victim herself not yet im- 
 molated while yet balancing upon the pivot of 
 her destiny, your heart could not be cold, nor 
 your tongue be wordless. You would have said 
 to him, pause, my lord, while there is yet a mo- 
 ment for reflection. What are your motives, 
 what your views, what your prospects from what 
 you are about to do ? You are a married man, 
 the husband of the most amiable and respectable 
 of women, you cannot look to the chance of 
 marrying this wretched fugitive; between you 
 and such an event there are two sepulchres to 
 pass. What are your inducements? Is it love, 
 think you ? No, do not give that name to any 
 attraction you can find in the faded refuse of a 
 violated bed. Love is a noble and generous 
 passion; it can be founded only on a pure and 
 ardent friendship, on an exalted respect, on an 
 implicit confidence in its object. Search your 
 heart, examine your judgment, do you find the 
 semblance of any one of these sentiments to bind 
 
 you
 
 396 
 
 you to her? what could degrade a mind to which 
 nature or education had given port or stature or 
 character, into a friendship for her? Could you 
 repose upon her faith ? Look in her face, my 
 lord, she is at this moment giving you the viola- 
 tion of the most sacred of human obligations as 
 the pledge of her fidelity. She is giving you the 
 most irrefragable proof that, as she is desert- 
 ing her husband for you, so she would with- 
 out a scruple abandon you for an other. Do you 
 anticipate any pleasure you migbt feel in the 
 possible event of your becoming the parents of a 
 common child? She is at this moment proving 
 to you that she is as dead to the sense of parental 
 as of conjugal obligation; and that she would 
 abandon your offspring to-morrow, with the same 
 facility with which she now deserts her own. 
 Look then at her conduct, as it is, as the world 
 must behold it, blackened by every aggravation 
 that can make it either odious or contemptible, 
 and unrelieved by a single circumstance of miti- 
 gation, that could palliate its guilt, or retrieve it 
 from abhorrence. 
 
 Mean, however, and degraded as this woman 
 must be, she will still (if you take her with you) 
 have strong and heavy claims upon you. The 
 force of such claims does certainly depend upon 
 circumstances; before therefore, you expose her 
 fate to the dreadful risk of your caprice or in- 
 gratitude, in merey to her weigh well the confi- 
 dence she can place in your future justice and 
 
 honour;
 
 397 
 
 honour: at that future time, much nearer than 
 you think, by what topics can her cause be 
 pleaded to a sated appetite, to a heart that repels 
 lier, to a just judgment in which she never could 
 have been valued or respected? Here is not the 
 case of an unmarried woman, with whom a pure 
 and generous friendship may insensibly have 
 ripened into a more serious attachment, until at 
 last her heart became too deeply pledged to be 
 re-assumed : if so circumstanced, without any 
 husband to betray, or child to desert, or motive to 
 restrain, except what related solely to herself, 
 her anxiety for your happiness made her over- 
 look every other consideration, and commit her 
 history to your honour; in such a case, (the 
 strongest and the highest that imagination can 
 suppose) ; in which you at least could see no- 
 thing but the most noble and disinterested sacri- 
 fice ; in which you could find nothing but what 
 claimed from you the most kind and exalted sen- 
 timent of tenderness, and devotion, and respect; 
 and in which the most fastidious rigour would 
 find so much more subject for sympathy than 
 blame: Let me ask you, could you even in that 
 case, answer for your own justice and gratitude? 
 I do not allude to the long and pitiful catalogue 
 of paltry adventures, in which it seems your time 
 has been employed The coarse and vulgar suc- 
 cession of casual connexions, joyless, loveless and 
 uneudeared : but do you not find upon your 
 memory some trace of an engagement of the 
 character 1 have sketched? Has not your sense 
 
 of
 
 398 
 
 of what you would owe in such a case, and to such 
 a woman, been at least once put to the test of 
 experiment ? Has it not once at least happened 
 that such a woman, with all the resolution of 
 strong faith, flung her youth, her hope, her beau- 
 ty, her talent, upon your bosom, weighed you 
 against the world, which she found but a feather 
 jn the scale, and took you as an equivalent ? How 
 did you then acquit yourself? Did you prove 
 yourself worthy of the sacred trust reposed in 
 you? Did your spirit so associate with hers, as 
 to leave her no room to regret the splendid and 
 disinterested sacrifice she had made ? Did her 
 soul find a pillow in the tenderness of yours, and 
 support in its firmness? Did you preserve her 
 high in your own consciousness, proud in your ad- 
 miration and friendship, and happy in your affec- 
 tion? You might have so acted, and the man that 
 was worthy of her would have perished rather than 
 not so act, as to make her delighted with having 
 confided so sacred a trust to his honour Did you 
 so act ? Did she feel that, however precious to 
 your heart, she was still more exalted and honour- 
 ed in your reverence and respect ? Or did she 
 find you coarse and paltry, fluttering and unpur- 
 posed, unfeeling, and ungrateful ? You found 
 her a fair and blushing flower, its beauty and its 
 fragrance bathed in the dews of heaven. Did you 
 so tenderly transplant it, as to preserve that beauty 
 and fragrance unimpaired? Or did you so rudely 
 cut it, as to interrupt its nutriment, to waste its 
 sweetness, to blast its beauty, to bow down its 
 
 faded
 
 399 
 
 faded and sickly head ? And did you at last fling 
 it like " a loathsome weed away ?" If then to 
 such a woman, so clothed with every title that 
 could ennoble, and exalt, and endear her to the 
 heart of man, you would be cruelly and capri- 
 ciously deficient, how can a wretched fugitive 
 like this, in every point her contrast, hope to 
 find you just? Send her then away. Send her 
 back to her home, to her child, to her husband, 
 to herself." Alas, there was no one to hold 
 such language to this noble defendant ; he did 
 not hold it to himself. But he paraded his 
 despicable prize in his own carriage, with his 
 own retinue, his own servants this veteran 
 Paris hawked his enamoured Helen from this 
 western quarter of the island to a sea-port in 
 the eastern, crowned with the acclamations of 
 a senseless and grinning rabble, glorying and 
 delighted, no doubt, in the leering and scoffing 
 admiration of grooms and ostlers, and waiters, 
 as he passed. 
 
 In this odious contempt of every personal feel- 
 ing, of public opinion, of common humanity, 
 did he parade this woman to the sea-port, whence 
 he transported his precious cargo to a country, 
 whore her example may be less mischievous than 
 in her own ; where I agree with my learned col- 
 league in heartily wishing he may remain with 
 her for ever, We are too poor, too simple, too 
 unadvanced a country, for the example of such 
 atchievements. When the relaxation of morals is 
 
 the
 
 400 
 
 the natural ."growth and consequence of the 
 great progress of arts and wealth, it is accom- 
 panied by a refinement, that makes it less gross 
 and shocking : but for such palliations we are 
 at least a century too young. I advise you, 
 therefore, most earnestly to rebuke this budding 
 mischief, by letting the wholesome vigour and 
 chastisement of a liberal verdict speak what 
 you think of its enormity. In every point of 
 view in which I can look at the subject, I see 
 yon are called upon to give a verdict of bold, 
 and just, and indignant, and exemplary com- 
 pensation. The injury of the plaintiff demands 
 it from your justice ; the delinquency of the de- 
 fendant provokes it by its enormity. The rank 
 on which he has relied for impunity calls upon 
 you to tell him, that crime does not ascend to 
 the rank of the perpetrator, but the perpetrator 
 sinks from his rank, and descends to the level 
 of his delinquency. The style and mode of his 
 defence is a gross aggravation of his conduct, 
 and a gross insult upon you. Look upon the 
 different subjects of his defence as you ought, 
 and let him profit by them as he deserves ; 
 vainly presumptuous upon his rank he wishes 
 to overawe you by the despicable consideration. 
 He next resorts to a cruel aspersion upon the 
 character of the unhappy plaintiff, whom he 
 had already wounded beyond the possibility of 
 reparation ; he has ventured to charge him 
 with connivance : as to that, I will only say, gen- 
 tlemen of the jury, do not give this vain boaster 
 
 a pretext
 
 401 
 
 a pretext for saying, that if her husband connived 
 in the offence, the jury also connived in the re- 
 paration. But he has pressed another curious 
 topic upon you. After the plaintiff had cause to 
 suspect his designs, and the likelihood of their 
 being fatally successful, he did not then act pre- 
 cisely as he ought. Gracious God, what an ar- 
 gument for him to dare to advance ! It is saying 
 this to him : "I abused your confidence, your 
 hospitality ; I laid a base plan for. the seduction 
 of the wife of your bosom ; I succeeded at last, so 
 as to throw in upon you that most dreadful of 
 all suspicions to a man fondly attached, proud of 
 his wife's honour, and tremblingly alive to his 
 own ; that you were possibly a dupe to the con- 
 fidence in the wife, as much as in the guest : in 
 this so pitiable distress, which I myself had stu- 
 diously and deliberately contrived for you, be- 
 tween hope and fear, and doubt and love, and 
 jealousy and shame ; one moment shrinking from 
 the cruelty of your suspicion ; the next, fired 
 with indignation at the facility and credulity of 
 your acquittal ; in this labyrinth of doubt, in 
 this phrensy of suffering, you were not collected 
 and composed ; you did not act as you might 
 have done, if I had not worked you to madness ; 
 and upon that very madness which I have inflict- 
 ed upon you, upon the very completion of my 
 guilt, and of your misery, I will build my de- 
 fence. You will not act critically right, and there- 
 fore are unworthy of compensation." Gentlemen, 
 can you be dead to the remorseless atrocity of 
 
 2 D such
 
 402 
 
 such a defence ! And shall not your honest ver- 
 dict mark it as it deserves ? But let me go a little 
 further ; let me ask you, for I confess I have no 
 distinct idea, what should be the conduct of an 
 husband so placed, and who is to act critically 
 right ? Shall he lock her up, or turn her out, 
 or enlarge or abridge her liberty of acting as 
 she pleases? Oh, dreadful Areopagus of the 
 tea-table ! how formidable thy inquests, how tre- 
 mendous thy condemnations ! In the first case he 
 is brutal and barbarous, an odious eastern despot. 
 In the next ; what ! turn an innocent woman out 
 of his house, without evidence or proof, but mere- 
 ly because he is vile and mean enough to suspect 
 the wife of his bosom, and the mother of his 
 child ! Between these extremes, what interme- 
 diate degree is he to adopt ? I put this question 
 to you at this moment, uninfluenced by anypas- 
 sion as you now are, but cool and collected, and 
 uninterested as you must be, do you see clearly 
 this proper and exact line, which the plaintiff 
 should have pursued ? I must question if you do. 
 But if you did or could, must you not say, that 
 he was the last man from whom you should ex- 
 pect the coolness to discover, or the steadiness to 
 pursue it ? And yet this is the outrageous and in- 
 solent defence that is put forward to you. My 
 miserable client, when his brain was on fire, and 
 every fiend of hell was let loose upon his heart, 
 he should then, it seems, have placed himself be- 
 fore his mirror, he should have taught the stream 
 of asrony to flow decorously down his forehead ; 
 
 he
 
 '403 
 
 lie should have composed his features to har* 
 mony ; he should have writhed with grace, and 
 groaned in melody. But look farther to this noble 
 defendant, and his honourable defence ; the 
 wretched woman is to be successively the victim 
 of seduction, and of slander. She, it seems, re- 
 ceived marked attentions here, I confess, I felt, 
 myself not a little at a loss. The witnesses could 
 not describe what these marked attentions were, 
 or are. They consisted, not, if you believe the 
 witness that swore to them, in any personal ap- 
 proach, or contact whatsoever nor in any un- 
 warrantable topics of discourse. Of what mate- 
 rials then were they composed ? Why, it seems, 
 a gentleman had the insolence at tabla to pro- 
 pose to her a glass of wine, and she, oh most 
 abandoned lady ! instead of flying like an angry 
 parrot at his head, and besmirching and be- 
 scratching him for his insolence, tamely and 
 basely replies, * port, sir, if you please.' But, 
 gentlemen, why do I advert to this folly, this non- 
 sense? Not surely to vindicate from censure the 
 most innocent, and the most delightful inter- 
 course of social kindness, or harmless and cheer- 
 ful courtesy " where virtue is, these are most 
 virtuous." But I am soliciting your attention, 
 and your feeling, to the mean and odious aggra- 
 vation to the unblushing and remorseless bar- 
 barity, of falsely aspersing the wretched woman 
 he had undone. One good he has done, he has 
 disclosed to you the point in which he can feel ; 
 for how imperious must that avarice be, which 
 '2 D 2 could
 
 404 
 
 could resort to so vile an expedient of frugality f 
 Yes, I will say, that with the common feelings of 
 a man, he would have rather suffered his thirty 
 thousand a year to go as compensation to the 
 plaintiff, than have saved a shilling of it by so vile 
 an expedient of economy. He would rather have 
 starved with her in a goal, he would rather have 
 sunk with her into the ocean, than have so vilified 
 her, than have so degraded himself. But it 
 seems, gentlemen, and indeed you have been 
 told, that long as the course of his gallantries has 
 been, and he has grown grey in the service, it is 
 the first time he has been called upon for damages 
 To how many might it have been fortunate, if 
 he had not that impunity to boast ? Your verdict 
 will, I trust, put an end to that encouragement 
 to guilt, that is built upon impunity the devil it 
 seems has saved the noble marquis harmless in 
 the past ; but your verdict will tell him the term 
 of that indemnity is expired, that his old friend 
 and banker has no more effects in his hands, and 
 that if he draws any more upon him, he must 
 pay his own bills himself. You will do much 
 good by doing so ; you may not enlighten his 
 conscience, nor touch his heart, but his frugality 
 will understand the hint. It will adopt the pru- 
 dence of age, and deter him from pursuits, in 
 which, though he may be insensible of shame, 
 he will not be regardless of expense, You will 
 do more, you will not only punish him in his 
 tender point, but you will weaken him in hia 
 itpong one, his money. We have heard much 
 
 of
 
 405 
 
 of this noble lord's wealth, and much of his ex- 
 ploits, but not much of his accomplishments or 
 his wit, I know not that his verseshave soaredeven 
 to the poet's corner. I have heard it said, that an 
 ass laden with gold could find his way through the 
 gate of the strongest city. But, gentlemen, lighten 
 the load upon his back, and you will completely 
 curtail the mischievous faculty of a grave animal 
 whose momentum lies, not in his agility, but his 
 weight, not in the quantity of motion, but the 
 quantity of his matter. There is another ground, 
 on which your are called upon to give most liberal 
 damages, and that has been laid by the unfeeling 
 vanity of the defendant. This business has been 
 marked by the most elaborate publicity. It is very 
 clear that he has been allured by the glofy of the 
 chace, and not the value of the game. The poor 
 object of his pursuit could be of no value to him, 
 or he could not have so wantonly, and cruelly, 
 and unnecessarily abused her. He might easily 
 have kept this unhappy intercourse an unsuspect- 
 ed secret. Even if he wished for elopement, he 
 might easily have so contrived it, that the place of 
 her retreat would be profoundly undiscoverable j 
 yet, though even the expense, a point so tender to 
 his delicate sensibility, of concealing, could not 
 be one fortieth of the cost of publishing her, his 
 vanity decided him in favour of glory and publi- 
 city. By that election he has in fact put forward 
 the Irish nation, and its character, so often and 
 50 variously calumniated, upon its trial before the 
 tribunal of the empire j and your verdict will 
 
 this
 
 406 
 
 this day decide, whether an Irish jury can feel 
 with justice, and spirit, upon a subject that in- 
 volves conjugial affection and comfort, domestic 
 honour and repose- the certainty of issue the 
 weight of public opinion the gilded and pre- 
 sumptuous criminality of overweening rank and 
 station. I doubt not, but he is at this moment re- 
 clined on a silken sofa, anticipating that submis- 
 sive and modest verdict, by which you will lean 
 gently on his errors; and expecting from your 
 patriotism, no doubt, that you will think again, 
 and again, before you condemn any great portion 
 of the immense revenue of a great absentee, to be 
 detained in the nation that produced it, instead 
 of being transmitted, as it ought, to be expended 
 in the splendour of another country. He is now 
 probably waiting for the arrival of the report of 
 this day, which I understand, a famous note-taker 
 has been sent hither to collect. (Let not the gen- 
 tleman be disturbed.) Gentleman, let me assure 
 you! it is more, much more the trial of you, than 
 of the noble marquis, of which this imported re- 
 corder is at this moment collecting the materials. 
 His noble employer is now. expecting a report to 
 the following effect : Such a day came on to be 
 tried at Ennis, by a special jury, the cause of 
 Charles Massy against the most noble, the mar- 
 quis of Headfort. It appeared, that the plain- 
 tiff's wife was young, beautiful, and captivating. 
 The plaintiff himself, a person, fond of this beau- 
 tiful creature to distraction, and both doating on 
 their child; but the noble marquis approached 
 
 her,
 
 407 
 
 her, the plume of glory nodded on his head. Not 
 the goddess Minerva, but the goddess Venus had 
 lighted up his casque, "the fire that never tires 
 such as many a lady gay had been dazzled with 
 before." At the first advance she trembled, at 
 the second she struck to the redoubted son of 
 Mars, and pupil of Venus. The jury saw it was 
 not his fault; (it was an Irish jury) they felt com- 
 passion for the tenderness of the mother's heart, 
 and for the warmth of the lover's passion. The 
 jury saw on the one side, a young, entertaining 
 gallant, on the other, a beauteous creature, of 
 charms irresistible. They recollected, that Jupi- 
 ter had been always successful in his amours, al- 
 though Vulcan had not always escaped some awk- 
 ward accidents. The jury was composed of fa- 
 thers, brothers, husbands but they had not the 
 vulgar jealousy, that views little things of that 
 sort with rigour, and wishing to assimilate their 
 country in every respect to England not that 
 they are united to it, they, like English gentle- 
 men, returned to their box with a verdict of six- 
 pence damages and six-pence costs." Let this be 
 sent to England. I promise you, your odious se- 
 cret will not be kept better than that of the 
 wretched Mrs. Massy. There is not a bawdy 
 chronicle in London, in which the epitaph which 
 you would have written on yourselves will not be 
 published, and our enemies will delight in the 
 spectacle of our precocious depravity, in seeing 
 that we can be rotten before we are ripe. I do 
 not suppose it, I do not, cannot, will not believe 
 
 it;
 
 408 
 
 it; I will not harrow up myself with the antici- 
 pated apprehension. 
 
 There is another consideration, gentlemen, 
 which I think most imperiously demands even a 
 vindictive awardof exemplary damages and that 
 is the breach of hospitality. To us peculiarly 
 does it belong to avenge the violation of its altar. 
 The hospitality of other countries is a matter of 
 necessity or convention, in savage nations of the 
 first, in polished, of the latter ; but the hospitality 
 of an Irishman is not the running account of post 
 ed and ledgered courtesies, as in other countries; 
 it springs like all his qualities, l>is faults, his 
 virtues directly from his heart. The heart of an 
 Irishman is by nature bold, and he confides ; it 
 is tender, and he loves; it is generous, and he 
 gives ; it is social, and he is hospitable. This 
 sacrilegious intruder has profaned the religion of 
 that sacred altar so elevated in our worship, so 
 precious to our devotion ; and it is our privilege 
 to avenge the crime. You must either pull down 
 the altar, and abolish the worship, or you must 
 preserve its sanctity undebased. There is no al- 
 ternative between the universal exclusion of all 
 mankind from your threshold, and the most 
 rigorous punishment of him who is admitted and, 
 betrays. This defendant has been so trusted, 
 has so betrayed, and you ought to make him a 
 most signal example. 
 
 Gentlemen, I am the more disposed to feel 
 
 the
 
 409 
 
 the strongest indignation and abhorrence at this 
 odious conduct of the defendant, when I consider 
 the deplorable condition to which he has reduced 
 the plaintiff, and perhaps the still more deplora- 
 ble one that the plaintiff has in prospect before 
 him. What a progress has he to travel through, 
 before he can attain the peace and tranquillity 
 which he has lost? How like the wounds of the 
 body are those of the mind ! how burning the 
 fever ! how painful the suppuration ! how slow, 
 how hesitating, how relapsing the process to 
 convalescence ? Through what a variety of suf- 
 fering, what new scenes and changes, must my 
 unhappy client pass, ere he can re-attain, should 
 he ever re-attain, that health of soul of which 
 he has been despoiled by the cold and deliberate 
 machinations of thispractised and gilded seducer? 
 If, instead of drawing upon his incalculable 
 wealth for a scanty retribution, you were to 
 estop the progress of his despicable achievements 
 by reducing him to actual poverty, you could 
 not even so punish him beyond the scope of his 
 offence, nor reprise the plaintiff beyond the 
 measure [of his suffering. Let me remind you, 
 that in this action, the law not only empowers 
 you, but that its policy commands you, to con- 
 sider the public example, as well as the individual 
 injury, when you adjust the amount of your 
 verdict. I confess I am most anxious that 
 you should acquit yourselves worthily upon this 
 important occasion. I am addressing you as 
 fathers, husbands, brothers. I ana anxious that 
 
 a feelinsr
 
 410 
 
 a feeling of those high relations should enter 
 into, and give dignity to your verdict. But I 
 confess, I feel a ten-fold solicitude when I re- 
 member that I am addressing you as my country- 
 men, as Irishmen, whose characters as jurors, 
 as gentlemen, must find either honour or degra- 
 dation in the result of your decision. Small as 
 must be the distributive share of that national 
 estimation, that can belong to so unimportant 
 individual as myself, yet I do own I am 
 tremblingly solicitous for his fate. Perhaps it 
 appears of more value to me, because it is em- 
 barked on the same bottom with yours ; perhaps 
 the community of peril, of common safety, or 
 common wreck, gives a consequence to my share 
 of the risk, which I could not be vain enough 
 to give it, if it were not raised to it by that mu- 
 tuality. But why stoop to think at all of myself^ 
 when I know that' you, gentlemen of the jury, 
 when I know that our country itself are my 
 clients on this day, and must abide the alterna- 
 tive of honour, or of infamy, as you shall decide. 
 But I will not despond, I will not dare to 
 despond. I have every trust, and hope, and 
 confidence in you. And to that hope I will add 
 my most fervent prayer to the God of all truth 
 and justice, that you may so decide, as to pre- 
 serve to yourselves while you live, the most 
 delightful of all recollections, that of acting 
 justly, and to transmit to your children the 
 most precious of all inheritances, the memory 
 of your virtue. 
 
 SPEECH
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 JOHN PIIILPOT CURRAN, ESQ. 
 
 IN THE CAUSE OF THE KING 
 
 AGAINST THE 
 
 IIOX. MR. JUSTICE JOHNSON, 
 
 IN THE 
 
 COURT OF EXCHEQUER, 
 
 DUBLIN, FEBRUARY 4, 1805 
 
 An act of Parliament was passed in England in the year 
 1C04, and received the royal assent on the 20th July that 
 year, which was entitled, an act to render more easy the 
 apprehending and bringing to trial, offenders escaping from 
 one part of the united kingdom to the other, and also from 
 one country to another. 
 
 The fourth section, on the construction of which the 
 argument in the court of exchequer arose, is as follows: 
 
 And, for the remedy of the like inconveniency by the 
 escape into Ireland of persons guilty of crimes in England 
 or Scotland respectively, be it further enacted, that, from 
 and after the 1st day of August, 100-4, if any person or 
 persons, against whom a warrant shall be issued by any of 
 the judges of his majesty's court of king's-bench, or of the 
 courts of great sessions in Wales, or any justice of oyer and 
 tei miner or gaol delivery, or any justice or justices of the 
 peace of any county, stcwartry, riding, division, city, liberty, 
 town, or place, within England or Scotland respectively, 
 or other persons having authority to issue the same within 
 England or Scotland respectively, for any crime or offence 
 against the laws of England or Scotland respectively, shall 
 escape, go into, reside, or be in any place of that part of 
 
 the
 
 412 
 
 the united kingdom called Ireland, it shall and may be lawful 
 for any justice of the peace of the county or place in Ireland, 
 whither or where such person or persons shall escape, go into, 
 or reside, or be, to indorse his name on such warrant, which 
 warrant so indorsed shall be a sufficient authority to the 
 person or persons bringing such warrant, and to all person* 
 to whom such warrant was originally directed, and also to 
 all sheriffs-officers, constables, and other peace-officers, of 
 the county or place in Ireland where such warrant shall he 
 so indorsed, to execute the said warrant in the county or 
 place in Ireland where it is so indorsed, by apprehending 
 the person or persons against whom such warrant may be 
 granted* and to convey him, her, or them by the most 
 direct way, into England or Scotland respectively, and be- 
 fore one of the justices of peace of the county or stewartry, 
 in England or Scotland respectively, living near the place 
 and in the county where he, she, or they shall arrive and 
 land, which justice of peace is hereby authorized and required 
 to proceed with regard to such person or persons as if such 
 person or persons had been legally apprehended in the said 
 county or steivartry of England or Scotland respectively. 
 
 MR. CURRAN 
 
 MY LORDS, 
 
 IT has fallen to my lot, either fortunately, or un- 
 fortunately, as the event maybe, to rise as counsel 
 for my client on this important and momentous 
 occasion. I appear before you, my lords, in 
 consequence of a writ issued by his majesty, com- 
 manding that cause be shewn to this his cowr/why 
 his subject has been deprived of his liberty ; and 
 upon the cause shewn in obedience to this writ, it 
 
 is
 
 413 
 
 is myduty to address you on the most awful ques- 
 tion, if awfulness is to be judged by consequences 
 and events, on which you have been ever called 
 upon to decide. Sorry am I that the task has not 
 been confided to more adequate powers ; but, fee- 
 ble as they are, they will at least not shrink from 
 it. I move you therefore that Mr. justice John- 
 son be released from illegal imprisonment. 
 
 I cannot but observe the sort of scenic prepara- 
 tion with which this sad drama is sought to be 
 brought forward. In part I approve it ; in part 
 it excites my disgust and indignation. I am glad 
 to find that the attorney and solicitor-general, the 
 natural and official prosecutors for the state, do 
 not appear; and I infer from their absence, that 
 his excellency the lord lieutenant disclaims any 
 personal concern in this execrable transaction. 
 I think it does him much honour; it is a conduct 
 that equally agrees with the dignity of his cha- 
 racter and the feelings of his heart. To his pri- 
 vate virtues, whenever he is left to their influence, 
 I willingly concur in giving the most unqualified 
 tribute of respect. And I do firmly believe, it 
 is with no small regret that he suffers his name to 
 be even formally made use of, in avowing for a 
 return of one of the judges of the land, with as 
 much indifference and nonchalance as if he were 
 a beast of the plough. I observe too, the dead 
 silence into which the public is frowned by au- 
 thority for the sad occasion. No man dares to 
 mutter j no newspaper dares to whisper that such 
 
 a question
 
 414 
 
 a question is afloat. It seems an enquiry among 
 the tombs, or rather in the shades beyond them. 
 
 Ibant sold sub nocte per umbram. 
 I am glad it is so I am glad of this factitious 
 dumbness; for if murmurs dared to become audi- 
 ble, my voice would be too feeble to drown them ; 
 but when all is hushed when nature sleeps 
 
 Cum quics mortalibus cegris, 
 the weakest voice is heard the shepherd's whis- 
 tle shoots across the listening darkness of the in- 
 terminable heath, and gives notice that the wolf 
 is upon his walk, and the same gloom and still- 
 ness that tempt the monster to come abroad, fa- 
 cilitate the communication of the warning to be- 
 ware. Yes, through that silence the voice shall 
 be heard; yes, through that silence the shepherd 
 shall be put upon his guard; yes, through that 
 silence shall the felon savage be chased into the 
 toil. Yes, my lords, I feel myself cheered and 
 impressed by the composed and dignified atten- 
 tion with which I see you are disposed to hear me 
 on the most important question that has ever 
 been subjected to your consideration; the most 
 important to the dearest rights of the human be- 
 ing; the most deeply interesting and animating 
 that can beat in his heart, or burn upon his 
 tongue Oh! how recreating is it to feel that oc- 
 casions may arise in which the soul of man may 
 resume her pretensions ; in which she hears the 
 voice of nature 'whisper to her, os homini sublime 
 dedi ccvlumqite tueri ; in which even I can look up 
 
 with
 
 415 
 
 with calm security to the court, and down with 
 the most profound contempt upon the reptile I 
 mean to tread upon! I say, reptile; because, when 
 the proudest man in society becomes so much 
 the dupe of his childish malice, as to wish to in- 
 flict on the object of his vengeance the poison of 
 his sting, to do a reptile's work he must shrink 
 into a reptile's dimension ; and so shrunk, the 
 only way to assail him is to tread upon him. But 
 to the subject : this writ of habeas corpus has 
 had a return. That return states, that lord Ellen- 
 borough chief justice of England, issued a war- 
 rant reciting the foundation of this dismal trans- 
 action : that one of the clerks of the crown-office 
 had certified to him, that an indictment had been 
 found at Westminster, charging the honourable 
 Robert Johnson, late of Westminster, one of the 
 justices of his majesty's court of common-pleas in 
 Ireland, with the publication of certain slander- 
 ous libels against the government of that coun- 
 try; against the person of his excellency lord 
 Hardwicke, lord lieutenant of that country; 
 against the person of lord Redesdale, the chan- 
 cellor of Ireland, and against the person of Mr. 
 justice Osborne, one of the justices of the court 
 of king's-bench in Ireland. One of the clerks of 
 the crown-office, it seems, certified all this to his 
 lordship. How many of those there are, or who 
 they are, or which of them so certified, we can- 
 not presume to guess, because the learned and 
 noble lord is silent as to those circumstances. 
 We are only informed that one of them made that 
 
 important
 
 416 
 
 important communication to his lordship. Ifc 
 puts me in mind of the information given to one 
 of Fielding's justices:." did not," says his wor- 
 ship's wife, " the mark with the valet make his 
 jidavy that you was avagram ?" I suppose it was 
 some such petty-bag officer who gave lord Ellen- 
 borough to understand that Mr. justice Johnson 
 was indicted. And being thus given to under- 
 stand -and be informed, he issued his warrant to 
 a gentleman, no doubt of great respectability, a 
 Mr. Williams, his tipstaff, to take the body of 
 Mr. justice Johnson and bring him before a ma- 
 gistrate, for the purpose of giving bail to appear 
 within the first eight days of this term, so that 
 there might be a trial within the sittings after; 
 and if, by the blessing of God, he should be 
 convicted, then to appear on the return of the 
 jpostea, to be dealt with according to law. 
 
 Perhaps it may be a question for you to de- 
 cide, whether that warrant, such as it may be, is 
 not now absolutely spent; and, if not, how a 
 man can contrive to be hereafter in England on 
 a day that is past ? And high as the opinion may 
 be in England of Irish understanding, it will be 
 something beyond even Irish exactness to bind 
 him to appear in England, not a fortnight hence, 
 but a fortnight ago. I wish, my lords, we had 
 the heart of giving time this retrograde motion* 
 If possessed of the secret, we might be disposed 
 to improve it from fortnights into years. 
 
 There
 
 417 
 
 There is something not incurious in the juxta- 
 position of signatures. The warrant is signed 
 by the chief justice of aty England. In music, 
 the ear is reconciled to strong transitions of 
 key by a preparatory resolution of the interven- 
 ing discords ; but here, alas ! there is nothing 
 to break the fall: the august title of Ellen- 
 borough is followed by the unadorned name of 
 brother Bell, the sponsor of his lordship's 
 warrant. Let me not, however, be suffered to 
 deem lightly of the compeer of the noble and 
 learned lord. Mr. justice Bell ought to be a 
 lawyer; I remember him myself long a crier* 
 to, and I know his credit with, the state ; he has 
 had anoliprosequi. I see not therefore why it may 
 not be fairly said " fortunati ambo /" It appears 
 by his return, that Mr. justice Bell indorses this 
 bill of lading to another consignee, Mr. Medlicot, 
 a most respectable gentleman ; he describes 
 himself upon the warrant, and he gives a delight- 
 ful specimen of the administration of justice, and 
 the calendar of saints in office ; he describes him- 
 self a justice and a peace-officer that is, a ma- 
 gistrate and a catchpole : So that he may re- 
 ceive informations as a justice ; if he can write, 
 he may draw them as a clerk ; if not, he can ex- 
 ecute the warrant as bailiff; and, if it be a capital 
 offence, you may see the culprit, the justice, 
 the clerk, the bailiff, and the hangman, together 
 
 * This gentleman was formerly crier to the late baron Ha- 
 milton, when the baron went circuit as a judge. 
 
 2 E in
 
 418 
 
 in the same cart; and, though he may not write, 
 he may " ride and tie !" What a pity that their 
 journeyshould not be farther continued together! 
 That, as they had been " lovely in their lives, so 
 in their deaths they might not be divided !" I 
 find, my lords, I have undesigrtedly raised a 
 laugh ; never did I less feel merriment. Let not 
 mebe condemned let notthelaugh be mistaken. 
 Never was Mr. Hume more just than when he 
 says, that " in many tilings the extremes are 
 nearer to one another than the means.'* Few are 
 those events that are produced by vice and folly, 
 that fire the heart with indignation, that do not 
 also shake the sides with laughter. So when the 
 two famous moralists of old beheld the sad spec- 
 tacle of life, the one burst into laughter, the 
 other melted into tears : they were each of them 
 right, and equally right. 
 
 Si credos utrique 
 
 Res sunt humane Jiebile ludibrium. 
 But these laughs are the bitter ireful laughs of 
 honest indignation, or they are the laughs of 
 hectic melancholy despair. 
 
 It is stated to you, my lords, that these two 
 justices, if justices they are to be called, went to 
 the house of the defendant. I am speaking to 
 judges, but I disdain the paltry insult it would be 
 to them, were I to appeal to any wretched sym- 
 pathy of situation. I feel I am above it. I know 
 the bench is above it. But I know, too, that 
 there are ranks, and degrees, and decorums to be 
 
 observed ;
 
 419 
 
 observed ; and, if I had a harsh communication 
 to make to a venerable judge, and a similar one 
 to his crier, I should certainly address them in 
 a very different language indeed. A judge of 
 the land, a man not young, of infirm health, 
 has the sanctuary of his habitation broken open 
 by these two persons, who set out with him for 
 the coast, to drag him from his country, to 
 hurry him to a strange land by the " most direct 
 way !" till the king's writ stopt the malefactors, 
 and left the subject of the king a waif dropt in 
 the pursuit. 
 
 i 
 
 Is it for nothing, my lords, I say this ? Is it 
 without intention I state the facts in this way? 
 It is with every intention. It is the duty of the 
 public advocate not so to put forward the object 
 of public attention, as that the skeleton only shall 
 appear, without flesh, or feature, or complexion. 
 I mean every thing that ought to be meant in a 
 court of justice. I mean not only that this exe- 
 crable attempt shall be intelligible to the court as 
 a matter of law, but shall be understood by the 
 world as an act of state. If advocates had always 
 the honesty and the courage, upon occasions like 
 this, to despise all personal considerations, and to 
 think of no consequence but what may result to 
 the public from the faithful discharge of their sa- 
 cred trust, these phrenetic projects of power, these 
 atrocious aggressions on the liberty and happiness 
 of men, would not be so often attempted; for, 
 though a certain class of delinquents .may be 
 2 E 2 screened
 
 420 
 
 screened from punishment, they cannot be pro- 
 tected from hatred and derision. The great 
 tribunal of reputation, will pass its inexorable 
 sentence upon their crimes, their follies, or their 
 incompetency ; they will sink themselves under 
 the consciousness of their situation ; they will 
 feel the operation of an acid so neutralizing the 
 malignity of their natures, as to make them at 
 least harmless, if it cannot make them honest. 
 Nor is there any thing of risk in the conduct I 
 recommend. If the fire be hot, or the window 
 cold, turn your back to neither ; turn your face. 
 80, if you are obliged to arraign the acts of those 
 in high station, approach them not in malice, 
 nor favour, nor fear. Remember, that it is the 
 condition of guilt to tremble, and of honesty 
 to be bold ; remember, that your false fear 
 can only give them false courage : that while 
 you nobly avow the cause of truth, you will 
 find her shield an impenetrable protection ; and 
 that no attack can be either hazardous or ineffi- 
 cient, if it be just and resolute. If Nathan had 
 not fortified himself in the boldness and direct- 
 ness of his charge, he might have been hanged 
 for the malice of his parable. 
 
 It is, my lords, in this temper of mind, be- 
 fitting every advocate who is worthy of the 
 name, deeply and modestly sensible of his duty, 
 and proud of his privilege, equally exalted 
 above the meanness of temporizing or of offend- 
 ing, most averse from the unnecessary infliction 
 
 of
 
 421 
 
 of pain upon any man or men whatsoever, that 
 I now address you on a question, the most 
 vitally connected with the liberty and well-being 
 of every man within the limits of the British 
 empire ; which being decided one way, he may 
 be a freeman ; which being decided the other, 
 he must be a slave. It is not the Irish nation 
 only that is involved in this question : every 
 member of the three realms is equally embark- 
 ed ; and would to God all England could listen 
 to what passes here this day ! they would regard 
 us with more sympathy and respect, when the 
 proudest Briton saw tj^at his liberty was defended 
 in what he would call a provincial court, and by 
 a provincial advocate. The abstract and general 
 question for your consideration is this : my 
 lord Ellenborough has signed with his own hand 
 a warrant, which lias been indorsed by Mr. Bell, 
 an Irish justice, for seizing the person of Mr. 
 justice Johnson in Ireland for conveying his 
 person by the most direct way, in such manner 
 as these bailiffs may choose, across the sea, and 
 afterwards to the city of Westminster, to take 
 his trial for an alleged libel against the persons 
 entrusted with the government of Ireland, and to 
 take that trial in a country where the supposed 
 offender did not live at the time of the supposed 
 offence, nor since a period of at least eighteen 
 months previous thereto, has ever resided; where 
 thesubject of his accusation is perfectly unknown; 
 where the conduct of his prosecutors, which has 
 been the subject of the supposed libel, is equally 
 
 unknown ;
 
 422 
 
 unknown ; where he has not the power of com- 
 pelling the attendance of a single witness for his 
 defence. Under that warrant he has been 
 dragged from his family ; under that warrant 
 he was on his way to the water's edge : his 
 transportation has been interrupted by the writ 
 before you, and upon the return of that writ 
 arises the question upon which you are to decide, 
 the legality or illegality of so transporting him 
 for the purpose of trial. I am well aware, my 
 lords, of the limits of the present discussion ; 
 if the law were clear in favour of the prosecu- 
 tors, a most momentous question might arise 
 how far they may be delinquents in daring to 
 avail themselves of such a law for such a pur- 
 pose? but I am aware that such is not the 
 present question. I am aware that this is no court 
 of impeachment; and therefore that your enquiry 
 is, notwhether such a power hath been criminally 
 used, but whether it doth in fact exist. The arrest 
 of the defendant has been justified by the ad- 
 vocates of the crown under the forty-fourth of his 
 present majesty. I have had the curiosity to en- 
 quire into the history of that act, and I find, that 
 in the month of May, 1 804, the brother-in-law of 
 one of the present prosecutors obtained leave to 
 bring in a bill to " render more easy the appre- 
 " hending and bringing to trial offenders escap- 
 " ing from one part of the united kingdom toan- 
 " other, and also from one county to another :" 
 that bill was brought in ; it travelled in the cara- 
 van of legislation unheeded and unnoticed, re- 
 tarded
 
 423 
 
 tarded by no difficulties of discussion or debate, 
 and in due fulness of season it passed into a law, 
 which was to commence from and after the 1st 
 of August, 1 804. This act, like a young Her- 
 cules, began its exploits in the cradle. In the 
 November following the present warrant was 
 issued, under its supposed authority. Let me 
 not be understood to say that the act has been 
 slided through an unsuspecting legislature, under 
 any particular influence, or for any particular 
 purpose : that any such man could be found, 
 or any such influence exist, or any such lethargy 
 prevail, would not, perhaps, be decent to sup- 
 pose ; still less do I question the legislative 
 authority of parliament. We all know that a 
 parliament may attaint itself; and that its omni- 
 potence may equally extend in the same way to 
 the whole body of the people. We know also 
 that most unjust and cruel acts of attainder 
 have been obtained by corrupt men in bad 
 times ; and if I could bring myself to say, which 
 I do not, that this act was contrived for the 
 mere purpose of destroying an obnoxious in- 
 dividual, I should not hesitate to call it the most 
 odious species of attainder that could be found 
 upon the records of legislative degradation ; be- 
 cause, for the simple purpose of extinguishing an 
 individual, it would sweep the liberty of every 
 being in the state into the vortex of general and 
 undistinguished destruction. But these are points 
 of view upon which the minds of the people of 
 Ireland and England may dwell with terror, or 
 
 indignation,
 
 424 
 
 indignation, or apathy, according as they may 
 be fitted for liberty or for chains ; but they are 
 not points for the court ; and so I pass them by. 
 The present arrest and detention are defended 
 under the forty-fourth of the king : are they 
 warranted by that act ? That is the only question 
 for you to decide ; and you will arrive at that 
 decision in the usual course, by enquiring, first, 
 how the law stood before upon the subject ; 
 next, what the imperfection or grievance of 
 that law was ; and thirdly what is the remedy 
 intended to be applied by the act in question ? 
 
 First, then, how stood the law before? 
 upon this part it would be a parade of useless 
 learning to go farther back than the statute of 
 Charles, the Habeas Corpus act, which is so 
 justly called the second magna charta of British 
 liberty: what was the occasion of the law ? 
 the arbitrary transportation of the subject be- 
 yond the realm ; that base and malignant war, 
 which the odious and despicable minions of 
 power are for ever ready to wage against all 
 those who are honest and bold enough to 
 despise, to expose, and to resist them. Such 
 is .the oscitancy of man, that he/ lies torpid for 
 ages under these aggressions, until at last some 
 signal abuse, the violation of Lucrece, the death 
 of Virginia, the oppression of William Tell, 
 shake him from his slumber. For years had those 
 drunken gambols of power been played in Engr 
 land ; for years had the waters of bitterness been 
 rising to the brim j at last a single drop caused 
 
 them
 
 425 
 
 them to overflow and what does that great 
 statute do? It defines and asserts the right, it 
 points out the abuse, and it endeavours to secure 
 the right, and toguard against the abuse,by giving 
 redress to the sufferer, and by punishing the of- 
 fender. For years had it been the practice to 
 transport obnoxious persons out of the realm into 
 distant parts under the pretext of punishment, 
 or of safe custody. Well might they have said to 
 be sent " to that undiscovered country from 
 " whose bourne no traveller returns," for of these 
 wretched travellers how few ever did return? 
 But of that flagrant abuse this statute has laid 
 the axe to the root: it prohibits the abuse; it de- 
 clares such detention or removal illegal; it gives 
 an action against all persons concerned in the of- 
 fence, by contriving, writing, signing, counter- 
 signing, such warrant, or advising or assisting 
 therein. That you may form a just estimate of 
 the rights which were to be secured, examine 
 the means by which the infringement was in fu- 
 ture to be prevented and punished. The in- 
 jured party has a civil action against the offen- 
 ders ; but the legislature recollected, that the 
 sneaking unprincipled humility of a servile 
 packed jury might do homage to ministerial 
 power by compensating the individual with no- 
 minal damages. The statute does that, of which 
 I remember no other instance. It leaves the 
 jury at liberty to give damages to any extent, 
 above five hundred pounds, but expressly for- 
 bids them to find a verdict of damages below it. 
 
 Was
 
 Was this sufficient? No. The offenders incur 
 a praemunire. They are put out of the king's 
 protection; they forfeit their lands and goods; 
 they are disabled from bearing any office of trust 
 or profit. Did the statute stop there? The le- 
 gislative saw in their prospective wisdom, that 
 the profligate favourite who had committed trea- 
 son against the king by the oppression of his sub- 
 jects, might acquire such a dominion over the 
 mind of his master, as by the exertion of prero- 
 gative to interrupt the course ofjustice, and pre- 
 vent the punishment of his crime. The king 
 cannot pardon. Are bulwarks like these ever 
 constructed to repel the incursions of a contemp- 
 tible enemy? Was it a trivial and ordinary occa- 
 sion which raised this storm of indignation in 
 the parliament of that day ? Is the ocean ever 
 lashed by the tempest to waft a feather or to 
 drown a fly ? Thus, haughtily and jealously, does 
 this statute restrain the abuses that may be com- 
 mitted against the liberty of the subject by the 
 judge, the jury, or the minister. One excep- 
 tion, and one exception only does it contain: 
 It excepts from its protection by the sixteenth 
 section, persons who may have committed any 
 " capital offence" in Scotland or Ireland. If 
 the principle of that exception were now open 
 to discussion, sure I am that much might be 
 said against its policy. On the one side, you 
 would have to consider the mischief of letting 
 this statute protect a capital offender from punish- 
 ment, by prohibiting his transmission to that 
 
 jurisdiction
 
 427 
 
 jurisdiction where his crime was committed, and 
 where alone he could be tried. On the other, you 
 would have to weigh the danger to be feared from 
 the abuse of such a power, which as the habeas 
 corpus act fetood, could not be resorted to in any 
 ordinary way ; but was confined to the soul and 
 exclusive exercise of the advisers of the preroga- 
 tive. You would have to consider whether it was 
 more likely that it would be used against the 
 guilty or the obnoxious ; whether it was more 
 likely to be used as an instrument of justice 
 against the bad, or a pretext of oppression 
 against the good; and finally, whether you might 
 not apply to the subject the humane maxim of 
 our law that better it is that one hundred guilty 
 men should escape, than that one innocent, and, 
 let MIC add, meritorious man, should suffer. But 
 our ancestors have considered the question ; they 
 have decided; and, until we are better satified 
 than I fear we can be, that we have not degene- 
 rated from their virtue, it can scarely become us 
 to pass any light or hasty condemnation upon 
 their wisdom. In this great statute, then my 
 lords, you have the line of demarcation between 
 the prerogative and the people, as well as between 
 the criminal law and the subject, defined with all 
 the exactness, and guarded by every precaution 
 that human prudence could devise. Wretched 
 must that legislature be, whose acts you cannot 
 trace to the first unchangeable principles of ra- 
 tional prerogative, of civil liberty, of equal jus- 
 tice! In this act you trace them all distinctlv.
 
 428 
 
 By this act you have a solemn legislative declara- 
 tion, " that it is incompatible with liberty to 
 " send any subject out of the realm, ander pre- 
 *' tence of any crime supposed or alleged to .be 
 *' committed in a foreign jurisdiction, except that 
 tc crime be capital." Such were the bulwarks 
 which our ancestors drew about the sacred tem- 
 ple of liberty such the ramparts by which they 
 sought to bar out the ever-toiling ocean of arbi- 
 trary power; and thought, (generous credulity!) 
 that they had barred it out from their posterity for 
 ever. Little did they foresee the future race of 
 vermin that would work their way through those 
 mounds, and let back the inundation; little did 
 they foresee that their labours were so like those 
 frail and transient works that threatened for a 
 while the haughty crimes and battlements of Troy 
 but so soon vanished before the force of the tri- 
 dent and the impulse of the waters; or that they 
 were still more like the forms which the infant's 
 finger traces upon the beach ; the next breeze, 
 the next tide erases them, and confounds them 
 with the barren undistinguished strand. The 
 ill-omened bird that lights upon it sees nothing to 
 mark, to allure, or to deter, but finds all one ob^ 
 literated unwaried waste ; 
 
 Et sola secum sicca spatiatur arena. 
 Still do I hope that this sacred bequest of our an- 
 cestors will have a more prosperous fortune, and 
 be preserved by a more religious and successful 
 care, a polar star to the wisdom of the legislator, 
 and the integrity of the judge. 
 
 As
 
 As such will I suppose its principle not yet 
 brought into disgrace; and as such, with your 
 permission, will I still presume to argue upon 
 that principle. 
 
 So stood the law till the two acts of the twenty- 
 third and twenty-fourth ofGeorge II. which relate 
 wholly to cases between county and county in 
 England. Next followed the act of the thirteenth 
 of his present majesty, which was merely a regu- 
 lation between England and Scotland. And next 
 came the act of the forty-fourth of the present 
 reign, upon which you are now called on to de- 
 cide, which as between county and county is au 
 incorporation of the two acts ofGeorge II: and 
 as between England, Scotland, and Ireland is 
 nearly a transcript of the thirteenth of the king. 
 
 Under the third and fourth section of this last 
 act the learned counsel for the learned prosecu- 
 tors (for really I think it candid to acquit the 
 lord lieutenant of the folly or the shame of this 
 business, and to suppose that he is as innocent 
 of the project from his temper, as he must from 
 his education be ignorant of the subject) endea- 
 vour to justify this proceeding. The construc- 
 tion of this act they broadly and expressly con- 
 tend to be this : first, they assert that it extends 
 not only to the higher crimes, but to all offences 
 whatsoever : secondly, that it extends not only to 
 persons who may have committed offences within 
 any given jurisdictions, and afterwards escaped 
 or gone out of such jurisdictions, but to all per- 
 sons
 
 430 
 
 sons whether so escaping or going out or not : 
 thirdly, that it extends to constructive offences, 
 that is, to offences committed against the laws of 
 certain jurisdictions, committed in places not 
 within them, by persons that never put their feet 
 within them, but by construction of law commit- 
 ting them within such jurisdiction, and of course 
 triable therein: fourthly, that it extends pecu- 
 liarly to the case of libels against the persons en- 
 trusted with the powers of government or with 
 offices in the state and fifthly, that it extends 
 not only to offences committed after the com- 
 mencement of the act, but also to offences at any 
 period however remotely previous to the existence 
 of the statute ; that is, that it is to have an ex post 
 facto operation. The learned prosecutors have 
 been forced into the necessity of supporting these 
 last monstrous positions, because upon the return 
 to the writ, and upon the affidavits it appears, and 
 has been expressly admitted in the argument: 
 first, that the supposed libel upon these noble and 
 learned proscecutors relates to the unhappy cir- 
 cumstances that took place in Ireland on the 
 twenty-third of July, 18OS, and of course must 
 have been published subsequent thereto: and 
 secondly, that Mr. justice Johnson from the be- 
 ginning of 1 802 to the present hour was never for 
 a moment in England but was constantly resident 
 in Ireland; so that his guilt, whatever it be, must 
 arise from some act of necessity, committed in 
 Ireland, and by no physical possibility committed 
 or capable of being committed in England : these 
 are the positions upon which a learned chancel- 
 lor
 
 431 
 
 lor and a learned judge come forward to support 
 their cause and to stake their character, each in 
 the face of his country, and both in the face of 
 the British empire : these are the positions, 
 which, thank God, it belongs to my nature to 
 abhor, and to my education to despise, and which 
 it is this day my most prompt and melancholy 
 duty to refute and to resist most prompt in obey- 
 ing; most grieved at the occasion that calls for 
 such obedience. 
 
 We must now examine this act of the forty- 
 fourth of the king, and in doing so I trust you will 
 seek some nobler assistance than can be found in 
 the principles or the practice, of day-rules or side- 
 bar motions ; something more worthy a liberal and 
 learned court, acting under a religious sense of 
 their duty to their king, their country, and their 
 God, than the feeble and pedantic aid of a stunt- 
 ed verbal interpretation, straining upon its tip- 
 toe to peep over the syllable that stands be- 
 tween it and meaning. If your object was mere- 
 ly to see if its words could be tortured into a sub- 
 mission to a vindictiv e interpretation, you would 
 have only to indorse the construction that these 
 learned prosecutors have put upon it, and that 
 with as much grave deliberation as Mr. justice 
 Bell has vouchsafed to endorse the warrant which 
 my lord. Ellenborough has thought fit to issue 
 under its authority. You would then have only 
 to look at it, ut'legideius quidam cautus atque. 
 actus, pruccentor. 
 
 Lord
 
 432 
 
 Lord Avonmore. No, Mr. Curran, you for- 
 get; it is not prcecentor, it is leguleius quidam 
 cautus atque acutus,prceco actionum, cantor forma- 
 rum, auceps syllabarum. 
 
 Mr. Curran. I thank you, my lord, for the 
 assistance ; and I am the more grateful, because, 
 when I consider the laudable and successful efforts 
 that have been made of late to make science do- 
 mestic and familiar, and to emancipate her from 
 the trammels of scholarship, as well as the just 
 suspicion under which the harbourers and abet- 
 tors of those outlawed classics have fallen, I see 
 at what a risk you have ventured to help me out. 
 And yet see, my lord, if you are prudent in trust- 
 ing yourself to the honour of an accomplice. 
 Think, should I be prosecuted for this misprision 
 of learning, if I could resist the temptation of es- 
 caping by turning evidence against so notorious 
 a delinquent as you, my good lord, and so con- 
 fessedly more criminal than myself, or perhaps 
 than any other man in the empire*. 
 
 To examine this act then, my lords, we must 
 revert to the three English statutes of which it is 
 a transcript. The first of these is the twenty- 
 third of George II. cap. 26. sect. 11. 
 
 So much of the title as relates to our present en- 
 quiry is "for the apprehending of persons in any 
 
 * Lord Avonmore may be justly ranked amongst the first 
 classical scholars in either Ireland or England. They who 
 know him, kuo\v this. 
 
 " county
 
 433 
 
 " county or place upon warrants granted by jus- 
 " tices of the peace in any other county or place." 
 
 
 See now sect. 11, that contains the preamble 
 
 and enaction as to this subject : 
 
 " And whereas it frequently happens that per- 
 " sons, against whom warrants are granted by 
 "justices of the peace for the several counties 
 " within this kingdom, escape into other counties 
 " or places out of the jurisdiction of thejustices 
 " of the peace granting such warrants., and there- 
 " by avoid beingpunished for the offences where- 
 ' with they are charged: For remedy whereof, 
 " be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, that 
 " from and after the twenty-fourth day of June, 
 " one thousand seven hundred and fifty, in case 
 " any person against whom a legal warrant shall 
 " be issued by any justice or justices of the peace 
 " for any county, riding, division, city, liberty, 
 " town or place within this kingdom, shall 
 " escape or go into any other county, riding, 
 " division, city, liberty, town or place out of the 
 "jurisdiction of the justice or justices granting 
 " such warrant as aforesaid, it shall and may be 
 " lawful for any justice of the peace of the coun- 
 " ty, riding, division, city, liberty, town, or 
 " place, to which such person shall have gone 
 " or escaped, to endorse such warrant, upon ap- 
 c plication made to him for that purpose, and to 
 " cause the person against whom the same shall 
 " have been issued to be apprehended and sent 
 
 2 F " t
 
 434 
 
 " to the justice or justices who granted such war- 
 <c rant, or some other justice or justices of the 
 " county, riding division, city, liberty, town or 
 " place, from whence such person shall have 
 " gone or escaped* to the end that he or she may 
 *' be dealt with according to law, any law or 
 " usage to the contrary notwithstanding/* 
 
 This act was amended by the twenty-fourth of 
 the same reign, the title of which was, " An act 
 " for amending and making more effectual a 
 " clause in an act passed in the last session of 
 *' parliament for the apprehending of persons in 
 " any county or place upon warrants granted by 
 "justices of the peace of any county or place." 
 
 It then recites the llth section of the twenty- 
 third of George II. and proceeds, " And whereas 
 w such offender or offenders may reside or be in 
 " some other county, riding, division, city, liber- 
 " ty, town, or place, out of the jurisdictions of 
 " the justice or justices granting such warrant, 
 " as aforesaid, before the granting such warrant, 
 " and without escaping or going out of the coun- 
 " ty, riding, division, city, liberty, town or place 
 " after such warrant granted." 
 
 I shall reserve a more particular examination 
 of these two acts for that head of my argument 
 that shall necessarily require it. At present I 
 shall only observe: first, that they are manifestly 
 prospective; secondly, that they operate only as 
 between county and county in England; thirdly, 
 
 that
 
 435 
 
 that they clearly and distinctly go to all offenders 
 whatsoever, who may avoid trial and punishment 
 of their offences by escaping from the jurisdic- 
 tion in which they were committed, and were of 
 course triable and punishable; and fourthly, that 
 provision is made for bailing the persons so ar- 
 rested in the place where takenj if the offences 
 charged upon them were bailable by law. 
 
 In the thirteenth of his present majesty it was 
 thought fit to make a law with respect to crimi- 
 nals escaping from England to Scotland, and lice 
 'versa: of that act the present statute of the forty- 
 fourth is a transcript. And upon this statute 
 arises the first question made by the prosecutors; 
 namely, whether, like the acts of the twenty- 
 third and twenty-fourth of George II. which 
 were merely between county and county, it ex- 
 tended indiscriminately to the lowest as well as 
 the highest offences? or whether the thirteenth 
 and forty-fourth, which go to kingdom and king- 
 dom, are not confined to some and to what par- 
 ticular species of offences? the preamble to these 
 two statutes so far as they bear upon our pre- 
 sent question is contained in the third section oi 
 the forty-fourth, the act now under considera- 
 tion. And there is not a word in it that is not 
 most material. It says, " Whereas, it may fre- 
 " quently happen that felons and other malefac- 
 " tors in Ireland may make their escape into 
 " Great Britain, and also that felons and other 
 " .malefactors in Great Brilain may make their 
 2 F 2 escape
 
 430 
 
 " escape into Ireland, whereby their crimes re- 
 " main unpunished." There being no sufficient 
 provision by the laws now in force in Great Bri- 
 tain and Ireland respectively for apprehending 
 such offenders and transmitting them into that 
 partof the united kingdom in which their offences 
 were committed. For remedy whereof, &c. and 
 if any person against whom a warrant shall be 
 issued by any justice of the peace in Ireland for 
 any crime or offence against the laws of Ireland 
 shall escape, go into, reside, or be in any place 
 in England or Scotland, it shall be lawful for any 
 jnstice of the peace for the place, whither or 
 where such persons shall 'escape, &c. to endorse 
 his name on such warrant; which warrant so en- 
 dorsed shall be a sufficient authority to the per- 
 son bringing it to execute the same by appre- 
 hending the person against whom it is granted, 
 and to convey him by the most direct way into 
 Ireland and before a justice living near the plac6 
 where he shall land, which justice shall proceed 
 with regard to him as if he had been legally ap- 
 prehended in such county of Ireland. The 4th 
 section makes the same provision for escapes 
 from England or Scotland into Ireland. The 
 statute goes on and directs that the expenses of 
 such removal shall be repaid to the person de- 
 fraying the same by the treasurer of the county 
 in which the crime was committed, and the trea- 
 surer is to be allowed for it in his accounts. 
 
 To support the construction that takes in all 
 
 possible
 
 437 
 
 possible offences of all possible degrees, you have 
 been told, and upon the grave authority of nota- 
 ble cases, that the enacting part of a statute may 
 go beyond its preamble; that it cannot be re- 
 strained by the preamble, and still less by the title; 
 that here the enacting clause was the words " any 
 ." offence," and that " any offence" must extend 
 to every offence, and of course to the offence in 
 .question. If the question had been of the lighter 
 kind, you might perhaps have smiled at the pa- 
 rade of authorities produced to establish what no 
 lawyer ever thinks of denying. They would have 
 acted with more advantage to the justice of the 
 country, though perhaps not to the wishes of 
 their clients, if they had not reminded your lord- 
 ships, that in the construction of statutes, the pre- 
 amble and even the title itself may give some as- 
 sistance to the judge in developing its meaning 
 and its extent; if they had reminded you, that 
 remedial laws are to be construed liberally, and 
 penal laws with the utmost strictness and cau- 
 tion. And when they contend that a supposed 
 libel is within the letter of this law, they would 
 have done well to have added, that it is a maxim 
 that there may be cases within the letter of a 
 statute, which, notwithstanding, the judge is 
 bound to reject from its operation as being in- 
 compatible with its spirit. They would have done 
 well in adding, that the judge is bound so to con- 
 strue all laws as not to infringe upon any of the 
 known rules of religion or morality any of the 
 known rules of distributive justice any of the 
 
 established
 
 438 
 
 established principles of the liberties and rights 
 of the subject and that it is no more than a de- 
 cent and becoming deference to the legislator to 
 assume as certain, that whatever words he mav 
 have used, he could not possibly have meant any 
 thing that upon the face of it was palpably ab- 
 surd, immoral, or unjust. These are the prin- 
 ciples on which I am persuaded this court will 
 always act, because I know them to be the prin- 
 ciples on which every court of justice ought to 
 act. And I abstain studiously from appealing to 
 any judicial decisions in support of them, because 
 to fortify them by precedent or authority would 
 be to suppose them liable to be called in question. 
 There is another rule which I can easily excuse 
 the learned gentleman from adverting to, and 
 that is, that when many statutes are made in part 
 materid, any one of them is to be construed, not 
 independently of the others, but with a reference 
 to the entire code of which it is only a com- 
 ponent part. 
 
 On these grounds then, I say, the forty-fourth 
 was not, and could not be intended to go to all 
 offences whatsoever. 
 
 First because the acts of twenty-third, and 
 twenty-fourth of George II. had already described 
 " all persons" by words of the most general and 
 comprehensive kind. If the framers of the thir- 
 teenth and forty -fourth meant to carry these acts 
 to the same length, they had the words of the for- 
 mer
 
 439 
 
 mer acts before their eyes, and yet they have used 
 very different words: a clear proof, in my mind, 
 that they meant to convey a very different mean- 
 ing. In these latter acts they use very singular 
 words " felons and other malefactors;'* that 
 these words are somewhat loose and indefinite I 
 make no difficulty of admitting: but will any man 
 that understands English deny, that they describe 
 offences of a higher and most enormous degree? 
 You are told, that felon does not necessarily mean 
 a capital offender, because there are felonies not 
 capital, the name being derived from the for- 
 feiture not of life, but of property. You are also 
 told, that malefactor means generally an ill-doer, 
 and, in that sense, that every offender is a male- 
 factor; but the thirteenth and forty-fourth states 
 this class to be felons and malefactors, for whose 
 transmission from kingdom to kingdom " no suf- 
 " ficient provision was made by the laws now in 
 " force." Now I think it is not unfair reasoning 
 to say, that this act extends to a class of offenders 
 whose transmission was admitted to be not in- 
 compatible with the just liberty of the subject of 
 England; but for whose transmission the legis- 
 lature could not say there was no provision; but 
 for whose transmission it was clear that there was 
 not a sufficient provision, though there was some 
 provision. If you can find any class so circum- 
 stanced, that is exclusively liable by law to be so 
 transmitted, the meaning of the words " felons 
 " and other malefactors," becomes fixed, and 
 must necessarily refer to such class. 
 
 Now
 
 446 
 
 Now that class is expressly described in the 
 habeas corpus act, because it declares the trans- 
 mission of all persons to be illegal, except only 
 persons charged with capital crimes ; for their ap- 
 prehension and transmission there was a provi- 
 sion, the mandatumregis ; that is, the discretionary 
 fejtercise of the prerogative. That power had 
 therefore been used in cases 6f treason, as in 
 Luiidy's 'case: so in the case of lord Sanchar; 
 Carlrel, the principal irt the murder of Turner, 
 committed in London by the procurement of 
 lord Sanchar, was arrested in Scotland whither 
 he had n%d, by the order of king James I. and 
 brought back to England, where he was executed 
 for the crime, as was lord Sanchar, the accessary 
 before the fact; but Such interference of the 
 prerogative might be granted or withheld at plea- 
 sure, could be applied for only with great diffi- 
 culty and expense, and therefore might well be 
 called an insufficient provision. No provision for 
 feuch a purpose can be sufficient, unless, instead 
 of defending on the caprice of men in power, it 
 cannot be resorted to in the ordinary course of 
 law. You have therefore, my lords, to elect be- 
 tween two 'constructions; one which makes an 
 adequate provision for carrying the exception in 
 the sixteenth section of the habeas corpus act 
 into effect ; and the other, a complete and radi- 
 cal repeal of that sacred security for the freedom 
 of Englishmen. But further, the spirit and the 
 letter of the habeas corpus law is, that the party 
 arrested shall, without a moment's delay, be 
 
 bailed,
 
 441 
 
 bailed, if the offence be bailable ; but if misde- 
 meanors are within this act, then an English sub- 
 ject, arrested under an Irish warrant, cannot be 
 bailed within any part of the realm of England, 
 but must be carried forward, in the custody of 
 Irish bailiffs, to the sea-shore of his country, where 
 he is to be embarked in such vessel as they think 
 proper ; and, if it should be the good pleasure of 
 his guardians to let him land alive in any part of 
 Ireland, then, and not till then, may he apply to 
 an Irish justice to admit him to bail in a foreign 
 country, where he is a perfect stranger, and where 
 none but an idiot could expect to find any man 
 disposed to make himself responsible for his ap- 
 pearance. Can you, my lords, bring your minds 
 easily to believe that such a tissue of despotism 
 and folly could have been the sober and deliberate 
 intention of the legislature ? but further, under 
 the acts of George II. even from one county to 
 the next, the warrant by the first justice must be 
 authenticated upon oath,before it can be endorsed 
 by the second ; but, in this act, between, perhaps, 
 the remotest regions of different kingdoms, no 
 authentication is required ; and, upon theendorse- 
 ment of, perhaps, a forged warrant, which the 
 English justice has no means of enquiring into, 
 a British subjectistobe marched through England, 
 and carried over sea to Ireland, there to learn in 
 the county of Kerry, or Galway, or Deny, that 
 he had been torn from his family, his friends, his 
 business, to the annihilation of his credit, the ruin 
 of his affairs, the destruction of his health, in con- 
 sequence
 
 442 
 
 sequence of a mistake, or a practical joke, or an 
 inhuman or remorseless project of vindictive ma- 
 lice; and that he is then at liberty to return, if he 
 is able ; that he may have a good action at law 
 against the worthy and responsible bailiff that 
 abused him, if he is foolish enough to look for him, 
 or unfortunate enough to find him. Can you, my 
 lords, be brought seriously to believe, that such a 
 construction would not be the foulest aspersion 
 upon the wisdom and justice of the legislature ? 
 
 I said, my lords, that an Englishman may be 
 taken upon the endorsement of a forged warrant. 
 Let me not be supposed such a simpleton as to 
 think that the danger of forgery makes a shade of 
 difference in the subject. I know too well that 
 calendar of saints, the Irish justices ; I am too 
 much in the habit of prosecuting an4 defending 
 them everyterm and every commission, not to be 
 able to guess at what price a customer might have 
 real warrants by the dozen ; and, without much 
 sagacity, we might calculate the average expense 
 of theirendorsement atthe otherside of the water. 
 But, further yet, the act provides that the ex- 
 pense of such transmission shall be paid at the 
 end of the journey, by the place where the crime 
 has been committed but, who is to supply the 
 expenses by the way ? what sort of prosecutors do 
 you think the more likely to advance those ex- 
 penses, an angry minister, or a vindictive indivi- 
 dual? I can easily see that such a construction 
 wouldgiveamostefFectualmethod of getting rid of 
 
 a troublesome
 
 443 
 
 a troublesome political opponent ; or a rival in 
 trade ; or a rival in love; or of quickening the un- 
 dutiful lingering of an ancestor that felt not the 
 maturity of his heir; but I cannot bring myself to 
 believe, that a sober legislature, when the com- 
 mon rights of humanity seem to be beaten into 
 their last entrenchment, and to make their last 
 stand, I trust in God a successful one, in the Bri- 
 tish empire, would choose exactly that awful 
 crisis for destroying the most vital principles of 
 common justice and liberty; or of shewing to 
 these nations, that their treasure and their blood 
 were to be wasted in struggling for the noble pri- 
 vilege of holding the right of freedom, of habita- 
 tion, and of country, at the courtesy of every 
 little irritable officer of state, or of our worship- 
 ful Rivets, and Bells, and Medlicots, and their 
 trusty and well-beloved cousins and catchpoles. 
 
 But, my lords, even if the prosecutor should 
 succeed, which, for the honour and character of 
 Ireland, I trust he cannot, in wringing from the 
 bench an admission that all offences whatsoever 
 are within this act, he will have only commenced 
 his honourable cause, he will only have arrived 
 at the vestibule of atrocity. He has now to shew 
 that Mr. Johnson is within the description of a 
 malefactor, making his escape into Ireland, 
 whereby his offence may remain unpunished, and 
 liable to be arrested under a warrant endorsed in 
 that place whither or where such person shall 
 escape, go into, reside, or be. For this enquiry you 
 
 must
 
 444 
 
 must refer to the twenty-third and twenty-fourth 
 George II. The first of these, twenty-third, c. 1 1. 
 recites the mischief " that persons against 
 " whom warrants are granted escape into other 
 " counties, and therebyavoid being punished.** 
 The enacting part then gives the remedy : 
 " the justice for the place into which such person 
 " shall have gone or escaped shall endorse the 
 " original warrant, and the person accused shall 
 " thereunder be sent to the justice who granted 
 to be by him dealt with," &c. 
 
 If words can be plain, these words are so 
 they extend to persons actually committing crimes 
 within a jurisdiction, and actually escaping into 
 some other after warrant granted, and thereby 
 avoiding trial. In this act there were found two 
 defects : first, it did not comprehend persons 
 changing their abode before warrant issued, and 
 whose removing, as not being a direct flight from 
 pursuit, could scarcely be called an escape ; 
 secondly, it did not give the second justice a 
 power to bail. And here you see how essential 
 to justice it was deemed, that the person arrested 
 should be bailed on the spot and the moment of 
 arrest, if the charge was bailable. 
 
 Accordingly, the twenty-fourth of George II. 
 cap. 55. was made : After reciting the former 
 act, and the class of offenders thereby described, 
 namely, actual offenders actually escaping, it 
 recites that " whereas stick offenders may reside 
 
 " or
 
 445 
 
 ;t or be in some other county before the warrant 
 " granted, and without escaping or going out of 
 " the county after such a 1 warrant granted/* it 
 then enacts, " that the justice for such place 
 " where such person shall escape, go into, reside, 
 " or be, shall endorse, &c. and may bail if bail- 
 " able, or transmit," &c. 
 
 Now the construction of these two acts taken 
 together is manifestly this : it takes in every per- 
 son, who being in any jurisdiction, and com- 
 mitting an offence therein, escaping afterwarrant, 
 or without escaping after warrant, going into 
 some other jurisdiction, and who shall there rc- 
 side, that is, permanently abide, or shall be, that 
 is permanently, so as to be called a resident. 
 
 Now here it is admitted that Mr. Johnson was 
 not within the realm of England since thebeginning 
 of 18O2, more than a year before the offence ex- 
 isted ; and therefore you are gravely called upon 
 to say that he is the person who made his escape 
 from a ' place where he never was, and into a 
 place which he had never left. To let in this 
 wise and humane instruction, see what you are 
 called upon to do: the statute makes such per- 
 sons liable to arrest if they shall have done cer- 
 tain things, to wit, if they shall escape, go into, 
 reside, or be ; but if the fact of simply being, 
 t. e. existing in another jurisdiction, is sufficient 
 to make them so liable, it follows of course, 
 that the two only verbs that imply doing any- 
 thing,
 
 446 
 
 thing, that is escape or go into must be regarded 
 as superfluous, that is, that the legislative had 
 no idea whatsoever to be conveyed by them when 
 they used them, and therefore are altogether ex- 
 punged and rejected. 
 
 Such, my lords, are the strange and unnatural 
 monsters that may be produced by the union of 
 malignity and folly. I cannot but own that I feel 
 an indignant, and perhaps ill-natured satisfaction 
 in reflecting that my own country cannot mono- 
 polize the derision and detestation that such a 
 production must attract. It was originally con- 
 ceived by the wisdom of the east ; it has made its 
 escape, and come into Ireland under the sanction 
 of the first criminal judge of the empire: here, 
 I trust in God, we shall have only to feel shame 
 or anger at the insolence of the visit j without 
 the melancholy aggravation of such an execrable 
 guest continuing to reside or to be among us. On 
 the contrary, I will not dismiss the cheering ex- 
 pectation from my heart, that your decision, my 
 lords, will shew the British nation, that a country, 
 having as just and as proud an idea of liberty as 
 herself, is not an unworthy ally in the great con- 
 test for the rights of humanity ; is no unworthy as- 
 sociate in resisting the progress of barbarity and 
 military despotism, and in defending against its 
 enemies that great system of British freedom, in 
 which we have now a common interest, and under 
 the ruins of which, if it should be overthrown 
 we aiust be buried in a common destruction. 
 
 I am
 
 447 
 
 I am not ignorant, my lords, that this extraor- 
 dinary construction has received the sanction of 
 another court, nor of the surprise and dismay with 
 which it smote upon the general heart of the bar. 
 I am aware that I may have the mortification of 
 being told in another country of that unhappy 
 decision, and I foresee in what confusion I shall 
 hang down my head when I am told it. But I che- 
 rish too the consolatory hope, that I shall be able 
 to tell them that I had an old and learned friend, 
 whom I would put above all the sweepings of their 
 hall, who was of a different opinion ; who had de- 
 rived his ideas of civil liberty from the purest 
 fountains of Athens and of Rome; who had fed 
 the youthful vigour of his studious mind, with 
 the theoretic knowledge of their wisest philoso- 
 phers and statesmen ; and who had refined the 
 theory into the quick and exquisite sensibility of 
 moral instinct, by contemplating the practice of 
 their most illustrious examples; by dwelling on the 
 sweet soul'd piety of Cimon ; on the anticipated 
 Christianity of Socrates ; on the gallant and pa- 
 thetic patriotism of Epaminondas ; on that pure 
 austerity of Fabricius, whom to move from his 
 integrity would have been more difficult than to 
 have pushed the sun from his course. I would 
 add, that if he had seemed to hesitate, it was but 
 for a moment: that his hesitation was like the 
 passing cloud that floats across the morning 
 sun, and hides it from the view and does so for a 
 moment hide it by involving the spectator with- 
 out even approaching the face of the luminary: 
 
 And
 
 448 
 
 And this soothing hope I draw from the dearest 
 and tenderest recollections of my life, from the 
 remembrance of those attic nights and those re T 
 fections of the gods which we have spent with 
 those admired and respected and beloved com- 
 panions who have gone before us ; over whose 
 ashes the most precious tears of Ireland have 
 been shed: yes, my good lord, I see you do not 
 forget them ; I see their sacred forms passing in 
 sad review before your memory; I see your pain- 
 ed and softened fancy recalling thosehappy meet- 
 ings, when the innocent enjoyment of social 
 mirth expanded into the nobler warmth of social 
 virtue ; and the horizon of the board became en- 
 larged into the horizon of man; when the swell- 
 ing heart conceived and communicated the pure 
 and generous purpose, when my slenderer and 
 younger taper imbibed its borrowed light from 
 the more matured and redundant fountain of 
 yours. Yes, my lord, we can remember those 
 nights without any other regret than that they 
 can never more return, for 
 
 " We spent them not in toys, or lust, or wine ; 
 
 " But searcli of deep philosophy, 
 
 " Wit, eloquence and poesy, 
 " Arts, which I lov'd, for they, my friend, were thine. v * 
 
 But, my lords, to return to a subject from which 
 to have thus far departed, I think, may not be 
 
 * Lord Avonmore : the picture bore certainly a strong like- 
 ness to him. Those who know him perceive and acknow- 
 ledge it. 
 
 wholly
 
 44$ 
 
 wholly without excuse. The express object of 
 the forty- fourth was to send persons from places 
 where they were not triable by law, back to the 
 places that had jurisdiction to try them. And in 
 those very words does Mr. justice Blackstone ob- 
 serve on the thirteenth of the king, that it was 
 made to prevent impunity by escape, by giving 
 a power of " sending back 5 * such offenders as 
 had so escaped. 
 
 This topic of argument would now naturally 
 claim its place in the present discussion. I men- 
 tion it now, that it might not be supposed that I 
 meant to pretermit so important a consideration. 
 And I only mention it, because it will connect 
 itself with a subsequent head of this enquiry in a 
 manner more forcibly applicable to the object, 
 when I think I may venture to say, it will appear 
 to demonstration, that if the offence charged^upon 
 the defendant is triable at all, it is triable in Ire- 
 land and no where else ; and of course that the 
 prosecutors are acting in direct violation of the 
 statute, when they seek to transport him from a 
 place where he can be tried, into another country 
 that can have no possible jurisdiction over him. 
 
 Let us now, my lords, examine the next posi- 
 tion contended for by those learned prosecutors. 
 Having laboured to prove that the act applies not 
 merely to capital crimes, but to all offences what- 
 soever ; having laboured to shew that an act for 
 preventing impunity by escape extends to cases 
 
 1 2 G no
 
 450 
 
 not only where there was no escape, but where 
 escape in fact was physically impossible; they 
 proceeded to put forward boldly a doctrine which 
 no lawyer, I do not hesitate to say it, in West- 
 minster-hall would have the follj or the temerity 
 to advance; that is, that the defendant may by 
 construction of law be guilty of the offence in 
 Westminster, though he should never have pass- 
 ed within its limits till he was sent thither to be 
 tried. With what a fatal and inexorable uni- 
 formity do the tempers and characters of men do- 
 mineer over their actions and conduct! How 
 clearly must an Englishman, if by chance there 
 be any now listening to us, discern the motives 
 and principles that dictated the odious persecu- 
 tions of 1794- re-assuming their operations; for- 
 getting that public spirit by which they were 
 frustrated; unappalled by fear, undeterred by 
 shame, and returning again to the charge ; the 
 same wild and impious nonsense of constructive 
 criminality, the same execrable application of the 
 ill-understood rules of a vulgar, clerk-like, and il- 
 literate equity, to the sound and plain and guard- 
 ed maxims of the criminal law of England! the 
 purest, the noblest, \he chastest system of distri- 
 butive justice that was ever venerated by the 
 wise, or perverted by the foolish, or that the chil- 
 dren of men in any age or climate of the world 
 have ever yet beheld ; the same instruments, the 
 same movements, the same artists, the same doc- 
 trines, the same doctors, the same servile and in- 
 furiate contempt of humanity, and persecution 
 
 of
 
 451 
 
 of freedom! the same shadows of the varying 
 hour that extend or contract their length, as the 
 beam of a rising or sinking sun plays upon the 
 gnomon of self-interest! How demonstratively 
 does the same appetite for mice authenticate the 
 identity of the transformed princess that had 
 been once a cat. 
 
 But it seems as if the whole order and ar- 
 rangement of the moral and the physical world 
 had been contrived for the instruction of man* 
 and to warn him that he is not immortal. In eve- 
 ry age, in every country, do we see the natural 
 rise, advancement, and decline of virtue and of 
 science. So it has been in Greece, in Rome; so 
 it must be, I fear, the fate of England. In sci- 
 ence, the point of its maturity and manhood is 
 the commencement of its old age; the race of 
 "writers, and thinkers, and reasoners passes away, 
 and gives place to a succession of men that can 
 neither write, nor think, nor reason* The Hales, 
 the Holts, and the Somers shed a transient light 
 upon mankind, but are soon extinct and disap- 
 pear, and give place to a superficial and over- 
 weening generation of laborious and strenuous 
 idlers, of silly scholiasts, of wrangling mooters, 
 of prosing garrulists, who explore their darkling 
 ascent upon the steps of science, by the balus- 
 trade of cases and manuscripts, who calculate 
 their depth by their darkness, and fancy they are 
 profound because they feel they are perplexed. 
 When the race of the Palladiosis extinct,you may 
 2 G 'J expect
 
 expectto see a clumsy bod-man collected beneath 
 the shade of his shoulders, ai/n^ UU?T jatyapTi EO;^O? 
 
 AvSgu-rruv xsfaXrv x su^sa? w^ou?, affecting to fling 
 a builder's glance upon the temple, on the pro- 
 portion of its pillars ; and to pass a critic's 
 judgment on the doctrine that should be preach- 
 ed within them. 
 
 Let it not, my lords, be considered amiss, that 
 t take this up -rather as an English than an Irish 
 Question. It is not merely because we have no 
 Habeas Corpus law in existence (the antiquarian 
 may read of it, though we do not enjoy it); it is 
 not merely because my mind refuses itself to the 
 delusion of imaginary freedom, and shrinks from 
 the meanness of affecting an indignant haughti- 
 ness of spirit that belongs not to our condition, 
 that I am disposed to argue it as an English ques- 
 tion; but it is because I am aware that we have 
 now a community of interest and of destiny that 
 we never had before because I am aware, that 
 blendid as we now are, the liberty of man must 
 fall where it is highest, or rise where it is lowest, 
 till it finds its common level in the common em- 
 pire and because, also, I wish that Englishmen 
 may see, that we arexmscious that nothing but 
 mutual benevolence and sympathy can support 
 the common interest that should bind us against 
 the external or intestine foe; and that we are 
 willing, whenever the common interest is at- 
 tacked, to make an honest and animated resist- 
 ance, as in a common cause, and with a cordial 
 and tender anxiety for theii safety as for our own. 
 
 Let
 
 453 
 
 Let me now briefly, because no subject can be 
 shorter or plainer, consider the principle of local 
 jurisdictions, and constructive crimes : 
 
 A man is bound to obedience, and punishable 
 for disobedience of laws: first, because, by living 
 within their jurisdiction, he avails himself of 
 their protection ; and this is no more than the re- 
 ciprocality of protection and allegiance on a naiv 
 rower scale and secondly, because, by so living 
 within their jurisdiction he has the means of 
 knowing them, and cannot be excused because of 
 his ignorance of them. I should be glad to 
 know, upon the authority of what manuscript, 
 of what pocket-case, the soundness of these 
 principles can be disputed? I should be glad to 
 know upon what known principle of English law, 
 a Chinese, or a Laplander, can be kidnapped into 
 England, and arraigned for a crime which he com- 
 mitted under the pole, to the injury of a country 
 which he had never seen in violation of a law 
 which he had never known, and to which he 
 could not owe obedience and, perhaps, for an 
 act, the non-performance of which might have 
 forfeited his liberty or his life to the laws of that 
 country which he was bound to know, and was 
 bound to obey? Very differently did our ances- 
 tors think of that subject ; They thought it es- 
 sential to justice, that the jurisdiction of criminal 
 law should be local and defined that no man 
 should be triable but there, where he was ac- 
 cused of having actually committed the offence; 
 
 where
 
 454 
 
 where the character of the prosecutor, where his 
 own character was known, as well as the charac- 
 ters of the witnesses produced against him ; ancl 
 where he had the authority of legal process to 
 enforce the attendance of witnesses for his de- 
 fence. They were too simple to know any thing 
 of the equity of criminal law. Poor Bracton or 
 Fl eta would have stared if you had asked them, 
 " What, gentlemen, do you mean to say that such 
 a crime as this shall escape from punishment!" 
 Their answer would have been, no doubt, very 
 simple and very foolish j, they would have said, 
 " We know there are many actions that we think 
 bad actions, which yet are not punishable, be- 
 cause not triable by law; and that are not triable, 
 because of the local limits of criminal jurisdic- 
 tions." And, my lords, to shew with what a re- 
 ligious scrupulosity the locality of jurisdictions 
 was observed, you have an instance in the most 
 odious of all offences, treason only excepted 
 I mean the crime of wilful murder. By the com- 
 mon law, if a man in one county procured a mur- 
 der to be committed which was afterwards actu- 
 ally committed in another, such procurer could 
 not be tried in either jurisdiction, because the 
 prime was not completed in either. This defect 
 was remedied by the act of Edward VI. which 
 made the author of the crime amenable to jus- 
 tice : But in what jurisdiction did it make him 
 amenable? was it there where the murder was 
 actually perpetrated ? by no means, but there 
 only where he had been guilty of the procure- 
 ment,
 
 455 
 
 ment, and where alone his accessorial offence was 
 completed. And here you have the authority of 
 parliament for this abstract position, that where 
 a man living, in one jurisdiction does an act, in 
 consequence of which a crime is committed with- 
 in another jurisdiction, he is by law triable only 
 where his own personal act of procurement was 
 committed, and not there where the procured or 
 projected crime actually took effect. In answer 
 to these known authorities of common law, has 
 any statute, has a single decision or even dictum 
 of a court, been adduced ? Or, in an age when 
 the pastry-cooks and snuff-shops have been de- 
 frauded of their natural right to these composi- 
 tions that may be useful without being read, has 
 even a single manuscript been offered to shew 
 the researches of these learned prosecutors, or to 
 support their cause? No, my lords; there lias 
 not. 
 
 I said, my lords, that this was a fruit from the 
 same tree that produced the stupid and wicked 
 prosecutions of 1794- : let me not be supposed to 
 say it is a mere repetition of that attempt, with- 
 out any additional aggravation. In 1794, the de- 
 sign, and odious enough it was, was confined to 
 the doctrine of constructive guilt; but it did not 
 venture upon the atrocious outrage of a substi- 
 tuted jurisdiction; the Englishman was tried on 
 English ground, where he was known, where he 
 could procure his witnesses, where he had lived, 
 and where he was accused of a crime, whether 
 
 actual
 
 456 
 
 actual or constructive; but the locality of the 
 trial defeated the infernal malice of 'those prosecu- 
 tions. The speeches of half the natural day, 
 where every jury-man had his hour, were the 
 knell of sleep, but they were not the knell of 
 death. The project was exposed, and the des- 
 tined victims were saved. A piece so damned 
 could not safely be produced again on the same 
 stage. It was thought wise, therefore, to let 
 some little time pass, and then to let its author 
 produce it on some distant provincial theatre for 
 his own benefit, and at his own expense and 
 hazard. To drag an English judge from his 
 bench, or an English member of parliament from 
 the senate, and in the open day, in the city of 
 London, to strap him to the roof of a mail-coach, 
 or pack him up in a waggon, or hand him over 
 to. an Irish bailiff, with a rope tied about his leg, 
 to be goaded forward like an ox, on his way tQ 
 Ireland, to be there tried for a constructive mis- 
 demeanor, would be an experiment, perhaps, not 
 very safe to be attempted. These merlins, there- 
 fore, thought it prudent to change the scene of 
 their sorcery; 
 
 modo Romfp 9 modo ponit Athenis! 
 
 The people of England might, perhaps, enter 
 into the feelings of such an exhibition witli an 
 otriciousness of sympathy, not altogether for the 
 benefit of the contrivers 
 
 Nee natos coram populo Medea trucidet 
 
 and
 
 457 
 
 and it was thought wise to try the second produc- 
 tion before spectators whose necks were pliant, 
 and whose hearts were broken; where every man 
 who dared to refuse his worship to the golden 
 caJ would have the furnace before his eyes, and 
 think that it was at once useless and dangerous to 
 speak, and discreet at least, if it was not honest, 
 to be silent. -I cannot deny that it was prudent 
 to try an experiment, that if successful, must re- 
 duce an Englishman to a state of slavery more 
 abject and forlorn than that of the helots of Spar- 
 ta, or the negroes of your plantations for see, 
 my lords, the extent of the construction now 
 broadly and directly contended for at your bar: 
 The king's peace in Ireland, it seems, is dis- 
 tinct from his peace in England, and both are 
 distinctfrom his peace in Scotland; and, of course, 
 the same act may be a crime against each dis- 
 tinct peace, and severally and successively 
 punishable in each country so much more in- 
 veterate is the criminality of a constructive than 
 an actual offence. So that the same man for the 
 same act against all laws that he never heard of, 
 may be punished in Ireland, be then sent to Eng- 
 land by virtue of the warrant of Mr. justice Bell, 
 Endorsed by my lord Ellenborough, and after 
 haviiu; Jiis health, his hopes, and his property de- 
 stroyed for his constructive offences against his 
 majesty's peace in Ireland, and his majesty's 
 peace in England, he may find that his majesty's 
 peace in the Orkneys has after all, a vested re- 
 mainder in his carcass; and, if it be the case of 
 
 a libel,
 
 458 
 
 a libel, for the full time and term of fourteen 
 years from the day of his conviction before the 
 Scottish jurisdiction, to be fully compleated and 
 determined. Is there, my lords, can there be a 
 man who hears me, that does not feel that such 
 a construction of such a law would put every in- 
 dividual in society under the despotical domi- 
 nion, would reduce him to be the despicable 
 chattel, of those most likely to abuse their power, 
 the profligate of the higher, and the abandoned of 
 the lower orders; to the remorseless malice of a 
 vindictive minister, to the servile instrumentality 
 of a trading justice? Can any man who hears 
 me conceive any possible case of abduction, of 
 rape or of murder, that may not be perpetrated, 
 under the construction now shamelessly put for- 
 ward? Let us suppose a case : By this construc- 
 tion a person in England, by procuring a misde- 
 meanor to be committed in Ireland, is construc- 
 tively guilty in Ireland, and, of course, triable in 
 Ireland let us suppose that Mr. justice Bell re- 
 ceives, or says he receives information, that the 
 lady of an English nobleman wrote a letter to an 
 Irish chambermaid, counselling her to steal a row 
 of pins from an Irish'pedlar, and that the said row 
 of pins was, in consequence of such advice and 
 counsel, actually stolen, against the Irish peace 
 of our lord the king ; suppose my lord Ellen- 
 borough, knowing the signature, and reverenc- 
 ing the virtue of his tried and valued colleague, 
 endorses this warrant; is it not clear as the sun 
 that this English lady may, in the dead of night, 
 
 be
 
 459 
 
 be taken out of her bed, and surrendered to the 
 mercy of two or three Irish bailiffs, if the captain 
 that employed them should happen to be en- 
 gaged in any contemporary adventure nearer to 
 his heart, without the possibility of any legal au- 
 thority interposing to save her, to be matronized 
 in a journey by land, and a voyage by sea, by 
 such modest and respectable guardians, to be 
 dealt with during the journey as her companions 
 might think proper and to be dealt with after- 
 ward by the worshipful correspondent of the no- 
 ble and learned lord, Mr. justice Bell, according 
 to iaw? I can without much difficulty, my lords, 
 imagine, that after a year or two had been spent 
 in accounts current, in drawing and redrawing 
 for human flesh, between our worthy Bells and 
 Medlicots on this side of the water, and their 
 noble or their ignoble correspondents on the 
 other, that they might meet to settle their ac- 
 counts, and adjust their balances ; I can conceive 
 that the items might not be wholly destitute of 
 curiosity : Brother B. I take credit for the body 
 of an English patriot. Brother E. I set off 
 against it that of an Irish judge. Brother B. I 
 charge you in accountwith three English bishops. 
 Brother E. I set off Mrs. M'Lean and two of 
 her chickens; petticoat against petticoat. Bro- 
 ther B. I have sent you the body of a most in- 
 tractable disturber, a fellow that has had the im- 
 pudence to give a threshing to Bonaparte him- 
 self; I have sent you Sir Sidney. Dearest bro- 
 ther E. But I see my learned opponents 
 
 smile
 
 smile I see their meaning. I may be told, 
 that I am putting imaginary and ludicrous, but 
 not probable, and therefore, not supposable cases. 
 But I answer, that reasoning would be worthy 
 only of a slave, and disgraceful to a freeman. I 
 answer, that the condition and essence of ra- 
 tional freedom is, not that the subject probably 
 will not be abused, but that no man in the state 
 shall be clothed with any discretionary power, 
 under the colour and pretext of which he can 
 dare to abuse him. As to probability, I answer, 
 that in the mind of man there is no more insti- 
 gating temptation to the most remorseless op- 
 pression, than the rancour and malice of irritated 
 pride and wounded vanity. To the argument 
 of improbability I adduce in answer, the very 
 iact, the very question in debate; nor to such an- 
 swer can I see the possibility of any reply, save 
 that the prosecutors are so heartily sick of the 
 point of view into which they have put themselves 
 by their prosecution, that they are not likely 
 again to make a similar experiment. But when 
 I see any man fearless of power, because it pos- 
 sibly, or probably, may not be exercised upon 
 him, I am astonished at his fortitude; I am 
 astonished at the tranquil courage of any man 
 who can quietly see that a loaded cannon is 
 brought to bear upon him, and that a fool is 
 sitting at its touch-hole with a lighted match in 
 his hand. And yet, my lords, upon a little 
 reflection, what is it, after what we have 
 seen, that should surprise us, however it may 
 
 shock us? What have the last ten years 
 
 of
 
 461 
 
 of the world been employed in,' but in des* 
 troying the land-marks of rights, and duties, and 
 obligations ; in substituting sounds in the place 
 of sense ; in substituting a vile and canting 
 methodism in the place of social duty and prac- 
 tical honour ; in suffering virtue to evaporate 
 into phrase, and morality into hypocrisy and 
 affectation ? We talk of the violations of Ham- 
 burgh or of Baden ; we talk of the despotical 
 and remorseless barbarian who tramples on the 
 common privileges of the human being ; wiio, in 
 defiance of the most known and sacred rights, 
 issues the brutal mandate of usurped authority; 
 who brings his victim by force within the limits 
 of a jurisdiction to which he never owed obedi- 
 ence, and there butchers him for a constructive 
 offence. Does it not seem as if it was a contest 
 whether we should be more scurrilous in in- 
 vective, or more atrocious in imitation ? Into 
 what a condition must we be sinking, when we 
 have the front to select as the subjects of our 
 obloquy, those very crimes which we have flung 
 behind us in the race of profligate rivality ! 
 
 My lords, the learned counsel for the prosecu- 
 tors have asserted, that this act of the forty-fourth 
 of the king extends to all offences, no matter how 
 long or previously to it they may have been com- 
 mitted. The words are, " That from and after 
 " the first day of August, 1804, if anyperson, &c. 
 " shall escape, &c." Now, certainly nothing 
 could be more convenient for the purpose of the 
 
 prosecutor?
 
 463 
 
 prosecutors than to dismiss, as they have done, 
 the words " escape and go into," altogether. If 
 those words could have been saved from the 
 ostracism of the prosecutors, they must have 
 designated some act of the offenders, upon the 
 happening or doing of which the operation of 
 the statute might commence ; but the temporary 
 bar of these words they wave by the equity of 
 their own construction, and thereby make it a 
 retrospective law ; and having so construed it 
 a manifestly ex post facto law, they tell you it 
 is no such thing, because it creates no new 
 offence, and only makes the offender amenable 
 who was not so before. The law professes to 
 take effect only from and after the first of August 
 1804: Now, for eighteen months before that 
 day, it is clear that Mr. Johnson could not be 
 removed by any power existing from his country 
 and his dwelling; but the moment the act 
 took effect, it is made to operate upon an 
 alleged offence, committed, if at all, confessedly 
 eighteen months before. But another word as 
 to the assertion, that it is not ex post facto, be- 
 cause it creates no new crime; but only makes 
 the party amenable. The force of that argu- 
 ment is precisely this : If this act inflicted de- 
 portation on the defendant by way of punishment 
 after his guilt had been established byronviction, 
 that would, no doubt, be tyrannical, because 
 ex post facto ; but here he suffers the deportation, 
 while the law is bound to suppose him perfectly 
 innocent ; and that only by way of process to 
 
 make
 
 463 
 
 make him amenable, not by way of punishments 
 and surely he cannot be so unreasonable as not 
 to feel the force of the distinction. How 
 naturally, too, we find similar outrages resort 
 to similar justifications ! Such exactly was the 
 defence of the forcible entry into Baden. Had 
 that been a brutal violence committed in per- 
 petration of the murder of the unfortunate 
 victim, perhaps very scrupulous moralists might 
 find something in it to disapprove ; but his 
 imperial majesty was too delicately tender of the 
 rights of individuals and of nations, to do any 
 act so flagrant as that would be, if done in that 
 point of view ; but his imperial majesty only 
 introduced a clause of ne omittas into his warrant, 
 whereby the worshipful Bells and Medlicots 
 that executed it, were authorised to disregard 
 any supposed plumtastical privilege of nations 
 that gave sanctuary to traitors ; and he did 
 that from the purest motives ; from as disin- 
 terested a love of justice as that of the present 
 prosecutors, and not at all in the way of an ex 
 post facto law, but merely as process to bring 
 him in, and make him amenable to the com- 
 petent and unquestionable jurisdiction of the 
 bois de Boulogne. Such are the wretched so- 
 phistries to which men are obliged to have re- 
 course, when their passions have led them to do 
 what no thinking man can regard without horror, 
 what they themselves cannot look at without 
 shame; and for which no legitimate reasoning 
 can suggest either justification or excuse. Such 
 
 are
 
 464 
 
 are the principles of criminal justice, on which 
 the first experiment is made in Ireland ; but I 
 venture to pledge myself to my fellow-subjects 
 of Great Britain, that, if the experiment suc- 
 ceeds, they shall soon have the full benefit of 
 that success. I venture to promise them, they 
 shall soon have their full measure of this salutary 
 system for making men " amenable," heaped 
 and running over into their bosoms. 
 
 Th^ere now remains, my lords, one, and 
 only one topic of this odious subject, to call 
 for observation. The offence here appears by 
 the return and the affidavits to be a libel upon 
 the Irish government, published by construc- 
 tion in Westminster. Of the constructive 
 commission of a crime in one place by an 
 agent, who, perhaps, at the moment of the 
 act, is m- another hemisphere, you have al- 
 ready enough : Here, therefore, we will con- 
 sider it simply as an alleged libel upon the 
 Irish government; and whether, as such, it 
 is a charge coming within the meaning of the 
 statute, and for which a common justice of 
 peace in one kingdom is empowered to grant a 
 warrant for conveying the person accused for 
 trial into the other. Your lordship will observe, 
 that in the whole catalogue of crimes for which 
 a justice of peace may grant a warrant, there is 
 not one that imposes upon him the necessity of 
 deciding upon any matter of law, involving the 
 smallest doubt or difficulty whatsoever. In trea- 
 son.
 
 465 
 
 son, the overt-act; in felony, whether capital or 
 not, the act; in misdemeanors, the simple act. 
 The dullest justice can understand what is a 
 breach of the peace, and can describe it in his 
 warrant. It is no more than the description of 
 a fact which the informer has seen and sworn to. 
 But no libel comes within such a class, for it is 
 decided over and over, that a libel is no breach 
 of the peace, and upon that ground it was that 
 Mr. Wilkes, in 1763, was allowed the privilege 
 of parliament, which privilege does not extend 
 to any breach of the peace. 
 
 See then, my lords, what a task is imposed upon 
 a justice of the peace, if he is to grant such a 
 warrant upon such a charge : he no doubt may 
 easily comprehend the allegation of the informer 
 as to the fact of writing the supposed libel ; in 
 deciding whether the facts sworn amounted to 
 a publication or not, I should have great appre- 
 hension of his fallibility; but if he got over those 
 difficulties I should much fear for his competency 
 to decide what given facts would amount to a 
 constructive publication. But even if he did 
 solve that question, a point on which, if I were 
 a justice, I should acknowledge myself most pro- 
 foundly ignorant, he would then have to pro- 
 ceed to a labour in which I believe no man could 
 expect him to succeed: that is, how far the pa- 
 per sworn to was, in point of legal construction, 
 libellous or not. I trust, this court will never 
 be prevailed upon to sanction, by its decision, a, 
 2 ii construction
 
 466 
 
 construction that would give to such a set of men 
 a power so incompatible with every privilege of 
 liberty, or of law. To say it would give an irre- 
 sistible power of destroying the liberty of the 
 press in Ireland would, I am aware, be but a silly 
 argument, where such a thing has long ceased to 
 exist; but I have for that very reason a double 
 interest now, as a subject of the empire, in that 
 noble guardian of liberty in the sister- nation. 
 When my own lamp is broken, Ihave a double in- 
 terest in the preservation of my neighbour's. But 
 if every man in England, who dares to observe, 
 no matter how honestly and justly, upon the con- 
 duct of Irish ministers, is liable to be torn from 
 his family, and dragged hither by an Irish bailiff, 
 for a constructive libel against the Irish govern- 
 ment, and upon the authority of an Irish warrant, 
 no man can be such a fool as not to see the con- 
 sequence. The inevitable consequence is this: 
 that at this awful crisis, when the weal, not of 
 this empire only, but of the whole civilized world, 
 depends on the steady faith and consolidated ef- 
 forts of these two countries when Ireland is be- 
 come the right arm of England when every 
 thing that draws the common interest and affec- 
 tion closer gives the hope of life when every 
 thing that has even a tendency to relax that sen- 
 timent is a symptom of death, even at such a 
 crisis may the rashness or folly of those entrusted 
 with its management so act as to destroy its in- 
 ternal prosperity and repose, and lead it into the 
 two-fold fatal error, of mistaking its natural
 
 467 
 
 enemies for its friends, and its natural friends for 
 its natural enemies ; without any man being 
 found so romantically daring as to give notice of 
 the approaching destruction. 
 
 My lords, I suppose the learned counsel will do 
 here what they have done in the other court: they 
 will assert, that this libel is not triable here; and 
 they will argue, that so false and heinous a pro- 
 duction surely ought to be triable somewhere. 
 As to the first position, I say the law is directly 
 against them. From a very early stage of the 
 discussion, the gentlemen for the prosecution 
 thought it wise for their clients to take a range 
 into the facts much more at large than they ap- 
 peared on the return to the writ, or even by the 
 affidavits that have been made; and they have 
 done tins to take the opportunity of aggravating 
 the guilt of the defendant, and at the same time 
 of panegyrising their clients; they have there- 
 fore not argued upon the libel generally as a 
 libel, but they have thought it prudent to ap- 
 pear perfectly acquainted with the charges which 
 it contains: they have therefore assumed, that 
 it relates to the transactions of the twenty-third 
 of July, 1803, and that the guilt of the defen- 
 dant was, that lie wrote that letter in Ireland, 
 which was afterwards published in Knglond; not 
 by himself, but by some other persons. . Now, 
 on these facts, nothing can be clearer than that 
 he is triable here. If it be a libel, and if he 
 wrote it here, and it was published in England, 
 2 ii 2 most
 
 468 
 
 most manifestly there must have been a prece- 
 dent publication, not merely by construction of 
 law, in Ireland, but a publication by actual fact; 
 and for this plain reason, if you for a moment 
 suppose the libel in his possession (and if he did 
 in fact write it. I can scarcely conceive that it was 
 not, unless he wrote it perhaps by construc- 
 tion), there were no physical means of transmit- 
 ting it to England that would not amount to a 
 publication here; because, if he put it into the 
 post-office, or gave it to a messenger to carry 
 thither, that would be complete evidence of pub- 
 lication against him : so would the mere posses- 
 sion of the paper, in the hands of the witness 
 who appeared and produced it, be perfect evi- 
 dence, if not accounted for or contradicted, to 
 charge him with the publication; so that really 
 I am surprised how gentlemen could be betrayed 
 into positions so utterly without foundation. 
 They would have done just as usefully for their 
 clients, if they had admitted, what every man 
 knows to be the fact, that is, that they durst not 
 bring the charge before an Irish jury. The facts 
 of that period were too well understood. The 
 Irish public might have looked at such a prose- 
 cution with the most incredulous]detestation ; and 
 if they had been so indiscreet as to run the risk 
 of coming before an Irish jury, instead of re- 
 futing the charges against them as a calumny, 
 they would have exposed themselves to the 
 peril of establishing the accusation, and of raising 
 the character of the man whom they had the heart 
 
 to
 
 469 
 
 to destroy, because he had dared to censure 
 them. Let not the learned gentlemen, I pray, 
 suppose me so ungracious as to say, that this 
 publication, which has given so much pain to 
 their clients, is actually true ; I cannot person- 
 ally know it to be so, nor do I say so, nor is this 
 the place or the occasion to say that it is so. I 
 mean only to speak positively to the question be- 
 fore you, which is matter of law. But as the 
 gentlemen themselves thought it meet to pro- 
 nounce an eulogy on their clients, I thought it 
 rather unseemly not to shew that I attended to 
 them : I have most respectfully done so ; I do 
 not contradict any praise of their virtues or their 
 wisdom, and I only wish to add my very humble 
 commendation of their prudence and discretion, 
 in not bringing the trial of the present libel be- 
 fore a jury of this country. 
 
 The learned counsel have not been contented 
 with abusing this libel as a production perfectly 
 known to them ; but they have wandered into the 
 regions of fancy. No doubt the other judges, to 
 whom those pathetic flights of forensic sensibi- 
 lity were addressed, must have been strongly 
 affected by them. The learned gentlemen have 
 supposed a variety of possible cases. They have 
 supposed cases of the foulest calumniators as- 
 persing the most virtuous ministers. Whether 
 such supposed cases have been suggested by 
 fancy, or by fact, it is not for me to decide; but 
 
 I beg
 
 470 
 
 beg leave to' say, that it is as allowable to us as 
 to them to put cases of supposition 
 
 Cur ego sijingere pauca 
 Possum, invidear? 
 
 Let me then, my lords, put an imaginary case 
 of a different kind : Let me suppose that a 
 great personage, entrusted with the safety of the 
 citadel (meaning and wishing perhaps well, but 
 misled by those lacquered vermin that swarm in 
 every great hall), leaves it so loosely guarded, 
 that nothing but the gracious interposition of 
 Providence has saved it from the enemy. Let 
 me suppose another great personage going out 
 of his natural department, and under the sup- 
 posed authority of high station, disseminating 
 such doctrines as tend to root up the foundation 
 of society to destroy all confidence between 
 man and man and to impress the great body of 
 the people with a delusive and desperate opinion, 
 that their religion could dissolve or condemn 
 the sacred obligations that binds them to their 
 country that their rulers have no reliance upon 
 their faith, and are resolved to shut the gates of 
 mercy against them. 
 
 Suppose a good and virtuous man saw, that 
 such doctrines must necessarily torture the na- 
 tion into such madness and despair, as to render 
 them unfit for any system of mild or moderate 
 
 government j
 
 471 
 
 government; that, if on one side, bigotry or folly 
 shall inject their veins with fire, such a fever must 
 be kindled as can be allayed only by keeping a 
 stream of blood perpetually running from the 
 other, and that the horrors of martial law must 
 become the direful but inevitable consequence* 
 In such a case let me ask you what would be his 
 indispensable duty? it w r ould be, to avert such 
 dreadful dangers, by exposing the conduct of 
 such . persons ; by holding up the folly of such 
 bigoted and blind enthusiasm to condign deri- 
 sion and contempt ; and 'painfully would he fqel 
 that on. such an occasion he must dismiss all 
 forms and ceremonies j and that to do his duty 
 with effect, he must do < it without mercy. He 
 should also foresee, that a person so acting, when 
 he returned to those to whom he was responsible, 
 would endeavour to justify himself by defaming 
 the country which lie .had abused for- calumny 
 is the natural defence of the oppressor: he 
 should, therefore,,^**; reduce his personal credit 
 to its just standard, that his assertions might 
 find no more belief than they desexved* Were 
 
 / 
 
 such a person to be looked on as a mere private 
 individual, qharity ; and good-nature might sug- 
 gest not ^a little in hie, f; excuse. "An inexpe- 
 rienced man, new to the world, and in the honey- 
 moon of preferment, would, run no small risk of 
 having his head Wcned.in Ireland. The people 
 in our island are- by nature penetrating, saga- 
 cious, artful and comic * nallo conueda est.' In 
 no country under heaven would an ass be more 
 
 likely
 
 likely to be hood-winked, by having his ears 
 drawn over his eyes, and acquire that phantasti- 
 cal alacrity that makes dullness disposable to the 
 purposes of humorous malice, or interested im- 
 posture. In Ireland, a new great man could get 
 the freedom of a science as easily as of a corpora- 
 tion, and become a doctor, by construction of 
 the whole Encyclopaedia ; and great allowance 
 might be made under such circumstances for in- 
 discretions and mistakes, as long as they related 
 only to himself; but the moment they become 
 public mischiefs, they lose all pretentious to ex- 
 cuse the very ambition of incapacity is a crime 
 not to be forgiven ; and however painful it may 
 be to inflict, it must be remembered, that mercy 
 to the delinquent would be treason to the 
 public. 
 
 I can the more easily understand. the painful- 
 ness of the conflict between charity and duty, be- 
 cause at this moment I am labouring under it my- 
 self; and I feel it the more acutely, because I am 
 confident, that the paroxysms of passion that have 
 produced these public discussions have been bit- 
 terly repented of. I think, also, that I should 
 not act fairly if I did not acquit my learned op- 
 ponents of all share whatsoever in thisprosecution 
 they have too much good sense to have advised 
 it ; on the contrary, I can easily suppose Mr. At- 
 torney-general sent for to give counsel and com- 
 fort to his patient ; and after hearing no very con- 
 cise detail of his griefs, his resentments and his 
 
 misgivings,
 
 473 
 misgivings, methinks I hear the answer that he 
 
 o o * 
 
 gives, after a pause of sympathy and reflection : 
 " No, sir, don't proceed in such a business; 
 you'll only expose yourself to scorn in one coun- 
 try, and to detestation in the other. You know 
 you durst not try him here, where the whole king- 
 dom would be his witness. If you should attempt 
 to try him there, where he can have no witness, 
 you will have both countries upon your back. 
 An English jury would never find him guilty- 
 You will only confirm the charge against yourself; 
 and be the victim of an impotent, abortive ma- 
 lice. If you should have any ulterior project 
 against him, you will defeat that also ; for those 
 that might otherwise concur in the design, will 
 be shocked and ashamed of the violence and folly 
 of such a tyrannical proceeding, and will make a 
 merit of protecting him, and of leaving you in 
 the lurch. What you say of your own feelings, 
 I can easily conceive. You think you have been 
 much exposed by those letters; but then remem- 
 ber, my dear sir, that a man can claim the privi- 
 lege of being made ridiculous or hateful by no pub- 
 lications but his own. Vindictive critics have 
 their rights, as well as bad authors. The thing is 
 bad enough at best; but, if you go on, you will 
 make it worse it will be considered an attempt 
 to degrade the Irish bench arid the Irish bar 
 you are not aware what a nest of hornets you are 
 disturbing. One inevitable consequence you 
 don't foresee you will certainly ereate the very 
 thing in Ireland, that you are so afraid of, a news- 
 paper ;
 
 474 
 
 paper; think of that, and keep yourself quiet* 
 And, in the mean time, console yourself with 
 reflecting, that no man is laughed at for a long 
 time; every day will procure some new redicule 
 that must supersede him.'* such, I 'am satisfied, 
 was the counsel given ; but I have no apprehen- 
 sion for my client, because it was not taken. Even 
 if it should be his fate to be surrendered to his 
 keepers to be torn from his family to have his; 
 obsequies performed by torch light to be car- 
 ried to a foreign land, and to a strange tribunal, 
 where no witness can attest his innocence, where 
 no voice that he ever heard can be raised in his 
 defence, where he must standmute, not of his own 
 malice, but the malice of his enemies yes, even 
 so, I see nothing for him to fear that all gracious 
 Being, that shields the feeble from the oppressor, 
 will fill his heart with hope, and confidence, and 
 courage; his sufferings will be his armour, and his 
 weakness will be his strength : he will find himself 
 in the hands of a brave, a just, and a generous 
 nation he will find that the bright examples of 
 her Russels and her Sidneys have not been lost to 
 her children; they will behold him with sympathy 
 and respect, and his persecutors with shame and 
 abhorrence; they will feel, too, that what is then 
 his situation, may to-morrow be their own but 
 their first tear will be shed for him, and the se- 
 cond only for themselves their hearts will 
 
 melt in his acquittal; they will convey him kindly 
 and fondly to their shore ; and he will return in 
 triumph to his country; to the threshold of his 
 
 sacred
 
 sacred home, and to the weeping welcome of his 
 delighted family; he will find that the darkness 
 of a dreary and a lingering night hath at length 
 passed away, and that joy cometh in the morn- 
 ing. No, my lords, I have no fear for the ulti- 
 mate safety of my client. Even in these very 
 acts of brutal violence that have been committed 
 aginst him, do I hail the flattering hope of final 
 advantage to him, but of better days and more 
 prosperous fortune for this afflicted country 
 that country of which I have so often abandoned 
 all hope, and which I have been so often deter- 
 mined to quit for ever. 
 
 Sfppe vale dicto multa sum deinde locutus, 
 JEt quasi discedens oscula summa dabam, 
 Indulgens animo, pes tardus erat. 
 But I am reclaimed from that infidel despair I 
 am satisfied that while a man is suffered to live, 
 it is an intimation from Providence that he has 
 some duty to discharge, which it is mean aryj cri- 
 minal to decline: had I been guilty of that igno- 
 minious flight, and gone to pine in the obscurity 
 of some distant retreat, even in that grave I 
 should have been haunted by those passions by 
 which my life had been agitated 
 
 Qua* cur a vivos, cadcm sequitur failure repostos. 
 
 And if the transactions of this day had reached 
 me, I feel, how my heart would have been ago- 
 nized by the shame of the desertion, norwould my 
 sufferings have been mitigated by a sense of the 
 feebleness of that aid, or the smallness of that ser- 
 vice
 
 476 
 
 vice which I could render or withdraw. They 
 would have been aggravated by the consciousness 
 that, however feeble or worthless they were, I 
 should not have dared to thieve them from my 
 country. I have repented I have staid and I 
 am at once rebuked and rewarded by the happier 
 hopes that I now entertain. In the anxious sym- 
 pathy of the public in the anxious sympathy of 
 my learned brethren, do I catch the happy pre- 
 sage of a brighter fate for Ireland. They see, that 
 within these sacred walls, the cause of liberty and 
 of man may be pleaded with boldness and heard 
 with favour. I am satisfied they will never forget 
 the great trust, of which they alone are now the 
 remaining depositaries. While they continue to 
 cultivate a sound and literate philosophy a mild 
 and tolerating Christianity and to make both the 
 sources of a just, and liberal, and constitutional 
 jurisprudence, I see every thing for us to hope. 
 Into their hands therefore, with the most affec- 
 tionate confidence in their virtue, do I commit 
 these precious hopes. Even I may live long 
 enough yet to see the approaching completion, 
 if not in the perfect accomplishment of them. 
 Pleased shall I then resign the scene to fitter ac- 
 tors pleased shall I lay down my wearied head 
 to rest, and say " Lord, now lettest thou thy 
 servant depart in peace, according to thy word, 
 for mine eyes have seen their salv ation." 
 
 COURT
 
 COURT OF ROLLS. 
 
 MERRY, 
 
 VERSUS 
 
 RT. REV. DOCTOR JOfflV POWER, 
 
 R. C. BISHOP OF WATERFORD. 
 
 THE FACTS ARE AS FOLLOW! 
 
 IN 1804, Mary Power made her will, bequeath- 
 ing a considerable part of her property to the 
 Rev. John Power, and others in trust for chari- 
 table purposes. Her brother Joseph, then a mer- 
 chant in Spain, was her next of kin, and residuary 
 legatee: he died intestate, and his son, the now 
 plaintiff, came over and took out administration 
 to his deceased father, and brought a suit in the 
 spiritual court, to set aside the will, as unduly 
 obtained, and as disposing of a large property to 
 papists, and for superstitious uses. In that court 
 the plaintiff applied for an administrator, pen- 
 dcnte lite, and was refused. The present bill 
 was filed, praying that the effects might be 
 brought into court. This bill was filed only a 
 few weeks ; and now, before the defendant had 
 answered, a motion was made by doctor Vava- 
 sour,
 
 478 
 
 sour, for a receiver, and that doctor Power, the 
 acting executor, should be ordered forthwith to 
 bring the effects into court ; he relied on the af- 
 fidavit of his client, the plaintiff, charging that 
 the will was obtained by fraud by the defendant 
 Power, and that at best it could not be sustained, 
 as being a trust altogether for popish uses. The 
 motion was opposed by Mr. Prendergast, who 
 strongly argued against the imputations thrown 
 out upon the conduct of doctor Power, by the 
 name of this " one John Power, a popish priest.' 9 
 He insisted that under the whole circumstances 
 there was no colour for impeaching the transac- 
 tion; that the bequests were most praise- worthy; 
 that there had already been a decree of this court 
 obtained by the trustees of charitable donations, 
 affirming the legality of the trusts, and that it 
 would be unprecedented for a court to interfere 
 in this way, and before an answer came in ; or any 
 delay or resistance, on the part of the defendant, 
 to put in his answer. Other gentlemen, on both 
 sides, argued very zealously for their clients. 
 
 His honour (Mr. Curran) said, that if the 
 question had been brought forward upon the 
 mere rule of the court j he should not have thought 
 it necessary to give many reasons for the order 
 he intended to make, but pressed so strongly as 
 it has been, both by the arguments themselves, 
 and perhaps more so by the style and manner of 
 putting them, as well as the supposed policy 
 which lias been called in to aid them : 
 
 " I think,"
 
 4/9 
 
 " I think," said his honour, " I ought to state 
 the grounds upon which I mean to act in my de- 
 cision. First, then, it is urged, that this is the 
 case of an insolvent and wasting executor, having 
 fraudulently obtained the will. As to insolven- 
 cy to be an executor it is not necessarv to be 
 rich; integrity and discretion are the essential 
 qualities of an executor. If the testator thinks 
 he has fonnd these in an executor of humble 
 means, this court has no power to control him; 
 he may bestow his property as a gift to whom he 
 pleases. It would be strange if he could not con- 
 h'de it as a trust to whom he chooses ; I know 
 of no necessary connexion between wealth and 
 honesty; I fear that integrity is not always 
 found to be the parent or offspring of riches. To 
 interfere, therefore, as is now sought, with this 
 executor, would be little short of removing the 
 will. But it is said this will has been obtained 
 by fraud, practised by this " one John Power" 
 No d_oubt this court has acted, where strong 
 ground of suspicion of fraud, and danger of the 
 property being made away with, have appeared ; 
 but, do these grounds now appear to this court? 
 
 Here his honour recapitulated the facts sworn 
 to, and said: 
 
 " I see no semblance of fact to sustain such a 
 charge. Who does this " one JoJin Power, a 
 " popish priest," turn out to by? I find he is a 
 catholic clergyman a doctor in divinity, and 
 the titular bishop in the diocese of \Vaterford. 
 And yet I am now pressed to believe that this 
 
 gentleman
 
 480 
 
 gentleman has obtained this will by fraud. Every 
 fact now appearing repels the charge; I cannot 
 but say that the personal character of the person 
 accused, repels it still more strongly. Can I be 
 brought, on grounds like those now before me, 
 to believe, that a man, having the education of 
 a scholar, the habits of a religious life, and vested 
 with so high a character in the ministry of the 
 gospel, could be capable of so detestable a pro- 
 fanation as is flung upon him? Can I forget 
 that he is a Christian bishop, clothed not in the 
 mere authority of a sect, but clothed in the in- 
 delible character of the episcopal order suffer- 
 ing no dimunition from his supposed heterodoxy, 
 nor drawing any increase or confirmation from 
 the merits of his conformity, should he think 
 proper to renounce what we call the errors of 
 faith ? Can I bring my mind on slight, or ra- 
 ther on no grounds, to believe, that he could so 
 trample under his feet all the impressions of that 
 education, of those habits, and of that high rank 
 in the sacred ministry of the gospel which he 
 holds as to sink to the odious impiety imputed to 
 him? Can I bring myself to believe such a man, 
 at the dying bed of his fellow-creature, would be 
 capable with one hand of presenting the cross 
 before her lifted eye, and with the other, of basely 
 thieving from her those miserable dregs of this 
 world, of which his perfidious tongue was em- 
 ployed in teaching her a Christian's estimate? I 
 do not believe it; on the contrary, I am (as far as 
 it belongs to me in this interlocutory way, to 
 judge of the fact) as perfectly convinced that the 
 
 conduct
 
 481 
 
 conduct of doctor Power was what it ought to 
 be, as 1 am that the testatrix is dead. 
 
 c But," said his honour, " I am called on to 
 interfere, it being a foolish bequest to superstitious, 
 and those popish, uses! I have looked into those 
 bequests I find the object of them is to provide 
 shelter and comfortable support for poor helpless 
 females; and clothes, and food, and instruction 
 for poor orphan children. Would to God I could 
 see more frequent instances of such bequests! 
 Beautiful in the sight of God must it be beauti- 
 ful in the sight of man ought it be, to see the dy- 
 ing Christian so employed to see the last mo- 
 ments of human life so spent in acts of gratuitous 
 benevolence, or even of interested expiation. 
 How can we behold such acts, without regarding 
 them as forming a claim to, as springing from a 
 consciousness of immortality? In all ages the 
 hour of death has been considered as an interval 
 of more than ordinary illumination; as if some 
 rays from the light of the approaching world had 
 found their way to the darkness of the parting 
 spirit, and revealed to it an existence that could 
 not terminate in the grave, but was to commence 
 in death. 
 
 But these uses are condemned, as being not 
 only superstitious but popish uses. As to that, 
 J must say that I feel no disposition to give any 
 assistance even to the orthodox rapine of the 
 living, in defeating even the heterodox charity of 
 2 i the
 
 482 
 
 the dead. I am aware that this objection means 
 somewhat more- than directly meets the ear, if it 
 means any thing. The objects of these bequests, 
 it seems, are catholics, or, as they have been 
 called, papists ; and the insinuation clearly is, 
 that the religion of the objects of this woman's 
 bounty calls upon me to exercise some peculiar 
 rigour of interference to abridge or defeat her 
 intentions. Upon this point I wish to be dis- 
 tinctly understood ; I don't conceive this to be 
 the spirit of our existing law ; nor, of course, the 
 duty of this court to act upon that principle in the 
 way contended for. In times, thank God, now 
 past, the laws would have warranted such doc- 
 trines. Those laws owed their existence to unfor- 
 titnate combinations of circumstances that were 
 thought to render them necessary. But if we look 
 lack with sorrow to their enactment, let us look for- 
 ward with kindness and gratitude to their repeal. 
 Produced by national calamity, they were brought 
 by national benevolence, as well as by national con- 
 trition, to the altar of public justice and concord \ 
 and there offered as a sacrifice to atone, to heal, to 
 conciliate, to restore social confidence, and to give 
 us that hope of prosperity and safety, which no peo- 
 ple ever had, or deserved, or dared to have, except 
 where it is founded on the community of interests, 
 a perfectly even and equal participation of just 
 rights, and a consequent contribution of all the 
 strength of all the parts so equally interested 
 in the defence of the whole. 
 
 " I know
 
 483 
 
 " I know they have been supposed to origi- 
 nate in religious bigotry that is religious zeal 
 carried to excess I never thought so. The real 
 spirit of our holy religion is too incorruptibly 
 pure and beneficent to be depraved into any such 
 excess. Analyse the bigot's object, and we see 
 he takes nothing from religion but a flimsy pre- 
 text in the profanation of its name; he professes 
 the correction of error and the propagation of 
 truth. But when he has gained the victory, 
 what are the terms he makes for himself? Power 
 and profit. What terms does he make for reli- 
 gion? Profession and conformity What is that 
 profession ? the mere utterance of the lips the 
 utterance of sounds, that after a pulsation or 
 two upon the air, are just as visible and lasting 
 as they are audible. What is the conformity? 
 Is it the practice of any social virtue or Christian 
 duty? Is it the forgiveness of injuries, or the 
 payment of debts, or the practice of charity ? 
 No such things. It is the performance of some 
 bodily gesture or attitude. It is going to some 
 place of worthip. It is to stand or to kneel, or 
 to bow to the poor-box, but it is not a confor- 
 mity that has any thing to do with the judgment, 
 or the heart, or the conduct. All these things 
 bigotry meddles not with, but leaves them to re- 
 ligion herself to perform. Bigotry only adds one 
 more, and that a very odious one, to the num- 
 ber of those human stains which it is the busi- 
 ness of true religion not to burn out with the 
 bigot's fire, but to expunge and wash away by the 
 '2 i '2 Christian's
 
 484 
 
 Christian's tears Such invariably, in all the coun- 
 tries and ages, have been the motives to the 
 bigot's conflicts, and such the use of his victories : 
 Not the propagation of any opinion, but the en- 
 grossment of power and plunder of homage and 
 tribute. Such, I much fear, was the real origin 
 of our popery laws. But power and privilege 
 must necessarily be confined to very few. In 
 hostile armies you find them pretty equal, the 
 victors and the vanquished, in the numbers of 
 their hospitals and in the numbers of their dead; 
 so it is with nations ; the great mass is despoiled 
 and degraded, but the spoil itself is confined to 
 few indeed. The result finally can be nothing 
 but the disease of dropsy and decrepitude. In 
 Ireland this was peculiarly the case. Religion 
 was dishonoured, man was degraded, and social 
 affection was almost extinguished. A few, a 
 very Jew still profited by this abasement of hu- 
 manity. But let it be remembered, with a just 
 feeling of grateful respect to their patriotic and 
 disinterested virtue, and it is for this purpose 
 that I have alluded as I have done, that that few 
 composed the whole power of the legislature 
 which concurred in the repeal of that system, 
 and left remaining of it, not an edifice to be de- 
 molished, but a mere heap of rubbish, unsightly, 
 perhaps pernicious to be carted away. 
 
 " If the repeal of those laws had been a mere 
 abjuration of intolerance, I should have given it 
 little credit. The growing knowledge of the 
 
 world,
 
 485 
 
 world, particularly of the sister nation, had dis- 
 closed and unmasked intolerance; had put it to 
 shame, and consequently to flight! But though 
 public opinion may proscribe intolerance, it cannot 
 take away powers or privileges established by law. 
 Those powers of exclusion and monopoly could 
 be given up only by the generous relinquishment 
 of those who possessed them. And nobly were 
 they so relinquished by those repealing statutes. 
 Those lovers of their country saw the public ne- 
 cessity of the sacrifice, and most disinterestedly 
 did they make it. If too, they have been singu- 
 lar in this virtue, they have been as singularly for- 
 tunate in their reward. In general, the legisla- 
 tor, though he sows the seed of public good, is 
 himself numbered with the dead before the har- 
 vest can be gathered. With us it has not been- 
 so with us the public benefactors, many of them 
 at least, have lived to see the blessing of heaven 
 upon their virtue, in an uniformly accelerating 
 progress of industry and comfort, and liberality, 
 and social affection, and common interest, such 
 as I do not believe that any age or nation has 
 ever witnessed. 
 
 " Such I do know was the view, and such the 
 hope with which that legislature, now no more! 
 proceeded so far as they went, in the repeal of 
 those laws so repealed. And well do I know 
 how warmly it is now remembered by every think- 
 ing catholic, that not a single voice'for those re- 
 pe^ls was or could be given except by a protest- 
 
 tant
 
 486 
 
 tant legislator. W ith iiifinite pleasure do I also 
 know and feel that the same sense of justice and good- 
 'will which then produced the repeal of these laws, 
 is continuing to act, and with increasing energy, 
 upon those persons in both countries, whose wvrth 
 and whose wisdom are likely to explode whatever 
 principle is dictated by bigotry and Jolly ; and to 
 give currency and action to whatever principle is 
 wise and salutary. Such, also, I know to be the 
 feelings of every court in this hall. It is from this 
 enlarged and humanized spirit of legislation that 
 courts oj justice ought to take their principles of 
 expounding the law. 
 
 " At another time I should probably have 
 deemed it right to preserve a more respectful 
 distance from some subjects which I have pre- 
 sumed (but certainly with the best intentions, 
 and I hope, no unbecoming freedom) to ap- 
 proach: But I see the interest the question has 
 excited ; and I think it right to let no person 
 carry away with him any mistake, as to the 
 grounds of my decision, or suppose that it is 
 either the duty or the disposition of our courts to 
 make any harsh or jealous distinctions in their 
 judgment, founded on any differences of religious 
 sects or tenets. I think therefore, the motion 
 ought to be refused ; and I think myself bound 
 to mark still more strongly my sense of its im- 
 propriety, by refusing it with full costs. 
 
 FIX! S. 
 
 E. Jilarkader, Printer, 
 Toek' Court, CJianccry Lain-, London.
 
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