Bonk 'T 7 ^ S of VVash^*^ ALEXANDRIA, D. C. 7R3NXED AND PUBLISHED BY HAWl & THOMSON 1820, THE FOLLOWING SPEECHES ARE, BY PERMISSION, DEDICATED TO WILLIAM ROSCOE, THE MOST SINCERE RESPECT AND AFFECTION OF THEIR AUTHOR. PREFACE. (BY JOHN FINLAY, ESQ.) THE Speeches of Phillips are now, for the first time, offered to the world in an authen- tic form. So far as his exertions hare been hitherto developed, his admirers, and they are innumerable, must admit, that the text of this volume is an acknowledged reference, to which future criticism may fairly resort, and from which his friends must deduce any title which th© Breaker may have created to the character of an orator. The interests of his reputation impose no necessity of denying many of those imper- fections which have been imputed to these productions. The value of all human exer- tion is comparative ; and positive excellence is but a flattering designation, even of the best products of industry and mind. There is, perhaps, but one way by which we could avoid all possible defects, and that is, by avoiding all possible exertion. The very fastidious, and the very uncharitable, may too often be met with, in the class of the indolent ; and the man of talent is gene- rally most liberal in his censure, whose in- dustry has given him least title to praise. — Thus defects and detraction are as the spots VI PREFACE. and shadow which of necessity adhere and attach to every object of honourable toil. Were it possible for the friends of Mr. Phil- lips to select those defects which could fill up the measure of unavoidable imperfection, and at the same time inflict least injury on his reputation, doubtless they would prefer the ble mis lies and errors natural to youth, consonant to genius, and consistent with an obvious and ready correction. To this des- cription, we apprehend, may be reduced all the errors that have been imputed through a system of wide-spreading and unwearied cri- ticism, animated by that envy with which in- dolence too oft regards the success of indus- try and talent, and subsidized by power in its struggle to repress the reputation and impor- tance of a rapidly rising young man, whom it had such good reason both to hate and fear. For it would be ignorance not to know, and knowing, it would be affectation to coitceal, that his political principles were a drawback on his reputation ; and that the dispraise of these speeches has been a discountable quan- tity for the promotion of placemen and the procurement of place. This system of depreciation thus power- fully wielded, even to the date of the present publication, failed not in its energy, though it has in its object ; nay more, it has succeeded in procuring for him the beneficial results of PREFACE. V1J a multiplying re-action. To borrow the ex- pression of an eminent classic, " the rays of their indignation collected upon him, served to illumine, but could not consume;" and doubtless, this hostility may have promoted this fact, that the materials of this volume are at this moment read in all the languages of Europe ; and whatever be the proportion of their merits to their faults, they are un- likely to escape the attention of posterity. The independent reader, whom this book may introduce to a first or more correct ac- quaintance with his eloquence, will therefore be disposed to protect his mind against these illiberal prepossessions thus actively diffused, on the double consideration that some defects are essential to such and so much labour, and that some detraction may justly be accounted for by the motives of the system whose vices he exposed. The same reader, if he had not the opportunity of hearing these speeches delivered by the author, will make in his fa- vour another deduction for a different reason, The great father of ancient eloquence was accustomed to say, that action was the firsts and second, and last quality of an orator. — This was the dictum of a supreme authority : it was an exaggeration notwithstanding ; but the observation must contain much truth to permit such exaggeration ; and whilst we al- low that delivery is not every thing, it will be Vlll PREFACE. allowed that it is much of the effect of ora- tory. Nature has heen bountiful to the subject of these remarks in the useful accident of a prepossessing exterior ; an interesting figure, an animated countenance, and a demeanour devoid of affectation, and distinguished by a modest self-possession, give him the favour- able opinion of his audience, even before he has addressed them. His eager, lively, and sparkling eye melts or kindles in pathos or indignation ; his voice, by its compass, sweet- ness, and variety, ever audible and seldom loud, never hurried, inarticulate, or indistinct, secures to his audicncee very word that he utters, and preserves liim from the painful appearance of effort, His memory is not less faithful in the con- veyance of his meaning, than his voice : un- like Fox in this respect, he never wants a word ; unlike Bushe, he never pretends to want one ; and unlike Grattan, he never ei- ther wants or recalls one. His delivery is freed from every thing fan- tastic — is simple and elegant, impressive and sincere; and if we add the circumstance of his youth to his other external qualifications, none of his contemporaries in this vocation can pretend to an equal combination of these accidental advantages. If, then, action be a great part of the ef- PREFACE, IX feet of oratory, the reader who has not heard him is excluded from that consideration, so important to a right opinion, and on which his excellence is unquestioned. The ablest and severest of all the .critics who have assailed him, (we allude of course to the Edinburgh Review,) in their criticism on Guthrie and Sterne, have paid him an in- voluntary and unprecedented compliment. — • He is the only individual in these countries to whom this literary work has devoted an en- tire article on a single speech ; and when it is recollected that the basis of this criticism was an unauthorized and incorrect publica- tion of a single forensic exertion in the ordi- nary routine of professional business, it is very questionable whether such a publication afforded a just and proportionate ground-work for so much general criticism, or a fair crite- rion of the alleged speaker's general merits. This criticism sums up its objections, and concludes its remarks, by the following com- mending observation, — that a more strict con- tronl over his fancy would constitute a reme- dy for his defects. Exuberance of fancy is certainly a defect, but it is evidence of an attribute essential to an orator. There are few men without some judgment, but there are many men without any imagination : the latter class never did and never can produce an orator* Without B X PREFACE. imagination, the speaker sinks to the mere dry arguer, the matter-of-fact man, the calcu- lator, or syllogist, or sophist ; the dealer in fi- gures ; the compiler of facts ; the mason, hut not the architect of the pile : for the dictate of the imagination is the inspiration of ora- tory, which imparts to matter animation and soul. Oratory is the great art of persuasion ; its purpose is to give, in a particular instance, a certain direction to human action. The fa- culties of the orator are judgment and ima- gination ; and reason and eloquence, the pro- duct of these faculties, must work on tie judgment and feelings of his audience for the attainment of his end. The speaker who addresses the judgment alone may be argu- mentative, but never can be eloquent ; for ar- gument instructs without interesting, and elo- quence interests without convincing; but ora- tory is neither; it is the compound of both; it conjoins the feelings and opinions of men ; it speaks to the passions through the mind, and to the mind through the passions ; and leads its audience to its just purpose by the combined and powerful agency of human reason and human feeling. The components of this combination will vary, of course, in proportion to the number and sagacity of the auditory which the speaker addresses. AVith judges it is to be hoped that the passions will PREFACE. XI be weak ; with public assemblies it is to be hoped that reasoning will be strong; but al- though the imagination may, in the first case, be unemployed, in the second it cannot be dispeused with ; for if the advocate of virtue avoids to address the feelings of a mixed as- sembly, whether it be a jury or a political meeting, he has no security that their feeling, and their bad feelings, may not be brought into action against him : he surrenders to his enemy the strongest of his weapons, and by a species of irrational generosity contrives to ensure his own defeat in the conflict. To ju- ries and public assemblies alone the following speeches have been addressed ; and it is by ascertaining their effect on these assemblies or juries, that the merit of the exertion should in justice be measured. But there seems a general and prevalent mistake among our critics on this judgment. They seem to think that the taste of the in- dividual is the standard by which the value of oratory should be decided. We do not con- sider oratory a mere matter of taste: it is a given means for the procurement of a given end ; and the fitness of its means to the at- tainment of its end should be in chief the measure of its merit — of this fitness success ought to be evidence. The preacher who can melt his congregation into tears, and excel others in his struggle to convert the superflu- Xll PREFACE. ities for the opulent into a treasury for the wretched ; — the advocate who procures the largest compensation from juries on their oaths, for injuries which they try ; — the man who, like Mr. Phillips, can he accused (if ever nny man was so accused, except himself) by grave lawyers, and before grave judges, of having procured a verdict from twelve saga- cious and most respectable special jurors by fascination ; of having, by the fascination of his eloquence, blinded them to that duty which they were sworn to observe : the man who can be accused of this on oath, and the fascination of whose speaking is made a ground-work, though an unsuccessful one, for setting aside a verdict ; he may be wrong and ignorant in his study and practice of oratory ; but, with all his errors and igno- rance, it must be admitted, that he has in some manner stumbled on the shortest way for at- taining the end of oratory— that is, giving the most forceful direction to human action and determination in particular instances. — His eloquence may be a novelty, but it is be- yond example successful ; and its success and novelty may be another explanation for the hostility that assails. It may be matter of taste, but it certainly would not be matter of judgment or prudence in Mr. Phillips to de- part from a course which has proved most successful, and which has procured for him PREFACE. XIU within the last year a larger number of rea- ders through the world than ever in the same time resorted to the productions of any man of these countries. His youth carries with •J it not only much excuse, but much promise of future improvement ; and doubtless he- will not neglect to apply the fruits of study and the lights of experience to each succeed- ing exertion. But his manner is his own, and every man's own manner is his best man- ner ; and so long as it works with this unex- ampled success, he should be slow to adopt the suggestions of his enemies, although he should be sedulous in adopting all legitimate improvement. To that very exuberance of imagination, we do not hesitate to ascribe much of his success ; whilst, therefore, he consents to controul it, let him be careful lest he clips his wings : nor is the strength of this faculty an argument, although it has been made an argument, against the strength of his reasoning powers; for let us strip these Speeches of every thing, whose deri- vation could be, by any construction, as- signed to his fancy ; let us apply this rule to bi^ judicial and political exertions — for in- stance, to the speech on Guthrie and Sterne, and the late one to the gentlemen of Liver- pool — let their topics be translated into plain, dull language, and then we would ask, what collection of topics could be more ju- XIV PREFACE. dicious, better arranged, or classed in a more lucid and consecutive order by the most tire- some wisdom of the sagest arguer at the bar? Is there not abundance to satisfy the judgment, even if there were nothing to sway the feelings, or gratify the imagination ? How preposterous, then, the futile endeavour to undervalue the solidity of the ground-work^ by withdrawing attention to the beauty of the ornament ; or to maintain the deficiency of strength in the base, merely because there appears so much splendour in the structure. Unaided by the advantages of fortune or alliance, under the frown of political power and the interested detraction of pi ofessional jealousy, confining the exercise of that ta- lent which he derives from his God to the ho- nour, and succour, and protection of his crea- tures — this interesting and highly-gifted young man runs his course like a giant, pros- pering and to prosper ; — in the court as a flaming sword, leading and lightning the in- jured to their own ; and in the public assem- bly exposing her wrongs — exacting her rights — conquering envy — trampling on corrup- tion — beloved by his country — esteemed by a world — enjoying and deserving an unex- ampled fame — and actively employing the summer of his life in gathering honours for his name, and garlands for his grave. CONTENTS Speech delivered at a Public Dinner given to Mr* Finlay by the Roman Catholics of the town and county of Sligo ---------- 1 Speech delivered at an Aggregate Meeting of the Ro- man Catholics of Cork -------- 13 Speech delivered at a Dinner given on Dinas Island, in the Lake of Killarney, on Mr. Phillips's health be- ing given, together with that of Mr. Payne, a young American ------------ 19 Speech delivered at an Aggregate Meeting of the Ro- man Catholics for the county and city of Dublin - 31 Petition referred to in the preceding speech, drawn by Mr. Phillips at the request of the Roman Catholics of Ireland ------------ 49 The Address to H. R. HL the Princess of Wales, drawn by Mr. Phillips at the request of the Roman Catho- lics of Ireland ----------- 53 Speech delivered by Mr. Phillips at a Public Dinner given to him by the friends of civil and religious li- berty in Liverpool --------„- 5.5 Spe Jfc of Mr. Phillips in the case of Guthrie v. Sterne delivered ia the Court of Common Pleas, Dublin 65 XVI CONTENTS. Speech of Mr. Phillips in the case of O'Mullan v. M'Korkill, delivered at the County Court-house, Galway 83 Speech in the case of Connaghton v. Dillon, delivered in the County Court-house of Roscommon - - 101 Speech of Mr. Phillips in the case of Creighton v. Townsend, delivered in the Court of Common Pleas, Dublin 113 Speech in the case of Blake v. Wilkins, delivered in the County Court-house, Galway ----- 125 A Character of Napoleon Buonaparte, down to the pe- riod of his exile to Elba -------- 141 Speech of Mr. Philiips in the case of Brown v. Blake for crim. con. delivered in Dublin, on the 9th July, 1817 145 Speech in the case of Fitzgerald v. Kerr, delivered at Mayo's Assizes 161 A SEKB3B3MH DELIVERED AT A PUBLIC DINNER, GIVEN TO MR. FINDLAY, 25p tge iSomatt CatSoitcg OF THE TOWN AND COUNTY OF SLIGO. 1 THINK, Sir, you will agree with me, that the most experienced speaker, might justly tremble in address- ing you, after the display you have just witnessed. What, then, must I feel, who never before addressed a public audience? However, it would be but an unworthy affectation in me, were I to conceal from you, the emo- tions with which I am agitated by this kindness. The exaggerated estimate which other countries have made of the few services so young a man could render, has, I hope, inspired me with the sentiments it ought ; but here, I do confess to you, I feel no ordinary sensation — here, where every object springs some new association, and the loveliest objects, mellowed as they are by tiute, rise painted on the eye of memory — here, where the light of heaven first blessed my infant view, and nature breath- ed into my infant heart, that ardour for my country which nothing but death can chill — here, ft here the scenes of my childhood remind me, how innocent I was, and the grave of my fathers admonish me, how pure I should continue — here, standing as 1 do amongst my fairest, fondest, earliest sympathies — such a welcome, D % A SPEECH operating, not merely as an affectionate tribute, but as a moral Testimony, does indeed quite oppress and over- whelm me. Oh ! believe me, warm is tbe heart that feels, and wil- ling is the. tongue that sr-eaks ; and still, I cannot, by shaping it to my rudely inexpressive phrase, shock the sensibility of a gratitude too full to be suppressed: and yet (how far!) too eloquent for language. If any circumstance could add to the pleasure of this day, it is that which i feel in introducing to the friends of my youth, the friend of my adoption, though perhaps I am committing one of oui imputed blunders, when I speak of introducing one whose patriotism has already rendered him familiar to every heart in Ireland ; a man, who, conquering everj disadvantage, and spurning eve- ry difficulty, has poured around our misfortunes the splendour of an intellect, that at once irradiates and con- sumes them. For the services he has rendered to his country, from my heart I thank him, and. for myself, I offer him a personal, it may be a selfish, tribute tor sav- ing me, by his presence this night, from an impotent at- tempt at his panegyric. Indeed, gentlemen, you can have little idea of what he has to endure, who, in these times, advocates youe cause. Every calumny which the venal, and the vulgar, and the vile are lavishing upon you, is visited with exaggeration upon us. We are call- ed traitors, because we would rally round the crown an unanimous people. We are called apostates, because we will not persecute Christianity. We are branded as se- paratists, because of our endeavors to annihilate the fet- ters, that, instead of binding, clog the connexion. To these may be added, the frowns of power, the envy of dul- ness, the mean malice of exposed self interest, and it may be, in despite of all natural affection, even the dis- countenance of kindred ! Well, be it so, — For thee, fair Freedom, welcome all the past, For thee, my country, welcome even the last! I am not ashamed to confess to you, that there w^s a day, when I was bigoted as the blackest ; but I thank the Be- ing who gifted me with a mind not quite impervious to iction, and I thank you, who . fforded such convinc- ing testimonies of my error, I saw you enduring with AT SLIGO. 5 patience the most unmerited assaults, bowing before the insults of revived anniversaries: in private life, exempla- ry ; in public, unoffending : in the hour of peace, asserting your loyalty ; in the hour of danger, proving it. Even when an invading enemy vittoriousry penetrated into the very heart of our country, I saw the banner of your al- legiance beaming refutation on your slanderers ; was it a wonder then, tbat 1 seized my prejudices, and with a blush burned them on tbe altar of my country ! The great question of Catholic, shall I not rather say, of Irish emancipation, has now assumed that national aspect which imperiously challenges the scrutiny of eve- ry one. While it was shrouded in the mantle of reli- gious mystery, with tiie temple for its sanctuary, and the pontiff for its ccntinel, the vulgar eve might shrink and vulgar spirit shudder. But now it has come forth, visi- ble and tangible, for the inspection of the laity ; and I solemnly protest, dressed as it has been in the double haberdashery of the English minister and the Italian prelate, I know not whether to laugh at its appearance, or to loathe its pretensions — to shudder at the deformity of its original creation, or smilr a: the grott-squeness of its foreign decorations. Only just admire this far-famed security bill, — this motley compound of oaths and penal- ties, which, under the name of emancipation, would drag your prelates with a halter about their necks to the vul- gar scrutiny of every village-tyrant, in order to enrich a few political traders, and distil through some state alem- bic the. miserable rinsings of an ignorant, a decaying, and degenerate aristocracy ! Only just admire it ! Ori- ginally engendered by our friends the opposition, with a cuckoo insidiousness, they swindled it into the nest of the treasury ra\ens, and when it had been fairly hatched with the beak of tbe one, and the nakedness of the other, they sent it for its feathers to Monseigneur Qua- rantotii. who has obligingly transmitted it with the hun- ger of its parent, the rapacity of its nurse, and the cox- combry of its plumasier, to be baptised by the bishops, and received aequo gratoque animo by the people of Ire- land ! ! Oh, thou sublimely ridiculous Quarantotti ! Oh! thou superlative coxcomb <»f the conclave ! what an esti- mate lv.*st thou formed of the mod of Ireland ! Yet why should I blame this wretched scribe of the Propaganda ? He had every right to speculate as he did ; all the chances A SPEECH of the calculation were in his favour. Uncommon must be the people, over whom centuries of oppression have revolved in vain! Strange must he the mind., whirl) is not subdued by suffering! Sublime the spirit which is not debased bv servitude ? God, I ghre thee thanks !— he knew not Ireland. Bent— broken- -manacled as she has been, she will not bow to the mandate of an Italian slave, transmitted through an English vicar. For my own part, as an Irish Protestant, I trample to the earth this audacious and desperate experiment of authority ; and for you. as Catholics! the time is come to give that calumny the lie, which represents you as subservient to a foreign influence. That influence, indeed, seems not quite so unbending as it suited the purposes of bigotry to repre- sent it, and appears now not to have conceded more, only because more was not demanded. The theology ol the question is not for me to argue; it cannot be in better hands than in those of your bishops : and I hai e no doubt that when they bring their rank, their learning, their ta- lents, their piety, and their patriotism to this sublime deliberation, Ihcy will consult the dignity of that vene- rable fabric which has stood for ages, splendid and im- mutable : which time could not crumble, nor persecutions shake, nor revolutions change: which has stood amongst us like some stupendous and majestic Aj-peniue, the earth rorking at its feet, and the heavens roaring round its head, firmly balanced on the base of its eternity ; the relic of what was 5 the solemn and sublime memento ot^ WHAT MUST BE ! Is this my opinion as a professed member of the church of En-land"? Undoubtedly it is. As an Irishman, I I feel my liberties interwoven, and the best affections of my heart as it were enfibred with those of my Catholic countrymen; and as a Protestant, convinced of the nurityofmy own faith, would I not debase it by post- poning the 'powers of reason to the suspicious instru- mentality of this world's conversion 2 No : surrendering as I do. with a proud contempt, all the degrading ad- vantages with which an ecclesiastical usurpation would invest me: so I will not interfere with a blasphemous intrusion between any man and his Maker. I hold it a criminal and accursed sacrilege, to rob even a beggar o a sinele motive for his devotion ? and I hold it an equal insult to my own faith, to offer me any boon for its pro- AT SLIGO. 5 fession. This pretended emancipation-bill passing into a law, would, in my mind, strike not a blow at this sect or that sect, but at the very vitality of Christianity it- self. 1 am thoroughly convinced that the anti -christian connexion between church and state, which it was suited to increase, has done more mischief to the Gospel inter- ests, than all the ravings of infidelity since the cruci- fixion. The sublime Creator of our blessed creed never meant it to be the channel of a courtly influence, or the source of a corrupt ascendancy. He sent it amongst us to heal, not to irritate ; to associate, not to seclude ; to collect together, like the baptismal dove, every creed and clime and colour in the universe, beneath the spotless wing of its protection. The union of church and state only converts good Christians into bad statesmen, and political knaves into pretended Christians. It is at best hut a foul and adulterous connexion, polluting the purity of heaven with the abomination of earth, and hanging the tatters of a political piety upon the cross of an insult- ed Saviour. Religion, Holy Religion, ought not, in the words of its Founder, to be " led into temptation." The hand that holds her chalice should be pure, and the priests of her temple should be spotless as the vestments of their ministry. Rank only degrades, wealth only impoverishes, ornaments but disfigure her. I would have her pure, unpensioned, unstipendiary ; she should rob the earth of nothing but its sorrows : a divine arch of promise, her extremities should rest on the horizon, and her span embrace the universe ; but her only suste- nance should be the tears that were exhaled and embel- lished by the sun-beam. Such is my idea of what reli- gion ought to be. What would this bill make it ? A men- dicant of the Castle, a menial at the levee, its manual the red-book, its liturgy the pension list, its gospel the will of the minister ! Methinks 1 see the stalled and fat- ted victim of its creation, Clinging with a brute suppii- ancy through the venal mob of ministerial flatterers, crouching to the ephemereal idol of the day, and, like the devoted sacrifice of ancient heathenism, glorying in the garland that only decorates him for death ! i will read to you the opinions of a celebrated Irishman, on the suggestion in his day, of a bill similar to that now proposed for our oppression. He was a man who added to the pride not merely of his country but of his species O A SPEECH — a man who robed the \qv\ soul of inspiration in the splendours of a purr, and over-powering eloquence. I allude to Mr. Burke — an authority at least to which the sticklers for establishments can offer no <>bje TOGETHER "WITH THAT OF MR. PAYNE, A YOUNG AMERICAN. IT is not with the vain hope of returning by words the kindnesses which have been literally showered on me during the short period of our acquaintance, that i nnw interrupt, for a moment, the flow of your festivity. In- deed, it is not necessary; an Irishman need no requital for his hospitality ; its generous impulse is the instinct of his nature, and the very consciousness of the act car- ries its recompense along with it. But, Sir, there are sensations excited by an allusion in your toast, under the influence of which silence would be impossible. To be assodated with Mr. Payne must be, to any one who regards private virtues and personal accomplishments, a 14 A SPEECH source of peculiar pride ; and that feeling is not a little enhanced in me by the recollection of rhe countrv to which vve are indebted for his qualifications. Indeed, th«- mention of America has never failed to fill Bole with the most lively emotions. In my earliest infancy, that tender season when impressions, at once the most per- manent and the most powerful, are likely to be excited, the story of her then recent struggle raised a throb in ever) heart that loved liberty, and wrung a reluctant tribute even from discomfited oppression. I saw her spurning alike the luxuries that would enervate, and the legions that would intimidate; dashing from her lips the poisoned cap of European servitude ; and through all the vicissitudes of her protracted conflict, displaying a magnanimity that defied misfortune, and a moderation that gave now grace to victory. It was the first vision of my childhood j it will descend with me to the grave. Bui if, as a man. I venerate the mention of America, what must be my feelings towards her as an Irishman. Never, oh never, while memory remains, can Ireland forget The home of her emigrant, and the asylum of her exile. No matter whether "their sorrows sprung from the errors of enthusiasm, or the realities of suffering, front fancy or infliction : that must be reserved for the scrutiny of those whom the lapse of time shall acquit of partiality. It is for the men of other ages to investigate and record it ; but surely it is for the men of every age to hail the hospitality that received the shelterless, and love the feeling that befriended the unfortunate. Search creation round, where can you find a country that pre- sents so sublime a view, so interesting an anticipation ? What noble institutions ! What a comprehensive policy » ^ hat a wise equalization of every political advantage ! T! e oppressed of all countries, the martyrs of every creed, the innocent victim of despotic arrogance or su- perstitious phrenzy, may there find refuge ; his industry encouraged, his piety respected, his ambition animated ; with no restraint but those laws whi< It are the same to all. and no distinction but that which his merit may ori- ginate. M ho can deny that the exixtence of such a Country 'presents a subject for human congratulation! Whu can deny, that its gigantic advancement offers a field for the most rational conjecture ! At the end of the very next century, if she proceeds as she seems to pro- AT DINAS ISLAND. 1$ snise, what a wondrous spectacle may she not exhibit ! Who shall say for what purpose a mysterious Providence may not have designed her! Who shall say thar when, in its follies or its crimes, the old world may ha\e inter- red all the pride of its power, and all the pomp of its ci- vilization, human nature may not find its destined reno- vation in the new ! For myself, ] have no doubt of it. I have not the least doubt that when our temples and our trophies shall have mouldered into dust — when the glo- ries of our name shall be but the legend of tradition, and the light of our achievements only live in song ; philoso- phy will rise again in the sky of her Franklin, and glo- ry rekindle at the urn of her Washington. Is this the vision of a romantic fancy ? Is it even improbable ? Is it half so improbable as the events which for the last twenty years have rolled like successive tides over the surface of the European world, each erasing the impres- sion that preceded it ? Thousands upon thousands, Sir, I know there are, who will consider this supposition as wild as whimsical ; but they have dwelt with Tittle re- flection upon the records of the past. They have but ill observed the never ceasing progress of national riseand national ruin. They form their judgment on the de- ceitful stability of the present hoiii, never considering the innumerable monarchies and republics, in former days, apparently as permanent, their very existence be- come now the subjects of speculation, I had almost said of scepticism. I appeal to History ! i ell me, thou re- verend chronicler of the grave, can all the allusions of ambition realised, can all the wealth of a universal com- merce, can all the achievements of successful heroism, or all the establishments of this world's wisdom, secure to empire the permanency of its possessions 2 Alas, Troy thought so once ; yet the land of Priam lives only in song ! Thebes thought so once ; yet her hundred gates 4iave crumbled, and her very tombs are but as the dust they were vainly intended to commemorate ! So thought Palmyra — where is she? So thought Persepolis — and now " Yon waste, where raming lions howl, Yon aisle, where moans the graj^-eyed owl, Shows the proud Tersian's great abode, Where sc« ptred once, an earthly godj His power-clad arm controlled each happier clime, Where sports the warbling muse, and fancy soars sublime.' 16 A SPEECH So thought the countries of Demosthenes and the Spar- tan, yet Leonidas is trampled by the timid slave, and Athens insulted by the servile, mindless, and enervate Ottoman ! In his hurried march, Time has but looked at their imagined immortality, and all ifs vanities, from the palace to the tomb, have, with their ruins, erased the very impression of his footsteps ! The days of their glory are as if they had never been ; and the island that was then a speck, rude and neglected in the barren ocean, now rivals the ubiquity of their commerce, the gl >ry of their arms, the fame of their philosophy, the eloquence of their senate, and the inspiration of their bards ! Who shall say, then, contemplating the past, that England, proud and potent as she appears, may not one day be what Athens is, and the young America yet soar to be what Athens was ! Who shall say, when the European column shall have mouldered, and the night of barbarism obscured its very ruins, that that mighty continent may not emerge from the horizon to rule for its time sovereign of the ascendant ! Such, Sir, is the natural progress of human opera- tions, and such the unsubstantial mockery of human pride. But I should, perhaps, apologize for this di- gression. The tombs are at best a sad although an in- structive subject. At all events, they are ill suited to such an hour as this. I shall endeavor to atone for it, by turning to a theme which tombs cannot inurn or re- volution alter. It is the custom of your board, and a noble one it is, to deck the cup of the gay with the gar- land of the great; and surdy, even in the eyes of its deity, his grape is not the less lovely when glowing be- neath the foliage of the palm tree and the myrtle. — Al- low me to add one flower to the chaplet, which, though it sprang in America, is no exotic. Virtue planted it, and it is naturalized every where. I see you anticipate me — I see you concur with me, that it matters very little what immediate spot may be the birth-place of such a man as Washington. No people can claim, no country can appropriate him ; the boon of Providence to the hu- man race, his fame is eternity, and his residence crea- tion. Though it was the defeat of our arms, and the disgrace of our policy, 1 almost bh-ss the convulsion in Which he had his origin. If the h-avens thundered and the earth rocked, vet, when the storm passed, how pure AT DINAS ISLASTB- IT was the climate that it cleared ; how bright in the brow of the firmament was the planet which it revealed to us! In the production of Washington, it does really appear as if nature was endeavoring to improve upon herself, and that all the virtues of the ancient wo»ld were but so many studies preparatory to the patriot of the new. In- dividual instances no doubt there were; splendid exem- plifications of some single qualification ; Ctesar was merciful, Scipio was continent, Hannibal was patient 5 but it was reserved for Washington to blend them all in one, and like the lovely chef d'ceuvrc of the Grecian ar- tist, to exhibit in one glow of associated beauty, tbe pride of every model, and the perfection of every master. As a general, he marshalled the peasant into a veteran, and supplied by discipline the absence of experience, as a statesman, he enlarged the policy of the cabinet into the most comprehensive system of general advantage ; and such was the wisdom of his views iind the philoso- phy of his counsels, that to the soldier and the statesman he almost added the character of the sage ! A conqueror, he was untainted with the crime of blood ; a revolution- ist, he was free from any stain of treason ; for aggression commenced the contest, and his country called him to the command. — Liberty unsheathed his sword, necessity stained, victory returned it. If he had paused here, his- tory might have doubted what station to assign him, whether at the head of her citizens or her soldiers, her heroes or her patriots. Bui the last glorious art crowns his career, and banishes all hesitation. Who, like Wash- ington, after having emancipated a hemisphere, resigned his crown and preferred the retirement of domestic life to the adoration ot a land he might be almost said to have created ! " How shall we rank thee upon glory's page, Thou more than soldier, and just less than sage j All thou hast been reflects Jess fame on thee, Far less than all thou hast forborne to be !" Such, Sir, is the testimony of one not to he accused of partiality in his estimate of America. Happy, proud America ! the lightnings of heaven yielded to your phi- losophy ! The temptations of earth could not seduce your patriotism ! I have the honour, Sir, of proposing to you as a toast, the immortal memory of George Washington ! A smSQKBIB DELIVERED AT AN AGGREGATE MEETING OF €Se Soman Catgoficg of €orft< It is with no small degree of self congratulation that I at length find myself in a province which every glance of the eye, and every throb of the heart, tells me is truly Irish ; and that congratulation is not a little enhanced by finding you receive me not quite as a stranger. In- deed, if to respect the Christian without regard to his creed, if to love the country but the more for its calami- ties, if to hate oppression though it be robed in power, if to venerate integrity though it pine under persecution, gives a man any claim to your recognition ; then indeed I am not a stranger amongst you. There is a bond of union between brethren, however distant; there is a sympathy between the virtuous, however separated $ there is a heaven-born instinct by which the associates of the heart become at once acquainted, and kindred natures, as it were, by magic see in the face of a stranger, the fea- tures of a friend. Thus it is that, though we never met, you hail in me the sweet association, and I feel myself amongst you even as if I were in the home of my nativi- ty. But this my knowledge of you uas not left to chance ; nor was it left to the records of your charity, 20 A SPEECH the memorials of your patriotism, your municipal mag- nificence, or your commercial splendour ; it came to me hallowed by the accents of that tongue on which Ireland has so often hung with ecstasy, heightened by the elo- quence and endeared by the sincerity of, I hope, our mu- tual friend. Let me congratulate him on having be- come in some degree naturalized in a province, where the spirit of the elder day seems to have lingered ; and let me congratulate you on the acquisition of a man who is at once the zealous advocate of your cause, and a practical instance of the injustice of your oppressions. Surely, surely if merit had fair play, if splendid falents, if indefatigable industry, if great research, if unsullied principle, if a heart full of the finest affections, if a mind matured in every manly accomplishment, in short, I every noble, public quality, mellow; d and reflected inthe pure mirror of do nestic virtue, could entitle a subject to distinction in a st<)te, Air. O* Council should be distin- guished ; but, it is his crime to be a Catholic, and his curse to be an Irishman. Simpleton J he prefers his conscience to a place, nnd the love of his country to a participation in her plunder! Indeed he will never rise, if he joined the bigots of my sect, he might be a ser- geant; if he joined the infidels of your sect, he might enjoy a pension, and there is no knowing whether some Orange-corporator, or an Orange-anniversary, might not modestly yield him the precedence of giving « the glorious and immortal memory." Oh, yes. he might be privileged 10 get drunk in gratitude to the man who co- lonized ignorance in his native land, and left to his creed the legacy of legalized persecution. Nor would he stand alone, no matter what might be the measure of his disgrace, or the degree of his dereliction. You well know there are many of your own community who would leave him at the distance-post. In Contemplating their recreancy, I should be almost tempted to smile at the exhibition of their pretensions, if there was not a kind of moral melancholy intermingled, that changed satire into pity, and ridicule into contempt. For my part, I behold them in the apathy of their servitude, as 1 would some miserable maniac in the contentment of his capti- vity. Poor creature ! w he'll all that raised him from the brute is levelled, and his glorious intellect is moul- dering in ruins, you may see him with his song of tri- AT CG51E. 21 timph, and his crown of straw, a fancied freeman mid the clanking of bis chains, and an imaginary monarch beneath the inflictions of his keeper! Merciful God ! is it not almost an argument for the sceptic and the disbe- liever, when we see the human shape almost without an aspiration of the human soul, separated by no bounda- ry from the beasts that perish, beholding with indiffe- rence the captivity of their country, the persecution of their creed, and the helpless, hopeless destiny of their children ? But tiiey have nor creed, nor consciences, nor country ; their god is gold, their gospel is a contract, their church a counting-house, their characters a com- modity ; they never pray but for the opportunities of coemption, and hold their consciences, as they do their government-debentures, at a price proportioned to the misfortunes of their country. But let us turn from those mendicants of disgrace : though Ireland is doomed to the stain of their birth, her mind need not he sullied by their contemplation, I turn from them with pleasure to the contemplation of your cause, which, as far as argu- ment can affect it, stands on a sublime and splendid elevation. Every obstacle has vanished into air; every favourable circumstance has hardened into adamant. The Pope, whom childhood was taught to lisp as the enemy of religion, and age shuddered at as a prescrip- tive calamity, has by his example put the princes of Christendom to shame. This day of miracles, in which the human heart has been strung to its extremest point of energy ; this day, to which posterity will look for in- stances of every crime and every virtue, holds not in its page of wonders a more sublime phenomenon than that calumniated pontiff. Placed at the very pinnacle of hu- man elevation, surrounded by the pomp of the Vatican and the splendours of the court, pouring the mandates of Christ from the throne of the Caesars, nations were his subjects, kings were his companions, religion was his handmaid ; he went forth gorgeous with the accu- mulated dignity of ages, exery knee bending, and every eye blessing the prince of one world and the prophet of another. Have we not seen him, in one moment, his crown crumbled, his sceptre a reed, his throne a shadow, his home a dungeon ! But if we have, Catholics, it was only to shew how inestimable is human virtue compared with human grandeur ; it was only to shew those whose 22 ± SPEECH faith was failing, and whose fears were strengthening, that the simplicity of the patriarchs, the piety pf fhe saints, and the patience of the martyrs, had not wholly vanished. Perhaps it was also ordained to shew the bigot at home, as well as the tyrant abroad, I hat though the person might be chained, and the motive ca- lumniated, Religion was still strong enough to support her sons, and to confound, if she could not reclaim, her enemies. No tin eats could awe, no promises could temp?, no sufferings could appal hint ; mid the damps of his dungeon he dashed away the rup in which the pearl of his liberty was to be dissolved. Only reflect on the state of the world at thai moment! All around him was convulsed, the very foundations of the earth seemed giving way, the comet was lei loose that «• from its fiery hair shook pestilence and death," the twilight was ga- thering, the* tempest was roaring, the darkness was at hand ; but he towered sublime, like the last mountain in the deluge — majestic, not less in his elevation than in his solitude, immutable amid change, magnificent amid ruin, the last remnant of earth's beauty, the last resting place of heaven's light! Thus have the terrors of the Va- tican retreated ; thus has that cloud which hovered o'er your cause brightened at once into a sign of your faith and an assurance of your victory. — Another obsta- cle, the omnipotence of Fbakce : I know it was a pre- tence, but it was made an obstacle— What has become of it? The spell of her invincibility destroyed, the spirit of her armies broken, her immense boundary dismem- bered, and the lord of her empire become the exile of a rock. She allows fancy no fear, and bigotry no spe- ciousness ; and, as if in the very operation of the change to point the purpose of your redemption, the hand that replanted the rejected lily was that of an Irish Catholic. Perhaps it is not also unworthy ol remark, that tin last day of her triumph, and the first of her decline, was that on which her insatiable chieftain smote the holy head of your religion. You will hardly suspect 1 am imbued with the follies of superstition ; but when the man now unborn shall trace the story of that eventful day, he will seethe adopted child of fortune borne on the wings of victory from clirne to clime, marking every move- ment with a triumph, and every pause with a crown, till lime, space, seasons, nay, even nature herself, seem- AT CORK. 2S ins: to vanish from before him. in the blasphemy of his ambition he s n »te the apostle of bis God. and dared to the everlasting Cross amid his perishable trophies ! I am no fanatic, but is it not remarkable ? May it not be one of those signs which the Dei-y lias sometimes given in compassion to our infirmity; signs, which in the punishment of one nation not nnfrequeutly denote the warning to another ; — 11 Signs sent bv God to mark the will of Heaven. Signs, which bid nations weep and be forgiven/' The argument, however, is taken from the bigot ; and those whose consciousness taught them to expect what your loyalty should have taught them to repel, can no longer oppose you from the terrors of invasion. Thus, then, the papal phantom and the French threat have va- nished into nothing. — Another obstacle, the tenets of your creed. Ha3 England still to learn them ? I will tell her whpre. Let her ask Canada, the last plank of her American shipwreck. Let her ask Portugal, the first omen of her European splendour. Let her ask Spain, the most Catholic country in the universe, her Catholic friend?, her Catholic allies, her rivals in the triumph, her reliance in the retreat, iier last stay when the world hat 1 d her. They must have told her on the field of Mood, whether it was true that they •• kept no faith with heretics." Alas, alas ! how miserable a thing is bigotry, when every friend outs it to the blush, and every triumph but rebukes its weakness. If Eng- land continued still to accredit this calumny, I would direct her for conviction to the hero for whose gift alone she owes us an eternity of gratitude ; whom we have seen leading the \an of universal emancipation, decking his wreath with the flowers of every soil, and filling his army with the soldiers of every sect : before whose splendid dawn, e\evy tear exhaling and every vapour vanishing, the colours of the European world have re- ■ !. and the spirit of European liberty (may no crime avert the omen !} seems to have arisen ! Suppose he was a Catholic, could this have been ? Suppose Catholics did not follow him, could this have been 2 Did the Ca- tholic Cortes inquire his faith when they gave him the supreme command ? Did the Regent of Portugal with- 24 A SPEECH hold from his creed the reward of his valour ? Did the Catholic Soldier pause at Salamanca to dispute upon polemics ? Did the Catholic chieftain prove upon Bar- rossa that he kept no faith wi'h heretics, or did the creed of Spain, the same with that of Fran e, the opposite of that of England, prevent their association in the field of liherty ? Oh. no. no, nof the citizen of every clime, the friend of every color, and the child of every creed, liber- ty walks abroad in the ubiquity of her benevolence ; alike to her the varieties of faith and the vicissitudes of coun- try : she lias no object but the happiness of man. no bounds but the extremities of creation. Yes, yes, it was reserved for Wellington to redeem his own country when he was regenerating exevy other. It was reserved for him to show how vile were the aspersions on your creed, how generous were the glowings of your gratitude. Be was a Protestant, yet Catholics trusted him ; he was a Protestant, vet Catholics ad\anced him? he is a Pro- testant Knight in Catholic Portugal ; he is a Protestant Duk* 1 in Catholic Spain : he is a Protestant commander of Catholic armies : he is more, he is the living proof of the Catholic's liberality, and the undeniable refutation of the Protestant's injustice. Gentlemen, as a Protes- tant, though 1 may blush for the bigotry of many of my creed who continue obstinate in the teeth of this convic- tion, still were i a Catholic I should feel little triumph in the victory. I should only hang my head at the dis- tresses which this warfare occasioned to my country. I should only think how long she had writhed in the ago- ny of her disunion; how lung she bent, fettered by slaves, cajoled by blockheads, and plundered by adventurers ; the proverb of the fool, the prey of the politician, the dupe of the designing, the experiment of the desperate, struggling as it were between her own fanatical and in- fatuated parties, those hell engendered serpents which enfold her, like the Trojan seer, even at the worship of her altars, and crush her to death in the very embraces of her children! It is time (is it not ?) that she should be extricated. The act would be proud, the means would be Christian : mutual forbearance, mutual indul- gence, mutual concession : I would say to the Protes- tant, Concede : I would say to the Catholic, Forgive ; I ould sty to both. Though you bend not at the same shrine, you have a common God, and a common coun- AT CORK. 25 try; the one has commanded love, the other kneels to for peace. This hostility of her sects has heen the ace, the peculiar disgrace, of Christianity. The Geutoo loves his cast, so does the Mahometan, so does the Hind to, whom England out of the abundance of her charity is about to teach her creed ; — I hope she may not teach her practice. But Christianity, Christianity alone exhibits her thousand sects, each denouncing his neighbor here, in the name or' God, and damning here- after out of pure devotion I *• You're a heretic, ° says tho Catholic : " You're a Papist," says the Protestant : " I apnea! to Saint Peter," ex laitns tho Catholic : I appeal to Saint Athaunsius," cries the Protestant : — •» and if it goes to damning, he's as good at it as any saint in the calendar. *' " You'll all be damned eternal- ly.'* moans out the Methodist ; I'm the elect \" Thus . you see, each has his anathema, his accusation, and his retort, and in tho end Religion is the victim ! The victory of each is the overthrow of all ; and Infide- lity, laughing at the contest, writes the refutation of their creed in the blood of the combatants ! 1 wonder if this reflection has ever struck any of those reverend dignitaries who rear their mitres against Catholic eman- cipation. Has it ever glanced across their Christian zed, if the story of our country should have casually reached the valleys of Hindostan, with what an argu- ment they are furnishing the heathen world against their sacred missionary ? In what terms could the Christian ecclesiastic answer the Eastern Bramin, when he repli- ed to his exhortations iu language such as this ? m Fa- ther, we have heard your doctrine; i<. is splendid in theory, specious in promise, sublime in prospect ; like the world to which it leads, it is rich in the mired light. But Father, we have heard that there are times when its rays vanish and leave your sphere in darkness, or when your only lustre arises from meteors of fire, and moons of blood ; we have heard of the verdant island which the Great Spirit has raised in the bosom of the waters with such a bloom of beauty, that the very wave she has usurped worships the loveliness of her intrusion. The sovereign of our forests is not more generous in his anger than her sons ; the snow-flake, ere it falls on the mountains, is not purer than her daughters ; little in- land seas reflect tho splendours of her landscape, and 96 A SPEECH her valleys smile at the story of the serpent ! Father, is it true that tills isle of the sun, this people of the m mine:, find the fury of the ocean in your creed, and ■lore than the venom of the viper in your policy ? Is it true that for six hundred years, her peasant has not tast- ed peace, nor her piety rested f'r-m persecution ? Oh! Brama, defend us from the God of the Christian ! Fa- ther, father, return to your brethren, retrace the wa- ters ; we may live in ignorance, but we live in love, and we will not taste the tree that gives us evil when it gives us wisdom. The heart is our guide, nature is our gos- pel ; in the imitation of our fathers we found our hope, and, if we err, on the virtue of our motives we reh for our redemption. " How would the missionaries of the mitre answer him ? How will they answer that insult- ed Being of whose creed their conduct cariies the refu- tation ? —But to what end do I argue with the Bigot l a wret< h, whom no philosophy can humanize, no chari- ty soften, no religion reclaim ; no miracle convert ; a monster, who, red with the fires of hell, and bending under the crimes of earth, erects his murderous divinity upon a throne of sculls, and would gladly feed even with a brother's blood the cannibal appetite of his rejected altar! His very interest cannot soften him into huma- nity. Surely, if it could, no man would be found mad enough to advocate a system which cankers the very heart of society, and undermines the natural resources of government ; which takes away the strongest excite- ment to industry, by closing up every avenue to lauda- ble ambition ; which administers to the vanity or the vice of a party, when it should only study the advan- tage of a people ; and holds out the perquisites of state as an impious bounty on the persecution of religion. — I ha\e already shown that the power of the Pope, that the power of Fiance, and that the tenets of your creed, were but imaginary auxiliaries to this system. Another pre- tended obsTaele has, however, been opposed to your e- mam ipation. 1 allude to the danger arising from a fo- reign influence. What a triumphant answer can you give to that! Methinks, as lately, 1 see the assemblage of your hallowed hierarchy surrounded by the priesthood, and I oil owed by the people, waving aloft the crucifix of Christ alike against the seductions of the court, and the commands of the conclave ! >Vas it nut a delightful, a AT CORK. 27 heart-cheering spectacle, to see that holy band of bro. titers preferring the chance of martyrd >m to the cer- tainty of promotion, and postponing all the gratifica- tions of vvorldiy pride, to the severe but heaven-gaining glories of their poverty ? They acted honestly; and they acted wisely also ; for I say here, before the largest as- sembly I ever saw in any country — and I believe you are almost all Catholics— I say here, that if the see of Rome presumed to impose any temporal mandate direct- ly or indirectly on the Irish people, the Irish bishops should at once abandon it, or their flocks, one and all, would abjure and banish both of them together. History affords us too fatal an example of the perfidious, arro- gant, and venal interference of a papal usurper of for- mer days in the temporal jurisdiction of this count! y; an interference assumed without right, exercised with- out principle, a; d followed by calamities apparently without end. Thus, then, has every obstacle vanished; but it has done more — every obstacle has, as it were, by miracle, produced a powerful argument in your favor } How do I prove it ? Follow me in my proofs, and you will see by what links the chain is united. The power of Napoleon was the grand and leading obstacle to your emancipation. That power led him to the menace of an Irish invasion. What did that prove? Only the since- rity of Irish allegiance. On the very threat, we poured forth our volunteers, our yeoman, and our militia ; and the country became encircled with an armed and a loval population. Thus, then, the calumny of your disaffec- tion vanished. That power next led him to the invasion of Portugal. What did it prove ? Only the good faith of Catholic allegiance, £, very field in the Peninsula saw the Catholic Portuguese hail the English Protestant as a brother and a friend joined in the same pride and the sam J peril. Thus, then, vanished the slander that you could not keep fairh with heretics. That power next led him to the imprisonment of the Pontiff, so long suspect- ed of being quite ready to sacrifice every thing to his interest and his dominion. What did that prove? The strength of his principles, the purity of his faith, the disinterestedness ot his practice, it proved a life spent in the study of the saints, and ready to be closed by an imitation of the martyrs. Thus, also, was the head of your religion vindicated to Europe. There remained 28 A SPEECH behind but one impediment — your liability to a fofcigft influence. Now mark ! The Pontiff's captivity led to the transmission of Quarantotli's rescript ; and, on its arri- val, from the priest to the peasant, there was not a Ca- tholic in the land, who did not spiirn the document of Italian audacity ! Thus, then, vanished also the phan- tom of a foreign influence! Is this comiction ? Is not the hand of God in it ? Oh yes | for observe what fol- lowed. The very moment that power, which was the first and last leading argument against you, had, by its special operation, banished every obstacle ; that power itself, as it were by enchantment, evaporated at once ; and peace with Europe took away the last pretence for your exclusion. Peace with Europe ! alas, there is no peace for Ireland : the universal pacification was hut the signal for renewed hostility to us» and the mockery of its preliminaries were tolled through our provinces by the knell of the curfew. I ask, is it not time that this hostility should cease ? If ever there was a day when it was necessary, that day undoubtedly exists no longer. The continent is triumphant, the Peninsula is free, France is our ally. The hapless house Which gave birth to Jacohitism is extinct for ever. The Pope has been found not only not hostile, but complying. Indeed, if England would recollect the share you had in these sub* lime events, the very recollection should subsidize her into gratitude. But should she not — should she, with a baseness monstrous and unparalleled, forget our ser- vices, she has still to study a tremendous lesson. The ancient order of Europe, it is true, is restored, but what restored it ? Coalition after coalition had crumbled a- way before the might of the conqueror ; crowns were but ephemeral ; monarchs only the tenants of an hour ; the descendant of Frederick dwindled into a vassal ; the heir of Peter shrunk into the recesses of his frozen de- sert ; the successor of Charles roamed a vagabond, not only throneless but houseless ; c\cry evening sun set up- on a change ; every morning dawned upon some new convulsion: in short, the whole political globe quhcred as with an earthquake, and who could tell what venera- ble monument was next to shiver beneath the splendid, frightful, and reposeless heavings of the French volca- no ! What gave Europe peace and England safety amid this palsy of her Princes ? Was it uot the Landwehr and AT CORK. 21 the Landsturm and the Levy en Masse ? Was it not the People r— that first and last, and best and noblest, as well as safest security of a virtuous government. It is a glorious lesson ; she ought to study it in this hour of safely ; but should she not — M Oh wo be to the Prince who rules by fear, When danger comes upon him i" She will adopt it. I hope it from her wisdom \ I expect it from her policy ; I claim it, from her justice ; I de- mand it from her gratitude. She must at length see that there is a gross mistake in the management of Ireland. No wise man ever yet imagined injustice to be his inte- rest ; and the minister who thinks he serves a state hy upholding the most irritating and the most impious of all m -m molies, will one day or other find, hiinscii miserably mistaken. This system of persecution is uot the way to govern this country ; at least to govern it with any hap- piness to itself, or advantage to its rulers. Centuries have proved its total inefficiency, and if it be continued for centuries, the proofs will be but multiplied. Why, however, should, 1 blame the English people, when I see our own representatives so shamefully negligent of our interest ? The other day, for instance, when Mr. Peele introduced, aye, and passed too, his three newly invented penal bills, to the necessity of which, every as- sizes in Ireland, and as honest a judge as ever dignified or redeemed the ermine, has given the refutation ; why was it that no Irish member rose in his place to vindicate his country ? Where were the nominal representatives of Ireland ? Where were the renegade revilers of the de- magogue ? Where were the noisy proclaimers of the board ? What, was there not one voice to own the coun- try ? Was the patriot of 1782 an assenting auditor? Were our hundred itinerants mute and motionless— " quite chop- fallen ?" or is it only when Ireland is slan- dered and her motives misrepresented, and her oppres- sions are basely and falsely denied, that their venal throats are ready to echo the chorus of ministerial ca- lumny ? Oh, 1 should not have to ask those questions, if in the late contest for this city, you had prevailed, and sent Hutchinson into Parliament : he would have ri- sen, though alone, as I have often seen him — richer not SO A SPEECH AT CORK. less in hereditary fame, than in personal accomplish- ments ; the ornament of Ireland as she is, the solitary remnant of what she was. If slander dare asperse her, it would not have done so with impunity. He would have encouraged the timid ; he would have shamed the recreant; and though he ; could -not have saved Ut> from chains, he would at least have shielded us from calum- ny. Let me hope that his absence shall he hut of short duration, and that this city will earn an additional claim to the gratitude of the country, hy electing him her re- presentative. I scarcely know him but as a public man, and considering the state to which we are reduced by the apostacy of some, and the ingratitude of others, and ve- nality of more, — I say you should inscribe the conduct of such a man in the manuals of your devotion, and in the primers of your children, but of a.11, you should act on \t yourselves. Let me entreat of you, above all things, to sacrifice any personal differences amongst yourselves, for the great cause in which you are embarked. Remem- ber, the contest is for your children, your Country, and your God ; and remember also, that the day of Irish union will be the natal day of Irish liberty. When your own Parliament, (which i trust in Heaven we ma> yet see again) voted you the right of franchise, and the light of purchase, it gave you, if you are not false to your- selves, a certainty of your emancipation, flt) friends, farewell ! this has been a most unexpected meeting to me ; it has been our first, it may be our last. I can ne- ver forget the enthusiasm of this reception. I am too much affected by it to make professions; but believe me, no matter where I may be driven by the whim of my destiny, you shall find me one in whom change of place shall create no change of principle ; one whose memory must perish ere he forgets his country ; vi hose heart must be cold when it beats not for her happiness. a gratis DELIVERED AT AN AGGREGATE MEETING OF €Se Soman €at§oiic£ of ©ufitin- Having taken, in the discussions on your question, such humble share as was allotted to my station and ca- pacity, I may be permitted to offer my ardent congratu- lations at the proud pinnacle on which it this day repo- ses. After having combated calumnies the most atro- cious, sophistries the most plausible, and perils the most appalling, that slander could invent, or ingenuity could devise, or power array against you, I at length behold the assembled rank and wealth and talent of the Catho- lic body offering to the legislature that appeal which can- not be rejected, if there be a power in heaven to redress injury, or a spirit on earth to administer justice. No matter what may be the depreciations of faction or of bi- gotry ; this earth never presented a more ennobling spectacle than that of a Christian country suffering for her religion with the patience of a martyr, and suing for her liberties with the expostulations of a philosopher ; reclaiming the bad by her piety ; refuting the bigoted by her practice ; wielding the Apostle's weapons in the patriot's cause, and at length, laden with chains and with laurels, seeking from the country she had saved the Constitution she had shielded ! Little did i imagine, S* A SPEECH ttiat in such a state of your cause, wo should be called together to counteract the impediments to its success, created not by its enemies, but by those supposed to be its friends. It is a melancholy occasion ; but me- lancholy as it is, it must be met, and met with the fortitude of men struggling in the sacred cause of liberty. I do not allude to the proclamation of your Board ; of that Board I never was a mem- ber ; so I can speak impartially. It contained much ta- lent, some learning, many virtues. It was valuable on that account ; but it was doubly valuable as being a ve- hicle tor the individual sentiments of any Catholic, and for the aggregate sentiments of every Catholic. T =ose who seceded from it. do not remember that, individual- ly, they are nothing ; that as a body, they are every thing. It is not this wealthy slave, or that titled syco- phant, whom the bigots dread, or the parliament re- spects ! No, it is the body, the numbers, the rank, the property, the genius, the perseverance, the education, but, above all, the Union of the Catholics. I am far from defending every measure of the Board — perhaps I condemn some of its measures even more than those who have seceded from it ; but is it a reason, if a general makes one mistake, that his followers are to desert him, esuecially when the contest is for all that is dear or va- luable ? No doubt the Board had its errors. Show me the human institution which has not. Let the man, then, who denounces it, prove himself superior to humanity, before he triumphs in his accusation. I am sorry for its suppression. When I consider the animals who are in ofrVe around us, the act does not surprise me ; but I confess, even from them, the manner did, and the time chosen did, most sensibly. I did not expect it on the very hour when the news of universal peace was fust promulgated, and on the anniversary of the only British monarch*!? birth* who ever gave a boon to this distract- ed country. You will excuse this digresssion, rendered indeed in some degree necessary. I shall now confine myself ex- clusively to your resolution, which determines on the immediate presentation of your petition, and censures the neglect of any discussion on ir by your advocates du- ring the last session of parliament. You have a right to demand most fully the reasons of any man who dis- AT DT/BLIff. S3 sents from Mr. Grattan. I will give you mine explicit- ly. But C shall first state the reasons which he has gi- ven for the postponement of your question. I shall do so out of respect to him, if indeed it can be called respect to quote those sentiments, which on their very mention must excite your ridicule. Mr. Grattan presented your petition, and, on m >ving that it should lie where so ma- ny preceding ones have lain, namely, on the table* he de- clared it to be his intention to move for no discussion.— Here, in the first place, I think Mr. Grattan wrong; he got that petition, if not on the express, at least on the implied condition of having it immediately discussed. — There was not a man at the aggregate meeting at which it was adopted^ who did not expect a discussion on the very first opportunity. Mr. Grattan, however, was an- gry at " suggestions." I do not think Mr. Grattan, of all men, had any right to be so angry at receiving that which every English member was willing to receive, and was actually receiving from any English corn-factor. Mr. Grattan was also angry at " our violence." Nei- ther do I tliiffk he had any occasion to be so squeamish at what he calls our violence. There was a day, when Mr. Gratfean would not have spurned our suggestions, and there was also a day when he was fifty-fold more in- temperate than any of his oppressed countrymen, whom he now holds up to the English people as so unconstitu- tionally violent. A pretty way forsooth, fv»r your advo- cate to commence conciliating a foreign auditory in fa- vour of your petition. Mr. Grattan, however, has ful- filled his own prophecy, that « an oak of the forest is too old to be transplanted at fifty," and our fears that an Irish native would soon lose its raciness in an English atmosphere. " It is not my intention," says he, " to move for a discussion at present." Why? " Great ob- stacles have heen removed." That's his first reason. " I am, however," says he, « still ardent." Ardent! Why it strikes me to be a very novel kind of ardour, which toils till it has removed every impediment, and then pauses at the prospect of its victory ! " And I am of opinion," lie continues, « that any immediate discus- sion would be the height, of precipitation :" that is, after having removed the impediments, he pauses in his path, declaring he is " ardent ." and after centuries of suf- fering, when you press for a discussion, he protests that 34 A SPEECH he considers von monstrously precipitate ! "Now is not a fair translation ? VY by, really if we did not know >Ir. Grattan, we should be aimost tempted to think that he v*as quoting from the ministry. With the exception of one or two plain, downright, sturdy, unblushing bi- Sot*. who opposed you because you were Christinns, and declared they did so, this was the cant of evry man who affected liberality. •' Oh. I declare." they say, " thev may not be cannibals, though they are Catholics, and I would be verv glad to vote for them, but this is no timer " Oh, no."*says Bragge Bathurst, " it's no time. What, in time of war! Why it looks like bullying us !" Verv well: next com*>s the peace, and what say our friends the Opposition ? «< Oh ! I declare peace is no *time, it looks so like persuading us." For my part, se- rious as the subject is. it affects me with the very same ridicule with which I see I have so unconsciously affect- ed vou 1 will tell vou a Story of which it reminds me. It is told of the celebrated Charles Fox. Far be it from me. however, to mention, that name with levity. As he wa* a great man, I revere him : As he was a good man, I love him. He had as wise a head as e\er paused to deliberate ; he had as sweet a tongue as ever gave the words of wisdom utterance . and he had a heart so stained with the immediate impress of the Divinity, that its verv errors mielit be traced to the excess of its bene- volence. I had almost forgot the story. Fox was a man n f peniifs— of course he was poor. Poverty is a reproach fn no man : to such a man as Fox, I think it was a pride; for iffte chose to traffic with his principles ; il he chose le with his conscience, how easy might behave rich ? I guessed vour answer. It would have been 1 if you did not believe that in England talents might find a purchased, who have seen in Ireland bow easily a blockhead ai swindle himself into preferment. Juvenal say* that the greatest misfortune attendant upon poverty- is 'ridicule. Fox found out a great v-deht The Jews called on him ^r payment. « Ah. my dear friends, sav, Fox, >< I admit the principle? I owe you money, but what time is this, when 1 am going upon business/ Just so our friends admit the principle : they owe you emancipation, but wars no time. Well, the Jews de- „ar1(d just as you did. They returned to the charge : u What i (cries Fox) is this a time, when I am engaged AT DUBLIN. Zb on an appointment V 9 What ! say oar friends, is this a time when all the world's at peace ? The Jews depart- ed ; but the end of it w as, Fox, with his secretary, Mr. Hare, who was as much in debt as he was, shut themselves up in garrison. The Jews used to surround his hahita tion at day-light, and poor Fox regularly put his head out of the window, with this question, " Gentlemen, are you Fox-hunting, or Bare hunting this morning ?" His pleasantry mitigated the very Jews. " Well, well, Fox, now you have always admitted the principle, hut protest- ed against the time — Ave will give you your own time, only just fix some final day for our repayment. , *' <• Ah, nay dear Moses," replies Fox, u now this is friendly. 1 will take you at your word ; I will fix a day, and as as it's to he &fnal day, what would vou think of the day of judgment ?" — " That will he too husy a day with us." " Well, well, in order to accommodate all parties, let us settle the day after.'* Thus it is, hetween the war in- expediency of Bragge Bathurst, and the peace inexpe- diency of Mr. G rat tat*, you may expert your emancipa- tion hill pretty much ahout the time that Fox settled for the payment of his creditors. Mr. Grattan, however, though he scorned to take your suggestions, took the suggestions of your friends. " 1 have consulted," says he, " my right honorable friends !" Oh, all, friends, all right honorable I Now this it is to trust the interests of a people into the hands of a party. You must know, in parliamentary parlance, thesp right honorable friends mean a party. There are few men so contemptible as not 1 1 have a partv. The minister has his party. The opposition have their party. The Saints, for there are Saints in the House of Commons, Incus a non lucendo, — the saints have their party. Every one has his party. I had forgotten — It eland has no party. Such are the reasons if reasons they can he called, which Mr. Grat- tan has given for the postponement of your question; and 1 sincerely say, if they had come from any other man, I would not have condescended to have given them an answer. He is indeed reported to have said that he had others in reserve, which he did not think it necessary to detail. If those which he reserved were like those which he delivered, 1 do not dispute the pru- dence of his keeping them to himself; but as we have not the gift of prophecy, it is not easy for us to answer 56 A SPEECH them, until lie shall deign to give them to his consti- tuents. Having dealt thus freely with the alleged reasons for the postponement, it is quite natural that you should re- quire what my reasons are for urging the discussion. I shall give them candidly. They are at once so sin pie and explicit, it is quite impossible that the meanest ca- pacity amongst you should not comprehend them. I would urge the instant discussion, because, discussion ha* always been of use to you : because, upon every dis- cussion you have gained converts out of doors; and be- cause, upon every discussion within the doors of parlia- ment, your enemies have diminished, and your friends ha- e increased. Now, is not that a strong reason for continuing your discussions ? This ma} he assertion. Aye, but I will prove it. in order to ronvime v ou of the argument as referring to the country, 1 need hut point to the state of the public mind now upon the sub- ject, and tbst which existed in the memory of the young- est. 1 myself remember the blackest and the basest uni- versal denunciations against your cieed, and the vilest anathemas against any man who would grant you an iota. •Vow, every man affects to be liberal, and theonh ques- tion with some is the time of the concessions : with others, the ex r ent of the concessions ; with man;,, the nature of the securities vou should afford ; whilst a great multi- tude, in which I am proud to class myself, think that your emancipation should be immediate, universal, and unrestricted. Such has been the progress of the human mind out of doors , in consequence of the powerful elo- quence, argument, and policy elicited by those discus- sions which your friends now have, for the first time, found out to be precipitate. Now let us see what has been the effect produced within the doors nf Parliament. For twenty years you were silent, and of course you were neglected. The consequence was most natural. — Why should Parliament grant privileges to men who did not think those privileges worth the solicitation ? Then rose your agitators, as they are called by those bigots who are trembling at the effect of their arguments on the community, and who, as a matter of course, take Qx^vy opportunity of calumniating them. Ever since that pe- riod your cause has been advancing. Take the nume- rical proportions in the House of Commons on each sub- AT DUBLIN. Sr sequent discussion. In 1805, the first time it was brought forward in the Imperial legislature, and it was then aid- ed by the powerful eloquence of Fox, there was a majo- rity against even taking your claims into consideration, of no less a number than 212. It was an appalling omen. In 1808, however, on the next discussion, that majority was diminished to 163. In 1810 it decreased to 104. In 1811 it dwindled to 64, and at length in 1812, on the motion of Mr. Canning, and it is not a lit- tle remarkable that ihe first successful exertion in your favor was made by an English member, your enemies fled the fi^ld, and you had the triumphant majority to support you ef 129 ! Now, is not this demonstration ? What becomes new of those who say discussion lias not been of use. to vou ? But I need not have resorted to arithmetical calculation, Men become ashamed of com- bating with axioms. Truth is omnipotent, and must prevail ; it forces its way with the fire and the precis ion of the morning sun beam. Vapours mn\ impede the in- fancy of its progress ; but the very resistance that would check only condenses and concentrates it, until at length it goes forth in the fulness of its meridian, all life and light and lustte — the mirfutest objects visible in its reful- gence. You lived for centuries on the vegetable diet and eloquent silence of this Pythagorean polity ; and the con. sequence was, when you thought yours* Ives mightily dignified, and mightily interesting, the whole world was laughing at your philosophy, and sending its aliens to take possession of your birth-right. 1 havegiwn you a good reason for urging your discussion, by having shown you that discussion lias always gained you proselytes. But is it the time ? says Mr. Grattan. Yes, Sir, it is ihe time, peculiarly the time, unless indeed the great question of Irish liberty is to be reserved as a weapon in the hands of a party to wield against the weakness of the Biicish minister. liut why should 1 delude you by talk- ing about time ! Oh ! there will never be a time with Bigotry ! She has no head, and cannot think ; she has no heart, and cannot feel ; when she moves, it is in wrath; when she pauses, it is amid ruin; her prayers are curses, her communion is death, her vengeance is eternity, her decaloguo is written in the blood of her victims ; and if she stoops for a moment from her infer- nal flight, it is upon som« kindred rock to whet her th!« S8 A. SPEECH ture fang for keener rapine, and replume her wing for n more sanguinary desolation ! I appeal from this infer- nal, gravestajled, fury. 1 appeal to the good sense, to tke policy, to the gratitude of England ; and 1 make my ; ,1 peculiarly at this moment, when all the illustri- potentates of Enrop* arc assembled Together in the sh capital, to hold the great festival of universal d universal emancipation. Perhaps when France, ted with success, fired by ambition, and infuriated b\ enmity ; her avowed aim an universal conquest, her means the confederated resources of the Continent, her guide the greatest military genius a nation fertile in pro- digies has produced — a man who seemed born to invest what had been regular, to defile what had been venera- ble, to crush what had been established, and to create, as if by a magic impulse, a fairy world, peopled by the paupers he had commanded into kings, and based by the thrones he had crumbled in his caprices— -perhaps when a power, soled, so organised, and so incited * was in it; noon of triumph, the timid might tiemble even at the charge that would save, or the concession that would Strengthen. But now. — her allies faithless, her con- quests despoiled, herterritory dismembered, her legions defeated, herleader dethroned, and her reigning prince our ally by treaty, our debtor by gratitude, and our alienable friend by every solemn obligation of civilized society, — the objection i* our strength, and the obstacle our battlement. Perhaps when the Pope was in the pow- er of our enemy, however slender the pretext, bigotry might have rested on it. The inference was false as to Ireland, and it was ungenerous as to Rome. Toe Irish Catholic, firm in his faith, bows to the pontiff's spiritual supremacy, but he would spurn the pontiff's temporal interference. If. with the spirit of an earthly domination, he were to issue to morrow his despotic mandate, Catholic Ireland with one voice would answer him : " Sire, we bow with reverence to your spiritual mission: the descendant of Saint Peter, we freely ac- knowledge you the head of our church, and the organ of our creed -."but. Sire, if we have a church, we cannot forget that we also have a country : and when yon at- tempt to convert your mitre into a crown, and youi < ro- zier into a sceptre*, you degrade the majesty of your I igh delegation, and grossly miscalculate upon our acquies- AT DUBXI2T. 59 sence. No foreign power shall regulate the allegiance which we owe to our sovereign ; it was the fault of our fathers that one Pope forged our fetters ; it will he our own, if we allow them to he rivetted by another." Such would be the answer of universal Ireland ; surh was her answer to the audacious menial, who dared to dictate her unconditional submission to an art of Parliament which emancipated by penalties, and redressed by insult. But, Sir, it never would have entered into the contem- plation of the Pope to have assumed such an authority. His character was a sufficient shield against the imputa- tion, and his policy must have taught him, that, in grasping at the shadow of a temporal power, he should but risk the reality of his ecclesiastical supremacy. Thus was Parliament doubly guarded against a foreign usur- pation. The people upon whom it was to act deprecate its authority, and the power to which it was imputed abhors its ambition ; the Pope would not exert it if he could, and the people would not obey it if he did. Just precisely upon the same foundation rested the aspersions which were cast upon your creed. How did experience justify them ? Did Lord Wellington find that religious faith made any difference amid the thunder ol the battle ? Bid the Spanish soldier desert his colours because his general believed not in the real presence ? Did the brave Portuguese neglect his orders to negotiate about myste- ries ? Or what comparison did the hero draw between the policy of England and the piety of Spain* when at one moment he led the heterodox legions to victory, and the very next was obliged to fly from his own native flag, waving defiance on the walls of Burgos, where the Irish exile planted and sustained it 2 What must he have felt when in a foreign land he was obliged to command brother against brother, to raise the sword of blood, and drown the cries of nature with the artillery of death ? What were the sensations of our hapless exiles, when they recognized the features of their long-lost country? when they heard the accents of the tongue they loved, or caught the cadence of the simple melody which once lulled them to sleep within a mother's arms, and cheer- ed the darling circle they must behold no more I Alas, how the poor banished heart delights in the memory (hat song associates ! He heard it in iiappier days, when the parents he adored, the maid he loved, the friends of 40 x SPEECH his soul, and the green fields of his infancy were round him ; when his labors were illumined with the sun-shine of the heart, and his humble hut was a palace — for it was home. His soul is lull, his eye suffused, he bends from the battlements to catch the cadence, when his dead shot, sped by a brother's hand, lays him in his grave — the victim of a code calling itself Christian ! Who shall say, heart-rending as it is, this picture is from fancy ? Has it not occurred in Spain ? May it not, a,t this instant, be acting in America ? Is there any country in the universe, in which these brave exiles of a barbarous bigotry are not to be found refuting the ca- lumnies that banished and rewarding the hospitality that received them ? Yet England, enlightened England, who sees them in every field of the old world and the new, defending the various flags of every faith, supports the injustice of her exclusive constitution, by branding upon them the uugenerous accusation of an exclusive creed ! England, the ally of Catholic Portugal, the al- ly of Catholic Spain, the ally of Catholic France, the friend of the Pope ! England, who seated a Catholic bigot in Madrid ! who convoyed a Catholic Braganza to the Brazils ! who enthroned a Catholic Bourbon in Pans ! who guaranteed a Catholic establishment in Ca- nada ! who gave a constitution to Catholic Hanover ! England, who searches the globe for Catholic grievan- ces to redress, and Catholic Princes to restore, will not; trust the Catholic at home, who spends his blood and treasure in her service ! ! Is this generous ? Is this con- sistent ? Is it just? Is it even politic ? Is it the act of a wise country to fetter the energies of an entire popula- tion ? (s it the act of a Christian country to do it in the name of God ? Is it politic in a government to degrade part of the body by which it is supported, or pi-ms to make Providence a party to their degradation ? There are societies in England for discountenancing rice ; there are Christian associations for distributing the Bible ; there are volunteer missions for converting the heathen : but Ireland, the seat of their government, the stay of their empire, their associate by all the tics of nature and of interest ; how has she benefited by the Gospel of which they boast ? Has the sweet spirit of Christianity appeared on our plains in the character of her precepts, breathing the air and robed in the beauties AT DUBLIN. 4t of the world to which she would lead us ; with no argu- ment but love, no look but peace, no wealth but piety ; her creed comprehensive as the arch of heaven, and her charities bounded but by the circle of creation ? Or has shebeen let loose amongst us, in form a fury, and in acta demon, her heart festered with the fires of hell, her hands clotted with the gore ©f earth, withering alike in her repose and in her progress, her path apparent by the print of blood, and her pause denoted by the ex- panse of desolation ? Gospel of Heaven ! is this thy he- rald ? God of the universe! is this thy hat d-maid ? Christian of the ascendancy ! how would you answer the disbelieving infidel, if he asked you, should he estimate the Christian doctrine by the Christian practice ; if he dwelt upon those periods when the human victim writhed upon the altar of the peaceful Jesus, and the cross, crim- soned with his blood, became little better than a stake to the sacrifice of his votaries ; if he pointed to Ireland, where the word of peace was the war-whoop of destruc- tion ; where the son was bribed against the father, and th& plunder of the parent's property was made a bounty on the recantation of the parent's creed; where the march of the human mind was stayed in his name, who had in- spired it with his reason, and any effort to liberate a fellow-creature from his intellectual bondage was sure to be recompensed by the dungeon or the scaffold ; where ignorance was so long a legislative command, and piety a legislative crime ,• where religion was placed as a bar- rier between the sexes, and the intercourse of nature was p onounced felony by law; where God's worship was an act of stealth, and his ministers sought amongst the savages of the woods that sanctuary which a nomi- nal civilization had denied them ; where at this instant conscience is made to blast e\ery hope of genius, ar.d every energy of ambition, and the Catholic who would rise to any station of trust, must, in the face of his country, deny the faith of his fathers ; where the pre- ferments of earth are only to be obtained by the forfei- ture of Heaven ? " Unprized are her sons till they learn to betray, Undistinguish'd the\ live it tbey shan e not their sires; And the torch that would light them to dignity's way, Mu«t be caught from the pile where their country expires ! ,; 42 A SPEECH How, let me ask. how would the Christian zealot droop beneath this catalogue of Christian qualifications? But, thus it is, when sectarians differ on account of myste- ries : in the heat and acrimony of the causeless contest, religion, the glory of one world, and the guide of ano- ther, drifts from the splendid circle in which she shone, in the comet-maze of unrertainty and error. The code, again »t which you petition, is a vile compound of impi- ety and impolicy : impiety, because it debases in the name of God ; impolicy, because it disqualifies under pretence of government. Ff we are to argue from the services of Protestant Ireland, to the losses sustained by the bondage of Catholic Ireland, and I do not see why we should not, the state which continues such a system is guilty of little less than a political suicide. It matters little where the Protestant Irishman has been employed ; whether with Burke wielding the Senate with his elo- quence, with Castlereagh guiding the cabinet by his; counsels, with Barry enriching the arts by his pencil, with Swift adorning literature by his genius, with Gold- smith or with Moore softening the heart by their melo- dy, or with Wellington chaining victory at his car, he may boldly challenge the competition of the world. Op- pressed and impoverished as our country is, every muse lias cheered, and every art adorned, and every conquest crowned her. Plundered, she was not poor, for her cha- racter enriched ; attainted, she was not titleless, for her services ennobled ; literally outlawed into eminence and fettered into fame, the fields of her exile were immor- talized by her deeds, and the links of her chain became decorated by her laurels. Is this fancy, or is it fact I Is there a department in the state in which Irish genius does not possess a predominance? Is there a conquest which it does not achieve, or a dignity which it does not adorn ? At this instant, is there a country in the world to which England has not deputed an Irishman as her re- presentative ? She has sent Lord Moira to India, Sir Gore Ouseley to Ispahan, Lord Stuart to Vienna, Lord Castlereagh to Congress, Sir Henry Wellesley to Ma- drid, Mr. Canning to Lisbon, Lord Strangford to the Brazils. Lord Clancarty to Holland, Lord Wellington to Paris — all Irishmen ! Whether it results from acci- dent or from merit, can there be a more cutting sarcasm on the policy of England ! Is it not directly saying to AT DUBLIN. 43 her, " Here is a country from one fifth of whose people you depute the agents of your most august dehgation, the remaining four-fifths of whi< h by your odious bigo- try, you incapacitate from any station of office or of trust !" It is adding all that is weak in impolicy to all that is wicked in ingratitude. What is her apology ? Mill she pretend that the Deity imitates her injustice, aud incapacitates the intellect as she has done the creed ? After making Providence a pretence for her code, will she also make it a party to her crime, and arraign the universal spirit of partiality in his dispensations ? Js she no! content with Hun as a Protestant God, unless he also consents to become a Catholic demon ? But, if the charge were crue, if the Irish Catholic were im uni- ted and debased, Ireland's conviction would be England's crime, and your answer to the bigot's charge should be the bigot's conduct. What, then ! is this the result of six centuries of your government ? Is this the connex- ion which you called a benefit to Ireland ? Have your protecting law r s so debased them, that the very pri- vilege of reason is worthless in their possession ? Shame ! oh, shame! to the go\ eminent where the people are barbarous ? The day is not distant when the) made the education of a Catholic a crime, and yet they arraign the Catholic for ignorance ! The day is not distant when they proclaimed the celebration of the Catholic worship a felony, and yet they complain that the Catho- lic is not moral ! What folly ! Is it to be expected that the people are to emerge in a moment from the stupor of a protracted degradation ? There is not perhaps to be traced upon the map of national misfortune a spot so tru- ly and so tediously deplorable as Ireland. Other lands, no doubt, have had their calamities. To the horrors of revolution, the miseries of despotism, the scourges of anarchy, they have in their turns been subject. But it has been only in their turns ; the visitations of wo, though severe, has not been eternal ; the hour of proba- tion, or of punishment, has passed away ; and the tem- pest, after having emptied the vial of its w rath, has gi- ven place to the serenity of the calm and of the sunshine. Has this been the case with respect to our miserable country ? Is there, save in the visionary world of tra- dition — is there in the progress, either of record or re- collection, one verdant spot in the desart of our annals 44 A SPEECH where patriotism can find repose, or philanthropy re- freshment ? Oh. indeed, posterity will pause with won- der on the melancholy page which shall pourtray the sto- ry of a people amongst whom the policy of man has wa- ged an eternal warfare with the providence of God, blighting into deformity all that was beauteous, and into (amine all that wa9 abundant. I repeat however, the charge to be false. The Catholic mind in Ireland has made advances scarcely to be hoped in the short interval of its partial emancipation. But what encouragement has the Catholic parent to educate his offspring ? Sup- pose he sends bis son, the hope of his pride and the wealth of his heart, into the army ; the child justifies his parental anticipation; lie is moral in his habits, ho is strict in his discipline, he is daring in the field, and temperate at the board, and patient in the camp ; the first in the charge, the la«t in the retreat ; with an hand to achieve, and an head to guide, and a temper to con- ciliate : he combines the skill of Wellington with the clemency of Caesar and the courage of Turenne— yet he can never rise — he is a Catholic I — Take another in- stance. Suppose him at the bar. He has spent his nights at the lamp, and his days in the forum ; the rose has withered from his cheek mid the drudgery of form ; the spirit has fainted in his heart mid the analysis of crime ; he has foregone the pleasures of his youth, and the associates of his heart, and all the fairy enchant- ments in which fancy may have wrapped him. Alas! for what ? Though genius flashed from his eye, and eloquence rolled from his lips: though lie spoke with the tongue of Tully, and argued with the learning of Coke, and thought with the purity of Fletcher, he can never rise — he is a Catholic ! Merciful God ! what a state of society is this, in which thy worship is interposed as a disqualification upon thy providence ! Behold, in a word, the effects of the code against which you petition; it disheartens exertion, it disqualifies merit, it debilitates the state, it degrades the Godhead, it disobeys Christi- anity, it makes religion an article of traffic, and its founder a monopoly ; and for ages it has reduced a country, blessed with every beauty of nature and every bounty of Providence, to a state unparalleled under any ronstitution professing to be free, or any government pretending to be civilized. To justify this enormity, AT DUBLIN. 45 there is now no argument. Now is the time to concede with dignity that which was never denied without injus- tice. Who cat) tell how soon we may require all the zeal of our united population to secure our very exis- tence ? W ho can argue upon the continuance of this calm ? Have we not seen the labour of ages overthrown, and the whim of a day erected on its ruins; establish- ments the most solid withering at a word, and visions the most whimsical realized at a wish ; crowns crumbled, discords confederated, kings become vagabonds, and va- gabonds made kings at the capricious phrenzy of a vil- lage adventurer ? Have we not seen the whole political and moral world shaking as with an earthquake, and shapes the most fantastic ai-d formidable and frightful heaved into life by the quiverings of the convulsion ? — The storm has passed over us; England has survived it; if she is wise, her present prosperity will be but the handmaid to her justice : if she is pious, the peril she has escaped will be but the herald of her expiation. Thus much have I said in the way of argument to the enemies of your question. Let roe offer an humble opinion to its friends. '] he first and almost the sole request which an advocate would make to )ou is, to remain united ; rely on it, a divided assault can never overcome a consolida- ted resistance. I allow that an educated aristocracy are as a head to the people, without which they cannot think : but then the people are as hands to the aristocracy, with- out which it cannot act. Concede, then, a little to even each other's prejudices ; recollect that individual sacri- fice is universal strength ; and can there be a nobler al- tar than the altar of your country ? This same spirit of conciliation should be extended even to your enemies. — If England will not consider that a brow of suspi< ion is but a bad accompaniment to an act of grace ; if she will not allow that kindness may make those friends whom e\ en oppression (ould not n ake foes; if she will not confess that the best security she can have from Ireland is b> ghing Ireland an interest in her constitution; still, since her power is the shield of her prejudices, y u should concede wheie vou cannot conquer ; it is wisdom to yield when it has become hopeless to combat. There is but one concession which 1 would never ad- vise, and which, were J a Catholic, 1 would never make. You will perceive that 1 allude to any interfereuce with 46 A SPEECH your clergy. That was the crime of Mr. Grattan's se- curity bil'. It made the patronage of your religion the ransom for your liberties, and bought the favour of thG crown by the surrender of the church. It is a vicious principle, it is the cause of all your sorrows. If there had not been a state establishment, there would not have been a Catholic bondage. By that incestuous conspira- cy between the altar and the throne, infidelity has achieved a more extended dominion than by all the so- phisms of her philosophy, or all the terrors of her per- secution. It makes God's apostle a court-appendage, and God himself a court-purveyor ; it carves the cross into a chair of state, where, with grace on his brow and gold in his hand, the little perishable puppet of this world's vanity makes Omnipotence a menial to its pow- er, and Eternity a pander to its profits. Be not a party to it. As you have spurned the temporal interference of the Pope, resist the spiritual jurisdiction of the crown. As I do not think that you, on the one hand, could sur- render the patronage of your religion to the King, with- out the most unconscientious compromise, so, on the other hand, I do not think that the King could ever con- sciensciously receive it. Suppose he receives it; if he exen ises it for the advantage of your church, he direct- ly violates the coronation-oath which binds him to the exclusive interests ofthe Church of England ; and if he does not intend to exercise it for your advantage, to what purpose does he require from you its surrender ? But what pretence has England for this interference with your religion ? It was the religion of her most glorious era, it was the religion of her most ennobled patriots, it was the religion ofthe wisdom that framed her constitu- tion, it was the religion of the valour that achieved it, it would have been to this day the religion of her empire had it not been for the law less lust of a murderous adul- terer. What right has she to suspect your church ? — When her thousand sects were brandishing the frag- ments of their faith against each other, and Christ saw his garment, without a seam, a piece of patchwork for every mountebank who figured in the pantomime; when her Babel temple rocked at every breath of her Priest- leys and her Paynes, Ireland, proof against the menace of her power, was proof also against tin perilous impie- ty of her example. But if as Catholics you should AT DUBXIW. 47 guard it, the palladium of your creed, not less as Irish- men should you prize it, the relic of your country. De- luge after deluge has desolated her provinces. The mo- numents of art which escaped the barbarism of one inva- der fell beneath the still more savage civilization of ano- ther. Alone, amid the solitude, your temple stood like some majestie monument amid the desert of antiquity, just in its proportions, sublime in its associations, rich in the virtue of its saints, cemented by the blood of its mar- tyrs, pouring forth for ages the unbroken series of its venerable hierarchy, and only the more magnificent from the ruins by which it was surrounded. Oh ! do not for any temporal boon betray the great principles which are to purchase you an eternity ! Here, from your very sanctuary,— here, with my hand on the endangered altars of your faith, in the name of that God, for the freedom of whose worship we are so nobly struggling ; 1 conjure you, let no unholy hand profane the sacred ark of your religion ; preserve it inviolate ; its light is « light from heaven ;" follow it through all the perils of y oar journey ; and, like the fiery pillar of the captive Israel, it will cheer the desert of your ?)om1age, and guide to the land of your liberation ' DEFERRED TO IN THE PRECEDING SPEECH. DRAWN BY MR. PHILLIPS, AT THE REqREST 0? €{je Soman Catfjoitcg of ^reianir To the Honorable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assem- bled : The humble Petition of the Roman Catholics of Ireland, whose Names are undersigned, on behalf of them- selves and others, professing the Roman Catholic Re- I igion, SHEWETH, THAT we, the Roman Catholic people of Ireland, again approach the legislature with a statement of the grievances under which we labour, and of which we most respectfully, but at the same time most firmly, so- licit the effectual address. Our wrongs are so notori- ous, and so numerous, that their minute detail is quite unnecessary, and would indeed be impossible, were it deemed expedient. Ages of persecution on the one G 50 petition. hand, and patience on the other, sufficiently attest eur sufferings and our submission. Privations have been answered only by petition, indignities by remonstrance, injuries by forgiveness. It lias been a misfortune to have suffered for the sake of our religion ; but it has al- so been a pride to have born the best testimony to the purity of our doctrine, by the meekness of our endu- rance. We have sustained the power which spurned us ; we have nerved the arm whirh smote us ; we have lavished our strength, our Talent, and our treasures, and buoyed up, on the prodigal effusion of our young blood, the tri- umphant Ark of British Liberty. We approach, then, with confidence, an enlighened legislature; in the name of Nature, we ask our rights as men ; in the name of the Constitution, we ask our prhileges as subjects ; in the name of God, we ask the sacred protection of unpersecuted piety as Christians. Are securities required of us? We offer them — the best securities a throne can have—the affections of a peo- ple. W r e offer faith that was never violated, hearts that were never corrupted, valour that ne\er crouched. — Every hour of peril has proved our allegiance, and eve- ry field of Europe exhibits its example. We abjure all temporal authority, except that of our Sovereign ; we acknowledge no civil pre eminence, save that of our constitution ; and, for our lavish and volun- tary expenditure, we only ask a reciprocity of benefits. Separating, as we do, our civil rights from our spi- tual duties, we humbly desire that they may not he con- founded. We <* render unto Csesar the things that are Caesar's, " but we must also ** render unto God the tilings that are Gods'." Our church could not descend to claim a state-authority, nor do we ask for it a state aggrandizement : — its hopes, its powers, and its preten- sions, are of another world; and, when we raise our hands most humbly to the State, our prayer is not, that the fetters may be transferred to the hands which are raised for us to Heaven. We would not erect a splendid shrine even to Liberty on the ruins of the Temple. In behalf, then, of five millions of a brave and loyal people, we call upon the legislature to annihilate the odious bondage which bows down the mental, physical, and moral energies of Ireland ; and, in the name of that PETITION. 51 @«sper whidi breathes charity towards all, we serl^ freedom of conscience for all the inhabitants of the Bri- tish empire. May it therefore please this honourable Housr to abo- lish all penal and disabling laws, which in any manner iufring" religious liberty, or restrict the free enjo> nient of the sacred rights of conscience, within these realms. And your petitioners will ever pray. ttlHlB iilDIOQUSSS TO H. R. H. THE PRINCESS OF WALES DRAWN BY MR. PHILLIPS, AT THE REQUEST OF €ge Uomatt Catljolic^ of ^[relanti- May it please your Royal Highness, WE, the Roman Catholic people of Ireland, beg leave to offer our unfeigned congratulations on your providen- tial escape from the conspiracy which so lately endan- gered both your life and honor — a conspiracy, unmanly in its motives, unnatural in its object, and unworthy in its means — a conspiracy, combining so monstrous an union of turpitude and treason, that it is difficult to say, whether royalty would have suffered more from its suc- sess, than human nature has from its conception. Our allegiance is not less shocked at the infernal spirit, which would sully the diadem, by breathing on its most preci- ous ornament, the \irtueof its wearer, than our best feelings are at the inhospitable baseness, which would betray the innocence of a female in a land of stran- ers ! ! $4 ADPDESS. Deem it not disrespectful, illustrious Lady, that from a people proverbially arde nt in the cause of the defence- less the shout of \irtuous congratulation should receive a feeble erho. Our harp ha^ long been unused to tones of gladness, and our hills but faintly answer the unusu- al accent. Your heart, however, can appreciate the si- lence inflicted by suffering; and ours, alas, feels rut too acutely that the commiseration is sincere which flows from sympathy. L*t us hope that, when congratulating virtue in your royal person, on her signal triumph over the perjured, the profligate, and the corrupt, we may also rejoice in the completion of its consequences. Let us hope that th * society of your only rhild again solaces your digni- fiVd retirement ; and that, to the misfortune of being a widowed wife, is not added the pang of being a childless mother ! But if, Madam, our hopes are not fulfilled; if in- de d, the cry nf an indignant and unanimous people is disregaided: console yourself with the reflection, that, though your exiled daughter may not hear the precepts-, of virtue from yii Mrs. she may at least study the prac- tice oi it in your example. a sbwdw DELIVERED BY MR. PHILLIPS &T A PUBLIC DINNER GIVEN TO HIM BY THE FRIENDS OF CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY gjn Stbetpool. BELIEVE me, Mr. Chairman, I feel too sensibly the high and unmerited c< mpliment you have paid m« , to attempt any other return than the simple expression of my gratitude; to be just, I must be silent ; but tb< ugh the tongue is mute, my heart is much more than elo- quent. The kindness of friendship, the testimony of any class, however humble, carries with it no trifling grati- fication; but stranger as I am, to be so distinguished in this great city, whose wealth is its least commendation, the emporium of commerce, liberality, and public spi- rit ; the birth place of talent; the residence of i» tegrity ; the field where freedom seems to have rallied the last al- lies of her cause, as if with the noble consciousness that, though patriotism could not wreath the laurel round her brow, genius should at least raise it over her ashes . to be so distinguished, Sir, and in such a place, does, I confess, inspire me with a vanity which even with a 56 A SPEECH sense of my unimportance cannot entirely silence. In- deed, Sir, the ministerial critics of Liverpool were right. I have no claim to this enthusiastic welcome. But I cannot look upon this testimonial so much as a tri- bute to myself, as an omen to that country with whose fortunes the dearest sympathies of my soul are intertwi- ned. Oh >es, I do foresee when she shall hear with what courtesy her most pretentionless advocate has been treated, how the same wind that wafts her the intelli- gence, will revive that flame within her, which the blood of ages has not been ablr to extinguish. It may be a de- lush e hope, but I am glad to grasp at any phantom that flits across the solitude of that country's desolation. On this subject you can scarcely be ignorant, for you have an Irishman resident amongst you. whom I am proud to call my friend ; whose fidelity to Ireland no absence can diminish ; who has at once the honesty to be candid, and the talent to be cominced. I need scarcely say 1 allude to Mr. Casey. I knew. Sir, the statue was too striking to require a name upon the pedestal. — Alas, Ire- land has little now to console her, except the conscious- ness of having produced such men. — It would be a rea- sonable adulation in me to deceive you. Six centuries of base misgovernment, of causeless, ruthless, and un- grateful persecution, have now reduced that country to a crisis, at which t know not whether the friend of hu- manity has most cause to grieve or to rejoice ; because 1 am not sure that the same feeling which prompts the tear at human sufferings, ought not to triumph in that increased infliction which may at length tire them out of endurance. 1 trust in God a change of system may in time anticipate the results of desperation ; but you may quite depend on it, a period is approaching, when, if penalty does not pause in the pursuit, patience will turn short on the puisuer. Can you wonder at it! Con- template : Ireland during any gi\en period of England's rule, and what a picture does she exhibit ? Behold her created in- all the prodigality of nature ; with a soil that anticipates the husbandman's desires ; with harbours courting the commerce of the world ; with rivers capa- ble of ti. reduce such a conn- try to such a situation. But it has heen done ; man has conquered the beneficence of the D'ity; his harpy touch has changed the viands to corruption : and that land, which you might have possessed in health and wealth and vigour, to support you in your hour of need, now writhes in the agonies of death, unable even to lift the shroud with which famine and fatuity try to encumber her con- vulsion. This is what I see a pensioned dress denomi- nates tranquility. Oh. wo to the land threatened with such tranquility ; solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant; it is not yet the tranquility of solitude ; it is not yet the tranquility of death; hut if you would know what it is, g * forth in the silence of creation, when every wind is hushed, and every echo mute, and all nature seems to listen in dumb and terrified and breathless expectation, go forth in such an hour, and see the terrible tranquility by which you are surrounded ! How could it he other- wise ; when for ages upon ages invention has fatigued itself with expedients for irritation ; when, as 1 have read with horror in the progress of my legal studies, the homicide of a •• mere Irishman" was considered Justifi- able ; and when his ignorance was the origin of all his crimes, his education was prohibited by Act of Parlia- ment I — when the people were worm-eaten by the odious vermin which a Church and State adultery had spawn- ed ; when a bad heart and brainless head, were the fangs by which every foreign adventurer and domestic traitor fastened upon office ; when the property of the native was but an invitation to plunder, and his rioh-acqui es- sence the signal for confiscation ; when religion itself 58 A SPEECH was made the odious pretence for every persecution, and tlie fires of liell were alternately lighted with the cross, and quenched in the blood of its defenceless followers ! I speak of times that arc past : but can their recollec- tions, can their consequences be so readily eradicated. Why, however, should I refer to periods that are dis- tant ? Behold, at this instant, five millions of her peo- ple disqualified on account of their faith, and that by a country professing freedom ! and that under a govern- ment calling itself Christian ! You, (when I say you, of course I mean, not the high-minded people of England, but tire men who misgovern us both) seem to have taken out a roving commission in search of grievances abroad, Whilst you overlook the calamities at your own door, and of your own infliction. You traverse the ocean to emancipate the African ; you cross the line to convert the Hindoo ; you hurl your thunder against the savage Algerine ; but your brethren at home, who speak the same tongue, ackowledge the same King, and kneel to the same God, cannot get one visit from your itinerant humanity ! Oh, such a system is almost too abominable for a name ; it is a monster of impiety, impolicy, in- gratitude, and injustice ! '1 he pagan nations of anti- quity scarce!} acted on such barbarous principles. Look to ancient Rome, with her sword in one hand and her constitution in the other, healing the injuries of con- quest with the embrace of brotherhood, and wisely con- verting the captive into the citizen. Look to her great e^emy, foe glorious Carthagenian, at tiie foot of tiie Alps, ranging his prisoners round him, and by the po- litic option of captivity or arms, recruiting his legions with tlie very men whom he had literally conquered in- to gratitude ! They laid their foundations deep in the human heart, and their success w r as proportionate to their policy. You complain of the violence of the Irish Catholic : can you wonder he is violent ? It is the con- sequence of your own infliction — *' The flesh will quiver where the pincers tear, The blood will follow where the knife is driven." Your friendship has been to him worse than hostility ; be feels its embrace but by the pressure of its fetters ! I am only amaxed he is not more violent. He fills your AT LIVERPOOL. 59 exchequer, he fights your battles, he feeds your clergy from whom he derives no benefit, he shares your bur- dens, he shares your perils, he shares every thing ex- cept your privileges, can you wonder he is violent ? No matter what his merit, no matter what his claims, no matter what his services; he sees himself a nominal subject, and a real slave ; and his children, the heirs, perhaps of his toils, perhaps of his talents, certainly of his disqualifications — can you wonder he is violent ? He sees every pretended obstacle to his emancipation va- nished ; Catholic Europe your ally, the Bourbon on the throne, the Emperor a captive, the Pope a friend, the aspersions on his faith disproved by his allegiance to you against, alternately, every Catholic potentate m Christendom, and he feels himself branded with heredi- tary degradation — can yon wonder, then, that he is vio- lent ? He petitioned humbly ; his tamenoss was constru- ed into a proof of apathy. He petitioned boldly ; his remonstrance was considered as an impudent audacity. He petitioned in peace ; he was told it was not the time ; He petitioned in war, he was told it was not the time, — A Strang interval, a prodigy in policies, a pause be- tween peace and war, which appeared to be just made for him, arose ; I allude to the period between the re- treat of Louis and the restoration of Bonaparte ; he pe- titioned then, and he was told it was not the time. Oh, ska ue ! shame ! shame ! T hope he will petition no more to a parliament so equivocating. However, 1 am not sorry they did so equivocate, because I think they have suggested one common remedy for the grievances of both countries, and that remedy is a Reform of that Par- liament. Without that, I plainly see, there is no hope for Ireland, there is no salvation for .England ; they will act towards you as they have done towards us; they will admit your reasoning, they will admire your eloquence, and they will prove their sincerity by a strict perseverance in the impolicy you have exposed, and the profligacy you have deprecated. Look to England at this moment. To what a state have they not reduced her ? Over this vast island, for whose wealth the winds of Heaven seemed to blow, covered as she once was with the gorgeous mantle of successful agriculture, all stud- ded over with the gems of art and manufacture, there is now scarce an object but industry in rags, and patience 60 A SPEECH in despair : the merchant without a ledger* the fields without a harvest, the shop« without a customer, the Exchange deserted, and the Gazette crowded, from the most heart-rending comments on that nefarious system, in support of which, peers and contractors, stock job- bers and sinecurists, in short, the whole trained, col- lared, pampered, and rapacious park of ministerial bea- gles, have been, for half a century* in the most clamo- rous and discordant uproar ! During all this misery how are the pilots of the state employed? Why, in feeding the bloat d mammoth of sinecure! in weighing the farthings of so toe underlines salary ! in preparing Ireland for a garrison, and England for a poor-house, in the structure of Chinese palaces ! the decoration of dragoons, and the erection of public buildings!! ! Oh, it's easily seen we have a saint in the Exchequer ! he has studied Scripture to some purpose! the. famishing pe >ple cry out for bread, and the scriptural minister gives them stones / Such has been the result of the blessed Pitt system, which amid oceans of Hood, and 800 mil- expenditure, has left you, after all your victories, a triumphant dupe, a trophied bankrupt. I have heard before of states ruined by the visitations of Providence, devastated by famine, waster! by fir* 1 , overcome by ene- mies ; hut never until now did I see a state like Kng- gland, impoverished by her spoils, and conquered hy her successes ! She has fought tin* fight of Europe ; site has purchased all its editable blood; she has subsi- dized all dependencies in their own cause ; she has con quered hy sea, she has conquered by land ; she has got peace, and of course, or the Pit' apostles would n<»t have made peace, she has got her •« indemnity for the past, and security for the future," and here she is, after all her vanity and all her victories, surrounded by desola- tion, like one of the pyramids of Egypt; amid the gra deur of the desert, full of magnificence and death, at once a trophy and a tomb ! The heart of any reflecting ma»i must burn wiiiin him. when he thinks that tire war thus sanguinary in its operations, and confessed!) ruin- ous in its expenditure, was even still more odious in its principle! It was a war avowedly undertaken for the purpose of forcing France out of her undoubted rigid of choosing her own monarch; a war whir h uprooted the very foundations of the English constitution ; which li- AT LIVERPOOL. 61 belled the most glorious era in our national annals; whi'-h declared tyranny eternal, and announced to the people, amid the" thunder of artillery, that no matter how aggrieved, their only allowable attitude was that >f supplication ; which, when it told the Frenrh reformer of 1793, that his defeat was just, told the British re- former of 1698, his triumph was treason, and exhibit tl to historv, the. terrific farre of a Prince of the House if Brunswick, tlie creature of the Revolution, offering A HIM4N HECATOMB CPoN THI GRAVE OF J \MES .THE Second ! ! What else have you done ? You have suc- ceeded indeed in dethroning Napoleon, a. d you have dethroned a monarch, who, with all his imputed crimes, and vices, shed a splendour around royalty, too power- ful for the feeble vision of legitimacy even to bear. lie had many faults : 1 do not speak to palliate them. He deserted his principles ; I rejoice that he has suff red. But still let us be generous even in our enmities. How grand was bis march ! How magnificent his destiny! Sav what we will, Sir, he will be the land mark of our times in the eye of posterity. The goal of other men's speed was his starting-post; crowns were his play- things, thrones his footstool : hestr.de from victory to victory ; his path was " a plane of continued elevations." Surpassing the boast of the too confident Roman, he but stamped upon the earth, and not only armed men, hut states and dynasties, and arts and sciences, all that mind could imagine, or industry produce, started up, the creation of enchantment. He has fallen— as the late Mr. Whitebread said, •< you made him, and he unmade himself" — his own ambition was his glorious conqueror. He 1, with a sublime audacity, to grasp the fires of [leaven, and his heathen retribution has been the vulture and the rock ! ! I do not ask what you have gained by it, because, in place of gaining anything, you are infinitely worse than when you commenced the con- test ! But what have you done, for Europe? What have yon achieved for man ? Have morals been ameliorated ? Has liberty been strengthened ? Has any one improve- ment in politics or philosophy been produced? Let us see how. You have restored to Portugal a Prince of Whom we know nothing, exeept that, when his domi- nions were invaded, his people distracted, his crown in danger, and all that could interest the highest energies 6* A SPEECH of man at issue, he l^ft his cause to he romhated by fo- reign bayonets, and fled with a dastard precipitation to the shameful security of a distant hemisphere ! You havp restored to Spain a wretch of even worse than pro- verbial princely ingratitude $ who filled his dungeons, and ted his rack with the heroic remnant that braved war, and famine, and massacre beneath his banners : who rewarded patriotism with the prison, fidelity with the torture, heroism with the scaffold, and piety with the Inquisition ; whose royalty was published by the signature of his death warrants, and whose religion evaporated in the embroidering of petticoats for the Bles- sed Virgin I You have furred upon France a family to whom misfortune could tearh no mercy, or experience wisdom ; *i dictive in prosperity, servile in defeat, ti- mid in the field, vacillating in the cabinet ; suspicion amongst themselves, discontent: amongst their followers; their memories tenacious but of the punishments thev had provoked, their piety active but, in subserviency to their priesthood, and their power passive but in the subjuga- tion of their people! Such ace the dynasties you have tonfe^red on Europe. In the \ery act, that of enthron- ing three, individuals of the same family, you ha\e com- mitted in politics a capital error; but Providence has countermined the ruin you were preparing ; and whilst the impolicy presents the chance, their impotency pre- cludes the danger of a coalition. As to the rest of Eu- rope, how r has it been ameliorated ? What solitary be- nefit have the « deliverers" conferred ? They have partitioned the states of the feeble to feed the rapacity of the powerful ; and after hating alternately adored and deserted Napoleon, they have wreaked their vengeance on the noble, but unfortunate fidelity that spurned their example. Do you want proofs ; look to Saxony, look to to Genoa, look to Norway, but, above all, to Poland ; that speaking monument of regal murder and legitimate robbery— Oh ! bloodiest picture in the book of time — Sarmatia fell — unwept — without a crime ! Here was an opportunity to recompense that brave, he- roic, generous, martyred, and devoted people ; here was an opportunity to convince Jacobinism that crowns AT IIVERFOOfc. 63 and crimes were not, of course, co-existent, and that the highway rapacity of one generation might be atoned by the penitential retribution of another ! Look to Ita- ly ! parcelled out to temporizing Austria — the land of the muse, the historian, and the hero ; the scene of eve- ry classic recollecti »n ; the sacred fane of antiquity, wh^re the genius of the world weeps and worships, and the spirits of the past htart into, life at the inspiring pil- grimage of some kindred Roscoe. You do yourselves ho- nor by this noble, this natural enthusiasm. Long may you enjoy the pleasure of possessing, never can you lose the pride of having produced the scholar without pedant- ry, the patriot without reproach, the Christian without superstition, the man without a blemish ! It is a subject I could dwell on with delight for e\er. How painful our transition to the disgusting path of the deliverers. Look to Prussia, after fruitless toil and wreathiess tri- umphs, mocked with the promise of a visionary consti- tution. Look to France, chained and plundered, weep- ing over the tomb of her hopes and her heroes. Look to England, eaten by the cancer of an incurable debt, exhausted by poor rates, supporting a civil list of near a million and a half, annual amount, guarded by a gtauding army of 140,000 men, misrepresented by a House of Commons, 90 of whose members in places and pensions derive 200,000/. in yearly emoluments from the minister, mocked with a military peace, and girt with the fortifications of a war-establishment ! Shades of heroic millions, these are thy achievements ! Mo,v- 3T£it of Legitimacy, this is thy consummation ! ! | The past is out of power; it is high time to provide against the future. Retrenchment and reform are now become not only expedient for our prosperity, but ne- cessary to our very existence. Can any man of sense say that the present system should continue ? What ! when war and peace have alternately thrown every fami- ly in the empire into mourning and poverty, shall the fattened tax gatherer extort the starving manufacturer's last shilling, to swell the unmerited and enormous sine- cure uf some wealthy pauper ? Shall a borough-monger- ing faction convert what is misnamed the National Mis- representation into a mere instrument for raising the supplies which are to gorge its own venality ? Shall the mock dignitaries of Whiggisni and Toryism lead their 64 A SPEECH hungry retainers to contest the profits of an alternate ascendancy over the prostrate interest of a too gener-ms people ? These are questions which I blush to ask, which I shudder to think must be either answered by the parliament or the people. Let our rulers prudently avert the interrogation. We live in times when the slightest remonstrance should command attention, when the minutest speck that merely dots the edge of the po- lriral horizon, may be the car ofthe approaching spirit of the storm? Oh! they are times whose omen no fan- cied security can avert ; times of the most awfnl and portentous admonition. Establishments the most solid, thrones the most ancient, coalitions the most powerful have crumbled before our eyes; and the creature of a ent robed, and crowned, and sceptred, raised his fairy creation on their ruins The warning has been given; may it not have been given in vain ! I feel. Sir. that the magnitude of the topics I have touched, and the immiueficy of the . crils which seem to surround us, have led me far beyond the limits of a convivial meeting. I see I have my apology in your indulgence — but 1 cannot prevail on myself to trespass farther. Accept, again, Gentlemen, my most gratefnl acknowledgments. Never, never, can I forget this day : in private life it shall be the companion «»f my solitude : and if, in the caprices of that fortune which will at times degrade the high and dignify the humble, I should here- after be called to any station of responsibility, I think I may at least fearlessly promise the friends who thus crowd around me, that no act of mine shall ever raise a blush at the recollection of their early encourage- ment. I hope, however, the benefit of this day will not be confined to the humble individual you have so honor- ed : I hope it will cheer on the young aspirants after virtuous fame in both our countries, by proving to them, that however, for the moment, envy or igno- rance, or corruption, may depreciate them, there is a reward in store for the man who thinks with integrity and acts with decision. Gentlemen, you will add to the obligations you have already conferred, by delegating to me the honor of proposing to you the health of a man, whose virtues adorn, and whose talents powerfully ad- vocate our cause ; I mean the health 01 your worthy Chairman, Mr. Shepherd. A SHNBIBQJIB OF MR. PHILLIPS, IN €§e Cage of <0ut§rte ©. £>mnt } DELIVERED IN THE COURT OF COMMON PLEAS, DUBLIN. rd and Gentlemen, his case I am of counsel for the plaintiff, who has 3d me, with the kind concession of my much more nt colleagues, to detail to you the story of his mis- les. In the course of a Ion friendihip which has sted between us, originating in mutual pursuits, cemented by our mutual attachments, never, until instant, did I feel any thing but pleasure in the ns which it created, or the duty which it imposed. selecting me, however, from this bright array of »Ing and of eloquence, I cannot help being pained he kindness of a partiality which forgets its interest he exercise of its affection, and confides the task of ictised wisdom to the uncertain guidance of youth and i 66 A SPEECH IN THE CASE OT inexperience. He has thought, perhaps, that truth needed no set phrase of speech; that misfortune should net veil the furrows which its tears had burned j or lii^e, under the decorations of an artful drapery, the heart-rent hearings with which its bosom throbbed. He has surely thought that by contrasting mine with the powerful talents selected by his antagonist, he was giv- ing: you a proof that the appeal he made was to your reason, not to your feelings — to the integrity of your hearts, not the exasperation of your passions. Happily, however, for him, happily for you, happily for the country, happily for the profession, on subjects such as this, the experience of the oldest amongst us is but slen- der ; deeds such as this are not indigenous to an Irish soil, or naturalized beneath an Irish climate. We hear of them, indeed, as we do of the earthquakes that con- vulse, or the pestilence that infects, less favoured re- gions ; but the record of the calamity is only read with the generous scepticism of innocence, or an involuntary thanksgiving to the Providenee that h^s preserved us. No matter how we may have graduated m the scale of nations ; no matter with what wreath we may have been adorned, or what blessings we may have been denied ; no matter what may have been our feuds, our follies, or our misfortunes ; it has at least been universally con- ceded, tiiat our hearths were the home of the domestic virtues, and that love, honour, and conjugal fidelity, were the deai* and indisputable deities of our household : around the fire-side of the Irish hovel, hospitality cir- cumscribed its sacred circle : and a provision to pun ish, created a suspicion of the possibility of its violation. Bui of all the ties that bound — of all the bounties that blessed her — Ireland most obeyed, most loved, most re- vered the nuptial contract. She saw it the gift of Hca- > . u. the charm of earth, the joy of the present, the pro- of the future, the innocence of enjoyment, the chas- tity of passion, the sacrament of love : the slender cur- tain that shades the sanctuary of her marriage bed, lias in its purity the splendour of the mountain-snow r , and tor its protection the texture of the mountain adamant. Gentlemen, that national sanctuary has been invaded ; that venerable divinity has been violated ; and its tender est pledges torn from their shrine, by the polluted ra^ GUTHBIE Y. STER5E. pine of a kindless, heartless, prayerless, remorseless adulterer ! To you — religion defiled, morals insulted, law despised, publir order foully violated, and indivi- dual happiness want only wounded, make th- ir melancho- ly appeal. You will hear the facts with as much patience as indignation will allow — I will, myself, ask of you to adjudge them with as much mercy as justice will ad- mit. The Plaintiff in this case is John Guthrie ; by birth, by education, by profession, by better than all, by | tice and b> principles, a gentleman. Believe me, it is not from the common-place of advocacy, or from the blind partiality of friendship, that I say of him that her considering the virtues that adorn life, or the blandishments that endear it, he has few supe- iocs. — Surely, if a spirit that disdained dishonour, if a heart that knew not guile, if a life above repro ich, and a cha- racter beyond suspicion, could have been a security against misfortunes, his lot must base been happiness. I speak in the presence of that profession to which he was an ornament, and with whose members his man- hood has been familiar,- and I -ay ol th a con- fidence that defies refutation, that, whether we consider him in bis private or hjs public station. a« a man or as a lawyer, there never breathed that being less « apa- ble of exciting enmity towards himself, or of offering, even by implication, an offence to others. If he had a fault, it was. thai, ao >ve crime, he was above suspi- cion : and to that noblest error of a noble nature he has fallen a victim. Having spent his youth in the culti?a- tion of a mind which must have one day led him to emi- nence, he became a member of the profession by which I am surrounded. Possessing, as he did, a moderate e, and looking forward to the most flatter- ins: prospects, it was natural for him to select amongst the ether sex, some friends who should adorn his for- tunes, and deceit e his toils. He found such a friend, or thought he found ner, in the person of Miss TVarren* the only daughter of an eminent solicitor. Young, beau- I, and accomplished, she was « adorned with all that earth or heaven a uld bestow to make her amiable." Virtue net er found a fairer temple; beauty never veiled a purer sanctuary : the graces of her mind retained the 68 A SPEECH IN THE CASE OE admiration whirh her beauty had attracted, and the eye, Which her charms fired, became subdued and chastened in the modesty of their association. She was in the dawn of life, with all its fragrance round her, and yet so pure, that even the blush which sought to hide her lustre, but disclosed the vestal deity that burned beneath it. No wonder an adoring husband anticipated all the joys this world could give him ; no wonder the parental eye, which beamed upon their union, saw, in the per- spective, an old age of happiness, and a posterity of honour. Methinksl see them at the sacred altar, join- ing those hands which Heaven commanded none should separate, repaid for many a pang of anxious nurture by the sweet smile of filial piety; and in the holy rapture of tin 4 rite, worshipping the power that blessed their chil- dren, and gave them hope their names should live here- after. It was viitue^s vision! None but fiends could envy it. Year after year confirmed the anticipation ; four lovely children blessed their union. Nor was their love the summer-passion of prosperity; misfortune proved afflictions chastened it: before *the mandate of that mys- terious Tower which will at times despoil the paths of innocence, to decorate the chariot of triumphant *il- lainy, my client had to bow in silent resignation. He owed his adversity to the benevolence of his spirit ; he •• went security for friends ;" those friends deceived him, and be was obliged to seek in other lands, that safe asylum which his own denied him. He was glad to accept an offer of professional business in Scotland during his temporary embarrassment. With a conjugal devotion, Mrs. Guthrie accompanied him; and in her smile th* 1 soil of a stranger was a home, the sorrows of adversity were dear to him. During their residence in Scotland, a period about a year, you will find they lived as they had ft ne in Ireland, and as they continued to do until this Calamitous occurrence, in a state of nniit r- rupted happiness. You shall hear, most satisfactorily, that iheir domestic life was unsullied and undisturbed. Happy at home, happy in a husband's love, happy in her parent's fondness; happy in the children she had nursed, Mrs. Guthrie carried into every circle — and there wos r:o circle in which her society was not court- that cheerfulness which never was a companion of GUTHRIE V. STERNE. (59 guilt, or a stranger to innocence. My client saw her the pride of his family, the favourite of his friends; at once the organ and ornament of his happiness. His ara- hition awoke, his industry redoubled ; and that fortune, which though for a season it may frown, never totally abandons probity and virtue, had begun to smile on him. He was beginning to rise in the ranks of his competi- tors, and rising with such a character, that emulation itself rather rejoiced than envied. It was at this crisis. in this, the noon of his happiness, and day-spring of his fortune, that, to the ruin of both, the Defendant became acquainted with his family. With the serpent's wile, and the serpent's wickedness, he stole into the Eden of do- mestic life, poisoning all that was pure, polluting all that was lovely, defying God. destroying man ; a demon in the disguise of virtue, a herald of hell in the paradise of innocence. His name Gentlemen, is William Peter Baker Duxstanville Sterne ; one would think he had epithets enough, without adding to them the title of Jbiidterev. Of his character I know but little, and I am sorry t!>at I know so much. If I am instructed rightly, he is one of those vain and vapid coxcombs, whose vices tinge the frivolity of their follies with something of a more odious character than ridicule — with just head enough to contrive crime, but not heart enough to feel for its consequences j one of those fashionable insects, tftatf oily has p tinted, and fortune plumed, for the annoy- ance of one atmosphere; dangerous alike in their torpi- dity and their animation ; infesting where they fly, and poisoning where they repose. It was through the in- troduction of Mr. Fallon, the son of a most respectable lady, then resident in Temple-street, and a near rela- tive of Mr. Guthrie, that tiie Defendant and this unfor- tunate woman first became acquainted : to such an in- troduction the shadow of a suspicion could not possibly attach. Occupied himself in his professional pursuits, my client had little leisure for the amusement of society ; however, to the protection of Mrs. Fallon, her son, and daughters, moving in the first circles, unstained by any possible imputation, he without hesitation entrusted all that was dear to him. No suspicion could be awaken- ed as to any man to whom such a female as Mrs. Fallon permitted an intimacy with her daughters; while at her TO A SFEECH IN THE CASE OE "house then, and at the parties which it originated, the defendant and Mrs. Guthrie had frequent opportunities of meeting. Who could have suspected, that, under the very roof of virtue, in the presence of a venerable and respected matron, and of that innocent family, whom she had reared up in the sunshine of her example, the most abandoned profligate could have plotted his iniqui- ties ! Who would not rather suppose, that, in the re- buke of such a presence, guilt would have torn away the garland from its brow, and blushed itself into virtue. — But the depravity of this man was of no common dye : the asylum of innocence was selected only as the sanc- tuary of his crimes ; and the pure and the spotless cho- sen as his associates, because they would be more un- suspected subsidiaries to his wickedness. Nor were his manner and his language less suit: 1 ? than his society to the concealment of his objects. If you believed himself, the sight of suffering affected his nerves ; the bare men- tion of immorality smote upon his conscience; an inter- course with the continental courts had refined his mind into a painful sensibility to the barbarisms of Ireland! and yet an internal tenderness towards his native land so irresistably impelled him to improve it by his resi dence, that he was a hapless victim to the excess of his feelings ! — the exquisiteness of his polish ! — and the ex- cellence of his patriotism His English estates, he said, amounted to about 10,000/. a year ,• and he retained in Ireland only a trifling SOOOJ. more, as a kind of trust for the necessities of its inhabitants ! — In short, accord- ing to his own description, he was in religion a saint, and in morals a stoic ! — a sort of wandering philanthropist ! making, like the Sterne, who, he confessed, had the ho- nour of his name and his connexion, a Sentimental Jour- ney in search of objects over whom his heart might weep and his sensibility expand itself! How happy it is, that, of the philosophic profligate only retaining the vices and the. name, his rashness has led to the arrest of crimes, which he had all his turpi- tude to commit, without any of his talents to embellish. It was by arts such as I have alluded to — by pretend- ing the most strict morality, the most sensitive honour, the most high and iiiideviating principles of virtue, — that the defendant banished every suspicion of his de- GUTHRIE V. STEUNE. 71 signs. As far as appearances went, he was exactly what he described himself. His pretensions to morals he supported by the most reserved and respectful behaviour : his hand was lavish in the distribution of his charities ; and a spiendid equipage, a numerous retinue, a system of the most profuse and prodigal expenditure, left no doubt as to the reality of his fortune. Thus circumstanced, he found an easy admittance to the house of Mrs. Fallon, and there he had many opportunities of seeing Mrs. Guthrie ; for, between his family and that of so respec- table a relative as Mrs. Fallon, my client had much anx- iety to increase the connexion. They visited together- some of the public amusements ; they partook of some of the fetes in the neighborhood of the metropolis ,* hut upon every occasion, Mrs. Guthrie was accompanied bv her own mother, and by the respectable females of Mrs. Fallon's family. I say, upon every occasion : and I chal- lenge them to produce one single instance of those inno- cent excursions, upon which the slanders of an interest- ed calumny have been let loose, in which this unfortu- nate lady was not matronized by her female relatives, and those some of the most spotless characters in society. Between Mr. Guthrie and the defendant, the acquaint- ance was but slight. Upon one occasion alone they din- ed together ; it was at the house of the plaintiff's father- in-law ; and, that you may have some illustration of the defendant's character, I shall briefly instance his con- duct at this dinner. On being introduced to Mr. War- ren, he apologized for any deficiency of etiquette in his visits, declaring that he had been seriously occupied in arranging the affairs of his lamented father, who, though tenant for life, had contracted debts to an enormous a- mount. He had already paid upwards of 10,000/. which honour and not law compelled him to discharge ; as, sweet soul ! he could not bear that any one should suffer unjustly by his family ! His subsequent conduct was c^nite consistent with this hypocritical preamble : at din- ner, he sat at a distance from Mrs. Guthrie ; expatiated to her husband upon matters of morality ; entering into a high-flown panegyric on the virtues of domestic life, and the comforts of connubial happiness, in short, had* there been any idea of jealoasy, his manner would have banished it ; and the mind must have been worse than 72 A SPEECH IN THE CASE Of sceptical, which would refuse its credence to his surface morality. Gracious God ! when the heart once admits guilt as its associate, how every natural emotion flies be. foie it ! Surely, surely, here was a scene to reclaim, if it were possible, this remorseless defendant, — admitted to her father's table under the shield of hospitality, he saw a young and lovely female surrounded by her pa- rents, ber husband, and her children ; the prop of those parents* age: the idol of that husband's love; the an- chor of those children's helplessness; the sacred orb of their domestic circle ; giving tbeir smile its light, and their bliss its being ; robbed of whose beams the little lucid world of their home must hecome chill, unrheered, and colourless for ever. He saw them happy, he saw them united ; blessed with peace, and purity, and profusion ; throbbing with sympathy and throned in love ; depicting the innocence of infancy, and the joys of manhood he- fore the venerahlo eye of age. as if to soften the farewell of one world by the pure and pictured anticipation of a better. Yet, even tbere, hid in the very sun beam of that happiness, the demon of its destined desolation lurk- ed. Just Heaven ! of what materials was that heart composed, which could meditate coolly on the murder of such enjoyments ; which innocense could not soften, nor peace propitiate, nor hospitality appease ; but which, in the very beam and bosorn of its benefaction, warmed and excited itself into a more vigorous venom? AVas there no sympathy in the scene ? Was there no remorse at the crime ? Was there no horror at its consequences ? " Were honour, virtue, conscience, all exil'd ! Was there no pity, no relenting ruth, To show the parents fondling o'er tbeir child, Then paint the ruin'd pair, and their distraction wild !' ? Bums. No ! no ! He was at that instant planning their destruc- tion ; and, even within four short days, he deliberately reduced those parents to childishness, that husband to wi- dowhood, those smiling infants to anticipated orphanage, and that peaceful, hospitable, confiding family, to help- less, hopeless, irremediable ruin ! Upon the first clay of the ensuing July, Mr. Gathrie was to dine with the '"onnaught bar. at the hotel of Tor- GTTTHBIE V. STERNE 37 tobeilo. It is a custom. I am told, with the gentlemeu of that association to dine together previous to the cir- cuit ; of course my clientceuld not have decorously ab- sented himself. Mrs. Guthrie appeared a little feverish, and he reou sted that an his retiring, she would compose herself to rest ; she promised him she would ; and when he departed, somewhat abruptly, to put some letters in the post-office, she exclaimed, •• What ! John, are you going to leave me thus ?" He returned, and she kissed him. They seldom parted, even for any time, without that token of affection. I am thus minute, Gentlemen, that you may see, up to the last moment, what little cause the husband had for suspicion, and how impossible it was for him to foipsee a perfidy which nothing short of infatuation could have produced. He proceeded to his companions with no other regret than that necessity, for a moment, forced him from a home which the smile of affection had never ceased to endear to him. After a dav, however, passed, as such a day might-have been supposed to pass, in the flow of soul. ?.nd the philosophy of pleasure, he returned home to stare his happiness with her, without whom no happiness ever had been perfect. Alas ! he was never to behold her more » ima- gine, if you can, the phrenzy of his astonishment, in being informed by Mrs. Porter, the daughter of the for- mer landlady, that about two hours before, she had at- tended Mrs. Guthrie to a confectioner's shop; that a carriage had drawn up at the corner of (he street, into which a gentleman, whom she recognised to be a Mr. Sterne, had handed her, and they instantly departed. I must tell you, there is every reason to believe, that this woman was the confidant of the conspiracy. What a pity that the object of that guilty confidence had not something of humanity; that, as a female, she did not feel fqr the character of her sex ; that as a mother, she did not mourn over the sorrows of a helpless family ! What pangs might she not have spared ? My client could hear no mere ; even at the dead of night he rushed into the street, as if in its own dark hour he could dis- cover guilt's recesses. In vain did he awake the peace- ful family of the horror strurk Mrs. Fallon ; in vain, with the parents of the miserable fugitive, did he mingle the tears of an impotent distraction , in vain, a misera- ble maniac, did he traverse the silent streets of the ffie- Tv 74 A SPEECH IX THE CA9E OF tropolis, affrighting virtue from its slumber v.ith lhv spectre of its own ruin. 1 will not harrow you with its heart-rending recital. But imagine you see him, when the day had dawned, returning wretched to his deserted dwelling ; seeing in every chamber a memorial of his loss, and hearing every -tongueiess object eloquent of his wo. Imagine you see him, in the reverie of his grief, trying to persuade himself it was all a vision, and awa- kened only to the horrid truth by his helpless children asking him foi their mother ! — Gentlemen, this is not a picture of the fancy ; it literally occurred ; there is some- thing less of romance in the reflection, which his chil- dren awakened in the mind of their afflicted father; he ordered that they should be immediately habited in mourning. How rational sometimes are the ravings of insanity ! For all the purposes of maternal life, poor innocents ! they have no mother ! her tongue no more can teach, her hand no more can tend them ; for thorn there is not " speculation in her eyes ; M to them her life is something worse than death ; as if the awful grave had yawned her forth, she moves before them shrouded aR in sin, the guilty burden of its peaceless sepulchre. Bet- ter* far better, their little feet had followed in her fune- ral, than the hour which taught her value, should reveal her vice, — mourning her loss, they might have blessed her memory ; and shame need not have rolled its fires into the fountain of their sorrow. As soon as his reason became sufficiently collected, Mr. Guthrie pursued the fugitives ; he cha&ed them suc- cessively to Kildare, to Carlow, Waterford, Milford- haven, on through Wales, and finally to Ilfracombe, in Devonshire, where the clue was lost. I am glad that, in tills route and restlessness of their guilt, as the crime . they perpetrated was foreign to our soil, they did not make that soil the scene of its habitation. I will not fol- low them through this joyless journey, nor brand by my record the unconscious scene of its pollution. But phi- losophy never taught, the pulpit never enforced, a more imperative morality than fhe itinerary of that accursed tour promulgates. Oh ! if there be a maid or matron in this island, balancing between the alternative of virtue and of crime, trembling between the IipII of the seducer and the adulterer, and the heaven of the parental and nuptial home, let her pause upon this one out of the GUTHRIE V. STERNE. • 75 many horrors I could depict, — and be converted. I will give you the relation in the very words of my brief; I cannot improve upon the simplicity of the recital : « On the 7th of July, tliey arrived at Milford ; the captain of the packet dined with them, and was asto- nished at the magnificence of her dress." (Poor wretch ! she was decked and adorned for the sacrifice !) « The nest day they dined alone. Towards evening, the house- maid, passing near their chamber, heard Mr. Sterne scolding, and apparently beating her J In a short time after, Mrs. Guthrie rushed out of her chamber into the drawing room, and throwing herself in agony upon the sofa, she exclaimed, Oh 1 what an unhappy wretch I am I I left my home where I was happy , too happy, se- duced by a man who has deceived me. — My poor hus- ra^d ! my dear children! Oh I if they would even let my little William live with me ! it would be some co;?- so'Lation to my broken heart !' " Alas ! nor children more can she behold, Nor friends, nor sacred home." "Well might she lament over her fallen fortunes ! well might she mourn over the memory of days when the sun of heaven seemed to rise but for her happiness ! well might she recall the home she had endeared, the chil- dren she had nursed, the hapless husband, of whose life she w 7 as the pulse ! But one short week before, this earth could not reveal a lovelier vision : — Virtue blessed, affection followed, beauty beamed on her ; the light of every eye, the charm of every heart, she moved along in cloudless chastity, cheered by the song of love, and circled by the splendours she created ! Behold her now, the loathsome refuse of an adulterous bed ; festering in the very infection of her crime ; the scofF and scorn of their unmanly, merciless, inhuman author ! But thus it ever is with the votaries of guilt ; the birth of their crime is the death of their enjoyment ; and the wretch who flings his offering on its altar, fails an immediate victim to the flame of his devotion. I am glad it is so ; it is a wise, retributive dispensation ; it bears the stamp of a preventive Providence. I rejoice it is so, in the present instance, first, because this premature infliction must ensure repentance in the wretched sufferer 5 and 76 A SPEECH IN THE CASE OF next, because, as this adulterous fiend has rather acted on the suggestions of his nature than his shape, by re- belling against the finest impulse of man, he has made himself an outlaw from the sympathies of humanity.— Why should he expect that charity from you, which he would not spare even to the misfortunes he had inflicted ? For the honour of the form in which he is disguised, I am willing to hope he was so blinded by his vice, that he did not see the fall extent of those misfortunes. If he had feelings capable of being touched, it is not to the fadeu victim >f her own weakness, and of his wicked- ness, that I would direct them. There is something In her crime which affrights charity from its commissera- tion. Bui, Gentlemen, there is one, over whom pity may mourn,— for he is wretched ; and mourn without a blush- for he is guiltless. How shall I depict to you the deserted husband ? To every other »bject in tins catalogue of calamity there is some stain attached which checks compassion. ---But here— Oh ! if ever there was a man amiable, it was that man. Oh! if ever there was a husband fond, it was that husband. His hope, his joy, his ambition was domestic ; his toils were forgotten in the affections of his home ; and amid every adverse variety of fortune, hope pointed to his children ; and he was comforted. By this vile act that hope is blasted, that house is a desert, those children are parentles; ? In vain do tuey look to their surviving parent : his heart is broken, his mind is in ruins, his very form is fading from the earth. He had one consolation, an aged mo- ther, on whose life the remnant of his fortunes hung, and on whose protection of his children his remaining prospects rested ; even that is over ; - she could not sur- vive his shame, she never raised her head, she became hearsed in his misfortune ;— -he has followed her funeral. If this be not the climax of human misery, tell me in what does human misery consist ? Wife, parent, for- tune, prospects, happiness,— all gone at once, and gone for ever ! For my part, when I contemplate this, I do not wonder at the impression it lias produced on him; I do not wonder at the faded form, the dejected air, the emaciated countenance, and all the luinotis and moul- dering trophies, by which misery has marked its tri- umph over youth, and health, and happiness 9 I know. that in the hordes of what is called fashionable life, there GTJTmilE Y. STERNE, 77 is a sect of philosophers, wonderfully patient of their fellow creatures' sufferings ; men too insensible to feel for any one, or too selfish to feel for others. I trust there is not one amongst you who ran even hear of such calamities without affliction ; or, if there be, I pray that he may never know their import by experience ; that having, in the wilderness of this world, hut one dear ai,d darling object, without whose participation bliss would be Joyless, and in whose sympathies sorrow has found a charm ; whose smile has cheered his toil, whose love has pillowed his misfortunes, whose angel-spirit, guiding him through danger, and darkness, and des- pair, amid the world's frown and the friend's perfidy, was more than friend, and world, and all to him ! God forbid, that by a villain's wile, or a villain's wickedness, he should be taught how to appreciate the wo of others in the dismal solitude of his own. Oh, no ! I, feel that I ad- dress myself to human beings, w ho, knowing the value of what the w 7 orid is worth, are capable of appreciating all that makes it dear to us. Observe, however, — lest this crime should want ag- gravation — observe, I beseech you, the period of its ac- complishment. My client was not so young as that the elasticity of his spirit could rebound and bear him above the pressure of the misfortune, nor was he withered by- age into a comparative insensibility ; but just at that temperate interval of manhood, when passion had ceased to play, and reason begins to operate; when love, grati- fied, left him nothing to desire; and fidelity, long tried, left him nothing to apprehend : he was just too, at that period of his professional career,when, his patient indus- try having conquered the ascent, he was able to look a- round him from the height on which he rested. For this, welcome had been the day of tumult, ami the pale lamp succeeding ; welcome bad been the drudgery of form : welcome the analysis of crime ; welcome the sneer of en- vy, and the scorn of dullness, and all the spurns which *< patient merit of the unworthy takes." For this he had encountered, perhaps the generous rivalry of genius, per- haps the biting hlasts of poverty, perhaps the efforts of that deadly slander, which, coiling round the cradle of his young ambition, might have sought to crush him in its envenomed foldings.. rS A SPEECH IN THE CASE 01 u A;j ! vrhocan tell how hard it is (o climb The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar ? Ah! who c.4!) tell how many a soul sublime Hath felt ih influence of malignant star, And waged with fortune an eternal war ?" Can such an injury as this admit of justification ? I think the learned counsel will conceive it cannot. But it may be palliated, JLet u- see how. Perhaps the defendant wan young' and thhughtless ; perhaps unmerited prosperi- ty raised him above the pressure of misfortune; and the wild pulse of impetuous passion impelled him to a pur- id which his experience would have shuddered. — Quite the conlary. The noon of manhood lias almost 1 over htm : and a vouth, spent in the recesses of a • 's prison, made him familiar with every form of human misery: he saw what misfortune was ; — it did tedch him pity : he sa i .v the effects of guilt ; — he spurned, the aiVmouition. Perhaps in the solitude of a , h had never known the social blessedness of ;— he has a wife* and children ; or if she be not his wifu, she is the victim of his crime, and adds another t<> tjie calendar of his seduction; Certain it is, he has little children, who think themselves legitimate; will his advocates defend him, by proclaiming thir bastardy I Certain it is, there is a wretched female, his own cousin who thinks herself his wife 5 will they protect him, tming he has only deceived her into being his prostitute ? Perhaps his crime, as in the celebrated case immortalized by Lord Erskine t may have ■ its origin in paren tat cruelty ; it might perhaps have been that in their spring of life, when fancy waved her fairy wand around them, till all above was sun-shine, and all beneath was Bowers ; when to their clear and c'h irmed vision this ample world was but a weed less gar-* den, where every tint spoke Nature's loveliness, and ever}" sound breathed Heaven's melody and every breeze was embodied fragrance; it might have been that, in this cloudless holiday, Love wove his roseate bondage i them, till their young hearts grew together, a se- parale existence ceased, and life itself became a sweet tity; it might have been that, envious of this para- . some worse than demon tore them from each other to pi ears in absence, and ^ length to perish in a palliated impiety. Oh ! Gentlemen, in such a case, Jus- 6UTKKI3 V. STER.NE. tice herself, with her uplifted sword, would call cy to preserve the victim. Th^re was no Such p; the period of their acquaintance was little more than sufficient for the maturity « f their crime; and t not libel Love, by shielding under its soft and s name the loathsome revels of an aduitcroi It migM have heen, the husband's cruelty h\'t a ton c-a«y read for seduction. Will they dare to assert it? Ah! too well they knew he would not let u the winds of hea- ven visit her face tor) rouerhly." Monstrous as it is, I have heard, indeed, that they mean to rest upon an op- posite palliation ; I have heard it rumoured, that they mean to rest the wile's infidelity upon the husbands* Iness. I know that gaili, in i f " conception mean, and ii» its commission tremulous, is, i . despe- rate and audacious, I know that, inthe fugitive panic of its retreat it will stop tolling its Parthan poison upon the. justice that pursues it. But 1 do hope, bad aaid aban- doned,hopeIess as their cau8eis* — * do hope, for the i of human nature, that S have t>een deceived in the ru- mors of this unnstural defence. Merciful God ! is it In tli >e«eitce of this venerable Court, i hearing of till try, is it in the zenith of an c^!?p;!;ti ued age, that I am to be told, because female tenderness was not watched with worse than Spanish vigilance^ and harrassed with worse than eastern severity ; bo< ausethe marriage-contract is not converted into the curse of in- carceration * because women is allowed the dignity of a human sou!, and man does not degrade himself into a hu- man monster; because the vow of endearment is not made the vehicle of deception, and the altar's pledge is not become the passport of a barbarous perjury ; and that too in a land of courage and chivalry, where the female form has been held as a patent direct from rho Divinity, bearing in its chaste and charmed helplessness of its strength, and the amulet of its protection : am 1 to be told, that the demon adulterer is therefore not ov.ly to perpetrae his crimes, but to vindicate himself, through the very virtues he has violated? I cannot believe it; } dismiss the supposition: it is most "' monstrous, foul, and unnatural." •Suppose that the plaintiff pursued a differ- ent principle ; suppose, that his conduct had been the re- verse of what it was; suppose, that in place of Being kind, he had been cruel to this deluded female 5 that he gO A SPEECH IN THE CASK OF liad been her tyrant, not lier protector ; her gaoler, not her husband : what then might have been the defence of the adulterer? Might he not then say, and say with speciousness, <* True, I seduced her into crime, hut it was to save her from cruelty ! true, she is my adultress, because he was her despot." Happily, Gentlemen, he can say no such thing. I have heard it said, too, du- ring the ten months of calumny, for which, by every spe- cies of legal delay, they have procrastinated tins trial, that, n^xt to the impeachment of the husband's tender- ness, they mean to rely on what they libel as the levity of their unhappy victim I I know not by what right any man, hut above all, a married man, presumes to scruti- nize into tbe conduct of a married female. I know not, Gentlemen, how you would feel, under the consciousness that every coxcomb was at liberty to estimate the warmth, or the coolness, of your wives, by th ,v barometer of his vanity, that he might ascertain precisely the prudence of his invasion on their virtue. But I do know, that such a defence, coming from such a quarter, would not at all suppnse me. Poor — unfortunate — fallen female! How can she expect mercy from her destroyer ? How can she expect that he will receive the character he was careless of preserving ? How. can she suppose that, that after ha- ving made her peace the pander to his appetite, he will not make hep reputation the victim of his avarice? Such a defence is quite to be expected : knowing him, it will not surprise me ; if I know you, it will not avail him. Having now shown you, that a crime almost unprece- dented in this country, is clothed in every aggravation, and robbed of every palliative, it is natural you should inquire, what was the motive for its commission? What &o you think it was? Providentially — miraculously,! should have said, for you never could have divined— the Defendant has himself disclosed it. What do you think it was, Gentlemen? Ambition! But a few days before his criminality, in answer to a friend, who rebuked him for the almost princely expenditure of his habits, <• Oh*' s,?ys he, '• never mind ; Sterne must do something by which Sterne may hv, known /" ! had heard, indeed, that ambition was a vice,— but then a vice, so •equivocal, it sjed oji virtue; that it was the aspiration of a spirit, times perhaps appalling, always magnificent; that GUTHRIE V. STERNE. 81 though its grasp might be fate,, and its flight might be famine* still it reposed on earth's pinnacle, and played in heaven's lightnings ; that though it might fall in ruins, it arose in fire, and was withal so splendid, that even the horrors of that full became iin merged and mitigated in tSie beauties of that aberration ! But here is an ambi- tion-- base and barbarous and illegitimate; with ail the grossness of the vice, with none of the grandeur of the Virtue ; a mean, muffled, dastard incendiary, who, in silence of sleep, and in shades of midnight, steals bis Ephesian torch into the fane, which h was virtue to adore, and worse than sacrilege to have violated ! Gentlemen, my part is done ; yours is about to com- mence. You have heard this crime, its origin, its pro- gress, its aggravations, its novelty among us. Go and tell your children and your country, whether or not it is to be made a precedent Oh, how awful is your re- sponsibility ! I do not doubt that you will discharge yourselves of it as becomes your characters. J am sure, , indeed, that you will mourn with me over the almost solitary defect in our otherwise matchless system of ju- risprudence, which leaves the perpetrators of such an injury as this, subject to no amercement but that of mo- ney. I think you will lament the failure of the great Ci- cero of our age, to bring such an offence within the cog- nisance of a criminal jurisdiction : it was a subject suit- ed to Isis legislative mind, worthy of his feeling hearty worthy of ills immortal eloquence. I cannot, my Lord, even remotely allude to Lord Erskine, without gratify- ing myself by saying of him, that by the rare union of all that was learned in law with all that was lucid in elo- quence ; by the singular combination of all that was pure; morals with all that was profound in wisdom $ he has stamped upon every action of his life the blended authority of a great mind, and an unquestionable con- viction. 1 think, Gentlemen, you will regret the fail- ure of such a man in such an object. The merciless murderer may have manliness to plead ; the highway robber may have want to palliate; yet they both are ob- jects of criminal infliction : but the murderer of connu- bial bliss, who commits his crime in secrecy ; — the rob- ber of domestic joys, whose very wealth, as in this casc^ may be his instrument; — he is suffered to calculate on iUa interna! fame which a superfluous and unXelt expen- 82 SPEECH IX Tffk CASE OF diturc may purchase. The law, however, is so : and we must only adopt the remedy it affords us. In our ad- judication of that remedy, I do not ask too much, when I ask the full extent of your capability : how poor, even so, is the wretched remuneration for an injury which nothing can repair, — for a loss which nothing can alle. viate ? Do you think that a mine could recompense my client for the forfeiture of her who was dearer than life to him ? " Oh*, had she been but true, Though heaven had made him such another ivorid, Ot one entire and perfect chrysolite, He'd not exchange her for it." I put it to any of you, what would you take to stand in his situation ? What would you take to have your pros- pect blasted, your profession despoiled, your peace ruin- ed, your bed profaned, your parents heart-broken, your children parentless? Believe me, Gentlemen, if it were not for those children, he would not come here to day to seek such remuneration ; if it were not that, by your ver- dict, you nay prevent those little innocent defrauded wretches from wandering beggars, as well as orphans, on the face of this earth. Oh, I know I need not ask this verdict from your mercy ; I need not extort it from your compassion; I will receive it from your justice. I do conjure you, not as fathers, but as husbands;- -not as husbands, but as citizens ; — not as citizens, but as men; — not as men, but as Christians; — by all your obligations, public, moral, and religious ; by the heart profaned; by the home desolated ; by the canons of the living God foully spurned; — save, oh ! save vour fire- sides from the contagion, your country from the crime, and perhaps thousands, yet unborn, from the shame, and sorrow of this example ! SHHSBftDIH OF MR. PHILLIPS, IS -C&e €a$t of <©'«jiBuflatt to. JlE'StoiMt. DELIVERED IN THE COUNTY COURT-HOUSE, GALWAY. My Lords and Gentlemen, I am instructed, as of counsel for the Plaintiff, to state to you the circumstances in which this action has originated. It is a source to me, I will confess it, of much personal embarrassment. Feebly, indeed, can I attempt to convey to yoH, the feelings with which a perusal of this brief has affected me ; painful to you must be my inefficient transcript — painful to all who have the common feelings ol country or of kind, must be the calamitous compendium of all that degrades our indivdual nature, and of all that has, for many an age of sorrow, perpetuated a curse upon our national cha- racter. It is, perhaps, the misery of this profession, that every hour our vision may be blasted by some wi- thering crime, aud our hearts wrung with some agonizing 84 SPEECH 1ST THE CASE OF rental ; there is no frightful form of vice, or no dis- gusting phantom of infirmity; which guilt does not array in spectral train before us. Horrible is Ihe assembl, humiliating the application i but, thank God, even amid those very scenes of disgrace and debasement, occasions oft arise for the redemption of our dignity; occasions, on which the virtues breathe-! into us, by heavenly in- spiration, walk abroad in the divinity oj" their exertion; befoVe whose beam the wintry robe falls from the form of virtue, and all the images of horror vanish into no- thing. Joyfully and piously do I recognise such an oc- casion ; gladly do f invoke you to the generous partici- pation ; yes, gentlemen, though you must prepare to hear much that degrades our nature, much that our country — though all that oppression could devise against the poor — though all that persecution could in- flict upon the feeble — though all that vice could v against the pious— thoygh all that the venom of a Venal turpitude could pour upon the patriot, must with their alternate apparition aOlict, affright, and humiliate you, still do I hope, that over this charnel-house of crime--- over this very sepulchre, where corruption sits enthron- ed upon the merit it has murdered, that voice is at length about to be heard, at which the martyred victim will arise to vindicate the ways of Providence, and prove that even in its worst adversity there is a might and im- mortality in virtue. The Plaintiff, Gentlemen, you have heard, is the Rev. Cornelius O'Mullan ; he is a clergyman of the church of Rome, and became invested with that venera- ble appellation, so far back as September, 1804. It is a title which yon know, in this country, no rank enno- bles, no treasure enriches, no establishment supports ; its possessor stands undisguised by any rag of this world's decoration, resting all temporal, all eternal hope upon his toil, his talents, his attainments, and his piety — doubtless after ai!, the highest honours, as well as the most imperishable treasures of the man of God. — Year after year passed over my client, and each anni- versary only gave him an additional title to these quali- fications. His precept was but the handmaid to his practice ; the sceptic heard him, and was convinced ; the ignorant attended him, and were taught; he smooth- ed the death-bed of loo .heedless wealth : he rocked the o'MULLAK V, M*KOKK.fXl-. 85 •radio of the infant charity; oh. no wonder he walked in the sunshine of the public ; *e*;e, no wonder he toiled through the pressure of the \mh\*v benediction. This is not an idle declamation ; such >$£f the result his minis- try produced, that within five years from the date of its commencement, nearly 2000'. of voluntary subscription enlarged the temple where such precepts were taught* and such piety exemplified . Such was the situation *4 Mr. Q'Miittan, when a dissolution of parliament took place? and an unexpected contest for the represenffctjfin of Derry, threw that county info unusual com root km. One of tire candidates was of the Ponson^y family — a fa- mily devoted to the interests * and dear to the heart of Ire- land; he naturally thought that his parliamentary con- duct entitled him to the vote of every Catholic in the land; and so it t?,n\ 9 not only of every Qatholicj but qf every Christian who preferred the diffusion Gos- pel to the ascendancy of a sect, and loved the principles of the constitution better than the pretensions of a party. Perhaps you will think with me, that there is a sorl of posthumous interest thrown about that evenj, when i tell you, that the candidate on (hat occasion was the la- mented Hero over whose tomb t!»e tears, not only of Ireland, but of Europe, have been so lately shed ; he who, mid the blossom of the world's chivalry, died con- quering a deathless name upon the field of Waterloo. He applied to Mr. O'Mullan for his interest, and that inte- rest was cheerfully given, the concurrence of his bishop having been previously obtained. Mr. Fonsonby suc- ceeded ; and a dinner, to which all parties were invited and from which all party spirit was expected to absent itself, was given to commemorate one common triumph — the purity and the privileges of election. In other countries, such an expectation might be natural ; the exercise of a noble constitutional privilege, the triumph of a great popular cause, might not unaptly expand it- self in the intercourse of the board, and unite all hearts in the natural bond of festive commemoration. But, alas, Gentlemen, in this unhappy land, such has been the result, whether of our faults, our follies, or our mis- fortunes, that a detestable disunion converts the very balm of the howl into poison, commissioning its vile and harpy offspring,, to turn even our festivity into famine. My client was at this dinner; it was not to he endured 86 SrEECU IX THE CASE OF that a Catholic should pollute with his presence, the ci- vic festivities of the loyal Londonderry ! such an intru- sion, even the acknowledged sanctity of his character could not excuse ; it became necessary to insult him. There is a toast, which, perhaps, few in this united country are in the habit of hearing, but it is the invari able watchword of the Orange orgies; it is briefly en- titled «« The glorious, pious, and immortal memory of the great and good King William." I have no doubt the simplicity of your understandings is puzzled how to dis- cover any offence in the commemoration of the Revolu- tionary Hero. The loyalists of Derry are more wise in their generation. There, when some bacchanalian bi- gots wish to avert the intrusive visitations of their own memory, they commence by violating the memory of King William*. Those who happen to have shoes or silver in their fraternity — oo very usual occurrence—thank His Majesty that the shoes are not wooden, and that the silver is not brass, a commodity, by the bye, of which any le- gacy would have been quite superfluous. The pope comes in for a pious benediction; and th* toast concludes with a patriotic wish, for all his persuasion, by the communi- cation of which, there can be no doubt the hempen manu- factures of this country would experience a ^ery consi- derable consumption. Such, Gentlemen, is the enlight- ened, and libera*, and social sentiment of which the first sentence, all that is usually give , firms the suggestion. I must not om t tl at ijt is generally »aken standing, always providing it be in the power of the company. This toast was pointedly given to insult Mr. O'Mullan. Naturally averse to any alteration, his most obvious course was to cjuit the company, and this he did immediately. He was however, as immediately recalled by an intimation, that the Catholic question, and might its claims be consider- * This loyal toast handed down by Orange tradition, is lite- rally as follows : we give it ior the edification of the sister island. " The glorious, pious, and immortal memory of the great and good Kms William, who saved us from Pope and Popery, James and slavery, brass money and wooden shoes ; here is bad luck to the Pope, and a hempen rope to all Papists " it is drank kneeling, if they cannot stand, nine times nine, amid various mysteries which none but the elect can compre- hend. 0'Mn.LAN v. m'korkilx. sr od justly and liberally, had been toasted as a peace-offer- ing by Sir George Hill, the City Recorder. JViy client had no gall in his disposition ,• He at once clasped to his heart the friendly overture, and in such phrase as his simplicity supplied, poured forth the gratitude ot that heart to the liberal recorded. Poor U'AIullan had the wisdom to imagine that the politician's compliment was the man's conviction, and that a table toast was the cer- tain prelude to a pailiamentary suffrage. Despising all experience, he applied the adage, Calnm non dnimum mutant qui trans marc currant, to the Irish patriot. I need not paint to you the consternation of Sir Geoge, at so unusual and so unparliamentary a construction. He indignantly disclaimed the intention imputed to him, de- nied and deprecated the unfashionable inference, and acting on the broad scale of an impartial policy, ga\e to one party the weight of his vote, and to the other, the (no doubt in his opinion) equally valuable acquisition of his eloquence ; — by the way, no unusual compromise amongst modern politicians. Tht proceedings of this dinner soon became public, Sir George you may be sure, was little in love with his no- toriety. However, Gentlemen, the sufferings of the pow- erful are seldom without sympathy; if they receive not the solace of the disinterested and the sincere, they are at least sure to find a substitute in the miserable profes- sions of an interested hypocrisy. Who could imagine, that Sir George, of all men, was to drink from the spring of Catholic consolation ? yet so it happened. Two men of that communion had the hardihood and the servility, to frame an address to him, reflecting upon the pastor, -who was its pride, and its ornament, i his address, with the most obnoxious commentaries, was instantly publish- ed by the Derry Journalist, who from thai hour, down to the period of his ruin, has never ceased to persecute my client, with all that the most deliberate falsehood could invent, and all that the most infuriate bigotry could perpetrate. This journal, I may as well now des- cribe to you ; it is one of the numerous publications which the misfortunes of this unhappy lard have generated, and which has grown into considerable ailluenee by the saU contributions of the public calamity. There is not -<\ provincial village in Ireland, which some such ofiicia' fiend does not infest, fabricating a gazette of fraud and 38 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF falsehood, upon all who presume to advocate her inter- ests, c»s- uphold th* 1 ancient religion of her people; — Lhe worse foes of government upojii pretence of giving it as- tnce ; the deadliest enemies to the Irish name, under .In-, mockery of supporting its character; the most licen- tious, irreligious, illiterate banditti, that ever polluted the of literature, mid foliated baunei of the pi d with the public spoil, and blooded in tlie chase of character, no abilities can arrest, no piety can a.ve; no misfortune affect, no benevolence conciliate n : the reputation of the living, and the memory of the dead are equal^ plundered in their desolating pro- ? ,* i-\eii the awful sepulchre affords not an as>Ium to their selected victim. Human Hyexas ! they will rush into toe sacred receptacle of death, gorging their raven- ous and brutal rapine, amid the memorials of our last in- v ' Surit is a too true picture of what I hope uiiau- v misnames itself 'he ministerial press of Ireland. d that polluted press, it is for you to say, whether The Lbiidonderry Journal stands on an infamous ele\ a- lion. Vv hen tins address was published in the name of the Catholics, that calumniated body, as was naturally to be expected, became utih ersally indignant. You may remember, Gentlemen, amongst the many dieuts resorted to by Ireland, lor the recovery of her rights, alter she had knelt session afier session at the bar ut the legislature, covered with the wounds of gmry, and 'praying redemption from the chains that re- ^ca them ; — you may remember, 1 say, amongst ma- ny vain expedients of supplication and rcmonstration, her Catholic population delegated a board to consult on their affairs, and forward their petition. Of that body, fashionable as the topic has now become, far be it from lb speak with disrespect, it contained much talent, much integrity ; and it exhibited what must ever be to ing spectacle, a great body of my leliow- men, and fellow- christians, claiming admission into that constitution winch their ancestors had achieved by their valour, and to which they were entitled as their inheri- tance. This is no time, this is no place for the discus- sion of that question j but since it does forre itself inci- dentally upon me, 1 will sa) , that as on the one ban ;t fancy a despotism more infamous, or more inhu- man, ment here, on account of ©'AlULLAN V. M'KORKILL. 89 that faith by which men hope to win an happy eternity hereafter ; so on the other, I cannot fancij a visionin its aspect more divine than the eternal cross, red with the Martyr's blood, and radiant with the Pilgrim's hope, reared by the Patrigt and the Christian hand high in the van of universal liberty. Of this hoard the two volun- teer framers of the address happened to be members. — The body who deputed them, instantly assembled and declared their delegation void. You would suppose, Gentlemen, that after this derisive public brand of repro- bation, those officious meddlers would have avoided ita recurrence, by retiring from scenes for which nature and education had totally unfitted them. Far, however, from acting under any sense of shame, those excluded out- casts even summoned a meeting to appeal from the sen- tence the public opinion had pronounced on then). The meeting assembled, and after almost the day's delibera- tion on their conduct, the former sentence was unani- mously confirmed. The men did not deem it prudent to attend themselves, but at a late h»ur, when the business was concluded, when the resolutions had passed, when the chair was vacated, when the multitude was dispers- ing, they attempted with some Orange followers to ob- trude into the chapel, which in large cities, such as Derry, is the usual place of meeting. An angry spirit arose among the people. Mr. O'Mullan, as was his du- ty, locked the doors to preserve the house of God from profanation, and addressed the crowd in such terms, as induced them to repair peaceably to their respective ha- bitations. I need not paint to you the bitter emotions with which these deservedly disappointed men were agi- tated. AH hell was at work within them, and a conspi- racy was hatched against the peace of my client, the vilest, the foulest, the most infernal that ever vice devis- ed, or demons executed. Restrained from exciting a riot by his interference, they actually swore a riot a- gainst him, prosecuted him to conviction, worked on the decaying intellect of his bishop to desert him, and amid the savage war-hoop of this slanderous Journal, all along inflaming the public mind by libels the moat atrocious, finally flung this poor, religious, unoffending priest, into a damp and desolate dungeon, where the ve- ry iron that bound, had more of humanity than the des- pots that surrounded him. I am told, they triumph M 90 . SPEECH IX THE CA9E OF much in this conviction. I seek ni t to impugn the ver- dict of that jury : | have . »i doubt they act«*d conscien- tiously. It weighs not with me that every member of mv rlients's rreed was carefulb pxcloded from that ju- v\~ no doubt they acted tonscientimtsltj. It \\ « i s* I » s not with me tliat every man impanelled on the trial of the priest, was exclusively Protestant, and that, too, in a city, so-prejudiced, that not long ago, by their Corpo- ration law, no Catholic dan* breath the air of Bea en within its walls— no doubt they acted conscientiously. It weighs not with me, that not three days previously, one of that jury was heard publicly to declare, he wished he coukl persecute the Papist to his death — no doubt they acted conscientiously. It weighs not with me, that the public mind had been so inflamed by th<- exasperation of this libeller, that an impartial trial was utterly int|>ossi- hle. Let them enjoy their triumph. But for myself, knowing him ay I do, here in the teeth of that ronvic- tion, I declare it, I would rather he that man, so asper- sed, so persecuted, and have his consciousness, than stand the highest of th^ courtliest rabble that e\er crouched before the foot of power, or (ei\ upon the peo- ple — plundered alms of despotism. Oh, of short dura- tion is such demoniac triumph. Oh, blind and ground- is the hope of vice, imagining its victory can he more than foe the moment. This \k-iy day I hope will prove, that if virtue suffers, it is but for a season : and that sooner or later, their patience tried, and their pu- -sperity will crown the interests of pro. and worth. Perhaps you imagine. Gentlemen, that his person im- prisoned, his profession gone, his prospects ruined, and he held dearer than all, his character defamed; malice of his ene ies might have rested from j •* Thus had begins, hut worse remains behind." nd, I beseech y u» to \*hat now follows, because I fume in order, to the particular libel, which we d ! M Obs rve the disgusting ma- lign ty of the Lhel — >bs>rve the crowded damnation which it accumulates on my client— observe all tfie ag- gravated crime which it embrace*. First, he assaults his venerable Bishop —the great Ecrlesiastical Patron, to whom he was sworn to be obedient, and against whom he never conceived or articulated irreverence. Next, he assaults the Sic order of Derry— a Privy Counsellor, the supreme municipal authority of the city. And v. here does foe do so? Gracious God, in the very templevof thy worship ! That is. says the inhuman Libell-r— -he a citizen— he. a cl rgyman insulted not only the civil but th* ecclesiastical authorities* in the face of man, and in the house of prayer; trampling •ontumeliousiy upon all hu nan law ami I th • sacred altars, where he believed th" M nignty witnessed the profanation ! I am so hor- ror stru k at this blasphemous and abominable turpi- tude, I can scarcely proceed. What will you say, Gen- tlemen, when I inform you, that at the very time this atrocity was imputed to him, he was in the city of Dub- lin, at a distance of 120 miles from the venue of its commission! But oh ! when calumay once begins its work, how vain are 'he u» pediments of time and dis- tance ! Before the sirocco of its breath all nature wi- thers, and age, and sex, and innocence, and station, perish in the unseen, but certain desolation of its pro- gress ! Do you wonder U'Mullan sunk before these ac- 92 SPEECH IW THE CASE 0¥ cumulated calumnies ; do you wonder the feeble were in- timidated, the wavering decided, the prejudiced confirm- ed ? He was forsaken by his Bishop ; he was denoun- ced by his enemies — his very friends fled in consterna. tion from the " stricken deer ;" he was banished from the scenes of his childhood, from the endearments of his youth, from the field of his fair and honourable ambi- tion. In vain did he resort to strangers for subsistence; on the very wings of the wind, the calumny preceded him ; and from that hour to this, a too true apostle, he has been " a man of sorrows," « not knowing whereto lay his head." I will not appeal to your passions ; alas ! how inadequate am I to depict his sufferings ; you must take them from the evidence. I have told you, that at the time of those infernally fabricated libels, the Plaintiff was in Dublin, and I promised to advert to the cause by which his absence was occasioned. Observing in the course of his parochial duties, the deplorable, I had almost said the organized ignorance of, the Irish peasantry — an ignorance whence all their crimes and most of their sufferings originate ; observing also, that there was no publicly established literary institution to relieve them, save only to the charter-schools, which ten- dered learning to the faith of his fathers; he determined if passible to gi\c them the lore of this world, without of- fering as a mortgage upon the inheritance of t lie next. He framed the prospectus of a srhool, for the education of five hundred children, and went to the metropolis to obtain subscriptions for the purpose. I need not descant upon the great general advantage, or to this country the. peculiarly patriotic consequences, which the success of such a plan must have produced. INo doubt, you have all personally considered— no doubt, you have all person- ally experienced, that of all the blessings which it hath pleased Providence to allow us to cultivate, there is not one which breathes a purer fragrance, or bears a heaven- lie? aspect than education. It is a companion which no misfortunes can depress, no clime destroy, no enemy ali- enate, no despotism enslave ; at home a friend, abroad an introduction, in solitude a solace, in society an ornament ; it chastens vice, it guides virtue, it gives at once a grace and government to genius. Without it, what is man ? A splendid slave! a reasoning savage, vacillating between the dignity of an intelligence derived from God, and the O'MLIXAN V. m'EXRKILI,. 9^ depredation of passions participated with brutes; and in the accident of their alternate ascendam y shuddering at the terrors of an hereafter, or embracing the horrid hop. •fannihiliation. What is this wondrous world of ms re. sidence ? A mighty maze, and all without a plan ; a dark and desolate and dreary cavern, without wealth, or ornament or order. But light up within ft the torch of knowledge, and how wondrous the transition ! lhe sea- sons change, the atmosphere breathes, the landscape lives, earth unfolds its fruits, ocean rolls in its magnifi- cence, the heavens display their constellated canopy, and the grand animated spectacle of nature rises retealed be- fore him, its varieties regulated, and its mysteries resolv- ed ! The phenomena which bewilder, the prejudices which debase, the superstitions which enslave, vanish be- fore education. Like the holy symbol which blazed up- on the cloud before the hesitating Conatantine, if man follow but its precepts, purely, it will not only lead him to the victories of this world, but open the very portals of Omnipotence for his admission. Cast your eye over the monumental map of ancient grandeur, erne studded with the stars of empire, and the splendours of philoso- phy. What erected the little state of Athens into a pow- erful commonwealth, placing in her hand lhe sceptre of legislation, breathing round her brow the imperishable chaplet of literary fantc2 what extended Rome, the haunt of a banditti, into universal empire? what animated Sparta with that high unbending adamantine courage., which conquered nature hers, if, and has fixed her in the sight of future ages, a model of public virtue, and a pro- verb of national independence? WJiat but those wise public institutions which strengthened their minds with earlv application, informed their infancy with the prin- ciples of action, and sent them into the world, too vigi- lant to he deceived b) its calms, and too vigorus to be shaken by its whirlwinds ? But surelj , if there be a peo- ple in the* world, to whom the blessings of education are peculiarlv applicable, it is the Irish people. Lively, ar- dent, intelligent, and sensitive; nearly all their acts spring from impulse, and no matter how that impulse be given, it is immediately adopted, and the adoption and 94 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF the execution are identified. It is this principle, if prin- ciple it ran he rail d, which renders Ireland, alternately, the poorest and proudest country in the world; now chaining her in the verv abyss of crime, now lifting her to the very pinnacle of glorj ; which in the poor, prosrrib- ed. peasant Catholic, crowds tb» gaol and feeds the gib- b^t; which in the more fortunate, because more educated Protestant, lends victory a captive at her car, and holds echo mute at he** eloquence ; making a national monopoly of fame, and, as it Were, attempting to naturalize the a- chieveraentv of the universe. In order that this libel may want no possible aggravation, the defendant published it when my client was absent on this work of patriotism ; be published it when he was absent ; he published it when he was absent on a work of virtue; and he published it on all the authority of his local knowledge, when that very local knowledge must have t
hat shall be h^s fate ? Oh. I would hold such a monster, so protected, so sanctified, and so sinning, as I would some demon*, who going forth consecrated, in the name of the Dei?y. the b«ok of life on his lip*, and the dagger of death beneath his robe, awaits the sigh of piety, as the signal of plunder, at. d umeins the heart's blood of confiding adoration. Should not such a case as this require some palliation ? Is there any ? Per- haps the defendant might have been misled as to circum- stances ? No, he li\eil upon the spot, and had the best possible information. Do you think he believed in the truth of the publication ? No; he knew that in every syllable it was hs false as perjury. Do you think that an anxiety for the Catholic community might have in- flamed him against the imaginary dereliction of its ad- vocate? No ; the very essence of his Journal is preju- dice. Do you think that in the ardour of liberty he might have venially transgressed its boundaries? No 3 in every line he licks the sores, awl pampers the pesti- lence of authority. I do hot ask you to be stoics in your investigation. If you can discover in this libel one mo- tive inferential!? moral, one single virtue which he has plundered and misapplied, give him its benefit. 1 will not demand such an effort of your faith, as to imagine, that his northern constitution could, by any miracle be fired into the admirable b«t mistaken energv of enth?i- 96 SPEECH IN THE CASE or siasm ; — that he could for one moment have felt the inspi- red phrenzy of those loftier spirits, who, under some dar- ing but divine delusion, rise into the arch of an ambition so bright, so baneful, yet so beauteous, as leaves the world in wonder whether it should admire or mourn — whether it should weep or worship ! No ; you will not only search in vain for such a palliative, but you will find this publication springing from the most odious origin, and disfigured by the most foul accomplishments, found- ed in a bigotry at which hell rejoices, crouching with a sycophancy at which flattery blushes, deformed by a falsehood at which perjury would hesitate, and to crown the climax of its crowded infamies, committed under the sacred shelter of the Press ; as if this false, slanderous, sycophantic slave, could uot assassinate private worth without pointing public privilege ; as if he could not sa- crifice the character of the pious without profaning the protection of the free ; as if he could not poison learning, liberty, and religion, unless he filled his chalice from the very fount whence they might have expected to derive the waters of their salvation ! Now 7 , Gentlemen, as to the measure of your dama- ges : — You are the best judges on that subject ; though, indeed, I have been asked, and I heard the question with some surprize, — why it is that we have brought this case at all to be tried before yon. To that I might give at once an unobjectionable answer, namely, that the law allowed us. But I will deal much more candid- ly with you. We brought it here, because it was as far as possible from the scene of prejudice ; because no pos- sible partiality could exist; because, in this happy and united county, less of the bigotry which distracts the rest of Ireland exists, than in any other with which we are acquainted; because the nature of the action, which we ha\e mercifully brought in place of a criminal prosecu- tion, — the usual course pursued in the present day, at least against the independent press of Ireland, — gives them, if we have it, thr power of proving a justification ; and I perceive they have emptied half the north here for the purpose. But I cannot anticipate an objection, which no doubt shall not be made. If this habitual libeller should characteristically instruct his counsel to hazard it, that learned gentleman is much too wise to adopt it, and must know you much too well to insult you by its o'&HJLLABT v. m'kobkill. 97 utterance. What damages, then, Gentlemen, can yon give ? I am content to leave the defendant's crimes alto- gether out of the question, but how can you recompence the sufferings of my client ? Who shall estimate the cost of priceless reputation — that impress which gives this human dross its currency, without which we stand despised, debased, depreciated ? Who shall repair it injured ? Who can redeem it lost ? Oh ! well and truly does the great philosopher of poetry esteem the world's wealth as " trash" in the comparison. Without it, gold has no value, birth no distinction, station no dignity, beauty no charm, age no reverence ; or, should I not ra- ther say, without it every treasure impoverishes, every grace deforms, every dignity degrades, and all the arts, the decorations, and accomplishments of life, stand, like the beacon-blaze upon a rock, warning the world that its approach is danger — that its contact is death. The wretch without it is under an eternal quarentine; * ne friend to greet ; no home to harbour him. The voyage of his life becomes a joyless deril; and in the midst of all ambition can achieve, or avarice amass, or rapacity plunder, ho tosses on the surge, a buoyant pestulencef But, Gentlemen, 1ft me not degrade into th© selfishness of individual safety, or individual exposure, this univer- sal principle : it testifies a higher, a more ennobling ori- gin. Jt is this which, consecrating the humble circle of the heart, will at times extend itself t^> the circumference of the horizon; which nerves the arm of the patriot to save his country ; which lights the lamp of the philoso* pher to amend man: which, if it does not inspire, will yet invigorate the martyr to meiit immortality ,• which, when one world's agony is passed and tin glory of ano- ther is dawning, will promp< the prophet, even in his chariot of fire, and in his vision of h- aven, to bequeath tti mankind the mantle of his memory ! Oh divine, oh de- lightful legacy of a spotless reputation ! Rich is the in- heritance it leaves ; pious the example it testifies ; pure. precious, and imperishable, the hope which it inspires ] Can you conceive a more atrocious injury tban to filch from its possessor this inestimable benefit; to rob society of its charm, and solitude of its soiace; net only to out Saw life, but to attain death, converting the very grave, the refuge of the sufi'erer, into the gate of infamy and of ej 1 can conceive few crimes beyond it He wh* 98 SPEECH IS THE CASE OF plunders my property takes from me that which can be repaired by time : but what period can repair a ruioed reputation ? He who maims my person affects that which medicine may remedy : but what herb has sovereignty over the wounds of slander? He who ridicules my pover- ty, or reproaches my profession, upbraids me with that which industry may retrieve, and integrity may purify; but wl at riches shall redeem the Bankrupt fame t what power shall blanch the sullied snow of character? Can. there be an injury more deadly ? Can there be, a crime more cruel? It is without remedy — it is without anti- dote — it is without evasion ! The reptile calumny is ever on the watch. From the fascination of its eye no activity can escape ; from the venom of its fang no sani- ty can recover. It has no enjoyment but crime; it has tio prey but virtue; it has no interval from the restless- ness of its malice, save when, bloated with its victims, it grovels to disgorge them at the withered shrine, where envy idolizes her own infirmities. Under surh a visita- tion how dreadful would be the destiny of the virtuous and the good if the providence of our constitution hud not given you the power, as, I trust, you will have the prin- ciple, to bruise the head of the serpent, and crush and crumble the altar of its idolatry ! And now, Gentlemen, having toiled through this nar- rative of unprovoked and pitiless persecution, I should with pleasure consign my client to your hands, if a more imperative duty did not still remain to me. and that is, to acquit him of every personal motive in the prosecution of this action. No ; in the midst of slander, and suffer- ing, and severities unexampled, he has had no thought, but, that as bis enemies evinced how malice could perse- cute, he should exemplify how religion could endure ; that if his piety failed to affect the oppressor, his patience might at least avail to fortify the afflicted. He was as the rock of Scripture before the face of infidelity. The rain of the deluge had fallen — it only smoothed his as- perities : the wind of the cempest beat — it only blanched his brow : the rod, not of prophecy, but of persecution, smote him : and the desert, glittering with the Gospel dew, became a miracle of the faith it would have tempted ! No, Gentlemen ; not selfishly has he appealed to this tribu- nal; but the venerable religion wounded in his character, —but the august priesthood vilified in his person, — but o'MTJLI.AN V. M'KORKIIX. 99 the doubts of the sceptical, hardened by his acquiescence, —but the fidelity of the feeble, hazarded by his forbear- ance, goaded him from the profaned privacy of the clois- ter into this repulsive scene of public accusation. In him this reluctance springs from a most natural and charac- teristic delicacy : in us it would become a most overstrain- ed injustice. No, Gentlemen : though with him we must remember morals outraged, religion assailed, law viola- ted, the priesthood scandalized, the press betrayed, and all the disgusting calendar of abstract evil ; yet uith him we must not reject the injuries of the individual sufferer. We must picture to ourselves a young man, partly by the self denial of parental love, partly by the energies of per- sonal exertion, struggling into aprofesiion, where by the pious exercise of his talents, he may make the fame, the wealth, the flatteries of this world, so many angel heraldg to the happiness of the next. His precept is a treasure to the poor ; his practice, a model to the rich. When he reproves, sorrow seeks his presence as a sanctuary ; and in his path of peace, should he pause by the death bed of despairing sin, the soul became imparadised in the light of his benediction! Imagine, Gentlemen, you see him thus ,• and that, if you can, imagine vice so desperate as to defraud the world of so fair a vision. Anticipate for a moment the melancholy evidence we must too soon ad- duce to you. Behold him, by foul, deliberate, and infa* mous calumny, robbed of the profession he had so strug- gled to obtain, swindled from the flock he had so labour- ed to ameliate, torn from the school where infant virtue vainly mourns an artificial orphanage, hunted from the home of his youth, from the friends of his heart, a hope- less, fortuneless, companionless exile, hanging, in some stranger sceiae, on the precarious pity of the few, whose charity might induce their compassion to bestow, what this remorseless slanderer would compel their justice to withhold ! I will not pursue this picture ; I will not detain you from the pleasure of your possible compassion; for oh! divine isthe pleasure you are destined to experience ; — dearer to ynnr hearts shall be the sensation, than to your pride shall be the dignity it will give you. What [ though the people will hail the saviours of their pastor: what ! though the priesthood will hallow the guardians of their brother ; though many a peasant heart will leap at your name, and majiy an infant eye will embalm thek 100 SPEECH IN THE CASE OIF fame who restored to life, to station, to dignity, to cha- racter, the venerable friend who taught their trembling tongues to lisp the rudiments of virtue and religion, still dearer than all will be the consciousness of the deed. Nor, believe me, countrymen, will it rest here. Oh no ! if there be light in instinct, or truth in Revelation, believe me, at that awful hour, when you shall await the last in- evitable verdict, the eye of your hope will not be the less bright, nor the agony of your ordeal the more acute, because you shall have, by this day's deed, redeemed the Almighty's persecuted Apostle, from the grasp of an in- satiate malice — from the fang of a worse than Philistine persecution. • gJPMKDH OP MR. PHILLIPS, IN €fie €a$e of ConnaaSton fc« ©iHon. DELIVERED IN THE COUNTY COURT-HOUSE OF ROSCOMMON, My Lord and Gentlemen, In this case I am one of (lie counsel for the Plaintiff* who has directed me to explain to you the wrongs fop which, at your hands, he solicits reparation. It ap- pears to me a case which undoubtedly merits much con- sideration, as well from the novelty of its appearance amongst us, as for the circumstances by which it is at- tended. Nor am I ashamed to say, that in my mind* not the least interesting of those circumstances is the poverty of the man who has made this appeal to me. Few are the consolations which soothe— hard must be the heart which does not feel for him. He is, Gentle- men, a man of low birth and humble station; with lit- tle wealth but from the labor of his hands, with no rank but the integrity of his character, with no recreation Iwit in the circle of his home, and with no ambition, but, 10% SPEECH IX T3E CASE 0¥ when his days are full, to leave that little circle the in- heritance of an honest name, and the treasure of a good man's memory. Far inferior, indeed, is he in this re, spect to his more fortunate antagonist. He, on the con- trary, is amply either hlessed or cursed with those qua- lifications which enable a man to adorn or disgrace the society in Which he lives, fie is, I understand, the re- presentative of an honorable name, the relative of a dis- tinguished family, the supposed heir to their virtues, the indisputable inheritor of their riches. He has heen for m iny years a resident of your county, and has had the advantage of collecting round him all those recollections, which, springing from the scenes of school- boy associa- tion, or from the more matured enjoyments of the man, crowd as it were unconsciously to the heart, and cling with a venial partiality to the comnauion and the friend. So impressed, in truth, has he been with these advan- tages, that, surpassing the usual expenses of a trial, he lias selected a tribunal where he vainly times such con- siderations will have weight, and where he well knows my client's humble rank can have no claim but that to which his miseries may entitle him. 1 am sure, how- ever, he has wretchedly miscalculated, I know none of you, personally; but I have no doubt I am addressing men who will not prostrate their consciences before pri- vilege or power ; who will remember that there is a no- bility above birth, and a wealth beyond riches; who will feel that, as in the eye of that God to whose aid ihey have appealed, there is not the minutest difference between the rag and the robe, so in the contemplation of that law which constitutes our boast, guilt can have no protection, or innocence no tyrant; men wh» will have pride in proving that the noblest adage of our noble con- stitution is not an illusive shadow ; and that the pea- sant's cottage, roofed with straw and tenanted by po- verty, stands as inviolate from all invasion as the man- sion of the monarch. My client's name, Gentlemen, is Connaghton. and when I have given you his name you have almost all his history. To cultivate the path of honest industry com- prises, in one lint, "the short and simple annals of the poor." This has been his humble, but at the same time most honorable occupation. It matters little with what artificial nothings chance may distinguish the name, or C02TWAGHT0N V. DILLeN. 103 decorate the person ; the child of lowly life, with virtue for its handmaid, holds as proud a title as tlie highest— as rich an inheritance as the wealthiest. \ v cll lias eke poet of your country said — that " Princes or Lords may flourish or may fade, A breath can make them, as a breath has made ; But a brave peasantry, their country's pride, When once destroy'd can never be supplied." Fur all the virtues which adorn that'peasantry, which can render humble life respected, or give the highest sta- tions their most permanent distinctions, my client stands conspicuous. A hundred years of sad vicissitude, and, in this land, ofien of strong temptation, have rolled away since the little farm on which he lives received his family: and during all that time not one accusation has disgra- ced, not one crime has sullied it. The same spot has seen his grandsirc and his parent pass away from this world ; the village-memory records their worth, and the rustic tear hallows their resting-place. After all, when life's mockeries shall vanish from before us, and the heart that now beats in the proudest bosom here, shall moulder unconcious beneath its kindred clay, art cannot erect a nobler monument, or genius compose a purer panegyric* Such, gentlemen, was almost the only inheritance with which my client entered the World, fie did net disgrace it; his vouth, his manhood, '»is age up to this moment, have passed without a blemish ; and he now stands con- fessedly the head of the little village in which he lives. About five-and-twenty years ago he mairied the sister of a highly respectable R«man Catholic clergyman, by whom he had a family of seven children, whom thry edu- cated in the principles of morality and religion, and who, until the defendant's interference* were the pride of their humble home, and th«- charm or the consolation of its vicissitudes. In their virtuous children the rejoicing pa- rents felt their youth renewed, tjieir age made happy; the days of labour became holidays in their smile,* and if the hand of affliction pressed onthrm, they looked up- on their little ones, and their mourning ended. I can- not paint the glorious host of feelings • the joy, the love, the hope, the pride, the blended paradise of rich emotions with which the God of nature fills the father's heart when he beholds his child in all its imal loveliness, when the 104 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF vision of his infancy rises as it were reanimate before him, and a divine vanity exaggerates every trifle into some mysterious omen, which shall smooth his aged wrinkles, and make his grave a monument of honour ! / cannot describe them ; but, if there be a parent on the jury, he will comprehend me. It is stated to me, that of all his children there were none more likely to excite such feelings in the plaintiff than the unfortunate subject of the present action : she was his favorite daughter, and she did not shame his preference. You shall find most satisfactory, that she was without stain or imputation : an aid and a blessing to her parents, and an example to her younger sisters, who looked up to her for instruction. She to(,k a pleasure in assisting in the industry of their home; and it was at a neighbouring market, where she went to dispose of the little produce of that industry, that she unhappily attracted the notice of the defendant. In- deed, such a situation was not without its interest, — a young female, in the bloom of her attractions, exerting her faculties in a parent's service, is an object lonely in the eye of God, and, one would suppose, estimable in the eye of mankind. Far different, however, were the sen- sations w Inch she excited in the defendant. He saw her arrayed, as he confesses, in charms that enchanted him ; er youth, her beauty, the smile of her innocence, and iety of her toil, but inflamed a brutal and licentious that should have blushed itself away in such a pre- •. V: hat cared he for the con&equences of his gra- tification ? — There was * fc No honour, no relenting truth, To paint the parents fondling o'er their child, Then show the ruin'd maid, and her distraction wildT' ought he of the home he was to desolate ? What thought he of the happiness he was to plunder ? His sen- sual rapine paused not to contemplate the speaking pic- ture of the cottage-ruin, the blighted hope, the broken heart, the parent's agony, and. last and mubt withering in tfie woful group, the wretched victim herself starving he sin of a promiscuous prostitution, and at length perhaps:, with her own hand, anticipating the more tedi- ous murder of its diseases ! He need not, if 1 am instruct- ed rightly, have tortured his fancy for the miserable CONNAGHTON V. DllXOtf. 105 consequences of hope bereft, and expectation plundered. Through no very distant vista, he might have seen the form of deserted loveliness weeping over the worthless- ness of his worldly expiation, and warning him, that as there were cruelties no repentance could atone, so there were sufferings neither wealth, nor time, nor absence could alleviate.* If his memory should fail him, if he should deny the picture, no man can tell him half so effi- ciently as the venerable advocate he has so judiciously selected, that a case might arise, where, though the energy of native virtue should defy the spoliation of the person, still crushed affection might leave an infliction on the mind, perhaps less deadly, but certainly not less indelible. 1 turn from this subject with an indignation which tortures me into brevity ; I turn to the agents by which this contamination was effected. I almost blush to name them, yet they were worthy of their vocation. They were no other than a menial ser- vant of Mr. Dillon ; and a base, abandoned, profligate ruffian, a brother-in-law of the devoted victim herself* whose bestial appetites he bribed into subserviency ! It does seem as if by such a selection he was determined to degrade the dignity of the master, while he violated the liner impulses of the man, by not merely associating with his own servant, but by diverting the purest streams of social affinity into the vitiated sewer of his enjoyment. Seduced by such instruments into a low public- house at Athlone, this unhappy girl heard without suspicion, their mercenary panegyric of the defendant, when, to her amazement, but no doubt, according to their previ- ous arrangement, he entered and joined their company. I do confess to you, Gentlemen, when 1 first perused this passage in my brief, I flung it from me with a con- temptuous incredulity. What ! i exclaimed, as no doubt you are all ready to exclaim, can this be possible ? Is it thus I am to And the educated youth of Ireiand occu- pied ? Is this the employment of the miserable aristo- cracy that yet lingers in this devoted country ? Am I to find them, not in the pursuit of useful science, not in *Mr. Phillips here alluded to a verdict of 5000^obtained at the late Gal way Assizes against the defendant, at The suit ot Miss Wilson, a very beautiful and interesting young lauy, ior a breach of promise of marriage. Mr. Wnitestone, who now plead- ed for Mr. Dillon, was Miss Wilson's advocate against him on the occasion alluded to^ lOo SPEECH IN THE CASE 01 the encouragement of arts or agriculture, not in the re- lief of an impoverished tenantry, not in the proud march of an unsuccessful but not less sacred patriotism, not in the bright page of warlike immortality, dashing its iron crown from guilty greatness, or feeding freedom's laurel with the blood of t&e despot ! — but am I to find - them, amid drunken panders and corrupted slaves, de- ham hiog the innocence of village-life, and even amid the stews of the tavern, collecting or creating the mate- rials of the brothel ! Gentlemen, 1 am still unwilling to believe it, and, with all the sincerity of Mr. Dillon's ad- vocate, 1 do entreat you to reject it altogether, if it be not substantiated by the unimpeachable corroboration of an oath; As I am instructed, he did not, at this time, alarm his victim by any direct communication of his purpose; he saw that ** she wa* good as siie was fair," and that a premature disclosure would but alarm her virtue into an impossibility of violation. His- satellites, however, acted to admiration. They produced some trifle which he had left for her disposal ; they declared he had 1 mg felt for her a sincere attachment ; as a proof that it was pure, they urged the modesty with which, at a first interview, elevated above her as he was, he avoid- ed its disclosure. When sh«' pressed the madness of the expectation which could alone induce her to Consent to his addresses, they assured her that though in the Gist instance such an event was impossible, si ill in time it was far from being improbable ; that iniiiiy men from such motives forgot altogether the difference of station, that Mr. Dillon's own family had already proved e\ery obstavle might yield to an all-powerful passion, anU in- duce him to make her his wife, who had imposed an af- fecuonate credulity on his honour ! Such were the sub- tie artifices to which he sto ped. Do not imagine, how- ever, that she yielded immediately and implicit!) to their persua-iousj i should scarcely wonder if she did. Eve- ry da; shews us the rich, the powerful, and the educa- ted, bowing before the spell of ambition, or avarice, or pa si .in, to the sacrifice of their honour, their country, at; i their ^ouls ; what wonder, then, if a p<;or, ignorant, p* j >ant g ri had at once sunk before the united potency of such tnptatiohs ! But she did not. Many and ma- ny a tim i he truths which had been inculcated by her adoring parents roae up in arms ; and it was not until COXNAGHTON V. BILLOW. 107 various interviews, and repeated artifices, and untiring eflf ir is, that she yielded her faith, her fame, and her fortunes, to the disposal of her seducer. Alas, alas ! ho v little did she suppose that a mo inert t was to come when, every hope denounced, and every expectation dashed, he was to fling her for a very subsistence on the charity or the crimes of the wot Id she had renounced for him ! How little did she reflect that in her humble station, unsoiled and sinless, she might look down upon the elevation to which vice would raise her ! Yes, even were it a throne, 1 say she might look down on it. — There is not on this earth a lovelier vision ; there is not for the skies a more angelic ■ andioate than a young, mo- dest maiden robed in chastity ; no matter what its habi- tation, whether it be the palace or the hut :— " So dear to Heaven is saintly Chastity, That when a ?oul is found sincerei} so, A thousand liveried angels lackey her, Driving tar off each thing of sin and guilt, And in clear dream and solemn vision Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear, Till oft converse with heavenly habitants Begins to cast a beam on the outward shape, The unpolluted temple of the mind, And turns it by degrees to the soul's essence, 'Till all be made immortal !" Such is the supreme power of chastity, as described by one of our divinest bards, and the pleasure which I feel in the recitation of such a passage is not a little en- hanced, by the pride that few coun lies more fully afford its exemplification than our own. Let foreign envy de- cry us as it will, Chastity is the instinct of the Irish Fe- malt ; the pride of her talents, the power of her beau- ty, the splendour of her accomplishments, are but so many handmaids of this vestal virtue; it adorns her in the court, it ennobles her in the cottage ; wh» ther she basks in prosp< rity or pines in sorrow, it clings about her like the diamond of the rooming on the mountain floweret, trembling even in the ray that once exhibits and inhales it \ Rare in our land is the absence of this virtue. Thanks to the modesty that venerates; tha/ks to the manliness that brands and avenges its violation.— You have seen that it was by no common temptations even this humble villager yielded to seduction. 108 SPEECH IX THE CASE OF I now come, Gentlemen, to another fact in the progress of thistrms action, betraying, in my mind, as base a pre- meditation, and as low and as deliberate a deception as I ever heard vS. While this wretched creature was in a kind of counterpoise between her fear and her affection, struggling as well as she could between passion inflamed and virtue unextinguished. Mr. Dillon, ardently avow- ingthat such an event as separation was imposible, ar- dently avowing ah eternal attachment, insisted upon per- fecting an article which should plate her above the reach of contingencies. Gentlemen, you sh all see this docu- ment voluntarily executed by an educated and (stated gentleman of your county. J know not how you will feel, but for my part T protest I am in a suspence of ad- miration between the virtue of the proposal and the mag- nificent prodigality of the provision. Listen to the ar- ticle: it' is all in his own hand writing:— --"I promise,*' says he, «*to give Mary Connaghton the sum often pounds sterling per annum, when I part with her; but if she, the said Mary should at any time hereafter conduct her- self improperly, or (mark this. Gentlemen,) has done so before the drawing of this article, I am not bound to pay the sum often pounds, and this article becomes null and void as if the same was never executed. John Dillon.'* There, Gentlemen, there is the notable and dignified document for you ! take it into your Jury box, for 1 know not how to comment on it. Oh, yes I have heard of am- bition urging men to crime— I have heard of love inflam- ing even to madness— I have read of passion rushing over law and religion to enjoyment ; but never, until this, (lid I see a frozen a\arice chilling the hot pulse of sensuality and desire, pause before its brutish draught, that itmight add deceit to dessolation ! I need not tell you that hav- ing provided in the very execution of this article for its predetermined infringement ; that knowing, as he must any stipulation for the pun base of vice to be invalid by our law ; that haying in the body of this article insert- ed a provision against that previous pollution which his prudentcaprice might invent hereafter, but which his own conscience, her universal character, and even his own desire for her possession, all assured him did not exist at the time, f need not tell you that he now urges the in- validity of that instrument; that he now presses that previous pollution ; that he refuses from his splendid in- CON3TAGRT0N V. DIIXOV. 109 come the pittance of the pounds to the wretch lie has ruined, and spurns her from him to pine beneath the re- proaches of a parent's mercy, or linger out a living death in the charnel-houses of prostitution ! You see, gentle- men, to what designs like these may lead a man. I have no doubt, if Mr. Dillon had given his heart fair play, had let his own nature gain a moment's ascendan- cy, he would not have acted so ; but there is something in a seducer of peculiar turpitude. I know of no cha- racter so vile, so detestable. He is the vilest of robbers. for he plunders happiness ; the worst of murderers, for lie murders innocence ; his f.ppetites are-of the brute, his arts of the demon ; the heart of the child and the course of the parent are the foundations of the altar which he rears to a lust, whose fires are the fires of hell, and whose incense is the agony of virtue! I hope Mr. Dillon's advocate may prove that he does not deserve to rank in such a ciass as this ; but if he does, I hope the infatuation, inseparably connected with such proceedings, may tempt him to deceive you through the same plea by which he has defrauded his miserable dupe. I dare him to attempt the defamation of a character, which, before his cruelties, never was even beforr sus- pected. Happily, Gentlemen, happily for herself, this wretched creature, thus cast upon the world, appealed to the parental refuge she had forfeited. I need not de- scribe to you the parent's anguish at the heart-rending discovery. God help the poor man when misfortune comes upon him ! How few are his resources ! How distant his consolation ! You must not forget, Gentle- men, that it is not the unfortunate victim herself who ap- peals to you for compensation. Her crimes, poor wretch, have outlawed her from retribution, and, however the temptations by which her erring nature was seduced, may procure an audience from the ear of mercy, the stern morality of earthly law refuses their interference. No ; no; it is the wretched parent who comp? this day before you— his aged locks withered by misfortune, and his heart broken by crimes of which he was unconscious. He resorts to this tribunal, in the language of the law, claiming the value of his daughter's servitude ; but let it not be thought that it is for her mere manual labours he solicits compensation. No, you are to compensate him for all he has suffered, for all he has to suffer, for 110 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF feelings outraged, for gratifications plundered, for ho- nest pride put to tin* blush, for the exiled endearment* of his once happy home, for all those innumerable and instinctive extacies with whHi a virtuous daughter tills her father's heart, for which language is too poor to have a name, hut of which nature is abundantly and richly eloquent ! Do not suppose I am endeavoring to influence you by the power of declamation. I am lay. ing down to you the British law, as liberally expounded and solemnly adjudged. I speak the language of the English Lord Eldon. a judge of great experience and greater learning — (Mr. Phillips here r.ited several cases as decided by Lord Kldon.) — Such, Gentlemen, is the language of Lord Kldon. I speak also on the authority of our own Lord Avonmore, a judge who illuminated the bench by his genius, endeared it by his suavity, and dignified it by his bold uncompromising probity ; one of those rare men, who hid the thorns of law beneath the brightest flowers of literature, and, its it were, with the wand of an enchanter, changed a wilderness into a gar- den ! I speak upon that high authority — but 1 sp< ak on other authority paramount to all ! — on the authority of nature rising up within the heart of man, and calling for vengeance upon such an outrage. God forbid, that in a case of this kind we were to grope our way through the ruins of antiquity, and blunder over statutes, and bur- row through black letter in search of an interpretation which Providence has engraved in living letters on every human heart. Yes ; if there be one amongst you bless- ed with a daughter, the smile of whose infancy still cheers your memory, and the promise of whose youth illuminates your hope, who has endeared the toils of your manhood, whom you look up to as the solace of your declining years, whose embrace alleviated the pang of separation, whose growing welcome hailed your oft an- ticipated return — oh, if there be one amongst you, to whom those recollections are dear, to whom those hopes are precious— let him only fancy that daughter torn from his caresses by a seducer's arts, and cast upon the world, robbed of her innocence, — and then let him ask his heart, « what money could reprise him /^ The defendant, Gentleman, cannot complain that I put it thus to you. If, in place of seducing, he had assault- ed t! irl -if he had attempted by force what h* CONNAGHTOJC V. DILLON. l!l has achieved by fraud, his life would have been the for- feit ; and yet how trifling in comparison would have been the parent's agony ! He has no right, then, to complain, if you should estimate this outrage at the price of his very existence ! I am told, indeed, this gentleman entertains an opinion, prevalent enough in the age of a feudalism, as arrogant as it was barbarous,, that the poor are only a species of property, to be treat- ed according to interest or caprice ; and that wealth is at once a patent for a crime, and an exemption from its consequences, i appily for this land, the day of such opinions has passed over it — tire eye of a purer feeling and more profound philosophy now beholds riches but as one of the aids to virtue, and sees in oppressed poverty only an additional stimulus to increased protection. A. generous' heart rannot help feeling, that in cases of this kind the poverty of the injured is a dreadful aggra- vation. If the rich suffer, they have much to console them ; but when a poor man loses the darling of his heart — the sole pleasure with which nature blessed him —how ahject, how cureless is the despair of his destitu- tion ! Believe me, Gentlemen, you have not only a so- lemn duty to perform, but you have an awful responsi- bility imposed upon you. You are this day, in some de- gree, trustees for the morality of the people-- perhaps of the whule nation ; for, »'ks the imagination. Believe me, Gentlemen, you are mi- pan-'lled there upon no ordinary occasion ; nominally, indeed, foil are to repair a private wrong, and it is a wrong as deadly as human wickedness ran inflict — as human weakness fan endure; a wrong w ich annihi- lates the hope of the parent and the happiness of the child; which in one moment blights the fondest antici- pations of the heart, and darkens the social hearth, and worse than depopulates the habitations of the hap- py ! But, Gentlemen, high as it is, this is far from your exclusive duty. You are to do much more. You are to say whether an example of such transcendant turpitude is to stalk forth f«»r public imitation — whether national morals are to have the law for their protection, or imported crime is to feed upon impunity— whether chastity and religion are still to he permitted to linger in this province, or it is to become one loathsome den of legalized prostitution — whether the sacred volume of the Gospel, and the venerable statutes of the law are still to be respected, or converted into a pedestal on which the mob and the military are to erect the idol of a drunken adoration. Gentlemen, these are the questions you are to try ; hear the facts on which your decision must be founded. It is now about five-and twenty years since the plain- tiff, Mr. Crcighton, commenced business as a slate mer- chant in the city of Dublin. His vocation was humble, it is true, but it was nevertheless honest; and though, unlike his opponent, (he heights of ambition lay not be- fore him, the path of respectability did — he approved himself a good man and a respectable citizen. Arrived at the age of manhood, he sought not the gratification of its natural desires by adultery or seduction. For him the home of honesty was sacred ; for him the poor man's child was unassailed ; no domestic desolation mourned his enjoyment ; no anniversary of wo commemorated his achievements ; from his own sphere of life naturally and honorably he selected a companion, whose beauty blessed his bed, and whose virtues consecrated bis swelling. Eleven lovely children blessed their union, CREIGHTOSr Y. TOWNSEND. 115 the darlings of their heart, the. delight of their evenings, and, as they blindly anticipated, the prop and solace of their approaching age. Oh! sacked wedded l«»ve ! how dear! how delightful! how divine are thy enjoy- ments ! Contentment crowns thy board, affection gl .ds thy fireside ; passion, chaste but ardent, modest but in- tense, sighs o'er thy couch, the atmosphere of paradise! Surely, surely, if this consecrated right can acquire from circumstances a factitious interest* 'tis when we see it cheering the poor man's home, or shedding over the dwelling of misfortune the light of its warm and lovely consolation. Unhappily, g ntlemen, it has that interest here. That capricious power wlMch often dig- nifies the worthless hypocrite, as oft-n wounds the in- dustrious and the honest. The late ruinous contest, having in its career confounded all the proportions of so- ciety, and with its last gasp sighed famine and niisinr* tune, on the world, has cast mv industri us client, with too many of his companions, from competence to penury. Alas, alas, to him it left worse of its satellites behind it ; it left the invader even of his misery — tin* seducer of his sacred and jinspotted innocence. Mysterious Provi- dence! was it noten-'Ug-h that sorrow r< bed the hapyy home in mourning was it not enough that disappoint- ment preyed upon its loveliest prospects — was it no* enough that its little inmates cried in vain for bread, and heard no answvr but the poor father's sigh, and drank no sustenance but the wretched mother's tears? Was this a time for passion, lawless, conscienceless, li- centious passion, with its eye of lust, its heart of stone, its hand of rapine, to rush into the mournful sanctuary of misfortune, casting crime into the cup of wo, and rob the parents of their last wealth, their child, and rob the child of her only charm, her innocence !! That this has been done I am instructed we shall prove : what requi- tal it deserves, gentlemen, you must prove to mankind. The defendant's name 1 understand is Townsend. He is of an age when every generous blossom of the spring should breathe an infant freshness round his heart ; of a family which should inspire not only high but hereditary principles of honour ; of a profession whose very essence is a stainless chivalry, and whose bought and bounden duty is the protection of the citizen. Such are the advan- ces with which ke appears before you— fearful advan- H6 SPEECH IN THE CASE 0* tages, because they repel all possible suspicion ; but you will agree with me, most damning adversaries, if it shall appear that the generous ardour of his youth was chilled - — that the noble inspiration of his birth was spurned— that the I «ifty impulse of his profession was despised — and that all that could grace, or animate, or ennoble, was used to his own discredit and his fellow-creature's misery. It was upon the first of June last, that on the banks of the canal, near Fortobello. Lieutenant Townsend first met the daughter of Mr. Creighton, a pretty interesting girl, scarcely sixteen years of age. She w as accompa- nied by her little sister, only four years old, with whom she was permitted to take a daily walk in that retired sp t, the vicinity of her residence. The defendant was attracted by her appearance — he left his party, and at- tempted to converse with her; she repelled his advan- ces — he immediately seized her infant sister by the hand whom he held as a ki d of ho&tage for an introduction to k his \ictim. A prepossessing appearance, a modest) of deportment apparently quite incompatible with any evil de ign, gradually silenced her alarm, and she answered the ommon place questions with which, on her waj home, h aiders ;ed her. Gentlemen, J admit it was an inno- cent imprudence; the rigid rules of matured morality should have repelled such communication ; yet, perhaps, :ig c'v i) by that 'strict standard, yon will rather 1 mn the familiarity of the intrusion in a designing adult ha i he facility of access in a creature itfher age and her innocence. They thus separated, as she natu- rally supposed, to meet no more. Not such, however, was the determination of her destroyer. From that hour until lier ruin, he scarcely vr Instsfc lit of her — he II- I h r as a sh flow— he wav-laid her in her walks — he interrupted her in hev avocatmns — he haun'ed the et of her residence ; if she rehired to meet him* lie paraded b« fie her window at the hazard of xposing her fir : comparatiy h innocent imprudence to her urn on- flow happy would it have been had she ! the timidity so natural to her age. and ap- \ at once t i their pard- n and their protection ! Geu- tle*u« n, 'his daih persecution continued I* r three months thiM e succcsive mo ths, hy ever) ait, *y every i, by every appeal to her vanity and her pas- CRETGHT'^N V. ToWtfSEND, ll '[ sion. did he toil forth? destruction of this unfortunate young creature. ! leave you to guess how many during ilia interval might have yielded to the bland ishments of maniier, the fas- inations of youth, the rarely resisted temptations of opportunity. For three long mouths she did resist them. Sh would have resisted them tor ever, but tor an expedient whi- h is without a model—but for an exploit which I trust in God will he without an imita- tion. Ilh. yes, he might hayi\>n tones with which sensuality. awakens ap- petite and lulls purity had wasted themselves in air, and the intended victim, deaf to their fascination, moved along sate and untransfontied. He soon saw,that young as she was tiie vulgar expedients of vice were ineffectual; that the attractions of a glittering exterior failed,- and •that before she could he ti mpteii to her sensual damna- tion, his tongue must learn, it not the words of wisdom, at least the speciousmss of affected purity, lie pretend- i&\ a\\ affection as virtuous as it was violent; he called G -.d to witness the sincerity of his declaration; by ali the vovv-i which should tor ever rivet tin: honorable, and could not fail to convince even the incredulous, he pro- U& SPEECH IW THE CASE OF raised her marriage; over and over again he invoked the eternal denunciation if he was perfidious. To her acknowledged want of fortune, his constant reply was, that he had an independence; that all he wanted was beauty and virtue; that he saw she had the one. that had proved she had the other. W hen she pleaded the ob\ ious disparity of her birth, he answered, that lie was himself the only son of an English farmer ; that happiness was not the monopoly of rank or riches; that his parents would receive her as the child of their adoption, that he would cherish her as the charm of his existence. Specious as it uas, even this did not succeed; she determined to await its avowal to those who had given her life, and who hoped to have made it immaculate by the education they had be- stowed and the example they had offered. Some days after this he met her in her walks, for she could not pass her parents threshold without being intercepted. He asked where she was going-— she said, a friend knowing her fondness for books had promised her the loan of some, and she was going to receive them. He told her he had abundance, that they were just at his home, that he hop- ed after what had passed she would feel no i propriety iii receiving them. She was persuaded to accompany him. An ived, however, at the door of his lodgings, she positively refused to go any further; all his former arti- fices we. e redoubled ; he called God to witness he con- sidered her as his wife, and her character as dear to him as that of one of his sisters ; he affei ted mortification at any suspicion of his puritv ; he told her if she refused her confidence to his honorable affection, the little infant who accompany ed her was an inviolable guarantee for her protection. Gentlemen, this wretched child did suffer her creduli- ty to repose on his professions. Her theory taught her to respect the honor of a soldier ; her love repelled the imputation that debased its object ; and her youthful in- nocence rendered her as incredulous as she was uncon- scious of criminality. At first his behaviour correspond- ed with his professions ; he welcomed her to the home of which he hoped she would soon become the insepara- ble companion ; he painted the future joys of their do- mestic felicity, and dwelt with peculiar complacency on tome heraldic ornament which hung over his chimney- piece, and which, he said, wag the armorial ensign e- 6REI6HT0N T. ¥0WNSEN». * J ,9 his family ! Oh ! my Lord, how well would it have been had he hut retraced the fountain of that document^ had he recalled to mind the virtues it rewarded, the pur* train of honors it associated, the lineot spotless ancestry it distinguished, the high ambition its bequest inspired; the moral imitation it imperatively commanded • But when guilt once kindles within the human heart, all that is noble in our nature becomes parched and arid ; the blush of modesty fades before its glare, the sighs of vir- tue fan its lurid flame, and every divine essence of our being but swells and exasperates its infernal confla- gration. Gentlemen, I will not disgust this audience; I will not debase myself by any description of the scene that followed : I will not detail the arts, the excitements, the promises, the pledges with which deliberate lust in- flamed the passions, and finally overpowered the strug- gles of innocence and of youth. It is too much to know that tears c >u!d not appease — that misery could not af- fect — that the presence and the prayers of an infant could not awe him ; and that the wretched victim, be- tween the ardour of passion and the repose of love, sunk at length, inflamed, exhausted, and confiding, beneatk the heartless grasp of an unsympathising sensuality. The appetite of the hour thus satiated, at a temporal, perhaps an eternal hazard, he dismisssed the sisters te their unconscious parents, not, however, without ex- torting a promise, that on the ensuing night Miss Creighton would desert her home for ever for the arms of a fond, affectionate, and faithful husband. Faithful, alas ! but only to his appetites, he did seduce her from that " sacred home," to deeper guilt, to more deliberate cruelty. After a suspense comparatively happy, her parent! became acquainted with her irrevocable ruin. The mi- serable mother, supported by the mere strength of des- peration, rushed half phrenzied to the castle, where Mr. Townsend was onduty. « Give me back my child !" was all she could articulate. The parental ruin struck the spoiler almost speechless. The dreadful words, •< I have your child," withered her heart up with the horrid joy that death denied its mercy, that her daughter lived, but lived, alas, to infamy. She could neither speak nor hear ; she sunk down convulsed and powerless. As soon ]gf) SPEECH IN THE CARE OF as* she could recover to any thing »f eflf»rt, naturally did --he turn t » the residence of Mr Tnwnseod : his orders bad anticipated her— the sentinel refused her entrance. .She told her sad na* ration, she i nplored his pity : with the. eloquence of grief she a*ked him. «■ had tie home, op wife, orchndim." « Oh, Holy Nature! thou didst not plead in vain !" even the rude soldiers heart relented. He admitted her by stealth, and she once n -re held within her anus the. darling hope of many an anxious hour: duped, des latent-graded it was true— hut still —but still " her child/ 9 Gentlemen, if the parental heart cannot suppose »hat followed, how little adequate am I to - -nt it. Home this wretched creature could not return; a seducers mandate and a father's anger equally forbade it. But she gave whatever cons dation b he was capable; she told the fatal tale ol her undoing; the hones, the promises, the studii d specious arts that had seduced her: and with a desperate credulity still watch- ed the light that, glimmering i»» the distant vista of her love, mocked her with hope, and was to have her to the tempest To all the prophecies' of maternal anguish, she would still reply, -Oh. no- in the eve of Heaven he is my husband ; he took me fr< rn my home, my hap- piness, and vou, but still he pledged to me a soldier s honour— hut he assured me with a Christian's con- science; for three long months I heard his vowsol loxe; he is honourable i nd will not deceive ; he is human and cannot desert me." Bear, G ntl men. hear, I beseech vou, how this innocent confidence was returned. V hen her indignant father had resorted to Lord Forbes, the commander of the forces, and to the noble and learned head of this Court, both of whom received him with a sympathy that did them honour, Mr Towneend sen! a brother officer to inform her she must quit his residence and take lodgings. In vain -In* remonstrated, in *"in she reminded him of her former purity, ad of the p.o- mises that betrayed it. She was literally turned out at ni'ht fall to find whatever refuge the God of tin shelter- less miff HI provide for I r. Deserted and disowned, how naturally did she torn to the once happy home, whose inmates she had d.sgraced, and whose protection she had forfeited ! how naturallv did she Urn k the o. co familiar and once welcome avenues lookeil f. win: g as thepasstd! how naturally did she linger l.ke a repose- CREIGHTOX V. TOWNSEND. 121 less spectre round the memorials of her living happi- ness ! ' Her heart failed her : where a parent's sniiie had ever cheered her, she could not face the glance of shame, or sorrow, or disdain. She returned to seek her se- ducer's pity even till the morning. Good God how can I disclose it ? the very guard had orders to refuse her access; even by the rabble soldiery she was cast into the street, amid the night's dark horrors, the victim of her own credulity, the outcast of another's crime, to seal her guilty woes with suicide, or lead a living death amid the tainted sepulchres of a promiscuous prostitution ! Far, far am I from sorry that it was so. Horrible be- yond thought as is this aggravation, I only hear in it the voice of the Deity in thunder upon the crime. Yes, yes ; it is the present God arming the vicious agent against the vice, and terrifying from its conception by the turpitude to which it may lead. But what aggrava- tion does seduction need 2 Vice is its essence, lust its end, hypocrisy its instrument, and innocence its victim. Must 1 detail its miseries? Who depopulates the home of virtue, making the child an orphan, and the parent Childless ? Who wrests its crutch from the tottering helplessness of piteous age ? Who rings its happiness from the heart of youth ? Who shocks the vision of the public eye ? Who infects your very thoroughfares with .. se, disgust, obscenity, and profaneness ? Who pol- lutes the harmless scenes where modesty resorts for mirth, and toil for recreation, with sights that stain the pure and shock the sensitive ? Are these the phrases of an interested advocacy ? is there one amongst you bu^ has witnessed their verification? Is there one amongst you so fortunate, or so secluded* as not to have wept over the wreck of health, and youth, and loveliness, and talent, the fatal trophies or the seducer's triumph — some form, perhaps, where itvevy grace was squandered, and every beauty paused to waste its bloom, and every beam of mind and tone of melody poured their profusion of the public wonder; all that a parent's prayer could ask, or a lover's adoration fancy \ in whom even pollution looked so lovely, that virtue would have made her more than human I Is there an epithet too vile for such a spoiler? Is there a punisL , severe for such depravity ? I know not upon what complaisance this English seducer calculate from a jury of this country ? 1 know not, 3 22 SPEECH IX THE CA«E 01? indeed, whether he mav not think he does rour wives nwl daughters some honour by their contamination. B : i fc now at reception he would expert nee from ry of his own country. I at in such genera) «\- ftrration do ffiey view this rrime, they think n«i pos« plea a palliation ; no, not t thesedu net herprevi ;nc- from her parents ; not a levity approaching almost to absolute guilt : not an indiscrvtton in the mother, that In re even color of connivance ; and in this opinion they have been support- ed by ): the venerable authorities with whom age, in- tegrity, ami learning have adorned the t jud« ment seat. G ntlemen, i rome i 1 *. these authorities. In the rase nf Toll) Ige i > my Lord, it appear- ed the ;h'»s d reduced \vn«i thirty years of age, and 1-ng before absent from her home; ^ et, on a i otion to set Rskle the verdict For exressive damages, what was the language of Chief Justice \V»lmoi ? l « I regret," said b , " that they w re not greater ; though the plaintiff's loss (;'uJ not amount to twenty shillings, the jury were ring ample damages, became such actions Id he encoliraged f«r examples sake*." Justice Cine wished they had given twice the sum, and in this opi- hion ii>e whole bench roiirnrrrd. There was a case I was of mature age, and In ins: apart from i irents : here* thr \ icim is aim* st a » hild, and w.-.s iriev t for a moment s. paratrd from her home. Again, in the case of •• Rennet against Alcot," on a si- iLilar motion, greun< rd on the apparently overwhelming fan, tha of the girl ha;i actually sent the defendant into her daughter's bedchamber, when* the criminality occurred. Justice Bnller declared, "he tho igh the parent's indiscretion no excuse for the de- ant's culpability ;" and the verdict of 20of. damages was confirmed. There was a rase «>l literal runnivattce : , will tl»:y have ti-'.' hardihood to bint c en its sus- piciun ? You all must remember, Gentlemen, the case oi' our o*n c Captain Gore, against whom, o her day, an English j: a verdict of iges, though it was \ hat the person • » have b If the seducer, to thiow gravel up at the windows Lord Elleuborough refused to dis- turb the verdict. Thus you :;. J rest not on my GREIGHTON V. TOV^STSND. i~^> owr, proofless a •uld aj>peal to the bosom of ei ery man who hears use, whether such a crime should grow u-i unislu .! into a pre< jpvtent : whether innocence should b made the subject of a brutal speculation ; whe- ther the sacred seal of filial obedience, upon which the Almighty Parent has affixed his eternal fiat, should be tfiij ited b) a blasphemous and selfish' libertinism. G vitlemen. if the cases I have quoted, palliated as the;, were, have been humanely marked by ample da- m.ges, what should >ou giv< here wherc{ther< is nothing to excuse— win re there is e\ery thing to aggravate ! 1 he seduction was deliberate, it was three months in pro- gress, its victim w s almost a < uild. it \\a* committed ii»Vderthe m<«st alluring promises, it was followed by a deed of the most dreadful cruelty : but, above all, it was the act of a man comuiisioned by his own country, and paid b> this, for the enforcement of the laws and the p eservati n of society. No man more respects than I do the well-earned reputation of the British army | "It isn school Where every principle tending to honour Is taught — if followed." But in the name of that distinguished army, T here so- lera »Sy -tppeal £a us- an act, a kicb would b! g t its green- est laurels, and lay its trophies prostrate in the dust. L- 1 them war, but be it not », however, that if there exists any excuse fur such an action, it is on the side of the female, because e\^vy female object being more exclusively d mestic, such a disappointment is more severe in its visitation ; because the very circumstance concentrating their f el- ings renders them naturally more sensitive of a wound ; because their best treasure, their reputation, may have Buffered from the Intercourse^ because their chances of reparation are less, and their habitual exclusion makes then feel it more ; because there is something in the de- sertion of their helplessness which almost in -merge* the illegality in the unmanliness of the abandoning c. How- ever, if a man seeks to enforce this engagement, vwvj one feels some indelicacy attached to the requisition. I do not enquire into the comparative justn* s« of the rea- soning, but does not every one feel that there bppeara some meanness in forcing a female into an alliance ? Is it not almost saying, »• 1 will expose to public shame the credulity on which 1 practised, or you must pay to m • In moneys numbered, the profits of that heartless I .'.lion ; I have gambled with your affections, I have secured your bond, 1 will extort the penalty either from your purse or your reputation !" I put a ease to you where the Circumstances are recipocal, where age, fortune, situation, are the same, white (here is no dis- parity of years to make tin* supposition ludicrous, where there is no di -parity of fortune to render it suspicious. BfcAXTl V. WTLKIXS. 127 Let us «ee whether the preset action can be b6 palliated, or whether it does not exhibit a picture of fraud and avarice, and meanness and hypoCricy, so laughable, that it is almost impossible to criticise it, and jet so (Is- basing, that human pride almosi forbids its Hdicu.e. It has been left to me to defend my unfortunate old client from the double battery oi Love and of Law, which at the age of sixty-five has so unexpected^ open- ed on her. Oh, Genth men, how vain glorious is the boast of beauty ! How misapprehended l^e been the charms »f youth, if years and wrinkles can thus despoil th-ir conquests and depopulate the navy of Its prowess; and begui!< the bar oi its eloquence ! 1 ow mistaken were all the amatory poets from Anarrron downwards, who preferred the bloom of the rose aru the thrill ot The nightingale, to the saffron bide and dulcet treble of six- ty' Vive ! E» en our own sweet bard has had the folly to declare, that 1 ' He once had heard tell of an amorous youth Who was caught in his grandmother's bed; But owns he had ne er such a liquorish tooth, As to wish to be there in Ins stead." Iloya! wisdom ha« said, that we live in in a « New Er%." The rdgtt of old women has commenced, and if Johanna 8 lutficote converts England to her creed, why should no: Ireland, less pious perhaps, but at least equal- ly passionate, kneel before the shrine of ihe irresista- ble Widow Wilkjns. !'■ appears, Gentlemen, to have been h r happy fatr to have subdued particularly the dVath dealing profession*. Indeed, in the love episodes of (be heathen myth, logy, Mars and Venus were ( onsi- frsrvil its inseparable. 1 know hot whether any of you have ever seen a Very beautiful print representing the fatal glory of Q-.ehec, and the last moments of its im- mortal conquero — it* so, you must ba*e observed the figure of t*ie Staff physician, in whose arms the hero is expiring— that identical personage, my Lord, was the happy swain, who forty or fifty yea s ago, received the reward o! his valour and his skill in the virgin hand of tny venerable client! The Doctor lived something wore than a century, during a great parr of which Mrs. V\il- kins was bis companion— alas, gentlemen, long as he li\a), he Jived not long enough to behold her I i£S SPEECH IN THE CASE OP 4, That beauty, like the Aloe flower, But blg&som'd and bloorn'd at lour score." Kc was, however, so far fascinated as to bequeath to her the legacies oi his patients, when he found he was pre- doomed to follow them. To this circumstance, very tar be it from me to hint, that Mrs. W. is indebted for any oi" lie* attractions. Rich, however, she undoubtedly was, and rich she would stili as undoubted!) have continued, had :t not been tor her intercourse with the family of the Plaintiff. 1 do not impute it as a cri.,.e to them that jned to he necessitous, but ( do impute it as criukiuai and ungrateful, that after Laving lived on prosit) of their friend, after having literally ex- most prodigal liberality, they should drag fier iuiirinities before the public ga~e, \ainiy supposing . could hide their own contemptible avarice in prominent exposure of her met an c hoi j dotage. The taller of the Plaintiff, it cannot be unknown to you, was I ) ears in the most indigent situation. Per- il 16 not a matter of conceal inent either, that he a in Mr*. Vtiihius a generous benefactress. She : . supported him, until at last his increasing d him to take refuge in an act of insol- y. During their intimacy, frequent allusion was ..-. to a son whom Mrs. \\ likins had never seen since he was a child, and who had risen to a lieutenancy in the y, under the patronage of their relative, sir Bekja- Sl /u.MiiiiLD. In a parent's panegyric, the gall at was of course all that ever nope could picture. Young, gay, heroic, and d , the pride of the , the prop ot" the country, independent as the gale watted, and bounteous as the wave that bore him. I am ai'raid that it is rather an anticlimax to tell \ on after this, that tie is the present Plaintiff*. The eloquence of ..ke was not exclusively confined to her enco- Lus on the lieutenant, btie diverged at times into an »de on the matrimonial felicities, painted the joy of love, and obscurely hinted that with hist .dan exact personification in . ,n Peter bearing a maich-ligut m ills Majesty's Hydra J — ,. se contrivances were ; g on .Mrs. W likins, a bye-plot was got up on board Ira, and Mr. returned to his mourning influenced, as he says, by his partiality for the BLAKE V. WILKINS. 129 Defendant, but in reality compelled by ill health and dis- appointments, added, perhaps, to his mother's very ab- surd and avaricious speculations. What a loss the navy had of him, aud what a loss he had of the navy ! Alas, Gentlemen, he could not resist his affection for a female he never saw. Almighty love eclipsed thi- glories of am- bition — Trafalgar and St. Vincent flitted from his me- mory — he gave up all for woman, as Mark Antony did before him, and, like the Cupid in Hudibras, he took his stand Upon a Widow's jointure land — His> tender sigh and trickling tear Long'd for five hundred pounds a year; And languishing desires were fond Of Statute, Mortgage, Bill, and Bond!" — Oh, Gentlemen, only imagine him on the lakes of North America ! Alike to him the varieties of season or the vicissitude of warfare. One sovereign image mono- polizes his sensibilities. Does the storm rage? the Wi- dow Wilkins outsighs the whirlwind. Is the Ocean calm? it's mirror shows him the lovely Widow Wilkins. Is the battle won ? he thins his laurels that the Widow Wilkins may interweave her myrtles. Poes the broad- side thunder? he invokes the Widow Wilkins ! "A sweet little Cherub, she sits up aloft To keep watch tor the life of poor Peter !" —Alas, how much he is to he pitied ! How amply he should be recompensed ! Who but must mouin his sub- lime, disinterested, sweet-souled patriotism.' Who but must sympathise with his pure, ardenr, generous affec- tion ! — affection too confiding to require an interview ! — affection too warm to wait even for an introduction I Indeed, his Amanda herself seemed to think his love was most desirable at a distance, for at the very first visit after his return he was refused admittance. His capti- vating charmer was then sick and nurse-tended at her brother's house, after a winter's confinement, reflecting, more likely, rather on her funeral than her wedding. Mrs. Blake's avarice instantly took the alarm, and she wrote the letter which I shall now proceed to read to yon. 13(1 SPEECH IN THE C4SE OF [Mr. Vandklkue. — My Lord, unwilling as T am to in arrapt a n 'atemei t which seems to create so universal a sensation, still I hope your Lordship will restrain Mr. Philips fr m reading a letter which cannot hereaf- ter b read in e\idence. Mr. O'Co^N ell rose for the purpose of supporting the propriety of toe course pursued by the Defendant's Counsel, rthen] Mr. Phillips resumed — My Lord, although ir is ut- terly i:. i possible for the learned Gentleman to say, in what manner hereafter this letter might be made evi- dence, still my cast- is too strong to require any ca il- ling uj)on s irh trifles. 1 am content to save the public time, and wave the perusal oF the letter However* tbpy have now given its suppression an importance \\h ch perhaps it* production could not have procured f«>r it. You see. Gentlemen, what a case they h ve when they insist on the withholding of the d cuments which origi- nated vxifli themselves. I accede to their very polite in- terfereufe. 1 grant them, since ihey intreat it, the mercu of nil} ^iUnce. Certain it is, however, that a let- ter was received from Mrs. Bi >k • : and that almost im- mediately after its receipt, Miss Blake intruded herself at Brownvitte, where Mrs. Willy ins was— remained two bitterly her not iiaving appeared to the lieutenant, when he called to v isit her — said that her poor mother had set Ir r heart on an alliance — that she wa~* sure, dear wontan* a disappointment would be the dea^h of her; in short, that there was no alternative but nnb or the altar ! To all this Mrs. v. i I kins unly repli< >U how totally ignorant the parties most inter* s id were 'i each other, and that were she even inclined to lect herself with a stranger (poor old foal ! the debts in which her generosity to the family had a! read) in- volved her, formed, at leas' for the present, an insur- mountable impediment. ibis was not sufficient. In less than a week, the indefatigable Miss Blake returned to the charge, acti ally armed with an old family bond to pay off the incumbrance, and a renewed represenia- ti mi of the mother's suspense and the br< ther's drspera- fcion. You will not fail to observe, Gentlemen, that winle the female conspirators were thus at work, th* ln\er him r ersn seen the object of /ir.s iilola- in the farce, he fell in love with BLAKE V. WILKTKS. 131 the picture of his grandmother. Like a prince of the blood, he was willing to woo and to be wedded by proxy. For the gratification of his 'avarice, he was < -ontented to embrace age, disease, infirmity, and widowhood — to bind his youthful passions t:» the carcase for which Hie grave was opening— to feed by anticipation on the un- sold corpse, and cheat the worm of its reversionary cor* ruption. Educated iu a profession proverbially gene- rous, he offered to barter every joy for money ! Born in a country ardent to a fault, he advertised his haopi- ness to the highest bidder ! and he now solicits an ho- nourable jury to become the pander* to this heartless cu- pidity ! I'h is beset, haerassed, conspired against, their miserable victim entered into the contract you^have heard— a contract conceived in meanness, extorted by fraud, and sought to he enforced by the most pmflig. te c ns piracy Trace it through every stage of its pro? gress, in its origin, its means, its effects — f.-om the parent contriving it through the sacrifice of her s u, and forwarding it through tin indelicate instrumentality of her daughter, down to the son himself uublnshingly aft- ceding to the atrocious combination by which age was to he betrayed and youth degraded, and the odious onion of decrepid lust and precocious avarice blasphemously ©onsecrat d by the solemnities of Religion ! Is this the example which as parents you would sanction ? Is this the principle you would adopt yourselves? Hate you never witnessed the misery of an unmatched marriage? Have \ ou never worshipped the bliss by which it has been hallowed, when its torch, kindled at affection's al- tar, gives the noon of life its warmth and its lustre, and blesses its evening with a more chastened, but not less lovely illumination ? Are you prepared to say, that this rite of heaven, revered by each country, cherished by each sex, the solemnity of every Church and the Sactm- ment of one, shall be profaned into the ceremonial of an obscene and soul-degrading avarice ! No sooner was this contract, the device of their co- vet >usness and the evidence of their shame, swindled from the wretched o> ject of this conspiracy, than its motive became apparent ; they avowed themselves the keepers of their melancholy victim ; they watch her movements ; they dictated her actions ; they forbade all intercourse with her own brother ; they duped her into 132 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF accepting bills, and let her be arrested f >r the amount. They exercised the most cruel and capricious tyranny upon her, now menaoci ng her with the publication of her follies, and now with the still more horrible enforce- ment of a contract that thus betrayed its anticipated in- flictions! Can you imagine a more disgusting exhibition of how weak and how worthless human nature may be, than this scene exposes ? On the one hand, a combina- tion of sex and age, disregarding the mo9t sacred obli- gations, and trampling on the most tender ties, from a mean greediness of lucre, that neither honour or grati- tude or nature could appease. "Lucri bonus est odor exre- qnalibet" On the other hand, the poor shrivelled relic of what once was health, and youth, and animation, sought to be embraced iu its infection, and arrcssed in its infirmity— crawled over and corrupted by the human reptiles, before death had shovelled it to the less odious and more natural vermin of the grave ' ! What an ob- ject for the speculation of avarice J What art angel or the idolatry of youth! Gentlemen, when this miserable, dupe to her own d mating vanity and the vice of others, saw how she was treated — when she found herself con- trilled bv the mother, beset by the daughter, beggared by the father, and held hy the son as a kind ot windfall, that, too rotten to keep its hold, had fallen at hi<- feet to be squeezed and trampled ; when she saw the Intercourse of her relatives prohibited, the most trifling remembran- ces, of her ancient friendship denied, the very exercise cf her habitual charity denounced ; when she saw that all she was worth was to be surrendered to a family confis- cation, and that she was herself to be gib^etted in the chains of wedlock, an example to every superannuated do- tard, upon whose plunder the ravens of the world might calculate, she came to the wisest determination of her life, and decided that her fortune should remain at her own disposal. Acting upon tins decision, she wrote to Mr. Blake, complaining of the cruelty with which she hatl been treat**!, desiring the restoration of the con- tract of which she had been duped, and declaring, as the only means of securing respect, her final determination as to the controul over her property. To this letter, ad- dressee! to the son, a verbal answer (mark the conspira- cy) was returned from the mother, withholding all con- the property was setled on her family, but BLAKE V. WILKINS. 133 withholding the contract at the same time. The wretch- ed old woman could not sustain the conflict. She was taken seriously ill, confined for many months in her bro- ther's house, from whom she was so cruelly sought to he separated, until the debts in which she was involved and a recommenced change of scene transferred her to Dublin. There she was received with the utmost kindness by her relative, Mr. Mar- Namara, to whom she confided the delicacy and distress of her situation. That gentleman, acting at once as her agent and her friend, instantly re- paired to Galway, whore he had an interview with Mr. Blake —this was long before the. commencement of any action. A conversation took place between them on the subject, whir h must truth of all he asserts) that it was honourable for a British officer to abandon the navy on such a speculation — lo desert so noble a profession — to fori it he ambition it ought to have associated — the rank to whi h it leads— the gl-ry it may confer, for the pur- pose of extorting from an old woman he never saw the purchase money of his degradation ! But I resc ;e the Piainfiff from this disgraceful imputation. I cannot be- lieve that a member of a profession not less remarkable for the valour than 'he generosity of its spirit — a profes- sion as proverbial for its profusion in the harbour a> for the prodigality of its life-blood on the wave —a profession ever wiling to fling m n > to the winds, and only anx- ious that iliey should watt hrough th world its immor- ta. banner crimsoned with the record of a thousand victo- ries .' No, no, Gentlemen; notwithstanding the great authority of Mr. Anthony Martin, 1 rannoi readily be- liev that any man could he found *o m; r affection, 'e whole spectral train of sorrow va- nished, and t*iis world of wo, with all its i ar- s and mise- ries u» ! primes brightened as by enchantment info anticipated paradise \\ It might happen that this divine affection migh be crushed, aw' that heai enly vision wither into air at rhe hell-e rjendered pestilence of parental ava- rice, leaving voti*h and health, and worth and happiness. a sacrifice to its unna'ural and mercenary caprir- s. pvr am I from saying that such a case would not call for ext ia- ti«>i, particularly Where the purishment fell upon the :ld \m likely to retain his constancy? Do you believe that the manic ge thus sought to be enforced, was one likely to promote morality and virtue? Do you believe t'ia : tho-e delicious fruits by wich the struggles af -sin* rial life art- sweetened, and the anxieties of parental care alleviated, were ever once ant cipaVd ? Do you think t t such a» union could exhibit Miose recipr -cities of love and endearments by which this tender rite should b consecrated and recommended? Do you not rather be : ie\e that it originated in avarice — that it was promo- ted hy conspiracy — and that it would perhaps have. Lowered through some months of crime, and then termi- nated in a heartless and disgusting abandonment ? Gentlemen, these are the questions w' if h you will dis • ss in your Jury-room. I am not afraid of your derision. Remember I ask you for no mitigation of damages. Nothing less than your verdict will satisfy n;e, By that verdict you will sustain the dignit) of r six— by that verdict you will uphold the honour of th: national character — hy that \erdict you will assure. n i o».i> tin* immense multitude of both sexes that thus s • unusaaliy crouds around you. but the whole rising g< >i >our count: v, 1 hat marriage can never be attended with tumour or blessed withhappiit ss, tj,thasn.iteuted to withdraw a Juror, and let nna pa/ nif own Costi.3 A CHARACTER NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE, DOWN TO THfc PERIOD &t HIS <£#Ie to C3£6a Hfi 1 8 FALLEN ! We may now pause before that splendid prodigy, which tottered amongst us like some ancient ruin, whose frown fiefWfieS the glance its magnificence attracted. Grand, gloomy, and peculiar, he sat upon the throne, a sceptred hermit, wrapt in the solitude of his own ori- ginality. A mind bold, independent, and decisive — a will, des- potic in its dictates— an energy that distanced ex- pedition, and a conscience pliable to every touch of interest, marked the outline of this extraordinary cha- racter — the most extraordinary, perhaps, that, in the annals of this world, ever rose, or reigned, or fell. Flung into life, in the midst of a Revolution, that quickened every energy of a people who acknowledged no superior, he commenced his course, a stranger by birth* and a scholar by charity I 142 efTlRACTER OF N. BTjroY4.P4RTE. Wiii no friend but his sword, and n > fortune hut his talents, he rushed into the ihts where rank, ai>d uvea th* and genius had arrayed themselves, and coin < fled from him as from the glance- of destiny. He knew no motive but interest— he aknowledgf a dynasty, he uphel<> t e Crescent : for the sake of a divorce, he bowed before the Civss: the orphan of JSt. Louis, he became (he adopted child >f the Republic; and with a parricidal ingratitude, on the ruins both of the tin one and the tri- bune, he reared the throne of his despotism. \ professed Catholic, he imprisoned the 'ope ; a pre* I tended pal riot, he impoverished the country ; and in the name of Brutus*, he grasped without remorse, and wore Without shame, the diadem of the Csesars ! Through this pantomime of his policy, fortune placed the clown to his caprices. At his touch, crowns ecu )- bled, beggars reigned, systems vanished, the wiloesfc tie riestook the colour of his whim, and all that was venerable, and all that was novel, changed places with the rapidity of a drama. Even apparent defeat assumed tin* appearance of victory — his flight from Egypt con- firmed his destiny — ruin itself only elevated him to empire. But if his fortune was great, his genius was trans- aendent; decision flashed upon his counsels ; and it waa the same to decide and to perform. To inferior intel- lects, his combinations appeared perfectly imp>ssi»»|e, bis plans perfectly impracticable; but in his hands siin# plicity marked their developement, and success viudi- tated their adoption. His person partook the character of his mind— -if the one never yielded in the cabinet, the other never bent in the field. Nature had no obstacles that he did not surmount— space no opposition that he did not spurn ; and whether ami vlpine rocks, .Arabian sands, or polar snows, be * In his hypocritical cant after Liberty, in the commence.- aaent of the Revolution, h« assumed the nam* ©i fcrutua— •*■ Vit>o i'uutu J CHAHACTEB OF If. BUONAPARTE. 146 seemed proof against peril, atid empt vcrer! with 'bi- qu'tv ! The whole continent of Europe trembled at be- ho '-i?»g the audacity of his designs, aid the miracle of their execution. Scepticism bowed to the prodigies of his performance ; romance assumed the air of history ; nor was there ought too incredible for belief, or too fan- ciful for expectation, when the world saw a subaltern of Corsica waving his imperial flag over her most ancient capitals. All the visions of antiquity became common places in his contemplation ; kings were his people-— nations were his outposts ; and he disposed of courts, and crowns, and camps, and churches, and cabinets, as if they were the titular dignitaries of the chess board \ Amid all these changes he stood immutable as adamant. It mattered little whether in the field or the drawing room — with the mob or the levee — wearing the jacobin bon- net or the iron crown — banishing a Braganza, or espous- ing a Hapshurg^-dictating peace on a rait to the ( zar of Russia, or contemplating defeat at the gallows of Leip- sic — he was still the same military despot ! Cradled in the camp, he was to the last hour the dar- ling of the army ; and whether in the camp or the cabinet he never forsook a friend or forgot a favour. Of all his soldiers, not one abandoned him, till affection was useless, and their first stipulation was for the safety of their favourite. They knew well that if he was lavish of them, he was prodigal of himself; and that if he exposed them to peril, he repaid them with plunder. For the soldier, he subsidized every people ; to the people he made even pride pay tribute. The victorious veteran glittered wi h .his gains; and the capital, gorgeous with the spoils of art, became the miniature metropolis of ^the universe. In this wonderful combination, his affection of literature must not be omitted. The gaoler of tlre^press, he affect- ed the patronage of letters — the proscribe!* of books, he encouraged philosophy — h^ persecutor of authors, and the murderer of printers, he yet pretended to the protec- tion of learning !— the assassin of Palm, the silencer of De Stael, and the denouncer of Kotzebue, he was the friend of David, the benefactor of !>e Lille, and sent his academic prize to the philosopher of England*. ♦Sir Humphry Divy wai transmitted the first prize of the Academy ot Sciences. 144 CHARACTER OF IT. BUONAPARTE. Such a medley of contradictions, and at the §ame time such an individual consistency, were never united in the same character— A Royalist— A Republican and an Em- peror—a Mahometan— a Catholic and a patron of the Synagogue— a Subaltern and a Sovereign— a Traitor and a Tyrant — a Christian and an Infidel— he was, through all his vicissitudes, the same stern, impatient, inflexible original— the same mysterious incoraprehensi. ble self— the man without a model, and without a sha- dow. His fall, like his life, baffled all speculation. In short, his whole history was like a dream to the world, and no man can tell how or why he was awakened from the re. verie. Such is a faint and feeble picture of Napoleon Bvona- pa<-te, the first (and it is to he hoped the last) Emperor of the French. That lie has done much evil there is little doubt ; that be has been the origin of much good, there is just as lit- tle. Through his means, intentional or not, Spain, Por- tugal, and France have arisen to the blessing of a Free Constitution; Superstition has found her grave in the ruins of the inquisition* ; and the Feudal system, with its whole train of tyrannic satellites, has fled for ever-- ILings may learn from him that their safest study, as well as their noblest, is the interest of the people ; the peo- ple are taught by him that there is no despotism so stu- pendous against which they have not a resource ; and to those who would rise upon the ruins of both, he is a liv- est ng lesson that if ambition can raise them from the low- est station, it can also prostrate them from the highest. *What melancholy reflections does not this sentence awaken; But three years have elapsed since it was written, and in that short space all the good effected by Napoleon has been t rased by the Legitimates, ani the most questionable parts of his cha- rirter badly imitated !— His successors want nethmg but tort r-acter badlf 3*nifl 8 IP 3 21 (BIB DELIVERED BY MR. PHILLIPS, IN /$|je ery case consulted, his day's compa- nion, and his evening guest, his constant, trusted, bo- som confidant, and under guise of all, oh human na- ture ! he v\as his tellest, deadliest, final enemy ! Here, on the authority of this brief do I arraign him, of hav- ing wound himself into my client's intimacy — of having encouraged that intimacy into friendship, of having counterfeited a sympathy in his joys and in his sorrows; and when he seemed too pure even for scepticism itself to doubt him, of having under the very sanctity of his roof, perpetrated an adultery the most unprecedented and perfidious ? If this be true, can the world's wealth defrav the penalty of such turpitude ? Mr. Browne, gen- BROWNE V. BLAKE. 149 iemen, was ignorant of every agricultural pursuit, and, unfortunately adopting the advice of his father-in-law, he cultivated the amusements of the Curragh. J say unfortunately, for his own affairs, and by no means in reference to the pursuit itself. It is not for me to libel an occupation which the highest, and noblest, and most illustrious throughout the empire, countenance by their adoption, which fashion and virtue graces by its atten- dance, and in which, peers and legislators and princes are not ashamed to appear conspicuous. But if the mo- rality that countenances it be doubtful, by what epithet shall we designate that which would make it an apology for the most profligate of offences ? Even if Mr. Browne's pursuits were ever so erroneous, was it for his bosom friend to take advan- age of them to ruin him ? Oil this subject, it is sufficient for me to remark, that under cir- cumstances of prosperity or vicissitudes, was their con- nubial happiness ever even remotely clouded ? In fact, the plaintiff disregarded even the amusements that de- prived him of her society. He took a house for her in the vicinity of Kildare, furnished it with all that luxury could require, and afforded her the greatest of all lux- uries, that of enjoying and enhancing his most prodigal affection. From the hour of their marriage, up to the unfortunate discovery, they lived on terms of the utmost tenderness ; not a word, except one of love ; not an act* except of mutual endearment, passed between them. — INow, gentlemen, if this be proved to you, here I take my stand, and 1 say, under no earthly circumstances, can a justification of the adulterer be adduced. No mat- ter with what delinquent sophistry he may blaspheme through its palliation, God ordained, nature cemented, happiness consecrated that celestial union, and it is com- plicated treason against God and man, and society, 1o intend its violation. The social compact, through every fibre trembles at its consequences; not only policy but law, not only law, but nature, not only nature but re- ligion, deprecate and denounce it, — parent and offspring. — youth and age — the dead from the tombs — the child from its* cradle,— creatures scarce alive, and creatures still unborn ; the grandsire shivering on the verge of death ; the infant quickening in the mother's womb ; all with one assent re-echo God. and execrate adultery! I 150 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF say, then, where it is once proved that husband and wife live together in a state of happiness, no contingency on which the sun can shine, can warrant any man in at- tempting their separation; Did they do so ? That is imperatively your first consideration. 1 only hope that all the hearts religion has joined together, may have en- joyed the happiness they did. Their married state, was one continued honey moon , and if e\er cloud arose to dim, before love's sigh it fled, and left its orb the bright- er. Prosperous and wealthy, fortune had no charms for Mr. Browne, hut as it blessed the object of his af- fections. Sbe made srecess delightful : she gave his wealth its value. The most splendid equipage — the most costly luxuries, the richest retinue— all that vanity could invent to dazzle — all that affection could devise, to gratify, were her's, and thought too vile for her en- joyment. Great as his fortune was, his love outshone it, and it seems as if fortune was jealous of the per- formance. Proverbially capricious, she withdrew her smile, and left him shorn almost of every thing except his love, and the fidelity that crowned it. The hour of adversity is woman's hour — in the full blaze of fortune's rich meridian, her modest beam re- tires from vulgar notice, but when the clouds of wo col- lect around us, and shades and darkness dim the wan- derer's path, that chaste and lovely light shines forth to cheer him, an emblem and an emanation of the heavens ! —It was then her love, her value, and her power was visible. No, it is not for the cheerfulness with which she bore the change I prize her — it is not that without a sigh she surrendered all the baubles of prosperity — hut that she pillowed her poor husband's heart, welcomed ad- versity to make him happy, held up her little children as the wealth that no adversity could takeaway ; and when she found his spirit broken and his soul dejected. With a more than masculine understanding, retrieved, in some degree, his desperate fortunes, and saved the little wreck that solaced their retirement. What w as such a woman worth, I ask you ? If you can stop to estimate by dross the worth of such a creature, give me even a notary's calculation, and tell me than what was she worth to him to whom sho had consecrated the bloom of her youth, the charm of her innocence, the splendour of her beauty, BROWNE V. BLAKE. 151 the wealth of her tenderness, the power of her genius, the treasure of her fidelity ? She, the mother of his chil- dren, the pulse of his heart, the joy of his prosperity, the solace of his misfortunes — what was she worth to him ? Fallen as she is, you may still estimate her , you may see her value even in her ruin. The gem is sullied, the dia- mond is shivered ; but even in its dust you may see the magnificence of its material. After this, they retired to Kockville, their seat in the county of Gal way, where they resided in the most domestic manner, on the rem- nant of their once splendid establishment. The butter- flies, that in their noon tide fluttered round them, va- nished at the first breath of their adversity; but one early friend still remained faithful and affectionate, and that was the defendant. Mr Blake is a young gentleman of about eight and twenty ; of splendid fortune, polished in his manners, interesting in his appearance, with many qualities to attach a friend, and every quality to fasci- nate a female. Most willingly do I pay the tribute which nature claims for him ; most bitterly do I lament that he has been so ungrateful to so prodigal a benefac- tress. The more Mr. Browne's fortunes accumulated, the more disinterestedly attached did Mr, Blake appear to him. He shared with him his purse, he assisted him with his counsel; in an affair of honour he placed his life and character in his hands—he introduced his inno- cent sister, just arrived from an English Nunnery, into the family of his friend ; he encouraged every recipro- city of intercourse between the females ; and, to crown all, that no possible suspicion might attach to him, he seldom travelled without his Domestic Chaplain ! Now, if it shall appear that all this was only a screen for his adultery — that he took advantage of his friend's misfortune to seduce the wife of his bosom — that he af- fected confidence only to betray it — that he perfected the wretchedness he pretended to console, and that ia the midst of poverty he has left his victim, friendless, hopeless, cornpanionless ; a husband without a wife and a father without a child. Gracious God! is it not enough to turn Mercy herself into an executioner ! You convict for murder — here is the hand that murdered in- nocence ! You convict for treason — here is the vilest disloyalty to fiieudsldn ! — You convict for robbery—* io& SlPEECH IN THE CASE OF here is one who plundered virtue of her dearest pearl, and dissolved it even in the bowl that hospitality held out to him ! ! They pretend that he is innocent ! Oh ef- frontery the most unblushing ! Oh vilest insult, added to the deadliest injury ! Oh base, detestable, and damna- ble hypocrisy ! Of the final testimony it is true enough their cunning has deprived us ; but under Pro- vidence, I shall pour upon this baseness such a flood of light, that I will defy, not the most honourable man merely, but the most charitable sceptic, to touch the Holy Evangelists, and say, by their sanctity, it has not been committed. Attend upon me, now, Gentlemen, step by step, and with me rejoice, that, no matter how cautious may be the conspiracies of guilt, there is a Power above to confound and to discover them. On the 27th of last January, Mary Hines, one of the domestics, received directions from Mrs. Brown, to have breakfast ready very early on the ensuing morn- ing, as the defendand, then on a visit at the house, expressed an inclination to go out to hunt. She was ac- cordingly brushing down the stairs at a very early hour, when sin observed the handle of the door stir, and fear- ing the noise had disturbed her, she ran hastily down stairs to avoid her displeasure. She remained below about three quarters of an hour, when her master's bell ringing violently she hastened to answer it. He asked her in some alarm where her mistress was ? naturally enough astonished at such a question at such an hour, she said she knew not, but would go down and see whether or not she was in the parlour. Mr. Browne, however, had good reason to be alarmed, for she was so extremely indisposed going to bed at night that an ex- press stood actually prepared t > bring medical aid from Gahvay, unless she appeared better. An unusual de- pression both of mind and body preyed upon Mrs, Browne on the preceding evening. She frequently burst into tears, threw her arms around her husband's neck, saying that she was sure another month would separate her forever from him and her dear children. It was no accidental omen. Too surely the warning of Providence was upon her. When the maid was going down, Mr, Blake appeared at his door totally undressed, and in a tone of much confusion desired that his servant should SROWNE W. BLAKE, 15S be sent up to him. She went down— as she was about to return from her ineffectual search, she heard her mas- ter's voice in the most violent indignation, and almost immediately after Mrs. Browne rushed past her into the parlour, and hastily seizing her writing desk, desired her instantly to quit the apartment. Gentlemen, I re- quest you will bear every syllable of this scene in your recollection, but most particularly the anxiety about the writing desk. You will soon find that there was a cogent reason for it. Little was the wonder that Mr. Browne's tone should be that of violence and indignation. He had discovered his wife and friend totally undressed, just as they had escaped from the guilty bed-side where they stood in all the shame and horror of their situation J He shouted for her brother, and I hat miserable brother had the agony of witnessing his guilty sister in the bed-room of her paramour, both almost literally in a state of nudi- ty. Blake! Blake! exclaimed the heart struck-husband, is this the return you have made for my hospitality? Oh, heavens ! what, a reproach was there ! It was not mere- ly, you have dishonoured my bed — it was not merely, you have sacrificed my happiness — it was not merely, you have widowed me in my youth, and left me the father of an orphan family — it was not merely, you have violated a compact to which all the world swore a tacit veneration—but, you — you have done it, my friend, my guest, under the very roof barbarians reverence ; where you enjoyed my table, where you pledged my happiness; where you saw her in all the loveliness of her virtue, and at the very hour when our little helpless children were wrapt in that repose of which you have for ever robbed their miserable parents ! I do confess when I paused here in the perusal of these instructions, the very life blood froze within my veins. What, said F, must I not only reveal this guilt ! must I not only expose this perfidy ! must I not only brand the infidelity of a wife and a mother, but must i, amidst the agonies of out- raged nature, make the brother the proof of the sister's prostitution ! Thank God, gentlemen, J may not be obliged to torture you and him and myself, by such in- strumentality, 1 think the proof is full without it, though it must add another pang to the soul of the poor plaintiff, because it must render it almost impossible that Ix 154 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF his little infants are not the brood of tins adulterous de- pravity. It will be distinctly proved to you by Bonoria Brennan, ancther of the servants, that one night, so far back as the May previous to the last mentioned oc- currence, when she was in the act of arranging the beds, she saw Mr. Blake come up stairs, look cautiously about him. go to Mrs. Browne's bed-room door, and tap at it: that i. mediately after Mrs. Browne went, with no other covering than her shift, to Blake's bed chamber, where the guilty parties locked themselves up together, Ter- rified and astonished, the maid retired to the servants* apartments and in about a quarter of an hour after she saw Mrs. Browne in the same habiliments return from the bed-room of Blake into her husband's. Gentlemen, it was by one of those accidents which so often accom- pany and occasion the developement of guilt, that we have arrived at this evidence. It was very natural that she did not wish cither to expose her mistress, or afflict her unconscious master with the recital ; xcry natural that, she did not desire to be the instrument of so fright- ful a discovery. However, when she found that con- cealment was out of the question ; that this action was actually in progress, and that the guilty delinquent was publicly triumphing in the absence of proof, and through an herd of slanderous dependants, cruelly villifying the character of his victim ; she sent a friend to Mr. Browne, and in his presence, and that of two others, solemnly discovered her melancholy information. Gen- tlemen, I do entreat of you to examine this woman, though she is an uneducated peasant, with all severity, because, if she speaks the truth, I think you will agree with me, that so horrible a complication of iniquity never disgraced the annals of a court of justice. He had just risen from the table of his friend — he left, his own brother and that friend behind him, and even from the very board of his hospitality, he proceeded to the defilement of his bed! Of meie adultery I had heard before. It was bad enough — a breach of all law, reli- gion and morality — but — what shall I call this? — that seduced innocence— insulted misfortune— betrayed friend- ship — violated hospitality— tore up the very foundations of human nature, and hurried its fragments at the vio- lated altar, as if to bury religion beneath the ruins of society ! Oh, it is guilt might put a Lamon to the blush. BROWNE V. BLAKE. 155 Does out* proof rest here ! No ; though the mind must be sceptical that after this could doubt. A guilty cor- respondence was carried on between the parties, and though its contents were destroyed by Mrs. Browne, on the morning of the discovery, still we shall authenti- cate the fact beyond suspicion. You shall hear it from the very messenger they entrusted — you shall hear from him too, that the wife and the adulterer both bound him to the utmost secrecy* at once establishing their own collusion and theif victim's ignorance, proving, by the. very anxiety for concealment, the impossibility of con- nivance ; so true it is that the conviction of guilt will often proceed even from the stratagem for its security. Does our proof rest here? No ; you shall have it from a gentleman of unimpeachable veracity, that the defen- dant himself confessed the discovery in his bed -room— " I will save him," said he, <* the trouble of proving it; she was in her shift, and J was in my shirr. I know very well a jury will award damages against me; ask Browne will he agree to compromise it ; he ow r es me some money, and I will give him the overplus in horses !" Can you imagine any thing more abominable. He seduced from his friend the idol of his soul, and the mother of his children, and when he was writhing undtT the recent wound, he deliberately offers him brutes in compensation ! I will not depreciate this cruelty by any comment ; yet. the very brute he would barter for that unnatural mother, would have lost its life rather than desert its offspring. Now, Gentlemen, what rational mind but must spurn the asservation of innocence after this ? Why the anxiety about the writing desk ? Why a clandestine correspondence with her husband's friend ? Why remain, at two different periods, for a quarter o£ an hour together, in a gentleman's bed-chamber, with; no other habiliment, at one time, than her bed-dress, at another than her shift. Is this customary with the mar- ried females of this country ? Is this to be a precedent, for our wives and daughters, sanctioned too by you, their parents and their husbands ? Why did he confess that a verdict for damages must go against him, and make the offer of that unfeeling compromise? — Was it because he was innocent? The very offer wasajudg- m*>nt by default, a distinct, undeniable corroboration of 156 speech ijr the case of his guilt. Was it that the female character should not suffer? Could there be a more trumpet- tongued procla- mation of her criminality? Are our witnesses suborned ? Let his army of Counsel sit and torture them. Can they prove it? O yes, if it be proveable. Let them pro- duce her brother — in our hands, a damning proof to be sure; but then, frightful, afflicting, unnatural — in theirs, the most consolatory and delightful, the vindication of calumniated innocence, and that innocence the inno- cence of a sister. Such is the leading outline of our evidence — evidence which you will only Wonder is so convincing in a case whose very nature presupposes the most cautions secrecy. The law, indeed, gentlemen, duly estimating the difficulty of final proof in this sjiecies of artion has recognized the validity of inferential evi- dence, but on that subject his Lordship must direct you. Do they rely then on the ground of innocency \ If they do, I submit to you on the authority of the law, that in- ferential evidence is quite sufficient ; and on the authori- ty of reason, that in this particular case, the inferential testimony amounts to demonstration. Amongst the in- numerable calumnies afloat, if has been hinted to me in- deed, that they mean to rely u;jon what they denominate the indiscretion of the husband. — The moment they have the hardihood to resort to that, they, of course, abandon all denial of delinquency, and even were it fully proved, it is then worth your most serious consideration, whether you will tolerato such a defence as that. It is in my mind beyond all endurance, that any man should dare to come into a Court of Justice, and on the shadowy pretence of what he may term carelessness, ground the most substantial and irreparable injury. Against the unmanly principal of conjugal severity, in the name of civilized society I solemnly protest, it is not fitted for the meridian, and, 1 hope, will never amalgamate itself with the manners of this country — It is the most un- generous and insulting suspicion, reduced into the most unmanly and despotic practice. {( Let barbarous nations whose inhuman love Is wild desire, fierce as the suns they feel ; Let Eastern tyrants, from the light ot heaven BROWNE V. BLAKE, 157 Seclude (heir bosom slaves, meanly possessed Of a mere lifeless violated form — While those whom love cements in holy faith, And equal transport, free as nature live, Disdaining fear." But once establish the principle of this moral and do- mestic censorship, and then tell me where is it to begin ? Where is it to end ? Who shall bound ? Who shall pre- face it ? By what hitherto undiscoverahle standard, shall we regulate the shades between solemnity and levity? Will you permit this impudent espionage upon your households ; upon the hallowed privacy of your domestic hours ; and for what purpose ? Why, that the seducer and the adulterer may calculate the security of his cold- blooded libertinism!— that he may steal like an assassin upon your hours of relaxation, and convert perhaps your confidence into the instrument of your ruin ! If this be once permitted as a ground of justification, we may bid farewell at once to all the delightful intercourse of social life. Spurning as I do at this odious system of organized distrust, suppose the admission made, that my client was careless, indiscreet, culpable, if they will, in his do- mestic regulations, is it therefore to be endured, that every abandoned burglar should seduce his wife, or vio- late his daughter? Is it to be endured, that Mr. Blake of all men should rely on such an infamous and conveni- ent extenuation ! He — his friend, his guest, his confi- dant, he who introduced a spotless sister to this attainted intimacy; shall he say, I associated with you hourly, I affected your familiarity for many years. I accompanied my domesticated minister of religion to your family; I almost naturalized the nearest female relative I had on earth, unsullied and unmarried as she was within your household: but — you fool — it was only to turn it into a brothel ! [ Merciful Gt)d, will you endure him when he tells you thus, that he is on the watch to prowl upon the weakness of humanity,- and audaciously solicits your charter for such libertinism. 1 have heard it asserted also, that they mean to ar- raign the husband as a conspirator, because in the hour of confidence and misfortune he accepted a proffered pe- cuniary assistance from the man he thought his friend. U is true he did so ; but so^ I will say, criminally care^ 3 58 3l*EECH IN THE CASE OF ful was he of his interests that he gave him his bond, and made him enter up judgment on that bond, and made him issue an execution on that judgment, ready to be levied in a day, that in the wreck of all, the friend of his bosom should be at least indemnified. Ft was my impression indeed, that under a lease of this nature, amongst honourable men, so far fro many unwarrantable privilege created, there was rather a peculiar delicacy incumbent on the donor. I should have thought so still, but for a frightful expression of one of the Counsel on the motion, by which they endeavoured not to trust a Dublin Jury with this issue. — What, exclaimed they, in all the pride of their execrable instructions, "poor plaintiff and a rich defendant ! Is there nothing in that?" Go, if my client's shape does not belie his species, there is nothing in that. I braved the assertion as a calumny on human nature — I call on you, if such an allegation be repeated, to visit it with vindictive and overwhelming damages ? I would appeal, not to this civilized assembly, hut to a horde of savages, whether it is possible for the most inhuman monster thus to sacrifice in infamy, his character— his wife —his home— his children! In the name of possibility I deny it; in the name of humanity, I denounce it ; in the name of our common country, and our common nature, I implore of the Learned Counsel nit to promulgate such a slander upon both— hut I need not do so ; if the seal of advocacy should induce them to the attempt, memory would array their happy homes before them— their little children would lisp its contra- diction — their love — their hearts — their instructive feel- ings as fathers and as husbands, would rebel within them, and wither up the horrid blasphemy upon their lips. They will find it difficult to palliate such turpitude — I am sure I find it difficult to aggravate. — It is in itself a hyperbole of wickedness. Honour, innocence, religion, friendship — all that is sanctified or lovely, or endearing in creation.— Even that hallowed, social, shall I not say indigenous virtue— that blessed hospitality — which foreign envy could not deny, or foreign robbery despoil which, when all else had perished, cast a bloom on our desolation, flinging its rich foliage over the national ruin, as if to hide the monument, while it gave a shelter BROWNE V. BIAKB. 159 to tho mourner — even that withered away before that pestilence ! But what do I say ! was virtue merely tho victim of this adulterer? Worse, worse — it was his in- strument — even on the broken tablet of the decalogue did he whet the dagger for his social assassination — What will you say, when 1 inform you, that a few months before, he went deliberately to the baptismal font with the waters of life to degenerate the infant that, too well could he avouch it, had been born in sin, and he pro- mised to teach it Christianity ! And he promised to guard it againt « the flesh !" And lest infinite mercy should overlook the sins of its adulterous father, seeking to make his God his pander, he tried to damn it even with the Sacrament! ! — See then the horrible atrocity of this case as it touches the defendant — but how can you count its miseries as attaching to the plaintiff! He has suffered a pang the most agonizing to human sensibility — it has been inflicted by his friend, and inflicted beneath his roof — it commences at a period winch casts a doubt on the legitimacy of his children, and to crown all, "upon him a son is born" even since the separation, upon whom every shilling of his estates has entailed by settlement? What compensation can reprise so unpa- ralleled a sufferer ! What solitary consolation is there in reserve for him ! Is it love? Alas there was one whom he adored with all the heart's idolatry, and she deserted him. Is it friendship ? There was one of all the world whom he trusted, and that one betrayed him. Is it so- ciety ? The smile of others' happiness appears but the epitaph of his own. Is it solitude? Can ho be alone while memory, striking on the sepulchre of his heart, calls into existence the spectres of the past. Shall he fly for refuge to his "sacred home !" Every object there is eloquent of his ruin ! Shall he seek a mournful solace in his children ? Oh, he has no children there is the little favourite that she nursed, and there — there — even on its guileless features — there is the horrid smile of the adul- terer! ! Gentlemen, am I this day only the Counsel of my client! no — no — I am the advocate of humanity — of yourselves — your homes — your wives— your families — - your little children ; I am glad that this case exhibits such atrocity; unmarked as it is by any mitigatory fea- 260 SPEECH IN THE CASE Of lure, it may stop the frightful advance of this calamity 5 it will be met now and marked with vengance ; if it be not, farewell to the virtues of your country ; farewell to all confidence between man and man ; farewell to that unsuspicious and reciprocal tenderness, without which marriage is but a consecrated curse ; if oaths are to be violated ; laws disregarded ; friendship betrayed ; hu- manity trampled ; national and individual honour stain- ed ; and that a jury of fathers, and of husbands will give such miscreancy a passport to their homes, and wives and daughters ; farewell to all that yet remains of Ireland ! But I will not cast such a doubt upon the cha- racter of my country. Against the sneer of the foe, and the scepticism of the foreigner, I will still point to the domestic virtues, that no perfidy could barter, and no liberty can purchase, that with a Roman usage, at once embellish and consecrate households, giving to the society of the hearth all the purity of the altar; that lingering alike in the palace and the cottage, are still to be found scattered over this land ; the relic of what she was ; the source perhaps of what she may be ; the lone, and stately, and magnificent memorials, that rearing their majesty amid surrounding ruins, serve at once as the land marks of the departed glory, and models by which the future may be erected. Preserve those virtues with a vestal fidelity; mark this day, by your verdict, your horror at their profana- tion, and believe me, when the hand which records that verdict shall be dust, and the tongue that asks it, trace- less in the grave, many a happy home will bless its con- sequences, and many a mother teacli her little child to lhate the impious treason of adultery. IP Q IS © IS DELIVERED BY MR. PHILLIPS, in €fie »»k for competence to the labors of a profession. Unhappily for him ho chose the army — I say unhappily, because, inspiring bim with a soldier's chivalry, it created a too generous cre- dulity in the soldier's honor. In the year 1811 he was quartered with his regiment in the island of Jersey, and there he met Miss Precdone, the sister in law of a bro- ther officer, a major Mitchell, of the artillery, and married her— she was of the age of fifteen — he of four and twenty : never was there an union of more disinte- rested attachment. She had no fortune, and he very lit- tle, independent of his profession. Gladly, gentlemen, could I pause here— gladly would I turn from what Mrs. Fitzgerald is, to what she then was ; but I will not throw a mournful interest around her, for well I know, thai; in despite of all her errors, there is one amongst us, who, in his sorrow's solitude, for many a future, year of misery, will turn to that darling though delusive vi- sion, till his tears shut out the universe. He told me in- deed that she was lovely — but the light that gave the gem its brilliancy has vanished. Genuine loveliness consists in virtue— all else is fleeting and perfidious — it is as the orient dawn that ushers in the tempest it is as the green and flowery turf, beneath which the earthquake slumbers. In a few months my client introduced her to his family, and here beneath the roof of his sister, Mrs. Kirwan, for some years they lived most happily. You shall hear, as well from the inmates as from the habitual visitors, that there never was a fonder, a more doating husband, and that the affection appeared to be reciprocal. Four infant babes, the wretched orphans of their living parents — doubly orphaned by a father's sorrows, and a mother's shame—looked up to them for protection. Poor little innocent unheeding children, alas ! they dream not that a world's scorn shall be their inheritance, and misery 164 SPEECH IN THE CASE OE their handmaid from the cradle. As this family increas- ed, a separate establishment was considered necessary, and to a most romantic little cottage on the estate of his brother, and the gift of his friendship, Mr. Fitzgerald finally removed his household. Here, gentlemen, in this sequestered residence, blest with the woman whom he loAed, the children he adored, with a sister's society, a brother's counsel, and a charac- ter that turned acquaintance into friendship, he f njnyed delights of which humanity I fear is not allowed a per- manence. The human mind perhaps cannot imagine a lot of purer or more perfect happiness. It was a scene on which ambition in its laureled hour might look with envy ; compared with which the vulgar glories of the world are vanity — a spot of such serene and hallowed solitude, that the heart must have been stormy and the spirit turbid, which its charmed silence did not soothe into contentment. Yet, even there, hell's emissary en- tered — \t>t even hence the present god was banished — its streams were poisoned, and its paths laid desolate — and its blosoms, blooming with celestial life, were withered into garlands, for the 'empter ! How shall I describe the hero' of this triumph? Is there a language that has words ot fire to parch whate'er they light 01. ? is there a phrase so potently calamitous that its kindness freezes and its blessings curse ? But no — if you must see him, go to my poor client, upon whose breaking heart he crouches like a demon : go to his dead father's sepul- cbr« the troubled spirit of that earthly fi iend will slunk his maledictory description—go to the orphan in- fant's cradle, without a mother's toot to rock, or sire's arm to shield it — its wordless cries will pierce you with bis rharacte! — or, hear from me the poor and impotent narration of his practices — hear how as a friend he mur- dered confidence — how as a guest he violated hospitality; how as a soldier t»e embraced pollution; how as a man he rushed to the perpetration, not merely of a lawless, hut an unnatural enjoyment, over e>ery human bliss, and boly sacrament, and then say whether it is in mortal tongue to epitomize those practices into a characteristic eipithet ! He is, you know, gentlemen, an officer of dra- goons, and about twenty years ago was in that capacity quartered, in this county. His own manners, imposing: TITZGETIAXD V. KF.Iitt. 165 beyond description, and the habitual hospitality of Ire- land to the military, rendered his society universally so- licited. He was in every house, and welcomed every where— nor was there any board more bountifully spread for him, or any courtsey more warmly extended, than that which he received from the family at Oaklands. Old Mr. Fitzgerald was then master of its hereditary man- sion, his eldest son just verging upon manhood, and my client but a school boy. The acquaintance gradually grew into intimacy, the intimacy ripened into friendship, and the day that saw the regiment depart, was to his generous host a day of grief and tribulation. Year after year of separation followed. Captain Kerr escaped the vi' issitudes of climate and the fate of warfare— and when after a tedious interval the chances of service sent him back to Mayo, he found that time had not been indolent His ancient friend was in a better world, his old acquain- tance in his father's place, and the shoolboy Charles an husband and a parent in the little cottage of which you have beard already. A family affliction had estranged Col. Fitzgerald from bis paternal residence—It was by mere chance, while attending the assizes duty, he re- cognized in one of the officers of the garrison the friend with who