Page images
PDF
EPUB

oft anticipated return-oh, if there be one amongst you, to whom those recollections are dear, to whom those hopes are preciouslet 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 assaulted this poor girl-if he had attempted by force what he has achieved by fraud, his life would have been the forfeit; 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 treated according to interest or caprice; and that wealth is at once a patent for crime, and an exemption from its consequences. Happily for this land, the day of such opinions has passed over it-the 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 cannot help feeling, that in cases of this kind the poverty of the injured is a dreadful aggravation. 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 abject, how cureless is the despair of his destitution! Believe me, Gentlemen, you have not only a solemn duty to perform, but you have an awful responsibility imposed upon you. You are this day, in some degree, trustees for the morality of the people-perhaps of the whole nation; for, depend upon it, if the sluices of immorality are once opened among the lower orders, the frightful tide, drifting upon its surface all that is dignified or dear, will soon rise even to the habitations of the highest. I feel, Gentlemen, I have discharged my duty-I am sure you will do your's. I repose my client with confidence in your hands; and most fervently do I hope, that when evening shall find you at your happy fire-side, surrounded by the sacred circle of your children, you may not feel the heavy curse gnawing at your heart, of having let loose, unpunished, the prowler that may devour them.

SPEECH OF MR. PHILLIPS

IN THE CASE OF

CREIGHTON v. TOWNSEND,

DELIVERED IN THE COURT OF COMMON PLEAS, DUBLIN

My Lord and Gentlemen,

I AM with my learned brethren counsel for the plaintiff. My friend Mr. Curran has told you the nature of the action. It has fallen to my lot to state more at large to you the aggression by which it has been occasioned. Believe me it is with no paltry affectation of undervaluing my very humble powers that I wish he had selected some more experienced, or at least less credulous advocate. I feel I cannot do my duty; I am not fit to address you; I have incapacitated myself; I know not whether any of the calumnies which have so industriously anticipated this trial, have reached your ears; but I do confess they did so wound and poison mine, that to satisfy my doubts I visited the house of misery and mourning, and the scene which set scepticism at rest, has set description at defiance. Had I not yielded to those interested misrepresentations, I might from my brief have sketched the fact, and from my fancy drawn the consequences; but as it is, reality rushes before my frighted memory, and silences the tongue and mocks the imagination. Believe me, Gentlemen, you are impannelled there upon no ordinary occasion; nominally, indeed, you are to repair a private wrong, and it is a wrong as deadly as human wickedness can inflict-as human weakness can endure; a wrong which annihilates the hope of the parent and the happiness of the child; which in one moment blights the fondest anticipations of the heart, and darkens the social hearth, and worse than depopulates the habitations of the happy! 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 ex

ample of such transcendant turpitude is to stalk forth for 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 be 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 plaintiff, Mr. Creighton, commenced business as a slate merchant in the city of Dublin. His vocation was humble, it is true, but it was nevertheless honest; and though, unlike his opponent, the heights of ambition lay not before 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 honourably he selected a companion, whose beauty blessed his bed, and whose virtues consecrated his dwelling. Eleven lovely children blessed their union, the darlings of their heart, the delight of their evenings, and as they blindly anticipated, the prop and solace of their approaching age. Oh! SACRED WEDDED LOVE! how dear! how delightful! how divine are thy enjoyments! Contentment crowns thy board, affection glads thy fireside; passion, chaste but ardent, modest but intense, sighs o'er thy couch, the atmosphere of paradise! Surely, surely, if this consecrated rite 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, Gentlemen, it has that interest here. That capricious power which often dignifies the worthless hypocrite, as often wounds the industrious and the honest. The late ruinous contest, having in its career confounded all the proportions of society, and with its last gasp sighed famine and misfortune on the world, has cast my industrious 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 in vader even of his misery-the seducer of his sacred and unspotted innocence. Mysterious Providence! was it not enough that sorrow robed the happy home in mourning-was it not enough that disappointment preyed upon its loveliest prospects-was it not enough that its little inmates cried in vain for bread, and heard no answer but the poor father's sigh, and drank no sustenance but the wretched mother's tears? Was this a time for passion, lawless, conscienceless, licentious 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 requital it deserves, Gentlemen, you must prove to mankind.

He is of

The defendant's name I understand is TOWNSEND. 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 advantages with which he appears before you fearful advantages, 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 lofty impulse of his profession was despised—and that all that could grace, or animate, or ennoble, was used to his own discredit and his fellowcreature's misery.

It was upon the first of June last, that on the banks of the canal, near Portobello, Lieutenant Townsend first met the daughter of Mr. Creighton, a pretty, interesting girl, scarcely sixteen years of age. She was accompanied by her little sister, only four years old, with whom she was permitted to take a daily walk in that retired spot, the vicinity of her residence. The defendant was attracted by her appearance-he left his party, and attempted to converse with her; she repelled his advances-he immediately seized her infant sister by e hand, whom he held as a kind of hostage for an introduction to his victim. A pre

possessing appearance, a modesty of deportment apparently quite incompatible with any evil design, gradually silenced her alarm, and she answered the common-place questions with which, on her way home, he addressed her. Gentlemen, I admit it was an innocent imprudence; the rigid rules of matured morality should have repelled such communication; yet, perhaps, judging even by that strict standard, you will rather condemn the familiarity of the intrusion in a designing adult, than the facility of access in a creature of her age and her innocence. They thus separated, as she naturally supposed, to meet no more. Not such, however, was the determination of her destroyer. From that hour until her ruin, he scarcely ever lost sight of her-he followed her as a shadow-he way-laid her in her walks-he interrupted her in her avocations-he haunted the street of her residence; if she refused to meet him, he paraded before her window at the hazard of exposing her first comparatively innocent imprudence to her unconscious parents. How happy would it have been had she conquered the timidity so natural to her age, and appealed at once to their pardon and their protection! Gentlemen, this daily persecution continued for three months-for three successive months, by every art, by every persuasion, by every appeal to her vanity and her passions, did he toil for the destruction of this unfortunate young creature. I leave you to guess how many during that interval might have yielded to the blandishments of manner, the fascinations of youth, the rarely resisted temptations of opportunity. For three long months she did resist them. She would have resisted them for ever, but for an expedient which is without a model-but for an exploit which 1 trust in God will be without an imitation. Oh, yes, he might have returned to his country, and did he but reflect, he would rather have rejoiced at the virtuous triumph of his victim, than mourn his own soul-redeeming defeat; he might have returned to his country, and told the cold-blooded libellers of this land that their speculations upon Irish chastity were prejudiced and proofless; that in the wreck of all else we had retained our honour; that though the national luminary had descended for a season, the streaks of its loveliness still lingered on our horizon; that the nurse of that genius, which abroad had redeemed the name, and dignified the nature of man, was to be found at home in the spirit without a stain, and the purity without a suspicion. He

« PreviousContinue »