tion; so that really I am surprised how gentlemen could be betrayed into positions so utterly without foundation.

They would have acted just as usefully for their clients, if they had admitted, what every man knows to be the fact, that is, that they durst not bring the charge before an Irish jury. The facts of that period were too well understood. The Irish public might have looked at such a prosecution with the most incredulous detestation; and if they had been so indiscreet as to run the risk of coming before an Irish jury, instead of refuting the charges against them as a calumny, they would have exposed themselves to the peril of establishing the accusation, and of raising the character of the man whom they had the heart to destroy, because he had dared to censure them.

Let not the learned gentlemen, I pray, suppose me so ungracious as to say, that this publication, which has given so much pain to their clients, is actually true; I cannot personally know it to be so, nor do I say so, nor is this the place or the occasion to say that it is so. I mean only to speak positively to the question before you, which is matter of law. But as the gentlemen themselves thought it meet to pronounce an eulogy on their clients, I thought it rather unseemly not to show that I attended to them; I have most respectfully done so; I do not contradict any praise of their virtues or their wisdom, and I only wish to add my very humble commendation of their prudence and discretion, in not bringing the trial of the present libel before a jury of this country.

The learned counsel have not been contented with abusing this libel as a production perfectly known to them, but they have wandered into the regions of fancy. No doubt the other judges, to whom those pathetic flights of forensic sensibility were addressed, must have been strongly affected by them. The learned gentlemen have supposed a variety of possible cases. They have supposed cases of the foulest calumniators aspersing the most virtuous ministers. Whether such supposed cases have been suggested by fancy or by fact, is not for me to decide; but I beg leave to say, that it is as allowable to us as to them to put cases of supposition :

"Cur ego si fingere pauca Possum, invidear?"

Let me, then, my lords, put an imaginary case of a different kind: let me suppose that a great personage, entrusted with the safety of the citadel (meaning and wishing perhaps well, but misled by those lacquered vermin that swarm in every great hall), leaves it so loosely guarded, that nothing but the gracious interposition of Providence has saved it from the enemy. Let me suppose another great personage, going out of his natural department, and under the supposed authority of high station, disseminating such doctrines as tend to root up the foundation of society, to destroy all confidence between man and man, and to impress the great body of the people with a delusive and desperate opinion, that their religion could dissolve or condemn the sacred obligations that bind them to their country, that their rulers have no reliance upon their faith, and are resolved to shut the gates of mercy against them.

:

Suppose a good and virtuous man saw that such doctrines must necessarily torture the nation into such madness and despair, as to render them unfit for any system of mild or moderate government that if on one side bigotry or folly shall inject their veins with fire, such a fever must be kindled, as can be allayed only by keeping a stream of blood perpetually running from the other; and that the horrors of martial law must become the direful but inevitable consequence. In such a case, let me ask you, what would be his indispensable duty? It would be, to avert such dreadful dangers, by exposing the conduct of such persons, by holding up the folly of such bigoted and blind enthusiasm to condign derision and contempt; and painfully would he feel that on such an occasion he must dismiss all forms and ceremonies; and that to do his duty with effect, he must do it without mercy. He should also foresee, that a person so acting, when he returned to those to whom he was responsible, would endeavour to justify himself by defaming the country which he had abused, for calumny is the natural defence of the oppressor: he should therefore so reduce his personal credit to its just standard, that his assertions might find no more belief than they deserved.

Were such a person to be looked on as a mere private individual, charity and good-nature might suggest not a little in his excuse. An inexperienced man, new to the world, and in the honeymoon of preferment, would run no small risk of having his head turned

in Ireland. The people in our island are by nature penetrating, sagacious, artful, and comic, "natio comæda est." In no country under heaven would an ass be more likely to be hood-winked, by having his ears drawn over his eyes, and acquire that fantastical alacrity that makes dullness disposable to the purposes of humourous malice, or interested imposture.

In Ireland, a new great man could get the freedom of a science as easily as of a corporation, and become a doctor, by construction, of the whole Encyclopædia; and great allowance might be made under such circumstances for indiscretions and mistakes, as long as they related only to himself; but the moment they become public mischiefs, they lose all pretensions to excuse; the very ambition of incapacity is a crime not to be forgiven; and however painful it may be to inflict punishment, it must be remembered, that mercy to the delinquent would be treason to the public.

I can the more easily understand the painfulness of the conflict between charity and duty, because at this moment I am labouring under it myself; and I feel it the more acutely, because I am confident, that the paroxysms of passion that have produced these public discussions have been bitterly repented of. I think, also, that I should not act fairly if I did not acquit my learned opponents of all share whatsoever in this prosecution; they have too much good sense to have advised it; on the contrary, I can easily suppose Mr. Attorney-General sent for to give counsel and comfort to his patient; and after hearing no very concise detail of his griefs, his resentments, and his misgivings, methinks I hear the answer that he gives, after a pause of sympathy and reflection: "No, sir, do not proceed in such a business; you will only expose yourself to scorn in one country, and to detestation in the other. You know you durst not try him here, where the whole kingdom would be his witness. If you should attempt to try him there, where he can have no witness, you will have both countries upon your back. An English jury would never find him guilty. You will only confirm the charge against yourself, and be the victim of an impotent abortive malice. If you should have any ulterior project against him, you will defeat that also; for they who might otherwise concur in the design, will be shocked and ashamed of the violence and folly of such a tyrannical proceeding, and will make a merit of protecting him, and of leaving you in the

lurch. What you say of your own feelings, I can easily conceive. You think you have been much exposed by those letters; but then remember, my dear sir, that a man can claim the privilege of being made ridiculous or hateful by no publication but his own. Vindictive critics have their rights, as well as bad authors. The thing is bad enough at best; but, if you go on, you will make it worse. It will be considered an attempt to degrade the

Irish bench and the Irish bar. You are not aware what a nest of hornets you are disturbing. One inevitable consequence you do not foresee you will certainly create the very thing in Ireland that you are so afraid of-a newspaper. Think of that, and keep yourself quiet. And, in the meantime, console yourself with reflecting, that no man is laughed at for a long time; every day will procure some new ridicule that must supersede him."

Such, I am satisfied, was the counsel given; but I have no apprehension for my client, because it was not taken.

Even if it should be his fate to be surrendered to his keepersto be torn from his family-to have his obsequies performed by torch-light-to be carried to a foreign land, and to a strange tribunal, where no witness can attest his innocence-where no voice that he ever heard can be raised in his defence-where he must stand mute, not of his own malice, but the malice of his enemies—yes, even so, I see nothing for him to fear. That allgracious Being that shields the feeble from the oppressor will fill his heart with hope, and confidence, and courage: his sufferings will be his armour, and his weakness will be his strength. He will find himself in the hands of a brave, a just, and a generous nation; he will find that the bright examples of her Russells and her Sidneys have not been lost to her children. They will behold him with sympathy and respect, and his persecutors with shame and abhorrence. They will feel, too, that what is then his situation, may to-morrow be their own; but their first tear will be shed for him, and the second only for themselves—their hearts will melt in his acquittal. They will convey him kindly and fondly to their shore; and he will return in triumph to his country-to the threshold of his sacred home-and to the weeping welcome of his delighted family. He will find that the darkness of a dreary and lingering night hath at length passed away, and that joy cometh in the morning.

No, my lords, I have no fear for the ultimate safety of my client. Even in these very acts of brutal violence that have been committed against him, do I hail the flattering hope of final advantage to him, and not only of final advantage to him, but of better days and more prosperous fortune for this afflicted country-that country, of which I have so often abandoned all hope, and which I have been so often determined to quit for

ever.

"Sæpe vale dicto multa sum deinde locutas,

Et quasi discedens oscula summa dabam,
Indulgens animo, pes tardus erat."

But I am reclaimed from that infidel despair. I am satisfied that while a man is suffered to live, it is an intimation from Providence that he has some duty to discharge, which it is mean and criminal to decline. Had I been guilty of that ignominious flight, and gone to pine in the obscurity of some distant retreat, even in that grave I should have been haunted by those passions by which my life had been agitated—

"vivis quæ cura

Eadem sequitur tellure repostos."

And if the transactions of this day had reached me, I feel how my heart would have been agonized by the shame of the desertion: nor would my sufferings have been mitigated by a sense of the feebleness of that aid, or the smallness of that service which I could render or withdraw. They would have been aggravated by the consciousness that, however feeble or worthless they were, I should not have dared to thieve them from my country. I have repented-I have stayed-and I am at once rebuked and rewarded by the happier hopes that I now

entertain.

In the anxious sympathy of the public-in the anxious sympathy of my learned brethren-do I catch the happy presage of a brighter fate for Ireland. They see, that within these sacred walls the cause of liberty and of man may be pleaded with boldness and heard with favour. I am satisfied they will never forget the great trust, of which they alone are now the remaining depositories. While they continue to cultivate a sound and literate philosophy-a mild and tolerating Christianity—and to make both the sources of a just, and liberal, and constitutional