jurisprudence, I see everything for us to hope. Into their hands, therefore, with the most affectionate confidence in their virtue, do I commit these precious hopes. Even I may live long enough yet to see the approaching completion, if not the perfect accomplishment of them. Pleased shall I then resign the scene to fitter actors; pleased shall I lay down my wearied head to rest, and say:-"Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.”

William Johnson then followed on the same side, and Prime-Sergeant Browne on the opposite.

On the 7th of February, the judgment of the Court was given against the release, Baron Smith dissenting in a very constitutional and eloquent, but rather showy, speech.

Mr. James Fitzgerald brought the case before the English Commons, on the 8th of February, without effect. On the 27th of May, a bill was brought into the English Commons, to amend the act of the former year, and enabling parties arrested to give bail, and granting subpoenas for witnesses in Ireland. When this bill reached the Lords, Johnson petitioned against it, and was heard by counsel; but it passed.

Pursuant to the decision of the Irish Courts, Judge Johnson was, therefore, removed to England; and having there pleaded specially to the indictment, the non-jurisdiction of the Court under the act, the Crown demurred, and on the 20th of June, 1805, the plea was argued by Richardson for, and Abbott against, the prisoner, and on the 1st of July his plea was quashed.

On the 23rd of November, 1805, the trial took place before the full Court of King's Bench, in Westminster, and a special jury. Erskine, Garrow, &c., were with the law officers of the Crown. Cobbett swore to the documents, and four Irish officials swore that they were in Johnson's writing. After an argument on non-proof of publication in Middlesex, Mr. Adams spoke for the defence, and called Sir Henry Jebb, Dr. Hodgkinson (S.F.T.C.D.), Mr. Archdall, Mr. John Gifford, and Mr. Cassidy, to prove the handwriting not Judge Johnson's. After a quarter of an hour's deliberation, the jury found a verdict of GUILTY. A nolle prosequi was entered on this by the Whig Government in Trinity Term, 1806, and Johnson retired upon his pension.

He then went to live in Paris, and there, under the name of "Colonel Philip Roche Fermoy," published his "Commentary on the Memoirs of Wolfe Tone." This pamphlet went much into the military resources of Ireland, and caused some excitement. It is a very fierce, but not a profound military tract. It is said that he printed a second part, which he sent to a relative in Ireland, who burned the whole impression.

MARY POWER, in 1804, made her will, bequeathing a considerable part of her property to the Rev. John Power, and others, in trust for charitable purposes. Her brother, Joseph Merry, a merchant in Spain, was her next of kin, and residuary legatee; he died intestate, and his son, the now plaintiff, came over and took out administration to his deceased father, and brought a suit in the Spiritual Court, to set aside the will, as unduly obtained, and as disposing of a large property to Papists and for superstitious uses.

In that court the plaintiff applied for an administrator, pendente lite, and was refused.

The present bill, praying that the effects might be brought into court, was filed only a few weeks; and now, before the defendant had answered, a motion was made by Dr. Vavasour, for a receiver, and that Dr. Power, the acting executor, should be ordered forthwith to bring the effects into court; he relied on the affidavit of his client, the plaintiff, charging that the will was obtained by fraud by the defendant, Power, and that at best it could not be sustained, as being a trust altogether for "Popish uses." The motion was opposed by Mr. Prendergast, who strongly argued against the imputations thrown out upon the conduct of Dr. Power, by the name of "one John Power, a Popish Priest.” He insisted, that under the whole circumstances, there was no colour for impeaching the transaction; that the bequests were most praiseworthy; that there had already been a decree of this court, obtained by the trustees of charitable donations, affirming the legality of the trusts; and that it would be unprece dented for a court to interfere in this way, before an answer came in, and without delay or resistance on the part of the defendant to put in his answer. His Honour the Master of the Rolls (Mr Curran) said :—

If the question had been brought forward upon the mere rule of the court, I should not have thought it necessary to give many reasons for the order I intend to make: but pressed so strongly as it has been, both by the arguments themselves, and perhaps more so by the style and manner of putting them, as well as the supposed policy which has been called in to aid them, I think I ought to state the grounds upon which I mean to act in my deci

sion.

First, then, it is urged, that this is the case of an insolvent and wasting executor having fraudulently obtained the will. As to insolvency, to be an executor it is not necessary to be rich; integrity and discretion are the essential qualities of an executor.

If the testator thinks he has found these in an executor of humble means, this court has no power to control him. He may bestow his property as a gift to whom he pleases; it would be strange if he could not confide it as a trust to whom he chooses. I know of no necessary connexion between wealth and honesty. I fear that integrity is not always found to be the parent or offspring of riches. To interfere, therefore, as is now sought, with this executor, would be little short of removing the will.

But it is said this will has been obtained by fraud, practised by this "one John Power." No doubt this court has acted, where strong ground of suspicion of fraud, and danger of the property being made away with, have appeared; but do these grounds now appear to this court?

Here his Honour recapitulated the facts sworn to, and continued:

I see no semblance of fact to sustain such a charge. Who does this "one John Power, a Popish Priest," turn out to be? I find he is a Catholic clergyman, a doctor in divinity, and the titular bishop in the diocese of Waterford. And yet I am now pressed to believe that this gentleman has obtained this will by fraud.

Every fact now appearing repels the charge; I cannot but say, that the personal character of the person accused repels it still more strongly.

Can I be brought, on grounds like those now before me, to believe that a man, having the education of a scholar, the habits of a religions life, and vested with so high a character in the ministry of the gospel, could be capable of so detestable a profanation as is flung upon him? Can I forget that he is a Christian bishop, clothed not in the mere authority of a sect, but clothed in the indelible character of the episcopal order, suffering no diminution from his supposed heterodoxy, nor drawing any increase or confirmation from the merits of his conformity, should he think proper to renounce what we call the errors of faith? Can I bring my mind, on slight, or rather on no grounds, to believe, that he could so trample under his feet all the impressions of that education, of those habits, and of that high rank in the sacred ministry of the gospel, which he holds, as to sink to the odious impiety imputed to him? Can I bring myself to believe such a man, at the dying bed of his fellow

creature, would be capable with one hand of presenting the cross before her lifted eye, and with the other, of basely thieving from her those miserable dregs of this world, of which his perfidious tongue was employed in teaching her a Christian's estimate? I do not believe it; on the contrary, I am (as far as it belongs to me, in this interlocutory way, to judge of the fact) as perfectly convinced that the conduct of Dr. Power was what it ought to be, as I am that the testatrix is dead.

But I am called on to interfere, it being a foolish bequest to superstitious and Popish uses! I have looked into those bequests: I find the object of them is to provide shelter and comfortable support for poor helpless females; and clothes, and food, and instruction, for poor orphan children. Would to God I could see more frequent instances of such bequests! Beautiful in the sight of God must it be, beautiful in the sight of man ought it be, to see the dying Christian so employed, to see the last moments of human life so spent in acts of gratuitous benevolence, or even of interested expiation. How can we behold such acts, without regarding them as forming a claim to, as springing from a consciousness of, immortality? In all ages the hour of death has been considered as an interval of more than ordinary illumination; as if some rays from the light of the approaching world had found their way to the darkness of the parting spirit, and revealed to it an existence that could not terminate in the grave, but was to commence in death.

But these uses are condemned, as being not only superstitious but Popish uses. As to that, I must say that I feel no disposition to give any assistance even to the orthodox rapine of the living, in defeating even the heterodox charity of the dead. I am aware that this objection means somewhat more than directly meets the ear, if it means any thing. The object of these bequests, it seems, are Catholics, or, as they have been called, Papists; and the insinuation clearly is, that the religion of the objects of this woman's bounty calls upon me to exercise some peculiar rigour of interference to abridge or defeat her intentions.

Upon this point I wish to be distinctly understood: I don't conceive this to be the spirit of our existing law; nor, of course, the duty of this court to act upon that principle in the way contended for. In times, thank God, now past, the laws would

have warranted such doctrines. Those laws owed their existence to unfortunate combinations of circumstances that were thought to render them necessary. But if we look back with sorrow to their enactment, let us look forward with kindness and gratitude to their repeal. Produced by national calamity, they were brought by national benevolence, as well as by national contrition, to the altar of public justice and concord, and there offered as a sacrifice to atone, to heal, to conciliate, to restore social confidence, and to give us that hope of prosperity and safety, which no people ever had, or observed, or dared to have, except where it is founded on the community of interests, a perfectly even and equal participation of just rights, and a consequent contribution of all the strength of all the parts so equally interested in the defence of the whole.

I know they have been supposed to originate in religious bigotry, that is, religious zeal carried to excess. I never thought so. The real spirit of our holy religion is too incorruptibly pure and beneficent to be depraved into any such excess. Analyze the bigot's object, and we see he takes nothing from religion but a flimsy pretext in the profanation of its name. He professes the correction of error and the propagation of truth. But when he has gained the victory, what are the terms he makes for himself?power and profit. What terms does he make for religion?-profession and conformity. What is that profession? The mere utterance of the lips, the utterance of sounds, that after a pulsation or two upon the air, are just as visible and lasting as they are audible. What is the conformity? Is it the practice of any social virtue or Christian duty? It is the forgiveness of injuries, or the payment of debts, or the practice of charity? No such thing. It is the performance of some bodily gesture or attitude. It is going to some place of worship. It is to stand or to kneel, or to bow to the poor-box. But it is not a conformity that has any thing to do with the judgment, or the heart, or the conduct. All these things bigotry meddles not with, but leaves them to religion herself to perform.

Bigotry only adds one more, and that a very odious one, to the number of those human stains which it is the business of true religion not to burn out with the bigot's fire, but to expunge and wash away by the Christian's tears.