dag -P&5-/6 9 Book ■ i 'tS4» THE CHARLES PHILLIPS, ESQUIRE, DELIVERED AT THE BAR AND ON VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASIONS, in IRELAND AND ENGLAND. EDITED BY HIMSELF. TO WHICH ARE ADDED, SEYEUAL SPEECHES, NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED IN AMERICA : TOGETHER WITH AST CONTAINING THE LAST SPEECH OF ROBERT EMMETT, SARATOGA SPRINGS: . PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY G. M. DAVISON. 1820, ISM THE FOLLOWING SPEECHES ARE, BY PERMISSION DEDICATED TO WZ&&1&M ROSSOS* TVI1H THE MOST SINCERE RESPECT AND AFFECTION OE THEIR V AUTHOR- CONTEXTS. Page Preface • • • 7 Speech delivered at a public dinner given to Mr. Finlay by the Roman catholics of the town and county of Sligo ... 17 Speech delivered at an aggregate meeting of the Roman ca- tholics of Cork 33 Speech delivered at a dinner given on Dinas Island, in the Lake of Killarney, on Mr. Phillips' health being given, to- gether witj^that of Mr. Payne, a young American 49 Speech delivered at an aggregate meeting of the Roman ca- tholics of the county and city of Dublin 56 Petition referred to in the preceding speech, drawn by Mr. Phillips at the request of the Roman catholics of Ireland 78 The address to H. R. H. the princess of Wales, drawn by Mr. Phillips at the request of the Roman catholics of Ire- land 81 Speech delivered by Mr. Phillips at a public dinner given to him by the friends of civil and reRgious liberty in Liverpool 83 Speech of Mr. Phillips in the case of Guthrie v. Sterne, delivered in the court of common pleas, Dublin 97 Speech of Mr. Phillips in the case of O'Mullan v. M'Korkill, delivered at the county court-house, Galway 121 Speech in the case of Connaughton v. Dillon, delivered in the county court-house of Roscommon 145 VI CONTENTS. Page Speech of Mr. Phillips in the case of Creighton v. Townsend, delivered in the court of common pleas, Dublin 160 Speech in the case of Blake v. Wilkins, delivered in the county court-house, Galway 176 A character of Napoleon Buonaparte, down to the period of his exile to Elba 195 Speech in the case of Brown v. Blake 200 Speech in the case of Fitzgerald v. Kerr 221 Address of Mr. Phillips to the electors of the county of Sligo, on declining the poll 241 Speech of Mr. Phillips at a public dinner given to Ge- neral Devereux, at Dublin 250 Speech of Mr. Phillips, delivered at Cheltenham, (England) at the fourth anniversary of the Gloucester Missiona- ry Society ^ • •« • • • 254 Speech of Mr. Phillip?, delivered before the British and Foreign Auxiliary Bible Society 260 Appendix 268 PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. (BY JOHN FINLAY, ESQ.) The speeches of Phillips are now, for the first time, offered to the world in an authentic form, So far as his exertions have been hitherto develop- ed, his admirers, and they are innumerable, must admit, that the text of this volume, is an acknowl- edged reference, to which future criticism may fairly resort, and from which his friends must de- duce any title which the speaker may have created to the character of an orator. The interests of his reputation impose no ne- cessity of denying many of those imperfections tvhicH have been imputed to these productions. The value of all human exertion is comparative ; and positive excellence is but a nattering de- signation, 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 Vlll PREFACE. avoiding all possible exertion. The very fastidi- ous, and the very uncharitable, may too often be met with in the class of the indolent ; and the man of talent is generally most liberal in his censure r whose industry has given him least title to praise. Thus defects and detraction are as the spots and shadow which of necessity adhere and attach to every object of honourable toil. Were it possible for the friends of Mr. Phillips to select those de- fects which could fill up the measure of unavoid- able imperfection, and at the same time inflict least injury on his reputation, doubtless they would prefer the blemishes and errors natural to youth, consonant to genius, and consistent with an obvious and ready correction. To this description, we apprehend, may be reduced all the errprs that have been imputed through a system of wide- spread and unwearied criticism, animated by that envy with which indolence too oft regards the success of industry and talent, and subsidized by power in its struggle to repress the reputa- tion and importance 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 conceal, that his political principles were a drawback on his reputation; and that the dis- praise of these speeches has been a discounta- ble quantity for the promotion of placemen and the procurement of place. This system of depreciation thus powerfully wielded, even to the date of the present publica- tion, failed not in its energy, though it has in its object; nay more, it has succeeded in procuring for him the beneficial results of a multiplying re- action. To borrow the expression of an eminent PREFACE. IX classic, " the rays of their indignation collected upon him, served to illumine, but could not con- sume ;" and doubtless, this hostility may have promoted this fact, that the materials of this vo- lume are at this moment read in all the languages of Europe ; and whatever be the proportion of their merits to their faults, they are unlikely to es- cape the attention of posterity. The independent reader, whom this book may introduce to a first or more correct acquaintance with his eloquence, will therefore be disposed to protect his mind against these illiberal preposses- sions thus actively diffused, on the double consid- eration 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 hear- ing these speeches delivered by the author, will make in his favour another deduction for a dif- ferent reason. The great father of ancient eloquence was ac- customed to say, that action was the first, and se- cond, and last quality of an orator. This was the dictum of a supreme authority ; it was an exagge- ration notwithstanding ; but the observation must contain much truth to permit such exaggera- tion ; and whilst we allow that delivery is not every thing, it will be allowed that it is much of the effect of oratory. Nature has been bountiful to the subject of these remarks in the useful accident of a prepossessing exterior ; an interesting figure, an animated coun- tenance, and a demeanour devoid of affectation, and distinguished by a modest self-possession, give him the favourable opinion of his audience. 2 X PREFACE. even before lie has addressed them. His eager, lively, and sparkling eye melts or kindles in pa- thos or indignation ; his voice, by its compass, sweetness, and variety, ever audible and sel- dom loud, never hurried, inarticulate, or indis- tinct, secures to his audience every word that he utters, and preserves him from the painful ap- pearance of effort. His memory is not less faithful in the convey- ance of his meaning, than his voice : unlike Fox in this respect, he never wants a word ; unlike Bushe, he never pretends to want one ; and unlike Grat- tan, he never either wants or recalls one. His delivery is freed from every thing fantastic — is simple and elegant, impressive and sincere ; and if we add the circumstance of his youth to his other external qualifications, none of his contem- poraries in this vocation can pretend to an equal combination of these accidental advantages. If, then, action be a great part of the effect of oratory, the reader who has not heard him is ex- cluded from that consideration, so important to a right opinion, and on which his excellence is un- questioned. The ablest and severest of all the critics who have assailed him, (we allude, of course, to the Edinburgh Review"), in their criticism on Gulhrie and Sterne, have paid him an involuntary and un- precedented compliment. He is the onlv individu- al in these countries to whom this literary work has devoted an entire article on a single speech ; and when it is recollected that the basis of this criticism was an unauthorized and incorrect pub- lication of a single forensic exertion in the ordina- ry routine of professional business, it is very questionable whether such a publication afford- PREFACE. XI ed a just and proportionate ground-work for so much general criticism, or a fair criterion of the alleged speaker's general merits. This criticism sums up its objections, and concludes its remarks, by the following commending observation — " that a more strict control over his fancy would constitute a remedy 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 imagination, the speaker sinks to the mere dry arguer, the matter-of-fact man, the calculator, or syllogist, or sophist; the dealer in figures; the compiler of facts; the mason, but not the architect of the pile : for the dictate of the im- agination is the inspiration of oratory, which im- parts to matter animation and soul. . Oratory is the great art of persuasion ; its pur- pose is to give, in a particular instance, a certain direction to human action. The faculties of the orator are judgment and imagination : and reason and eloquence, the product of these faculties, must work on the judgment and feelings of his audience for the attainment of his end. The speaker who addresses the judgment alone may be argumenta- tive, but never can be eloquent ; for argument in- structs without interesting, and eloquence interests without conviacing ; but oratory 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 com- Xll PREFACE. bination will vary, of course, in proportion to the number and sagacity of the auditory which the speaker addresses. With judges it is to be hoped that the passions will be weak : with public as- semblies it is to be hoped that reasoning will be strong ; but although the imagination may, in the first case, be unemployed, in the second it cannot be dispensed with ; for if the advocate of virtue avoids to address the feelings of a mixed assembly, 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 wea- pons, and by a species of irrational generosity con- trives to ensure his own defeat in the conflict. To juries and public assemblies alone the following speeches have been addressed ; and it is by as- certaining their effect on these assemblies or ju- ries, that the merit of the exertion should in jus- tice be measured. But there seems a general and prevalent mis- take arnon^ our critics on this judgment. They seem to think that the taste of the individual is the standard by which the value of oratory should be decided. We do not consider oratory a mere matter of taste : it is a given means for the pro- curement of a given end ; and the fitness of its means to the atttainment of its end should be in chief the measure of its merit — of this fitness suc- cess ought to be evidence. The .preacher who can melt his congregation into tears, and excel others in his struggle to convert the superfluities of the opulent into a treasury for the wretched ; — the advocate who procures the largest compensa- tion from juries on their oaths, for injuries which they try ; — the man who, like Mr. Phillips, can be PREFACE. Xlll accused (if ever any man was so accused, except himself) by grave lawyers, and before grave judges, of having procured a verdict from twelve sagacious 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 ignorance, it must be admitted, that he has in some manner stumbled on the shortest way for attaining 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 beyond example successful ; and its success and novelty may be another explana- tion for the hostility that assails. It may be mat- ter of taste, but it certainly would not be matter of judgment or prudence in Mr. Phillips to depart from a course which has proved most successful, and which has procured for him within the last year a larger number of readers through the world than ever in the same time resorted to the productions of any man of these countries. His youth carries with it not only much excuse, but much promise of future improvement; and doubt- less he will not neglect to apply the fruits of study and the lights of experience to each succeeding exertion. But his manner is his own, and every man's own manner is his best manner ; and so long; as it works with this unexampled success, he should be slow to adopt the suggestions of his en- emies, although he should be sedulous in adopting XIV PREFACE. all legitimate improvement. To that very exube- rance of imagination, we do not hesitate to as- cribe much of his success ; whilst, therefore, he consents to control 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 argu- ment, against the strength of his reasoning powers ; for let us strip these speeches of every thing whose derivation could be, by any construction, assigned to his fancy ; let us apply this rule to his judicial and political exertions — for instance, to the speech on Guthrie and Sterne, and the late one to the gentlemen of Liverpool-^-let their topics be translated into plain, dull language, and then we would ask, what collection of topics could be more judicious, better arranged, or classed in a more lucid and consecutive order by the most tiresome 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 defi- ciency of strength in the base, merely because there appears so much splendour in the structure. Unaided by the advantages of fortune or alli- ance, under the frown of political power and the interested detraction of professional jealousy, con- fining the exercise of that talent which he derives from his God to the honour, and succour, and pro- tection of his creatures — this interesting and high- ly-gifted young man runs his course like a giant, prospering and to prosper; — in the court as a flaming sword, leading and lighting the injured to their own ; and in the public assembly exposing / PREFACE, XV her wrongs — exacting her rights — conquering envy -—trampling on corruption — beloved by his coun- try — esteemed by a world — enjoying and deserr- d unex a m p 1 e 1 fa m e — a n d a c live ly emplw ummer of bis I : itheriog bonoors for his name, and garl i grave ! DELIVERED AT A PUBLIC DINNER GIVEN TO MR. FINLAY, BY THE ROMAN CATHOLICS OE THE TOWN AND COUNTY CE SLIGO. I think, sir, you will agree with me, that the most experienced speaker might justly tremble in addressing you after the display you have just witnessed. What, then, must I feel, who never be- fore addressed a public audience ? However, it would be but an unworthy affectation in me were I to conceal from you the emotions 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 sen- sation — here, where every object springs some new association, and the loveliest objects, mellowed as they are by time, rise painted on the eye of mem- ory — here, where the light of heaven first blessed my infant view, and nature breathed into my infant heart that ardour for my country which nothing but death can chill — here, where the scenes of my 3 18 SPEECH childhood remind me, how innocent I was, and the graves of my fathers admonish me, how pure F should continue — here, standing as I do amongst my fairest, fondest, earliest sympathies, — such a welcome, operating, not merely as an affectionate tribute, but as a moral testimony, does indeed quite oppress and overwhelm me. Oh ! believe me, warm is the heart that feels, and willing is the tongue that speaks j 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 our im- puted blunders, when I speak of introducing one whose patriotism has already rendered him famil- iar to every heart in Ireland ; a man, who, con- quering every disadvantage, and spurning every difficulty, has poured around our misfortunes the splendour of an intellect that at once irradiates and consumes them. For the services he has ren- dered to his country, from my heart I thank him, and, for myself, I offer him a personal, it may be a selfish, tribute for saving me, by his presence this night, from an impotent attempt at his pan- egyric. Indeed, gentlemen, you can have little idea of what he has to endure, who, in these times, advocates your cause. Every calumny which the venal and the vulgar, and the vile are lavishing upon you is visited with exaggeration upon us. — We are called traitors, because we would rally round the crown an unanimous people. We are called apostates, because we will not persecute AT SLIGO. 19 Christianity. We are branded as separatists, be- cause of our endeavours to annihilate the fetters that, instead of binding, clog the connexion. To these may be added, the frowns of power, the envy of dulness, the mean malice of exposed self-inter- est, and, it may be, in despite of all natural affec- tion, even the discountenance of kindred ! Well, be it so, — For thee, fair freedom, welcome all the past, For thee, my country, welcome e'en the last 1 I am not ashamed to confess to you, that there wa? a day, when I was bigoted as the blackest ; but I thank the Being who gifted me with a mind not quite impervious to conviction, and I thank you, who afforded such convincing testimonies of my error. I saw you enduring with patience the most unmerited assaults, bowing before the insults of revived anniversaries ; in private life, exempla- ry ; m public, unoffending ; in the hour of peace, asserting your loyalty ; in the hour of danger, proving it. Even when an invading enemy victori- ously penetrated into the very heart of our country, I saw the banner of your allegiance beaming refu- tation on your slanderers ; was it a wonder, then, that I seized my prejudices, and with a blush burned them on the altar of my country ! The great question of catholic, shall I not rath- er say of Irish emancipation, has now assumed that national aspect which imperiously challenges the scrutiny of every one. While it was shrouded in the mantle of religious mystery, with the temple for its sanctuary, and the pontiff for its sentinel, the vulgar eye might shrink and the vulgar spirit shudder. But now it has come forth, visible and tangible, for the inspection of the laity : and I sol- 20 SPEECH emnly protest, dressed as it has been in the double haberdashery of the English minister and the Ital- ian prelate, I know not whether to laugh at its ap- pearance, or to loathe its pretensions — to shudder at the deformity of its original creation, or smile at the grotesqueness of its foreign decorations. On- ly just admire this far-famed security bill, — this motly compound of oaths and penalties, which, under the name of emancipation, would drag your prelates with a halter about their necks to the vulgar scrutiny of every village-tyrant, in order to enrich a few political traders, and distil through some state alembic the miserable rinsings of an ig- norant, a decaying, and degenerate aristocracy I Only just admire it ! Originally engendered by our friends the opposition, with a cuckoo insidiousness, they swindled it into the nest of the treasury ra- vens, and when it had been fairly hatched with the beak of the one, and the nakedness of the other, they sent it for its feathers to Monseigneur Quarantotti, who has obligingly transmitted it with the hunger of its parent, the rapacity of its nurse, and the coxcombry of its plumassicr, to be baptized by the bishops, and received cequo gra- toque animo by the people of Ireland ! Oh, thou sublimely ridiculous Quarantotti ! Oh, thou superlative coxcomb of the conclave ! what an estimate hast thou formed of .the mind 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 of the calculation were in his favour. Uncommon must be the people over whom centuries of oppression have revolved in vain ! Strange must be the mind which is not sub- dued by suffering ! Sublime the spirit which is not debased by servitude ! God. I give thee thanks !— AT SLIGO. 21 lie 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 unbend- ing as it suited the purposes of bigotry to represent it, and appears now not to have conceded more, only because more was not demanded. The theol- ogy of the question is not for me to argue ; it can- not be in better hands than in those of your bish- ops ; and I can have no doubt that when they bring their rank, their learning, their talents, their piety, and their patriotism to this sublime deliber- ation, they will consult the dignity of that venerable fabric which has stood for ages, splendid and im- mutable ; which time could not crumble, nor per- secutions shake, nor revolutions change ; which has stood amongst us like some stupendous and majestic Appenifie, the earth rocking at its feet, and the heavens roaring round its head, firmly balanced on the base of its eternity ; the relic of what was ; the solemn and sublime memento of WHAT MUST BE ! Is this my opinion as a professed member of the church of England ? Undoubtedly it is. As an Irishman, 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 Pro- testant, convinced of the purity of my awn faith, would I not debase it by postponing the powers of reason to the suspicious instrumentality of this world's conversion? No; surrendering as I do, 22 SPEECH with a proud contempt, all the degrading advantages with which an ecclesiastical usurpation would in- vest 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 of a single motive for his devotion ; and I hold it an equal insult to my own faith, to offer me any boon for its profession. This pretended eman- cipation-bill passing into a law, would, in my mind, strike a blow not at this sect or that sect, but at the very vitality of Christianity itself. I am thoroughly convinced that the anti-christian con- nexion between church and state, which it was euited to increase, has done more mischief to the gospel interests, than all the ravings of infidelity since the crucifixion. The sublime Creator of our blessed creed never meant it to be the channel of a courtly influence, or the source of a corrupt as- cendancy. 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 spot- less 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 but a foul and adulterous connexion, polluting the pu- rity of heaven with the abomination of earth, and hanging the tatters of a political piety upon the cross of an insulted 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 minis- try. Rank only degrades, wealth only impoverish- es, ornaments but disfigure her. I would have her AT SL1GO. 23 pure, unpen&ioned, unstipendiary ; she should rob the earth of nothing but its sorrows : a divine arch of promise, her extremities should rest on the hor- izon, and her span embrace the universe : but her only sustenance should be the tears that were ex- haled and embellished by the sun-beam. Such is my idea of what religion ought to be. What would this bill make it ? A mendicant of the castle, a me- nial at the levee, its manual the red book, its litur- gy the pension-list, its gospel the will of the minis- ter ! Methinks I see the stalled and fatted victim of its creation, cringing with a brute suppliancy through the venal mob of ministerial flatterers, crouching to the ephemeral idol of the day, and r 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 ce- lebrated Irishman, on the suggestion in his day of a bill similar to that now proposed for our oppres- sion. He was a man who added to the pride not merely of his country but of his species — a man who robbed the very soul of inspiration in the splendours of a pure and overpowering eloquence. I allude to Mr. Burke — an authority at least to which the sticklers for establishments can offer no objection. " Before I had written thus far," says he, in his letter on the penal laws, " I heard of a scheme for giving to the castle the patronage of the presiding members of the catholic clergy. At first I could scarcely credit it, for I believe it is the first time that the presentation to other people's alms has been desired in any country. Never were the members of one religious sect fit to appoint the pastors to another. It is a great deal to suppose that the present castle would nominate bishops for the Roman church in Ireland with a religious regard 24 SPEECH for its welfare. Perhaps they cannot, perhaps they dare not do it. But suppose them to be as well inclined, as I know that I am, to do the catholics all kinds of justice, I declare I would not, if it were in my power, take that patronage on myself. I know I ought not to do it. I belong to another community ; and it would be an intolerable usurp- ation in me, where I conferred no benefit, or even if -I did confer temporal advantages. How can the lord lieutenant form the least judgment on their merits so as to decide which of the popish priests is fit to be a bishop ? It cannot be. The idea is ridiculous. He will hand them over to lords-lieu- tenant of counties, justices of the peace, and others, who, for the purpose of vexing and turning into derision this miserable people, will pick out the worst and most obnoxious they can find amongst the clergy to govern the rest. Whoever is com- plained against by his brother, will be considered as persecuted ; whoever is censured by his supe- rior, will be looked upon as oppressed ; whoever is careless in his opinions, loose in his morals, will be called a liberal man, and will be supposed to have incurred hatred because he was not a bigot. Informers, tale-bearers, perverse and obstinate men, flatterers, who turn their back upon their flock and court the protestant gentlemen of their country, will be the objects of preferment, and then I run no risk in foretelling, that whatever order, quiet, and morality you have in the country will be lost." Now, let me ask you, is it to such char- acters as those described by Burke, that you would delegate the influence imputed to your priest- hood ? Believe me, you would soon see them trans- ferring their devotion from the cross to the castle : wearing their sacred vestments but as a AT SLIGO. 25 masquerade-appendage, and under the degraded passport of the Almighty's name, sharing the plea- sures of the court, and the spoils of the people. When I say this, I am bound to add, and I do so from many proud and pleasing recollections, that I think the impression on the catholic clergy of the present day would be late, and would be delible. But it is human nature. Rare are the instances in which a contact with the court has not been the beginning of corruption. The man of God is pe- culiarly disconnected with it. It directly violates his special mandate, who took his birth from the manger, and his disciples from the fishing-boat, Judas was the first who received the money of power, and it ended in the disgrace of his creed* and the death of his master. If I was a catholic, I would peculiarly deprecate any interference with my priesthood. Indeed, I do not think, in any one respect in which we should wish to view the dele- gates of the Almighty, that, making fair allowan- ces for human infirmity, they could be amended. The catholic clergy, of Ireland are rare examples of the doctrines they inculcate. Pious in their hab- its, almost primitive in their manners, they have no care but their dock — no study but their gospel. It is not in the gaudy ring of courtly dissipation that you will find the Murrays, the Coppingers, and the Moylans of the present day — not at the levee, or the lounge, or the election-riot. No ; you will find them wherever good is to be done or evil to be corrected — rearing their mitres in the van of misery, consoling the captive, reforming the con- vict, enriching the orphan ; ornaments of this world, and emblems of a better : preaching their God through the practice of every virtue; moni- tors at the confessional, apostles in the pulpit, 4 26 SPEECH saints at the death-bed, holding the sacred water to the lip of sin, or pouring the redeeming unction on the agonies of despair. Oh, I would hold him little better than the Promethean robber, who would turn the fire of their eternal altar into the impure and perishable mass of this world's pre- ferment. Better by far that the days of ancient barbarism should revive — better that your religion should again take refuge among the fastnesses of the mountain, and the solitude of the cavern — better that the rack of a murderous bigotry should again terminate the miseries of your priesthood, and that the gate of freedom should be only open to them through the gate of martyrdom, than that they should gild their missals with the wages of a court, and expect their ecclesiastical promotion, not from their superior piety, but their compara- tive prostitution. But why this interference with your principles of conscience ? Why is it that they will not erect 'our liberties save on the ruin of your temples ? Why is it that in the day of peace they demand securities from a people who in the day of danger constituted their strength ? When were they denied every security that was reason- albe ? Was it in 1776, when a cloud of enemies, hovering on our coast, saw every heart a shield, and every hill a fortress ? Did they want securi- ties in catholic Spain ? Were they denied securi- ties in catholic Portugal ? What is their security to-day in catholic Canada ? Return — return to us our own glorious Wellington, and tell incredulous England what was her security amid the lines of Torres Vedras, or on the summit of Barrosra ! Rise, libelled martyrs of the peninsula ! — rise from your "gory bed," and give security for your child- less parents ! No, there is not a catholic family in AT SLIGO. 2? Ireland, that for the glory of Great Britian is not weeping over a child's, a brother's, or a parent's grave, and yet still she clamours for securities ! Oh, prejudice, where is thy reason ! Oh, bigotry, where is thy blush ! If ever there was an opportunity for England to combine gratitude with justice, and dignity with safety, it is the present. Now, when Irish blood has crimsoned the cross upon her na- val flag, and an Irish hero strikes the harp to vic- tory upon the summit of the Pyrenees. England — England ! do not hesitate. This hour of triumph may be but the hour of trial ; another season may see the splendid panorama of European vassalage, arrayed by your ruthless enemy, and glittering be- neath the ruins of another capital — perhaps of London. Who can say it ? A few months since, Moscow stood as splendid and as secure. Fair rose the morn on the patriarchal city — the empress of her nation, the queen of commerce, the sanctuary of strangers, her thousand spires pierced the very heavens, and her domes of gold reflected back the sun-beams. The spoiler came ; he marked her for his victim ; and, as if his very glance was destiny, even before the nightfall, with all her pomp, and wealth, and happiness, she withered from the world ! A heap of ashes told where once stood Moscow ! Merciful God, if this lord of desolation, heading his locust legions, were to invade our coun- try ; though I do not ask what would be your de- termination ; though, in the language of our young enthusiast, I am sure you would oppose him with " a sword in one hand, and a torch in the other ;" still I do ask, and ask with fearlessness, upon what single principle of policy or of justice, could the advocates for your exclusion solicit your assistance — could they expect you to support a constitution 2# SPEECH from whose benefits you were debarred? With what front could they ask you to recover an as- cendency, which in point of fact was but re-estab- lishing your bondage ? It has been said that there is a faction in Ireland ready to join this despot — " a French party," as Mr. Grattan thought it decent, even in the very senate-house, to promulgate. Sir, I speak the uni- versal voice of Ireland when I say, she spurns the imputation. There is no " French party" here ; but there is — and it would be strange if there was not — there is an Irish party — men who cannot bear to see their country taunted with the mockery of a constitution — men who will be content with no connexion that refuses them a community of bene- fits while it imposes a community of privations — men who, sooner than see this land polluted by the footsteps of a slave, would wish the ocean- wave became its sepulchre, and that the orb of heaven forgot where it existed. It has been said too (and when we were to be calumniated, what has not been said ?) that Irishmen are neither fit for freedom or grateful for favours. In the first place, I deny that to be a favour which is a right ; and in the next place I utterly deny that a system of conciliation has ever been adopted with respect to Ireland. Try them, and, my life on it, they will be found grateful. I think I know my countrymen ; they cannot help being grateful for a benefit ; and there is no country on the earth where one would be conferred with more characteristic benevo- lence. They are, emphatically, the school-boys of the heart — a people of sympathy ; their acts spring instinctively from their passions ; by nature ardent, by instinct brave, by inheritance generous. The children of impulse, they cannot avoid their vir- AT SLIG0. 29 tues ; and to be other than noble, they must not only be unnatural but be unnatioiiaL Put my panegyric to the test. Enter the hovel of the Irish peasant. I do not say you will find the frugality of the Scotch, the comfort of the English, or the fan- tastic decorations of the French cottager; but I do say, within those wretched bazaars of mud and misery, you will find sensibility the most affecting, politeness the most natural, hospitality the most grateful, merit the most unconscious ; their look is eloquence, their smile is love, their retort is wit* their remark is wisdom — not a wisdom borrowed from the dead, but that with which nature has herself inspired them ; an acute observance of the passing scene, and a d^ep insight into the motives of its agents. Try to deceive them, and see with what shrewdness they will detect ; try to outwit them, and see with what humour they will elude; attack them with argument, and you will stand amazed at the strength of their expression, the rapidity of their ideas, and the energy of their gesture ! In short, God seems to have formed our country like our people : he has thrown around the one its wild, magnificent, decorated rudeness; he has infused into the other the simplicity of genius and the seeds of virtue : he says audibly to us, Ai Give them cultivation." This is the way, gentlemen, in which I have always looked upon your question — not as a party, or a sectarian, or a catholic, but as an Irish question. Is it possible that any man can seriously believe the paralyzing five millions of such a peo- ple, as I have been describing, can be a benefit to the empire! Is there any man who deserves the name, not of a statesman, but of a rational be- ing, who can think it politic to rob such a inulti- 30 SPEECH tude of all the energies of an honourable ambi- tion ! Look to protestant Ireland, shooting over the empire those rays of genius, and those thun- derbolts of war, that have at once embellished and preserved it. I speak not of a former era. I refer not for my example to the day just passed, when our Burkes, our Barry s, and our Goldsmiths, exiled by this system from their native shore, wreathed the " immortal shamrock" round the brow of painting, poetry, and eloquence! But now, even while I speak, who leads the British senate ? A protestant Irishman ! Who guides the British arms ? A protestant Irishman ! And why, why is catholic Ireland, with her quintuple popula- tion, stationary and silent ? Have physical causes neutralized its energies? Has the religion of Christ stupified its intellect? Has the God of mankind become the partizan of monopoly, and put an interdict on its advancement? Stranger, do not ask the bigoted and pampered renegade who has an interest in deceiving you ; but open the penal statutes and weep tears of blood over the reason. Come, come yourself, and see this unhappy people : see the Irishman, the only alien in Ireland, in rags and wretchedness, staining the sweetest scenery ever eye reposed on, persecuted by the extorting middle-man of some absentee landlord, plundered by the lay-proctor of some rapacious and unsympathizing incumbent, bear- ing through life but insults and injustice, and bereaved even of any hope in death by the heart- rending reflection that he leaves his children to bear like their father an abominable bondage ! Is this the fact ? Let any man who doubts it walk out into your streets, and see the consequences of such a system ; see it rearing up crowds in a kind of AT SLIG(X 31 apprenticeship to the prison, absolutely permitted by their parents from utter despair to lisp the al- phabet and learn the rudiments of profligacy ! For my part, never did I meet one of these youthful assemblages without feeling within me a melan- choly emotion. How often have I thought within that little circle of neglected triflers who seem to have been born in caprice and bred in orphanage, there may exist some mind formed of the finest mould and wrought for immortality ; a soul swell- ing with the energies and stamped with the patent of the Deity, which under proper culture might perhaps bless, adorn, immortalize, or ennoble em- pires ; some Cincinnatus, in whose breast the des- tinies of a nation may lie dormant ; some Milton, " pregnant with celestial fire ;" some Curran, who, when thrones were crumbled and dynasties forgot- ten, might stand the landmark of his country's genius, rearing himself amid regal ruins and na- tional dissolution, a mental pyramid in the solitude of time, beneath whose shade things might moul- der, and round whose summit eternity must play. Even in such a circle the young Demosthenes might have once been found, and Homer, the dis- grace and glory of his age, have sung neglected ! Have not other nations witnessed those things, and who shall say that nature has peculiarly de- graded the intellect of Ireland ? Oh ! my country- men, let us hope that under better auspices and a sounder policy, the ignorance that thinks so may meet its refutation. Let us turn from the blight and ruin of this wintry day to the fond an- ticipation of a happier period, when our prostrate land shall stand erect among the nations, fearless and unfettered ; her brow blooming with the wreath of science, and her path strewed with the 32 SPEECH AT SLIGO. offerings of art ; the breath of heaven blessing her flag, the extremities of earth acknowledging her name, her fields waving with the fruits of agricul- ture, her ports alive with the contributions of com- merce, and her temples vocal with unrestricted piety. Such is the ambition of the true patriot ; such are the views for which we are calumniated ! Oh, divine ambition ! Oh, delightful calumny ! Happy he who shall see thee accomplished ! Hap- py he who through every peril toils for thy attain- ment ! Proceed, friend of Ireland and partaker of her wrongs, proceed undaunted to this glorious consummation, fortune will not gild, power will not ennoble thee ; but thou shalt be rich in the love and titled by the blessings of thy country; thy path shall be illumined by the public eye, thy labours lightened by the public gratitude ; and oh, remember — amid the impediments with which cor- ruption will oppose, and the dejection with which disappointments may depress you — remember you are acquiring a name to be cherished by the fu- ture generations of earth, long after it has been en- rolled amongst the inheritors of heaven. DELIVERED AT AN AGGREGATE MEETING Off THE ROMAN CATHOLICS OE CORK. 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 congratula- tion is not a little enhanced by finding that you receive me not as quite a stranger. Indeed, if to respect the christian without regard to his creed, if to love the country but the more for its cala- mities, if to hate oppression though it be robed in power, if to venerate integrity though it pine un- der 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 •tranger, the features of a friend. Thus it is, that* 5 34 SPEECH 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 nativity. But this my knowledge of you was not left to chance; nor was it left to the records of your charity, the me- morials of your patriotism, your municipal magni- ficence, or your commercial splendour ; it came to me hallowed by the accents of that tongue on which Ireland has so often hung with ecstacy, heightened by the eloquence and endeared by the sincerity of, I hope, our mutual friend. Let me congratulate him on having become in some de- gree 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 oppres- sions. Surely, surely if merit had fair play, if splendid talents, 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, if every noble, public quality, mellowed and reflected in the pure mirror of domestic virtue, could entitle a subject to distinction in a state, Mr. O'Connel should be distinguished ; but, it is his crime to be a catholic, and his curse to be an Irishman. Simpleton ! he prefers his conscience to a place, and the love of his country to a participation in her plunder ! In- deed, he will never rise. If he joined the bigots of my«sect, he might be a sergeant; if he joined the infidels of your sect, he might enjoy a pension, and there is no knowing whether some Orange- corporator, on an Orange-anniversary, might not modestly yield him the precedence of giving " the glorious and immortal memory." Oh, yes, he AT CORK. 35 might be privileged to get drunk in gratitude to the man who colonized 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 con- tempt. For my part, I behold them in the apathy of their servitude, as I would some miserable maniac in the contentment of his captivity. Poor creature ! when all that raised him from the brute is levelled, and his glorious intellect is mouldering in ruins, you may see him with his song of triumph, and his crown of straw, a fancied freeman mid the clanking of his chains, and an imaginary monarch beneath the inflictions of his keeper ! Merciful God ! is it not almost an argument for the sceptic and the disbeliever, when we see the human shape almost without an aspiration of the human soul, separated by no boundary from the beasts that perish, beholding with indifference the captivity of their country, the persecution of their creed, and the helpless, hopeless destiny of their chil- dren ? But they have nor creed, nor consciences, nor country; their god is gold, their gospel is a contract, their church a counting-house^ their characters a commodity ; they never pray but for the opportunities of corruption, and hold their consciences, as they do their government-deben- tures, at a price proportioned to the misfortunes of their country. But let us turn from those mendi- 36 SPEECH cants of disgrace : though Ireland is doomed to the stain of their birth, her mind need not be sullied by their contemplation. I turn from them with pleasure to the contemplation of your cause, which, as far as argument can effect it, stands on a sublime and splendid elevation. Every obstacle has van- ished into air ; every favourable circumstance has hardened into adamant. The Pope, whom child- hood was taught to lisp as the enemy of religion, and age shuddered at as a prescriptive calamity, has by his example put the princes of Christendom to shame. This day of miracles, in which the hu- man heart has been strung to its extremest point of energy; this day, to which posterity will look for instances 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 human elevation, surround- ed by the pomp of the Vatican and the splendours of the court, pouring the mandates of Christ from the throne of the Cesars, nations were his sub- jects, kings were his companions, religion was his handmaid ; he went forth gorgeous with the accu- mulated dignity of ages, every 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 show how inestimable is human virtue compared with human grandeur ; it was only to show those whose faith was failing, and whose fears were strengthening, that the simplicity of the patriarchs, the piety of the saints, and the patience of the martyrs, had not wholly vanished. Perhaps it was also ordain- ed to show the bigot at home, as well as the tyrant AT CORK. 37 abroad, that though the person might be chained, and the motive calumniated, religion was still strong enough to support her sons, and to con- found, if she could not reclaim, her enemies. No threats could awe, no promises could tempt, no sufferings could appal him ; mid the damps of his dungeon he dashed away the cup in which the pearl of his liberty was to be dissolved. Only reflect on the state of the world at that moment! All around him was convulsed, the very founda- tions of the earth seemed giving way, the comet was let loose that " from its fiery hair shook pesti- lence and death," the twilight was gathering, 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, magnifi- cent amid ruin, the last remnant of earth's beauty, the last resting-place of heaven's light ! Thus have the terrors of the Vatican 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 obstacle, the omnipotence of France ; I know it was a pretence, 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 dis- membered, and the lord of her empire become the exile of a rock. She allows fancy no fear, and bigotry no speciousness ; and, as if in the very operation of the change to point the purpose of your redemption, the hand that replanted the re- jected lily was that of an Irish catholic. Perhaps it is not also unworthy of remark, that the last day of her triumph, and the first of her decline, was that on which her insatiable chieftain smote the 38 SPEECH holy head of your religion. You will hardly sus- pect I am imbued with the follies of supersti- tion ; but when the man now unborn shall trace the story of that eventful day, he will see the adopted child of fortune borne on the wings of victory from clime to clime, marking every move- ment with a triumph, and every pause with a crown, till time, space, seasons, nay, even nature herself, seeming to vanish from before him, in the blasphemy of his ambition he smote the apostle of his God, and dared to raise the everlasting cross amid his perishable trophies ! I am no fanatic, but is it not remarkable ? May it be one of those signs which the Deity has sometimes given in com- passion to our infirmity ; signs, which in the pun- ishment of one nation not unfrequently denote the warning to another ; — " Signs sent by 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 ex- pect 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 vanished into nothing. — Another obstacle, the tenets of your creed. Has England still to learn them? I will tell her where. 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 friends, her catholic allies, her rivals in the triumph, her reliance in the re- treat, her last stay when the world had deserted AT CORK. 39 her. They must have told her on the field of blood, whether it was true that they " kept no faith with, heretics." Alas, alas ! how miserable a thing is bigotry, when every friend puts it to the blush, and every triumph but rebukes its weakness. If England 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 grat- itude ; whom we have seen leading the van 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, every tear exhaling and every vapour vanishing, the colours of the European world have revived, 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 ? Did the catholic Cortes inquire his faith when they gave him the supreme command ? Did the Regent of Portugal withhold from his creed the reward of his valour ? Did the catholic soldier pause at Salamanca to dispute upon polemics ? Did the catholic chief- tain prove upon Barrossa that he kept no faith with heretics, or did the creed of Spain, the same with that of France, the opposite of that of England, prevent their association in the field of liberty? Oh, no, no, no, no ! the citizen of every clime, the friend of every colour, and the child of every creed, liberty walks abroad in the ubiquity of her benevolence.; alike to her the varieties of faith and the vicissitudes of country ; she has no object but the happiness of man, no bounds but the ex- tremities of creation. Yes, yes, it was reserved for Wellington to redeem his own country when he 40 SPEECH was regenerating every other. It was reserved for him to show how viie were the aspersions on your creed, how generous were the glowings of your gratitude. He was a protestant, yet catholics trust- ed him ; he was a protestant, yet catholics advan- ced him ! He is a protestant knight in catholic Portugal, he is a protestant duke in catholic Spain, he is the 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 protestant, though I may blush for the bigotry of many of my creed, who continue obstinate in the teeth of this conviction, still were I a catholic I should feel littl* triumph in the victory. I should only hang my head at the distresses which this warfare occasioned to my country. I should only think how long she had writhed in the agony of her disunion ; how long she had bent, fettered by slaves, cajoled by block- heads, and plundered by adventurers ; the prov- erb 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 infatuated parties, those hell-engendered ser- pents 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 indulgence, mutual concession ; I would say to the protestant, concede ; I would say to the catholic, forgive ; J would say to both, though you bend not at the same shrine, you have a common God, and a com- mon country ; the one has commanded love, the other kneels to you for peace. This hostility of AT CORK. 41 her sects has heen the disgrace, the peculiar dis- grace, of Christianity. The Gentoo loves his cast, so does the Mahometan, so does the Hindoo, whom England out of the abundance of her char- ity is about to teach her creed : — I hope she may not teach her practice. But Christianity, Christian- ity alone exhibits her thousand sects, each de- nouncing his neighbour here, in the name of God, and damning hereafter out of pure devotion ! 44 You're a heretic," says the catholic : " You're a papist," says the protestant: 4i I appeal to St. Pe- ter," exclaims the catholic : 44 1 appeal to Saint Athanasius," says the protestant : 44 and if it goes to damning, he's as good at it as any saint in the calendar." 44 You'll all be damned eternally," moans out the methodist ; 44 I'm the elect !" Thus it is you see, each has his anathema, his accusa- tion, and his retort, and in the end religion is the victim ! The victory of each is the overthrow of all; and infidelity, laughing at the contest, writes the refutation of their creed in the blood of the combatants ! I wonder if this reflection has ever struck any of those reverend dignitaries who rear their mitres against catholic emancipation. Has it ever glanced across their christian zeal, if the story of our country should have casually reach- ed 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 replied to his exhortations in language such as this ? 4i Father, we have heard your doc- trine ; it is splendid in theory, specious in pro- mise, sublime in prospect ; like the world to which it leads, it is rich in the miracles of light. But, father, we have heard that there are times when 6 42 SPEECH 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 wor- ships the loveliness of her intrusion. The sove- reign of our forests is not more generous in his anger than her sons ; the snow-flake, ere it falls on the mountain, is not purer than her daugh- ters ; little inland seas reflect the splendours of her landscape, and her valleys smile at the story of the serpent ! Father, is it true that this isle of the sun, this people of the morning, find the fury of the ocean in your creed, and more than the venom of the viper in your policy? Is it true that for six hundred years, her peasant has not tasted peace, nor her piety rested from persecution ? Oh ! Brama, defend us from the God of the chris- tian ! Father, father, return to your brethren, re- trace the waters; 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 gospel ; in the imitation of our fathers we found our hope, and, if we err, on the virtue of our motives we rely for our re- demption." How would the missionaries of the mitre answer him ? How will they answer that in- sulted Being of whose creed their conduct carries the refutation? — But to what end do I argue with the Bigot ? — a wretch, whom no philosophy can humanize, no charity 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 bro- AT CORK. 43 ther's blood the cannibal appetite of his rejected altar ! His very interest cannot soften him into humanity. 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 excitement to industry, by clos- ing up every avenue to laudable ambition; which administers to the vanity or the vice of a party, when it should only study the advantage of a people; and holds out the perquisites of state as an impious bounty on the persecution of religion. — I have al- ready shown that the power of the pope, that the power of France, and that the tenets of your creed, were but imaginary auxiliaries to this system. An- other pretended obstacle has, however, been op- posed to your emancipation. I allude to the danger arising from a foreign influence. What a triumph- ant answer can you give to that ! Methinks, as lately, I see the assemblage of your hallowed hier- archy surrounded by the priesthood, and followed by the people, waving aloft the crucifix of Christ alike against the seductions of the court, and the commands of the conclave ! Was it not a delight- ful, an heart-cheering spectacle, to see that holy band of brothers preferring the chance of martyr- dom to the certainty of promotion, and postponing all the gratifications of worldly 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 assembly I ever saw in any country — and I believe you are almost all catholics — I say here, that if the see of Rome pre- sumed to impose any temporal mandate directly or indirectly on the Irish people, the Irish bishops should at once abandon it, or their fiock« ? one and 44 SPEECH and all, would abjure and banish both of them to- gether. History affords us too fatal an example of the perfidious, arrogant, and venal interference of a papal usurper of former days in the temporal jurisdiction of this country; an interference as- sumed without right, exercised without principle, and 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 fa- vour ! 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 lead- ing obstacle to your emancipation. That power led him to the menace of an Irish invasion. What did that prove ? Only the sincerity of Irish allegi- ance. On the very threat, we poured forth our vol- unteers, our yeomen, and our militia ; and the country became encircled with an armed and a loy- al population. Thus, then, the calumny of your dis- affection vanished. That power next led him to the invasion of Portugal. What did it prove ? Only the good faith of catholic allegiance. Every 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 same peril.. Thus, then, vanished the slander that you could not keep faith with heretics. That power next led him to the im- prisonment of the pontiff, so long suspected of be- ing quite ready to sacrifice every thing to his in- terest and his dominion. What did that prove ? The strength of his principles, the purity of his faith, the disinterestedness of 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 vindi- AT CORK. 45 eated to Europe. There remained behind but one impediment — jour liability to a foreign influence. Now mark! The pontiff's captivity led to the transmission of Quarantottrs rescript; and, on its arrival, from the priest to the peasant, there was not a catholic in the land, who did not spurn the document of Italian audacity ! Thus, then, vanished also the phantom of a foreign influence ! Is this conviction ? Is not the hand of God in it ? Oh yes ! for observe what followed. The very moment that power which was the first and last and leading argument against you, had by its special operation, banished every obstacle ; that power itself, as it were by enchantment, evaporat- ed at once; and peace with Europe took away the last pretence for your exclusion. Peace with Europe ! alas, alas, there is no peace for Ire- land : the universal pacification was but the sig- nal for renewed hostility to us, and the mock- ery 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 Jaco- bitism is extinct for ever. The pope has been found not only not hostile, but complying. In- deed, if England would recollect the share you had in these sublime events, the very recollection should subsidize her into gratitude. But should she not — should she, with a baseness monstrous and unparalleled, forget our services, 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 away «# 46 SPEECH 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 desert ; the successor of Charles roamed a vagabond, not only throneless but house- less ; every evening sun set upon a change ; every morning dawned upon some new convulsion : in short, the whole political globe quivered as with an earthquake, and who could tell what venerable monument was next to shiver beneath the splen- did, frightful, and reposeless heavings of the French volcano ! What gave Europe peace and England safety amid this palsy of her princes ? Was it not the Landwehr and the Landsturm and the Levy en Masse ? W r as it not the People ? 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 safety; but should she not — " Oh wo be to the prince who rules by fear, When danger comes upon him!" She will adopt it. I hope it from her wisdom; I expect it from her policy ; I claim it from her jus- tice ; I demand 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 interest; and the minister who thinks he serves a state by upholding the most irritating and the most impious of all monopolies, will one day or other find himself miserably mistaken. This system of persecution is not the way to govern this country ; at least to govern it with any happiness to itself, or ad van- AT CORK, 47 tage to its rulers. Centuries have proved its total inefficacy, and if it be continued for centuries, the proofs will be but multiplied. Why, however, should I blame the English people, when I see our own representatives so shamefully negligent of our interests ? The other day, for instance, when Mr. Peele introduced, aye, and passed too, his three newly-invented penal bills, to the neces- sity of which, every assizes 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 vindi- cate his country ? Where were the nominal repre- sentatives of Ireland ? W^here were the rene- gade revilers of the demagogue ? Where were the noisy proclaimers of the board ? What, was there not one voice to own the country ? 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 slandered and her motives misrepresented, and her oppres- sions are basely and falsely denied, that their venal throats are ready to echo the chorus of min- isterial calumny ? Oh, I 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 risen, though alone, as I have often seen him — richer not less in he- reditary fame, than in personal accomplishments ; 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 save us from chains, he would at least have shielded us from calumny. Let me hope that his 48 SPEECH AT CORK. absence shall be but of short duration, and that this city will earn an additional claim to the grat- itude of the country, by electing him her repre- sentative. 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 ingrat- itude of others, and venality 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, above all, you should act on it 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. Remember, the contest is for your children, your country, and your God ; and re- member 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 may yet see again) voted you the right of franchise, and the right of purchase, it gave you, if you are not false to yourselves, a certainty of your emancipa- tion. My friends, farewell! This has been a most unexpected meeting to me ; it has been our first — it may be our last. I can never forget the enthusiasm of this reception. I am too much af- fected 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 coun- try ; whose heart must be cold when it beats not for her happiness. DELIVERED AT A DINNER GIVEN ON DINAS ISLAND, IN THE LAKE OF KILLARNEY, 2£R. PHILLIPS' HEALTH BEING GIVEN, TOGETHER WITH THAT OE 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 now interrupt, for a moment, the flow of your festivity. Indeed, it is not neces- sary ; an Irishman needs no requital for his hospi- tality ; its generous impulse is the instinct of his nature, and the very consciousness of tne act carries 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 associated with Mr. Payne must be, to any one who regards private virtues and personal accomplishments, a source of peculiar pride ; and that feeling is not a little enhanced in me by a recollection of the country to which we are indebted for his qualifications. Indeed, the mention of America has never failed to fill me with the most lively emotions. In my earliest 7 50 SPEECH infancy, that tender season when impressions, at once the most permanent and the most powerful, are likely to be excited, the story of her then recent struggle raised a throb in every heart that loved liberty, and wrung a reluctant tribute even from discomfited oppression. 1 saw her spurning alike the luxuries that would enervate, and the legions that would intimidate; dashing from her lips the poisoned cup of European servitude ; and, through all the vicissitudes of her protracted conflict, dis- playing a magnanimity that defied misfortuue, and a moderation that gave new grace to victory. It was the first vision of my childhood ; it will de- scend with me to the grave. But 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 tfcffcir sorrows sprung from the errors of enthusiasm, or the re- alities of suffering, from 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 presents so sublime a view, so interesting an anti- cipation ? What noble institutions ! What a com- prehensive policy ! What a wise equalisation of every political advantage ! The oppressed of all Countries, the martyrs of every creed, the innocent victim of despotic arrogance or superstitious phren- zy, may there find refuge ; his industry encouraged, his piety respected, his ambition animated ; with AT DINAS ISLAND. 51 no restraint but those laws which are the same to all, and no distinction but that which his merit may originate. Who can deny that the existence of such a country presents a subject for human congratulation ! Who can deny that its gigantic advancement offers a field for the most rational conjecture ! At the end of the very next cen- tury, if she proceeds as she seems to promise, 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 that when, in its follies or its crimes, the old world may have interred all the pride of its power, and all the pomp of its civilization, human nature may not find its destined renovation in the new ! For myself, I 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 gi#ries of our name shall be but the legend of tradition, and the light of our achieve- ments only live in song ; philosophy will rise again in the sky of her Franklin, and glory 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 impression that preceded it ? Thousands upon thousands, sir, I know there are, who will consider this opposition as wild and whimsical; but they have dwelt with little reflection upon the records of the past. They have but ill ob- served the never-ceasing progress of national rise and national ruin. They form their judg- ment on the deceitful stability of the present hour, never considering the innumerable monar- 52 SPEECH chies and republics, in former days, apparently as permanent, their very existence become now the subjects of speculation, I had almost said of scepticism. I appeal to history ! Tell me, thou reverend chronicler of the grave, can all the illu- sions of ambition realized, can all the wealth of an universal commerce, can all the achievements of successful heroism, or alHhe establishments of this world's wisdom, secure to empire the perma- nency of its possessions ? Alas. Troy thought so once, yet the land of Priam lives only in song ! Thebes thought so once, yet her hundred gates have 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 roaming lions howl, Yon aisle, where moans the gray-eyed o\|Jg» Shows the proud Persian's great abode, Where sceptred once, an earthly god, His power-clad arm controlled each hnppier clime, "Where sports the warbling muse, and fancy soars sublime." So thought the country of Demosthenes and the Spartan, yet Leonid as is trampled by the timid slave, and Athens insulted by the servile, mind- less, and enervate Ottoman ! In his hurried march, Time has but looked at their imagined immortali- ty, and all its vanities, from the palace to the tomb, have, with their ruins, erased the very im- pression 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 bar- ren ocean, now rivals the ubiquity of their com- merce, the glory of their arms, the fame of their philosophy, the eloquence of their senate, and the AT DINAS ISLAND. 53 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 Eu- ropean 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 operations, and such the unsubstantial mockery of human pride. But I should, perhaps, apologize for this digression. The tombs are at best a sad although an instructive subject. At all events, they are ill suited to such an hour as this. I shall endeavouj to atone for it, by turning to a theme which tombs cannot inurn or revolution altar. It is the custom of your board, and a noble one it is, to deck the cup of the gay with the garland of the great; and surely, 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. Allow 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 Washing- ton. No people can claim, no country can ap- propriate him; the boon of Providence to the human race, his fame is eternity, and his residence creation. Though it was the defeat of our arms, and the disgrace of our policy, I almost bless the convulsion in which he had his origin. If the heavens thundered and the earth rocked, jet^ when the storm passed, how pure was the climate 1 54 SPEECH 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 endeavouring to improve upon herself, and that all the virtues of the ancient world were but so many studies preparatory to the patriot of the new. Individual instances no doubt there were; splendid exemplifications of some single qualification: Cesar was merciful, Scipio was continent, Hannibal was patient ; but it was reserved for Washington to blend them all in one, and like the lovely chef tfceuvre of the Grecian artist, to exhibit in one glow of associated beauty, the 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 en- larged the policy of the cabinet into the most com- prehensive system of general advantage ; and such was the wisdom of his views, and the philosophy of his counsels, that to the soldier and the states- man he almost added the character of the sage ! A conqueror, he was untainted with the crime of blood ; a revolutionist, 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, history might have doubted what station to assign him, whether at the head of her citizens or her soldiers, her heroes or her patriots. But the last glorious act crowns his career, and banishes all hesitation. Who, like Washington, after having emancipated an hemisphere, resigned its crown, and preferred the retirement of domestic life to the adoration of a land he might be almost said to have created ! AT DINAS ISLAND. 55 " How shall we rank thee upon Glory's page, Thou more than soldier and just less than sage ; All thou hast been reflects less fame on thee, Far less than all thou hast forborne to be 1" Such, sir, is the testimony of one not to be ac- cused of partiality in his estimate of America. — Happy, proud America ! the lightnings of heaven yielded to your philosophy ! 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 ! DELIVERED AT AN AGGREGATE MEETING OF THE ROMAN CATHOLICS OF THE COUNTY AND CITY OF DUBLIN. Having taken, in the discussions on your ques- tion, such humble share as was allotted to my sta- tion and capacity, I may be permitted to offer my ardent congratulations at the proud pinnacle on which it this day reposes. After having combated calumnies the most atrocious, sophistries the most plausible, and perils the most appalling, that slan- der could invent, or ingenuity devise, or power ar- ray against you, I at length behold the assembled rank and wealth and talent of the Catholic body! offering to the Legislature that appeal which can- not be rejected, if there be a Power in heaven tol redress injury, or a spirit on earth to administer | justice. No matter what may be the deprecia- tions of faction or of bigotry ; this earth neveri 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 lib- erties with the expostulations of a philosopher -, re- SPEECH AT DUBLIN. 57 claiming the bad by her piety ; refuting the big- oted by her practice; wielding the Apostle's weapons in the patriot's cause, and at length, la- den with chains and with laurels, seeking from the country she had saved the constitution she had shielded ! Little did I imagine, that in such a state of your cause, we should be called together to counteract the impediments to its success, cre- ated not by its enemies, but by those supposed to be its friends. It is a melancholy occasion ; but melancholy 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 member, so I can speak impartially. It contained much talent, some learning, many virtues. It was valuable on that account ; but it was doubly valuable as being a vehicle for the individual senti- ments of any catholic, and for the aggregate sen- timents of every catholic. Those who seceded from it, do not remember that, individually, they are nothing ; that as a body, they are every thing. It is not this wealthy slave, or that titled sycophant, whom the bigots dread, or the parliament respects! No, it is the body, the numbers, the rank, the pro- perty, 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, especially when the contest is for all that is dear or valuable ? 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 ta 8 58 SPEECH • humanity, before he triumphs in his accusation, I am sorry for its suppression. When I consider the animals who are in office 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 first promulgated, and on the anniversary of the only British monarch's birth, who ever gave a boon to this distracted country. You will excuse this digression, rendered indeed in some degree necessary. I shall now confine myself exclusively to your resolution, which deter- mines on the immediate presentation of your pe- tition, and censures the neglect of any discussion on it by your advocates during the last session of parliament. You have a right to demand most fully the reasons of any man who dissents from Mr. G rattan. I will give you mine explicitly. — But I shall first state the reasons which he has given for the postponement of your question. 1 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 mov- ing that it should lie where so many preceding ones have lain, namely, on the table, he declared 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 \ery first opportunity. Mr. Grattan, however, was angry at " suggestions." I do not think Mr. Grattan, of all men, had any AT DUBLIN. 59 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." Neither do I think he had any occasion to be so squeamish at what he calls our violence. There was a day, when Mr. Grattan would not have spurned our suggestions, and there was also a day when he was fifty-fold more intemperate than any of his oppressed countrymen, whom he now holds up to the English people as so unconstitutionally violent. A pretty way, forsooth, for your advocate to commence conciliating a foreign auditory in favour of your petition. Mr. Grattan, however, has fulfilled 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. u It is not my intention," says he, " to move for a discussion at present." Why ? " Great obstacles have been removed." That's his first reason. " I am how- ever," 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," he continues, " that any immediate discussion 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 suffering, when you press for a discussion, he protests that he considers you mon- strously precipitate ! Now is not that a fair trans- lation ? Why really if we did not know Mr. Grat- tan, we should be almost tempted to think that he was quoting from the ministry. With the exception of one or two plain, downright, sturdy, unblushing 60 SPEECH bigots, who opposed you because you were chris- tians, and declared they did so, this was the cant of every man who affected liberality. " Oh, I declare, 1 ' they say, " they may not be cannibals, though they are catholics, and I would be very glad to vote for them, but this is no feme." " Oh no," says Bragge Bathurst, " it's no time. What ! in time of war ! Why it looks like bullying us !" Very well : next comes the peace, and what say our friends the opposition ? " Oh ! I declare peace is no feme, it looks so like persuading us." For my part, serious as the subject is, it affects me with the very same ridicule with which I see I have so unconsciously affected you. I will tell you a story of which it reminds me. It is told of the celebrated Charles Fox. Far be it from me, how- ever, to mention that name with levity. As he was a great man, I revere him ; as he was a good man, I love him. He had as wise a head as ever paused to deliberate ; he had as sweet a tongue as ever gave the words of wisdom utterance; and he had an heart so stamped with the immediate im- press of the divinity, that its very errors might be traced to the success of its benevolence I had almost forgot the story. Fox was a man of genius, of course he was poor. Poverty is a reproach to no man ; to such a man as Fox, I think it was a pride; for if he chose to traffic with his princi- ples; if Ac chose to gamble with his conscience, how easily might he' have been rich ? I guessed your answer. It would be hard, indeed, if you did not believe that in England talents might find a purchaser, who have seen in Ireland how easily a blockhead may swindle himself into preferment. — Juvenal says that the greatest misfortune attendant upon poverty is ridicule. Fox found out a greater — AT DUBLIN. 61 debt. The Jews called on him for payment. « Ah, my dear friends," says 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 war's no time. Well, the Jews departed just as you did. — They returned to the charge : " What ! (cries Fox,) is this a time, when I am engaged on an appoint- ment ?" What ! say our friends, is this a time when all the world's at peace. The Jews departed ; but the end of it was, Fox, with his secretary, Mr. Hare, who was as much in debt as he was, shut them- selves up in garrison. The Jews used to surround his habitation at day-light, and poor Fox regularly put his head out of the window, with this question, " Gentlemen, are you .Far-hunting or Hare-hunting this morning ?" His pleasantry mitigated the very Jews. " Well, well, Fox, now you have always ad- mitted the principle, but protested against the time, we will give you your own time, only just fix some final day for our repayment." " Ah, my dear Moses," replies Fox, " now this is friendly. I will take you at your word ; I will fix a day, and as it's to be a final day, what would you think of the day of judgment?" That will be too busy a day with us." " Well, well, in order to accom- modate all parties, let us settle the day after." — Thus it is, between the war inexpediency of Bragge Bathurst, and the peace inexpediency of Mr. Grattan, you may expect your emancipation bill pretty much about the time that Fox settled for the payment of his creditors. Mr. Grattan, however, though he scorned to take your sugges- tions, took the suggestions of your friends. " I have consulted," says he, "my right honourable friends !" Oh, all friends, all right honourable ! 62 SPEECH Now this it is to trust the interests of a people into the hands of a party. You must know, in par- liamentary parlance, these right honourable friends mean a party. There are few men so contemp- tible, as not to have a party. The minister has his party. The opposition have their party. The saints, for there are saints in the house of com- mons, lucus a non lucendo,— the saints have their party. Every one has his party. I had forgotten — Ireland has no party. Such are the reasons, if reasons they can be called, which Mr. Grattan has given for the postponement of your question ; and I 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, I do not dispute the prudence of his keeping them to himself; but as we have not the gift of pro- phecy, it is not easy for us to answer them, until he shall deign to give them to his constituents. Having dealt thus freely with the alleged rea- sons for the postponement, it is quite natural that you should require what my reasons are for urging the discussion. I shall give them candidly. They are at once so simple and explicit, it is quite im- possible that the meanest capacity amongst you should not comprehend them. I would urge the instant discussion, because discussion has always been of use to you ; because, upon every discus- sion you have gained converts out of doors ; and because, upon every discussion within the doors of parliament, your enemies have diminished, and your friends have increased. Now, is not that a strong reason for continuing your discussions ? — AT DUBLIN. 63 This may be assertion. Aye, but I will prove it. In order to convince you of the argument as referring to the country, I need but point to the state of the public mind now upon the subject, and that which existed in the memory of the youngest. I myself remember the blackest and the basest universal denunciations against your creed, and the vilest anathemas against any man who would grant you an iota. JYoiti, every man affects to be liberal, and the only question with some is the tune of the concessions ; with others, the extent of the concessions ; with many, the nature of the securities you should afford ; whilst a great multitude, 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 eloquence, argu- ment, and policy elicited by those discussions 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 of parliament. For twenty years you were silent, and of course you were neglected. The conse- quence 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 every opportunity of calumniating them. Ever since that period your cause has been advancing. Take the numerical proportions in the house of commons on each subsequent discussion. In 1805, the first time it was brought forward in the im- perial legislature, and it was then aided by the 64 SPEECH powerful eloquence of Fox, there was a majority against even taking your claims into consideration, of no less a number than 212. It was an appalling omen. In 1 808, 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 little remarkable that the first suc- cessful exertion in your favour was made by an English member, your enemies fled the field, and you had the triumphant majority to support you of 129 ! Now, is not this demonstration ? What be- comes now of those who say discussion has not been of use to you ? But I need not have resorted to arithmetical calculation. Men become ashamed of combating with axioms. Truth is omnipotent, and must prevail; it forces its way with the fire and the precision of the morning sun-beam. Va- pours may impede the infancy of its progress; but the very resistance that would check only con- denses and concentrates it, until at length it goes forth in the fulness of its meridian, all life and light and lustre — the minutest objects visible in its refulgence. You lived for centuries on the vegetable diet and eloquent silence of this Pytha- gorean policy ; and the consequence was, when you thought yourselves mightily dignified, and mightily interesting, the whole world was laughing at your philosophy, and sending its aliens to take possession of your birth-right. I have given you a good reason for urging your discussion, by having shown you that discussion has always gained you pro- selytes. But is it the time ? says Mr. Grattan. Yes., sir, it is the 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 AT DUBLIN. 65 against the weakness of the British minister. But why should I delude you by talking 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 decalogue is written in the blood of her victims ; and if she stoops for a moment from her infernal flight, it is upon some kindred rock to whet her vulture fang for keener rapine, and replume her wing for a more san- guinary desolation! I appeal from this infernal, grave-stalled fury, I appeal to the good sense, to the policy, to the gratitude of England ; and I make my appeal peculiarly at this moment, when all the illustrious potentates of Europe are assem- bled together in the British capital, to hold the great festival of universal peace and universal emancipation. Perhaps when France, flushed with success, fired by ambition, and enfuriated by enmity ; her avowed aim an universal conquest, her means the confederated resources of the Con- tinent, her guide the greatest military genius a nation fertile in prodigies has produced — a man who seemed born to invest what had been regular, to defile what had been venerable, 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 such a power, so led, so organized, and so incited, was in its noon of triumph, the timid might tremble even at the charge that would save, or the concession that would strengthen. But now, — her allies faithless, her conquests de- 9 66 SPEECH spoiled, her territory dismembered, her legions defeated, her leader dethroned, and her reigning prince our ally by treaty, our debtor by gratitude, and our alienable friend by every solemn obli- gation of civilized society, — the objection is our strength, and the obstacle our battlement. Per- haps when the pope was in the power 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. The Irish catholic, firm in his faith, bows to the pontiff's spiritual supremacy, but he would spurn the pon- tiff'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 de- scendant of saint Peter, we freely acknowledge 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 you attempt to convert your mitre into a crown, and your crozier into a sceptre, you de- grade the majesty of your high delegation, and grossly miscalculate upon our acquiescence. 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 be our own, if we allow them to be rivited by another." Such would be the answer of universal Ireland ; such was her answer to the audacious menial, who dared to dictate her unconditional submission to an act of parliament which emancipated by penal- ties, and redressed by insult. But, sir, it never would have entered into the contemplation of the pope to have assumed such an authority. His AT DUBLIN. 67 character was a sufficient shield against the im- putation, 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 eccle- siastical supremacy. Thus was parliament doubly guarded against a foreign usurpation. 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 Welling- ton find that religious faith made any difference amid the thunder of the battle ? Did the Spanish soldier desert his colours because his General believed not in the real presence ? Did the brave Portuguese neglect his orders to negociate about mysteries ? 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 ? 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 sen- sations of our haples 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 cheered the darling circle they must behold no more ? Alas, how the poor banished heart 68 SPEECH delights in the memory that song associates ! He heard it in happier days, when the parents he adored, the maid he loved, the friends of his soul, and the green fields of his infancy were round him; when his labours were illumined with the sun-shine of the heart, and his humble hut was a palace — for it was home. His soul is full, his eye suffused, he bends from the battlements to catch the cadence, when his death-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, at 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 calumnies 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 ungenerous accusation of an exclusive creed ! England, the ally of catholic Portugal, the ally of catholic Spain, the ally of catholic France, the friend of the pope ! England, who seated a ca- tholic bigot in Madrid ! who convoyed a catholic Braganza to the Brazils ! who enthroned a ca- tholic Bourbon in Paris ! who guaranteed a ca- tholic establishment in Canada ! who gave a constitution to catholic Hanover ! England, who searches the globe for catholic grievances to re- dress, 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 consistent ? Is it just ? Is it even politic ? AT DUBLIN. 69 Is it the act of a wise country to fetter the ener- gies of an entire population ? is 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 pious to make Providence a party to their degradation ? There are societies in England for discounte- nancing vice ; 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 ties 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 cha- racter of her precepts, breathing the air and robed in the beauties of the world to which she would lead us ; with no argument but love, no look but peace, no wealth but piety ; her creed compre- hensive as the arch of heaven, and her charities bounded but by the circle of creation ? Or, has she been let loose amongst us, in form a fury, and in act a demon, her heart festered with the fires of hell, her hands clotted with the gore of earth, withering alike in her repose and in her progress, her path apparent by the print of blood, and her pause denoted by the expanse of desolation ? Gos- pel of Heaven ! is this thy herald ? God of the universe ! is this thy hand-maid ? Christian of the ascendancy ! how would you answer the dis- believing 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, crimsoned with his blood, became little better than a stake for the sacrifice 70 SPEECH 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 the 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 inspired it with reason, and any effort to liberate a fellow-creature from his in- tellectual 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 barrier between the sexes, and the intercourse of nature was pronounced felony by law ; where God's worship was an act of stealth, and his min- isters sought amongst the savages of the woods that sanctuary which a nominal civilization had denied them ; where, at this instant, conscience is made to blast every hope of genius, and 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 preferments of earth are only to be obtained by the forfeiture of Heaven ? " Unprized are her sons till they learn to betray, Undistinguish'd they live if they shame not their sires ; And the torch that would light them to dignity's way, Must be caught from the pile where their country expires !' v% How, let me ask, how would the christian zealot droop beneath this catalogue of christian qualifi- cations ? But, thus it is, when sectarians differ on account of mysteries ; in the heat and acrimony of the causeless contest, religion, the glory of one world, and the guide of another, drifts from the splendid circle in which she shone, in the comet- AT DUBLIN. 71 maze of uncertainty and error. The code against which you petition, is a vile compound of impiety and impolicy : impiety, because it debases in the name of God; impolicy, because it disqualifies under pretence of government. If 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 eloquence, with Castlereagh guiding the cabinet by his counsels, with Barry enriching the arts by his pencil, with Swift adorning literature by his genius, with Goldsmith or with Moore softening the heart by their melody, or with Wellington chaining victory at his car, he may boldly chal- lenge the competition of the world. Oppressed and impoverished as our country is, every muse has cheered, and every art adorned, and every conquest crowned her. Plundered, she was not poor, for her character enriched ; attainted, she was not titleless, for her services ennobled ; lite- rally outlawed into eminence and fettered into fame, the fields of her exile were immortalized by her deeds, and the links of her chain became de- corated by her laurels. Is this fancy, or is it fact ? 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 representative ? She has sent Lord Moira to India, Sir Gore Ouseley to Ispahan, Lord Stuart to Vienna, Lord Castle- 72 SPEECH reagh £o congress, Sir Henry Wellesley to Madrid, Mr. Canning to Lisbon, Lord Stranglord to the Brazils, Lord Clancarty to Holland, Lord Wel- lington to Paris — all Irishmen ! Whether it results from accident or from merit, can there be a more cutting sarcasm on the policy of England ! Is it not directly saying to her, " Here is a country from one-fifth of whose people you depute the agents of your most august delegation, the re- maining four-fifths of which, by your odious bigotry, you incapacitate from any station of office or of trust !" It is adding all that is weak in im- policy to all that is wicked in ingratitude. What is her apology ? Will she pretend that the Deity imitates her injustice, and incapacitates the intel- lect 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 ? Is she not content with Him as a protestant God, unless He also consents to become a catholic demon ? But, if the charge were true, if the Irish catholic were imbruted and debased, Ire- land'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 connexion which you called a benefit to Ireland ? Have your protecting laws so debased them, that the very privilege of reason is worthless in their possession ? Shame ! oh, shame ! to the govern- ment where the people are barbarous ! The day is not distant when they made the education of a catholic a crime, and yet they arraign the catho- lic for ignorance ! The day is not distant when they proclaimed the celebration of the catholic AT DUBLIN. 73 worship a felony, and jet they complain that the catholic is not moral ! What folly ! Is it to be expected that the people are to emerge in a mo- ment from the stupor of a protracted degradation ? There is not perhaps to be traced upon the map of national misfortune a spot so truly 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, have not been eternal ; the hour of probation, or of punishment, has passed away; and the tempest, after having emptied the vial of its wrath, has given place to the serenity of the calm and of the sunshine. — Has this been the case with respect to our misera- ble country ? Is there, save in the visionary world of tradition — is there in the progress, either of record or recollection, one verdant spot in the desert of our annals where patriotism can find repose or philanthropy refreshment ? Oh, indeed, posterity will pause with wonder on the melan- choly page which shall portray the story of a people amongst whom the policy of man has waged an eternal warfare with the providence of God, blighting into deformity all that was beau- teous, and into famine all that was 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 ? Suppose he sends his son, the hope of his pride and the wealth of his heart, into the army ; the child justifies his parental anticipation; he is moral 10 74 SPEECH in his habits, he is strict in his discipline, he fe daring in the field, and temperate at the board, and patient in the camp ; the first in the charge, the last in the retreat ; with an hand to achieve, and an head to guide, and a temper to conciliate ; he combines the skill of Wellington with the cle- mency of Cesar and the courage of Turenne — yet he can never rise — he is a catholic ! — Take another instance. 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 asso- ciates of his heart, and all the fairy enchantments in which fancy may have wrapped him. Alas ! for what? Though genius flashed from his eye, and eloquence rolled from his lips ; though he 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 disqualifi- cation 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 Christianity, 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 constitution pro- fessing to be free, or any government pretending to be civilized. To justify this enormity, there is now no argument. Now is the time to concede with dignity that which was never denied without AT DUBLIN. 75 injustice. Who can tell how soon we may require all the zeal of our united population to secure our very existence? Who can argue upon the con- tinuance of this calm ? Have we not seen the labour of ages overthrown, and the whim of a day erected on its ruins; establishments the most solid withering at a word, and visions the most whimsical realized at a wish ; crowns crumbled, discords confederated, kings become vagabonds, and vagabonds made kings at the capricious phren- zy of a village adventurer ? Have we not seen the whole political and moral world shaking as with an earthquake, and shapes the most fantastic and 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 hand- maid to her justice ; if she is pious, the peril she has escaped will be but the herald of her expi- ation. Thus much have I said in the way of argument to the enemies of your question. Let me offer an humble opinion to its friends. The first and almost the sole request which an advo- cate would make to you is, to remain united ; rely on it, a divided assault can never overcome a con- solidated resistance. I allow that an educated aristocracy are as an head to the people, without which they cannot think ; but then the people are as hands to the aristocracy, without 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 altar than the altar of your country ? This same spirit of conciliation should be extended even to your enemies. If England will not con- sider that a brow of suspicion is but a bad accom- 76 SPEECH paniment to an act of grace ; if she will not allow that kindness may make those friends whom even oppression could not make foes ; if she will not confess that the best security she can have from Ireland is by giving Ireland an interest in her constitution ; still, since her power is the shield of her prejudices, you should concede where you cannot conquer ; it is wisdom to yield when it has become hopeless to combat. There is but one concession which I would never advise, and which, were I a catholic, I would never make. You will perceive that I allude to any interference with your clergy. That was the crime of Mr. Grattan's security bill. It made the patronage of your religion the ransom for your liberties, and bought the favour of the crown by the surrender of the church. It is a vicious principle, it is the cause of all your sor- rows. If there had not been a state-establishment there would not have been a catholic bondage — By that incestuous conspiracy between the altar and the throne, infidelity has achieved a more extended dominion than by all the sophisms of her philosophy, or all the terrors of her persecu- tion. 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 perisha- ble puppet of this world's vanity makes Omnipo- tence a menial to its power, 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 1 do not think that you, on the one hand, could surrender the patronage of your religion to the king, without the most unconscientious compro- AT DUBLIN. If mise, so, on the other hand, I do not think the king could ever conscientiously receive it. Sup- pose he receives it ; if he exercises it for the advantage of jour church, he directly violates the coronation-oath which binds him to the exclusive interests of the 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 reli- gion of her most ennobled patriots, it was the religion of the 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 lawless lust of a murderous adulterer. What right has she to suspect your church ? When her thousand sects were brandishing the fragments of their faith against each other, and Christ saw his garment, without a seam, a piece of patch-work for every mountebank who figured in the pantomime ; when her Babel temple rocked at every breath of her Priestleys and her Paynes, Ireland, proof against the menance of her power, was proof also against the perilous impiety of her example. But if as catholics you should guard it, the palladium of your creed, not less as Irishmen should you prize it, the relic of your country. Deluge after deluge has desolated her provinces. The monuments of art which escaped the barbarism of one invader fell beneath the still more savage civilization of another. Alone, amid the solitude, your temple stood like some majestic monument amid the de- sert of antiquity, just in its proportions, sublime in its associations, rich in the virtue of its saints, 78 PETITION. cemented by the blood of its martyrs, 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 prin- ciples 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 wor- ship we are so nobly struggling, — I conjure you, let no unholy hand profane the sacred ark of your re- ligion ; preserve it inviolate ; its light is " light from Heaven ;" follow it through all the perils of your journey ; and, like the fiery pillar of the captive Israel, it will cheer the desert of your bondage, and guide to the land of your liberation ! PETITION REFERRED TO IW THE PRECEDING SPEECH, DRAWN BY MR. PHILLIPS AT THE REQUEST OF THE ROMAN CATHOLICS OF IRELAND. To the honourable the Commons of the United King- dom of Great Britain and Ireland, in parliament assembled : The humble petition of the Roman catholics of Ireland, whose names are undersigned on be- half of themselves, and others, professing the Roman catholic religion, Showeth, That we, the Roman catholic people of Ire- land, again approach the legislature with a statement of the grievances under which we la- PETITION". 79 bour, and of which we most respectfully, but at the same time most firmly, solicit the effectual redress. Our wrongs are so notorious, and so numerous, that their minute detail is quite unne- cessary, and would indeed be impossible, were it deemed expedient. Ages of persecution on the one hand, and of patience on the other, sufficiently attest our sufferings and our submission. Privations have been answered only by petition, indignities by remonstrance, injuries by forgiveness. It has been a misfortune to have suffered for the sake of our religion ; but it has also been a pride to have borne the best testimony to the purity of our doctrine, by the meekness of our endurance. We have sustained the power which spurned us ; we have nerved the arm which smote us ; we have lavished our strength, our talent, and our treasures, and buoyed up, on the prodigal effusion of our young blood, the triumphant Ark of British Lib- erty. We approach, then, with confidence, an enlight- ened legislature ; in the 'name of Nature, we ask our rights as men ; in the name of the constitution, we ask our privileges 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 people. We offer faith that was never violated, hearts that were never corrupted, valour that never crouched. Every hour of peril has proved our al- legiance, and every field of Europe exhibits its ex- ample. We abjure all temporal authority, except that of our sovereign ; we acknowledge no civil pre-emi- nence, save that of our constitution ; and, for our 80 PETITION. lavish and voluntary expenditure, we only ask a reciprocity of benefits. Separating, as we do, our civil rights from our spiritual duties, we humbly desire that they may not be confounded. We " render unto Cesar the things that are Cesar's," but we must also "render unto God the things that are God's." 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 pretensions, 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 anni- hilate the odious bondage which bows down the mental, physical, and moral energies of Ireland ; and, in the name of that gospel which breathes cha- rity towards all, we seek freedom of conscience for all the inhabitants of the British empire. May it therefore please this honourable house to abolish all penal and disabling laws, which in any manner infringe religious liberty, or restrict the free enjoyment of the sacred rights of conscience, within these realms. And your petitioners will ever pray. THE TO H. R. H. THE PRINCESS OF WALES DRAWN BY MR. PHILLIPS AT THE REQUEST OF THE ROMAN CATHOLICS OF IRELAND. May it please your Royal Highness, We, the Roman catholic people of Ireland, beg leave to offer our unfeigned congratula- tions on your providential escape from the con- spiracy which so lately endangered both your life and honour — 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 success, 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 precious ornament, the virtue of its wearer, than our best feelings are at the inhospitable baseness, which would betray the innocence of a female in a land of strangers ! ! Deem it not disrespectful, illustrious lady, that, from a people proverbially ardent in the cause of the defenceless, the shout of virtuous con- n 82 ADDRESS. gratulation should receive a feeble echo. Our harp has long been unused to tones of gladness, and our hills but faintly answer the unusual accent Your heart, however, can appreciate the silence indicted by suffering ; and ours, alas, feels but too acutely that the commiseration is sincere which flows from sympathy. Let 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 conse- quences. Let us hope that the society of your only child again solaces your dignified 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, indeed, the cry of an indignant and unanimous people is disregarded ; console yourself with the reflection, that, though your exiled daughter may not hear the precepts of virtue from your lips, she may at least study the practice of it in your example. A DELIVERED BY MR. PHILLIPS AT A PUBLIC DINNER GIVEN TO HIM BY THE FRIENDS OF CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY iif LIVERPOOL. Believe me, Mr. Chairman, I feel too sen- sibly the high and unmerited compliment you have paid me, to attempt any other return than the simple expression of my gratitude ; to be just, I must be silent ; but though the tongue is mute, my heart is much more than eloquent. The kind- ness of friendship, the testimony of any class, however humble, carries with it no trifling grati- fication ; but stranger as I am, to be so distin- guished in this great city, whose wealth is its least recommendation ; the emporium of commerce, liberality, and public spirit ; the birth-place of talent ; the residence of integrity ; the field where freedom seems to have rallied the last allies 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 84 SPEECH vanity which even a sense of my unimportance cannot entirely silence. Indeed, sir, the minis- terial critics of Liverpool were right. I have no claim to this enthusiastic welcome. But I cannot look upon this testimonial so much as a tribute to myself, as an omen to that country with whose fortunes the dearest sympathies of my soul are intertwined. Oh yes, I do foresee when she shall hear with what courtesy her most pretensionless advocate has been treated, how the same wind that wafts her the intelligence, will revive that flame within her, which the blood of ages has not been able to extinguish. It may be a delusive hope, but I am glad to grasp at any phantom that flits across the solitude of that country's deso- lation. On this subject you can scarely be igno- rant, 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 convincing. I need scarcely say I allude to Mr. Casey. I knew, sir, the statue was too striking to require a name upon the pedestal. Alas, Ireland has little now to console her, except the consciousness of having produced such men. It would be a reasonable adulation in me to de- ceive you. Six centuries of base misgovernment, of causeless, ruthless, and ungrateful persecution, have now reduced that country to a crisis, at which I know not whether the friend of humanity has most cause to grieve or to rejoice ; because I 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. I trust in God a change of system may in time anticipate the results AT LIVERPOOL. 85 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 pursuer. Can you wonder at it ? Contemplate Ireland during any given 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 capable of the most effective navigation ; with the ore of every metal struggling through her surface ; with a people, brave, generous, and in- tellectual, literally forcing their way through the disabilities of their own country into the highest stations of every other, and well rewarding the policy that promotes them, by achievements the most heroic, and allegiance without a blemish. — How have the successive governments of England demeaned themselves to a nation, offering such an accumulation of moral and political advantages ! See it in the state of Ireland at this instant ; in the universal bankruptcy that overwhelms her; in the loss of her trade ; in the annihilation of her manu- factures ; in the deluge of her debt ; in the divi- sions of her people ; in all the loathsome opera- tions of an odious, monopolizing, hypocritical fanaticism on the one hand, wrestling with the untiring but natural reprisals of an irritated popu- lation on the other ! It required no common ingenuity to reduce such a country to such a situa- tion. But it has been done ; man has conquered the beneficence of the Deity; 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 86 SPEECH even to lift the shroud with which famine and fatuity try to encumber her convulsion. This is what I see a pensioned press denominates tran- quillity. Oh, wo to the land threatened with such tranquillity ; soUtudinem faciunt, pacem appellant ; it is not yet the tranquillity of solitude ; it is not yet the tranquillity of death ; but if you would know what it is, go forth in the silence of creation, when every wind is hushed, and every echo mute, and all nature seems to listen in dumb and terri- fied and breathless expectation, go forth in such an hour, and see the terrible tranquillity by which you are surrounded ! How could it be otherwise ; when for ages upon ages invention has fatigued itself with expedients for irritation ; when, as I have read with horror in the progress of my legal studies, the homicide of a " mere Irishman" was considered justifiable ; and when his ignorance was the origin of all his crimes, his education was pro- hibited by act of parliament ! — when the people were worm-eaten by the odious vermin which a church and state adultery had spawned ; 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 non-acquiescence the signal for confiscation ; when religion itself was made the odious pretence for every persecution, and the fires of hell were alternately lighted with the cross, and quenched in the blood of its defenceless followers ! I speak of times that are passed: but can their recollec- tions, can their consequences be so readily era- dicated. Why, however, should I refer to periods that are distant ? Behold, at this instant, live millions of her people disqualified on account of AT LIVERPOOL. 87 their faith, and that by a country professing free- dom ! and that under a government calling itself christian ! You (when I say you, of course I mean, not the high-minded people of England, but the 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 own breth- ren at home, who speak the same tongue, acknowl- edge 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, ingrat- itude, and injustice ! The pagan nations of an- tiquity scarcely 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 conquest with the embrace of brother- hood, and wisely converting the captive into the citizen. Look to her great enemy, the glorious Carthagenian, at the foot of the Alps, ranging his prisoners round him, and by the politic option of captivity or arms, recruiting his legions with the very men whom he had literally conquered into gratitude ! They laid their foundations deep in the human heart, and their success was propor- tionate to their policy. You complain of the violence of the Irish catholic : can you wonder he is violent ? It is the consequence of your own infliction — 1 The flesh will quiver where the pincers tear, The blood will follow where the knife is driven." 88 SPEECH - Your friendship has been to him worse than hos- tility ; he feels its embrace but by the pressure of his fetters ! I am only amazed he is not more violent. He fills your exchequer, he fights your battles, he feeds your clergy from whom he de- rives no benefit, he shares your burdens, he shares your perils, he shares every thing except your pri- vileges : can you wonder he is violent ? No matter what his merit, no matter what his claims, no mat- ter 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 vanished ; 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 in Christen- dom, and he feels himself branded with heredi- tary degradation — can you wonder, then, that he is violent ? He petitioned humbly ; his tameness was construed into a proof of apathy. He peti- tioned 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 strange interval, a prodigy in politics, a pause between peace and war, which appeared to be just made for him, arose ; I allude to the period between the retreat of Louis and the restoration of Buonaparte; he petitioned then, and he was told it was not the time. Oh, shame ! shame ! shame ! I hope he will petition no more to a parliament so equivocating. However, I am not sorry they did so equivocate, because I think they have suggested one common AT LIVERPOOL. 89 remedy for the grievances of both countries, and that remedy is, a Reform op that Parliament. — 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 ad- mire your eloquence, and they will prove, their sincerity by a strict perseverance in the impolicy you have exposed, and the profligacy you have de- precated. Look to England at this moment. To w r hat 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 studded over with the gems of art and manu- facture, there is now scarce an object but industry in rags, and patience in despair: the merchant without a ledger, the fields without a harvest, the shops 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- jobbers and sinecurists, in short, the whole trained, collared, pampered, and rapacious pack of minis- terial beagles, have been, for half a century, in the most clamorous and discordant uproar! During all this misery how are the pilots of the state em- ployed ? Why, in feeding the bloated mammoth of sinecure ! in weighing the farthings of some underling's salary ! in preparing Ireland for a gar- rison, and England for a poor-house ! in the struc- ture of Chinese palaces ! the decoration of dra- goons, 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 people cry out for breads and the scrip- 12 90 SPEECH tural minister gives them stones ! Such has beer* the result of the blessed Pitt system, which amid oceans of blood, and 800 millions 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, wasted by fire, overcome by enemies ; but never until now did I see a state like England, impoverished by her spoils, and con- quered by her successes ! She has fought the fight of Europe ; she has purchased all its coinable blood; she has subsidized all its dependencies in their own cause ; she has conquered by sea, she has conquer- ed by land ; she has got peace, and, of course, or the Pitt apostles would not 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 desolation, like one of the pyramids of Egypt ; amid the gran- deur of the desert, full of magnificence and death, at once a trophy and a tomb ! The heart of any reflecting man must burn within him, when he thinks that the war thus sanguinary in its ope- rations, and confessedly ruinous in its expend iture, was even still more odious in its principle ! It was a war avowedly undertaken for the purpose of forcing France out of her undoubted right of choosing her own monarch ; a war which uprooted the very foundations of the English constitution ; which libelled the most glorious era in our national annals; which declared tyranny eternal, and an- nounced to the people,amid the thunder of artillery, that, no matter how aggrieved, their only allowable attitude was that of supplication ; which, when it told the French reformer of 1793, that his defeat was just, told the British reformer of 16B8, his tri- AT LIVERPOOL. 91 amph was treason, and exhibited to history, the ter- rific farce of a prince of the house of Brunswick, the creature of the revolution, offering an human HECATOMB UPON THE GRAVE OF J AMES THE SECOND ! ! What else have you done ? You have succeeded indeed in dethroning Napoleon, and you have dethroned a monarch, who, with all his imputed crimes and vices, shed a splendour around royalty, too powerful for the feeble vision of legitimacy even to bear. He had many faults ; 1 do not seek to palliate them. He deserted his principles ; I rejoice that he has suffered. But still let us be generous even in our enmities. How grand was his march ! How magnificent his destiny ! Say 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 ; he strode from victory to victory ; his path was " a plane of continued elevations." Surpassing the boast of the two confident Roman, he but stamped upon the earth, and not only armed men, but 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. Whitbread said, "you made him, and he unmade himself" — his own ambition was his glorious conqueror. He attempted, with a sublime audacity, to grasp the fires of Heaven, 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 any thing, you are infinitely worse than when you commenced the contest! But what have you done for Europe? What have you achieved for man ? Have morals been ameliorated ? Has liberty been strengthened? 92 SPEECH Has any one improvement in politics or philosophy been produced ? Let us see how. You have re- stored to Portugal a prince of whom we know nothing, except that when his dominions were invaded, his people distracted, his crown in danger, and all that could interest the highest energies of man at issue, he left his cause to be combated by foreign bayonets, and fled with a dastard preci- pitation to the shameful security of a distant hemisphere ! You have restored to Spain a wretch of even worse than proverbial princely ingratitude ; who filled his dungeons, and fed his rack with the heroic remnant that braved war, and famine, and massacre beneath his banners ; who rewarded pa- triotism with the prison, fidelity with the torture, heroism with the scaffold, and piety with the In- quisition ; whose royalty was published by the signature of his death-warrants, and whose religion evaporated in the embroidering of petticoats for the blessed Virgin ! You have forced upon France a family to whom misfortune could teach no mercy, or experience wisdom ; vindictive in prosperity, servile in defeat, timid in the field, vacillating in the cabinet ; suspicion amongst themselves, dis- content amongst their followers ; their memories tenacious but of the punishments they had pro- voked, their piety active but in subserviency to their priesthood, and their power passive but in the subjugation of their people ! Such are the dynasties you have conferred on Europe. In the very act, that of enthroning three individuals of the same family, you have committed in politics a capital error; but Providence has countermined the ruin you were preparing ; and whilst the im- policy prevents the chance, their impotency pre- cludes the danger of a coalition. As to the rest AT LIVERPOOL. 93 of Europe, how has it been ameliorated ? What solitary benefit have the "deliverers" conferred? They have partitioned the states of the feeble to feed the rapacity of the powerful ; and after having 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 Ge- noa, look to Norway, but, above all, to Poland ! that speaking monument of regal murder and legit- imate robbery — Oh ! bloodiest picture in the book of time — Sarmatia fell — unwept — without a crime ! Here was an opportunity to recompense that brave, heroic, generous, martyred, and devoted people ; here was an opportunity to convince Jacobinism that crowns and crimes were not, of course, co- existent, and that the highway rapacity of one generation might be atoned by the penitential re- tribution of another ! Look to Italy; parcelled out to temporizing Austria — the land of the muse, the historian, and the hero ; the scene of every classic recollection; the sacred fane of antiquity, where the genius of the world weeps and worships, and the spirits of the past start into life at the in- spiring pilgrimage of some kindred Roscoe. You do yourselves honour by this noble, this natural en- thusiasm. Long may you enjoy the pleasure of possessing, never can you lose the pride of having produced the scholar without pedantry, the patriot without reproach, the christian without superstition, the man without a blemish ! It is a subject I could dwell on with delight for ever. How painful our transition to the disgusting path of the deliverers. 94 SPEECH Look to Prussia, after fruitless toil and wreathless triumphs, mocked with the promise of a visionary constitution. Look to France, chained and plun- dered, weeping 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 standing army of 149,000 men, misrepresented by a house of com- mons, 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 achieve- ments ! Monster of Legitimacy, this is thy con- summation ! ! ! The past is out of -power ; it is high time to provide against the future. Retrench- ment and reform are now become not only expe- dient for our prosperity, but necessary 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 family 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 sinecure of some wealthy pauper ? Shall a borough-mongering faction convert what is misnamed the National Representation into a mere instrument for raising the supplies which are to gorge its own venality ? Shall the mock dignitaries of Whiggism and Toryism lead their hungry retainers to contest the profits of an alternate ascendency over the prostrate interest of a too generous people ? These are ques- tions which I blush to ask, which I shudder to think must be either answered by the parliament AT LIVERPOOL. 95 er the people. Let our rulers prudently avert the interrogation. We live in times when the slightest remonstrance should command atten- tion, when the minutest speck that merely dots the edge of the political horizon, may be the car of the approaching spirit of the storm ? Oh ! they are times whose omen no fancied security can avert ; times of the most awful and por- tentous admonition. Establishments the most solid, thrones the most ancient, coalitions the most powerful, have crumbled before our eyes ; and the creature of a moment robed, and crown- ed, 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 imminency of the perils which seem tp surround us, have led me far be- yond the limits *of a convivial meeting. I see I have my apology in your indulgence — but I can- not prevail on myself to trespass farther. Accept, again, gentlemen, my most grateful acknowledg- ments. Never, never can I forget this day : in pri- vate life it shall be the companion of my solitude ; and if, in the caprices of that fortune which will at times degrade the high and dignify the humble, I should hereafter be called to any station of responsibility, 1 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 encouragement. I hope, however, the benefit of this day will not be confin- ed to the humble individual you have so honoured : 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 96 SPEECH AT LIVERPOOL. ignorance, 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 honour of pro- posing to you the health of a man, whose virtues adorn, and whose talents powerfully advocate our cause ; I mean the health of your worthy chairman, Mr. Shepherd. sKPsmuat OE MR. PHILLIPS IN THE CASE OF GUTHRIE v. STERNE, DELIVERED IN THE COURT OF COMMON PLEAS, DUBLIN. My Lord and Gentlemen, In this case I am of counsel for the plaintiff who has deputed me, with the kind concession of my much more efficient colleagues, to detail to you the story of his misfortunes. In the course of a long friendship which has existed between us, originating in mutual pursuits, and cemented by our mutual attachments, never, until this in- stant, did I feel any thing but pleasure in the claims which it created, or the duty which it imposed. In selecting me, however, from this bright array of learning and of eloquence, I can- not help being pained at the kindness of a par- tiality which forgets its interest in the exercise of its affection, and confides the task of practised wis- dom to the uncertain guidance of youth and inex- perience. He has thought, perhaps, that truth needed no set phrase of speech ; that misfortune should not veil the furrows which its tears had 13 98 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF burned ; or hide, under the decorations of an art- ful drapery, the heart-rent heavings with which its bosom throbbed. He has surely thought thi t f by contrasting mine with the powerful talents selected by his antagonist, he was giving 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. Hap- pily, however, for him, happily for you, happily for the country, happily for the profession, on sub- jects such as this, the experience of the oldest amongst us is but slender ; deeds such as this are not indigenous to an Irish soil, or naturalized be- neath an Irish climate. We hear of them, indeed, as we do of the earthquakes that convulse, or the pestilence that infects, less favoured regions ; but the record of the calamity is only read with the generous scepticism of innocence, or an involun- tary thanksgiving to the Providence that has pre- served us. JNo matter how we may have graduated in 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 conceded, that our hearths were the home of the domestic virtues, and that love, honour, and conjugal fidelity, were the dear and indisputable deities of our household : around the fire-side of the Irish hovel hospitality circumscribed its sacred circle ; and a provision to punish created a suspicion of the possibility of its violation. But of all the ties that bound — of all the bounties that blessed her — Ireland most obeyed, most loved, most reverenced the nuptial contract. She saw it the gift of Heaven, the charm of earth, the joy of the present, the promise of the future. GUTHRIE v. STERNE. 99 the innocence of enjoyment, the chastity of passion, the sacrament of love : the slender curtain that shades the sanctuary of her marriage-bed, has in its purity the splendour of the mountain-snow, and for its protection the texture of the mountain adamant. Gentlemen, that national sanctuary has been in- vaded ; that venerable divinity has been violated ; and its tenderest pledges torn from their shrine, hy the polluted rapine of a kindiess, heartless, prayerless, remorseless adulterer ! To you — re- ligion defiled, morals insulted, law despised, public order foully violated, and individual happiness wantonly wounded, make their melancholy 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 admit. The plaintiff in this case is John Guthrie ; by birth, by education, by profession, by better, than all, by practice and by principles, a gentleman. — Believe me, it is not from the common-place of advocacy, or from the blind partiality of friend- ship, that I say of him, that whether considering the virtues that adorn life, or the blandishments that endear it, he has few superiors. Surely, if a spirit that disdained dishonour, if a heart that knew not guile, if a life above reproach, and a character beyond suspicion, could have been a security against misfortunes, his lot must have been happiness. I speak in the presence of that profession to which he was an ornament, and with whose members his manhood has been familiar ; and I say of him, with a confidence that defies refutation, that, whether we consider him in his private or his public station, as a man or as a law- yer, there never breathed that being less capable 100 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF of exciting enmity towards himself, or of offering, even by implication, an offence to others. If he had a fault, it was, that, above crime, he was above suspicion ; and to that noblest error of a noble nature he has fallen a victim. Having spent his youth in the cultivation of a mind which must have one day led him to eminence, he became a member of the profession by which I am surround- ed. Possessing, as he did, a moderate independence, and looking forward to the most flattering pros- pects, it was natural for him to select amongst the other sex, some friend who should adorn his for- tunes, and deceive his toils. He found such a friend, or thought he found her, in the person of Miss Warren, the only daughter of an eminent soliciter. Young, beautiful, and accomplished, she was " adorned with all that earth or heaven could bestow to make her amiable." Virtue never found a fairer temple ; beauty never veiled a purer sanc- tuary : the graces of her mind retained the ad- miration which 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 ador- ing 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. Methinks I see them at the sacred altar, joinings those hands which Heaven com- manded none should separate, repaid for many a pang of anxious nurture by the sweet smile of filial piety ; and in the holy rapture of the rite, wor- GUTHRIE v. STERNE. 101 shipping the power that blessed their children, and gave them hope their names should live here- after. It was virtue's vision ! None but fiends could envy it. Year after year confirmed the an- ticipation ; four lovely children blessed their union. Nor was their love the summer-passion of prosper- ity ; misfortune proved, afflictions chastened it : before the mandate of that mysterious Power which will at times despoil the path of innocence, to de- corate the chariot of triumphant villany, my client had to bow in silent resignation. He owed his adversity to the benevolence of his spirit; he 44 went security for friends ;" those friends de- ceived him, and he 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 embar- rassment. With a conjugal devotion, Mrs. Guthrie accompanied him ; and in her smile the soil of a stranger was a home, the sorrows of adversity were dear to him. During their residence in Scotland, a period of about a year, you will find they lived as they had done in Ireland, and as they continued to do until this calamitous occur- rence, in a state of uninterrupted happiness. You shall hear, most satisfactorily, that their 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 was no circle in which her society was not courted — that cheerfulness which never was a companion of 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 ambition awoke, 102 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 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 competitors, and rising with such a cha- racter, 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 domestic 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 Dunstanville Sterne : one would think he had epithets enough, without adding to them the title of Adulterer. Of his character I know but little, and I am sorry that I know so much. If I am in- structed 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 conse- quences ; one of those fashionable insects, that folly has painted, and fortune plumed, for the annoyance of our atmosphere ; dangerous alike in their torpidity and their animation ; infesting where they fly, and poisoning where they repose. It was through the introduction of Mr. Fallon, the son of a most respectable lady, then resident in Temple- street, and a near relative of Mr. Guthrie, that the defendant and this unfortunate woman first be- came acquainted : to such an introduction the shadow of a suspicion could not possibly attach. GUTHRIE v. STERNE. 103 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 intrusted all that was dear to him, No suspicion could be awakened as to any man to whom such a female as Mrs. Fallon permitted an intimacy with her daughters ; while at her house then and at the parties which it originated, the defendant and Mrs. Guthrie had frequent oppor- tunities 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 pro- fligate could have plotted his iniquities ! Who would not rather suppose, that, in the rebuke 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 se^ lected only as the sanctuary of his crimes ; and the pure and the spotless chosen as his associates, because they would be more unsuspected subsi- diaries to his wickedness. Nor were his manner and his language less suited than his society to the concealment of his objects. If you believed him- self, the sight of suffering affected his nerves ; the bare mention of immorality smote upon his con- science ; an intercourse 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 irresistibly impelled him to improve it by his residence, that he was a hapless victim to the excess of his feel- 104 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF ings ! — the exquisiteness of his polish ! — and the excellence of his patriotism ! His English estates, he said, amounted to about 10,000/. a-year; and he retained in Ireland only a trifling 3000/. more, as a kind of trust fbr the necessities of its inhabit- ants h — In short, according 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 honour of his name and his connexion, a sentimental journey in search of objects over whom his heart might weep, and his sensibility expand itself! How happy it is, that, of the philosophic pro- fligate only retaining the vices and the name, his rashness has led to the arrest of crimes, which he had all his turpitude to commit, without any of his talents to embellish. It was by arts such as I have alluded to — by pre- tending the most strict morality, the most sensitive honour, the most high and undeviating principles of virtue, — that the defendant banished every suspi- cion of his designs. As far as appearances went, he was exactly what he described himself. His pre- tensions to morals he supported by the most reserv- ed and respectful behaviour ; his hand was lavish in the distribution of his charities; and a splendid 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 respectable a relative as Mrs. Fallon, my client had much anxiety to increase the connex- ion. They visited together some of the public amusements : they partook of some of the fetes in GUTHRIE v. STERNE. 105 the neighbourhood of the metropolis; but upon every occasion, Mrs. Guthrie was accompanied by her own mother, and by the respectable females of Mrs. Fallon's family. I say, upon every occasion : and I challenge them to produce one single instance of those innocent excursions, upon whicii the slanders of an interested calumny have been let loose, in which this unfortunate lady was not ma- tronized by her female relatives, and those some of the most spotless characters in society. Be- tween Mr. Guthrie and the defendant, the ac- quaintance was but slight. Upon one occasion alone they dined together ; it was at the house of the plaintiff's father-in-law ; and, that you may have some illustration of the defendant's cha- racter, I shall briefly instance his conduct at this dinner. On being introduced to Mr. Warren, he apologized for any deficiency of etiquette in his visits, declaring that he had been seriously occu- pied in arranging the affairs of his lamented father, who, though tenant for life, had contract- ed debts to an enormous amount. 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 un- justly by his family ! His subsequent conduct was quite consistent with this hypocritical preamble : at dinner, he sat at a distance from Mrs. Guthrie ; expatiated to her husband upon matters of moral- ity ; entering into a high-flown panegyric on the virtues of domestic life, and the comforts of con- nubial happiness. In short, had there been any idea of jealousy, his manner would have banished it ; and the mind must have been worse than sceptical, which would refuse its credence to his surface morality. Gracious God ! when the heart 14 106 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF once admits guilt as its associate, how every na. tural emotion flies before it ! Surely, surely, here was a scene to reclaim, if it were possible, this re- morseless defendant, — admitted to her father's table, under the shield of hospitality, he saw a young and lovely female, surrounded by her pa- rents, her husband, and her children; the prop of those parents' age ; the idol of that husband's love ; the anchor of those children's helplessness ; the sacred orb of their domestic circle ; giving their smile its light, and their bliss its being ; robbed of whose beams the little lucid world of their home must become chill, uncheered, 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, before the venerable eye of age, as if to soften the farewell of one world by the pure and pictured anticipation of a better. Yet, even there, hid in the very sun-beam of that happiness, the demon of its destined desolation lurked. Just Heaven ! of what materials was that heart composed, which could meditate cooly on the murder of such enjoyments ; which innocence could not soften, nor peace propitiate, nor hos- pitality appease ; but which, in the very beam and bosom of its benefaction, warmed and excited it- self into a more vigorous venom ? Was there no sympathy in the scene ? Was there no remorse at the crime ? Was there no horror at its con- sequences ? " Were honour, virtue, conscience, all exiPd ! Was there no pity, no relenting ruth, To show the parents fondling o'er their child, Then paint the ruin'd pair and their distraction wild I" Burns. GUTHRIE v. STERNE. 107 No ! no ! He was at that instant planning their destruction ; and, even within four short days, he deliberately reduced those parents to childishness, that husband to widowhood, those smiling infants to anticipated orphanage, and that peaceful, hos- pitable, confiding family, to helpless, hopeless, ir- remediable ruin ! Upon the first day of the ensuing July,. Mr. Guthrie was to dine with the Connaught bar, at the hotel of Portobello. It js a custom, I am told, with the gentlemen of that association to dine together previous to the circuit ; of course my client could not have decorously absented himself. Mrs. Guthrie appeared a little feverish, and he re- quested that, on 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 re- turned, 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 hus- band had for suspicion, and how impossible it was for him to foresee 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 day, however, passed, as such a day might have been supposed to pass, in the flow of soul, and the philosophy of pleasure, he returned home to share his happiness with her, without whom no happiness ever had been perfect. Alas ! he was never to behold her more ! Imagine, if you can, the phrenzy of his astonishment, in 108 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF being informed by Mrs. Porter, the daughter of the former landlady, that about two hours before, she had attended Mrs. Guthrie to a confectioner's shop ; that a carriage had drawn up at the corner of the 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 for 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 more : even at the dead of night he rushed into the street, as if in its own dark hour he could discover guilt's re- cesses. In vain did he awake the peaceful family of the horror-struck Mrs. Fallon ; in vain with the parents of the miserable fugitive, did he mingle the tears of an impotent distraction ; in vain, a miserable maniac, did he traverse the silent streets of the metropolis, affrighting virtue from its slum- ber, with the spectre of its own ruin. I 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 ; see- ing in every chamber a memorial of his loss, and hearing every tongueless 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 awakened only to the horrid truth by his helpless children asking him for their mother ! — Gentlemen, this is not a picture of the fancy; it literally occurred : there is something less of romance in the reflection, which his children GUTHRIE v. STERNE. 109 awakened in the mind of their afflicted father ; he ordered that they should be immediately ha- bited in mourning. How rational sometimes are the ravings of insanity ! For all the purposes of maternal life, poor innocents ! they have no mo- ther ! her tongue no more can teach, her hand no more can tend them ; for them there is not « speculation in her eyes ;" to them her life is something worse than death ; as if the awful grave had yawned her forth, she moves before them, shrouded all in sin, the guilty burden of its peaceless sepulchre. Better, far better, their little feet had followed in her funeral, 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 her sorrow. As soon as his reason became sufficiently col- lected, Mr. Guthrie pursued the fugitives : he traced them successively 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 this route and restlessness of their guilt, as the crime they perpe- trated was foreign to our soil, they did not make that soil the scene of its habitation. I will not follow them through this joyless journey, nor brand by my record the unconscious scene of its pollution. But philosophy never taught, the pulpit never enforced, a more imperative morality than the 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 hell of the seducer and the adulterer, and the heaven of the parental and the nuptial home, let her pause upon this one 110 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF out of the many horrors I could depict, — and be converted. I will give yon the relation in the very words of my brief; 1 cannot improve upon the sim- plicity of the recital : " On the 7th of July they arrived at Milford ; the captain of the packet dined with them, and was astonished at the magnificence of her dress." (Poor wretch ! she was decked and adorned for the sacrifice !) " The next day they dined alone. Towards evening, the housemaid, passing near their chamber, heard Mr. Sterne scolding, and apparently beating her ! 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 ! cnhat an unhappy wretch I am ! — / left my home, where I was happy, too happy, seduced by a man who has deceived me. — My poor husband ! my dear children ! Oh ! if they would even let my little Willi aim live with me ! — it would be some consolation 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 children she had nursed, the hapless husband, of whose life she was the pulse ! But one short week before, this earth could not reveal a lovelier vision : — Virtue blessed, affection fol- lowed, 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 ! Be- GUTHRIE v. STERNE . Ill hold her now, the loathsome refuse of an adulter- ous bed ; festering in the very infection of her crime; the scoff and scorn of their unmanly, merciless, in- human 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 the altar, falls 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 ; and next, because, as this adulterous fiend has rather acted on the suggestions of his nature than his shape, by rebelling 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, \\ Inch 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 full extent of those misfortunes. If he had feelings capable of being touched, it is not to the faded victim of her own weakness, and of his wickedness, that I would direct them. There is something in her crime which affrights charity from its commiser- ation. But, 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 object in this 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 112 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF ambition was domestic; his toils were forgotten in the affections of his home ; and amid every ad- verse 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 parentless ! In vain do they look to their surviving parent : his heart is bro- ken, his mind is in ruins, his very form is fa- ding from the earth. He had one consolation, an aged mother, 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 survive 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, fortune, prospects, happiness, — all gone at once, — and gone for ever ! For my part, when I con- template this, I do not wonder at the impression it has produced on him ; I do not wonder at the faded form, the dejected air, the emaciated coun- tenance, and all the ruinous and mouldering trophies, by which misery. has marked its triumph over youth, and health, and happiness ? I know, that in the hordes of what is called fashionable life, there 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 can 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, but one dear and darling object, without whose participation bliss would be joyless, and in whose sympathies sorrow GUTHRIE v. STERNE. 113 has found a charm ; whose smile has cheered his toil, whose love has pillowed his misfortunes, whose angel-spirit, guiding him through danger, and dark- ness, and despair, 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 ! 1 feel that I address myself to human beings, who, knowing the value of what the world is worth, are capable of appre- ciating all that makes it dear to us. Observe, however, — lest this crime should want aggravation — observe, I beseech you, the period of its accomplishment. My client was not so young as that the elasticity of his spirit could re- bound and bear him above the pressure of the misfortune, nor was he withered by age into a comparative insensibility ; but just at that tem- perate interval of manhood, when passion had ceased to play, and reason begins to operate ; when love, gratified, 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 industry having con- quered the ascent, he was able to look around him from the height on which he rested. For this, welcome had been the day of tumult, and the pale midnight lamp succeeding ; welcome had been the drudgery of form ; welcome the analysis of crime ; welcome the sneer of envy, and the scorn of dul- ness, and all the spurns which " patient merit of the unworthy takes." For this he had encountered, perhaps, the generous rivalry of genius, perhaps the biting blasts of poverty, perhaps the efforts of that deadly slander, which, coiling round the cra- 15 114 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF die of his young ambition, might have sought te crush him in its envenomed foldings. " Ah ! who can tell how hard it is to climb The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afar J* Ah ! who can tell how many a soul sublime Hath felt the 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 concede it cannot But it may be palliated. Let us see how. Per- haps the defendant was young and thoughtless ; perhaps unmerited prosperity raised him above the pressure of misfortune; and the the wild pulses of impetuous passion impelled him to a purpose at which his experience would have shuddered. Quite the contrary. The noon of manhood has almost passed over him ; and a youth, spent in the re- cesses of a debtor's prison, made him familiar with exery form of human misery; he saw what mis- fortune was ; — it did not teach him pity : he saw the effects of guilt ; — he spurned the admonition. Perhaps in the solitude of a single life, he had never known the social blessedness of marriage : — he has a wife and children ; or, if she be not his wife, she is the victim of his crime, and adds another to the calendar of his seduction. Certain it is, he has little children, who think themselves legitimate ; will his advocates defend him, by proclaiming their bastardy ? Certain it is, there is a wretched female, his own cousin too, who thinks herself his wife ; will they protect him, by proclaiming he has only deceived her into being his prostitute ? Perhaps his crime, as in the cele- brated case of Howard, immortalized by Lord Erskine y may have found its origin in parental GUTHRIE v. STERNE. 115 cruelty; it might perhaps have been, that in their spring of life, when fancy waved her iairy wand around them, till all above was sun-shine, and all beneath was flowers ; when to their clear and charmed vision this ample world was but a weed- less garden, where every tint spoke Nature's love- liness, and every sound breathed Heaven's melody, and every breeze was but embodied fragrance ; it might have been that, in this cloudless holiday, Love wove his roseate bondage round them, till their young hearts so grew together, a separate existence ceased, and life itself became a sweet identity; it might have been that, envious of this paradise, some worse than demon tore them from each other, to pine for years in absence, and at length to perish in a palliated impiety. Oh! gentlemen, in such a case, Justice herself, with her uplifted sword, would call on Mercy to pre- serve the victim. There was no such palliation; — the period of their acquaintance was little more than sufficient for the maturity of their crime; and they dare not libel Love, by shielding under its soft and sacred name the loathsome revels of an adulterous depravity. It might have been, the husband's cruelty left a too easy inroad for se- duction. Will they dare assert it ? Ah ! too well they knew he would not let " the winds of Heaven visit her face too roughly." Monstrous as it is, I have heard, indeed, that they mean to rest upon an opposite palliation ; I have heard it rumoured, that they mean to rest the wife's infidelity upon the husband's fondness. I know that guilt, in its conception mean, and in its commission tremulous, 'is, in its exposure, desperate and audacious. I know that, in the fugitive panic of its retreat, it will stop to fling its Parthian poison upon the 116 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF justice that pursues it. But I do hope, bad and abandoned, and hopeless as their cause is, — I do hope, for the name of human nature, that 1 have been deceived in the rumours of this unnatural defence. Merciful God ! is it in the presence of this venerable court, is it in the hearing of this virtuous jury, is it in the zenith of an enlightened age, that 1 am to be told, because female tender- ness was not watched with worse than Spanish vigilance, and harrassed with worse than eastern severity; because the marriage-contract is not converted into the curse of incarceration ; be- cause woman is allowed the dignity of a human soul, and man does not degrade himself into a human 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 the Divinity, bearing in its chaste and charmed helplessness the assurance of its strength, and the amulet of its protection ; am I to be told, that the demon adulterer is therefore not only to perpetrate his crimes, but to vindicate himself, through the very virtues he has violated ? I cannot believe it ; I dismiss the supposition : it is most " monstrous," foul, and unnatural." Suppose that the plaintiff pursued a different principle ; suppose that his con- duct had been the reverse of what it was ; suppose, that in place of being kind, he had been cruel to this deluded female ; that he had been her tyrant, not her protector ; her gaoler, not her husband : what then might have been the defence of the adul- terer ? Might he not then say, and say with spe- ciousness, " True, I seduced her into crime, but it GUTHRIE v. STERNE. 117 was to save her from cruelty; true, she is my adul- teress, because he was her despot" Happily, gen- tlemen, he can say no such thing. I have heard it said, too, during the ten months of calumny, for which, by every species of legal delay, they have procrastinated this trial, that, next to the impeach- ment of the husband's tenderness, they mean to rely on what they libel as the levity of their un- happy victim ! I know not by what right any man, but above all, a married man, presumes to scrutinize into the conduct of a married female. I know not, gentlemen, how you would feel, un- der the consciousness that every coxcomb was at liberty to estimate the warmth, or the coolness, of your wives, by the 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 surprise me. Poor — unfortunate — fal- len female ! How can she expect mercy from her destroyer ? How can she expect that he will revere the characters he was careless of preserving? How can she suppose that, after having made her peace the pander to his appetite, he will not make her 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 unprecedented 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 do you think it was ? Providentially — miraculously, I should have said, for you never could have divined — the defendant has himself disclosed it What do you think it 118 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 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," says he, "never mind; Sterne must do something by which Sterne may be known." I had heard, indeed, that ambition was a vice, — but then a vice, so equivocal, it verged on virtue ; that it was the aspiration of a spirit, sometimes perhaps appalling, always magnificent ; that 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 fall be- came immerged and mitigated in the beauties of that aberration ! But here is an ambition ! — base, and barbarous and illegitimate ; with all the gross- ness of the vice, with none of the grandeur of the virtue ; a mean, muffled, dastard incendiary, who, in the silence of sleep, and in the shades of mid- night, steals his Ephesian torch into the fane, which it was virtue to adore, and worse than sa- crilege to have violated ! Gentlemen, my part is done ; yours is about to commence. You have heard this crime — its origin, its progress, its aggravations, its novelty among us. Go, and tell your children and your country, whether or not it is to be made a pre- cedent. Oh, how awful is your responsibility ! — I do not doubt that you will discharge yourselves of it as becomes your characters. I am sure, in- deed, that you will mourn with me over the almost solitary defect in our otherwise matchless system of jurisprudence, which leaves the perpetraters of such an injury as this, subject to no amercement but that of money. I think you will lament the GUTHRIE v. STERNE. 1 1 9 failure of the great Cicero of our age, to bring such an offence within the cognisance of a criminal jurisdiction : it was a subject suited to his legis- lative mind, worthy of his feeling heart, worthy of his immortal eloquence. I cannot, my Lord, even remotely allude to Lord Erskine, without gratifying myself by saying of him, that by the rare union of all that was learned in law with all that was lucid in eloquence ; by the singular combination of all that was pure in 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 conviction. I think, gentlemen, you will regret the failure 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 objects of criminal infliction : but the murderer of connubial bliss, who commits his crime in secrecy; — the robber of domestic joys, whose very wealth, as in this case, may be his instrument ; — he is suffered to calculate on the infernal fame which a superflu- ous and unfelt expenditure may purchase. The law, however, is so : and we must only adopt the remedy it affords us. In your adjudication 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 alleviate ? Do you think that a mine could re- compense 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 worId ? Of one entire and perfect chrysolite, He'd Hot exchange her for it f" 120 SPEECH. I put it to any of you, what would you take to stand in his situation ? What would you take to have your prospects blasted, your profession de- spoiled, your peace ruined, 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 verdict, you may prevent those little innocent de- frauded 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 fa- thers, 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, private, moral, and religious; by the hearth pro- faned ; by the home desolated ; by the canons of the living God foully spurned; — save, oh! save your fire-sides from the contagion, your country from the crime, and perhaps thousands, yet un- born, from the shame, and sin, and sorrow of this example ! MR. PHILLIPS IN THE CASE OF CTMULLAN v. M'KORKILL, 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. Fee- bly, indeed, can I attempt to convey to you, 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 of country or of kind, must be this cala- mitous compendium of all that degrades our indi- vidual nature, and of all that has, for many an age of sorrow, perpetuated a curse upon our national character. It is, perhaps, the misery of this pro- fession, that every hour our vision may be blasted by some withering crime, and our hearts wrung with some agonizing recital ; there is no frightful form of vice, or no disgusting phantom of infirmity, which guilt does not array in spectral train before fcs. Horrible is the assemblage ! humiliating the 16 122 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF application ! but, thank God, even amid those very scenes of disgrace and of debasement, occasions oft arise for the redemption of our dignity ; occasions, on which the virtues breathed into us, by heavenly inspiration, walk abroad in the divinity of their exertion ; before whose beam the wintry robe falls from the form of virtue, and all the midnight images of horror vanish into nothing. Joyfully and piously do I recognize such an occasion ; gladly do I invoke you to the generous partici- pation ; yes, gentlemen, though you must prepare to hear much that degrades our nature, much that distracts our country — though all that oppression could devise against the poor — though all that persecution could inflict upon the feeble — though all that vice could wield against the pious — though all that the venom of a venal turpitude could pour upon the patriot, must with their alter- nate apparition afflict, affright, and humiliate you, still do I hope, that over this charnel-house of crime — over this very sepulchre, where corruption sits enthroned 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 ad- versity there is a might and immortality 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 venerable appellation, so far back as Septem- ber, 1804. It is a title which you know, in this country, no rank ennobles, no treasure enriches, no establishment supports ; its possessor stands undis- guised by any rag of this world's decoration, resting all temporal, all eternal hope upon his toil, his ta- lents, his attainments, and his piety — doubtless, after O'MULLAN v. M'KORKILL. 123 all, the highest honours, as well as the most imper- ishable treasures of the man of God. Year after year passed over my client, and each anniversary only gave him an additional title to these qualifica- tions. His precept was but the handmaid to his practice ; the sceptic heard him, and was convin- ced ; the ignorant attended him, and were taught; he smoothed the death-bed of too heedless wealth; he rocked the cradle of the infant charity : oh, no wonder he walked in the sunshine of the public eye, no wonder he toiled through the pressure of the public benediction. This is not an idle decla- mation : such was the result his ministry produced, that within five years from the date of its com- mencement, nearly 2000/. of voluntary subscription enlarged the temple where such precepts were taught, and such piety exemplified. Such was the situation of Mr. O'Mullan, when a dissolution of parliament took place, and an unexpected con- test for the representation of Derry, threw that county into unusual commotion. One of the can- didates was of the Ponsonby family — a family devoted to the interests, and dear to the heart of Ireland ; he naturally thought that his parlia- mentary conduct entitled him to the vote of every catholic in the land ; and so it did, not only of every catholic, but of every christian who pre- ferred the diffusion of the gospel to the ascend- ancy of a sect and loved the principles of the con- stitution better than the pretensions of a party. Perhaps you will think with me that there is a sort of posthumous interest thrown about that event when I tell you that the candidate on that occasion was the lamented hero over whose tomb the tears not only of Ireland, but of Europe, have been so lately shed; he who, mid the blossom of < [ 124 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF the world's chivalry, died conquering a deathless name upon the field of Waterloo. He applied to Mr. O'Mullan for his interest, and that interest was cheerfully given, the concurrence of his bishop having been previously obtained. Mr. Ponsonby succeeded ; and a dinner, to which all parties were invited, and from which all party spirit was ex- pected to absent itself, was given to commemorate one common triumph — the purity and the privi- leges of election. In other countries, such an ex- pectation might be natural ; the exercise of a noble constitutional privilege, the triumph of a great popular cause, might not unaptly expand itself in the intercourse of the board and unite all hearts in the natural bond of festive commemo- ration. But, alas, gentlemen, in this unhappy land such has been the result whether of our faults, our follies or our misfortunes, that a detestable disunion converts the very balm of the bowl 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 be endured that a catholic should pollute with his presence the ci- vic festivities of the loyal Londonderry ! such an intrusion, 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 invariable watchword of the Orange orgies ; it is briefly entitled " 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 discover any offence in the commemoration of the revolution hero. The loyalists of Derry are more wise in their generation. There, when some O'MULLAN v. M'KORKILL. 125 Bacchanalian bigots 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 frater- nity — no very usual occurrence — thank his ma- jesty that the shoes are not wooden and that the silver is not brass, a commodity, by the bye, of which any legacy would have been quite super- fluous. The pope comes in for a pious benedic- tion ; and the toast concludes with a patriotic wish, for all his persuasion, by the consum- mation of which, there can be no doubt, the hempen manufactures of this country would ex- perience a very considerable consumption. Such, gentlemen, is the enlightened, and liberal, and social sentiment of which the first sentence, all that is usually given, forms the suggestion. I must not omit that it is generally taken standing, always providing it be in the power of the com- pany. This toast was pointedly given to insult Mr. O'Mullan. Naturally averse to any alter- cation, his most obvious course was to quit 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 considered justly and liberally, had been toasted as a peace offering by Sir George Hill, the City Recorder. My client had no gall in his disposi- * This loyal toast, banded down by Orange tradition, is lite- rally as follows, — we give it for the edification of the sister island. " The glorious, pious, and immortal memory of the great and good King 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 comprehend. 126 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF tion ; he at once clasped to his heart the friendly overture, and in such phrase as his simplicity sup- plied, poured forth the gratitude of that heart to the liberal Recorder. Poor O'Mullan had the wisdom to imagine that the politician's compli- ment was the man's comviction, and that a table toast was the certain prelude to a parliamentary suffrage. Despising all experience he applied the adage, Calum non animum mutant qui tranz mare currunt, to the Irish patriot. I need not paint to you the consternation of Sir George, at so unu- sual and so unparliamentary a construction. He in- dignantly disclaimed the intention imputed to him, denied and deprecated the unfashionable inference, and acting on the broad scale of an impartial poli- cy, gave 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. The proceedings of this dinner soon became public. Sir George, you may be sure, was little in love with his notoriety. However, gentlemen, the sufferings of the powerful 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 4 t 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. This address, with the most obnoxious commentaries, was instantly pub- lished by the Derry Journalist, who from that O'MULLAN v. M'KORKILL. 127 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 describe to you ; it is one of the numerous publications which the misfortunes of this unhappy land have generated, and which has grown into considerable affluence by the sad contributions of the public calamity. There is not a provincial village in Ireland, which some such official fiend does not infest, fabricating a gazette of fraud and falsehood, upon all who pre- sume to advocate her interests, or uphold the ancient religion of her people; — the worst foes of government, under pretence of giving it assistance ; the deadliest enemies to the Irish name, under the mockery of supporting its character; the most licentious, irreligious, illiterate banditti, that ever polluted the fair fields of literature, under the spoliated banner of the press. Bloated with the public spoil, and blooded in the chase of character, no abilities can arrest, no piety can awe ; no mis- fortune affect, no benevolence conciliate them ; the reputation of the living, and the memory of the dead, are equally plundered in their desolating progress ; even the awful sepulchre affords not an asylum to their selected victim. Human Hyenas ! they will rush into the sacred receptacle of death, gorging their ravenous and brutal rapine, amid the memorials of our last infirmity ! Such is a too true picture of what I hope unauthorizedly misnames itself the ministerial press of Ireland. Amid that polluted press, it is for you to say, whether The Londonderry Journal stands on an infamous ele- vation. When this address was published in the name of the catholics, that calumniated body, as 123 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF was naturally to be expected, became universally indignant. You may remember, gentlemen, amongst the many expedients resorted to by Ireland, Tor the recovery of her rights, after she had knelt session after session at the bar of the legislature, covered with the wounds of glory, and praying redemption from the chains that rewarded them; — you may re- member, I say, amongst many vain expedients of supplication and remonstrance, 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 me to speak with disrespect. It contained much talent, much integrity ; and it exhibited what must ever be to me an interesting spectacle, a great body of my fellow-men, and fellow-chris- tians, claiming admission into that constitution which their ancestors had achieved by theirvalour, and to which they were entitled as their inherit- ance. This is no time, this is no place for the discussion of that question; but since it does force itself incidentally upon me, I will say, that, as on the one hand, I cannot fancy a despotism more impious, or more inhuman, than the political de- basement here, on account of that faith by which men hope to win an happy eternity hereafter ; so on the other, I cannot fancy a vision in its ASPECT MORE DIVINE THAN THE ETERNAL CROSS, RED WITH THE MARTYR^ BLOOD AND RADIENT WITH THE PILGRIM'S HOPE, REARED BY THE PATRIOT AND THE CHRISTIAN HAND, HIGH IN THE VAN OF universal liberty. Of this board the two volun- teer framers of the address happened to be mem- bers. The body who deputed them, instantly assembled and declared their delegation void. You O'MULLAN v. M'KORKILL. 129 would suppose, gentlemen, that after this decisive public brand of reprobation, those officious med- dlers would have avoided its recurrence, by retir- ing from scenes for which nature and education had totally unfitted them. Far, however, from acting under any sense of shame, those excluded outcasts even summoned a meeting to appeal from the sentence the public opinion had pronounced on them. The meeting assembled, and after almost the day's deliberation on their conduct, the former sentence was unanimously confirmed. The men did not deem it prudent to attend them- selves, but at a late hour, when the business was concluded, when the resolutions had passed, when the chair was vacated, when the multitude was dispersing, they attempted with some Orange followers to obtrude into the chapel, which in large cities, such as Derry, is the usual place of meeting. An angry spirit arose among the peo- ple. Mr. O'Mullan as was his duty, locked the doors to preserve the house of God from profa- nation, and addressed the crowd in such terms, as induced them to repair peaceably to their respec- tive habitations. I need not paint to you the bitter emotions with which these deservedly disappointed men were agitated. All hell was at work within them, and a conspiracy was hatched against the peace of my client, the vilest, the foulest, the most infernal that ever vice devised, or demonsexecuted. Restrained from exciting a riot by his interference, they actually swore a riot against him, prosecuted him to conviction, worked on the decaying in- tellect of his bishop to desert him, and amid the savage war-whoop of this slanderous Journal, all along inflaming the public mind by libels the most atrocious, finally flung this poor, religious, unof- 17 130 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF fending priest, into a damp and desolate dungeon* where the very iron that bound, had more of hu- manity than the despots that surrounded him. I am told, they triumph much in this conviction. I seek not to impugn the verdict of that jury ; I have no doubt they acted conscientiously. It weighs not with me that every member of my client's creed was carefully excluded from that .jury — no doubt they acted conscientiously. It weighs not with me that every man empannelled on the trial of the priest, was exclusively Protestant, and that, too, in a city so prejudiced, that not long ago, by their corporation-law, no Catholic dare breathe the air of Heaven 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 could persecute the Papist to his death — no doubt they acted conscientiously. It weighs not with me, that the public mind had been so in- flamed by the exasperation of this libeller, that an impartial trial was utterly impossible. Let them enjoy their triumph. But for myself, knowing him as I do, here in the teeth of that conviction, I declare it, I would rather be that man, so as- persed, so imprisoned, so persecuted, and have his consciousness, than stand the highest of the court- liest rabble that ever crouched before the foot of power, or fed upon the people — plundered alms of despotism. Oh, of short duration is such demo- nine triumph. Oh, blind and groundless is the hope of vice, imagining its victory can be more than for the moment. This very 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 puri- O'MULLAN v. M'KORKILL. 131 ty testified, prosperity will crown the interests of probity and worth. Perhaps you imagine, Gentlemen, that his per- son imprisoned, his profession gone, his prospects ruined, and what he held dearer than all, his cha- racter defamed ; the malice of his enemies might have rested from persecution. " Thus bad begins, but worse remains behind." Attend, I beseech you, to what now follows, because I have come in order, to the particular libel, which we have se- lected from the •innumerable calumnies of this Journal, and to which we call your peculiar con- sideration. Business of moment, to the nature of which, I shall feel it my duty presently to ad- vert, called Mr. O'Mullan to the metropolis. — Through the libels of the defendant, he was at this time in disfavour with his bishop, and a rumour had gone abroad, that he was never again to revisit his ancient congregation. The bishop in the interim returned to Deny, and on the Sunday following, went to officiate at the parish chapel. All ranks crowded tremulously round him ; the widow sought her guardian ; the orphan his protector ; the poor their patron ; the rich their guide ; the ignorant their pastor ; all, all, with one voice, demanded his recall, by whose absence the graces, the charities, the virtues of life, were left orphans in their communion. Can you imagine a more interesting spectacle ? The human mind never conceived — the human hand never depicted a more instructive or delightful picture. Yet will you believe it ! out of this very circumstance, the defendant fabricated the most audacious, and if possible, the most cruel of his libels. Hear his words: — "O'Mullan," says he, " was convicted and degraded, for assaulting his 132 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF own bishop, and the recorder of Derry, in the parish chapel !" Observe the disgusting malignity of the libel — observe the crowded damnation which it accumulates on my client—observe all the aggravated crime which it embraces. First, he assaults his venerable bishop — the great eccle- siastical patron, to whom he was sworn to be obedient, and against whom he never conceived or articulated irreverence. JSext, he assaults the recorder of Derry — a privy councillor, the su- preme municipal authority of 'the city. And where does he do so? Gracious God, in the very temple of thy worship ! That is, says the inhuman libeller — he a citizen — he a clergyman insulted not only the civil but the ecclesiastical authorities, in the face of man, and in the house of prayer ; trampling contumeliously upon all human law, amid the sacred altars, where he believed the Almighty witnessed the profanation ! I am so horror-struck at this blasphemous and abominable turpitude, I can scarcely proceed. What will you say, gentlemen, when I inform you, that at the very time this atrocity was imputed to him, he was in the city of Dublin, at a distance of 120 miles from the venue of its commission ! But, oh ! when calumny once begins its work, how vain are the impediments of time and distance ! Before the sirocco of its breath all nature withers, and age, and sex and innocence, and station, perish, in the unseen, but certain desolation of its progress ! Do you wonder O'Mullan sunk before these ac- cumulated calumnies ; do you wonder the feeble were intimidated, the wavering decided, the prejudiced confirmed? He was forsaken by his bishop; he was denounced by his enemies — his very friends fled in consternation from the " strick- O'MULLANv. M'KORKILL. 133 en deer;" he was banished from the scenes of his childhood, from the endearments of his youth, from the field of his fair and honourable ambition. In vain did he resort to strangers for subsistence ; on the very wings of the wind, the calumny pre- ceded him ; and from that hour to this, a too true apostle, he has been " a man of sorrows," " not knowing where to lay his head." I will not ap- peal 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 plain- tiff 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 ig- norance of the Irish peasantry — an ignorance whenee all their crimes and most of their sufferings origin- ate j observing also, that Jthere was no publicly established literary institution to relieve them, save only to the charter-schools, which tendered learn- ing to the shivering child, as a bounty upon apos- tacy to the faith of his fathers ; he determined if possible to give them the lore of this world, with- out offering as a mortgage upon the inheritance of the next. He framed the prospectus of a school, 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 suc- cess of such a plan must have produced. No doubt, you have all personally considered — no doubt, you have all personally experienced, that of all the blessings which it has pleased Providence to allow us to cultivate, there is not one which 134 SPEECH IN THE CASE OP breathes a purer fragrance, or bears a heavenlier aspect than education. It is a companion which no misfortunes can depress, no clime destroy, no enemy alienate, 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 de- gradation of passions participated with brutes; and in the accident of their alternate ascendancy shuddering at the terrors of an hereafter, or em- bracing the horrid hope of annihilation. What is this wondrous world of his residence ? A mighty maze, and all without a plan ; a dark and desolate and dreary cavern, without wealth, or ornament or order. But light up with- in it the torch of knowledge, and how wondrous the transition ! The seasons change, the atmos- phere breathes, the landscape lives, earth unfolds its fruits, ocean rolls in its magnificence, the heavens display their constellated canopy, and the grand animated spectacle of nature rises revealed before him, its varieties regulated, and its mis- teries resolved ! The phenomena which bewilder, the prejudices which debase, the superstitions which enslave, vanish before education. Like the holy symbol which blazed upon the cloud before the hesitating Constantine, if man follow but its pre- cepts, purely, it will not only lead him to the vic- tories of this world, but open the very portals of Omnipotence for his admission. Cast your eye over the monumental map of ancient grandeur. O'MULL AN v. M'KORKILL. 1 35 once studded with the stars of empire, and the splendours of philosophy. What erected the little state of Athens into a powerful commonwealth, placing in her hand the sceptre of legislation and wreathing round her brow the imperishable chap- let of literary fame : what extended Rome, the haunt of banditti, into universal empire ; what animated Sparta with that high unbending, ada- mantine courage, which conquered nature herself, and has fixed her in the sight of future ages, a model of public virtue, and a proverb of national independence ? What but those wise public in- stitutions which strengthened their minds with early application, informed their infancy with the principles of action, and sent them into the world, too vigilant to be deceived by its calms, and too vigorous to be shaken by its whirlwinds ? But surely, if there be a people in the world, to whom the blessings of education are peculiarly appli- cable, it is the Irish people. Lively, ardent, intel- ligent, 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 the execution are identified. It is this prin- ciple, if principle it can be called, which renders Ireland, alternately, the poorest and the proudest country in the world ; now chaining her in the very abyss of crime, now lifting her to the very- pinnacle of glory ; which in the poor, proscribed, peasant catholic, crowds the gaol and feeds the gibbet; which in the more fortunate, because more educated protestant, leads victory a captive at her car, and holds echo mute at her eloquence ; making a national monopoly of fame, and, as it were, attempting to naturalize the achievements of the universe. In order that this libel may want 136 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF no possible aggravation, the defendant published it when my client was absent on this work of pa- triotism ; he 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 told him, that it was des- titute oi the shadow of a foundation. Can you imagine a more odious complication of all that is deliberate in malignity, and all that is depraved in crime ? I promised, gentlemen, that 1 would not harrow your hearts, by exposing all that agonizes mine, in the contemplation of individual suffering. There is, however, one subject con- nected with this trial, public in its nature, and universal in its interest, which imperiously calls for an exemplary verdict; 1 mean the liberty of the press — a theme which I approach with mingled sensations of awe, and agony, and admiration. — Considering all that we too fatally have seen — all that, perhaps, too fearfully we may have cause to apprehend, I feel myself cling to that residuary safeguard, with an affection no temptations can seduce, with a suspicion no anodyne can lull, with a fortitude that peril but enfuriates. In the dire- ful retrospect of experimental despotism, and the hideous prospect of its possible re-animation, I clasp it with the desperation of a widowed female, who, in the desolation of her house, and the de- struction of her household, hurries the last of her offspring through the flames, at once the relic of her joy, the depository of her wealth, and the re- membrancer of her happiness. It is the duty of us all to guard strictly this inestimable privilege — a privilege which can never be destroyed, save bj the licentiousness of those who wilfully abuse it. O'MULLAN v. M'KORKILL. 137 no, it is not in the arrogance of power; no, it is not in the artifices of law ; no, it is not in the fa- tuity of princes ; no, it is not in the venality of parliaments, to crush this mighty, this majestic privilege; reviled, it will remonstrate ; murder- ed, IT WILL REVIVE ; BURIED, IT WILL RE-ASCEND ; THE VERY ATTEMPT AT ITS OPPRESSION WILL PROVE THE TRUTH OF ITS IMMORTALITY, AND THE ATOM THAT PRE- SUMED TO SPURN, WILL FADE AWAY BEFORE THE TRUM- PET of its retribution ! Man holds it on the same principle that he does his soul; the powers of this world cannot prevail against it ; it can only perish through its own depravity. What then shall be his fate, through whose instrumentality it is sacrificed ? Nay more, what shall be his fate, who, intrusted with the guardianship of its security, becomes the traitorous accessory to its ruin ? Nay more, what shall be his fate, by whom its powers delegated for the public good, are converted into the cala- mities of private virtue; against whom, industry denounced, merit undermined, morals calumniated, piety aspersed, all through the means confided for their protection, cry aloud for vengeance ? What shall be his 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 Deity, the book of life on his lips, and the dagger of death beneath his robe, awaits the sigh of piety, as the signal of plunder, and unveins the heart's blood of confiding adoration ! Should not such a case as this require some palliation ? Is there any? Perhaps the defendant might have been misled as to circumstances ? No, he lived upon the spot, and had the best possible inform- ation. Do you think he believed in the truth of the publication ? No ; he knew that in every syl- 18 138 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF lable it was as false as perjury. Do you think tnat an anxiety for the catholic community might have inflamed him against the imaginary dereliction of its advocate ? JN o ; the very essence of his J ournal is prejudice. Do you think that in the ardour of li- ]3erty he might have venially transgressed its boun- daries ? No; in every line he licks the sores, and pampers the pestilence of authority. I do not ask you to be stoics in your investigation. If you can discover in this libel one motive inferentiallv moral, one single virtue which he has plundered and mis- applied, give him its benefit. I will not demand such an effort of vour faith, as to imagine, that his northern constitution could, by any miracle, be fired into the admirable but mistaken energy of enthusiasm ; — that he could for one moment have felt the inspired phrenzy of those loftier spirits, who, under some daring 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 1 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 accompani- ments, founded in a bigotry at which hell rejoices, crouching with a sycophancy at which flattery blushes, deformed by a falsehood at which perjury wo' fid hesitate, and, to crown the climax of its crowded infamies, committed under the sacred sfielter of the press; as if this false, slanderous, sycophantic slavp, could not assassinate private worth without polluting public privilege; as if he could not sacrifice the character of the pious with- out profaning the protection of the free; as if he eould not poison learning, liberty and religion, O'MULLAN v. M'KGRKILL. 139 unless he filled his chalice from the very font whence they might have expected to derive the waters of their salvation ! Now, gentlemen, as to the measure of jour damages : — You are the best judges on that sub- ject ; though, indeed, I have been asked, and I heard the question with some surprise, — why it is that we have brought this case at all to be tried before you. To that I might give at once an un- objectionable answer, namely, that the law allowed us. But I will deal much more candidly with you. We brought it here, because it was as far as pos- sible from the scene of prejudice ; because no pos- sible partiality could exist; because, in this happy and united county, less of the bigotry which dis- tracts the rest of Ireland exists, than in any other with which we are acquainted ; because the nature of the action, which we have mercifully brought in place of a criminal prosecution, — the usual course pursued in the present day, at least against the independent press of Ireland, — gives them, if they have it, the power of proving a justifica- tion ; and 1 perceive they have emptied half the north here for the purpose. But 1 cannot anti- cipate an objection, which, no doubt, shall not be made. If this habitual libeller should character- istically 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 utterance. What damages, then, gentlemen, can you give ? I am content to leave the defend- ant's crimes altogether out of the question, but how can you recompense 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 de« 140 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF spised, 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 com- parison. Without it, gold has no value, birth no distinction, station no dignity, beauty no charms, age no reverence; or, should I not rather 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 quarantine ; — no friend to greet — no home to harbour him. The voyage of his life be- comes a joyless peril ; and in the midst of all ambition can achieve, or avarice amass, or rapaci- ty plunder, he tosses on the surge — a buoyant pesti- lence ! But, gentlemen, let me not degrade into the selfishness of individual safety, or individual exposure, this universal principle : it testifies an higher, a more ennobling origin. It is this which, consecrating the humble circle of the hearth, will at times extend itself to the circumference of the horizon ; which nerves the arm of the patriot to save his country ; which lights the lamp of the philosopher to amend man; which, if it does not inspire, will yet invigorate the martyr to merit .* immortality; which, when one world's agony is passed, and the glory of another is dawning, will prompt the prophet, even in his chariot of fire, and in his vision of Heaven, to bequeath to man- kind the mantle of his memory ! Oh divine, oh delightful legacy of a spotless reputation ! Rich is the inheritance it leaves; pious the example it testifies; pure, precious, and imperishable, the O'MULLAN v. M'KORKILL. 141 hope which it inspires ! Can you conceive a more atrocious injury than to filch from its possessor this inestimable benefit — to rob society of its charm, and solitude of its solace ; not only to outlaw life, but to attaint death, converting the very grave, the refuge of the sufferer, into the gate of infamy and of shame ! I can conceive few crimes beyond it. He who plunders my pro- perty takes from me that which can be repaired by time : but what period can repair a ruined rep- utation ? 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 poverty, or reproaches my pro- fession, upbraids me with that which industry may- retrieve, and integrity may purify : but what riches shall redeem the bankrupt fame ? what power shall blanch the sullied snoiv of character ? Can there be an injury more deadly ? Can there be a crime mOre cruel ? It is without remedy — it is without antidote — it is without evasion ! The reptile ca- lumny is ever on the watch. From the fascination of its eye no activity can escape ; from the venom of its fang no sanity can recover. It has no en- * joyment but crime ; it has no prey but virtue ; it has no interval from the restlessness 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 such a visita- tion how dreadful would be the destiny of the vir- tuous and the good, if the providence of our con- stitution had not given you the power, as, 1 trust, you will have the principle, to bruise the head of the serpent, and crush and crumble the altar of its idolatry! 142 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF And now, gentlemen, having toiled, through this narrative of unprovoked and pitiless persecu- tion, 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 suffering, and severities unexampled, he has had no thought, but, that as his enemies evinced how malice could persecute, he should exemplify how religion could endure ; that if his piety failed to affect the op- pressor, 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 de- luge had fallen — it only smoothed his asperities : the wind of the tempest beat — it only blanched his brow : the rod, not of prophecy, but of per- secution, smote him ; and the desert, glittering with the gospel dew, became a miracle of the faith it would have tempted ! No, gentlemen ; not self- ishly has he appealed to this tribunal : but the venerable religion wounded in his character, — but the august priesthood vilified in his person, — but the doubts of the sceptical, hardened hy his acquiescence, — but the fidelity of the feeble, ha- zarded by his forbearance, goaded him from the profaned privacy of the cloister into this repulsive scene of public accusation. In him this reluctance springs from a most natural and characteristic de- licacy : in us it would become a most overstrained injustice. No, gentlemen: though with him we must remember morals outraged, religion assailed, law violated, the priesthood scandalized, the press betrayed, and all the disgusting calendar of ab- stract evil; yet with him we must not reject the injuries of the individual sufferer. We must O'MULLAN v. M'KORKILL. 143 picture *to ourselves^a young man, partly by the self-denial of parental love, partly by the ener- gies of personal exertion, struggling into a pro- fession, where, by the pious exercise of his ta- lents, he may make the fame, the wealth, the flatteries of this world, so many angel heralds to the happiness of the next. His precept is a trea- sure 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 becomes imparadised in the light of his benedic- tion ! Imagine, gentlemen, you see him thus ; and then, if you can, imagine vice so desperate as to defraud the world of so fair a vision. Anti- cipate for a moment the melancholy evidence we must too soon adduce to you. Behold him by foul, deliberate, and infamous calumny, robbed of the profession he had so struggled to obtain, swindled from the flock he had so laboured to ameliorate, 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 hopeless, fortuneless, companionless exile, hang- ing, in some stranger scene, on the precarious pity of the few, whose charity might induce their com- passion 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 compensation ; for oh ! divine is the pleasure you are destined to experience ; — dearer to your 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 J44 SPEECH brother ; though many a peasant heart will leap at jour name, and many an infant eye will embalm their fame who restored to life, to station, to dig- nity, to character, the venersi »le 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 inevitable 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 insatiate malice — from the fang of a worse than Philistine persecution. IN THE CASE OF CONN AG ETON v. DILLON: DELIVERED IN THE COUNTY COURT-HOUSE ROSCOMMON. My Lord and Gentlemen, In this case I am one of the counsel for the plaintiff, who has directed me to explain to you the wrongs for which, at your hands, he solicits reparation. It appears to me a case which un- doubtedly merits much consideration, as well from the novelty of its appearance amongst us, as for the circumstances by which it is attended. 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, gentlemen, a man of lowly birth and humble station ; with little wealth but from the labour of his hands, with no rank but the integrity of his character, with no recreation but in the circle of his home, and with no ambition, but, when his days are full, to leave that little circle the inheritance of an honest name, and the treasure of a good man's 19 m 146 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF memory. Far inferior, indeed, is he in this respect to his more fortunate antagonist. He, on the contrary, is amply either blessed or cursed with those qualifications which enable a man to adorn or disgrace the society in which he lives. He is, I understand, the representative of an honourable name, the relative of a distinguished family, the supposed heir to their virtues, the indisputable inheritor of their riches. He has been for many years a resident of jour county, and has had the advantage of collecting round him all those re- collections, which, springing from the scenes of school-boy association, or from the more matured enjoyments of the man, crowd as it were uncon- sciously to the heart, and cling with a venial partiality to the companion and the friend. So impressed, in truth, has he been with these ad- vantages, that, surpassing the usual expenses of a trial, he has selected a tribunal where he vainly hopes such considerations 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. I am sure, however, 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 privilege or power; who will remember that there is a nobility above birth, and a wealth beyond riches ; who will feel that, as in the eye of that God to whose aid they 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 who will have pride in proving, that the noblest adage of our noble constitution is not an illusive shadow ; and that the peasant's cot- CONNAGHTON v. DILLON. 147 tage, roofed with straw and tenanted by poverty, stands as inviolate from all invasion as the mansion 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 comprises, in one line, " the short and simple annals of the poor." This has been his humble, but at the same time most honourable occupation. It matters little with what artificial nothings chance may distinguish the name, or decorate the person : the child of lowly life, with virtue for its handmaid, holds as proud a title as the highest — as rich an inheritance as the wealthiest. Well has the poet of your country said — that " Princes or Lords may flourish or may fade, A breath can make them, as a breath has made j But a brave peasantry, their country's pride, When once destroy'd can never be supplied." For all the virtues which adorn that peasantry, which can render humble life respected, or give the higest stations their most permanent dis- tinctions, my client stands conspicuous. An hundred years of sad vicissitude, and, in this land, often of strong temptation, have rolled away since the little farm on which he lives received his family ; and during all that time not one accu- sation has disgraced, not one crime has sullied it. The same spot has seen his grandsire 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, 148 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF shall moulder unconscious 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. He did not disgrace it ; his youth his manhood, his age, up to this moment, have passed without a blemish ; and he now stands confessedly the head of the little village in which he lives. About five-and-twenty years ago he married the sister of a highly respectable Roman catholic clergyman, by whom he had a family of seven children, whom they educated in the prin- ciples of morality and religion, and who, until the defendant's interference, were the pride of their humble home, and the charm or the consolation of its vicissitudes. In their virtuous children the rejoicing parents felt their youth renewed, their age made happy : the days of labour became holidays in their smile ; and if the hand of affliction pressed on them, they looked upon their little ones, and their mourning ended. I cannot paint the glorious host of feelings; the joy, the love, the hope, the pride, the blendid paradise of rich emotions with which the God of nature fills the father's heart when he beholds his child in all its filial loveliness, when the vision of his infancy rises as it were reanimate before him, and a divine vanity exaggerates every trifle into some myste- rious 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 favourite daughter, and she did not shame CONNAGHTON v. DILLON. 149 bis preference. You shall find most satisfactorily, 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 in- struction. She took a pleasure in assisting in the industry of their home : and it was at a neigh- bouring market, where she went to dispose of the little produce of that industry, that she unhappily attracted the notice of the defendant. Indeed, 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 lovely in theey e of God, and, one would suppose, estimable in the eye of mankind. Far different, however, were the sensations which she excited in the defendant. He saw her arrayed, as he confesses, in charms that enchanted him ; but her youth, her beauty, the smile of her innocence, and the piety of her toil, but inflamed a brutal and licentious lust, that should have blushed itself away in such a presence. What cared he for the conse- quences of his gratification ? — There was No honour, no relenting ruth, •To paint the parents fondling o'er their child, Then show the ruin'd maid, and her distraction wild I What thought he of the home he was to desolate ? What thought he of the happiness he was to plunder ? His sensual rapine paused not to con- template the speaking picture of the cottage-ruin, the blighted hope, the broken heart, the parent's agony, and, last and most withering in the woful group, the wretched victim herself starving on the sin of a promiscuous prostitution, and at length perhaps, with her own hand, anticipating the more •' 150 SPEECH IN THE CASE OP tedious murder of its diseases ! He need not, if I am instructed rightly, have tortured his fancy for the miserable consequences of hope bereft, and expectation plundered. Through no very distant vista, he might have seen the form of deserted loveliness weeping over the worthlessness 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 ab- sence could alleviate.* If his memory should fail him, if he should deny the picture, no man can tell him half so efficiently 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. I turn from this subject with an indig- nation 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 servant of Mr. Dillon ; and a base, abandoned, profligate ruffian, a brother-in-law of the devoted victim herself, whose bestial appetites he bribed into subserviancy ! It does seem as if by such a selection he was determined to degrade the dignity of the master while he violated the finer impulses of the man, by not merely associating with his own servant but by diverting the purest * Mr. Phillips here alluded to a verdict of 5000/. obtained at the late Galway Assizes against the defendant, at the suit of Miss Wilson, a very beautiful and interesting young lady, for a breach of promise of marriage. Mr. Whitestone, who now pleaded for Mr. Dillon, was Miss Wilson's advocate against bim on the occasion alluded t#. CONNAGHTON v. DILLON. 151 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 previous arrangement, he entered and joined their company. I do con- fess to you, gentlemen, when I first perused this passage in my brief, I flung it from me with a contemptuous incredulity. What! I exclaimed, as no doubt you are all ready to exclaim, can this be possible ? Is it thus I am to find the educated youth of Ireland occupied ? Is this the employment of the miserable aristocracy that yet lingers in this devoted country ? Am I to find them, not in the pursuit of useful science, not in the encouragement of arts or agriculture, not in the relief 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 the despot ! — but am I to find them, amid drunken panders and corrupted slaves, de- bauching the innocence of village-life, and even amid the stews of the tavern, collecting or creating the materials of the brothel ! Gentlemen, I am still unwilling to believe it, with all the sincerity of Mr. Dillon's advocate, I do entreat you to reject it altogether, if it be not substantiated by the unim- peachable corroboration of an oath. As I am in- structed, he did not, at this time, alarm his vic- tim by any direct communication of his purpose ; he saw that " she was good as she was fair," and that a premature disclosure would but alarm her virtue into an impossibility of violation. His sa- #' 152 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF tellites, however, acted to admiration. They pro- duced some trifle which he had left for her dis- posal ; they declared he had long felt for her a sincere attachment ; as a proof that it was pure, they urged the modesty with which, at a first inter- view, elevated above her as he was, he avoided its disclosure. When she pressed the madness of the expectation which could alone induce her to consent to his addresses, they assured her that though in the first instance such an event was impossible, still in time it was far from being improbable ; that many men from such motives forgot altogether the difference of station, that Mr. Dillon's own family had already proved every obstacle might yield to an all-powerful* passion, and induce him to make her his wife, who had reposed an affectionate credulity on his honour ! Such were the subtle artifices to which he stooped. Do not imagine, however, that she yielded immediately and implicitly to their per- suasions ; I should scarcely wonder if she did. — Every day shows us the rich, the powerful, and the educated, bowing before the spell of ambition, or avarice, or passion, to the sacrifice of their ho- nour, their country, and their souls : what wonder, then, if a poor, ignorant, peasant girl had at once sunk before the united potency of such temptations ! But she did not. Many and many a time the truths which had been inculcated by her adoring parents rose up in arms ; and it was not until va- rious interviews, and repeated artifices, and un- tiring efforts, that she yielded her faith, her fame, and her fortunes, to the disposal of her seducer. — Alas, alas ! how little did she suppose that a mo- ment was to come when, every hope denounced and every expectation dashed, he was to fling her CONNAGHTON v. DILLON. 153 tor a very subsistence on the charity or the crimes of the world 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, I 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 candidate than a young, modest maiden, robed in chastity ; no matter what its habitation, whether it be the palace or the hut : — " So dear to Heaven is saintly chastity, That when a soul is found sincerely so, A thousand liveried angels lackey her, Driving far 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 i" Such is the supreme power of chastity, as de- scribed by one of our divinest bards, and the plea- sure which I feel in the recitation of such a passage is not a little enhanced, by the pride that few countries more fully afford its exemplification than our own. Let foreign envy decry us as it will, CHASTITY IS THE INSTINCT OF THE IRISH FEMALE : the pride of her talents, the power of her beauty, 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 ; whether she basks in prosperity or pines in sorrow, it clings about her like the diamond of the morning on the mountain flowret, trembling even in the ray 20 154 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF that once exhibits and inhales it ! Rare in our land is the absence of this virtue. Thanks to the modesty that venerates ; thanks 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. I now come, gentlemen, to another fact in the progress of this transaction, betraying, in my mind, as base a premeditation, and as low and as deliberate a deception as 1 ever heard of. While this wretched creature was in a kind of counter- poise between her fear and her affection, struggling as well as she could between passion inflamed and virtue unextinguished, Mr. Dillon, ardently avowing that such an event as separation was impossible, ardently avowing an eternal attachment, insisted upon perfecting an article which should place her above the reach of contingencies. Gentlemen, you shall see this document voluntarily executed by an educated and estated gentleman of your county. I know not how you will feel, but for my part I protest I am in a suspense of admiration between the virtue of the proposal and the magni- ficent prodigality of the provision. Listen to the article : it is all in his own hand-writing : — " I pro- mise," says he, ".to give Mary Connaghton the sum of ten pounds sterling per annum, when I part with her ; but if she, the said Mary, should at any time hereafter conduct herself improperly, or (mark this, gentlemen) has done so before the draw* ing of this article, I am not bound to pay the sum of ten 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 I know not how to comment on it. — CONNAGHTON v. DILLON. 155 Oh, yes, I have heard of ambition urging men to crime — I have heard of love inflaming even to madness — I have read of passion rushing over law and religion to enjoyment ; but never, until this, did I see a frozen avarice chilling the hot pulse of sensuality; and desire pause, before its brutish draught, that it might add deceit to desolation ! I need not tell you that having provided in the very execution of this article for its predetermined infringement ; that knowing, as he must, any sti- pulation for the purchase of vice to be invalid by our law ; that having in the body of this article inserted a provision against that previous pollution which his prudent caprice might invent hereafter, but which his own conscience, her universal cha- racter, and even his own desire for her possession, allassured him did not exist at the time, I need not tell you that he now urges the invalidity of that instrument; that he now presses that previous pollution ; that he refuses from his splendid income the pittance often pounds to the wretch he has ruined, and spurns her from him to pine beneath the reproaches of a parent's mercy, or linger out a living death in the charnel-houses of prostitution ! You see, gentlemen, 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 ascendancy, he would not have acted so ; but there is something in guilt which infatuates its votaries forward ; it may begin with a promise broken, it will end with the home depopulated. 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 he murders innocence; his ap- 156 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF petites are of the brute, his arts of the demon; the heart of the child and the corse 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 de- serve to rank in such a class 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 cha- racter, which, before his cruelties, never was even suspected. Happily, gentlemen, happily for her- self; this wretched creature, thus cast upon the world, appealed to the parental refuge she had forfeited. I need not describe 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 conso- lation ! You must not forget, gentlemen, that is is not the unfortunate victim herself who appeals 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 comes this day before you — his aged locks withered by misfortune, and his heart broken by crimes of which he was unconscious. He re- sorts 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 CONNAGHTON v. DILLON. 15*7 all he has to suffer, for feelings outraged, for grat- ifications plundered, for honest pride put to the blush, for the exiled endearments of his once happy home, for all those innumerable and in- stinctive ecstacies with which a virtuous daughter fills her father's heart, for which language is too poor to have a name, but of which nature is abun- dantly and richly eloquent ! Do not suppose I am endeavouring to influence you by the power of de- clamation. I am laying 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 cited several cases as decided by Lord Eldon.) — Such, gentlemen, is the lan- guage of Lord Eldon. I speak also on the autho- rity 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 uncom- promising probity ; one of those rare men, who hid the thorns of law beneath the brightest flowers of literature, and, as it were, with the wand of an enchanter, changed a wilderness into a garden ! I speak upon that high authority — but I speak on other authority paramount to all ! — on the autho- rity 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 we re to grope our way through the ruins of antiquity, and blunder over statutes, and burrow through black letter, in search of an interpretation which Provi- dence has engraved in living letters on every hu- man heart. Yes ; if there be one amongst you blessed with a daughter, the smile of whose infancy still cheers your memoir, and the promise of whose youth illuminates your nope, who has endeared the 4 m 158 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF toils of your manhood, whom you look up to as the solace of your declining years, whose embrace alleviated the pang of separation, whose glowing welcome hailed your oft anticipated return — oh, if there be one amongst you, to whom those re- collections are dear, to whom those hopes are precious — let him only fancy that daughter torn fronfhis caresses by a seducers arts, and .cast upon the world, robbed of her innocence, — and then let him ask his heart, " what money could reprise him r The defendant, gentlemen, cannot complain that I put it thus to you. If, in place of seducing, he had assaulted this poor girl — if he had at- tempted 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 gentle- man entertains an opinion, prevalent enough in the age of a feudalism, as arrogant as it was barbarous, that the poor are only a specious of property, to be treated according to interest or caprice ! and that wealth is at once a patent for crime, and an ex- emption 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 dread- ful aggravation. If the rich suffer, they have much to console them ; but when a poor man loses the darling of his heart — the sfle pleasure with which CONNAGHTON v. DILLON. 159 nature blessed him — how abject, how cureless is the despair of his destitution ! Believe me, gentle- men, 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 or- ders, 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. 1 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, sur- rounded by the sacred circle of your children, you may not feel the heavy curse gnawing at your hearty of having let loose, unpunished, the prowler that may devour them. OE 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 under-valuing my very humble powers that I wish he had selected some more experienced, or at least less credulous advo* cate. 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 descrip- tion at defiance. Had I not yielde!d client from the double battery of Love and of Law, which at the age of sixty-five has so unex- pectedly opened on her. Oh, gentlemen, how vahi-glorious is the boast of beauty ! How misap- prehended have been the charms of youth, if years and wt m kles can thus despoil their conquests, and d ep ] a te the navy of its prowess, and beguile the b f * ts e ^°q uence • How mistaken were all V par o r^oets from Anacreon downwards, who the amatory k ^ QQm of the roge and the thrffl of preferred the w o the saffron hide and dulcet tre . the nightingale, , ^^ Qur own sweet bard faas ble of sixty-five ! . , . had the folly to deck re ' mal . , * . ' „ c an amourous youth « He once had heard tell o. dmothei , s be J d Who was caught in his gran u rish tooth But owns he had ne'er such a ^ „ As to wish to be there in his ste> BLAKE v. WILKINS. 179 Royal wisdom has said, that we live in a " New Era." The reign of old women has commenced, and if Johanna Sou£hcoute converts England to her creed, why should not Ireland, less pious perhaps, but at least equally passionate, kneel before the shrine of the irresistible Widow Wilkins. It ap- pears, gentlemen, to have been her happy fate to have subdued particularly the death-dealing professions. Indeed, in the love-episodes of the heathen mythology, Mars and Venus were con- sidered as inseparable. I know not whether any of you have ever seen a very beautiful print repre- senting the fatal glory of Quebec, and the last moments of its immortal conqueror — if so, you must have observed the figure of the staff physician, in whose arms the hero is expiring — that identical per- sonage, my lord, was the happy swain, who, forty or fifty yettrs ago, received the reward of his valour and his skill in the virgin hand of my venerable client ! The Doctor lived something more than a century, during a great part of which Mrs. Wilkins was his companion — alas, gentlemen, long as he lived, he lived not long enough to behold her beauty — " That beauty, like the Aloe flower, But bloom'd and blossom'd at fourscore." He was, however, so far fascinated as to bequeath to her the legacies of his patients, when he found he was predoomed to follow them. To this cir- cumstance, very far be it from me to hint, that Mrs. W. is indebted for any of her attractions. — Rich, however, she undoubtedly was, and rich she would still as undoubtedly have continued, had it not been for her intercourse with the family of the plaintifE I do not impute it as a crime to them that 180 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF they happened to be necessitous, but I do impute it as both criminal and ungrateful, that after having lived on the generosity of their friend, after having literally exhausted her most prodigal liberality, they should drag her infirmities before the public gaze, vainly supposing that they could hide their own contemptible avarice in the more prominent exposure of her melancholy dotage. The father of the plaintiff, it cannot be unknown to you, was for many years in the most indigent situation. — Perhaps it is not a matter of concealment either, that he found in Mrs. Wilkins a generous bene- factress. She assisted and supported him, until at last his increasing necessities reduced him to take refuge in an act of insolvency. During their inti- macy, frequent allusion was made to a son w r hom Mrs. Wilkins had never seen since he was a child, and who had risen to a lieutenancy in *he navy, under the patronage of their relative, Sir Benjamin Bloomfield. In a parent's panegyric, the gallant lieutenant was of course all that even hope could picture. Young, gay, heroic, and disinterested, the pride of the navy, the prop of the country, independent as the gale that wafted, and bounteous as the wave that bore him. I am afraid that it is rather an anti-climax to tell you after this, that he is the present plaintiff! The eloquence of Mrs. Blake was not exclusively confined to her enco- miums on the lieutenant. She diverged at times into an episode on the matrimonial felicities, painted the joy of passion and delights of love, and ob- scurely hinted that Hymen, with his torch, had an exact personification in her son Peter, bearing a match-light in his majesty's ship the Hydra ! — While these contrivances were practising on Mrs. Wilkins, a bye-plot was got up on board the BLAKE v. WILKINS. 131 Hydra, and Mr. Blake returned to his mourning country, influenced, as he says, by his partiality for the defendant, but in reality compelled by ill health and disappointments, added, perhaps, to his mother's very absurd and avaricious specula- tions. What a loss the navy had of him, and 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 the glories of ambi- tion — Trafalgar and St. Vincent flitted from his memory — he gave up all for woman, as Mark An- tony did before him, and, like the Cupid in Hudi- bras, 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 statutes, mortgage, bill and bond !" — Oh, gentlemen, only imagine him on the lakes of North America ! Alike to him the varieties of season or the vicissitudes of warfare. One sove- reign image monopolizes his sensibilities. Does the storm rage ? the Widow Wilkins outsighs the whirl- wind. Is the Ocean calm ? its mirror shows him the lovely Widow Wilkins. Is the battle won ? he thins his laurel that the Widow Wilkins may inter- weave her mirtles. Does the broadside thunder ? he invokes the Widow Wilkins ! "A sweet little Cherub she sits up aloft To keep watch for the life of poor Peter!" — Alas, how much he is to be pitied ! How amply he should be recompensed ! Who but must mourn his sublime, disinterested, sweet-souled patriotism ! 182 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF Who but must sympathize with his pure, ardent, generous affection ! — affection too confiding to re- quire an interview ! — affection too warm to wait even for an introduction ! Indeed, his Amanda herself seemed to think his love was most desirable at a distance, for at the very first visit after his re- turn he was refused admittance. His captivating charmer was then sick and nurse-tended at her brothers house, after a winter's confinement, re- flecting, most 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 you. [Mr. Vandeleur. — My lord, unwilling as I am to interrupt a statement which seems to create so universal a sensation, still I hope your lordship will restrain Mr. Phillips from reading a letter which cannot hereafter be read in evidence. Mr. O'Connell rose for the purpose of sup- porting the propriety of the course pursued by the defendant's counsel, when] Mr. Phillips resumed — My lord, although it is utterly impossible for the learned gentlemen to say, in what manner hereafter this letter might be made evidence, still my case is too strong to require any cavilling upon such trifles. I am content to save the public time and waive the perusal of the letter. However, they have now given its sup- pression an importance which perhaps its produc- tion could not have procured for it. You see, gentlemen, what a case they have when they insist on the withholding of the documents which origi- nated with themselves. I accede to their very po- litic interference. I grant them, since they entreat it, the mercy of my silence. Certain it is, however, that a letter was received from Mrs. Blake; and BLAKE v. WILKINS, 133 that almost immediately after its receipt, Miss Blake intruded herself at Brownville, where Mrs. Wilkins was — remained two days — lamented bitterly her not having appeared to the lieute- nant when he called to visit her — said that her poor mother had set her heart on an alliance- — that she was sure, dear ivoman, a disappointment would be the death of her ; in short, that there was no alternative but the tomb or the altar ! To all this Mrs. Wilkins only replied, how totally ignorant the parties most interested were of each other, and that were she even inclined to connect herself with a stranger (poor old fool !) the debts in which her generosity to the family had already involved her, formed, at least for the present, an insurmountable impediment. This was not sufficient. In less than a week, the indefatigable Miss Blake returned to the charge, actually armed with an old family-bond to pay off the incumbrancess, and a renewed repre- sentation of the mothers suspense and the brother's desperation. You will not fail to observe, gentlemen, that while the female conspirators were thus at work, the lover himself had never even seen the object of his idolatry. Like the maniac in the farce, he fell in love with 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 contented to embrace age, disease, infirmity, and widowhood — to bind his youthful pas- sions to the carcase for which the grave was open- ing — to feed by anticipation on the uncold corpse, and cheat the worm of its reversionary corruption. Educated in a profession proverbially generous, he offered to barter every joy for money ! Born in a country ardent to a fault, he advertised his happi- ness to the highest bidder ! and he now solicits an 184 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF honourable jury to become the panders to this heartlesss cupidity ! Thus beset, harassed, con- spired against, their miserable victim entered into the contract you have heard — a contract conceiv- ed in meanness, extorted by fraud, and sought to be enforced by the most profligate conspiracy. — Trace it through every stage of its progress, in its origin, its means, its effects — from the parent con- triving it through the sacrifice of her son, and for- warding it through the indelicate instrumentality of her daughter, down to the son himself unblushingly acceding to the atrocious combination by which age was to be betrayed and youth degraded, and the odious union of decrepit lust and precocious ava- rice blasphemously consecrated by the solemni- ties of religion ! Is this the example which as pa- rents you would sanction ? Is this the principle you would adopt yourselves ? Have you never wit- nessed the misery of an unmatched marriage? Have you never worshipped the bliss by which it has been hallo wed, when its torch, kindled at affection's altar, 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 Sacrament of one, shall be pro- faned into the ceremonial of an obscene and soul- degrading avarice ! No sooner was this contract, the device of their covetousness and the evidence of their shame, swindled from the wretched object of this conspi- racy, than its motive became apparent ; they avow- ed themselves the keepers of their melancholy vic- tim ; they watched her movements ; they dictated her actions ; they forbade all intercourse with her BLAKE v. WILKINS. 185 own brother ; they duped her into accepting bills, and let her be arrested for the amount. They ex- ercised the most cruel and capricious tyranny upon her, now menacing her with the publication of her follies, and now with the still more horrible enforce- ment of a contract that thus betrayed its anticipated inflictions ! Can you imagine a more disgusting ex- hibition of how weak and how worthless human nature may be, than this scene exposes ? On the one hand, a combination of sex and age, disregard- ing the most sacred obligations, and trampling on the most tender ties, from a mean greediness of lucre, that neither honour or gratitude or nature could appease, u Lucri bonus est odor exrequa- libet" On rHe other hand, the poor shrivelled re- lic, of what once was health, and youth, and ani- mation, sought to be embraced in its infection, and caressed in its infirmity — crawled over and corrupt- ed by the human reptiles, before death had shovel- led it to the less odious and more natural vermin of the grave ! What an object for the speculations of avarice ! What an angel for the idolatry of youth! Gentlemen, when this miserable dupe to her own doting vanity and the vice of others, saw how she was treated — when she found herself controlled by the mother, beset by the daughter, beggared by the father, and held by the son as a kind of windfall, that, too rotten to keep its hold, had fallen at his feet to be squeezed and trampled ; when she saw the intercourse of her relatives prohibited, the most trifling remembrances of her ancient friendship de- nied, the very exercise of her habitual charity de- nounced ; when she saw that all she was worth was to be surrendered to a family confiscation, and that she was herself to be gibbetted in the chains of wed- lock, an example to every superanuated dotard, 24 1£6 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 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 this decision, she wrote to Mr. Blake, complaining of the cruelty with which she had been treated, desiring the res- toration of the contract of which she had been duped, and declaring, as the only means of securing respect, her final determination as to the control over her property. To this letter, addressed to the son, a verbal answer (mark the conspiracy) was re- turned from the mother, withholding all consent, unless the property was settled on her family, but withholding the contract at the same time. The wretched old woman could not sustatfPthis conflict. She was taken seriously ill, confined for many months in her brother's house, from whom she was so cruelly sought to be separated, until the debts in which she was involved and a recommended change of scene transferred her to Dublin. There she was received with the utmost kindness by her relative, Mr. Mac Namara, to whom she confided the delicacy and distress of her situation. That gentleman, acting at once as her agent and her iricnd, instantly repaired to Galway, where he had an interview with Mr. Blake. This was long be- fore the commencement of any action. A conver- sation took place between them on the subject, which must, in my mind, set the present action at rest altogether ; because it must show that the non- performance of the contract originated entirely with the plaintiff himself. Mr. Mac Namara inquired, whether it was not true, that Mr. Blake's own fa- mily declined any connexion, unless Mrs. Wilkins consented to settle on them the entire of her pro- perty ? Mr. Blake replied it was. Mr. Mac Na- BLAKE v. WILKINS. 187 mara rejoined, that her contract did not bind her to any such extent. " No," replied Mr. Blake, " I know it does not ; however, tell Mrs. Wilkins that I understand she has about 580/. a year, and I will be content to settle the odd 80/. on her by way of pocket money. Here, of course the conversation ended, which Mr. Mac Namara detailed, as he was desired, to Mrs. Wilkins, who rejected it with the disdain, which, I hope, it will excite in every honourable mind. A topic, however, arose during the inter- view, which unfolds the motives and illustrates the mind of Mr. Blake more than any observation which I can make on it. As one of the inducements to the projected marriage, he actually proposed the pros- pect of a 50/. annuity as an officer's widow's pen- sion, to which she would be entitled in the event of his decease ! I will not stop to remark on the deli- cacy of this inducement — I will not dwell on the ridicule of the anticipation — I will not advert to the glaring dotage on which he speculated, when he could seriously hold out to a woman of her years the prospect of such an improbable survivorship. But I do ask you, of what materials must the man be composed who could thus debase the national liberality ! What ! was the recompense of that lofty heroism which has almost appropriated to the British navy the monopoly of maritime renown — was that grateful offering which a weeping country pours into the lap of its patriot's widow, and into the cradle of its warrior's orphan — was that gene- rous consolation with which a nation's gratitude cheers the last moments of her dying hero, by the portraiture of his children sustained and ennobled by the legacy of his achievements, to be thus delib- erately perverted into the bribe of a base, reluc- tant, unnatural prostitution ! Oh ! I know of nothing 188 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF to parallel the self-abasement of such a deed, ex- cept the audacity that requires an honourable jury to abet it. The following letter from Mr. Anthony Martin, Mr. Blake's attorney, unfolded the future plans of this unfeeling conspiracy. Perhaps the gentlemen would wish also to cushion this docu- ment ? They do not. Then I shall read it. The letter is addressed to Mrs. Wilkins. « Galway, Jan. 9, 1817. Madam, " I have been applied to professionally by Lieu- tenant Peter Blake to take proceedings against you on rather an unpleasant occasion ; but, from every letter of your's, and other documents, together with the material and irreparable loss Mr. Blake has sus- tained in his professional prospects, by means of your proposals to him, makes it indispensably neces- sary for him to get remuneration from you. Under these circumstances, I am obliged to say, that I have his directions to take immediate proceedings against you, unless he is in some measure compen- sated for your breach of contract and promise to him. I should feel happy that you would save me the necessity of acting professionally by settling the business [You see, gentlemen, money, money, mo- ney, runs through the whole amour], and not suffer it to come to a public investigation, particu- larly, as I conceive from the legal advice Mr. Blake has got, together with all I have seen, it will ulti- mately terminate most honourably to his advantage, and to jour pecuniary loss. " I have the honour to remain, " Madam, K Your very humble servant, " Anthony Martin.' 1 BLAKE v. WILKINS. 189 Indeed, I think Mr. Anthony Martin is mistaken. Indeed, I think no twelve men upon their oaths will say (even admitting the truth of all he asserts) that it was honourable for a British officer to aban- don the navy on such a speculation — to desert so noble a profession — to forfeit the ambition it ought to have associated — the rank to which it leads — the glory it may confer, for the purpose of extorting from an old woman he never saw the purchase-money of his degradation ! But I rescue the plaintiff from this disgraceful imputation. I cannot believe that a member of a profession not less remarkable for the valour than the generosity of its spirit — a profession as proverbial for its pro- fusion in the harbour as for the prodigality of its life-blood on the wave — a profession ever willing to fling money to the winds, and only anxious that that they should waft through the world its immor- tal banner crimsoned with the record of a thousand vic- tories ! No, no, gentlemen; notwithstanding the great authority of Mr. Anthony Martin, I cannot readily believe that any man could be found to make the high honour of this noble service a base, mercenary, sullied pander to the prostitution of his youth ! The fact is, that increasing ill health, and the improbability of promotion, combined to induce his retirement o;i half pay. You will find this con- firmed by the date of his resignation, which was immediately after the battle of Waterloo, which settled (no matter how) the destinies of Europe. His constitution was declining, his advancement was annihilated, and, as a forlorn hope, he bom- barded the Widow Wilkins ! " War thoughts had left their places vacant : In their room came, thronging, soft and amorous desires: All telling him how fair — young hero was." 190 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF He first, gentlemen, attacked her fortune with herself, through the artillery of the church, and having failed in that, he now attacks her fortune without herself, through the assistance of the law. — However, if I am instructed rightly, he has nobody but himself to blame for his disappointment. Ob- serve, I do not vouch for the authenticity of this fact ; but I do certainly assure you, that Mrs. Wil- kins was persuaded t)f it. You know the pro- verbial frailty of our nature. The gallant Lieute- nant was not free from it ! Perhaps you imagine that some younger, or, according to his taste, some older fair one, weaned him from the widow. In- deed they did not. He had no heart to lose, and yet (can you solve the paradox ?) his infirmity was love. As the poet says — " Love — still — love." No, it was not to Venus, it was to Bacchus, he sacrificed. With an eastern idolatry he com- menced at day-light, and so persevering was his piety till the shades of night, that when he was not on his knees, he could scarcely be said to be on his legs ! When I came to this passage, I could not avoid involuntarily exclaiming, Oh, Peter, Peter, whether it be in liquor or in love — " None but thyself can be thy parallel I" I see by your smiling, gentlemen, that you cor- rect my error. I perceive your classio memories recurring to, perhaps, the only prototype to be found in history. I beg his pardon. I should not have overlooked the immortal Captain Wattle, Who was all for love and — a little for the bottle." BLAKE v. WILKINS. 191 Ardent as our fair ones have been announced to be, they do not prefer a flame that is so exclusively spiritual Widow Wilkins, no doubt, did not choose to be singular. In the words of the bard, and, my lord, I perceive you excuse my dwelling so much on the authority of the muses, because really on this occasion the minstrel seems to have combined the powers of poetry with the spirit of prophecy — in the very words of the bard, " He asked her, would she marry him — Widow Wilkins an- swer'd, no — Then said he, I'll to the Ocean rock, I'm ready for the slaughter, Oh ! — I'll shoot at my sad image, as its sighing in the water — % Only think of Widow Wilkins, saying — Go — Peter — go !"" But, gentlemen, let us try to be serious, and seriously give me leave to ask you, on what grounds does he solicit your verdict? Is it for the loss of his profession ? Does he deserve compensation if he abandoned it for such a purpose — if he de- serted at once his duty and his country to trepan the weakness of a wealthy dotard ? But did he (base as the pretence is), did he do so ? Is there nothing to cast any suspicion on the pretext? nothing in the aspect of public affairs ? in the uni- versal peace ? in the uncertainty of being put in commission ? in the downright impossibility of ad- vancement ? Nothing to make you suspect that he imputes as a contrivance, what was the manifest result of an accidental contingency ? Does he claim on the ground of sacrificed affection ? Oh, gentlemen, only fancy what he has lost — if it were but the blessed raptures of the bridal night ! Do not suppose I am going ? to describe it ; I shall leave it 192 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF to the learned counsel he has selected to compose his epithalamium. I shall not exhibit the venerable trembler — at once a relic and a relict ; with a grace for every year and a Cupid in every wrinkle — affecting to shrink from the flame of his impa- tience, and fanning it with the ambrosial sigh of sixty -five ! ! I cannot paint the fierce meridian transports of the honeymoon, gradually melting into a more chastened and permanent affection — every nine months adding a link to the chain of their delicate embraces, until, too soon, death's broadside lays the Lieutenant low, consoling, how- ever, his patriarchal charmer, (old enough at the time to be the last wife of Methuselah) with a fifty pound annuity, being the balance of his glory against his majesty } s ship the Hidra ! ! Give me leave to ask you, is this one of the cases, to meet which, this very rare and delicate action was intended ? Is this a case where a reci- procity of circumstances, of affection, or of years, throw even a shade of rationality over the con- tract ? Do not imagine I mean to insinuate, that under no circumstances ought such a proceeding to be adopted. Do not imagine, though I say this action belongs more naturally to a female, its adoption can never be justified by one of the other sex. Without any great violence to my imagina- tion, I can suppose a man in the very spring of life, when his sensibilities are most acute, and his passions most ardent, attaching himself to some object, young, lovely, talented, and accomplished, concentrating, as he thought, every charm of per- sonal perfection, and in whom those charms were only heightened by the modesty that veiled them : perhaps his preference was encouraged ; his affec- tion returned ; his very sigh echoed until he was BLAKE v. WILKINS. 193 conscious of his existence but by the soul-creating sympathy — until the world seemed but the resi- dence of his love, and that love the principle that gave it animation — until, before the smile of her af- fection, the whole spectral train of sorrow vanished, and this world of wo, with all its cares and miseries and crimes, brightened as by enchantment into anticipated paradise ! ! It might happen that this divine affection might be crushed, and that hea- venly vision wither into air at the hell-engendered Eestilence of parental avarice, leaving youth and ealth, and worth and happiness, a sacrifice to its unnatural and mercenary caprices. Far am I from saying, that such a case would not call for expia- tion, particularly where the punishment fell upon the very vice in which the ruin had originated, Yet even there perhaps an honourable mind would rather despise the mean, unmerited desertion. Oh, I am sure a sensitive mind would rather droop uncomplaining into the grave, than solicit the mockery of a worldly compensation! But in the case before you, is there the slightest ground for supposing any affection ? Do you believe, if any accident bereft the defendant of her fortune, that her persecutor would be likely to retain his con- stancy ? Do you believe that the marriage thus sought to be enforced, was one likely to promote morality and virtue ? Do you believe that those delicious fruits by which the struggles of social life are sweetened, and the anxieties of parental care alleviated, were ever once anticipated ? Do you think that such an union could exhibit those reciprocities of love and endearments by which this tender rite should be consecrated and recommend- ed ? Do you not rather believe that it originated in avarice — that it was promoted by conspiracy — 25 194 SPEECH. and that it would not perhaps have lingered through some months of crime, and then terminated in an heartless and disgusting abandonment ? Gentlemen, these are the questions which you will discuss in your jury-room. I am not afraid of your decision. Remember I ask you for no miti- gation of damages. Nothing less than your ver- dict will satisfy me. By that verdict you will sustain the dignity of your sex — by that verdict you will uphold the honour of the national charac- ter — by that verdict you will assure, not only the immense multitude of both sexes that thus so un- usually crowds around you, but the whole rising generation of your country, That marriage can NEVER BE ATTENDED WITH HONOUR OR BLESSED WITH HAPPINESS, IF IT HAS NOT ITS ORIGIN IN MUTUAL AF- FECTION. I surrender with confidence my case to your decision. [The damages were laid at 5000/., and the plaintiff's counsel were, in the end, contented to withdraw a juror, and let him pay his own costs.] A CHARACTER NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE, DOWN TO THE PERIOD OE HIS EXILE TO ELBA. He IS FALLEN ! We may now pause before that splendid prodigy, which towered amongst us like some ancient ruin, whose frown terrified the glance its magnificence attracted. Grand, gloomy, and peculiar, he sat upon the throne, a sceptered hermit, wrapt in the solitude of his own originality. A mind bold, independent and decisive — a will, despotic in its dictates — an energy that dis- tanced expedition, and a conscience pliable to every touch of interest, marked the outline of this extraordinary character — 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 acknow- ledged no superior, he commenced his course, a stranger by birth, and a scholar by charity ! 196 CHARACTER OF N. BUONAPARTE, With no friend but his sword, and no fortune but his talents, he rushed into the lists where rank, and wealth, and genius had arrayed them- selves, and competition fled from him as from tfye glance of destiny. He knew no motive but in- terest — he acknowledged no criterion but success — he worshipped no God but ambition, and with an eastern devotion he knelt at the shrine of his idolatry. Subsidiary to this, there was no creed that he did not profess, there was no opinion that he did not promulgate ; in the hope of a dinasty, he upheld the crescent ; for the sake of a divorce, he bowed before the cross : the orphan of St. Louis he became the adopted child of the Repub- lic : and with a parricidal ingratitude, on the ruins both of the throne and the tribune, he reared the throne of his despotism. A professed catholic, he imprisoned the pope ; a pretended patriot, he impoverished the country ; and in the name of Brutus,* he grasped without remorse, and wore without shame, the diadem of the Caesars ! Through this pantomime of his policy, Fortune played the clown to his caprices. At his touch, crowns crumbled, beggars reigned, systems va- nished, the wildest theories took 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 the appearance of victory — his flight from Egypt confirmed his desti- ny — ruin itself only elevated him to empire. But if his fortune was great, his genius was tran- scendent ; decision flashed upon his councils ; and * In his hypocritical cant after liberty, in the commencement of the revolution, he assumed the name of Brutus Proh Pudor ! CHARACTER OF N.. BUONAPARTE. 197 it was the same to decide and to perform. To inferior intellects, his combinations appeared per- fectly impossible, his plans perfectly impracti- cable ; but, in his hands, simplicity marked their development, and success vindicated their adop- tion. 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 sur- mount — space no opposition that he did not spurn ; and whether amid Alpine rocks, Arabian sands, or polar snows, he seemed proof against peril, and empowered with ubiquity ! The whole continent of Europe trembled at beholding the audacity of his designs, and the miracle of their execution. Scepticism bowed to the prodigies of his perform- ance ; romance assumed the air of history ; nor was there aught too incredible for belief, or too fan- ciful for expectation, when the world saw a subal- tern 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 Ghess-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 bonnet or the iron crown — banishing a Braganza, or espousing a Hapsburgh — dictating peace on a raft to the czar of Russia, or contemplating defeat at the gallows of Leipsic — he was still the same military despot ! 198 CHARACTER OF N. BUONAPARTE. Cradled in the camp, he was to the last hour the darling 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-fitipu- lation 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 peo- ple he made even pride pay tribute. The victori- ous veteran glittered with his gains ; and the capi- tal, gorgeous with the spoils of art, became the mi- niature metropolis of the universe. In this wonder- ful combination, his affection of literature must not be omitted. The gaoler of the press, he af- fected the patronage of letters — the proscriber of books, he encouraged philosophy — the persecu- tor of authors, and the murderer of printers, he yet pretended to the protection 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 De Lille, and sent his academic prize to the philosopher of England.* Such a medley of contradictions, and at the same time such an invidual consistency, were never united in the same character. A royalist — a re- publican and an emperor — a mahometan — a ca- tholic 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 incomprehensible * Sir Humphry Davy was transmitted the first prize of the Academy of Sciences. CHARACTER OF N. BUONAPARTE. 199 self— the man without a model, and without a shadow. 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 reverie. Such is a faint and feeble picture of Napoleon Buonaparte, the first (and it is to be hoped the last) emperor of the French. ^, That he has done much evil there is-little doubt ; that he has been the origin of much good, there is just as little. Through his means, intentional or not, Spain, Portugal, and France have arisen to the blessings of a Free Constitution ; superstition has found her grave in the ruins of the inquisi- tion ; and the feudal system, with its whole train of tyrannic satellites, has fled for ever. Kings may learn from him that their safest study, as well as their noblest, is the interest of the people ; the people are taught by him that there is no despotism so stupendous against which they have not a re- source; and to those who would rise upon the ruins of both, he is a living lesson that if ambition can raise them from the lowest station, it can also prostrate them from the highest. MR. PHILLIPS IN THE CASE OB BROWNE v. BLAKE, My Lords and Gentlemen, I am instructed by the plaintiff to lay his case before you, and little do I wonder at the great in- terest which it seems to have excited. It is one of those cases which come home to the " business and the bosoms of mankind — it is not confined to the individuals concerned — it visits every circle from the highest to the lowest — it alarms the very heart of the community, and commands the whole social family to the spot, where human nature prostrated at the bar of public justice, calls aloud for pity and protection ! On my first addressing a jury on a subject of this nature, I took the high ground to which I deemed myself entitled — I stood upon the purity of the national character — I relied upon that chastity which centuries had made proverbial, and almost drowned the cry of individual suffering in the violated reputation of the country. Humbled and abashed, I must re- sign the topic — indignation at the novelty of the offence has given way to horror at the frequency # SPEECH.* 201 ©f the repetition. It is now becoming almost fashionable among .us ; we are importing the fol- lies, and naturalizing the vices of the continent ; scarcely a term passes in these courts, during which some unabashed adulterer or seducer does not announce himself improving on the odious- ness of his offence, by the profligacy of his justifi- cation, and as it were, struggling to record, by crimes, the desolating progress of our barbarous civilization. Gentlemen, if this be suffered to continue, what home shall be safe, what hearth shall be sacred, what parent can, for a moment, calculate on the possession of his child, what child shall be secure against the orphan age that springs from prostitution ; what solitary right, whether life or liberty, or property in the land, shall survive amongst us, if that hallowed couch which modesty has veiled and love endeared and religion consecrated, is to be invaded by a vulgar and promiscuous libertinism ! A time there was when that couch was inviolable in Ireland — when conjugal infidelity was deemed but an invention — when marriage was considered as a sacrament of the heart, and faith and affection sent a mingled flame together from the altar ; are such times to dwindle into a legend of tradition ; are the dear- est rights of man, and the holiest ordinances of God, no more to be respected ! Is the marriage vow to become but the prelude to perjury and prostitution ! Shall our enjoyments debase them- selves into an adulterous participation, and our children propagate an incestuous community ! hear the case which I am fated to unfold, and then tell me whether a single virtue is yet to lin- ger amongst us with impunity — whether honour, friendship or hospitality, are to be sacred-^- 26 202 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF whether that endearing confidence, by which the bitterness of this life is sweetened, is to become the instrument of a perfidy, beyond conception ; and whether the protection of the roof, the fra- ternity of the board, the obligations of the al- tar, and the devotion of the heart, are to be so many panders to the hellish abominations they should have purified — Hear the case which must go forth to the world, but which I trust in God your verdict will accompany, to tell that world, that if there was vice enough amongst us to com- mit the crime, there is virtue enough to brand it with an indignant punishment. Of the plaintiff, Mr. Browne, it is quite impos- sible but you must have heard much — his misfor- tune has given him a sad celebrity, and it does seem a peculiar incident to such misfortune that the loss of happiness is almost invariably succeed- ed by the deprivation of character. As the less guilty murderer will hide the corse that may lead to his detection, so does the adulterer, by obscur- ing the reputation of his victim, seek to diminish the moral responsibility he has incurred. Mr. Browne undoubtedly forms no exception to this system — betrayed by his friend, and abandoned by his wife, his too generous confidence, his too ten- der love has been slanderously perverted into the sources of calumny — because he could not tyran- ize over her whom he adored, he was careless — because he could not suspect him in whom he trusted, he was careless ; and crime in the infatu- ation of its cunning found its justification even in the virtues of its victim ! I am not deterred by the prejudice thus cruelly excited — I appeal from the gossiping credulity of scandal to the grave de- cision of fathers and of husbands, and 1 implore BROWNE v. BLAKE. 203 of you, as you value the blessings of your homes, not to countenance the calumny which solicits a precedent to excuse their spoliation. At the close of the year ! 809, the death of my client's fa- ther gave him the inheritance of an ample for- tune. Of all the joys his prosperity created, there was none but yielded to the ecstacy of sharing it with her he loved, the daughter of his father's an- cient friend, the respectable proprietor of Oren castle. She was then in the very spring of life, and never did the sun of Heaven unfold a lovelier blos- som— her look was beauty and her breath was fra- grance — the eye that saw her caught a lustre from the vision ; and all the vision, and all the virtues seemed to linger round her, like so many spotless spirits enamoured of her lovelinesss. " Yes, she was good as she was fair, None, none on earth above her ; As pure in thought as angels are, To see her, was to love her." What years of tongueless transport might not her happy husband have anticipated ! What one addition could her beauties gain to render them all perfect ! In the connubial rapture there was only one and he was blessed with it. A lovely family of infant children gave her the consecrated name of mother, and with it all that Heaven can give of interest to this world's worthlessness. Can the mind imagine a more delightful vision than that of such a mother, thus young, thus love- ly, thus beloved, blessing a husband's heart, bask- ing in a world's smile, and while she breathed in- to her little ones the moral light, showing them that robed in all the light of beauty, it was still 204 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF possible for their virtues to cast it into the shade. Year after year of happiness rolled on, and every year but added to their love a pledge, to make it happier than the former. Without ambition but her husband's love, without one object but her children's happiness, this lovely woman circled in her orbit, all bright, all beauteous in the prospe- rous hour, and if that hour ever darkened, only beaming the brighter and the lovelier. What hu- man hand could mar so pure a picture ! W T hat punishment could adequately visit its violation ! " Oh happy love, where love like this is found ! Oh heartfelt rapture ! bliss beyond compare." It was indeed the summer of their lives, and with it came the swarm of summer friends, that revel in its splendour. High and honoured in that crowd — most gay, most cherished, most professing, stood the defendant, Mr. Blake. He was the plaintiff's dearest, fondest friend, to every plea- sure called, in every case consulted, his day's com- panion, and his evening guest ; his constant, trust- ed, bosom confidant, and under guise of all, Oh, human nature ! he was his fellest, deadliest, final enemy ! Here, on the authority of this brief, do I arraign him of having counterfeited a sympathy in his joys and in his sorrows ; and when he seem- ed too pure even for scepticism itself to doubt him, of having under the very sanctity of his roof, per- petrated an adultery the most unprecedented and perfidious. If this be true, can the world's wealth defray the penalty of such turpitude ? Mr. Browne, gentlemen, was ignorant of every agricultural pur- suit, and unfortunately adopting the advice of his father-in-law, he cultivated the amusements of the BROWNE v. BLAKE. 205 Curragh. I 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 through- out the empire countenance by their adoption, which fashion and virtue graces by its attendance, and in which peers and legislators and princes are not ashamed to appear conspicuous. But if the morality that countenances it be doubtful, by what epithets shall we designate that which would make it an apology for the most profligate of of- fences ? Even if Mr. Browne's pursuits were ever so erroneous, was it for his bosom friend to take advantage of them to ruin him ? On this subject, it is sufficient for me to remark, that under cir- cumstances of prosperity or vicissitudes, was their connubial happiness ever even remotely clouded ! In fact, the plaintiff disregarded even the amuse- ments that deprived him of her society. He took a house for her vicinity of Kildare, furnished it with all that luxury could require, and afforded her the greatest of all luxuries, 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 ten- derness ; not a word, except of mutual endear- ment, passed between them. Now, gentlemen, if this be proved to you, here I take my stand, and I say, under no earthly circumstances, can a justifi- cation of the adulterer be adduced. No matter with what delinquent sophistry he may blaspheme through its palliation, God ordained, nature ce- mented — happiness consecrated that celestial un- ion, and it is complicated treason against God and man, and society, to intend its violation. The so- cial compact, through every fibre trembles at its 206 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF consequences; not only policy but law, not only law, but nature, not only nature but religion, de- precate 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 grand-sire shivering on the verge of death ; the infant quickening in the mothers's womb ; all with one assent re-echo God, and execrate adultery ! I 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 attempt- ing their separation. Did they do so ? That is imperatively your first consideration. I only hope that all the hearts religion has joined together, may have enjoyed the happiness that they did. Their married state, was one continued honey- moon ; and if ever cloud arose to dim it, before love's sigh it fled, and left its orb the brighter. Prosperous and wealthy fortune had no charms for Mr. Browne, but as it blessed the object of his af- fections. She made success delightful ; she gave his wealth its value. The most splendid equipa- ges—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 enjoyment. Great as his fortune was, his love outshone it, and it seems as if fortune was jealous of the performance. Pro- verbially 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 retires from vulgar notice, but when the clouds of wo collect around us, and shades and BROWNE v. BLAKE. 207 darkness dim the wanderer'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 — but that she pillowed her poor husband's heart, welcomed adversity to make him happy, held up her little children as the wealth that no adversity could take away ; and when she found his spirit broken and his soul dejected, with a masculine un- derstanding, retrieved in some degree, his despe- rate fortunes, and saved the little wreck that sola- ced their retirement. What was such a woman worth, I ask you ? If you can stoop to estimate by dross the worth of such a creature, give me even a notary's calculation, and tell me then what she was worth to him to whom she had consecrated the bloom of her youth, the charm of her inno- cence, the splendour of her beauty, the wealth of her tenderness, the power of her genius, the trea- sure of her fidelity ? She, the mother of his chil- dren, the pulse of his heart, the joy of his prospe- rity, the solace of his misfortunes — what was she worth to him ? Fallen as she is, you may still esti- mate her; you may see her value even in her ruin.. The gem is sullied the diamond is shivered ; but even in its dust you may see the magnificence of its material. After this, they retired to Rock- ville, their seat in the county of Galway, where they resided in the most domestic manner, on the remnant of their once splendid establishment. — The butterflies that in their noon-tide fluttered round them, vanished at the first breath of their adversity; but one early friend still remained 20& SPEECH IN THE CASE OF faithful and affectionate, and that was the defen- dant. Mr. Blake is a young gentlemen 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 quali- ty to fascinate a female. Most willingly do I pay the tribute which nature claims for him ; most bit- terly do I lament that he has been so ungrateful to so prodigal a benefactress. The more Mr. Browne's fortunes accumulated, the more disinterestedly at- tached did Mr. Blake appear to him. He shared with him his purse, he assisted him with his coun- sel : 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 reciprocity of intercourse between the females ; and, to crown all, that no possible suspicion might attach to him, he seldom travelled without his do- mestic 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 se- duce the wife of his bosom — that he affected con- fidence only to betray it — that he perfected the wretchedness he pretended to console, and that in the midst of poverty he has left his victim, friend- less, hopeless, companionlets ; 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 innocence ! You convict for treason — here is the vilest disloyalty to friend- ship ! You convict for robbery — here is one who plundered virtue of her dearest pearl, and dissol- ved it even in the bowl that hospitality held out to him ! ! They pretend that he is innocent ! Oh ef- BROWNE v. BLAKE. 209 frontery the most unblushing! Oh vilest insult, added to the deadliest injury ! Oh base, detestable and damnable hypocrisy ! Of the final testimony it is true enough their cunning has deprived us : but under Providence, I shall pour upon this base- ness such a flood of light, that I will defy, not the most honourable man merely, but the most charit- able sceptic, to touch the Holy Evangelist, and say, by their sanctity, it has not been committed. At- tend 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. Browne, to have breakfast ready very early on the ensuing morning, as the defendant, then on a visit at the house, expressed an inclination to go out to hunt. She was accordingly brushing down the stairs at a very early hour, when she observ- ed the handle of the door stir, and fearing the noise had disturbed her, she ran instantly down stairs to avoid her displeasure. She remained be- low about three quarters of an hour, when her mas- ter'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 ques- tion 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 in- disposed going to bed at night that an express stood actually prepared to bring medical aid from Galway, unless she appeared better. An unusual depression both of mind and body preyed upon Mrs. Browne on the preceding evening. She fre- 27 210 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF quently burst into tears, threw her arms around her husband's neck, saying that she was sure an- other month would separate her for ever 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 be sent up to him. She went down — as she was about to return from her ineffectual search, she heard her master's voice in the most violent indig- nation, and almost immediately after Mrs. Browne rushed past her into the parlour, and hastily seizing her writing desk desired her instantly to quit her apartment. Gentlemen, I request that you will bear every syllable of this scene in your recollec- tion, but most particularly the anxiety about her 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 bedside where they stood in all the shame and horror of their situation ! He shouted for her brother, and that miserable brother had the agony of witnessing his guilty sister in the bed room of her paramour, both almost literally in a state of nudity. 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 merely, you have dishonour- ed my bed — It was not merely, you have sacrificed my happiness — it was not merely, you have widow- ed me in my youth, and left me the father of an orphan family — it was not merely, you have viola- ted a compact to which all the world swore a tacit BROWNE v. BLAKE. 211 veneration — but, you — you have done it, my friend, my guest, under the very roof barbarians rever- ence; 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 I, 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 outraged nature, make the brother the proof of the sister's prostitution ! Thank God, gentlemen, I may not be obliged to torture you and him and myself, by such instrumentality. I think the proof is full without it, though it must add an- other pang to the soul of the poor plaintiff, because it must render it almost impossible that his little infants are not the brood of this adulterous depra- vity. It will be distinctly proved to you by Hono- ria Brennan, another of the servants, that one night, so far back as the May previous to the last men- tioned occurrence, when she was in the act of ar- ranging the beds, she saw Mr. Blake come up stairs, look cautiously about him, go to Mrs. B's bed-room door and tap at it ; that immediate- ly after Mrs. Browne went, with no other cover- ing than her shift, to Mr. Blake's bed-chamber, where the guilty parties locked themselves up to- gether. Terrified and astonished, the maid retired to the servant's apartments, and in about a quar- ter 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 accompany and oo 212 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF casion the development of guilt, that we have ar- rived at this evidence. It was very natural that she did not wish to reveal it ; very natural that she did not wish either to expose her mistress, or af- flict her unconscious master with the recital; very natural that she did not desire to be the in- strument of so frightful a discovery. However, when she found that concealment was out of the question; that the action was actually in progress, and that the guilty delinquent was publicly triumph- ing in the absence of proof, and through an herd of slanderous dependants, cruelly vilifying the charac- ter of his victim ; she sent a friend to Mr. Browne, and in his presence and that of two others, solemn- ly discovered her melancholy information. Gen- tlemen, I do intreat of you to examine this woman, though she is an uneducated peasant, with all se- verity, 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 be- hind him, and even from the very board of his hos- pitality, he proceeded to the defilement of his bed ! Of mere adultery I had heard before. It was bad enough — a breach of all law, religion and morality _but — what shall I call this ?— that seduced inno- cence — insulted misfortune — betrayed friendship- violated hospitality — tore up the very foundations of human nature, and hurled its fragments at the violated altar, as if to bury religion beneath the ru- ins of society ! ! Oh, it is guilt might put a daemon to the blush ! Does not proof rest here ? No ; though the mind must be sceptical that after this could doubt. A guilty correspondence was carried on between the BROWNE v. BLAKE. 213 parties, and though its contents were destroyed by Mrs. Browne, on the morning of the discovery, still we shall authenticate the fact beyond suspi- cion. You shall hear it from the very messenger they entrusted — you shall hear it from him too, that the wife and the adulterer both bound him to the utmost secrecy, at once establishing their own collusion and their own victim's ignorance, proving by the very anxiety for concealment, the impossi- bility of connivance ; so true it is that the convic- tion of guilt will often proceed even from the strat- agem for its security. Does our proof rest here ? No ; you shall have it from a gentleman of unim- peachable veracity, that the defendant himself con- fessed the discovery in his bed-room — " I will save him," said he, " the trouble of proving it ; she was in her shift, and I was in my shirt. I know very well a jury will award damages against me : ask Browne will he agree to compromise it ; he owes me some money, and I will give him the over- plus 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 under the recent wound he delibe- rately offers him brutes in compensation ! I will not deprecate this cruelty by any comment ; yet the very brute he would-barter for that unnatural mo- ther, would have lost its life rather than desert its offspring. Now, gentlemen, what rational mind but must spurn the asseveration of innocence after this ? Why the anxiety about the writing desk ? Why a clandestine correspondence with her hus- band's friend ? Why remain, at two different pe- riods, for a quarter of an hour together in a gentle- man's bed-chamber, with no other habiliment, at one time, than her bed-dress, at another than her 214 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF shift ? Is this customary with the married 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 judg- ment by default, a distinct, undeniable corrobora- tion of his guilt. Was it that the female character should not suffer ? Could there be a more trumpet- tongued proclamation of her criminality ? Are our witnesses suborned ? Let his army of counsel sift and torture them. Can they prove it ? — O yes, if it be proveable. Let them produce 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 in- nocence of a sister. Such is the leading outline of our evidence — evidence which you will only won- der is so convincing in a case whose very nature pre-supposes the most cautious secrecy. The law, indeed, gentlemen, duly estimating the difficulty of a final proof in this species of action has recognized the validity or inferential evidence, but on that sub- ject 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 inferential testimony amounts to demon- stration. Amongst the innumerable calumnies, afloat, it has been hinted to me, indeed, that they mean to rely upon what they denominate the in- discretion 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 BROWNE v. BLAKE. 215 consideration, whether you will tolerate such a de- fence as that. It is in my mind beyond all endu- rance, that any man should dare to come in a court of justice, and on the shadow of pretence of what he may term carelessness, ground the most substantial and irreparable injury. Against the unmanly principle of conjugal severity, in the name of civilized society I solemnly protest. It is not fitted for the meridian, and, I hope, will never amalgamate itself with the manners of this country — it is the most ungenerous and insulting suspicion, reduced into the most unmanly and despotic prac- tice. " Let barbarous nations whose human blood Is wild desire, fierce as the suns they feel ; Let eastern tyrants, from the light of Heaven Seclude their bosom slaves, meanly possessed. Of a mere lifeless violated form — While those whom love cements in the holy faith, And equal transport, free as nature live, Disdaining fear." But once establish the principle of this moral and domestic censorship, and then tell me where is it to begin ? Where is it to end ? Who shall bound ? Who shall preface it ? By what hitherto undiscov- erable standard, shall we regulate the shades be- tween solemnity and levity? Will you permit this impudent espionage upon your house-holds ; upon the hallowed privacy of your domestic hour; 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 as- sassin 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 jus- 216 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF tification, we may bid farewell at once to all the delightful intercourse of social life. Spurning as I do at this odious system of organized distrusts, sup- pose the admission made, that my client was care- less, indiscreet, culpable, if they will, in his domes- tic regulations, is it therefore to be endured, that every abandoned burglar should seduce his wife, or violate his daughter? Is it to be endured, that Mr. Blake of all men should rely on such an infa- mous and convenient extenuation ? He — his friend, his guest, his confidant, he who introduced a spot- less sister to this attained intimacy ; shall he say, I associated with you hourly, I affected your fa- miliarity for many years. I accompanied my do- mesticated 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 house-hold ; but — you fool — it was only to turn it into a brothel ! ! Merciful God, will you endure him when he tells you thus, that he is on the watch to prowl upon the weakness of hu- manity, and audaciously solicits your charter for such libertinism. I have heard it asserted also, that they mean to arraign the husband as a conspirator, because in the hour of confidence and misfortune he accepted a proffered pecuniary assistance from the man he thought his friend. It is true he did so; but so I will say, criminally careful 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. It was my impression indeed, that under a lease of this na- ture, amongst honourable men, so far from rny un- BROWNE v. BLAKE. 217 warrantable privilege created, there was rather a peculiar delicacy, incumbent on the the donor. I should have thought so still but for a frightful ex- pression of one of the counsel on the motion, by which they endeavoured not to trust a Dublin ju- ry with this issue. What, exclaimed they, in all the pride of their execrable instructions, " a poor plaintiff and a rich defendant! Is there nothing in that?" No, 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, but to an horde of savages, whether it is possible for the most inhuman monster thus to sacrifice to infa- my, his character — his wife — his home — his chil- dren ! 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 not to promulgate such a slander upon both — but I need not do so ; if the zeal of advocacy should induce them to the attempt, memory would array their happy homes before them — their little children would lisp its contradiction — their love — their hearts — their in- structive feelings as fathers, as husbands, would rebel within them, and wither up the horrid blas- phemy upon their lips. They will find it difficult to palliate such turpi- tude — I am sure I find it difficult to aggravate. It is in itself a hyperbole of wickedness. Honour, innocence, religion, friendship — all that is sanctifi- ed and lovely, or endearing in creation. Even that hallowed, social, shall I not say indigenous virtue — that blessed hospitality — which foreign envy 23 218 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 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 na- tional ruin, as if to hide the monument, while it gave a shelter to the mourner — even that wither- ed away before that pestilence ! But what do I say ! was virtue merely the victim of this adulte- rer ? Worse, worse — it was his instrument — even on the broken tablet of the decalogue did he whet the dagger of his social assassination — What will you say, when I inform you, that a few months before he went deliberately to the baptismal font with the waters of life to regenerate the infant that, too well could he avouch, had been born in sin, and he promised to teach Christianity ? — And he promised to guard it against " 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 sa- crament ! ! See then the horrible atrocity of this case as it touches the defendant — it has been in- flicted by his friend, and inflicted beneath his roof — it commences at a period which 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 com- pensation can reprise so unparalleled a sufferer ? — What solitary consolation is there in reserve for for him ? Is it love ? Alas, there was one whom he adored with all the heart's idolatry, and she de- serted him. Is it friendship ? There was one of all whom he trusted, and that one betrayed him. Is it society ? The smile of others' happiness appears but the epitaph of his own. Is it solitude? Can he be alone while memory, striking on the sepul- BROWNE v. BLAKE. 219 chre 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 chil- dren ? 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 adulterer ! ! O gentlemen, am I this day only the counsel of my client ? no — no— I am the advocate of human- ity—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 feature, it may stop the frightful advance of this calamity ; it will be met now and marked with vengeance ; 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 ; humanity trampled ; nation- al and individual honour stained ; and that a jury of fathers, and of husbands will give such mis- creancy a passport to their homes, and wives and daughters ; farewell to all that yet remains to Ireland ! but I will not cast such a doubt upon the character 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 per- fidy could barter, and no bribery 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 cottage, are still to be found scattered over this land ; the relic of what 220 SPEECH. she was; the source perhaps of what she may be; the lone, and statary, and magnificent memorials, that rearing their majesty amid surrounding ruins, serve at once as the land marks of the departed glory, and the models by which the future may be erected. Preserve those virtues with a vestal fidelity; mark this day by your verdict, by your horror at their profanation, and believe me, when the hand which records that verdict shall be dust, and the tongue that asks it traceless in the grave, many an happy home will bless its consequences, and many a mother teach her little child to hate the impious treason of adultery. MR. PHILLIPS IN THE CASE OE FITZGERALD v. KERR. My Lord, and you, Gentlemen of the Jury, You have already heard the nature of this ac- tion, and upon me devolves the serious duty of stating the circumstances in which it has originat- ed. Well indeed may I call it a serious duty, whether as it affects the individuals concerned, or the community at large. It is not merely the cause of my client, but that of society, which you are about to try ; it is your own question, and that of your dearest interests ; it is to decide whether there is any moral obligation to be respected, any reli- gious ordinance to be observed, any social commu- nion to be cherished ; it is, whether all the sympa- thies of our nature, and all the charities of our life, are to be but the condition of a capricious compact which a demoralized banditti may dissolve, just as it suits their pleasure or their appetite. Gentle- men, it has been the lot of my limited experience, to have known something of the few cases which have been grasped by our enemies as the pretext for our depreciation, and I can safely say, that there 222 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF was scarcely one which, when compared with this, did not sink into insignificance. They had all some redeeming quality about them — some casual and momentary acquaintance — some taint of con- jugal infidelity — some suspicion of conjugal conni- vance — some unpremeditated lapse of some youth- ful impulse, if not to justify, at least to apologize, or to palliate. But, in the case before you, the friendship is not sudden, but hereditary ; the suf- ferer is altogether spotless ; the connivance is an unsuspecting hospitality ; and so far from having youth to mitigate, the criminal is on the very verge of existence, forcing a reluctant nature into lust, by the mere dint of artificial stimulants, and strug- gling to elicit a joyless flame from not even the em- bers, but the ashes of expiring sensuality. One circumstance — one solitary circumstance can I find for consolation, and that is, that no hireling defa- mer can make this the source of accusation against our country : an Irishman indeed has been the vic- tim, and this land has been the scene of the pollu- tion, but here we stop : its perpetrators, thank Hea- ven, are of distant lineage : the wind of Ireland has not rocked their infancy : they have imported their crimes as an experiment on our people, — meant perhaps to try how far vice may outrun civilization — how fir our calumniators may have the attesta- tion of Irish fathers, and of Irish husbands, to the national depravity : you will tell them they are fa- tally mistaken ; you will tell a world incredulous to our merits, that the parents of Ireland love their little children; that her matron's smile is the cheer- fulness of innocence ; that her doors are open to every guest but infamy; and that even in that fatal hour,' when the clouds collected, and the tempest broke on us, chastity outspread her spotless wings. FITZGERALD v. KERR. 223 and gave the household virtues a protection. When I name to you my unhappy client, I name a gentle- man upon whom, here at least, I need pass no eu- logium. To me, Mr. Fitzgerald is only known by his misfortunes; to you, his birth, his boyhood, and up to man's estate, his residence, have made him long familiar. " This is his own, his native land." And here, when I assert him warm and honour- able — spirited and gentle — a man, a gentleman, and a christian, if I am wrong, I can be instantly con- futed ; but if I am right, you will give him the ben- efit of his virtues — he will be heard in this his trial hour with a commiserating sympathy by that mo- rality whose cause he is the advocate, and of whose enemy he is the victim. A younger brother, the ample estates of his family devolved not upon him, and he was obliged to look for competence to the labours of a profession. Unhappily for him he chose the army — I say unhappily, because, inspir- ing him with a soldier's chivalry, it created a too generous credulity in the soldier's honour. In the year 1811, he was quartered with his regiment in the Island of Jersey, and there he met Miss Bree- done, the sister-in-law of a brother 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 disinterested at- tachment. She had no fortune, and he very little, 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, that in despite of all her errors, there is one 224 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF amongst us who, in his sorrow's solitude, for many a future year of misery, will turn to that darling though delusive vision, till his tears shut out the universe. He told me indeed that she was lovely ; but the light that gave the gem its brilliancy has va- nished. 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 doting husband, and that the affec- tion appeared to be reciprocal. Four infant babes, the wretched orphans of their living parents — doub- ly 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 sad inherit- ance, and misery their handmaid from the cradle. As their family increased, 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 remov- ed his household. Here, gentlemen, in this sequestered residence- blest with the woman whom he loved, the children he adored, with a sister's society, a brother's coun- sel, and a character that turned acquaintance into friendship, he enjoyed delights of which humanity I fear is not allowed a permanence. The human mind perhaps cannot imagine a lot of purer or more perfect happiness. It was a scene on which ambi- tion in its laureled hour might look with envy; com- FITZGERALD v. KERR. 225 pared with which the vulgar glories of the world are vanity ; a spot of such serene and hallowed so- litude, 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 entered ; yet even hence the present god was banished ; its streams were poisoned, and its paths laid desolate; and its blossoms, blooming with celestial life, were withered into garlands for the tempter ! How shall I describe the hero of this triumph ? Is there a language that has words of fire to parch whate'er they light on ? 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 daemon ; go to his dead father's sepulchre — the troubled spirit of that early friend will shriek his maledictory description ; go to the orphan infant's cradle, without a mother's foot to rock, or a sire's arm to shield it — its word- less cries will pierce you with his character; or, hear from me the poor and impotent narration of his practices — hear how as a friend he murdered confidence — how as a guest he violated hospitality — how as a soldier he embraced pollution — how as a man he rushed to the perpetration, not merely of a lawless, but an unnatural enjoyment, over every human bliss, and holy sacrament, and then say whe- ther it is in mortal tongue to epitomize those prac- tices into a characteristic epithet ! He is, you know gentlemen, an officer of dragoons, and about twen- ty years ago was in that capacity quartered in this county. His own manners, imposing beyond de- scription, and the habitual hospitality of Ireland to the military, rendered his society universally soli- cited. He was in every house, and welcomed eve- 29 226 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF ry where ; nor was there any board more bounti- fully spread for him, or any courtesy more warmly extended, than that which he received from the fa- mily at Oaklands. Old Mr. Fitzgerald was then master of its hereditary mansion, his eldest son just, verging upon manhood, and my client but a school boy. The acquaintance gradually grew into inti- macy, 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 vicissitudes 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 acquaintance in his father's place, and the schoolboy Charles, an hus- band and a parent in the little cottage of which you have heard already. A family affliction had es- tranged Colonel Fitzgerald from his paternal resi- dence — it was by mere chance, while attending the assizes' duty, he recognized in one of the offi- cers of the garrison the friend with whom his infan- cy had been familiar. You may easily guess the gratification he experienced — a gratification min- gled with no other regret than that it was so soon to vanish. He was about to dissipate by foreign tra- vel the melancholy which preyed on him, and could not receive his friend with personal hospitality. — Surprised and delighted, however, he gave him in a luckless hour a letter of courtesy to my client, re- questing from him and his brother-in-law, Mr. Kir- wan, every attention in their power to bestow. And now, gentlemen, before I introduce him to the scene of his criminality, you shall have even the faint un- finished sketch which has been given me of his cha- FITZGERALD v. KERR. 227 racter. Captain Kerr of the Royals is very near sixty ; he is a native of Scotland ; he has been all his life a military officer ; in other words, to the ad- vantage of experience and the polish of travel, he adds what Lord Bacon calls that " left-handed wisdom," with which the thrifty genius of the Tweed has been said to fortify her children. Never, I am told, did there emigrate even from Scotland, a man of more ability, or of more cunning — one whose address was more capable of inspiring confidence, or whose arts were better calculated to lull suspi- cion : years have given him the caution of age, without extinguishing the sensibilities of youth ; nature made him romantic, navity made him fru- gal, and half a century has now matured him into a perfect model of thrifty sentiment and amorous senility ! I shall not depict the darker shades with which to me this portraiture has been deform- ed ; if they are true, may God forgive him : his own heart can alone supply the pencil with a tint black enough to do them justice. His first visit to Oaklands was in company with a Major Brown, and he at once assumed the air of one rather re- newing than commencing an acquaintance : the themes of other days were started — the happy scenes in which a parent's image mingled were all spread out before a filial eye, and when, too soon, their visitor departed, he left not behind him the memory of a stranger. He was as one whose death has been untruely rumoured — a long lost and recovered intimate, dear for his own deserts, and dearer for the memory with which he was asso- ciated. Gentlemen, I have the strongest reason for be- lieving that even at this instant the embryo of his baseness was engendering, — that even (hen. when 228 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF his buried friend stood as it were untombed before him in the person of his offspring, the poison seed was sown, within the shade of whose calamitous maturity nothing of humanity could prosper. I can- not toil through the romantic cant with which the hypocrite beguiled this credulous and unconscious family, but the concluding sentence of his visit is too remarkable to be omitted. " It is," said he, awaking out of a reverie of admiration, " it is all a paradise : there (pointing to my client), there is Adam — she (his future victim), she is Eve — and that (turning to Major Brown), that is the devil !" Perhaps he might have been more felicitous in the last exemplification. This of course seemed but a jest, and raised the laugh that was intended. But it was " poison in jest," it was an " Iago prelude," of which inferior crime could not fancy the conclu- sion. Remember it, and you will find that, jocular as it was, it had its meaning — that it was not, as it purported, the jocularity of innocence, but of that murderous and savage nature that prompts the In- dian to his odious gambol round the captive he has destined to the sacrifice. The intimacy thus com- menced, was, on the part of the defendant, strictly cultivated. His visits were frequent — his attentions indefatigable — his apparent interest beyond doubt, beyond description. You may have heard, my Lord, that there is a class of persons who often create their consequence in a family by contriving to be- come master of its secrets. An adept in this art, beyond all rivalry, was Captain Kerr — not only did he discover all that had reality, but he fabrica- ted whatever advanced his purposes, and the con- fidence he acquired was beyond all suspicion from the sincerity he assumed and the recollections he excited. Who could doubt the man who writhed EITZGERALD v. KERR. 229 in agony at every wo, and gave with his tears a crocodile attestation to the veracity of his inven- tion ! From the very outset of this most natural though ill-omened introduction, his only object was discord and disunion, and in the accomplishment he was but too successful. How could he be oth- erwise ? He seized the tenderest passes of the hu- man heart, and ruled them with a worse than wiz- ard despotism. Mrs. Fitzgerald was young and beautiful — her husband affectionate and devoted — < he thirsted for the possession of the one — he de- termined on his enjoyment, even through the perdi- tion of the other. The scheme by which he effect- ed this — a scheme of more deliberate atrocity per- haps you never heard ! Parts of it I can relate, but there are crimes remaining, to which even if our law annexed a name, I could not degrade myself into the pollution of alluding. The commencement of his plan was a most ostentatious affection for every branch of the Fitzgerald family. The wel- fare of my client — his seclusion at Oaklands — the consequent loss of fortune and of fame, were all the subjects of his minute solicitude ! It was a pity forsooth that such talents and such virtues should defraud the world of their exercise— he would write to General Hope to advance him — he would resign to him his own paymastership — in short, there was no personal, no pecuniary sacrifice which he was not eager to make, out of the prodigality of his friendship ! The young, open, warm-hearted Fitz* gerald, was caught by this hypocrisy — the sun it- self was dark and desultory compared with the steady splendour of the modern Fabricius. It fol- lowed, gentlemen, as a matter of course, that he was allowed an almost unbounded confidence in the family. His friendly intercourse with Mrs. Kir- 230 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF wan — his equally friendly intercourse with Mrs. Fitzgerald, the husband of neither had an idea of misinterpreting. In the mean time the temper of Mrs. Fitzgerald became perceptibly embittered — the children, about whom she had ever been affec- tionately solicitous, were now neglected — the orna- menting of the cottage, a favourite object also, was totally relinquished — nor was this the worst of it. She became estranged from her husband — peevish to Mrs. Kirwan— -her manner evincing constant agi- tation, and her mind visibly maddened by some pow- erful though mysterious agency. Of this change, as well he might, Captain Kerr officiously proclaim- ed himself the discoverer — with mournful affecta- tion he obtruded his interference, volunteering the admonitions he had rendered necessary. You can have no idea of the dextrous duplicity with which he acted. To the unfortunate Mrs. Fitzgerald he held up the allurements with which vice- conceals and decorates its deformity — her beauty, her ta- lents, the triumphs which awaited her in the world of London, the injustice of concealment in her pre- sent solitude, were the alternate topics of his smooth-tongued iniquity, till at length exciting her vanity, and extinguishing her reason by u spells and drugs and accursed incantations," he juggled away her innocence and her virtue ! To the afflicted Mrs, Kirwan he was all affliction, weeping over the pro- pensities he affected to discover in his wretched victim, detailing atrocities he had himself created, defaming and degrading the guilty dupe of his arti- fices, and counselling the instant separation which was to afford him at once impunity and enjoyment. Trusted by all parties, he was true to none. Every day maligning Mrs. Fitzgerald to the rest of the fa- mily ; when it came to her ears, he cajoled her in- FITZGERALD v. KERR, 231 to the belief that it was quite necessary he should appear her enemy, that their secret love might be the less suspected ! Imposing on Mrs. Kirwan the fabricated tale of Mrs. Fitzgerald's infamy, he pe- trified her virtuous mind beyond the possibility of explanation ! With Captain Fitzgerald he mourned over his woes, enjoining silence while he was stu~ diously augmenting them. To Colonel Fitzgerald he wrote letters of condolence and commiseration, even while the pen of his guilty correspondence with his sister-in-law was wet ! Do I overstate this treachery ? Attend not to me — listen to his own letters — the most conclusive illustrations of his cru- elty and his guilt. Thus, gentlemen, he writes to Col. Fitzgerald, apprising him of the result of his introduction. " I have been much with your fami- ly and friends — it is unnecessary for me to say how happy they have made me — I must have been very miserable but for their society — I have been receiv- ed like a brother, and owe gratitude for life to ev- ery soul of them. They have taught me of what materials an Irishman's heart is made — but alas ! I have barely acknowledgments to offer." Nov/ judge what those acknowledgments were by this extract from his letter to Mrs, Fitzgerald : " Your conduct is so guided by excessive passion, that it is impos- sible for me to trust you. I think the woman you sent means to betray us both, and nothing on earth can make me think the contrary— but rest assured I shall act with that caution which will make me impenetrable. I would wish to make you really happy, and if you cannot be as respectable as you have been, to approach it as near as possible. I never cease thinking of you and of your advantage. Trust but to me — obey my advice and you will gain your wishes : but you shall implicitly obey me, or 232 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF I quit you for ever !" Mark again his language to the Colonel : " I must confess the fate of your bro- ther Charles I most dreadfully lament — look to the fate of a man of his age, and so fine a fellow, pinned down in this corner of the world, unnoticed and un- known. Yet what is the use of every quality situ- ated as he is — his regrets are his own, they must be cutting — his prospects with so young and inex- perienced a family, they dare hardly be looked to, and to these if you add ambition and affections, can you look on without pitying a brother ? This earth indeed would be an Heaven could a good man ex- ecute what he proposes — the heart of many a good man dare not bear examination, because his actions and resolutions are so much at variance. Bear with me, Tom — the children of Col. Fitzgerald are my brothers and sisters, and may God so judge me as I feel the same kind of affection for them." Con- trast that, gentlemen, with the following paragraph to the wife of one of those very brothers, the unfor- tunate Charles, arranging her elopement ! " For the present remain where you are, but pack up all your clothes that you have no present occasion for — you can certainly procure a chest of some kind — if your woman is faithful she can manage the bu- siness — let her take that chest to Castle bar, and let her send it to me ; but let her take care that the carrier has no suspicion from whence it comes — stir not one step without my orders — obey me implicit- ly, unless you tell me that you care not for me one pin — in that case manage your own affairs in future, and see what comes of you !" Thus, gentlemen, did this Janus-fronted traitor, abusing Mrs. Kirwan by fabricated crimes — defaming Mrs. Fitzgerald by previous compact — confiding in all — extorting from all and betraying all— on the general credulity and FITZGERALD v. KERR. 233 the general deception found the accomplishment of his odious purposes ! There was but one feature wanted to make his profligacy peculiar as it was infamous. It had the grand master touches of the daemon, the outlines of gigantic towering deformi- ty, perfidy, adultery, ingratitude, and irreligion, flung in the frightful energy of their combination : but it wanted something to make it despicable as well as dreadful; some petty, narrow, grovelling meanness that would dwarf down the terrific mag- nitude of itf^ crime, and make men scorn while they shuddered ; and it wants not this. Only think of him when he was thus trepanning, betraying, and destroying, actually endeavouring to wheedle the family into the settlement of an annuity on his in- tended prostitude. You shall have it from a wit- ness — you shall have it from his own letter, where he says to Mrs. Fitzgerald, " where is your annuity. I dare say you will answer me you are perfectly indifferent; but believe me I am not." Oh, no, no, no — the sednction of a mother — the calamity of a husband — the desolation of a household — the utter contempt of morals and religion — the cold-blooded assassination of character and of happiness, were as nothing compared to the expenditure of a shil- ling — he paused not to consider the ruin he was inflicting, but the expense he was incurring — a pro- digal in crime; a miser in remuneration — he brought together the licentiousness of youth and the ava- rice of age, calculating on the inheritance of her plundered infants to defray the harlotry of their prostituted mother ! Did you ever hear of turpitude like this ? Did you ever hear of such brokerage in iniquity ? If there is a single circumstance to rest upon for consolation, perhaps, however, it is in the exposure of his parsimony. He has shown where 30 234 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF he can be made to feel, and in the very commis- sion of his crime, providentially betrayed the only accessible avenue to his punishment. Gentlemen of the jury, perhaps some of you are wondering why it is that I have so studiously abstained from the contemplation of my client. It is because I cannot think of him without the most unaffected anguish. It is because, possible as it is for me to describe his sufferings, it is not possible for you adequately to conceive them. You have home and wife and children dear to you, and cannot fancy the misery of their deprivation. I might as well ask the young mountain peasant, breathing the wild air of health and liberty, to feel the iron of the in- quisition's captive — I might as well journey to the convent grate, and ask religion's virgin devotee to paint that mother's agony of heart who finds her first-born dead in her embraces ! Their saddest vi- sions would be sorrow's mockery — to be compre- hended, misery must be felt, and he who feels it most can least describe it. What is the world with its vile pomps and vanities now to my poor client ? He sees no world except the idol he has lost — where'er he goes, her image follows him — she fills that gaze else bent on vacancy — the " highest noon" of fortune now would only deepen the sha- dow that pursues him — even " Nature's sweet re- storer, balmy sleep," gives him no restoration — • she comes upon his dream as when he saw her first in beauty's grace and virtue's loveliness — as when she heard him breathe his timid passion, and blush- ed the answer that blest him with its return — he sees her kneel — he hears her vow — religion re- gisters what it scarce could chasten, and there, even there, where paradise reveals itself before him, the visionary world vanishes, and wakes him to the hell of his reality. Who can tell the misery FITZGERALD v. KERR. 235 of this ? Who can ever fancy it that has not felt it ? Who can fancy his soul-riving endurance while his foul tormetor gradually goaded him from love into suspicion, and from suspicion into madness ! Alas ! " What damned minutes tells he o'er Who doats yet doubts — suspects yet strongly loves." Fancy, if you can, the accursed process by which his affection was shaken — his fears aroused ; his jealousy excited, until at last mistaking accident for design, and shadows for confirmation, he sunk under the pressure of the human vampyre that crawled from his father's grave to clasp him into ruin ! Just imagine the catalogue of petty frauds by which in his own phrase he made himself " impene- trable" — how he invented — how he exaggerated— how he pledged his dupe to secrecy, while he blackened the character of Major Brown, with whom he daily associated on terms of intimacy — how he libelled the wife to the husband, and the husband to the wife — how he wound himself round the very heart of his victim, with every embrace coiling a deadlier torture, till at last he drove him for refuge in the woods, and almost to suicide, for a remedy. Now gentlemen, let us concede for a moment the veracity of his inventions. Suppose this woman to be even worse than he represented — why should he reveal it to the unconscious hus- band ? — All was happiness before his interference — all would be happiness still but for his murde- rous amity — why should he awake him from his dream of happiness — why should he swindle him- self into a reluctant confidence for the atrocious purpose of creating discord ? What family would be safe if every little exploded calumny was to be revived, and every forgotten ember to be fanned into conflagration ? Is such a character to be tole 236 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF rated in the community ? But even this insolent de- fence is wanting — you will find that self was his first and last and sole consideration — you will find that it was he who soured this woman till she ac- tually refused to live any longer under the roof with her husband and her children — you will find that in the midst of his counsel, his cant, and his sensi- bility, he himself was the profligate adulterer — you will find that he ruled her with a rod of iron — you will find that having once seduced her into crime, he compelled her to submit to degradation too loathsome for credulity, if it was not too monstrous for invention — you will find that his pretence for enforcing this disgusting ordeal was a doubt of her previous innocence, which it alone, he asserted, could eradicate — you will find her on her knees, weeping, almost fainting, offering oaths upon oaths to save herself from the pollution — and you will find at last, when exhausted nature could no long- er struggle, the foul adulterer actually perpetrating — but no — the genius of our country rises to rebuke me — I hear her say to me — " Forbear — forbear — I have suffered in the field — I have suffered in the senate — I have seen my hills bedewed with the blood of my children — my diadem in dust — my throne in ruins — but Nature still reigns upon my plains — the morals of my people are as yet uncon- quered — forbear — forbear — disclose not crimes of which they are unconscious ; reveal not the know- ledge, whose consequence is death." I will obey the admonition : not from my lips shall issue the odious crimes of this mendicinal adulterer ; not by my hand shall the drapery be withdrawn that screens this Tiberian sensuality from the public execration ! God of Nature ! had this been love, forgetting forms in the pure impetuosity of its pas- sions ; had it been youth, transgressing rigid law FITZGERALD v. KERR. 237 and rigid morals ; had it been desire, mad in its guilt, and guilty even in its madness, I could have dropped a tear over humanity in silence ; but, when I see age — powerless, passionless, remorseless, ava- ricious age, dragging its impotence into the capa- bility of crime, and zesting its enjoyment by the contemplation of misery, my voice is not soothed but stilled in its utterance, and I can only pray for you, fathers, husbands, brothers — that the Almigh- ty may avert this omen from your families ! Gentlemen of the jury, if you feel as I do, you will rejoice with me that this odious case is near to its conclusion. You will have the facts before you— proof of the friendship — proof of the confidence — proof of the treachery, and eye-witnesses of the ac- tual adultery. It remans but to inquire what is the palliation for this abominable turpitude. Is it love ? Love between the tropic and the pole ! Why, he has a daughter older than his victim ; he has a wife whose grave alone should be the altar of his nuptials ; he is of an age when a shroud should be his wedding garment. T will not insult you by so preposterous a supposition Will he plead conni- vance in the husband — that fond, affectionate, de- voted husband ? I dare him to the experiment ; and if he makes it — it is not to his intimates, his friends, or even to the undeviating testimony of all his en- emies, that I shall refer you for his vindication : but I will call him into court, and in the altered mien, and mouldering form, and furrowed cheek of his decaying youth, I will bid you read the proofs of his connivance. But, gentlemen, he has not driven me to conjecture his palliation ; his heartless in- dustry has blown it through the land; and what do you think it is ? Oh, would to God I could call the whole female world to its disclosure ! Oh, if there be within our Island's boundaries one hapless maid 238 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF who lends her ear to the seducer's poison — one hesitating matron whose husband and whose chil- dren the vile adulterer devotes to desolation, let them now hear to what the flattery of vice will turn ; let them see when they have levelled the fair fabric of their innocence and their virtue, with what remorseless haste their foul destroyer will rush over their ruins ! Will you believe it ? That he who knelt to this forlorn creature, and soothed her vanity, adored her failings, and deified her faults, now justifies the pollution of her person by the defamation of her character ! Not a single act of indiscretion — not an instance, perhaps of culpa- ble levity in her whole life, which he has not raked together for the purpose of publication. Unhappy woman, may Heaven have pity on her ! Alas ! how could she expect that he who sacrificed a friend to his lust, would protect a mistress from his avarice ? But will you permit him to take shelter under this act of dishonourable desperation ? Can he expect not even sympathy, but countenance from a tribu- nal of high-minded honourable gentlemen ? Will not you say, that his thus traducing the poor fallen victim of his artifices, rather aggravates than di- minishes the original depravity? Will you not spurn the monster whose unnatural vice combining sensuality, hypocrisy, and crime, could stoop to save his miserable dross, by the defamation of his victim ? Will you not ask him by what title he holds this inquisition ? Is it not by that of an adulte- rer, a traitor, a recreant to every compact between man and man, and between earth and Heaven ! If this heartless palliation was open to all the world, is not he excluded from it? He her friend — her husband's friend — her husband's father's friend —her family adviser, who quaiFeft the cup of hos- pitality, and pledged his host in poison — he who, FITZGERALD v. KERR. 239 if you can believe him, found this young and inex« perienced creature tottering on the brink, and, un- der pretence of assisting, dragged her down the precipice ! Will he, in the whole host of strangers, with whose familiarity he defames her, produce one this day vile enough to have followed his example j one out of even the skipping, dancing, worthless tribe, whose gallantry sunk into ingratitude, whose levity sublimed itself into guilt ? No, no ; " im- perfectly civilized" as his countrymen have called us, they cannot deny that there is something generous in our barbarism ; that we could not em- brace a friend while we were planning his destruc- tion ; that we could not sit. at his table while we were profaning his bed ; that we could not preach morality while we were perpetrating crime ; and, above all, if in the moment of our nature's weak- ness, when reason sleeps and passion triumphs, some confiding creature had relied upon our ho- nour, we could not dash her from us in her trial hour, and for. purse's safety turn the cold-blooded assassin of her character. But, my lord, I ask you not as a father — not as a husband — but as guardian of the morals of this country, ought this to be a justification of any adulterer? And if so, should it justify an adulterer under such circumstances? Has any man a right to scrutinize the constitution of every female in a family, that he may calculate on the possibility of her seduction? Will you in- stil this principle into society ? Will you instil this principle into the army ? Will you dissemi- nate such a principle of palliation ? And will you permit it to palliate— what ? The ruin of an house- hold — the sacrifice of a friend — the worse than murder of four children — the most inhuman perfidy to an host, a companion, a brother in arms ? Will you permit it ? I stand not upon her innocence— 240 SPEECH; I demand vengeance on his most unnatural villainy. Suppose I concede his whole defence to him, sup- pose she was begrimmed and black as hell, was it for him to take advantage of her turpitude ? He a friend — a guest — a confidant — a brother soldier ! Will you justify him, even in any event, in trampling on the rights of friendship, of hospitality, of profes- sional fraternity, of human nature ? Will you con- vert the man into the monster ? Will you convert the soldier into the foe, from being the safeguard of the citizen ? Will you so defame the ..military character ? Will you not fear the reproaches of departed glory ? Will you fling the laurelled flag of England, scorched with the cannon flame, and crimsoned with the soldier's life-blood — the flag of countless fights, and every fight a victory— will you fling it athwart the couch of his accursed harlotry, without almost expecting that the field sepulchre will heave with life, and the dry bones of buried armies rise re-animate against the profanation ! No, no ; I call upon you by the character of that army not to contaminate its trophies — I call on you in the cause of nature to vindicate its dignity ; I call on you by your happy homes to protect them from profanation — I call on you by the love you bear your little children, not to let this christian Herod loose amongst the innocents. Oh ! as you venerate the reputation of your country — as you regard the happiness of your species — as you hope for the mercy of that all-wise and protecting God who has set his everlasting canon against adultery — banish this day by a vindictive verdict the crime and the criminal for ever from amongst us. [After a trial which lasted for seventeen hours, the jury found a verdict for the plaintiff of fifteen hundred pounds damages and 6d. costs.] OE MR. PHILLIPS TO THE ELECTORS OF THE COUNTY OF SLIGO, Off DECLINING THE POLL. Be assured, gentlemen, it is with feelings rather of gratitude than of disappointment, that I withdraw myself from the contest, upon the present occasion. . I find that we cannot have a fair probability of suc- cess, and with every personal respect for your late members, and with the most heartfelt affection for you, I do not feel myself warranted in putting them to the expense, or you to the inconvenience, neces- sarily consequent on a contested election. The state of your registry, which I have but just receiv- ed, has compelled me to this determination. It is an astonishing and disgraceful fact, that such is the political apathy of your country, that one twentieth of its freeholders are not registered. The only pri- vilege which the people have left, is the elective franchise ; and even this, it seems, they have not the spirit to exercise. After this, what right has Ire- land to complain, if, either on the window tax ques- tion, or any other question, her representatives will not give themselves even the trouble of crossing the channel? If you are contented to submit to this 31 242 ADDRESS TO THE ELECTORS degradation, it is not for me to murmur, capable as I am, by my own conduct, of redeeming myself in- dividually. As I hear, however, that some of your news-room wiseacres have taken offence at an ex- pression in my address, and as every man who puts himself politically forward, should be able to give a reason for " the faith that is in him," you shall have mine freely and fearlessly. The declaration was, that if the next parliament be like the last, we may write the epitaph of the British constitution. I re- peat it now, and I further add, that it is quite im- possible things can go on, unless there be some change, either in the members we return to that house, or in the constitution of that house itself. — - Are you aware, that of what is called the house of commons, 82 peers nominate 300, and 123 com- moners nominate 187; and thus you have, out of 658 members, 487 actually nominated by 205 con- stituents, and this they call the representation of the people ! If this continues, is there any use in elec- tions — is there any use in petitioning, where hired majorities can stifle the one, and a borough mon* gering influence can defeat the other ? Does any man propose a reformation of the system ? He is immediately denounced as a visionary, or worse. So it was in England, with Fox and Sheridan, and the consequence was, she lost America. So it was amongst yourselves, with Grattan and with Flood, and the consequence was, those who bought you, sold you. We were bartered into a province, and but the other day, in the imperial parliament, upon a vital question, 75 of your members left you, at the mercy of a puppet majority, who not only riveted your chain, but rebuked you for clanking it ! This is ihe way in which I wish to meet the question — not by empty declamation, but by stubborn facts — OF THE COUNTY OF SLIGO. 243 facts which are now recorded to our shame, upon the adamant of history — look to the conduct of the very last parliament, in almost every instance the echo of the minister, and the justification of the malcontent — conduct which, I will demonstrate, has done more to disgrace us abroad, and to enslave us at home, than mere unequivocal, unblushing despotism ever could have effected. Look to that conduct. After a protracted war, unparalleled in its duration, and unprovoked in its origin, during which, money enough was spent to purchase, and blood enough shed to insulate, the continent — dur- ring which we alternately fought and subsidized every faithless despot — now libelling the worthless — now lauding the magnanimous Alexander — to- day, in the field with temporizing Austria — to-mor- row, bribing the convenient Prussia — now smiling upon Poland's plunder — now establishing the Spa- nish inquisition — now at Amiens, acknowledging the French consul — now at Waterloo, cheering the blood-cry of legitimacy. After this base abandon- ment of public principle — this barbarous gambling with the nation's happiness — we found ourselves at last, consistent in nothing but our inconsistencies, seated in the legitimate congress of Vienna, be- tween the Northern Autocrat and a Serjeant of Na- poleon ! Was not this a rare, a natural consumma- tion, well worthy the fraudful leagues and bloody infractions which had diversified the contest — well worth the orphanage and the widowhood, which had shadowed England with wo, and the frantic ex- penditure which has almost beggared her withdebt? This has been the consequence, and what, do you remember, was the motive to this agression ? — Was it the establishment of human liberty — was it the advance of human morals — was it the vindication 244 Address of the electors of national character — was it even any high toned and heroic impulse which flung a factitious glory over the warrior's progress, and gave the battle horrors a visionary justification ? Far from it. It was the most unjustifiable motive that ever un- sheathed the British sword — the most unconstitu- tional that ever stained the British annals. It was a bare faced interference with a foreign country, in the choice of its own government — a direct in- fraction of the very principle upon which England founded her glorious revolution. It was a legisla- tive denunciation of the doctrines acted on in 1 688, proclaiming James a martyr, and William an usur- per, and the people no better than rebellious regi- cides ! This war, however, of course, had its pre- tences. Its first, was the French republic — driven from this, its next was peace and retribution. In- demnity and security was the Premier's war-whoop — and what has been our indemnity ? The mas- sacre of our population — the debasement of our character — the accumulation of debt beyond all spendthrift precedent — famine in our streets and fever in our houses — the establishment in Europe of a military despotism, which leaves the very name of freedom a mockery — the payment of war taxes in time of peace, scarcely leaving it doubtful whe- ther the burdens were imposed to support the war, or the war commenced to justify the taxes — the suspension of our constitution, if we offer to re- monstrate. This has been our dearly bought in- demnity ! And what is our security ? — an holy alli- ance, forsooth ! A league of kings, unhallowed and mysterious, bound by compacts which must not be known, and fenced by bayonets, which cannot be resisted ! This is our security ! The breath of prin- ces—the caprice of an hydra, now fatigued over OF THE COUNTY OF SLIGO. 245 the recent banquet, and only waiting for its hungry hour again to glisten in ungorged rapacity ! Alas ? what tenure have we even of such an alliance ! Is there a member of that punic horde who has not been in turn the foe of his ally, and the ally of his foe, and do you expect they will preserve that faith towards us which they have not been able to pre- serve towards one another? Is there a man of them who did not bow to Napoleon, and confess his title, and court his confederation, and then denounce him as an illegitimate usurper ? And was there among them, afterwards, a consistent renegade to deny the hand of fraternity to Bernadotte, raised from the ranks of that very Napoleon ? Perhaps this instability of political principle may be coun- teracted by a personal attachment. Let Prussia acknowledge it when she looks at Alexander, and remember the perfidious abandonment of Tilsit. Let Sweden answ r erit when she thinks of Finland. Let Poland and Saxony acknowledge it to Prussia. Let Genoa speak. Let extinguished Venice pro- claim it for Austria. Let Austria herself avouch it for France, and then turn to her immolated daugh- ter — immolated with a worse than Jewish cruelty, not to the god of battles, but to the infernal Mo- loch of self interest. I speak not now of that devo- ted France, bending over her violated charter, and with tears of blood expiating the credulity that put its faith in princes— But I speak of England, of the parliament of England, consenting to the plunder, smiling on the partition, squandering the resources of a generous and gallant people — fleets, and ar- mies, and generations, and for what? To forward the fraud of the continental intriguer— to establish the inquisition, and torture and Ferdinand — for the Bourbon in France, and the Bourbon in Spain, and 246 ADDRESS TO THE ELECTORS the Bourbon in Naples — the rooted hereditary en- emies of the country, for the obsolete blasphemy of divine right, dug up from its tomb, and re-baptis- ed legitimacy — for the restoration of those sanguina- ry frauds upon human freedom, against which our sages wrote, and our warriours fought, and our revolution thundered ! Shades of Locke and of Milton, were these your doctrines ? — Blood of the Russells and the Hampdens, has this been your le- gacy ? People of England, is it for this that your orphans and your widows mourn in silent resigna- tion — that your poor houses are choaked with a fa- mished population ? Let those men answer it, who, in the name of parliament, ratified the treaties, vo- ted the supplies, advanced the subsidies, and cheered the minister, just reeking from that hope- ful congress, where legitimacy, drunk with human blood, flung its sword into the scale against which the liberties of a sword were balanced. I have just touched their conduct, as to our fo- reign relations. Has it been compensated by their domestic policy ? As far as in them lay, they have virtually annihilated the British constitution, and paved the way to a military despotism. They level- led, one by one, every barrier which the wisdom of ages raised around the liberties of the people. They suspended the habeas corpus act. Fathers of families were dragged from their homes, loaded with irons; subjected to disease; stamped with ignominy ; their helpless children turned adrift to beggary and prostitution ; and then as they had been imprisoned without crime, so were they re- leased without even the decency of accusation. — They then passed the infamous gagging act; public meetings were forbidden — the power of dis- cussion was withheld, the right of petition was in OF THE COUNTY OF SLIGO. 247 fact annihilated. It was a natural consequence of the former measure — when innocence is no exemp- tion from punishment the privilege of complaint is but a mockery. They then countenanced lord Sidmouth's circular — a magistracy, perhaps igno- rant, perhaps corrupt, perhaps both — we, at least, can fancy such a magistracy were invested with an arbitrary construction of the libel act, upon which our most learned lawyers have differed in opinion. They then sanctioned the oppressive alien act, which flung back into the jaws of death the patriot victims of despotic power, and wrested from En- gland her imprescriptible privilege of giving refuge to virtuous destitution. They then scouted the re- peal of the septennial act, an act which they were never delegated the power to pass, and upon the principle of which they might as well make the representation an hair-loom in their families. I will not further recapitulate their conduct, but I will remind you, that the situation of the captive under these measures was solitary imprisonment. Against all law or precedent, even magistrates were for- bidden to visit them — one man died — another, Mr. Ogden, the subject of merriment, has survived only to protracted agony. I pass from the subject, it is too painful to dwell upon. What was the pretence for this temporary despotism? A plot! a plot, hatched by two apothecaries and a lame cobbler — the tower was to be stormed, and the bank plun- dered, and London garrisoned by a buckram army, whose treasury was a cypher — whose camp equip- age was a blanket — whose ammunition chest was an old stocking, and whose park of artillery con- sisted of the mortar which most rebelliously out- lived the wreck of the apothecaries! Those peo- ple were arraigned upon the evidence of a villain 248 ADDRESS TO THE ELECTORS all leprous with crimes, whom the event proved to be the only convict. A wretch, who when he sew the predestined victim, and looked at the high priest, filled the mind of Ireland with terrific recol- lections, recalling instinctively that reign of blood when we too had our Castles and our Oliver — when the bribed and perjured cannibal went forth indu- cing the crime that he might betray the criminal — when neither jouth, nor age, nor sex, nor innocence could conciliate, or avert those coiners of human blood— those vam pyres of the grave — those mon- sters without a name, before whose path the fresh- ness of humanity withered, in whose accursed minds, conscience was only a commercial instru- ment — and friendship, treachery, and gratitude, murder. Who turned this land into one scene of hell, in which the pangs and the convulsions of the sufferer only stimulated the ferocious exultation of their tormentors. Who crept into the family of the nearest and dearest, courting the board and pledg- ing the cup, and fondling the infant, even at the ve- ry moment when they were waylaying the unguard- ed confidence of the parent to devote him to the scaffold, and to rise upon his tomb ! — I am shocked to ask, did the late parliament shield the employ- ment of those ferocious and commercial cannibals ? If they did not, what was the meaning of the in- demnity bill ?— What difference is there between the perpetrator of a deed and the minister who in- stigates it, and the parliament who protects it ? I can see none — I see them chained together in one community of infliction, and whether I touch the highest or the lowest link, the thrill of horror is the same in its communication. Gentlemen, I say again, if these things continue, we may bid farewell for ever to our liberties. Of what use are all our OF THE COUNTY OF SLIGO. 249 visionary safeguards— of what use is the responsi- bility of ministers, if it is to depend upon the will of a parliament, whose majority is the creature of those ministers ? What avails our so celebrated laws, if they are to be thus capriciously suspend- ed ? What is our constitution with its theoretic blessings, but a practical and splendid mockery, if its noblest ornaments are to be effaced at will and its strength turned into an engine of oppres- sion ? Oh ! it is worse than fatuity in us to deceive ourselves. The tower in which we trusted turns out at last to be but a goodly vision ; fair indeed to the eye, but as false as it is fair, falling to pieces at the wand of the minister, when the forlorn peo- ple approach it for protection. Such, gentlemen, are my reasons for the asser- tion I have made ; their inferences may be, perhaps, doubted by many, who can never see any thing, even problematical, in the basest conduct of " the powers that be," — their existence, however, at least, is undeniable. In taking my leave of you, for the present, let me express my gratitude to the prompt, manly, and decided friends, who so independently proffered me, not only their interest, but their purses, and particularly to the professional friends, who, in ad- dition volunteered their services. The period is approaching when all may be ne- cessary ; in the mean time, let every independent man in the country, register his freehold, and await with confidence the hour of his liberation. I am, gentlemen, with gratitude and respect, Your fellow countryman, CHARLES PHILLIPS, Dublin, June 21, 1818. 32 OE MR. PHILLIPS, AT A PUBLIC DINNER GIVEN TO Gen. DEVEREUX, AT DUBLIN. My Lord, and Gentlemen, I sincerely thank you ; to be remembered when my countrymen are celebrating the cause of free- dom and humanity, cannot fail to be grateful — to be so remembered when a personal and valu- ed friend is the object of the celebration, carries with it a double satisfaction ; and you will allow me to say, that if any thing could enhance the plea- sure of such feelings, it is the consciousness that our meeting can give offence to no one. Topics have too often risen up amongst us, where the best feelings were painfully at variance ; where silence w r ould have been guilt, and utterance was misery. But, surely here, at length, is an occasion where neither sect or party are opposed — where every man in the country may clasp his brother by the hand, and feel and boast the most electric commu- nication. To unmanacle the slave — to unsceptre the despot — to erect an altar on the inquisition's grave — to raise a people to the attitude of freedom — to found the temples of science and of commerce — to create a constitution, beneath whose ample SPEECH. 251 arch every human creature, no matter what his sect, his colour or his clime, may stand sublime in the dignity of manhood — these are the glorious ob- jects of this enterprize, and the soul must be im- bruted, and the heart must be ossified, which does not glow with the ennobling sympathy. Where is the slave so abject as to deny it ? Where is the statesman who can rise from the page of Spanish South America, and affect to commiserate the fall of Spain ? Her tyranny, even from its cradle to its decline, has been the indelible disgrace of Christi- anity, and of Europe — it was born in fraud, baptized in blood, and reared by rapine — it blasphemed all that was holy — it cankered all that was happy — the most simple habits, the most sacred institutions, the most endeared and inoffensive customs, esca- ped not inviolate, the accursed invader — the hearth, the throne, the altar, lay confounded in one com- mon ruin ; and when the innocent children of the sun confided for a moment in the christian's pro- mise, what ! oh, shame to Spain ! oh, horror to Christianity ! oh ! eternal stigma on the name of Europe ! what did they behold ? — the plunder of their fortunes, the desolation of their homes, the ashes of their cities ; their children murdered with- out distinction of sex ; the ministers of their faith expiring amid tortures ; the person of their Ynca, their loved, sacred, the heroic Ynca, quivering in death upon a burning furnace ; and the most natu- ral, and most excusable of all idolatries, their con- secrated sunbeam, clouded by the murky smoke of an inquisition, streaming with human gore, and raised upon the ruins of all that they held holy ! These were the feats of Spain, in South America! This is the fiery and demoniac sway for which an execrable tyrant solicits British neutrality ! Ireland^ 252 SPEECH AT A DINNER at least, has given an answer. An armed legion of her chosen youth bears it at this hour in thunder on the waters, iand the sails are swelling for their brave companions. I care not if this tyranny was ten thousand times more crafty, more vigilant, more ferocious, than it is ; when a people will it their liberation is inevitable; their inflictions will be converted into the instruments of freedom ; they will write its charter even in the blood of their shrines ; they will turn their chains into the wea- pons of their emancipation. If it were possible still more to animate them, let them only think on the tyrant they have to combat — that odious concen- tration of qualities, at once the most opposite, and the most contemptible ; timid and sanguinary ; ef- feminate and ferocious ; impious and superstitious ; now embroidering a petticoat, now imprisoning an hero ; to-day kneeling to a God of mercy ; to-mor- row lighting the hell of inquisition ; at noon embra- cing his ministerial pander ; at midnight starting from a guilty dream, to fulminate his banishment ; the alternate victim of his fury and his fears ; faith- ful to an infidel priestcraft, which excites his ter- rors, and fattens on his crimes, and affects to wor- ship the anointed slave as he trembles, enthroned on the bones of his benefactors. Who can sympa- thise with such a monster ? Who can see, unmoved, a mighty empire writhing in the embraces of thjs human Boa ? My very heart grows faint within me when I think how many thousands of my gallant countrymen have fallen to crown him with that en- sanguined diadem ; when I think that genius wrote, and eloquence spoke, and valour fought, and fidel- ity died for him, while he was tasting the bitterness of captivity, and that his ungrateful restoration has literally withered his realm into a desert, where GIVEN TO GEN. DEVEREUX. 253 the widow and orphan weep his sway, and the sceptre waves, not to govern, but to crush ! Never, my lord, never, whether we contemplate the good they have to achieve, the evil they have to over- come, or the wrongs they have to avenge ; never did warriors march in a more sacred contest. Their success may be uncertain, but it is not uncertain that every age and clime will bless their memories, for their sword is garlanded with freedom's flowers, and patriotism gives them an immortal bloom, and piety breathes on them an undying fragrance. Let the tyrant menace, and the hireling bark ; wherev- er Christianity kneels or freedom breathes, their deeds shall be recorded, and when their honoured dust is gathered to its fathers, millions they have redeemed will be their mourners, and an emanci- pated hemisphere their enduring monument. Go, then soldier of Ireland, (turning to Gen. Devcreux,) " Go where glory waits thee ;" Montezuma's spirit, from his bed of coals, through the mist of ages, calls to you for vengeance ; the patriot Cortes, in their dungeon vaults, invoke your retribution ; the graves of your brave coun- trymen, trampled by tyranny, where they died for freedom, are clamorous for revenge ! Go, plant the banner of green on the summit of the Andes. May victory guide, and mercy ever follow it ; if you should triumph, the consummation will be li- berty, and in such a contest should you even per- ish, it will be as martyrs perish, in the blaze of your own glory. Yes, you shall sink like the. sun of the Peruvian whom you will seek to liberate ; mid the worship of a people, and the tears of a world, and you will rise reanimate, refulgent, and immortal ! SIKEOTMtt OE MR. PHILLIPS DELIVERED AT CHELTENHAM, (ENGLAND) ON THE ?TH OCT. 181% AT THE FOURTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE GLOUCESTER MISSIONARY SOCIETY. JWr. Chairman, After the eloquence with which so many gen- tlemen have gratified and delighted this most re- spectable assembly, and after the almost inspired address of one of them, I feel almost ashamed of having acceded to the wishes of the committee by proposing the resolution which I have the honour to submit. I should apologize, sir, for even the few moments intrusion which I mean to make upon this meeting, did I not feel that I had no right to con- sider myself as quite a stranger ; did I not feel that the subject unites us all into one great social fami- ly, and gives to the merest sojourner the claim of a brother and a friend. At a time like this, perhaps, when the infidel is abroad, and the atheist and dis- believer triumph in their blasphemy, it behoves the humblest christian to range himself beneath the banners of his faith, and attest, even by his mar- tyrdom, the sincerity of his allegiance. When I consider thesource from whence Christianity sprung SPEECH. 255 —the humility of its origin — the poverty of its dis- ciples — the miracles of its creation — the mighty sway it has acquired, not only over the civilized world, but which your missions are hourly extend- ing over lawless, mindless, and imbruted regions — I own the awful presence of the Godhead — nothing less than a Divinity could have done it ! The pow- ers, the prejudices, the superstition of the earth, were all in arms against it ; it had nor sword nor sceptre — its founder was in rags — its apostles were lowly fishermen — its inspired prophets, lowly and uneducated — its cradle was a manger — its home a dungeon — its earthly diadem a crown of thorns ! And yet, forth it went — that lowly, humble, perse- cuted spirit — and the idols of the heathen fell ; and the thrones of the mighty trembled ; and paganism saw her peasants and her princes kneel down and worship the unarmed Conqueror ! If this be not the work of the Divinity, then I yield to the reptile ambition of the atheist. I see no God above — I see no government below ; and I yield my conscious- ness of an immortal soul to his boasted fraternity- with the worm that perishes ! But, sir, even when I thus concede to him the divine origin of our chris- tian faith, I arrest him upon worldly principles — I desire him to produce, from all the wisdom of the earth, so pure a system of practical morality — a code of ethics more sublime in its conception — more simple in its means — more happy and more powerful in its operation : and, if he cannot do so, I then say to him, Oh -! in the name of your own darling policy, filch not its guide from youth, its shield from manhood, and its crutch from age! Though the light I follow may lead me astray, still I think it is light from Heaven ! The good, and great, and wise, are my companions— my delightful hope 256 SPEECH AT CHELTENHAM BEFORE is harmless, if not holy ; and wake me not to a dis- appointment, which in your tomb of annihilation, I shall not taste hereafter ! To propagate the sacred creed — to teach the ignorant — to enrich the poor — to illumine this world with the splendours of the next — to make men happy, you have never seen — and to redeem millions you can never know — you have sent your hallowed missionaries forward; and never did an holier vision rise, than that of this celestial, glorious embassy. Methinks I see the band of willing exiles bidding farewell, perhaps forever, to their native country ; — foregoing home, and friends, and luxury — to tempt the savage sea, or men more savage than the raging element — to dare the polar tempest, and the tropic fire, and of- ten doomed by the forfeit of their lives to give their precepts a proof and an expiation. It is quite de- lightful to read over their reports, and see the bless- ed product of their labours. They leave no clime unvisited, no peril unencountered. In the South Sea Islands they found the population almost erad- icated by the murders of idolatry. " It was God Almighty," says the royal convert of Otaheite, •' who sent your mission to the remainder of my peo- ple /" I do not wish to shock your christian ears with the cruelties from which you have redeemed these islands. Will you believe it, that they had been educated in such cannibal ferocity, as to ex- cavate the earth, and form an oven of burning stones, into which they literally threw their living infants, and gorged their infernal appetites with the flesh ! Will you believe it, that they thought mur- der grateful to the God of Mercy ! — and the blood of his creatures as their best libation ! In nine of these islands those abominations are extinct — in- fanticide is abolished — their prisoners are exchang- THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 25v ed — society is now cemented by the bond of bro- therhood, and the accursed shrines that streamed with human gore, and blazed with human unction, now echo the songs of peace and the sweet strains of piety. In India, too, where Providence, for some special purpose, permits these little insular specks to hold above one hundred millions in subjection — phenomena scarcely to be paralleled in history — the spell of Brahma is dissolving — the chains of Caste ar