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THE 
 
 fhkfHi^ 
 
 SPEECHES 
 
 OF 
 
 CHARLES PHILLIPS, ESQ, 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE BAR, 
 
 VARIOUS PUBLIC OCCASfONS IN 
 IRELAND AND ENGLAND. 
 
 TO WHICH IS ADDED 
 
 A LETTER TO GEORGE IV 
 
 EDITED BY HIMSELF. 
 
 SIXTH AMERICAN ^E^DITIOJV 
 
 PHlLADELPifiA: 
 
 PRIT^TED Amu PUBLISHED BY HICKMAX 
 
 NO. 121, CHESNUT STREET; AND HAZZARD 
 h HI nor AN PETERSBURG, TA 
 
.■•.A^, 
 
 >fc^ 
 
 
f 
 
 THE 
 
 FOLLOWING SPEECHES 
 
 ARE, BY PERMISSIOir, 
 DEDICATED TO 
 
 WILLIAM ROSCOE, 
 
 WITH 
 THE IttOST SINCERE RESPECT, 
 AND AFFECTION 
 
 OF THEIR 
 
 author: 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page. 
 Preface by Mr. Finlay 
 
 Speech delivered at a Public Dinner given to Mr. 
 Finlay by the Roman Catholics of the Town and 
 County of Sligo. 1 
 
 Speech delivered at an Aggregate Meeting of the 
 Roman Cathohcs of Cork 18 
 
 Speech delivered at a Dinner given on Dinas Isl- 
 and, in the Lake of Killarney, on Mr. Phillips' 
 Health being given, together with that of Mr. 
 Payne, a young American S5 
 
 Speech delivered at an aggregate Meeting of the 
 Roman Catholics of the County and City of 
 Dublin 42 
 
 Petition referred to in the preceding Speech, 
 drawn by Mr. PhilHps at the request of the Ro- 
 man Catholics of Ireland 6$ 
 
 The Address to H. R. H. the Princess of Wales,, 
 a2 ' 
 
^i CONTENTS. 
 
 drawn by Mr. Phillips at the^ request of the Ro- ^^^ 
 man Catholics of Ireland 'gg 
 
 Speech delivered by Mr. Phillips at a Pubhc Din- 
 ner given to liin^ by the Friends of Civil and Re- 
 ligious Liberty, in Liverpool * yq 
 
 Speech of Mr., Phillips in the case of Guthrie v. 
 Sterne delivered in the Court of Common Pleas 
 Bublin 83 
 
 Speech of Mr. Phillips in the case of O'iMulIan v. 
 M'Korkill, delivered at the County Court-house 
 Galway jq^ 
 
 Speech in the case of Connaghton v. Dillon deliv- 
 ered in the County Court-house of Rosommon 133 
 
 Speecli of Mr. Phillips in the case of Creighton v. 
 Tovvnsend, delivered in the Court of Common 
 . Pleas, Dublin j43 
 
 Speech in the case of Blake v. Wilkins, delivered 
 in the Coutity Court-house, Galway ^ 165 
 
 A Character of Napoleon Buonaparte, down to the 
 period of his EkUq to Elba. 185 
 
 Speech of Mr. Phillips in the case of Browne v. 
 Blake, for crim. con. delivered in Dublin, on the 
 9th July, 1817. 191 
 
 Speech of xMr. Phillips at a meeting of the gentle- 
 men, clergy, freeholders, and other inhabitants 
 of the County of Sligo, for the purpose of taking 
 into consideration an Address of Condolence to 
 
CONTENTS. vii 
 
 Page 
 
 the King on the Death of his Koyal Father, and 
 
 of Congratulation to his Majesty on his Acces- 
 sion to the Throne ,213 
 
 Speech of Mr. Phillips delivered at the Annual 
 Meeting of the British and Foreign Auxiliary 
 Bible Society, London , 222 
 
 Letter of Mr. Phillips to George lY. October 6lh,' 
 1820 228 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 BY JOHN FINLAY, ESQ. 
 
 The Speeches of Phillips are now, for the first 
 time, offered to the world inan authentic form. So far 
 as his exertions have been hitherto developed, his 
 admirers, and they are innumerable, must admit, that 
 the text of this volume is an acknowledged reference, 
 to which future criticism may fairly resort, and from 
 which his friends must deduce any title which the 
 speaker may have created to the character of an orator. 
 
 The interests of his reputation impose no necessity 
 of denying many of those imperfections which have 
 been imputed to these productions. The value of all 
 human exertion is comparative; and positive excellence 
 is but a flattering designation, even of the best pro- 
 ducts of industry and mind. 
 
 There is, perhaps but one way by which we could 
 avoid all possible defects, and that is, by avoiding all 
 possible exertion. The very fastidious, and the very 
 uncharitable, may too often be met with, in the class 
 of the Indolent; and the man of talent is generally most 
 liberal in his censure, whose industry has given him 
 a 4 
 
li PREEACE. 
 
 least tillc 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. l^hillip^ to select those 
 defects which could fill up the measure of unavoidable 
 imperfection, and at the same time inflict least injury 
 on his reputation, doubtless they would prefer the 
 blemishes and errors natural to youth, consonant to 
 genius, and consistent with an obvious and read}^ 
 correction. To this description, we apprehend, may 
 ])e reduced all the errors that have been imputed 
 through a system of wide- spreading and unwearied 
 criticism, animated by that envy with which indolence 
 too oft regards tlie success of industry and talent, and 
 subsidized by power in its struggle to repress the 
 reputation and importance of a rapidly rising young 
 man, whom it had such good reason both to hate and 
 iear. 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 dispraise of these speeches has been a 
 discountable 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 publication, failed not 
 in its energy, though it has in its object; nay more, it 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 has succeeded in procwring for him the beneficial 
 results of a rpultiplying" re-action. To borrow the ex- 
 pressibn of an eminent classic, "Ihe rays of their in- 
 dignation collected upon him, served to illumine, but 
 could not consume;" and doubtless, this hostility may 
 have promoted this fact, that the-materials of this 
 volume are at this moment read in all the languages of 
 Europe; and whatever be the proportion of their merits 
 to their faults, they are unlikely ,to escape 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 prepossessions thus 
 actively diffused, on the double conside ration tlMt 
 some defects are essential to such and so much labour, 
 and that some detraction may justly be accounted for 
 by the motives of the system whose vices he exposed. 
 The same reader, if he had not the opportunity of 
 hearing these speeches dehvered by the author, will 
 iTiEike in his favour another deduction for a different 
 reason. * 
 
 The great father of ancient eloquence was accus. 
 tomed to say, that action was the first, and second, and 
 last quality of an orator. This was the 'dictum of a 
 supreme authority; it was an exaggeration notwilh» 
 
xii PREFACE. 
 
 standing; but the observation must contain much truth 
 to permit such exaggeration; 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 ex* 
 terior; an interesting figure, an animated countenance, 
 and a demeanour devoid of affectation, and distin- 
 guished by a modest self-possession, give him the 
 favourable opinion of his audience, even before he has 
 addressed them. His eager, lively, and sparkling eye 
 melts or kindles in pathos or indignation; his voice, 
 by its compass, s\veetness, and variet}', ever audible 
 and seldom loud, never hurried, inarticulate, or in- 
 distinct, secures to his audience every word that he 
 utters, and preserves him from the painful appearance 
 of effort. 
 
 His memory is not less fiiithful in the conveyance 
 of his meaning, than his voice: unlike Fox in tliis 
 respect, he never w\ants a v/ord; unlike Bushe, he 
 never pretends to want one; and unlike Grattan, 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 
 qualificw^tions, none of his contemporaries in this voca- 
 
PREFACE. xiil 
 
 lion can pretend to an equal combination of these 
 accidental advantages. 
 
 If, then, action be a great part of the effect of ora- 
 tory, the reader who has not heard him, is excluded 
 from that consideration, so important to a right opin- 
 ion, and on which his excellence is unquestioned. 
 
 The ablest and severest of all the critics who have 
 assailed him, (we allude of course, to the Edinburgh 
 lieview,) in their criticism on Guthrie and Sterne, have 
 paid him an involuntary and unprecedented compli- 
 ment. He is the only individual 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 unauthorised and in- 
 correct publication of a single forensic exertion in the 
 ordinary routine of professional business, it is very 
 questionable whether such a publication afforded a 
 just and proportionate ground-work for so much gene- 
 ral 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 commend- 
 ing 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 
 
xiv^ PREFACE. 
 
 many men without any imagination; the latter clasa 
 never did, and never can produce an orator, \yithout 
 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 imagination is the inspiration of oratory, which 
 imparts to matter animation and soul. 
 
 Oratory is the great art of persuasion; its purpose is 
 to give, in a particular instance, a certain direction to 
 human^^ction. The faculties of the orator are judgment 
 and imiigination; aud reason and eloquence, the pro- 
 duct 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 argumentative, but never can be eloquent; for 
 argument instructs without interesting, and eloquence 
 interests without convincing; but oratory is neither; it 
 is the compound of both; it conjoins the fefelings and 
 opinions of men; it speaks to the passions through the 
 mind, and to the mind through the passions; and leads 
 its audience to its just purpose by the combined and 
 powerful agency of human reason and human feeling. 
 The components of this combination will vary, of 
 course, in proportion to the number and sagacity of 
 (he auditory which the speaker addresses. With 
 
PREFACE. XV 
 
 jtidges it is to be hoped that the passions will be weak; 
 with public assemblies 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 avoid^j 
 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 weapons, and by a species 
 of irrational generosity contrives to ensure his own 
 defeat in the conflict. To juries and public assemblies 
 alone the following speeches have been addressed; and 
 it is by ascertaining their effect on these assemblies or 
 juries, that the merit of the exertion should in justice 
 be measured. 
 
 But there seems a general and prevalent mistake 
 among our critics on this judgment. They seem to 
 think that the taste of the 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 procurement of a given end; and the fit- 
 ness of its means to the attainment of its end shoukl 
 be in chief the measure of its merit — of this fitness suc- 
 cess ought to be the evidence. The preacher who can 
 ^nelt his congregation into tears, and excel others in 
 
xvi PKEFACE. 
 
 his straggle to convert the superfluities of the opuleni 
 into a treasuiy for the wretched; — the advocate who 
 procures the largest compensation from juries on their 
 oaths for injuries which they try;— the man who, like 
 Mr. Phillips, can be 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 fasci- 
 nation; of having, by the fascination of his eloquence, 
 blinded them to that duty which they were sworn to 
 ©bserve : — the maa who^an 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; — h^ may be wrong and ignorant in his study 
 knd practice of oratory; but, with all his errors and ig- 
 norance, it must be admitted, that he has in some man- 
 ner stumbled on \\^ shortest way for attaining the end 
 of oratory — that is, giving the most forceful direction 
 to human action and determination in particular in- 
 stances. His eloquence may be a novelty, but it is 
 beyond example successful; and its success and novelty 
 may be another explanation for the hostility that as- 
 sails. It may be matter 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 suc- 
 cessful, and which has procured fpr hina within the last 
 
PREFACE. xvii 
 
 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 
 aot only much excuse, but much promise of future im- 
 provement; and doubtless he will not neglect to apply 
 the fruits of study and the lig|jts 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 enemies, 
 although he should be sedulous in adopting all legiti- 
 jnate improvement. To that very exuberance of imagi- 
 nation, we do not hesitate to ascribe much of his suc- 
 cess ; whilst, therefore, he consents to control it, let 
 him be careful lest he clip his wings: nor is the strength 
 of this faculty an argument, although it has been made 
 an argument, against the str-jngth of his reasoning 
 ])owers; for let us strip these speeches of every thing, 
 whose derivation could be, by any construction, as- 
 signed to hisfiincy; let us apply this rule to his judicial 
 and political exertions — for instance, to the speech on 
 Ciuthrie 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 
 
xy'in PREFACE. 
 
 most tiresome wisdom of the sagest argiier at the bar? 
 Is there not abundance to satisfy the judgment, even if 
 tliere were nothing to sway the feelings, or gratify the 
 imagination? How preposterous, then, the futile en- 
 deavour to undervalue the solidity of the ground-work, 
 by withdrawing attention to the beauty of the orna- 
 ment; or to maintain the deficiency of strength in the 
 base, merely because there appears so much splendour 
 ill the structure. 
 
 Unaided by the advantages of fortune or alliance, 
 under the frown of political power and the interested 
 detraction of professional jealousy, confining the exer- 
 cise of that talent which he derives from his God to the 
 honour, and succour, and protection of his creatures — 
 this interesting and highly gifted young man runs his 
 course like a giant, prospering and to prosper; — in the 
 court as a flaming sword, leading and lighting the in- 
 jured to their own; and in the public assembly expos- 
 ing her wrongs — exacting her rights — conquering en- 
 vy^trampling on corruption—beloved by his country 
 — esteemed by a world — enjoying and deserving an 
 unexampled fame—and actively employing the summer 
 of his life in gathering honours for his name, and gar 
 lands for his grave! 
 
A SPEECH 
 
 ©ELIVEREDAT A PUBLIC DINNER, GIVEN TO 
 
 MR. FINLAY, 
 
 BY THE ROMAJ\r CATHOLICS 
 OF THE TOWN AND COUNTY OF SLIGO. 
 
 I THINK, Sir, you will agree with me, that the most 
 experienced speaker, might justly tremble in ad- 
 dressing you, after the display you have just witnessed. 
 What, then, must I feel, who never before addressed a 
 public audience? However, it would be but an un- 
 worthy affectation in nie, 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 her^, I do confess to you, I feel no ordinary sensa- 
 tion' — liere, where every object springs some new 
 association, and the loveliest objects, mellowed as they 
 are by time, rise painted on the eye of memory — 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 childhood remind me, 
 how innocent I was, and the grave of my father^ gd- 
 A 
 
2 SPEECH 
 
 monlsh me, how pure I should continue — here, standing 
 as I do amongst my fairest, fondest, earUest sympathies, 
 —such a welcome, operating, not merely as an affec- 
 tionate tribute, but as a moral testimony, does indeed 
 quite oppress and overwhelm me. 
 
 Oh! beheve me, warm is the heart that feels, and 
 willing is the tongue that speaks; 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 imputed blunders, when I 
 speak of introducing one whose patriotism has already 
 rendered him familiar to every heart in Ireland; a man, 
 who, conquering 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 rendered to 
 his country, from my heart I tliank 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 panegyric. Indeed gentle- 
 men, you can have httle idea of what he has to endure, 
 who, in these times, advocates your cause. Ever}'- 
 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 
 Christianity. We are branded as separatists, because 
 
AT SL[GO. 3 
 
 of our endeavours to aiurihllute the fetters that, instead 
 of bindnig-, clog the connection. To these may be 
 added, the frowns of power, the envy of duhiess, the 
 mean mahce of exposed self-interest, and, it may be, 
 in despite of all natural affection, even the discounte- 
 nance of kindred! — Well, be it so, — 
 
 For thee, fair Freedom, welcome all the past. 
 For thee, my country, welcome, even the last! 
 
 I am not ashamed to confess to you, that there was a 
 day when I was bigoted as the blackest ; but I thank 
 the Being who gifted me with a mind not quite imper- 
 vious to conviction, and I thank you, who afforded such 
 convincing testimonies of my error. 1 saw you enduring 
 "with patience the most unmerited assaults, bowing 
 before the insults of revived aniversaries; in private 
 life, exemplary; in public, unoffending; in the hour of 
 peace, asserting your loyalty; in the hour of danger, 
 proving it. Even when an invading enemy victoriously 
 penetrated into the very heart of our country, I sav/ the 
 banner of your allegiance beaming refutation 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 rather 
 say, of Irish emancipation, has now assumed that na- 
 tional 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, tlie vulgar eye might 
 'vhrink and the vulgar spirit shudder. But now it has 
 
<^ SPEECH 
 
 come forth, visible and tangible for the inspection of 
 the laity; and I solemnly protest, dressed as it has been 
 in the double haberdashery of the English minister and 
 the Italian prelate, I know not whether to laugh at its 
 appearance, or to loathe its pretensions— to shudder at 
 the deformity of its original creation, or smile at the 
 grotesqueness of its foreign decorations. Only just ad- 
 mire this far-famed security bill,— this motly compound 
 of oaths and penalties, which, under the name of eman- 
 cipation, 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 ignorant, a decaying, and degenerate aristocracy! 
 Only just admire it! Originally engendered by our 
 friends the opposition, with a cwc>^oo insidiousness, they 
 swindled it into the nest of the treasury ravens, 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 Monseiga-eur Quarai^totti, who has 
 obligingly transmitted it with the hunger of its parent, 
 the rapacity of its nurse, and the coxcombry of its 
 phimassier, to be baptized by the bishops, and received 
 cequo gratoque animo by the' people of Ireland!! Oh, 
 thou sublimely ridiculous Quarantotti! Oh, thou super- 
 lative coxcomb of the conclave! what an estimate hast 
 thou formed of the mii^d 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 
 liave revolved in vain! Strange must be the mind, 
 
x\T sligO. b 
 
 which is not subdued by suffering! Sublime the spirit, 
 which is not debased by servitude ! God, I give thee 
 thanks! — he knew not Ireland. Bent — broken^- 
 manacled as she has been, she will not bow to the 
 mandate of an Italian slave, transmitted through an 
 English vicar. For my own part, as an Irish Protestant, 
 I trample to the earth this audacious and desperate 
 experiment of authority; and foryou> as Catholics, the 
 time is come to give that calumny the lie,, which re- 
 presents you as subservient lo a foreign influence* 
 That influence, indeed, seems not quite so unbending 
 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 theology of the question 
 is not forme to argue, it cannot be in better hands 
 than in those of your bishops; and I can have no doubt 
 that wdien they bring their rank, their learning, their 
 talents, their piety, and their patriotism to this sublime 
 deliberation,, they will consult the dignity of that 
 venerable fabric which has stood for ages, splendid and 
 immutable; which timie could not crumble, nor perse- 
 cutions shake, nor revolutions cliange; which has stood 
 amongst us, like some stupendous and majestic 
 Appenine, the earth rocking at its ft,'et, and the 
 heavens roaring round its head, firmly balanced on the 
 base of its eternity; the relic of v/hat 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, \s an Irish- 
 man, I feel my liberties interwoven, and the best 
 affections of my heart as. it were enjibred with those of 
 my Catholic countrymen ; and as a Protestaj^t, con« 
 A 2. 
 
o SPEECH 
 
 vinccd of the purity of my own faith, would I not de 
 base it by postponing the powers of reason to the 
 suspicious instrumentality of this world's conversion ? 
 No; surrendering as I do, with a proud contempt, all 
 the degrading advantages with which an ecclesiastical 
 usurpation would invest me; so I will not interfere with 
 a blasphemous intrusion between any man and his 
 Maker. I hold it a criminal and accursed sacrilege, to 
 rob even a beggar 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 
 emancipation-bill passing into a law, would, in my 
 mind, strike not a blow at this sect or that sect, but at 
 the very vitality of Christianity itself. I am thoroughly 
 convinced that the antichristian connection between 
 church ancl state, which it was suited 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 ascendency. He sent it amongst us to heal, 
 not to irritate; to associate, not to seclude; to collect 
 together, like the baptismal dove, every creed and 
 clime and colour in the universe, beneath the spotless 
 < wing of its protection. The union of church and state 
 i*only converts go.od Christians into bad statesmen, 
 and political knaves into pretended Christians. It is 
 at best but a foul and adulterous connection, polluting 
 the purity of heaven with the abomination of earth, 
 and hanging the tatters of a political piety upon the 
 cross of an insulted Saviour. Religioi^, Holy REiieioif, 
 ought not, in the words of its P'ounder, to be **Ied 
 
AT SUGG. 7 
 
 into temptation." The hand that holds her chalice 
 should be pure, and the priests of her temple should 
 be spotless as the vestments of their ministry. Rank 
 only degrades, wealth only impoverishes, ornaments 
 but disfigure her. I would have her pure, unpensioned, 
 unstipendiary; she should rob the earth of nothing but 
 its sorrows: a divine arch of promise, her extremeties 
 should rest on the horizon, and her span embrace the 
 universe; but her only sustenance should be the tears 
 that were exhaled 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 
 menial at the levee, its manual the red-book, its liturgy 
 the pension list, its gospel the will of the minister! 
 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, like the devoted 
 sacrifice of ancient heathenism, glorying in the garland 
 that only decorates him for death ! I will read to you 
 the opinionsof a celebrated Irishman, on the suggestion 
 in his day, of a bill similar to that now proposed for 
 our oppression. He was a man who added to the pride 
 not merely of his country but of his species — a man 
 who robed the very soul of inspiration in the splen- 
 dours 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 il. 
 
8 SPEECH 
 
 fori believe it is the first time that the presentation to 
 other people's alms has b^en 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 re- 
 gard 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 usurpation 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 
 Loixls-Lieutenant 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 complained 
 against by his brother, will be considered as perse- 
 cuted; whoever is censured by his superior, 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 be- 
 cause he was not a bigot. Informers, tale-bearers, per- 
 verse and obstinate men, flatterers, who turn their 
 back upon their flock, and court the Protestant gentle- 
 men of their country, will be the objects of prefer- 
 
AT SLIGO. 9 
 
 iTient, and then I run no risk in foretelling, that what- 
 ever order, quiet, and morality you have in the country 
 will be lost." Now, let me ask you, is it to such 
 characters as those described by Burke, that you would 
 delegate the influence imputed to your priesthood? 
 Believe me, you would soon see them transferring their 
 devotion from the Cross to the Castle; wearing their 
 saCred vestments but as a masquerade appendage, and, 
 under the degraded passport of the Almighty's name, 
 sharing the pleasures 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 pre- 
 sent day would be late, and would be delible. But it is 
 human nature. Rare are the instances in which a con- 
 tact with the court has not been the beginning of cor- 
 ruption. The man of God is pecuharly 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 delegates of the 
 Almighty, that, making fair allowances for human in- 
 firmity, they could be amended. The Catholic clergy 
 of Ireland are rare examples of the doctrines they in» 
 culcate. Pious in their habits, almost primitive in their 
 manners, they have no care but their flock — no study 
 but their Gospel. It is not in the gaudy ring of courtly 
 dissipation that you will find the Muhkays, the Cop- 
 
10 SPEECH 
 
 FINGERS, and the Moylands 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 convict, enriching 
 the orphan ; ornaments of this world, and emblems of 
 a better: preaching their God through the practice of 
 every virtue ; monitors at the confessional, apostles in 
 the pulpit, 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 im- 
 pure and perishable mass of this world's preferment. 
 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 they should gild their missals with the wages of a 
 court, and expect their ecclesiastical promotion, not 
 from their superior piety, but their comparative prosti- 
 tution. But why this interference with your principles 
 of conscience? Why is it that they will not erect your 
 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 reasonable? Was it in 1776, when a cloud of ene- 
 mies, hovering on our coast, saw every heart a shield, 
 
AT SLIGO. 11 
 
 and every hill a fortress? Did the}' want securities in 
 Catholic Spain? Were they denied securities in Catholic 
 Portugal ? AVhat is their security to day in Catholic 
 Canada ? Return — return to us our own glorious Wel- 
 lington, and tell incredulous England what was her 
 security amid the lines of Torres Vedras, or on the 
 summit of Barrossa! Rise, libelled martyrs of the 
 Peninsula! — rise from your "gory bed," and give 
 security for your childless parents ! No, there is not a 
 Catholic family in Ireland, that ibr the glory of Great 
 Britain 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 blodd 
 has crimsoned the cross upon her naval flag, and an 
 Irish hero strikes the harp to victory 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 beneath the ruins of another capitol — 
 perhaps of London. Who can say it? A few months 
 since, Moscow stood as splendid as secure. Fair rose 
 the morn on the patriarchal city — the empress of her 
 nation, the queen of commerce, the sanctuary of stran- 
 gers, 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 night- 
 fall, with all her pomp, and wealth, and happiness, she 
 
12 SPEECH 
 
 withered from the world ! A heap of ashes told where 
 once stood Moscow ! Merciful God, if this lord of deso- 
 lation, heading" his locust legions, were to invade our 
 country ; though I do not ask what would be your 
 determination; 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 with fearlessness, upon what single principle of 
 policy or of justice, could the advocates for your ex- 
 clusion solicit your assistance — could they expect you 
 to support a constitution from whose benefits you were 
 debarred ? AVith what front could they ask you to 
 recover an ascendency, which in point of fact was but 
 re-establishing 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 universal 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 connection that refuses them a 
 community of benefits while it imposes a comifiunity 
 of privations — men who sooner than see this land 
 polKited 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 w^ere 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 
 
AT SLIGO. IS 
 
 to be a favour which is a right; and in the next place, 
 1 utterly deny that a system of conciliation has ever 
 been adopted with respect to Ireland. Try thenn, and, 
 my life on it, they will be found grateful. I think I 
 know my countrymen ; they cannot help being grate- 
 ful for a benefit ; and there is no country on the earth 
 where one would be conferred with more characteristic 
 benevolence. 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 virtues; and to be 
 other than noble, they must not only be unnatural but 
 unnational. 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 fantastic 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 grate- 
 ful, merit the mostuncoT)scious; 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 dee[) 
 insight into the motives of its agent. Try to deceive 
 them, and see with what shrewdness they will detect ; 
 try to outwit them, and see with what hamour 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 
 B 
 
U SPEECH 
 
 our people; he has thrown round the one its wild, 
 magnificent, decorated rudeness; he has infused into 
 the other the simplicity of genius and the seeds of 
 virtue: he says andibly to us, " Give them cultivation.'* 
 This is the way, Gentlemen, in which I have al- 
 ways 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 para- 
 lyzing five millions of such a people asl have been de- 
 scribing, can be a benefit to the empire ! Is there any 
 man who deserves the name not of a statesman but of 
 a rational being, who can think it politic to rob such a 
 multitude of all the energies of an honourable ambition! 
 Look to Protestant Ireland, shooting over the empire 
 those rays of genius, and those thunderbolts 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 Barrys, 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 Ire- 
 land, with her quintuple population, stationary and 
 silent? Have physicsl causes neutralized its energies ? 
 Has the religion of Christ stupefied its intellect ? Ha9 
 the God of mankind become the partisan of a monopoly, 
 and put an interdict on its advancement? Stranger, do 
 not ask the bigoted and pampered renegade who has 
 an interest in deceiving you ; bnt open the penal 
 statutes, and weep tears of blood over the reason. 
 
AT SLlGOi W 
 
 Com Cj 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 middleman 
 of some absentee landlord, plundered by the lay -proc- 
 tor of some rapacious and unsympathizing incumbent, 
 bearing, through life but insults and injustice, snd be- 
 reaved 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 apprenticeship to the prison, 
 absolutely permitted by their parents from utter 
 despair to lisp the alphabet and learn the rudiments of 
 profligacy? For my part, never did I meet one of these 
 yonthful assemblages without feeling within me a 
 melancholy 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 swelling with the ener- 
 gies and stamped with the patent of the I>eity, which 
 under proper culture might perhaps bless, adorn, im- 
 mortalize, or ennoble empires; some Cmstcinnatus, in 
 whose breast the destinies of a nation may lie dormant;^ 
 some MiLTOJiT, "pregnant with celestial fire;" some 
 CuiiiiAiy> who, when thrones were cumbledand dynas- 
 ties forgotten, might stand the landmark of his 
 country's genius, rearing himself amid regal ruins and 
 national dissolution, a mental pyramid in the solitude of 
 
16 SPEECH 
 
 time, beneath whose shade things might moulder, and 
 round whose summit eternity must play. Even in such 
 a circle the young Demcsthejtes might have once been 
 found, and Homer, the disgrace and glory of his age^ 
 have sung neglected! Have not other nations witnessed 
 those things, and who shall say that nature has peculi- 
 arly degraded the intellect of Ireland ? Oh ! my 
 countrymen, 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 bhght and 
 ruin of this wintry day to the fond anticipation 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 offerings of art ; the breath of 
 heaven blessing her flag, the extremities of earth 
 acknowledging her name, her fields waving with the 
 fruits of agriculture, her ports alive with the contri- 
 butions of commerce, and her temples vocal with un- 
 restricted piety. Such is the ambition of the true 
 patriot; such are the views for which we are calumni- 
 ated ! Oh, divine ambition! Oh, delightful calumny ! 
 Happy he who shall see thee accomphshed! Happy he 
 who through every peril toils for thy attainment! Pro- 
 ceed, friend of Ireland and partaker of her wrongs, 
 proceed undaunted to this glorious consummation. 
 Fortune will not gild, power will not ennoble theer 
 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 enlightened by the pubhc 
 gratitude; and oh, remember— amid the impediments 
 
AT SLIGO. 17 
 
 with which corruption will oppose, and the dejection 
 with which disappointments may depress you — re- 
 member you are acquiring a name to be cherished by 
 the future generations of eartli, long after it has been 
 enrolled amongst the inheritors of heaven. 
 
A SPEECH 
 
 DELIVERED At 
 
 AN AGGREGATE MEETING 
 
 OF 
 THE ROMAN CATHOLICS OF CORK. 
 
 It is with no small degree of self-congratulation that 
 I at length find myself in a province which eveiy 
 glance of the eye, and every throb of the heart, tells 
 me is truly Irish ; and that congratulation is not a little 
 enhanced by finding that you receive me not quite as 
 a stranger. Indeed, if to respect the Christian without 
 regard to his creed, if to love the country but the 
 more for its calamities, if to hate oppression though it 
 be robed in power, if to venerate integrity though it 
 pine under persecution, gives a man any claim to your 
 recognition ; then, indeed, I am not a stranger amongst 
 you. There is a bond of union between brethren, 
 however distant; there is a sympathy between the 
 virtuous, however separated ; there is a heaven-born 
 instinct by which tl^a associates of the heart become at 
 once acquainted, and kindred natures as it were by 
 magic see in the face of a stranger, the features of a 
 
AT GOiUv. 19 
 
 friencl. Thus it is that, though v\'e 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 memorials 
 of your patriotism, your municipal magnificence, or 
 your commercial splendour ; it came to me hallowed 
 by tlie accents of that tongue on which Ireland has so 
 often hung with ecstasy, heightened by the eloquence 
 and endeared by the sincerity of, I hope, our mutual 
 friend. Let me congratulate him on having become in 
 some degree naturalized in a province, where the 
 spirit of the elder day seems to have lingered; and 
 jet 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 unjustice of your oppressions. 
 Surely, surely if merit had fair play, if splendid talents, 
 if indeftitigable 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, pubUc 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 lo\^e of his country 
 to a participation in her plunder ! Indeed he will never 
 rise. If he joined the bigots of my sect, he might be a 
 sergeant; if he joined the infidels of your sect, he 
 might enjoy a pension, and there is no knowing whether 
 some Orange-corporator, or an Orange-anniversary, 
 might not modestly yield him the precedence of 
 
20 SPEECH 
 
 giving "the glorious and immortal memory." Oli, yes, 
 he might be priviledged 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, 
 Nov would he stand alone, no matter what might be 
 the measure of his disgrace, or the degree of his 
 dereliction. You will know there are many of your 
 own community wOio would leave him at the distance- 
 post. In contemplating their recreancy, I should be 
 almost tempted to smile at the exhibition of their 
 pretentions, if there was not a kind of moral melancholy 
 intermingled, that changed satire into pity, and ridicule 
 into contempt. For my part, I behold them in the 
 apatjjy of their servitude, as I would some miserable 
 maniae in the contentment of his captivity. Poor 
 creature! when 'all that raised liim 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 freemen 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 disbehever, 
 v/hen 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 
 children? But they have nor creed nor consciences, 
 nor country ; their God is gold, their gospel is a con- 
 tract, their church a counting-house, their characters 
 a commodity ; they never pray but for the opportuni- 
 ties of corruption, and hold their consoiencesj as they 
 
AT CORK. 21 
 
 do their government-debentures, at a price propor- 
 j^^oned to the misfortunes of their country. But let us 
 ^Hbrnfrom those mendicants of disgrace : though Ireland 
 ' is doomed to the stain of their birth, her mind need 
 not be sulhed by their contemplation. I turn from 
 them with pleasure to the contemplation of your cause, 
 which, as fir as argument can affect it, stands on a 
 sublime and splendid elevation. Every obstacle has 
 vanished into air; every favourable circumstance has 
 hardened into adamant. The Pope, whom childhood 
 was taught to lisp as the enemy of religion, and age 
 shuddered at as a prescriptive calamity, has by his 
 example put the princes of Christendom to shame. 
 This day of miracles, in which the human heart has 
 been strung to its extremest point of energy ; this day, 
 to which posterity will look for 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, 
 surrounded by the pomp of the Vatican and the splen- 
 dours of the court, pouring the mandates of Chbist 
 fromt the throne of the C^sars, nations were his snb- 
 jects, kings were his companions, religion was his 
 handmaid ; he went forth gorgeous with the accumula- 
 ted 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 
 a shadow, his home a dungeon ! But if we have 
 Catholics, it was only to shew how inestimable is human 
 virtue compared with human grandeur ; it was only to 
 shew those whose fiVith was faihng, and whose fears 
 
'2'2 SPEECH 
 
 were strengthening, t|?at the simplicity of the patri- 
 archs, the piety of the saints, and the patience of the 
 martyrs, had not v/holiy vanished. Perhaps it was also 
 ordained to shev/ the bigot at home, as well as the 
 tyrant abroad, that though the person might be chained, 
 and the motive calumniated, Religion was still strong 
 enough to support her sons, and to confound, 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 
 foundations of the earth seemed giving way, the 
 comet was let loose that " from its fiery hair shook 
 pestilence and death," the twilight was gathering, the 
 tempest was roaring, the darkness was at hand ; but he 
 towered subhme, like the last mountain in the deluge 
 — majestic, not less in his elevation than in his solitude, 
 immutable amid change, magnificent amid ruin, the 
 last remnant of earth's beauty, the last resting-place of 
 heaven's light ! Thus have the terrors of the Vatican- 
 retreated ; thus has that cloud whicli 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 Frak^ce ; I know it was a pretence, 
 but it was made an obstacle — \Vf»at has become of it ? 
 The spell of her invincibility destroyed, the spirit of 
 her armies broken, her immense boundary dismember- 
 ed, and the lord of her empire become the exile of a 
 rock. She allows fancy no fear, and bigotry no spe- 
 ciousness; and, as if in the very operation of the 
 
AT CORK. US 
 
 change to point the purpose of your redemption, the 
 hand that replanted the rejected lily was that of an 
 Irish Catholic. Perhaps it is not also unworthy of remark, 
 that the last day of her triumph, and the first of her 
 decline, was that on which her insatiable chieftain 
 smote the holy head of your religion. You will hardly 
 suspect I am imbued with the follies of superstition ; 
 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 movement ^vith a triumph, and 
 every pause Vv^ith 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 ! 1 am no fanatic, 
 but, is it not remarkable? ^^^7 it not be one of those 
 signs which the Deity has sometimes given in compas- 
 sion to our infirmity ; signs, which in the punishment 
 of our 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 expect what 
 your loyalty should have taught them to repel, can no 
 longer oppose you from the terrors of invasion. Thus, 
 then, the papal phantom and the French threat have 
 vanished into notliing.— Another obstacle, the tenets 
 of your creed. Has England still to learn them? I wiii 
 
24 SPEECH 
 
 tell her where. Let her ask Canada, the last plank of 
 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 
 triuniph, her reliance in the retreat, her last stay when 
 the world had deserted her. They must have told her 
 on the field of blood, whether it was true that they 
 ^* kept nojaith ivith 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 gratitude; whom 
 we have seen leading the van of universal emancipa- 
 tion, 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 vvas a Catholic, could this have been? 
 Suppose Gatholics 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 CathoUc soldier pause at Salamanca 
 to dispute upon polemics ? Did the Catholu; chieftain 
 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, pre- 
 vent their association in the field of liberty ? Oh, no. 
 
AT CORK. 25 
 
 no, no : the citizen of every clime, the fi'iend 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 extremities of creation. Yes, yes, it was re- 
 served for Wellington to redeem his own country 
 when he was regenerating every other. It was re- 
 served for him to show how vile were the aspersions 
 on your creed, how generous were the glovvings of 
 your gratitude. He was a Protestant, yet Catholics 
 trusted him ; he was a Protestant yet Catholics ad- 
 vanced him ? he is a Protestant Knight in Catholic 
 Portugal, he is a Protestant Duke in Catholic Spain, 
 lie is a Protestant commander of Catholic armies : he 
 is more, he is the living proof of the Catholic's libe- 
 rality, 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 con- 
 tinue obstinate in the teeth of this conviction, still 
 were T a Catholic I should feel little 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 blockheads, and plundered by ad- 
 venturers ; the proverb of the fool, the prey of the 
 politician, the dupe of the designing, the experiment 
 of the desperate, struggling as it were between her 
 own fanatical and infatuated parties, those hell-engen- 
 dered serpents which enfold her, like the Trojan seer, 
 even at the worship of her altars, and crush her tf» 
 G 
 
26 SPEECH 
 
 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 Protostant, Concede ; I would say to 
 the Catholic, Forgive ; I would say to both, Though 
 you bend not at the same shrine, you have a common 
 God, and a common country; the one has commanded 
 love, the other kneels to you for peace. This hostility 
 of her sects has been the disgrace, the peculiar dis- 
 grace of Christianity. The Gentoo loves his cast, so 
 does the Mahometan, so ^ioes the Hindoo, whom 
 England out of the abundance of her charity is about 
 to teach her creed;— I hope she may not teach her 
 ]:)ractice. But Christianity, Christianity alone exhibits 
 lier thousand sects, each denouncing his neighbour 
 here, in the name of God, and damning hereafter out 
 of pure devotion! "You're a heretic," says the Catholic; 
 "You're a Papist." says the Protestant; "1 appeal to 
 Saint Peter," exclaims the Catholic: " I appeal to Saint 
 Athanasius," cries the Protestant: " and if it goes to 
 damning, he's as good at it as any saint in the calen- 
 dar." " You'll all be damned eternally," moans out the 
 Methodist; " Pm the electl" Thus it is, you see, each 
 has his anathema, his accusation, and his retort, and 
 in the end Rehgion 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 
 
AT CORK. 27 
 
 wf our country should have casually reached the valleys 
 of Hindostan, with what an argument they are furnish- 
 ing the heathen world against their sacred missionary ? 
 In what terms could the Christian ecclesiastic answer 
 the Eastern Bramin, when he replied to his exhorta- 
 tions in the language such as this? " Father, we have 
 heard your doctrine: it is splendid in theory, specious 
 in promise, 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 its 
 rays vanish and leave your sphere in darkness, or when 
 your only lustre arises from meteors of fire, and moons 
 of blood : we have heard of the verdant island which 
 the Great Spirit has raised in the bosom of the waters 
 with such a bloom of beauty, that the very wave she 
 has usurped worships the loveliness of her intrusion. 
 The sovereign of our forests is not more generous in 
 his anger than her sons; the snov/.flake, ere it falls on 
 the tnountain, is not purer than her daughters ; little 
 inland seas reflect the splendours of her landscape, 
 and her valleys smile at the story of the serpentl 
 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 persecu* 
 tion? Oh! Brama, defend us from the God of the Chris- 
 tian ! Father, father return to your brethren, retrace 
 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, 
 smtuj-e is our gospel; in the imitation of our fathers we 
 
2S SPEECH 
 
 found our hope, and, if we err, on the virtue of our 
 motives we rely for our redemption." How would the 
 missionaries of the mitre answer him? How will they 
 answer that insulted Being of \yhose creed their con- 
 duct 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 brother'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 under- 
 mines the natural resources of government ; which 
 takes away the strongest excitement to industry, by 
 closing 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 already showa 
 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. Another pretended obstacle 
 has, however, been opposed to your emancipation. 
 I allude to the danger arising from a foreign influence. 
 What a triumphant answer can you give to that! 
 Metliinks, as lately, I see the assemblage of your 
 hallowed hierarchy surrounded by the priesthood, and 
 followed by the people, waving aloft the crucifix ot 
 Christ alike against the seductions of the court, and 
 
AT CORK. 29 
 
 the commands of the conclave! Was it not a delightful, 
 M heart-cheering spectacle, to see that holy band of 
 Brothers preferring the chance of martyrdom to the 
 "certainty of promotion, and postponing all the grati- 
 fications of worldly pride, to the severe but heaven- 
 gaining glories of their poverty? They acted honestly, 
 and they acte^d wisely also ; for I say here, before the 
 largest assembly I ever saw in any country — and I 
 beheve you are almost all Catholics — I say here, that if 
 the see of Rome presumed to impose any temporal 
 mandate directly or indirectly on the Irish people, the 
 Irish bishops should at once abandon it, or the flocks, 
 one 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 assumed 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 favour ! How do 1 prove it ? Follow me in my 
 proofs, and you will see by what links the chain is 
 united. The power of Napoleon was the grand and 
 leading obstacle to your emancipation. That power led 
 him to the menace of an Irish invasion. What did that 
 prove ? Only the sincerity of Irish allegiance. On the 
 very threat, we poured forth our volunteers, our 
 yeomen, and our militia; and the country became en- 
 circled with an armed and a loyal popidation. Thus, 
 then, the calumny of your disaffection vanished. That 
 power next led him to the invasion of Portugal. What 
 C2 
 
30 SPEECH 
 
 did it prove? Only the good faith of Catholic^ allegiance. 
 Every field in the Peninsula saw the CathoUc Por- 
 tuguese 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 imprisonment of the Pontiff, so Jong suspected 
 of being quite ready to sacrifice every thing to his 
 interest and his dominion. What did that prove? The 
 strength of his principles, the purity of his faith, the 
 disinterestedness 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 vindicated to Europe. There remained 
 behind but one impediment — your liability to a foreign^ 
 influence. Now mark ! The Pontiff's captivity led to 
 the transmission of Quarantotti*s 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 phan- 
 tom of a foreign influence! Is this conviction? Is it not 
 the hand of God in it ? Oh yes ! for observe what fol- 
 lowed. The very moment that power, which was the 
 first and last leading argument against you, had, by its 
 special operation, banished every obstacle; that power 
 itself, as it were by enchantment, evaporated at once; 
 and peace with Europe took away the last pretence for 
 your exclusion. Peace with Europe! alas, alas, there 
 is no peace far Ireland: the universal pacification was 
 but the signal for renewed hostility to us, and the < 
 mockery of its preliminaries were tolled through our 
 provinces by the knell of the curfew. I ask, is it not 
 
AT COHK. 31 
 
 time that tliis hostility should cease? If ever there was 
 a day when it was necessary, that day undoubtedly 
 I exists no longer. The continent is triumphant, the 
 ' Peninsula is free, France is our ally. The hapless house 
 which gave birth to Jacobinism is extinct for ever. The 
 Pope has been found not only not hostile, but com- 
 plying. Indeed, 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 un- 
 paralled, forget our sei'vices, she has still to study a 
 tremendous lesson. The ancient order of Europe, it is 
 true, is restored, but what restored it ? Coahtion after 
 coalition had crumbled away before the might of the 
 conqueror; crowns were but ephemeral; monarchs 
 only the tenants of an hour; the descendants of 
 Frederick dwindled into a vassal ; the heir of Peter 
 shrunk into the recesses of his frozen desert; the suc- 
 cessor of Charles roamed a vagabond, not only throne- 
 less but houseless; every evening sun set upon a 
 change; every morning dawned upon some new con- 
 vulsion: in short, the whole political globe quivered as 
 with an earthquake, and who could tell what venerable 
 monument was next to shiver beneath the splendid, 
 frightful, and reposeless heavings of the French vol- 
 cano ! What gave Europe peace and England safety 
 amid this palsy of her Princes? Was it not the Land- 
 vvehr and the Landsturm and the Levy en Masse? Was 
 it not the People? — that first and last, and best and 
 noblest, as well as safest security of a virtuous govern- 
 ment. It is a glorious lesson ; she ought to study it in 
 this hour of safety ; but should she not— 
 
32 SPEECH 
 
 *' Oh wo be to the Prince who rulds by fear. 
 When danger comes upon him!" 
 
 t 
 
 She will adopt it. I hope it from her wisdom; I expect 
 it from her policy; I claim it from her justice; I de- 
 mand it from her gratitude. She must at length see 
 that there is a gross mistake in the management of Ire- 
 land. 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 
 I 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 advantage to its 
 rulers. Centuries have proved its total inefficienc}^, 
 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 neghgent of our interest ? The other da}^, 
 for instance, when Mr. Peele introduced, aye, and 
 passed too, his three newly invented penal bills, to the 
 rrecessity of which, every assizes in Ireland, and as 
 liqnest a judge as ever dignified or redeemed tlie 
 f§B'/:'^livm\ne, has given the refutation ; why was it that no 
 ^'IM' '' Irish member rose in his place to vindicate his country? 
 Where were the nominal representatives of Ireland ?. 
 Where were the renegade 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 17'82 an assenting auditor? Were our hundred 
 itinerants mute and motionless — *^ quite chop-fallen?" 
 or is it only when Ireland is slandered and her motives 
 
At CORK, 33 
 
 ' misrepresented, and her oppressions are basely and 
 falsely denied, that their venal throats are ready to 
 echo the chorus of ministerial calumny ? Oh, I should 
 I not have to ask those questions, if in the late contest 
 for this city, you had prevailed, and sent Hutchij^tsos' 
 into Parliament: he would have risen, though aloncy as 
 I have often seen him — richer not less in hereditary 
 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 absence shall be but of short duration, and that 
 this city will earn an additional claim to the gratitude 
 of the country, by electing him her representative. I 
 scarcely know him but as a public man, and considering 
 the state to which we are reduced by the apostacy of 
 some, and the ingratitude of others, and 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 intreat of you, above all things to 
 sacrifice any personal differences amongst yourselves, 
 for the great cause in which you are embarked. Re- 
 member, the contest is for your children, your country, 
 and your God; and remember also, that the" day of 
 Irish union will be the natal day of Irish liberty. When 
 your own Parliament (which I trust in Heaven we may 
 yet see again) voted you the right of franchise, and the 
 n^^-ht of purchase, it gave you, if you are not false to 
 
34 SraECH AT CORK. 
 
 yourselves, a certainty of your emancipation. My 
 ' friends, farewell ! This has been a most unexpected 
 meeting to me ; it has been our first— it may be our 
 'ast, I can never forget the enthusiasm of this recep- 
 tion. I am too much affected by it to make professions; 
 but, believe me, no matter where I may be driven by 
 the whim of my destiny, you shall find me one, in whom 
 change of place shall create no change of principle; 
 one whose memory must perish ere he forgets his 
 country ; whose heart must be cold when it beats not 
 for her happiness. 
 
A SPEECH 
 
 DELIVERED AT A DINNER, GIVEN ON 
 
 DINAS ISLAND, 
 
 IN TEE LAKE OF KILLARNEY, ON 
 
 MR, PHILLIPS* HEALTH BEING GIVEN, TOGETHER WITH 
 THAT OF MR . PAYNE, A YOUNG AMERICAliT. 
 
 It is not with tlie vain hope of returning by words 
 the kindnesses which have been Uterally 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 necessary; an Irishman needs no 
 requital for his hospitahty ; its generous impulse is the 
 instinct of his nature, and the very consciousness of the 
 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 impos- 
 sible. 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 uot a little enhanced in me by a recollection 
 of the couutry to which we are indepted for his quali- 
 fications. Indeed, (^e mention of America has never 
 failed to fill me with the most lively emotions. In my 
 earliest in^ncy, that tender season when impressions^ 
 
26 SPEECH 
 
 at once the most permanent and the most powerfiiiy 
 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. I saw her spurning alike the luxuries that 
 would enervate, and the legions that would intimidate j 
 dashing from her lips the poisoned cup of European 
 servitude; and, through all the vicissitudes of her 
 protracted conflict, displaying a magnanimity that 
 defied misfortune, and a moderation that gave new 
 grace to victory. It was the first vision of my childhood; 
 it will descend 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 memorv remains, can Ireland forget the home of 
 . her emigrant', and the asylum of her exile. No matter 
 whether their sorrows sprung from the errors of 
 enthusiasm, or the realities of suffering, 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 subhme a view, so interesting an 
 anticipation.?/ What noble institutions! What a com- 
 prehensive policy! What a wise equslization of every 
 political advantage! The oppressed of all countries, 
 the martyrs of every creed, the innocent victim of 
 despotic arrogance or superstitious phrensy, may there 
 find refuge J his industry encouraged, his piety re- 
 
At DINAS tSLAND. 3?^ 
 
 Spected, his ambition animated ; with no restraint but 
 those laws which are the same to all, and no distinction 
 but thut 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 century, 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 de- 
 signed her ! Who shall say that when, in its folUes 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 
 glories of our name shall be but the legend of tradition, 
 and the light of our achievements only live in song; phi- 
 losophy will rise again in the sky of her Franklin, and 
 glory rekindle at the urn of her Washington. Is this 
 the vision of 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 im- 
 pressions that preceded it ? Thousands upon thousands. 
 Sir, I know there are, who will consider this supposition 
 as wild and whimsical; but they have dwelt with little 
 reflection upon the records of the past. They have 
 but ill observed the never-ceasing progress of national 
 rise and national ruin. They form their judgment on 
 the deceitful stability of the present hour, never 
 D 
 
33 SPEECH 
 
 considering the innumerable monarchies 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 illusions of ambition realized, can all the wealth 
 of a universal commerce, can all the achievements of 
 successful heroism, or all the establishments of this 
 world's wisdom, secure to empire the permanency of 
 its possessions ? Alas, Troy thought so once ; yet the 
 iand 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 Perse polis, and now— 
 
 " Yon waste, where roaming lions howl. 
 Yon aisle, where moans the grey-eyed owl. 
 Shows the proud Persian's great abode, 
 Where sceptred once, an earthly god, 
 His power-glad arm controlled each happier clime, 
 Where sports the warbling muse, and fancy soars 
 sublime." 
 
 So thought the countries of Demosthenes and the 
 Spartan, yet Leonidas is trampled by the timid slave, 
 and Athens insulted by the servile, mindless, and 
 enervate Ottoman ! In his hurried march. Time has 
 but looked at their imagined immortality, and all its 
 vanities, from the palace to the tomb, have, with their 
 ruins, erased the very impression of his footsteps ! The 
 days of their glory are as if they had never been ; and 
 
AT DINAS ISLAND. • 39 
 
 the island that was then a speck, rude and neglected 
 in the barren ocean now rivals the ubiquity of their 
 commerce, the glory of their arms, the fame of their 
 philosophy, the eloquence of their senate, and the 
 inspiration of their bards ! Who shall say, then, con- 
 templating 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 I Who shall say, when the European column shall 
 have mouldered, and the night of barbarism obscured 
 its very ruins, that that mighty continent may not 
 emerge from the horizon, to rule for its time sovereign 
 of the ascendant ! 
 
 Such, sir, is the natural progress of human opera- 
 tions, and such the unsubstantial mockery of human 
 pride. But I should, perhaps, apologize for this digres- 
 sion. The tombs are at best a sad although an instruc- 
 tive subject. At all events, they are ill suited to such 
 an hour as this. I shall endeavour to atone for it, by 
 turning to a theme which tombs cannot inurn or 
 revolution alter. 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 
 beneath 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 se^ you concur with me, that it 
 matters very little whj^t immediate spot may be the 
 birth-place of such a man as Washingtoi?^. No people 
 can claim, no country can appropiate him ; the boon 
 
40 SPEECH 
 
 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 pohcy» 1 almost 
 bless the convulsion in which he had his origin. If the 
 heavens thundered and the earth rocked, yet, when 
 the storm passed how pure was the climate that it 
 cleared ; how bright in the brow of the firmament 
 was the planet which it revealed to us ! In the pro- 
 duption 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 donbt there were; splendid 
 exemplifications of some single qualification ; Cxsar 
 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 d^ceuvre 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 enlarged 
 the policy of the cabinet into the most comprehensive 
 system of general advantage ; and such was the wisdom 
 of his views, and the philosophy of his counsels, that 
 to the soldier and the statesman he almost added the 
 character of the sage ! A conqueror, he was untainted 
 with the crime of blood ; a revolutionist, he was free 
 from any stain of treason ; for aggression com- 
 menced the contest and his country called him to the 
 command. — Liberty unsheathecj his sword, necessity 
 stained, victory returned it. If he had paused here. 
 
AT DINAS ISLAND. 41 
 
 Isistory might have doubted what station to assign him, 
 whether at the head of her citizens or soldiers, her 
 heroes, or her patriots. But the last glorious act 
 crowns his career, and banishes all hesitation. Who, 
 like Washington, after having elnancipated a hemis- 
 phere, resigned its crown and preferred the retirement 
 of domestic life to the adoration of a land he might be 
 almost said to have created ! 
 
 " How shall we rank thee upon glory's page. 
 Thou more than soldier and just less than sage ; 
 All thou hast been reflects less fame on thee. 
 Far less than all fhou hast forborne to be !" 
 
 Such, Sir, is the testimony of one not to be accused 
 of partiality in his estimate of America. Happy, proud 
 America! the hghtnings of heaven yielded to yonr 
 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 Washiis^gton! 
 
A SPEECH 
 
 DELIVERED 
 
 AN AGGREGATE MEETING 
 
 OF 
 
 THE ROMAN CATHOLICS 
 
 OF THE COUNTY AND CITY OF DUBLIN. 
 
 HAVING taken, m the discussions on your question, 
 such humble share as was allotted to my station and 
 capacity, 1 may be permitted to offer my ardent con- 
 gratulations at the proud pinnacle on which it this day 
 reposes. Afber having combated calumnies the most 
 atrocious, sophistries the most plausible, and perils the 
 most appalling, that slander could invent, or ingenuity 
 devise, or power array against you, I at length behold 
 the assembled rank and wealth and talent of the Catho^ 
 lie body offering to the legislature that appeal which 
 cannot be rejected, if there be a Power in heaven to 
 redress injury, or a spirit on earth to administer justice. 
 No matter what may be the depreciations of faction or 
 of bigotry; this earth never presented a more enno- 
 bling spectacle than that of a Christian country suffering 
 for her religion with the patience of a martyr, and 
 suing for her hberties with the expostulations of a philos- 
 opher ; reclaiming the bad by her piety ; refuting the 
 bigoted by her practice ; wielding the Apostle's wea- 
 
AT DUBLIN. 43 
 
 pons in the patriot's cause, and at length, laden with 
 chains and with laurels, seeking from the country she 
 had saved the Constitution she had shielded ! Little 
 did I imagine, that in such a state of your cause, we 
 should be called together to counteract the impedi- 
 ments to its success, created 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 sentiments of any Catlrolie, and for 
 the aggregate sentiments of every Catholic. Those 
 who seceded from it, do not remember that, individ- 
 ually, 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 property, the genius, the perseverance, the ed- 
 ucation, 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 follow- 
 ers 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 to humanity, before he triumphs in 
 
44 SPEECH 
 
 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 sensibl3\ I did not expect it on the very hour 
 when the news of universal peace was first promulgated, 
 and oh 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 determines on 
 the immediate presentation of your petition, and 
 censures the neglect of any discussion on it by your 
 advocates during the last session of Parliment. 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. I shall do so out of respect to him, if 
 indeed it can be called respect to quote those senti- 
 ments, which on their very mention must excite youp 
 ridicule. Mr. Grattan presented your petiton, and, on 
 moving 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 
 tiiat 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 w^as adopted, who did not expect a discussion on 
 the very first opportunity. Mr. Grattan, however, was 
 angry at " suggestions." 1 do not think Mr. Grattan, 
 
AT DUBLIN. 45 
 
 of all men, had any right to be so angry at receiving 
 tjiat which every English member <vas willing to 
 j^ceive, and was actually receiving from an English 
 corn-factor. Mr. G rattan was also angry at our "vio^ 
 lence." Neither do I think he had any occasion to be 
 so squeamish at what he calls owr viotence. 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. " 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, however," says he, 
 still ardent " Ardent ! Why it strikes me to be a 
 very novel kind of ardour, which toils till it has re- 
 moved every impediment, and then pauses at the 
 prospect of its victory ! " And I am of opinion," he 
 continues, " that an}^ 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 suffer- 
 ing, when you press for a discussion, he protests that 
 he considers you monstrously precipitate ! Now is not 
 that a fair translation ? Why really if we did not know 
 Mr. Grattan, we shouh^ be almost tempted to think 
 
46 SPEECH- 
 
 that he was quoting from the ministry. With the 
 exception of one or two plain, downright, sturdy, 
 unblushing bigots, vyho opposed you because you were 
 Christians, and declared they did so, this was the cant 
 of every man who affected liberality. " Oh, I declare," 
 they say, " they may not be cannibals, though they are 
 Catholics, and T would be very glad to vole for them, 
 but this is no r/mc,'^ "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 ^ime, 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 unconciously 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, however, 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 a heart so stamped with the 
 immediate impress of the Divinity, that its very errors 
 might be traced to the excess 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 /^e chose to traflic with his principles ; if Ae 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 
 
AT DUBLIN. 47 
 
 Ireland how easily ^a blockhead may swindle himself 
 into preferment. Juvenal says that the greatest mis- 
 fortune attendant upon poverty is ridicule. Fox found 
 out a greater — 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 I am going upon business.''* Just so 
 our friends admit the principle ; they owe you ernan- 
 cipation, 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 
 appointment?" 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 
 liabitation at day light, and poor Fox regularly put 
 his head out of the window, with this question. "Gen- 
 tlemen, are you jPo^-hunting or ^are-hunting this 
 morning?" His pleasantry mitigated the very Jews. 
 " Well, well. Fox, now you have always admitted the 
 principle, but protested against the f/me-^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 Sijinaldixy, what would you think of 
 the day of judgment?" — That will be too busy a day with 
 us." — "Well, well, in order to accommodate 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 eipect your 
 emancipation bill pretty much about the time that 
 
4S SPEECH 
 
 Fox settled for the payment of his creditors^ Mr. 
 G rattan, however, though he scorned to take youf 
 suggestionSj took the suggestions of yowT friends. ** I 
 have consulted,'* says he, **my right honourable 
 friends !" Oh, all friendly all right honourable / Now 
 this it is to trust the interest of a people into the 
 hands of a party. You must know, in parliamentary 
 parlance, these right honourable friends mean a party* 
 There are few men so contemptible, as not to hare a 
 party. The minister has his party. The opposition have 
 have their party. ThQ saints, fov there are Saints in the 
 House of Commons, 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 post- 
 ponement of your question; and I sincerely say, if they, 
 had come from any other man, I would not have conde-i 
 scendedto have given them an answer. He is indeed re- 
 ported 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 da 
 not dispute the prudence of keeping them to himself ; 
 but as we have not the gift of prophecy, 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 reasons 
 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 .impossible that 
 the meanest capacity amongst you should not com- 
 prehend them. I would urge the instant discussion, 
 because discussion lias always been of use to you ; 
 
AT DUBLIX. 45 
 
 because, upon Q\evy discussion you hav^ gained con- 
 verts out of doors ; -and because, upon every discussion 
 within tiie doors of parliament, your enemies have 
 diminished, and your fiiends have increased. Now, is 
 not that a strong reason for continuing your discussions? 
 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 e'xisted 
 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 ioto. Noiv^ every 
 man affects to be liberal, and the only question with 
 some is the ti7ne of the concessions; witli others, the 
 extent of the concessions; with many, the nature of 
 the securities you shoidd afford ; whilst a great multi- 
 tude, in which I am proud to class myself, think that 
 your emancipation should be immediate, universal, and 
 unrestricted. Sucli has been the progress of the 
 human mind out of doors, in consequence of liie povv'- 
 erful, eloquence, argument, 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 luithin the doors 
 of Parliament. For twenty years you were silent, and 
 of course you were neglected. The consequence was 
 most natural. Why shoul<l 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 elFect of their arguments on the community, and 
 E 
 
50 SPEECH 
 
 who, as a matter of course, take every opportunity of 
 cakimniating them. Ever since that period your cause 
 has been advancing. Take the numerical proportions 
 in the house of Commons on each subsequent discus- 
 sion. In 1805, the first time it was brought forward in 
 the Imperial legislature, and it was then aided by the 
 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 1808,1iowever, on the next discussion, that majority 
 Wi^s 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 re- 
 markable that the first successful 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 this not demonstration? 
 What becomes now of those who say discussion has 
 not been of use to you ; But I need not have resorted 
 to arithmetical calculation. IMen become ashamed of 
 combating with axioms. Truth is omnipotent, and must 
 prevail; it forces its way with the fire and the pre- 
 cision of the morning sun-beam. Vapours may impede 
 the infancy of its progress; but the very resistance that 
 would check only condenses and concentrates it, until 
 at length it goes forth in the fulness of its meridian, all 
 life and sight and lustre, the minutest objects visible in 
 its refulgence. You lived for centuries on the vegetable 
 diet and eloquent silence of this Pythagorean policy; 
 and the consequence was, when you thought your- 
 selves mightily dignified, and mightily interesting, 
 the whole world was laughing at your philosophy, and 
 sending its aliens to take possession of your birth-right. 
 
AT DUBLIN. 51 
 
 i have given you a g'ood reason for urging your dis- 
 cussion, by having shown you that discussion has always 
 gained you proselytes. But is it the time? says Mr. 
 Grattan. Yes, Sir, it is the ?/m-e, pecuHarly the time,- 
 iinless indeed the great question of Irish liberty is to be 
 reserved as a weapon in the hands of a party to wield 
 against the weakness of the 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 sanguinary 
 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 ail the illustrious potentates of 
 Europe are assembled together in the British capital, 
 to hold the great festival of universal peace and uni- 
 versal emancipation. Perhaps when France, flushed 
 with success, fired by ambition, and infuriated by 
 enmity; her avowed aim an universal conquest, her 
 means the confederated resources of the Continent, 
 her guide the greatest military genius a nation fertile 
 in 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^ 
 
52 SPEECH 
 
 and based by the thrones he had crumbled in his 
 caprices — perhaps when such a power, so led, so or- 
 ganised, 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 despoiled, 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 obligation of civilized society, — the 
 objection is our strength, and the obstacle our battle- 
 ment. Perhaps 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 ungenerou§| as to Rome. The Irish Catholic, 
 firm in his faith, bows to the Pontiff's spiritual supre- 
 macy, but he would spurn the Pontiff^'s temporal in- 
 terference. If, with the spirit of an earthly domination, 
 he were to issue to-morrow his despotic mandate, 
 Cathie Ireland with one voice would answeif him ; 
 ** Sire, we bow with reverence to your spiritual mission: 
 the descendant 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 degrade the majesty of your high dele- 
 gation, 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, 
 IS we allow them to be riveted by another." Such 
 
AT DUBLIN. 53> 
 
 would be the answer of universal Ireland; such was 
 heF answer to the audacious menial, who dared to dic- 
 tate her unconditional submission to an act of Parlia- 
 ment which emancipated by penalties, and redressed 
 by insult. But, Sir, it never would have entered into 
 the contemplation of the Pope to have assumed such 
 an authority. His character was a sufficient shield 
 against the imputation, 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 ecclesi- 
 astical 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 
 SLime foundation rested the aspersions which were cast 
 xipon your creed. How did experience justify them? 
 Did Lord Wellington 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 P Did the brave Por- 
 tuguese neglect his orders tonegociate about mysteries? 
 Or w^hat 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 Borgos, where the 
 Irish exile planted and sustained it ? What must he 
 hare felt when in a foreign land he was obliged to 
 command brother against brother, to raise the sword 
 of blood, and drown tlie cries of nature with the artillery 
 E2 
 
M SPEECH 
 
 of death ? What were the sensations of our liapless 
 exiles, when they recognized the features of thei? 
 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 I Alas, how the poor banished 
 heart delights in the memory that song associates! He 
 h(iard 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 hini; 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 gravQ.-— the victim of a 
 code calling itself Christiani 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 bjgotry 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 ne^v, 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 Cathohc France, the Friend of the Pope ! 
 England, who seated a Catholic bigot in Madrid ! who 
 convoyed a CathoUc Braganza to the Brazils! who en- 
 
AT DUBLIN, 55 
 
 throned a Catholic Bourbon in Paris ! who guaranteed 
 a Catholic establishment in Canada! who gave a con- 
 stitution to Catholic Hanover I England, who searches 
 the globe for Catholic grievances to redress, and 
 Catholic Princes to restore, will not trust the Catholic 
 at home, who spends his blood and treasure in her 
 service ! ! Is this generous? Is this consistent? Is it just? 
 Is it even polite ? Is it the act of a wise country to 
 fetter the energies 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 governn^ent to degrade part of the 
 body by which it is supported, or pious to make Pro- 
 TiDExeE a party to their degradation? There are socie- 
 ties in England for discountenancing vice; there are 
 Christian associations for distributing the Bible; there 
 are voluntary 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 she has benefited by the Gospel of which 
 they boast? Has the sweet spirit of Christianity ap- 
 peared on our plains in the character of her precepts, 
 breathing the air and robed in the beauties of the 
 world to which she wouid lead us; with no argument 
 but love, no look but peace, no wealth but piety ; her 
 creed comprehensive as the arch of heaven, and her 
 charities bounded but by the circle of creation ? Or, 
 has she been let loose amongst us, in form of fury, and 
 in act of 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 ap- 
 parent by the print of blood, and her pause denoted 
 by the expanse of desolation ? Gospel of Heaven ! is 
 
56 SPEECH 
 
 Ibis thy herald? God of the universe! is this thy hajid- 
 rnaid ? Christian of the ascendancy! liow would you 
 answer the disbelieving infidel, if he asked you, should 
 he estimate the Christian doctrine by the Christian 
 practice; if he dwelt upon those periods when the 
 humiin victim writhed upon the altar of the peaceful 
 Jesus, and the cross, crimsoned with his blood became 
 little better than a stake to tlie sacrifice of his votaries; 
 if he pointed to Ireland, where the word of peace was 
 the war-whoop of destruction ; where the son was 
 bribed against the fatlier, and the plunder of the pa- 
 rent's property was made a bounty on the recantation 
 of the parent's creed; where the march of the human 
 mind was stayed in liis name who had inspired it with 
 reason, and any effort to liberate a fellow-creature from 
 his intellectual bondage was sure to be recompensed 
 by the dungeon or the scaffold; where ignorance was so 
 long a legislative command, and piety a legislative 
 crime; where religion was placed as a barrier be- 
 tween the sexes, and the intercourse of nature was 
 pronounced felony by law ; where God's worship 
 was an act of stealth, and his ministers sought amongst 
 the savages of the woods that sanctuary which a 
 nominal civihzation 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 
 w^ould rise to any station of trust, must in the face of 
 bis country, deny the f^ith 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; 
 
AT DUBLIN. ^7 
 
 And the torch that would light them to dignity's way, 
 Must be caught from the pile where their country 
 
 Tiow, let me ask, how would the Christian zealot droop 
 beneath this catalogue of Christian qualifications? Bui, 
 thus it is, when sectarians differ on account of mysteries; 
 in the heat and acrimony of tlie causeless contest, re- 
 ligion, the glory of one world, and the guide of another, 
 drifts from the splendid circle in which she shone, in 
 the comet-maze of uncertainty and, error. The code, 
 against which you petition, i6 a vile compound of im- 
 piety and impoHcy: impiety, because it debases in tlie 
 iiame 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 littla less than a political suicide. It matters 
 little where the Protestant Irishman has been em- 
 ployed; 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 challenge the competition of 
 the vvorld. 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 enriclied; attainted, she was 
 not titleless,. for her services ennobled; literally out- 
 
58 SPEECH 
 
 lawed into eminence and fettered into fame, the fields 
 of her exile were immortalized by her deeds, and the 
 links of her chain became decorated 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 pre- 
 dominance ? 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 repre- 
 sentative ? Slie has sent Lord Moira to India, Sir Gore 
 Ouseley to Ispahan, Lord Stuart to Vienna, Lord Cas- 
 tlereagh to Congress, Sir Henry Wellesley to Madrid, 
 Mr. Canning to Lisbon, Lord Strangford to the Brazils, 
 Lord Clancarty to Holland, Lord Wellington to Paris — 
 all Irishmen ! Whether it results from accident or 
 from merit, can there be a more cutting sarcasm oa 
 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 remaining four-fifths of which by your odious 
 bigotry, you incapaciate from any station of office or 
 of trust!" It is adding all that is weak in impolicy to all 
 that is wicked in ingratitude. What is her apology ? 
 Will she pretend that the Deity imitates her injustice, 
 and incapacitates the intellect as she has done the 
 creed ? After making Providence a pretence for her 
 code, will she also make it a party to her crime, and 
 arraign the universal spirit of partiality in his dispensa- 
 tion? 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 
 ;nibruted and debased, Ireland's conviction would be 
 
AT DUBLIN. 69 
 
 England's crime, and your answer to the bigot's charge 
 should be the bigot^s conduct. What, then! is this the 
 resuh of six centuries of your governnnent? Is this the 
 connection which you called a benefit to Ireland? Have 
 your protectujg laws so debased them, that the very 
 privilege of reason is worthless in their possession? 
 Shame! ob, shame! to the government where the peo- 
 p\e are barbarous ? The day is not distant when tliey 
 made the education of a Catholic a crime, and yet they 
 arraign the Catholic for ignorance! The day is not 
 distant when they proclaimed the celebration of the 
 Catholic worship a felony, and yet they proclaim that 
 the Catholic is not moral! What folly ! Is it to be ex- 
 pected that the people are to emerge in a moment 
 from the stupor of a protracted degradation? There 
 is not perhaps to be traced upon the map of national 
 misfortune a spot so 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 ia 
 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 viai 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 miserable 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 melancholy 
 
60 SPEECH 
 
 page which shall pourtray Ihe 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 beaulious, and into famine all ' 
 that was abundant. I repeat, however, the charge to 
 be false. The Catholic mind in Ireland has made ad- 
 vances scarcely to be hoped in the short interval of 
 its partial emancipation. Bwt 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 in his habits, he is 
 strict in his discipline, he is daring in the field, and 
 temperate at the board, and patient in the camp; the 
 first in the charge, and the last in the retrcatj with a 
 hand to achieve, and a head to guide, and temper to 
 , conciliate; he combines the skill of Wellington with 
 the clemency of Caesar and the courage of Turenne 
 — yet he can never rise — he is a Catholic/ — 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 associate's of his heart, and all the fairy 
 enchantments in which fancy may have wrapped him i 
 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 inter- 
 
AT DUBLIN. 61 
 
 ffoscd as a disqualification upon thy providence! Be- 
 hold, 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 constitutioiT professing 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 injustice. Who can tell how soon we may re- 
 quire 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-lhe nriost solid withering at a 
 word, and visions the most whimsical realized as a wisli; 
 crowns crumbled, discords confederated, kings become 
 vagabonds, and vagabonds made kings at the capricious 
 phrenzy of a village adventurer? Have we not seen the 
 whole political and moral world shaking as with an 
 earthquake, and shapes tlie most fantastic and formida- 
 ble and frightful heaved into life by the quiverings of 
 the convulsion? The storm has passed over us; England 
 has survived it; if she is wise, her present prosperity 
 will be but the handmaid to her justice; if she is pious, 
 the peril she has escaped will be but the herald of her 
 expiation. Thus much have I said in the way of argu- 
 1 ment to the enemies of your question. Let me offer a 
 4 humble opinion to its friends. The first and almost the 
 
6S SPEECH 
 
 sole request which an advocate would make to you is, 
 to remain united; rely on it, a divided assault can never 
 overcome a consolidated resistance. I allow that an 
 educated aristocracy are as ahead to the people, with- 
 out 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 pre- 
 judices; recollect that individual sacrifice 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 
 consider that a brow of suspicion is but a bad accom- 
 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 con- 
 cede where you cannot coi>quer; 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 Catholiq, I would never 
 make. You will perceive that I allude to any inter- 
 ference 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 in- 
 cestuous conspiracy between the altar and the throne^ 
 infidelity has achieved a more extended dominion thaw 
 
AT DUBLiy. 6.S 
 
 by all the sophisms of her philosophy, or all the terrors 
 of her persecution. 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 han^, the little perishable 
 puppet of this world's vanity makes Omnipotence a 
 menial to its power, and Eternity a pander to its profits. 
 Be not a party to it. As you have spurned the tempo- 
 ral interference of the Pope, resist the spiritual juris- 
 diction of the crown. As I do not think that you, on 
 the one hand, could surrender the patronage of your 
 religion to the King, without the most unconscientious 
 compromise, so, on the other hand, I do not think the 
 Iving could ever conscientiously receive it. Suppose he 
 receives it; if he exercises it for the advantage of your 
 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 religion of her 
 most ennobled patriots, it was the religion of the 
 wisdom that framed her constitution, 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 patchwork for every mountebank 
 who figured in the pantomine; wheu her Babel temple 
 
<54 SPEECH 
 
 rocked at every breath of her Priestleys wid her 
 Paynes, Ireland, proof against the menace of her power, 
 was proof also against the perilous impiety of her ex- 
 ample. 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 desert of antiquity, just in 
 its proportions, sublime in its associations, rich in the 
 virtue of its saints, cemented by the blood of its martyrs^ 
 pouring forth for ages the unbroken series of its venera- 
 ble hierarchy, and only the more magnificent from the 
 ruins by which it was surrounded. Oh I do not for any 
 temporal boon betray the great principles which are 
 to purchase you an eternity ! Here, from your very 
 sanctuary,— here, with my hand on the endangered 
 altars of your faith, in the name of that God, for the 
 freedom of whose worship we are so nobly struggling; 
 I conjure you, let no unholy hand profane the sacred 
 ark of your rehgion; 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 IN THE PRECEDING SPEECH, 
 DBAWJ^BY MR. PHILLIPS, 
 
 AT THE KEaXJEST OP 
 
 THE ROMAN' CATHOLICS OF IRELAND. 
 
 To the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingclo')n 
 of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled: 
 
 The humble Petition of the Roman Cathohcs of Ireland, 
 whose names are undersigned, on behalf of them- 
 selves, and others, professing the Roman Catholic 
 Religion, 
 
 SHEWETH, 
 
 That we, the Roman Catholic people of Ireland, 
 again approach the legislature with a statement of the 
 grievances under which we labour, and of which we 
 most respectfully, but at the same time most firmly, 
 solicit the effectual redress. Our wrongs are so notori- 
 ous, and so numerous, that their minute detail is quite 
 unnecessary, and would indeed be impossible, were it 
 deemed expedient. Ages of persecution on the one 
 hand, and of patience on the other, sufficiently attest 
 our sufferings and our submission. Privations have 
 been answered only by petition, indignities by re- 
 monstrance, injuries by forgiveness. It has been a 
 F3 
 
66 PETITION 
 
 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 meek- 
 ness 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 Liberty. 
 
 We approach, then, with confidence, an enlightened 
 legislature ; in the name of Nature, we ask our rights 
 as men; in the name of the Constitution, we ask onr 
 privileges as subjects; in the name of God, we ask the 
 sacred protectionofunpersecuted 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 \yere never corrupted, valour that never crouched. 
 Every hour of peril has proved our allegiance, and 
 every field of Europe exhibits its example. 
 
 We abjure all temporal authority, except that of our 
 Sovereign; we acknowledge no civil pre-eminence, 
 save that of our constitution ; and, for our lavish and 
 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 Cxsar the things 
 that are Caesar'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 aggrandisement: its hopes, its powers, and its 
 
PETITION. €7 
 
 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 annihilate the . 
 odious bondage which bows down the mental, physical, 
 and moral energies of Ireland; and, in the name of 
 that Gospel which breathes charity towards all, we 
 seek freedom of conscience for all the inhabitants of 
 the British empire. 
 
 May it therefore please this honourable House to 
 
 aboHsh all penal and disabling laws, which in any 
 
 manner infringe religious liberty, or restrict the free 
 
 enjoyment of the sacred rights of conscience, withia 
 
 hese realms. 
 
 And your petioners will ever pray. 
 
THE ADDRESS 
 
 TO 
 
 H. R. H. THE PRINCESS OF V/ALESr 
 
 BRAWN BY MR, PHILLIPS 
 
 AT THE REaUEST OF 
 
 THE ROMAN CATHOLICS OF IRELA^Jti^ 
 
 May it please Your Royal Highness, 
 
 We, the Roman Catholic people of Ireland, beg 
 leave to offer our unfeigned congratulations on your 
 providential escape from the conspiracy which so lately 
 endangered both your life and honour — a conspiracy, 
 unmanly in its motives, unnatural in its object, and un- 
 worthy 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 in- 
 hospitable baseness, which would betray the innocence 
 of a female in a land of strangers ! ! 
 
 Deem it not disrespectful, illustrious Lady, that from 
 
 
ADDRESS. 69 
 
 ^ people proverbially ardent in the cause of the de- 
 fenceless, the shout of virtuous congratulation 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 appre- 
 ciate the silence inflicted by suffering; and ours, alas, 
 feels but too acutely that the commisseration 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 consequences. 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 to the pang of being a 
 childless mother ! 
 
 But, if Madam, our hopes are not fulfilled; if, in- 
 deed the cry of an indignant and unanimous people is 
 disregarded; console yourself with the reflection, that, 
 though your exiled daughter may not hear the pre- 
 cepts of virtue from your lips, she may at least study 
 the practice of it in your example^ 
 
A SPEECH 
 
 DELIVERED BY MR. PHILLIPS 
 
 AT A PUBLIC DINXER GIVEN TO HIM BY THE 
 
 FRIEJ^DS OF CIVIL AJVD RELIGIOUS 
 LIBERTY 
 
 IN LIVERPOOL. 
 
 Believe me Mr. Chairman, I feel too sensibly the 
 high and unmerited compliment you have paid me, to 
 attempt any other return than the simple expression of 
 my graVitude; to be just, 1 must be silent; but though 
 the tongue is mute, my heart is much more than elo- 
 quent. The kindness of friendship, the testimony of 
 any class, however humble, carries with it no trifling 
 gratification ; but stranger as I am, to be so dis- 
 tinguished in this great city, whose wealth is its least 
 commendation; the emporium of commerce, liberality, 
 and public spirit; the birth-place of talent; the residency 
 of integrity ; the field where freedom seems to have 
 rallied the last allies of her pause, as if with the noble 
 consciousness that, though patriotism could not wreath 
 the laurel round her brow, genius should at least raise 
 it over her ashes; to be so distinguished, Sir, and in 
 such a place, does, I confess, inspire me with a vanity 
 which even a sense of my unimportance cannot eu- 
 
i SPEECH n 
 
 .itely silence. Indeed, Sir, the ministerial critics of 
 Liverpool were right. I have no claim to this enthusi- 
 astic 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 pretentionless 
 advocate has been treated, how the same wind that 
 wafts her the intelligence, will revive that flame within 
 I her, which the blood of ages has not been able to ex- 
 tinguish. It may be a delusive hope, but I am glad to 
 grasp at any phantom that flits across the solitude of 
 that country's desolation. On this subject you can 
 scarcely be ignorant, for you have an Irishman resident 
 amongst you, whom I am proud to call my friend; 
 whose fidelity to Ireland no absence can diminish; who 
 has at once the honesty to be candid, and the talent to 
 be convincing. I need scarcely say I allude to Mr. 
 Casey. I knew. Sir, the statue was too striking to re- 
 quire 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 deceive 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 rejoice ; because I am not 
 sure that the feehng which prompts the tear at human 
 sufferings, ought not to triumph in that increased in^ 
 flictions which may at length tire them out of en- 
 durance. I trust in God a change of system may in 
 time anticipate the result* ©f desperation; but you may 
 
72 SPEECH 
 
 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! Con- 
 template 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 desire; 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 intellectual, 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 uni- 
 versal bankruptcy that overwhelms her ; in the loss of 
 her trade; in the annihilation of her manufactures; in 
 the deluge of her debt; in the divisions of her people; 
 in all the loathsome operations of an odious, monopo- 
 lyzing, hypocritical fanaticism on the one hand, 
 wrestling with the untired but natural reprisals of an 
 irritated population on the other! it required no com- 
 mon ingenuity to reduce such a country to such a 
 situation. But it has been done; man has conquered the 
 beneficence of the Deityjhis 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 
 
AT UVERPOOL. 73 
 
 t!ie agonies of death, unable even to lift the shroud 
 iVith which famine and fatuity try to encumber her 
 convulsion. This is what I see a pensioned press de- 
 i^ominates tranquillity. Oh, wo to the land threatened 
 with such tranquillity; sclitudinem faciunt, pacem ap- 
 pellant; 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 terrified and breathless 
 expectation, go forth in such an hour, and see the terri- 
 ble tranquillity by which you are surrounded ! How- 
 could it be otherwise ; when for ages upon ages in- 
 vention 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 prohibited 
 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 adven- 
 turer 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 con- 
 fiscation; 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 recollections, can their 
 consequences be so readily eradicated. Why, however, 
 should I refer to periods that are so distant? Behold at 
 
74 SPEECH 
 
 this instant, five millions of hcF people disqualified on 
 account of their faith, and that by a country professing 
 freedom ! 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 yoii 
 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 41gerine; but your 
 ov/n brethren at home, who speak the same tongue, 
 acknowledge the same King, and kneel to the same 
 God, cannot get one visit from your itenerant humanity f 
 Oh, such a system is almost too abominable for a name; 
 it is a monster of impiety, impolicy, ingratitude, and 
 injustice! The pagan nations of antiquity, scarcely acted 
 on snch 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 em- 
 brace of brotherhood, and wisely converting the captive 
 into the citizen. Look to her great enemy, the glorious 
 Carthaginian, 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 I 
 They laid their foundations deep in the human heart,^ 
 and their success was proportionate to their policy. 
 You complain of the violence of the Irish Catholic: can 
 you wonder he is violent? It is the consequence ©f 
 your own infliction— 
 
AT LIVERPOOL. U 
 
 ^'The flesh will quiver where the pincers tear. 
 The blood will follow where the knife is driven." 
 
 Your friendship has been to him worse than hostihty; 
 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 derives no benefit, he shares your bur- 
 dens, he shares your perils, he shares every thing ex- 
 cept your privileges, can you wonder he is violent P No 
 matter what his merit, no matter what his claims, no 
 matter what his services; he sees himself a nominal sub- 
 ject, and a real slave; and his children, the heirs, per- 
 haps of his toils, pferhaps of his talents, certainly of his 
 disqualifications — can you tuoncler 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 asper- 
 sions on his faith disproved by his allegiance to you 
 against, alternately, every Catholic potentate in Christ- 
 endom, and he feels himself branded with hereditary 
 degredation — can you Huonder, then^ that he is violent? 
 He petitioned humbly ; his tameness was construed 
 into a proof of apathy. He petitioned boldly; his re- 
 monstrance was considered as an impudent audacity. 
 He petitioned in peace; he was told it was not the time. 
 He petioned in war, he was told it was not the time, 
 A strange interval, a prodigy in politics, a pause be- 
 tween peace and war, which appeared to be just made 
 for him, arose; I allude to the period between the re- 
 treat of Louis and the restoration of Bonaparte; ,he 
 petitioned then, and he was told it was not^the time. Oh, 
 
tS SPEECH 
 
 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 remedy for the grievances of 
 both countries, and that remedy is, a Reform of that 
 Pareiamejct. Without that, I plainly see, there is no 
 hope for Ireland, there is no salvation for England ; 
 they will act towards you as they have done towards us; 
 they will admit your reasoning, they will admire your 
 eloquence, and they will prove their sincerity by a 
 strict perseverance in the impolicy you have exposed, 
 and the profligacy you have deprecated. Look to 
 England at this moment. To what a state have they not 
 reduced her ! Over this vast island, for whose wealth 
 the winds of Heaven seemed to blow, covered as she 
 once was with the gorgeous mantle of successful 
 agriculture, all studded over with the gems of art and 
 manufacture, 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 with- 
 out 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 sinfxurists, in short, the 
 whole trained, collared, pampered, and rapacious pack 
 of ministerial 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 employed? 
 Why, in feeding the bloated mammoth of sinecure! in 
 weighing the farthings of some underling's salary! in 
 preparing Ireland for a garrison, and England for a 
 poor-house! in the structure of Chinese palaces! th^ 
 
 I 
 
AT LIVERPOOL, %7 
 
 ! 
 
 decoration of dragoons, and the erection of public 
 j buildings!! ! Oh;, it's easily seen we have a saint in the 
 Exchequer! he has studied Scripture to some pur- 
 pose! the famishing people cry out for breads and 
 the scriptural minister gives Xh^nx atones i Such has been 
 the result of the blessed Pitt system, which amid 
 oceans of blood, and eight hundred millions expendi- 
 ture, 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, de- 
 vastated by famine, wasted by fire, overcome by ene- 
 mies; but never until now did I see a state lilce England, 
 impoverished by her spoils, and conquered by her suc- 
 cesses ! 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 
 hy sea, she has conquered by land; she iias 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 desola- 
 tion, Hke one of the pyramids of Egypt ; amid the 
 grandeur of the desert, full of magnificence and death, 
 at once a trophy and a tomb! The heart of any re- 
 flecting man must burn within him, when he thinks 
 that the war thus sanguinary in its operations, and 
 I confessedly ruinous in its expenditure, \vas even still 
 j more odious in its principle ! It was a war avowedly 
 j undertaken for the purpose of forcing France out of 
 i her undoubted right of choosing her own monarch; a 
 I war which uprooted the very foundation of the English 
 ! constitution ; which libelled the most glorious era irj 
 G2 
 
rS SPEECH 
 
 our national annals ; which declared tyranny eternal, 
 and announced to the people, amid the thunder of artil- 
 lery, 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 1688, his triumph was trea- 
 son, and exhibited to history, the terrific farce of a; 
 Prince of the House of Brunswick, the creature of the 
 Revolution, offerixg a humax hecatomb upon the 
 GBAVE OF James the Second ! ! What else have you 
 done? You have succeeded indeed in dethroning Napo- 
 leon, 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; I do not seek to 
 palliate them. He deserted his principles; 1 rejoice that 
 he has suffered. But still let us be generous even in 
 our enmities. How grand was his march! Hov/ magnifi- 
 cent his destiny! Say what we will, Sir, he will be the 
 landmark 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 con- 
 tinued elevations.'* Surpassing the boast of the too con- 
 fident 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 pro- 
 duce, started up, the creation of enchantment., He has 
 fallen— ^ns the late Mr. Whitebread said, " you made 
 him and he unmade himself "—his own ambition was 
 liis glorious conqueror. He attempted, with a sublime 
 audacity, to grasp the fires of Heaven, and his heathen 
 
AT LIVERPOOL. 79 
 
 i^etfibiition 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? 
 Has anyone improvement in politics or philosophy been 
 produced ? Let us see how. You have restored 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 
 arse to be combated by foreign bayonets, and fled 
 vith a dastard precipitation to the shameful security of 
 1 distant hemisphere ! You have restored to Spain a 
 wretch of even worse jthan proverbial princely in- 
 gratitude ; who filled his dungeons, and fed his rack 
 with the heroic remnant that braved war, and famine, 
 and massacre beneath his banners ; vvho rewarded 
 patriotism with the prison, fidehty with the torture, 
 heroism with the scaffold, and piety with the Inquisi- 
 tion; whose royalty was published by the signature of 
 his death warrants, and whose religion evaporated in 
 the €7ixbr Older in g of petticoats for the Blessed Virgin! You 
 have forced upoa France a iamily 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 them, 
 selves, discontent amongst their followers; their memo- 
 ries 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 sub^ 
 
80 SPEECH 
 
 jugation of their people ! Such are the dynasties you 
 have conferred on Europe. In the very act, that of en- 
 throning three individuals of the same family, you have 
 committed in politics a capital error ; but Providence 
 has countermined tlie ruin you were preparing ; and 
 whilst the impolicy presents the chance, their im- 
 potency precludes the danger of a coalition. As to the 
 rest of Europe, how has it been anjeliorated ? 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 Genoa, look to Norway, but, aSove 
 all, look to Poland ! that speaking monument of regsfl 
 mUrder and legitimate robbery — 
 
 Oh! bloodiest picture in the book of time — 
 Sarmatia fell— unwept — without a crime! 
 
 Here was an opportunity to recompense that brave, 
 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 retribution of another! Look to Italy; 
 parcelled out to temporizing Austria — the land of the 
 muse, the historian, and the hero ; the scene of every 
 calassic 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 inspiring pil* , 
 
AT LIVERPOOL. Sj 
 
 gnmage of some kindred Roscoe. You do yourselves 
 honour by this noble, this natural enthusiasm. Lonjj 
 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 dehght 
 for ever. How painful our transition to the disgusting 
 path of the deliverers. Look to Prussia, after fruitless 
 toil and wreathless triumphs, mocked with the promise 
 of a visionary constitution. Look to France, chained 
 and plundered 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, sup- 
 porting 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 Commons, ninety 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-estabhshment ! Shades of heroic miUions these are 
 thy achievements ! Mois^ster or Legitimacy, this is thy 
 consummation ! ! ! The past is out of power; it is high 
 time to provide against the future. Retrenchment and 
 reform are now become not only expedient for our 
 prosperity, but 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 un- 
 merited and enormous sinecure of some wealtUv 
 
82 SPEECH 
 
 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 
 Whigism 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 
 questions which I blush to ask, which I shudder to think 
 must be either answered by ihe parliament or the 
 people. Let our rulers prudently avert the interroga- 
 tion. We live in times when the slightest remonstrance 
 should command attention, 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 portentous ad- 
 monition. Establishments the most solid, thrones the 
 most ancient, coalitions the most powerful, Jiave 
 crumbled before our eyes ; and the creature of a 
 moment robed, and crowned, and sceptred, raised his 
 fairy creation on their ruins! The warning has been 
 given; may it not have been given in vain! 
 
 I feel. Sir, that the magnitude of the topics I have 
 touched, and the imminency of the perils which seem 
 to surround us, have led me far beyond the limits of a 
 convivial meeting. I see I have my apology in your 
 indulgence— but I cannot prevail on myself to trespass 
 farther. Accept, again, Gentlemen, my most grateful 
 acknowledgments. Never, never, can 1 forget this day ; 
 in private 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 
 
AT LIVERPOOL. 83 
 
 should hereafter be called to any station of responsibi- 
 lity, I think, I may at least fearlessly promise the 
 friends who thus crowd around me, that no act of mine 
 shall ever raise a blush at the recollection of their early 
 encouragement. I hope, however, the benefit of this 
 day will not be confined 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 ignorance, or corruption, may depreciate them^ 
 there is a reward in store for the man who thinks with 
 integrity and acts with decision. Gentleman, you will 
 add to the obligations you have already conferred, by 
 delegating to me the honour of proposing to you the 
 health of a man, whose virtues adorn, and whose ta- 
 lents powerfully advocate our cause: I mean the 
 health of yoar worthy Chairman, Mr. Shepherd. 
 
SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 MR. PHILLIPS 
 
 IN THE CASE OF .GUTHRIE v. STERNE, 
 
 DELIVERED IN 
 
 THE COURT OF COMMOJ^T PLEAS, DUJBLIJV. 
 
 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 efricient colleagues, to detail to you the story of 
 his misfortunes. In the course of a long friendship 
 wliich has existed between us, originating in mutual | 
 pursuits, and cemented by our mutual attachments, 
 )iever, until this instant, did I feel any thing but plea- 
 sure 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 cannot help being 
 pained at the kindness of a partiality which forgets its 
 interest in the exercise of its affection, and confides the 
 task of practised wisdom to the uncertain guidance of 
 3'outh and inexperience. He has thought, perhaps, 
 that truth needed no set phrase of speech ; that mis-. 
 
SPEECH m 
 
 fortune should not veil the furrows which its tears had 
 burned ; or hide, under the decorations of an artful 
 drapery, the heart-rent heavings with which its bosom 
 throbbed. He has surely thought that by contrasting 
 mine with the powerful talents selected by his an- 
 tagonist, he was giving you a proof that the appeal he 
 made was to your reason, TK)t to your feelings— to the 
 integrity of your hearts, not the exasperation of your 
 passions. Happily, however, for him, happily for yoUj 
 happily for the country, happily for the profession, on 
 subjects 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 beneath an 
 Irish climate. We hear of them, indeed, as we do ol" 
 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 cf 
 innocence, or an involuntary thanksgiving to the Provi- 
 dence that has preserved us. No matter how we may 
 have graduated in the scale of nations; no matter with 
 what wreath we may have been adorned, or what bles- 
 sings we may have been denied; no matter what may 
 have been our feuds, our folhes, 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 indis- 
 putable deities of our household! around the fire side of 
 the Irish hovel, hospitality circumscribed its sacred cir- 
 cle; 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 revered the nuptial coii» 
 H 
 
S6 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 tract. She saw it the gift of Heaven, the charm of earth, 
 the joy of the present, the promise of the future, 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 invaded; that venerable 
 divinity has been violated; and its tenderest pledges 
 torn from their shrine, by the polluted rapine of a 
 kindless, heartless, prayerless, remorseless adulterer! 
 To you — religion 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 thera 
 with as much mercy as justice will admit. 
 
 The PlaintiiFin this case is John Guthrie; by birth, 
 by education, by profession, by better than all, by prac- 
 tice and by principles, 2i gentleman. Believe me, it is not 
 from the common-place of advocacy, or from the bhnd 
 partiality of friendship, that I say of him, that whether 
 considering the virtues that adorn life, or the blandish- 
 ments that endear it, he has few superiors. Surely, if a 
 spirit that disdains dishonour, if a heart that knew not 
 l^uile, if a life above reproach, and a character beyond 
 suspicion, could have been a security against misfor- 
 tunes, his lot must have been happiness. I speak in the 
 presence of that profession to which he was an orna. 
 ment, 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 
 
GUTHRIE V. STERNE. %7 
 
 CMT Ihs public station, as a man or as a lawyer, there 
 never breathed that being" less capable of exciting" 
 enmity towards himself, or of offering, even by impli* 
 cation, 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 
 ivhicli must have one day led him to eminence, he be- 
 came a member of the profession by wliich I am 
 surrounded. Possessing, as he did, a moderate inde- 
 pendence, and looking forward to the most flattering 
 prospects, it was natural for him to select amongst the 
 other sex, some friend who should adorn his fortunes, 
 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 solicitor. 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 sanctuary; the graces of her mind 
 retained the admiration 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 adoring husband 
 anticipated all the joys this world could give him; no 
 wonder that the parental eye, which beamed upon 
 their union, saw, in the perspective, an old age of 
 happiness, and a posterity of honour. Methinks I see 
 them at the sacred altar, joining those hands which 
 
i,8 SPEFXH m THE Cx\SE OF 
 
 Heaven commanded none should separate, repaid tor 
 many a pang^ of anxious nurture by the sweet smile of 
 filial piety; and in tlie holy rapture of tlie rite, worship- 
 pini;^ the power that blessed their cliildren, and gave 
 them hope their names should live hereafter. It was 
 virtue^s vision! None but fiends could envy it. Year 
 after year confirmed the anticipation; four lovely 
 children blessed their union. Nor was their love tlie 
 summer passion of prosperity; misfortune proved, afflic- 
 tions chastened it; before the mandate of that mysteri- 
 ous Power, which will at times despoil the paths of 
 innocence, to decorate the chariot of triumphant 
 villany, my client had to bow in silent resrgnalion. He 
 owed his adversity to the benevolence of his spirit; he 
 *« went security for fridndsj" those friends deceived 
 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 embarrassment. 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 occurrence, in a state of un- 
 interrupted happiness. You shall hear, most satisfacto- 
 rily, that their domestic life was unsullied and undis. 
 turbed. Happy at home, happy in a husband's love, 
 happy in her parents' 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 
 eonrted— that cheerfulness which never was a com*. 
 
GUIHRIE V. S lERNE, 89 
 
 panion 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 happi- 
 ness. His ambition awoke, his industry redoubled; and 
 that fortune, which though for a season it may frown, 
 never totally abandons probity and virtue, had began 
 to smile on liim. He was beginning to rise in the ranks 
 of his competitors, and rising with sach a character, 
 that emulation itself rather rejoiced than envied. It 
 was at this crisis, in this, the noon of his happiness, 
 and day-spring of his fortune, that, to the ruin of both, 
 the Defendant became acquainted with his family. 
 With the serpent's wile, and the serpent's wickedness, 
 he stole into the Eden of domestic life, poisoning all 
 that was pure, polluting all that was lovely, defying 
 God, destroying man; a demon in disguise of virtue, a 
 herald of hell in the paradise of innocence. His name. 
 Gentlemen, is \Viluam Peter Bakeii DuifsxANviLiii 
 Sterne; one would tliinkhe had epithets enough, with- 
 out adding to them the title oi' Multerer, Of his charac- 
 ter I know but little, and I am sorry that I know so 
 much. If I am instructed rightly, he is one of those 
 vain and vapid coxcombs, whose vices tinge the frivolity 
 of their follies with something of a more odious charac* 
 ter 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 
 tlieir 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 
 H2 
 
90 SPEECH fN THE CASE OP 
 
 resident in Temple-street, and a near relative of Mr^ 
 Guthrie, that the defendant and this unfortunate woman 
 first became acquainted: to such an introduction the 
 shadow of a suspicion could not possibly attach. Occu» 
 pied himself in his professional pursuits, my client had 
 little leisure for the amusement of society; however, to 
 the protection uf 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 
 jnan to whom such a female as Mrs. Fallon permitted an 
 intimacy with her daughters; while at her house then, 
 and at tlie parties which it originated, the defendant and 
 Mrs. Guthrie had frequent opportunities of meeting. 
 Who could have suspected, that, under the very roof of 
 virtue, in the presence of a venerable and respected 
 matron, and of that innocent family, whom she had 
 reared up in the sunshine of her example, the most 
 abandoned profligate could have plotted his iniquities! 
 Who would not rather suppose, that, in the rebuke of 
 such a presence, guilt would have torn away the gar- 
 land from its brow, and blushed itself into virtue. But 
 the depravity of this man was of no common dye; the 
 asylum of innocence was selected only as the sanctuary 
 of his crimes; and the pure and the spotless chosen as 
 his associates, because they would be more unsuspected 
 subsidiaries to his wickedness. Nor were his manner 
 and his language less suited than his society to the con- 
 cealment of his objects. If you believed himself, the 
 sight of suffering affected his nerves; the bare mention 
 of immorality smote upon his conscience; an inter- 
 course with the continental courts had refined his mind 
 
GUTHRIE V, STERNE. M 
 
 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 resi- 
 dence, that he was a hapless victim to the excess of his 
 feelings! — 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 re- 
 tained in Ireland only a trifling 3000/. more, as a kind 
 of trust for the necessities of its inhabitants! — In short, 
 according to his own description, he was in religion a 
 saint, and in morals a stoic— a sort of wandering phi- 
 lanthropist! making, like the Sterne, who, he confessed, 
 had the honour of his name and his connection, 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 profligate 
 only retaining the vices and the name, his rashness has 
 led to the arrest of crimes, which he had all his turpi, 
 tude to commit, without any of his talents to embellish. 
 It was by arts such as I have alluded to — by pre- 
 *tending the most strict morality, the most sensitive 
 honour, the most high and undeviating principles of 
 virtue, — that the defendant banished every suspicion of 
 his designs. As far as appearances went, he was exactly 
 what he described himself. His pretentions to morals 
 he supported by the most reserved and respectful 
 behaviour: his hand was lavish in the distribution of his 
 chtiTities; and a splendid equipage, a numerous retinue, 
 a system of the most profuse and prodigal expenditure, 
 left no doubt as to tlie reahty of his fortune. Thus 
 circumstanced he found an easy admittance to the 
 lioiLse of Mrs. Fallon, and there he had many oppor- 
 
92 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 tunities of seeing Mrs. Guthrie; for, between his famitj 
 and that of so respectable a relative as Mrs. Fallon, my 
 client had much anxiety to increase the connection. 
 They visited together some of the public amusenlents; 
 they partook of some of the fetes in 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 everj occasion: and I challenge them to produce 
 one single instance of those innocent excursions, upon 
 which the slanders of an interested calumny have been 
 let loose, in which this unfortunate lady jvas not 
 matronized by her female relatives, and those some of 
 the most spotless characters in society. Between Mr. 
 Guthrie and the defendant, the acquaintance was but 
 slight. Upon one occasion alone they dined togethef; 
 it was at the house of the plaintiff's father-in-law; and, 
 that you may have some illustration of the defendant's 
 character, I shall briefly instance liis 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 occupied in 
 arranging the affairs of his lamented father, who, 
 though tenant for life, had contracted debts to an enor- 
 mouS^ 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 unjustly by his family ! His subsequent conduct 
 was quite consistent with this hypocritical preamble: at 
 dinner, he sat at a distance from Mrs. Guthrie; expati- 
 uted to her husband upon matters of morality; entering 
 ijuo a high-flown panegyric on the virtues of domestic 
 
GUTHRIE V. STERNE. 93 
 
 life, and the comforts of connubial happiness. In short, 
 had there been any idea of jealousy, his manner would 
 have banislied it ; and the mind must have been worse 
 than sceptical, which would refuse its credence to his 
 surface morality. Gracious God ! when the heart once 
 admits guilt as its associate, how every natural emotion 
 flies before it! Surely, surely, here was a scene to re- 
 claim, if it were possible, this remorseless defendant, — 
 admitted to her father's table under the shield of hospi- 
 tality, he saw a young and lovely female surrounded by 
 her parents, 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, un- 
 cheered, 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 manliood 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 medi- 
 tate coolly on the murder of such enjoyments; which 
 innocence could not soften, nor peace propitiate, nor 
 hospitality oppease; but v/hich, in the very beam and 
 bosom of its benefaction, vvarmed and excited itself into 
 », more vigorous venom ? Was there no sympathy in 
 
1^4 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 the scene? Was there no remorse at the crime? Was 
 there no horror at its consequences? 
 
 **Were honour, virtue, conscience, all exil'd! 
 Was there no pity, no relenting" ruth. 
 To show their parents fondling* o'er their child. 
 Then paint the ruin'd pair, and their distraction wild!'* 
 
 BuRirs, , 
 
 Ko! no! He was at that instant planning their destruc- 
 tion; and, even within four short daj's, he deliberately 
 reduced those parents to childishness, that husband to 
 widowhood, those smiling infants to anticipate orphan- 
 age, and that peaceful, hospitable, confiding family, to 
 helpless, hopeless, irremediable ruin! 
 
 Upon the first day of the ensuing July, Mr. Guthrie 
 was to dine with the Connaught bar, at the hotel of 
 Portobello. It is a custom, I am told, with the gentle- 
 men 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 requested 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 husband had for sus» 
 picion, and how impossible it was for him to foresee a 
 perfidy which nothing short of fnfatuation tould have 
 
GUTHRIE V. STERNE. §5 
 
 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 plea- 
 sure, he returned hom^e to share his happiuess with 
 her, without whom no happiness ever had been perfect. 
 Alas ! he was never to behold her nfiore ! Imagine, if 
 you can, the phrenzy of his astonishment, in being in- 
 formed by Mrs. Porter, tl;ie 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 recognized 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 giailty 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 dis- 
 cover guilt's recesses. In vain did he awake the peace- 
 ful 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, aflfrighting virtue from its slumber with 
 the spectre of its own ruin. I will not harrow you with 
 
96 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 its heart-rending recital. But imagine you see him, 
 when the day had dawned, returning wretched to his 
 deserted dwelling; seeing in every chamber a memorial 
 of his loss, and hearing every tongueless object elo- 
 quent 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 ask'mg hinifor their mother/ — Gentle- 
 men, this is not a picture of the fancy; it literally 
 occurred : there is something less of romance in the 
 reflection, which his children awakened in the mind of 
 their afflicted father; he ordered that they should be 
 immediately habited in mourning. How rational some- 
 times are the ravings of insanity! For all the purposes 
 of maternal life, poor innocents! they have no mother! 
 her tongue no more can teach, her hand no more can 
 tend them; for them there is not " speculation in her 
 eyes;" to them her hfe is something worse than death; 
 as if the awful grave had yawned her forth, she moves 
 before them shrowded all in sin, the guilty burden of 
 its peaceless sepulchre. Better, far better, their httle 
 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 
 their sorrow. 
 
 As soon as his reason became sufficiently collected^ 
 Mr. Guthrie pursued the fugitives; he traced them suc- 
 cessively to Kiidare, to Carlow, Waterford, Milford- 
 haven, on through Wales, and finally to lifracombe, in 
 Devonshire, where the clue was lost. I am ghid that, 
 in this route and restlessness of their guilt, as the crime 
 they perpetrated was foreign to our soil, they did noi 
 
GUTHRIE V. STERNE. W 
 
 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 ac- 
 cursed tour promulgates. Oh ! if there be a maid or 
 matron in this island, balancing between the alternative- 
 of virtue and crime, trembling between the hell of the 
 seducer and the adulterer, and the heaven of the pa- 
 rental and the nuptial home, let her pause upon this 
 one, out of the many horrors I could depict, — and be 
 converted. I will give you the relation in tlxe very 
 words of my brief; I cannot improve upon the sim- 
 plicity of the recital: 
 
 *• On the 7i\\ of July they arrived at Milford; the cap- 
 tain 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 house- 
 maid, passing near their chamber heard Mr. Sterne 
 scolding f 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 
 sopha, she exclaimed Oh! what an unhappy ivrefch lam! 
 — / left my home ivhere I was happy, too happy ^ seduced 
 by a man -who has deceived me. — My poor husband! uny 
 dear children! Oh! if they HJoould even let m.y little Wil- 
 xiAM live ivith me! -'it roould be some consolation to my 
 
 BHOKEN heart! 
 
 " Alas! nor children more can she behold, 
 Nor friends, nor sacred home," 
 I 
 
$8 SPEECH m THE CASE OF 
 
 Well might she lament over her fallen fortunes! well 
 might she mourn over the memory of days when the sun 
 of heaven seemed to rise but for her happiness! well 
 might she recall the home she had endeared, the chil- 
 dren she had nursed, the hapless husband, of whose 
 Jife she was the pulse! But one short week before, this 
 earth could not reveal a lovelier vision: — Virtue 
 blessed, affection followed, beauty beaaied on her; the 
 the light of every eye, the charm of every heart, she 
 moved along the cloudless chastity, cheered by the 
 song of love, and circled by the splendours she created! 
 Behold her now, the loathsome refuse of an adulterous 
 bed; festering in the very infection of her crime; the 
 scoff and scorn of their unmanly, merciless, inhuman 
 author! But thus it ever is with the votaries of guilt; 
 the birth of their crime is the death of their enjoyment; 
 and the wretch who flings his offering on its altar, 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 pre- 
 mature infliction must ensure repentance in the 
 wretched sufferer; and next, because, as* this adulte- 
 rous 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 sjmpathies of humanity. — Why should he expect 
 til at charity from you, which he would not spare even 
 to the misfortunes he had Inflicted.? For the honour of 
 the form in which he is disguised, I am willing to hope 
 he was so blinded by his vice, that he did not see the 
 full extent of those misfortunes. If he had feelings* 
 
GUTHRIE V. STERNE. 99 
 
 capable of being touched, it is not to the fjided victim 
 of her own weakness, and of his wickedness, that J 
 wonld direct theiif. There is something in her crime 
 which affrights charity from its commiseration. 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 hus- 
 band fond, it was that husband. His hope, his joy, his 
 ambition was domestic; his toils were forgotten in the 
 affections of his home; and amid every adverse variety 
 yf 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: hi§ heart is bro- 
 ken, his mind is in ruins; his very form is fading 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 pros- 
 pects 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 contemplate this, 1 do not 
 wonder at the impression it has produced on him; I do 
 not wonder at the faded form, the dejected air, the 
 emaciated countenance, and all *tlie ruinous mil 
 
iOO SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 mouldering trophies, by which misery has marked its i 
 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 affiiction; 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 
 has found a charm; whose smile has cheered his toil, 
 whose love has pillowed his misfortunes, whose angel- 
 spirit, guiding him through danger, and darkness, and 
 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, nol 
 I feel that I address myself to human beirfigs, who, 
 knowing the value of what the world is worth, are 
 capable of appreciating all that makes it dear to us. 
 
 Observe, however, — lest this crime should want ag- 
 gravation — observe, 1 beseech you, the /enoc? of its ac- 
 complishment. My client was not so young as that the 
 elasticity of his spirit could rebound and bear him above 
 the pressure of the misfortune, nor was he withered by 
 age into a comparative insensibility; but just at that 
 temperate interval of manhood, when passion had 
 ceased to play, and reason begins to operate; when 
 love, gratified, left liiim nothing to desire; and fidelity* 
 
GUTHRIE V. STERNE. 101 
 
 long tried, left him nothing- to apprehend: he was just 
 too, at that period of his professional career, when, his 
 patient industry having* conquered 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 
 dulness, 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 cradle of his young 
 ambition, might have sought to crush him in its en- 
 venomed foldings, 
 
 " Ah! who can tell how hard it is to climb 
 
 The steep where Fame's proud temple shines afir? 
 
 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 paHiated. Let us see how. Perhaps the defendant 
 was young and thoughtless; perhaps unmerited pros- 
 perity raised him above the pressure of misfortune, and 
 the wil4 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 recesses of 
 a debtor's prison, made him familiar with every form of 
 12 
 
102 SPEECH IN THE CASE OP 
 
 human misery: he saw what misfortune 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 calender of his seduction. Certain it is, 
 he has little children, who think themselves legitimate; 
 will liis 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 
 celebrated case of Howard, immortalized by Lord 
 Erskine, may have found its origin in parental cruelty; 
 it might perhaps have been that in their spring of life, 
 when fancy waved her fairy wand around them, till all 
 above was sun-shine, and all beneath was flowers; when 
 to their clear and charmed vision this ample world was 
 but a weedless garden, where every tint spoke 
 Nature's loveliness, 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 itseU" 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 herseUj with 
 her uplifted sword, would call on Mercy to preserve 
 the victim. There was no such palliation: — the period. 
 
GUTHRIE V. STERNE. 103 
 
 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 seduction. Will they dare to assert it? Ah! too well 
 they know 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 pallia- 
 tion; 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 com- 
 mission 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 poisons upon 
 the 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 I have been de- 
 ceived 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 ia 
 the zenith of an enlightened age, that 1 am to be told, 
 because female tenderness was not watched with 
 worse than Spanish vigilance, and iiarrassed with v/orse 
 than eastern severity; because the marriage-contractis 
 not converted into the curse of incarceration; because 
 woman is allowed the dignity of a human soul, and man 
 does not degrade himself into a human monster; be- 
 cause 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, wh^re the female form has 
 
104 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 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 "mon- 
 strous, foul, and unnatural." Suppose that the plaintiff 
 pursued a different pi^nciple; suppose, that his conduct 
 had been the reverse of what it was; suppose, that in 
 place of being kind, he had been cruel to this deluded 
 female; that h,e had been her tyrant, not her protector; 
 her jailor, not her Imsband: what then might have been 
 the defence of the adulterer? Might he not then say, 
 and say with speciousness, " True, I seduced her into 
 crime, but it was to save her from cruelty; true, she is 
 my aduitress, because he was her despotP Happily, 
 Gentlemen, he can say no such thing.. 1 have heard it 
 said, too, during the ten months of calumny, for which, 
 by every species of legal delay, they have procrasti- 
 iiated this trial, that, next to the impeachment of the 
 Imsdand's tenderness, they mean to rely on what they j 
 libel as the levity of their unhappy victim! I know not , 
 by what right any man, but above all, a married man, j 
 presumes to scrutinize into the conduct of a married 
 female. I know not, Gentlemen, how you would feel,| 
 under the consciousness that every coxcomb was at| 
 liberty to estimate the warmth, or the coolness of your 
 wives, by the barometer of his vanity, that he might 
 uscertaiii 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 
 
 I 
 
GUTHRIE V. STERNE, 105 
 
 me. Poor — unfortunate — fallen female! How c^n she 
 expect mercy from her destroyer? How cun she expect 
 that he will revere the character he was careless of 
 preserving ? How can she suppose that, after having 
 made her peace the pander of 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 unprece- 
 dented in this country, is clothed in every aggravation, 
 and robbed of every palUative, it is natural you should 
 inquire, what w^as 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 was, Gentlemen? */2m^/V/on/ But a few days before 
 this criminality, in answer to a friend, who rebuked him 
 for the almost princely expenditure of his habits, "Oh," 
 says he, "never mind; Si erne must do something by 
 which Slerne may be knoiJonP' 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 with all so splendid, that 
 even the horrors of that fall became immerged and 
 mitigated in the beauties of that aberration! But here 
 is an ambition! — base and barbarous and illegitimate; 
 with all the grossness of the vice, with none of the 
 l^randeur of the virtue; a mean, muffled, dastard in- 
 
iOe SPJIECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 cendiary, who, in the silence of sleep, and in the shades 
 of midnight, steals his Ephesian torch into the fane, 
 ■which it was virtue to adore, and worse than sacrilege 
 to have violated! 
 
 Gentlemen, my part is done; yours is about to com- 
 mence. You have heard this crime— its origin, its pro, 
 gress, its aggravations, its novelty among us. Go and 
 tell your children and your country, whether or not it is 
 to be made a precedent. Oh, how awful is your respon- 
 sibility ! I do not doubt that you will discharge your- 
 selves 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 
 juricprudence, which leaves the perpetrators of such 
 an injury as this, subject to no amercement but that of 
 money. I think you will lament the failure of the great 
 Cicero of our age, to bring such an offence within thf 
 cognizance of a criminal jurisdiction: it was a subject 
 suited to his legislative mind, worthy of his feeling 
 heart, worthy of his immortal eloquence. I cannot, my 
 Lord, even remotely allude to Lord ErsUne, 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 unques- 
 tionable conviction. I think. Gentlemen, you will regret 
 the failure of such a man in such an object. The merci- 
 less murderer may have manUness to plead; the high- 
 way robber may have want to palliate; yet they both 
 are objects of criminal infliction: but the murderer of 
 
GUTHRIE V. STERNE. 10? 
 
 Connubial bliss, who commits his crime in secrecy;— the 
 tobber of domestic joys, whose very wealth, as in this 
 case, may be' his instrviment;— he is suffered to calculate 
 on the infernal fame which a superfluous and unfelt 
 expenditurn may purchase. The law, however, is so: 
 and we must only adopt the remedy it affords us. In 
 our 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 recompense 
 my client for the forfeiture of her who was dearer than 
 life to him ? 
 
 " Oh, had she been but true. 
 Though heaven had made him such another worlds 
 Of one entire and perfect chrysolite 
 He'd not exchange. her for it!" 
 
 I put it to any of you, what would you take to stand 
 in his situation? What would you take to have your 
 prospects blasted, your profession despoiled, your peace 
 l-uined, 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 the earth. Oh, I know I need 
 not ask this verdict from your mercy; I need not extort 
 it from your compassion; I will reaeive it from your 
 
108 SPEECH IN THE CASE OP 
 
 justice. I do conjure you, not as fathers, but as hus- 
 bands; — not as husbands, but as citizens; — not as citi- 
 zens, but as men;— not as men, but as Christians; — 
 by all your obligations, public, private, morale and 
 religious; by the hearth profaned; by the home de- 
 solated; by the canons of the living God foully spurned; 
 -—save oh ! save your fire-sides from the contagion, 
 your country from the cringe, and perhaps thousands, 
 yet unborn, from the shame, and sin, and sorrow of 
 this exaihple! 
 
SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 MR. PHILLIPS 
 
 IN THE CASE OF O'MULLAN v. M'KORKILL. 
 
 DELIVERED IN 
 THE COUNTY COURT-HOUSE, GJ.LWAY, 
 
 My Lords and Gentlemen, 
 
 I AM instructed, as of counsel for tlie PiaintiiT, 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 embarra^^ent. Feebly, indeed, can I 
 attempt to convey to you, the feehngs with which a 
 perusal of this brief has affected me; painful to you 
 must be my enefficient transcript—painful to all who 
 have the common feehngs of country or of kind, must 
 be this calamitous compendium of all that degrades our 
 individual 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 profession^ 
 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 viee, or 
 K 
 
110 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 no disgusting phantom of infirmity, which guilt doe;& 
 not array in spectral train before us. Horrible is the 
 assemblage! humiliating the application! but thank God, 
 even amid those very scenes of disgrace and of de- 
 basement, occasions oft arise for the redemption of our 
 dignity; occasions, on vi^hich 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 recognise such an occasion; gladly do I 
 invoke you to the generous participation; yes. Gentle- 
 men, though you must prepare to hear much that de- 
 grades our nature, much that distracts our country — 
 though all that oppression could devise against 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 alternate 
 apparition afflict, affright, and humiliate you, still do I 
 hope, that over the charneWiouse 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 yictim will arise to 
 vindicate the ways of Providence, and prove that even 
 in its worst adversity 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 September, 1804. It is a title 
 which you know, in this country, no rank ennobles, no 
 treasure enriches, no establishment supports; its pos» 
 
0*MULLAN y. M'KORKILL. Ill 
 
 sessor stands undisguised by any rag of this world's 
 decoration, resting all temporal, all eternal hope upon 
 his toil, his talents, his attainments, and iiis piety — 
 doubtless, after all, the highest honours, as well as the 
 most imperishable treasures of the man of God, Year 
 after year passed over my client, and each anniversary 
 only gave him an additional title to these qualifications. 
 His precept was but the handmaid to his practice; the 
 sceptic heard him, and was convinced; 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 
 declamation; such was the result his ministry produced, 
 that within five years from the date of its commence- 
 ment, 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 contest for the representation of 
 Derry, threw that county into unusual commotion. One 
 of the candidates was of the Ponsonby family— a family- 
 devoted to the interests, and dear to the heart of 
 Ireland; he naturally thought that his parliamentary 
 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 preferred the diffusion of the 
 Gospel to the ascendancy of a sect, and loved the 
 principles of the constitution better than the pretensions 
 of a party. Perhaps you will think with me, that there 
 IS a sort of posthumous interest thrown about that event. 
 
112 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 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 the world's chivalry, died con- 
 quering a deathless name upon the field of Waterloo. 
 He applied to Mr. O'Mullan for his interest, and that 
 interest was cheerfully given, the concurrence of his 
 bishop having been previously obtained. Mr. Ponsonby 
 succeeded; and a dinner, to which all parties were in- 
 vited, and from which all party spirit was expected to . 
 absent itself, was given to commemorate one common 
 triumph — the purity and the privileges of election. In 
 other countries, such an expectation might be natural; 
 the exercise of a noble constitutional privilege, the tri- 
 umph of a great popular cause, might not unaptly ex- 
 pand itself in the intercourse of the board, and unite all 
 hearts in the natural bond of festive commemoration. 
 But, alas, Gentlemen, in this unhappy land, such has 
 been the result, whether of our faults, our folHes, or 
 our misfortunes, that a detestable disunion converts the 
 very balm of the bowl into poison, commissioning its 
 vile and hurpy offspring, to turn even our festivity into 
 famine. My client was at this dinner; it was not to be 
 endured thata Catholic should pollute with his presence 
 the civic 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 merhory of 
 the great and good King William." J have no doubt 
 
OWIULLAN V. M'KORKILL. 113 
 
 i^^lmplicity 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 Bacchanalian 
 bigots wish to avert the intrusive visitations of their 
 own memory, they commence by violating the me- 
 mory of King William.* Those who happen to have 
 shoes or silver in their fraternity — no very usual oc- 
 currence — thank His Majesty that the shoes are not 
 woodei}, and that the silver is not brass, a commodit}^, 
 by tlie bye, of vi^hich any legacy would have been 
 quite superfluous. The Pope comes in for a pious 
 benediction; and the toast concludes with a patriotic 
 wish, for all his persuasion, by the consummation of 
 which there can be no doubt, the hempen manufac- 
 tures of this country would experience a very conside- 
 rable consumption. Such, Gentlemen, is the enliglit- 
 ened, and liberal, and social sentiment of which the 
 first sentence, all that is usually given, for^is the 
 suggestion. I must not omit that it is generXily taken 
 
 * This loyal toast handed down by Orange tradition, 
 is literally as follows, — we give it for ^he edification of 
 the sister island. 
 
 "The glorious, piotis, and immortal memory of the 
 great and good King William^vvho saved us from Pope 
 and Popery, James and ^avery, brass money and 
 wooden shoes;] here is b^d 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 elezt 
 can comprehemi. 
 
 K2 
 
114 SPEECH IN THE CASE OP 
 
 1 
 
 standing*, always providing it be in the fjower of the coin' 
 pany. This toast was pointedly given to insult Mr. 
 O'MuIlan. Naturally averse to any altercation, hismostj 1 
 obvious course was to quit the company, and this he^ 
 did immediately. He was, however, as immediately re- 
 called by an intimation, that the Catholic question, and 
 might its claims be considerpd justly and liberally, had 
 been toasted as a peace-offering by Sir George Hill, the 
 City Recorder, My client had no gall in his disposition; 
 he at once clasped to his heart the friendly overture, 
 and in such phrase as his simplicity supplied, poured 
 forth the gratitude of that heart to the liberal Recorder. 
 Poor O'Mullan had the wisdom to imagine that the 
 politician's compliment was the man's conviction, and 
 that a table toast was the certain prelude to a parlia- 
 mentary suffrage. Despising all experience, he applied 
 the adage, Coeliim non animum Tnutant qui trans marc 
 current, to the Irish patriot. I need not pajnt to you the 
 consternation of Sir George, at so unusual and so un- 
 parliamentary a construction. He indignantly disclaimed 
 the intention imputed to him, denied and deprecated 
 the AnfashioKable inference, and acting on the broad 
 scale of an impartial policy, gave to one party the 
 weight of his vote, and to the other, the (no doubt in 
 his opinion) equahy valuable acquisition of his elo« 
 quence; by the way, ho unusual compromise amongst 
 modern politicians. 
 
 The proceedings of this dinner soon became public. 
 Sir George, you may be sure, was httle in love with 
 his notoriety. However, Gentlemen, the sufferingps of 
 the powerful are seldom without sympathy; if they re- 
 ceive not the solace of the disinterested and the sin- 
 
O'MULLAN V. M'KORKILL. 115 
 
 cere, they are at least sure to find a substitute in the 
 miserable professions of an interested hypocrisy. Who 
 could " imagine, that Sir George, of all men, was to 
 drink faom the spring of Catholic consolation? yet so it 
 happened. Two men of that communion had the hardi- 
 hood and the servility, to frame an address to him, re. 
 fleeting upon the pastor, who was its pride, and its 
 ornament. This address, with the most obnoxious 
 commentaries, was instantly published by the Derry 
 Journalist, who from that hour, down to the period of 
 his ruin; has never ceased to persecute my client, with 
 all that the most dehberate 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 unhap])y land have generated, 
 and which has grovirn into considerable affluence by 
 the sad contributions of the puL^fic 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 presume toj^dvocate 
 her interests, or uphold the ancient religion o^her peo» 
 pie; — the worst foes of government, under pretence of 
 giving it assistance; the deadliest enemies to the Iv'ish 
 name, under the mockery of supporting its character; 
 the most licentious, irrehgious, 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 misfortune affect, no 
 benevolence conciliate them ; tlie reputation of the 
 
116 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 1 
 
 livling, and the memory of the dead, are equally plun- 
 dered in their desolating progress; even the awful 
 sepulchre affords not an asylum to their selected vic- 
 tim. 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 unauthorisedly 
 misnames itself the ministerial press of Ireland. Amid 
 that polkited press, it is for you to say, whether The 
 Londonderry Journal stands on an infamous elevation. 
 When this address was published in the name of the 
 Catholics, that calumniated body, as was naturally to 
 be expected, became universally indignant. 
 
 You may remember. Gentlemen, amongst the many 
 expedients resorted to by Ireland^ for the recovery of 
 her rights, after she had knelt session after session at 
 tiie bar of the legislature, covered with the wounds of 
 glory, and praying redemption fromi the chains that re- 
 ivarded them ; — you may remember, I say, amongst 
 many vain expedients of supplication and remonstrance, 
 
 .<r 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 
 
 i me to speak with disrespect. It contained mach talent, 
 much integrity; and it exhibited what must ever be to 
 iTie an interesting spectacle, a great body of my fellow 
 men, and fellow christians, claiming admission into that 
 constitution which their ancestors had achieved by 
 their valour, and to which they were entitled as their 
 inheritance* This is no time, this is no place for the 
 discussion of that question; but since it does force it- 
 self incidentally upon mej I will say, that as on the one 
 
O'MULLAN V. M'KORKILL. 117 
 
 hand, I cannot fancy a despotism more impious, or 
 more inhuman, than the political abasement here, on 
 account of that faith by which men hope to win an 
 happy eternity hereafter ; so on tlie other, 1 cann^ot 
 
 VAISCY A VISIOJf INT ITS ASPECT MORE DIVIDE THAI^ THE 
 ETERXAL CROSS RET) WITH THE MARTYr's BLOOD, Al!fD 
 31A1)IANT WITH THE PILGRIM's HOPE, REARED BY THE 
 PATRIOT AKD THE CHRISTIAN HAND HIGH IN THE VAN OF 
 
 UNIVERSAL LIBERTY. Of this board the two volunteer 
 framers of the address happened to be members. The 
 body who deputed them, instantly assembled and de- 
 clared their delegation void. You would suppose, Gen- 
 tlemen, that after this decisive public brand of repro- 
 bation, those oiRcious meddlers would have avoided 
 its recurrence, by retiring from scenes for which natiire 
 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 de- 
 liberation on their conduct, the former sentence was 
 unanimously confirmed. The men did not deem it pru- 
 dent to attend themselves, but at a late hour, when the 
 business was coucluded, when the resolutions had 
 passed, when the chair was vacated, when the multi- 
 tude 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 people. Mr. O'Mullan, as 
 was his duty, locked the doors to preserve the house 
 of God from profanation, and addressed the crowd iii 
 such terms, as induced them to repair peaceably tp 
 
118 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 their respective habitations. I need not paint to you 
 the bitter emotions with which these deservedly dis- 
 appointed 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 in- 
 fernal that ever vice devised, or demons executed. 
 Restrained from exciting a riot by his interference, 
 they actually swore a riot against him, prosecuted him 
 to conviction, worked on the decaying intellect of his 
 bishop to desert him, and amid the savage war-whoop 
 of this slanderous Journal, all along inflaming the pub- 
 lic mind by libels the most atrocious, finally flung this 
 poor, religious, unoffending priest, into a damp and 
 desolate dungeon, where the very iron that bound, 
 had more of humanity 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 care- 
 fully excluded from that jury — no doubt they acted coU' 
 scientiously. It weighs not with me that every man im- 
 pannelled 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 
 heaad publicly to declare, he wished he could perse- 
 cute the Papist to his death — no doubt they acted con- 
 scientiously. It weighs not with me, that the public mind 
 had been so inflamed by the exasperation of this libel- 
 ler, that an impartial trial was utterly impossible. Let 
 
0*MULLAN V. M'KORKILL. 119 
 
 Uiem 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 aspersed, so impri- 
 soned, so persecuted, and hanie his conscientiousness, 
 than stand the highest of the courtliest rabble that ever 
 crouched before the foot of power, or fed upon the 
 people— plundered alms of despotism. Oh, of short 
 duration is such demoniac 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 
 purity testified, prosperity will crown the interests of 
 probity and worth. 
 
 Perhaps you imagine. Gentlemen, that his person 
 imprisoned, his profession gone, his prospects ruined, 
 and what he held dearer than all, his character de- 
 famed ; the malice of his enemies might have rested 
 from persecution. " Thus bad begins, but worse re- 
 mains behind." Attend, 1 beseech you, to what now 
 follows, because I have come in order, to the particular 
 libel, which we have selected from the innumerable 
 calumnies of this Journal, and to which we call your 
 peculiar consideration. Business of moment, to the 
 nature of which, I shall feel it my duty presently to 
 advert, called Mr. O'MuUan to the metropohs. Through 
 the libels of the Defendant, he was at this time in dis- 
 favour with his bishop, and a rumour had gone abroad, 
 that he was never again to revisit his ancient congre- 
 gation. The Bishop in the interim returned to Derry, 
 and on the Smnday following, went to officiate at the 
 parish chapel. All ranks crowded tremulously round 
 
120 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 1 
 
 lum; 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, de- 
 mand 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 de- 
 lightful picture. Yet, will you beheve it ! out of this I 
 very circumstance, the Defendant fabricated the most I 
 audacious, and if possible, the most cruel of his Libel?. 
 Hear his words; — "O'Mullan," says he "was convicted , 
 and degraded, for assaulting his own Bishop, and the j 
 liecorder of Derry, in the parish chapel!" Observe the 
 disgusting malignity of the Libel — observe the crowded 
 damnation which it accumulates on my client — ob- 
 serve all the aggravated crime which it embraces.— ; 
 First, he assaults his venerable Bishop — the great i 
 Ecclesiastical Patron, to whom he was sworn to be 
 obedient, and against whom he never conceived or 
 articulated irreverence. Next, he assaults the Recorder 
 of Derry-— a Privy Councillor, the supreme 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 ecclesi- 
 astical authorities, in the face of man, and in the house 
 of prayer; trampling contumeUously upon all human 
 law, amid the sacred altars, where he believed the i 
 Almighty witnessed the profanation! I am so horror- | 
 struck at this blasphemous and abominable turpitude, ! 
 T can scarcely proceed. What will you say, Gentle- ! 
 
O'MULLAN V. M'KORKILL. 121 
 
 men, when 1 inform you, that at the very time this 
 atrocity was imputed to him, he was in the eity of 
 Dublin, at a distance of one hundred and twenty miles 
 from the venue of its commission ! But, oh! v/heu 
 calumny once begins its work, how vain are the impe- 
 diments of time and distance! Before the sirocco of its 
 breath all nature withers, and age, and sex, and inno- 
 cence, and station, perish in the unseen, but certain 
 desolation of its progress! Do you wonder O'Mullau 
 sunk before these accumulated calumnies; do you 
 wonder the feeble were intimidated, the wavering de- 
 cided, the prejudiced confirmed ? He was forsaken by 
 his Bishop; he was denounced by his enemies — his 
 very friends fled in consternation from the "stricken 
 deer;" he was banished from the scenes of his child- 
 hood, frcm the endearments of his youth, from the 
 iield of his fair and honourable ambition. In Viun did 
 he resort to strangers for subsistence;' on the very 
 wings of the wind, the calumny preceded him; and 
 from that hour to this, a too true apostle, he has been 
 '* a man of sorrows,'* " not knowing where to lay his 
 bead." I will not appeal to your passions; alas! how in- 
 adequate am I to depict his sufferings; you must take 
 them from the evidence. I have told you, that at the 
 time of those infernally fabricated libels, the Plaintiff 
 was in Dubhn, and I promised to advert to the cause 
 by which his absence was occasioned. 
 
 Observing in the course of his parochial duties, the 
 deplorable, 1 had almost said the organized ignorance of 
 the Irish peasantry — a?i ignorance whence all their crimeif, 
 and most of their sufferings originate,^ observing also^ 
 that there was no publicly established literary institu=. 
 L 
 
122 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 tlon to relieve them, save only to the charter-schools, 
 which tendered learning to the shivering child, as a 
 bounty upon apostacy to the faith of his fathers ; he 
 determined if possible to give them the lore of this 
 world, without offering as a mortgage upon the inheri- 
 tance of the next. He framed the prospectus of a school, 
 for the education of five hundred children, and went 
 to the metropohs to obtain subscriptions for the pur- 
 pose. I need not descant upon the great general advan- 
 tage, or to this country the peculiarly patriotic conse- 
 quences, which the success of such a plan must have 
 produced. No doubt, you have all personally consider- 
 ed — 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 breathes 
 a purer fragrance, or bears a heave nlier aspect than 
 education. It is a companion which no misfortunes can 
 depress, no clime destroy, no enemy alienate, no des- 
 potism enslave : at home a friend, abroad an introduc- 
 tion, 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 be- 
 tween the dignity of an intelligence derived from God, 
 and the degradation of passions participated with 
 brutes; and in the accident of their alternate ascen- 
 dency shuddering at the terrors of an hereafter, or 
 embracing the horrid hope of annihilation. What is this 
 wondrous world of his residence? 
 
 A mighty maze, and all without a plan: 
 
O'MULLAN V. M'KOIIKILL. 12S 
 
 a dark and desolate and dreary cavern, without wealth, 
 or ornament or order. But hght up within it the torch 
 of knowledge, and how wondrous the transition! The 
 seasons change, the atmosphere breathes, the landscape 
 lives, earth unfolds its fruits, ocea;i rolls in its magnifi- 
 cence, the heavens display their constellated canopy, 
 and the grand animated spectacle of nature rises reveal- 
 ed before him, its varieties regulated, and its mysteries 
 resolved ! The phenomena which bewilder, the preju^ 
 dices which debase, the superstitions which enslave, 
 vanish before education. Like the holy sym.bol which 
 blazedupon the cloud before the hesitating Constantine, 
 if man follow but its precepts, purely, it will not only 
 lead him to the victories of this world, but open the 
 very portals of Omnipotence for his admission. Cast 
 your eye over the monumental map of ancient gran- 
 deur, once studded with the stars of empire, and the 
 splendours of philosophy. What erected the little state 
 of Athens into a powerful comuionweahh, placing in 
 her hand the sceptre of legislation, and wreathing 
 round her brow the im^icrishable chaplet of literary 
 fume? what ei!tended Rome, the haunt of banditti, into 
 universal empire? what animated Sparta with that high 
 unbending adamantine courage, which conquered 
 nature herself, and has fixed her in the sight of future 
 ages, a model of pubHc virtue, and a proverb of national 
 independence? Wliat but those wise public institutions 
 which strengthened their minds with early apphcation, 
 informed their infancy with the principles of action, 
 and sent them into the world, too vigilant to be de- 
 ceived by its calms, and too vigorous to be shaken by 
 its whirlwinds? But surely, if there be a people in the 
 
12i SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 world, to whom the blessings of education are pecul'i' , 
 applicable, it is the Irish people. Lively, ardent, intelli- 
 gent, 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 exe- 
 cution are identified. It is this principle, 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, pro- 
 scribed, peavSant Catholic, crowds the jail and feeds the 
 gibbet; which in the more fortunate, because more 
 educated Protestant, leads victory a captive at her car, 
 and holds echo rtiute at her eloquence; making a national 
 monopoly of fame, and, as it were, attempting to natu- 
 ralize the achievements of the universe. In order that 
 this libel may want no possible aggravation, the de- 
 fendant published it when my client v^as absent on this 
 work of patriotism ; 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 know- 
 ledge must have told him, that it was destitute of 
 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 I would not harrow your hearts, by 
 exposing all that agonizes mine, in the contemplation 
 of individual suffering. There is, however, one subject . 
 connected with this trial, public in its nature, and uni. ; 
 versal in its interest, which imperiously calls for an ex- I 
 empiary verdict; I mean the liberty of the press — a j 
 theme which I approach with mingled sensations of 
 
O'MIjLLAN V, i^rKORKlLL. 12^ 
 
 awe, and agony, and admiration. Considering all that 
 we too fatally have seen — all that, perhaps, too fearfully 
 we may have cause to apprehend, 1 feel myself cling to 
 that residuary safeguard, witli an aifection no tempta- 
 tions can seduce, with a suspicion no anodyne can lullj 
 with a fortitude that peril but iPifuriates. In the direful 
 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 lier house, and the destruction 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 remembrancer of her happiness. It is the duty 
 of us all to guard strictly tiiis inestimable privilege — ^a 
 privilege which can never be destroyed, save by the 
 licentiousness of those who wilfully abuse it. No, it is 
 
 KOT IN THE AUaOGAlS'CE UF POWER; NO, IT IS NOT IN THE 
 ARTIFICES OF LAW; NO, IT IS NOT IN THE FATUITY OF 
 princes; no, it is not in the VENALITT of PARLIA- 
 MENTS- TO CRUSH THIS MI&HTT, THIS MAJESTIC PRIVILEGE; 
 REVILED, IT WILL REMONSTRATE; MURDERED, IT WILL 
 REVIVE: BURIED, IT WILL RE ASCEND; THE YERT ATTEMPT 
 AT ITS OPPRESSION WILL PROVE THE TRUTH OF ITS IM- 
 MORTALITY, AND THE ATOM THAT PRESUMED TO SPURN, 
 WILL FADE AWAY BEFORE THE TRUMPET OF ITS RETRI- 
 BUTION I 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 instru- 
 mentality it is sacrificed! Nay more, what shall be his 
 fate, who, intrusted with the guardianship of its security, 
 becomes the tiMityroiis accessary to its ruiur Nay more;, 
 L2 
 
SPiEECH IN THE CASE 
 
 what sliall be his fate, by whom its powers delegated 
 for the pnblic good, are converted into the calamities 
 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 f 
 vShould 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 information. Do you think 
 he believed in the truth of the publication ? No; he 
 knew that in every syllable it was as false as perjury. 
 Do you think that an anxiety for the Catholic commu- 
 nity might have inflamed him against the imaginary 
 dereliction of its advocate? No; the very essence of his 
 Journal is prejudice. Do you think that in the ardoui' 
 of liberty he might have venially transgressed its 
 boundaries? 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 inferentially moral, one single 
 virtue which he has plundered and misapplied, give 
 him its benefit. I will not demand such an effort of 
 your faith, as to imagine, that his northern constitution 
 could, by any miracle, be fired into the admirable but 
 mistaken energy of enthusiasm; — that he could for one 
 
O^MULLAN V. M'KOUKILL. 12/ 
 
 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 whe- 
 ther it should admire or mourn — whether it should 
 weep or worship! No; you will not only search in vain 
 for such a palliative, but you will find this publication 
 springing from the most odious origin, and disfigured 
 hy the most foul accompaniments, founded in a bigotry 
 at which hell rejoices, crouching with a sycophancy a 
 which flattery blushes, deformed by a falsehood at 
 which perjury would hesitate, and to crown the climax 
 of its crowded infamies, committed under the sacred 
 shelter of the Press; as if this false, slanderous, syco- 
 phantic slave, could not assassinate private worth with- 
 out polluting public privilege; as if he could not sacri- 
 fice the character of the pious without profaning the 
 protection of the free; as if he could not poison learn- 
 ing, liberty, and religion, 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 your dam- 
 ages: You are the best judges on that subject; 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 unobjectionable 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 
 possible from the scene of prejudice; because no possi- 
 ble partiality could exist; because, in this happy and uni- 
 ted country, less of the bigotry which distracts the rest 
 
1J8 SPEECH IN THE CASE OP 
 
 of Ireland exists, than in any other with which we are ac- 
 quainted; because the nature of the action, which we 
 have mercifully brought in place of a criminal prose- 
 cution, — 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 I jjerceive they have emptied half the north 
 here fov the purpose. But I cannot anticipate an ob- 
 jection, which no doubt shall not be made. If this ha- 
 bitual libeller should characteristically instruct his 
 counsel to hazard it, that learned gentleman is much 
 too wise to adopt it, and must know you much too well 
 to insult you by its utterance. What damages, then. 
 Gentlemen, can you give ? I am content to leave the 
 defendant's crime 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 despised, debased, depre- 
 ciated? Who shall repair it mjured? Who can redeem 
 it lost? Oh! well and truly does the great philosopher 
 of poetry esteem the world's wealth as '' trash" in the 
 comparison. Without it, gold has no value, birth no 
 distinction, station no dignity, beauty no charm, age no 
 reverence; or, should I not rather say, without it every 
 treasure impoverishes, every grace deforms, every 
 dignity degrades, and all the arts, the decorations, »nd 
 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 — 
 iio homQ to harbour him. The voyage of his life ba- 
 
M'MULLAN V. M'KORKILL. 129 
 
 comes a joyless peril; and in the midst of all ambition 
 can achieve, or avarice arnass, or rapacity plunder, he 
 tosses on tlie surge— a buoyant pestilence! But, Gentle- 
 men, let me not degrade into the selfishness of indivi- 
 dual safety, or individual exposure, this universal prin- 
 ciple: it testifies a 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 philoso- 
 pher 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 an- 
 other is dawning, will prompt the prophet, even inhis 
 chariot of fire, and in his vision of heaven, to bequeath 
 to mankind the mantle of his memory! Oh divine, oU 
 delightful legacy of a spotless reputation! Rich is the 
 inheritance it leaves; pious the example it testifies; 
 pure, precious, and imperishable, the 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 cliarm, and solitude of its solace; 
 not only to outlaw life, but to attaint death, converting 
 the very grave, the refuge of the suflTerer, into the 
 gate of infamy and of shame! i can conceive few crimes 
 beyond it. He who plunders my property takes from 
 me that which can be repaired by time : but what pe- 
 riod can repair a ruined reputation? He who maims my 
 person affects that which' medicine may remedy : but 
 what herb has sovereignty over the wounds of slander.? 
 He who ridicules my poverty, or reproaches my pro^ 
 fession, upbraids me with that which industry may x%^ 
 
130 
 
 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 trieve, and integrity may purify; but what riches shall 
 redeem the Bankrupt fame? what power shall blanch 
 the sullied snow of character? Can there be an injury 
 more deadly? Can there be a crime more cruel? It is 
 without remedy — it is without antidote— it is without 
 evasion ! The re^«)tile calumny 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 enjoyment 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 dis- 
 gorge them at the withered shrine, where envy idol- 
 izes her own infirmities. Under such a visitation how 
 dreadful wonld be the destiny of the virtuous and the 
 good if the providence of our constitution had not 
 given you the power, as, I trust, you will have the 
 principle, to bruise the head of the serpent, and crush 
 and crumble the altar of its idolatry! 
 
 And now. Gentlemen, having toiled through this 
 narrative of unprovoked and pitiless persecution, I 
 should with pleasure consign my client to your hands, 
 if a more imperative duty did not still remain to me, 
 and that is, to acquit him of every personal motive in 
 the prosecution of this action. No; in the midst of 
 slander, and suffering, and severities unexampled, he 
 has had no thought, but, that avS his enemies evinced 
 how malice could persecute, he should exemplify how 
 religion could endure; that if his piety failed to affect 
 the oppressor, his patience might at least avail to for- 
 tify the aflicted. He was as the rock of Scripture before 
 the face of infidelity. The rain of the deluge had fallen 
 —it only smoothed his asperities: tlie wind of the tern- 
 
O'MULLAN V. M'KOItKlLL. 1 U 
 
 pest beat—it only blanched his brow: the rod, not of 
 prophecy, but of persecution, smote him; and the de- 
 sert, ghttering with the Gospel dew, became a miracle 
 of the faith it would have tempted! No, Gentlemen; 
 not selfishly 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 by his acquiescence, — but 
 the fidelity of the feeble, hazarded by his forbearance^ 
 goacled him from the profaned privacy of the cloister 
 into this repulsive scene of pubhc accusation. In him 
 this reluctance springs from a most natural and cha- 
 racteristic delicacy: in us it would become a most over- 
 strained injustice. IVo, Gentlemen: though with him 
 we must remember morals outraged, religion assailed, 
 law violated, the priesthood scandalized, the press be- 
 trayed, and all the disgusting calender of aljstract evil; 
 yet with him we must not reject the injuries of the in- 
 dividual sufferer. We must pictwre to ourselves a young 
 man, partly by tiie self-denial of parental love, partly 
 by the energies of personal exertion, struggling into a 
 profession, where, by the pious exercise of his talents, 
 lie 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 treasure to the poor; his 
 practice, a model to the rich. When he reproves, sor- 
 row seeks his presence as a sanctuary; and in his path 
 of peace, should he pause by the death-bed of despair- 
 ing sin, the soul becomes iinparadised in the light of 
 his benediction! Imagine, Gentlemen, you see him 
 *,hus; and then, if you can, imagine vice so desperate 
 as to defraud the world of so fair a vision. Anticipate 
 f(?r a moment the melancholy evidence we must too 
 
132 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 soon adduce to you. Behold him, by foul, deliberate, 
 and infamous calumny, robbed of tlie 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, hanging in some stranger scene, on the precari- 
 ous pity of the few, whose charity might induce their 
 compassion to bestow, what this remorseless slanderer 
 would compel their justice to withhold! I will not pur- 
 sue 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 brother; though many a peasant heart will leap 
 at your name, and many an infant eye will embalm 
 their fame who restored to life, to station, to dignity, 
 to character, the venerable friend who taught their 
 trembling tongues to lisp the rudiments of virtue and 
 religion, still dearer than all will be the consciousness 
 of the deed. Nor, believe me, countrymen, will it rest 
 here. Oh no! if there be light in instinct, or truth in 
 Revelation, believe me, at that awful hour, when you 
 shall await the last 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 thi.s 
 day's deed, redeemed the Almighty's persecuted 
 Apostle, from the grasp of an insatiate malice-^from 
 the fang of a worse than Thilistine persecution. 
 
SPEECH 
 
 IN THE CASE OF CONNAtJHTON v. DILLON"; 
 
 DELIVERED IN 
 
 THE COUJVTY COURTHOUSE OF ROSOMMON, 
 
 My Lord and Gentlemen^ 
 
 In this case I am one of the counsel for the Plaintiffs 
 who lias directed me to explain to you the wrongs for 
 which, at your hands, he solicits reparation. It appears 
 to me a case which undoubtedly merits much consider- 
 ation, as Well from the novelty of its appearance 
 amongst us, as for the circumstances by which it is at- 
 tended. Nor am I ashamed to say, that in my mind, 
 not the least interesting of those circumstances is the 
 poverty of the man who has made this appeal to me. 
 Few are the consolations which soothe — hard must be 
 the heart which does not feel for him. He is. Gentle, 
 men, a man of 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 recrea- 
 tion 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 memory. Far inferior, indeed, is he in 
 M 
 
134 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 'V^B 
 
 this respect to his more fortunate antagonist. He, on 
 the contrary, is amply either blessed or cursed with 
 those quuhfications, which enable a man to adorn or 
 disgrace the society in which he lives. He is, I under- 
 stand, the representative of an honourable name, the 
 relative of a distinguished family, the supposed heir to 
 their virtues, the indisputable inheritor to their riches. 
 He has been for many years a resident of your county, 
 and has had the advantage of collecting round him all 
 those recollections, which, springing from the scenes 
 of school-boy association, or from the more matured 
 enjoyments of the man, crowd as it were unconsciously 
 to the heart, and cling with a venial partiality to the 
 companion and the friend. So impressed, in truth, has 
 he been with these advantages, that, surpassing the 
 usual expenses of a trial, he has selected a tribunal 
 %vhere he vainly hopes such considerations will have 
 weight, and where he well knows my client's humble 
 rank can have no claim but to that which his miseries 
 may entitle him. 1 am sure, however, he has wretch- 
 edly 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 f^el 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 cottage 
 
eONNAGHTON V. DILLON. 135 
 
 roofed with straw and tenanted by poverty, stands 
 as inviolated fronn all invasion as in 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 com- 
 prises, 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 our country said — that 
 
 ^* Princes or Lords may flourish or may fade, 
 A breath can make them, as a breath has made; 
 But a brave peasantry, their country's pride, 
 When once destroy'd can never be supplied." 
 
 For all the virtues which adorn that peasantry, which 
 can render humble life respected, or give the highest 
 stations their most permanent distinctions, my client 
 stands conspicuous. A 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 accusation 
 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 their rustic tear hallows their resting-place. 
 After all, when life's mockeries shall vanish from be- 
 
U6 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 fore us, and the heart that now beats in the proudesi 
 bosom here, 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 ROt 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 principles 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 blended para- 
 dise 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 mysterious omen, 
 which shall smooth his aged wrinkles, and make his 
 grave a monument of honour! /cannot describe them; 
 but, if there be a parent on the jury, he will compre- 
 hend me. It is stated to me, that of all his children 
 there were none more likely to excite such feelingvS in 
 
CANNAGHTON V. DILLON. 137 
 
 lie plaintiff than the unfortunate subjeet of the present 
 action: she was his favourite daughter, and she did not 
 shame his 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 instruction. She took 
 a pleasure in assisting in the industry of their home; 
 and it was at a neighbouring market, where she went 
 to dispose of the little produce of that industry, that 
 she unhappily attracted the notice of the defendant. 
 Indeed, such a situation was not without its interest,— a 
 young, female, in the bloom of her attractions, exerting 
 htv faculties in a parent's service, is an object lovely in 
 the eye 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 
 jier arrayed, as he confesses, in charms that enchanted 
 him; but her youth, her beauty, the smile of her inno- 
 cence, 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 conscnuences 
 of his gratification.'' — There was 
 
 *' No honour, no relenting ruth. 
 
 To paint the parents fondling o'er their child. 
 Then show tlie rain'd maid, and her distraction 
 
 wild !" 
 
 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 contemplate the speak- 
 ing picture of the cottage-ruin, the bhghted hope^ the 
 
 M2 
 
138 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 broken heart, the parent's agony, and, last and most 
 withering in the wofiil group, the wretched victim her< 
 self starving on the sin of a promiscuous prostitution* 
 and at length perhaps, with her own hand, anticipating 
 the more tedious murder of its diseases! He need not,, 
 if I am instructed rightly, have tortured his fancy for thei! 
 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 
 lime, nor absence, 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 ad- 
 vocate 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 indignation which tortures me into 
 brevity; I turn to the agents by which this contamina- 
 tion was effected. 
 
 I almost blush to name them, yet they were worthy 
 
 * Mr. PHTLtiPs here alluded to a verdict of 50001. 
 obtained at the late Galway Assizes against the defend- 
 ant, 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 him on the 
 occasion alluded to. 
 
 i 
 
CONNAGllTON V. DILLON". 139 
 
 of their vocation. They were no other than a menial 
 servant of Mr. Dillon; and a base, abandoned, profli- 
 gate ruffian, a brother-in-law of the devoted victim 
 herself, whose beastial appetites he bribed into sub- 
 serviency! It does not 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 di- 
 verting the purest streams of social affinity into the 
 vitiated sewer of his enjoyment. Seduced by such in- 
 struments into a low public-house at Athlone, this un- 
 happy 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. J do confess to 
 you, Gentlemen, when I first perused this passage in 
 my brief, I flung it from me with a contemptuous in- 
 credulity. 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 encourage- 
 ment of arts or agriculture, not in the relief of an im- 
 poverished tenantry, not in the proud march of an un- 
 successful 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, 
 debauching the innocence of village life, and even amid 
 the stews of the tavern, collecting or creating the 
 
140 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 1 
 
 materials of the brothel! Gentlemen, I am still un- 
 willing to believe it, and, with all the sincerity of Mr. 
 Dillon's advocate, I do entreat you to reject it alto- 
 gether, if it be not substantiated by the unimpeachable 
 corroboration of an oath. As I am instructed, he did 
 not, at this^ time, alarm his victim by any direct com- 
 munication 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 satellites, however, acted to admiration. They 
 produced 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 interview, 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 as- 
 sured her that though in the first instance such an event 
 was impossible, still in time it was far from being im- 
 probable; that many men from such motives forgot alto- 
 gether 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 imphci'tly to their persuasions; 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 honour, their country, and their souls; what j 
 wonder, then, if a poor, igndtant, peasant girl had at 
 
eONNAGHTON V. DILLON. 141 
 
 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 various interviews, and re- 
 peated artifices, and untiring 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 moment was to come when, every hope denounced, 
 and every expectation dashed, he was to fling her for 
 a very subsistence on the charity or the crimes of the 
 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 herl 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 angelid 
 candidate than a young, modest maiden, robed in chas« 
 tity; 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!"-— 
 
U2 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 1 
 
 :scribe^ 
 
 Such is the supreme- power of chastity, as descri 
 by one of our divinest bards, and the pleasure which I 
 feel in the recitation of such a passage is not a little en- 
 hanced, by the^pride that few countries more fully af- 
 ford its exemplification than our own. Let foreign envy 
 decry us as it will, Chastity is the iifSTiNCT 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; whe- 
 ther she basks in prosperity or pines in sorrow, it 
 clings about her like the diamond of the morning on 
 the mountain floweret, trembhng even in the ray that 
 once exhibits and inhales it ! Rare in our land is the 
 absence of this virtue. Thanks to the modesty that 
 venerates; 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 pro- 
 gress of this transaction, betraying in my mind, as base 
 a premeditation, and as low and as deliberate a decep- 
 tion as I ever heard of. While this wretched creature 
 was in a kind of counterpoise between her fear and her 
 affection, struggling as well as she could between pas- 
 sion 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 country. 5 
 
CONNAGHTON V. DILLON". 143 
 
 know not how you will feci, but for my part I protest 
 i\am in a suspense of admiration between the virtue of 
 the proposal and the magnificent prodigality of the 
 provision. Listen to the article: it is all in his own hand 
 writing: — '*I promise," says he, **to give Mary Con- 
 naghton the sum of ten pounds sterling per annum, 
 when t 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 draviiug 
 cf this article^ \ 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, Gen- 
 tlemen, there is the notable and dignified document 
 for you! take it into your Jury box, for I know not 
 how to comment on it. Oh, yes, I have heard of am- 
 bition urging men to crime— I have heard of love in- 
 flaming even to madness — I have read of passion rush- 
 ing 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 execu- 
 tion of this article for its predetermined infringement; 
 that knowing, as he must, any stipulation for the pur- 
 I chase of vice to be invalid by our law; that having in 
 I the body of this article inserted a provision against 
 j that previous pollution which his prudent caprice 
 I might invent hereafter, but which his own conscience, 
 I her universal character, and even his own desire for 
 j her possession, all assured him did not exist at the 
 time, I need not telPyou that he now urges the inva- 
 lidity of that instrument; that he now presses that pre- 
 
144 SPEECH m THE CASE OF 
 
 vioiis pollution; that he refuses from his splendid in 
 come the pittance of ten pounds to the wretch he has^ j 
 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 hke 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 ascen- 
 dency, he would not have acted so; but there is some- 
 thing 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 se- 
 ducer of peculiar turpitude. I know of no character so 
 vile, so detestable. He is the vilest of robbers, for he 
 plunders happiness; the worst of murderers, for he 
 murders innocence; his appetites are of the brute, his 
 arts of the demon; the heart of the child ;ind 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. Dil- 
 lon's advocate may prove that he does not deserve to 
 rank in such a class as this; but if he does I hope the 
 infatuation inseparably connected with such proceed- 
 ings may tempt him to deceive you through the same 
 plea by which he has defrauded his miserable dupe. 
 
 I dare him to attempt the defamation of a character, 
 which, before his cruelties, never was even suspected. 
 Happily, Gentlemen, happily for herself, this wretched 
 creature, thus cast upon the world, appealed to the pa- 
 rental refuge she had forfeited. I need not describe to 
 you the parent's anguish at the heart-rending disco- 
 very. God help the poor man when misfortune comes- 
 
CONNAGHTON V. DILLON. 145 
 
 upon him! How few are his resources! how distant his 
 consolation! You must not forget, Gentlemen, that it 
 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 andience 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 resorts to this tribunal, in the language of the law, 
 claiming the value of his daughter's servitude; but let 
 it not be thought that it is for her mere manuallabours 
 he sohcits compensation. No, you are to compensate 
 him for ail he has suffered, for all he has to suffer, for 
 ' feehngs outraged, for gratifications plundered, for 
 honest pride put to the blush, for the exiled endear- 
 ments of his once happy home, for all those innumera- 
 ble and instinctive ecstacies with which a virti^pus 
 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 en- 
 deavouring to influence you by the power of declama- 
 tion. 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 language of Lord Eldon. I 
 speak also on the authority of our own Lord Avonmore, 
 a judge who illuminated the bench by his genius, en- 
 N 
 
HS ^SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 deared it by his suavity, and dignified it by his boltl 
 uncoDipromising 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 en- 
 chanter, changed a wilderness into a garden! I speak 
 upon that high authority — but I speak on other autho- 
 rity paramount to all!— on the authority of nature 
 rising up within the heart of man, and calling for ven- 
 geance upon such an outrage. God forbid, that in a 
 case of this kind we were to grope our way through the 
 ruins of antiquity, and blunder over statutes, and burrow 
 through black letter in search of an interpretation 
 which Providence has ^engraved in living letters ou 
 every human heart. Yes; if there be one amongst you 
 blessed with a daughter, the smile of whose infancy 
 still cheers your njemory, and the promise of whose 
 youth illuminates your hope, who has endeared the 
 toils of your manliood, whom you look up to as the 
 solace of your declining years, whose embrace allevia- 
 ted the pang of separation, whose growing welcome 
 hailed your oft anticipated return — oh, if there be one 
 amongst you, to whom those recollections are dear, to 
 whom those hopes are precious — let him only fancy 
 that daughter torn from his caresses by a seducer's 
 arts, and cast upon tlie world, robbed of her inno- 
 cence, — and then let him ask his henvty'^ ivhat money 
 could reprise himP* 
 
 The defendant. Gentlemen, cannot complain that I 
 put it thus to you. If, in place of seducing, he had as- 
 saulted this poor girl— if he had attempted by force 
 what lie has achieved by fraud, his life would bave been 
 
CONNAGHTON V. DILLON. 147 
 
 tlie forfeit; and yet how trifling* in comparison would 
 have been the parent's ag'ony! He has no riglil, then, 
 to complain, if you should estimate this outrage at the 
 price of his very existence! I am lokl, indeed, this gen- 
 tleman entertains an opinion, prevalent enough in the 
 age of a feudalism, as arrogant as it svub; barbarous, that 
 the poor are only a species of property, to be treated 
 according to interest or caprice; and that wealth is at 
 once a patent for crime, and an exemption from its 
 consequences. Happily for this land; the day of such 
 opinions has passed over it— the eye of a purer feeling 
 and more profound philosophy now beholds riches but 
 as one of the aids to virtue, and sees in oppressed 
 poverty only an additional stimulus to increased pro- 
 tection. 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 sole pleasure with which nature blessed 
 him — how abject, how cureless is the despair of his 
 destitution! Believe me, Gentlemen, you have not only 
 a solemn duty to perform, but you have an awful re- 
 sponsibility imposed ijpon you. You are this day, in 
 some degree, trustees for the morality of the people — 
 perhaps of the whole nation; for, depend npon it, if the 
 sluices of immorality are once opened among the lower 
 orders, the frightful tide, drifting upon its surface all 
 that is dignified or dear, will soon rise even to the ha- 
 bitations of the highest. I feel. Gentlemen, I have dis- 
 charged Tny duty— I am sure you will do j>our^s. 1 re- 
 pose my client with confidence in your hands; and most 
 
148 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 fervently do I hope, that when evening shall find you at 
 your happy fire-side, surrounded hy the sacred circle 
 of yonr children, you may not feel the heavy curse 
 gnawing at your heart, of having let loose, unpunished, 
 the prowler that may devour them« 
 
SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 MR- PHILLIPS 
 
 TN THE CASE OF CREIGHTON v. TOWNSEND. 
 DELIVERED IN 
 THE COURT OFCOMMOJV PLEAS, DUBLIN. 
 
 My Lord and Gentlemen, 
 
 I AM with my learned brethren counsel for the plain- 
 tiff. My friend Mr. Curran has told you tlie nature of 
 the action. It has fallen to my lot to state more at large 
 to you the aggression by which it lias been occasioned. 
 Believe me it is wiyn no paltry affectation of under- 
 valuing my very humble powers that I wish he had 
 selected some more experienced, or at least less 
 credulous advocate. I feel I cannot do my duty; I am 
 not fit to address you, I have incapaciated 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 scepti- 
 s'lsm at rest, has set description at defiance. Had I not 
 N2 
 
150 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 yielded to those interested misrepresentations, I might 
 from my brief have sketched the tact, and from my 
 fancy drawn the consequences; but as it is, reality 
 rushes before my frightened memory, and silences the 
 tongue and mocks the imagination. Believe me. Gentle- 
 men, you are impanneled there upon no ordinary oc- 
 casion; nominally, indeed, you are to repair a private 
 wrong, and it is a wrong as deadly as human wicked- 
 ness can inflict — as human weakness can endure; a 
 wrong which annihilates the hope of the parent and the 
 happiness of the child; which in one moment blights the 
 fondest anticipations of the heart, and darkens the 
 social hearth, and worse than depopulates the habita- 
 tions of the happy! But, Gentlemen, high as it is, this 
 is far from your exclusive duty. You are to do much 
 more. You are to say whether an example of such 
 transcendalU turpitude is to stalk forth for public imita- 
 tion — whether national morals are to have the law for 
 their protection, or imported crime is to feed upon im- 
 punity — whether chastity and religion are still to be 
 permitted to Hnger in this province, or it is to become 
 one loatlisome den of legalized prostitution — whether 
 the sacred volume of the Gospel, and the venerable 
 statutes of the law are still to be respected, or con- 
 verted into a pedestal on which the mob and the mili- 
 ttry are to erect the idol of a drunken adoration. 
 Gentlemen, these are the questions you are to try; hear 
 the facts on which your decision must be founded. 
 
 It is now about five-and-twenty years since the 
 plaintiff, Mr. Creighton, commenced business as a slate 
 merchant in the city of Dublin. His vocation was hum- 
 ble, it is true, but it was nevertl^eless honest; and 
 
CREIGHTON V. TOWNSEND. 151 
 
 Ihoug'li, unlike his opponent, the heights of ambition 
 lay not before him, the path of respectability did — he 
 approved himself a good man and a respectable citi- 
 zen. Arrived at the age of manhood, he sought not the 
 gratification of its natural desires by adultery or seduc- 
 tion. For him the home of honesty was sacred ; for 
 him the poor man's child was unassailed; no domestic 
 desolation mourned his enjoyment; no anniversary of 
 wo commemorated his achievments; from his own 
 sphere of life naturally and honourably he selected a 
 companion, whose beauty blessed his bed, and whose 
 virtues consecrated his dwelling. Eleven lovely child- 
 ren blessed their union, the darUngs of their heart, the 
 delight of their evenings, and as they blindly anticipa- 
 ted, the prop and solace of their approaching age. Oh! 
 SACRED WEDDED LOVE ! how dear! how dehghtful ! how 
 divine are thy enjoyments! Contentment crowns thy 
 board, affection glads thy fireside; passion, chaste but 
 ardent, modest but intense, sighs o'er thy couch, the 
 atmosphere of paradise! Surely, surely, if this conse- 
 crated rite can acquire from circumstances a factitious 
 interest, 'tis when we see it cheering the poor man's 
 home, or shedding over the dwelHng of misfortune the 
 light of its warm and lovely consolation. Unhappily, 
 i Gentlemen, it has that interest here. That capricious 
 I power which often dignifies the worthless hypocrite, 
 I as often wounds the industrious and the honest. The 
 I late ruinous contest, having in its career confounded 
 all the proportions of society, and with its last gasp 
 ^ sighed famine and misfortune on the world, has cast 
 ; my industrious client, with too many of his compa- 
 j nions, from competency to penury. AUs, alas, to him 
 
132 SPEECH IN THE CASE OP 
 
 it left worse of its satellites behind it; it }eft the in- 
 vader even of his misery — the seducer of his sacred 
 and unspotted innocence. Mysterious Providence! was 
 it not enoug-h that sorrow robed the happy home in 
 mourning — was it not enough that disappointment 
 preyed upon its loveliest prospects — was it not enough 
 that its little inmates cried in vain for bread, and heard 
 no answer but the poor father's sigh, and drank no 
 sustenance but the wretched mother's tears? Was this 
 a time for passion, lawless, conscienceless, licentious 
 passion, with its eye of lust, its heart of stone, its hand 
 of rapine, to rush into th6 mournful sanctuary of mis- 
 fortune, casting crime into the cup of wo, and rob the 
 parents of their last wealth, their child, and rob the 
 child of her only charm, her innocence! ! That this 
 has been done I am instructed we shall prove: what 
 requital it deserves. Gentlemen, you must prove to 
 mankind. 
 
 The defendant's name I understand is Townsend. 
 He is of an age when every generous blossom of the 
 spring should breathe an infant freshness round his 
 heart; of a family which should inspire not only high 
 but hereditary j^rinciples of honour; of a profession 
 whose very essence is a stainless chivalry, and whose 
 Jjought and bounden duty is the protection of the citizen. 
 Such are the advantages with which he appears before 
 you — fearful advantages, because they repel all possible 
 suspicion; but you will agree with me, most damning 
 adversaries, if it shall appear that the generous ardour 
 of his youth was chilled — that the noble inspiration of 
 hi^ birth was spurned-— that the lofty impulse of his 
 profession was despised — and thatallthat could grace. 
 
CREIGHTON V. TOWNSEND. 153 
 
 or animate, or ennoble, was used to his own discredit 
 and his fellow-creature's misery. 
 
 It was upon the first of June last that on the banks of 
 the canal, near Portobello, Lieutenant Townsend first 
 met the daughter of Mr. Creighton, a pretty interesting 
 girl, scarcely sixteen years of age. She was accompa- 
 nied by her little sister, only four years old, with whom 
 she was permitted to take a daily walk in tliat retired 
 spot, the vicinity of her residence. The defendant was 
 attracted by her appearance — he left his party, and 
 attempted to converse with her; she repelled his ad- 
 vances — he immediately seized her inflmt sister by the 
 hand, whom he held as a kind of hostage for an intro- 
 duction to his victim. A prepossessing appearance, a 
 modesty of deportment apparently quite incompatible 
 with any evil design, gradually silencedher alarm, and 
 she answered the common-place questions with which, 
 on her way home, he addressed to her. Gentlemen, I 
 admit it was an innocent imprudence; the rigid rules of 
 matured morahty should have repelled such communi. 
 cation; yet perhaps, judging even by that strict standard, 
 you will rather condemn the familiarity of the intrusion 
 in a designing adult than the facihty of access in a crea- 
 ture of her age and her iniwcence. They thus sepa- 
 rated, as she naturally supposed, to meet no more. Not 
 such, however, was the determination of her destroyer. 
 From that hour until her ruin, he scarcely ever lost 
 sight of her — he followed her as a shadow — he way -laid 
 her in her walks — he interrupted her in her avocations 
 ■ — he haunted the street of her residence; if she re- 
 fused to meet him, he paraded before her window at 
 the hazard of exposing her first comparatively innocent 
 
154 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 imprudence to her unconscious parents. How happy^ 
 would it have been had she conquered the timidity so 
 natural to her age, and appealed at once to their pardon 
 and their protection! Gentlemen, this daily persecution 
 continued for three months — for three successive 
 months, by every art, by every persuasion, by every 
 appeal to her vanity and her passions, did he toil for the 
 destruction of this unfortunate young creature. I leave 
 you to guess how many during that interval might have 
 yielded to the blandishments of manner, the fascinations 
 of youth, the rarely resisted temptations of opportunity. 
 For three long months she did resist them. She would 
 have resisted them for ever but for an expedient which 
 is without a model — but for an exploit which I trust in 
 God will be without an imitation. Oh, yes he might 
 returned to his country, and did he but reflect, he 
 would rather have rejeiced at the virtuous triumph of 
 his victim, than mourned his own soul-redeeming defeat; 
 he might have returned to his country, and told the 
 cold-blooded libellers of this land that their specula, 
 tions upon Irish chastity were prejudiced and proofless; 
 that iw the vireck of all else we had retained our honour; 
 that though the national luminary had descended for a 
 season, the streaks of its loveliness still lingered on 
 your horizon; that the nurse of that, genius which 
 abroad had redeemed the name, and dignified the na- 
 ture of man, was to be found at home in the spirit with- 
 out a stain, and the purity without a suspicion. He 
 might have told them truly that this did not result, as 
 they would intimate, from the absence of passion or 
 t\\e want of civihzation; that it was the combined con- 
 sequence of education, of example, and of impulse! 
 
f 
 
 CREIGHTON V. TOWNSEED. 135 
 
 and that, though in all the revelry of enjoyment, the 
 fair flowret of the Irish soil exhaled its fragrance and 
 expanded its charms in the chaste and blessed beams 
 of a virtuous affection, still it shrunk with an instinc- 
 tive sensitiveness from'the gross pollution of an uncon- 
 secrated contract. 
 
 Gentlemen, the common artifices of the seducer 
 failed; the syren tones with which sensuality awakens 
 appetite and lulls purity had wasted themselves in air, 
 and the intended victim, deaf to their fascination, mov^d 
 along safe and untransformed. He soon saw, that young 
 as she was, the vulgar expedients of vice were inef- 
 fectual; that the attractions of a glittering exterior 
 failed; and that before she could be tempted to her 
 sensual damnation, his tongue mu^t learn, if not the 
 words of wisdom, at least the speciousness of affected 
 purity. He pretended an affection as virtuous as it was 
 violent; he called God to witness the sincerity of his 
 declarations; by all the vows which should forever 
 rivet the honourable, and could not fail to convince 
 even the incredulous, he promised her marriage; over , 
 and over again he invoked the eternal denunciation if 
 he was perfidious. To her acknowledged want of for- 
 tune, his constant reply was, that he had an indepen- 
 dence; that all he wanted was beauty and virtue; that 
 he saw she had the one, that had proved she had the 
 other. When she pleaded the obvious disparity of her 
 birth, he answered, that he was himself only the son 
 of an English farmer; that happiness was not the mo- 
 nopoly of rank or riches; that his parents would receive 
 lier aJj the child of their adoption; that he would cher- 
 ish her as the charm of his existence. Specious as it 
 
136 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 was, even this did not succeed; she determined to 
 await its avowal to those who had given her life, and 
 who hoped to have made it immaculate by the educa- 
 tion they had bestowed and the example they had af- 
 forded. Some days after this he met her in her walks, 
 for she could not pass her paternal threshold without 
 being intercepted. He asked where she was going, — 
 she said, a friend knowing her fondness for books had 
 promised her the loan of some, and she was going to 
 receive them. He told her he had abundance, that they 
 were just at his home, that he hoped after what had 
 passed she would feel no impropriety in accepting 
 them. She was persuaded to accompany him. Arriyed, 
 however, at the door of his lodgings, she positively re- 
 fused to go any farther; all his former artifices wei^e 
 redoubled; he called God to witness he considered 
 her as his wife, and her character as dear to him as 
 that of one of his sisters; he affected mortification at 
 any suspicion of his purity; he told her if she refused 
 her confidence to his honourable affection, the little 
 iufknt who accompanied her was an inviolate guarantee 
 for her protection. 
 
 Gentlemen, this wretched child did suffer her cre- 
 dulity to repose on his professions. Her theory taught 
 her to respect the honour of a soldier; her love re- 
 pelled the imputation that debased its object; and her 
 youthful innocence rendered her as incredulous as she 
 was unconscious of criminality. At first his behaviour 
 corresponded with his professions; he welcomed her 
 to the home of which he hoped she would soon be* 
 come the inseparable companion; he painted the future 
 joys of their domestic felicity, and dwelt with peculiar 
 
CREIGHTON V. TOWNSEND. 157 
 
 complacency on some heraldic ornament which hung 
 over his chimney-piece, and which, he said, was the 
 armorial ensign of his family! Oh! my Lord, how well 
 would it have been had he but retraced the fountai;i 
 of that document; had he recalled to mind the virtues 
 it rewarded, the pure train of honours it associated, the 
 line of spotless ancestry it distinguished, the liigh am- 
 bition its bequest inspired, the moral imitation it im- 
 peratively commanded ! But when guilt once kindles 
 within the human heart, all that is noble in our nature 
 becomes, parched and arid; the blush of modesty fades 
 before its glare, the sighs of virtue fan its lurid flame, 
 and every divine essence of our being but swells -and 
 exasperates its infernal conflagration. 
 
 Gentlemen, I will not disgust this audience; I will 
 not debase myself by any description of the scene that 
 followed; I will not detail the arts, the excileraents, 
 the promises, the pledges with which deliberate lust 
 inflamed the pjASsions, and finally overpowered the 
 struggles of innocence and of youtii. It is too much to 
 know that tears could not appease — that misery could 
 Tiot afFect—that the presence and the prayers of an 
 infant could not awe him; and that the vvretclied vic- 
 tim, between the , ardour of passion and the repose of 
 love, sunk at length, inflamed, exhausted, and confid- 
 ing, beneath the heartless grasp ox an unsympalhizing 
 sensuality. * 
 
 The appetite of the hour thus satiated, at a tempo- 
 ral, perhaps an eternal hazard, he dismissed the sisters 
 to their unconscio\is parents, not, however, without 
 extorting a promise, that on the e issuing night Miss 
 reighton would desert her home for ever for the arms 
 O 
 
158 , SPEECH IN THE CASE OP 
 
 of a fond, affectionate, and faithful husband. Faith- 
 ful, alas! but only to his appetites, he did seduce her 
 from that " sacred home,'' to deeper guilt, to more 
 deliberate cruelty. 
 
 After a suspense comparatively happy, her parents 
 became acquainted with her irrevocable ruin. The 
 miserable mother, supported by the mere strength of 
 desperation, rushed half phrenzied to the castle, where 
 Mr. Townsend was on duty. "Give me back my 
 child!" was all she could articulate. The parental ruin 
 struck the spoiler almost speechless. The dreadful 
 wcft'ds, ^^'1 have your child,'^'' withered her heart up with 
 the horrid joy that death denied its mercy, that her 
 daughter lived, but lived, alas, to infamy. She could 
 neither speak nor hear; she sunk down convulsed and 
 powerless. As soon as she could recover to any thing 
 of eflTort, naturally did she turn to the residence of Mr. 
 Townsend; his orders had anticipated her— the sentinel 
 refused her entrance'. She told her sad narration, she 
 implored his pity; with the eloquence ofgrief she asked" 
 him, had he home, or ivife, or children. "Oh, Holy 
 Nature! thou didst not plead in vain!" even the rude 
 soldier's heart relented. He admitted her by stealth, 
 and she once more held within her arms the darling 
 hope of many an anxious hour: duped, desolate, de- 
 graded it was true— but still — but still '\her child,''' 
 Gentlemen, if the parental heart cannot suppose what 
 followed, how little adequate am I to paint it. Home 
 this wretched creatui*e could not return; a seducer's 
 mandate, and a father's anger equally forbade it. But 
 she gave whatever consolation she was capable; she told 
 the fatal tale of her undoing— the hopes, the promises 
 
CKEIGHI'ON V. TOWNSEND. 159 
 
 $ 
 
 the studied specious arts that had seduced her; and 
 with a desperate credulity still watched the light that, 
 glimmering" in the distant vista of her love, mocked her 
 with hope, and was to leave her to the tempest. To all 
 the prophecies of maternal anguish, she would still 
 reply, "Oh, no— in the eye of Heaven he is my husband; 
 he took me from my home, my happiness, and you, but 
 still he pledged to me a soldier's honour — but he 
 assured me with a Christian's conscience; for three long 
 months 1 heard his vow's of love; he is honourable and 
 will not deceive; he is human and cannot desert me." 
 Hear, Gentlemen, hear, 1 beseech you, how this inno- 
 cent confidence was returned. When her indignant 
 father had resorted to Lord Forbes, the commander of 
 the forces, and to the noble and learned head of this 
 Court, both of whom received him with a sympathy 
 that did them honour, Mr. Tovvnsend sent a brother 
 officer to inform her she must quit his residence and 
 take lodgings. In vain she remonstrated, in vain she 
 reminded him of her former purity, and of the promises 
 that betrayed it. She was literally turned out at nights 
 fall to find whatever refuge the God of the shelterless 
 might provide for her. Deserted and disowned, how 
 naturally did she turn to the once happy home, whose 
 inmates she had disgraced, and whose protection she 
 she had forfeited! how naturally did she think the once 
 familiar and once welcome avenues looked frowning as 
 she passed! how naturally did she linger like a repose- 
 less spectre round the memorials of her living happi- 
 ness! Her heart failed her; where a parent's smile had 
 ever cheered her, sl/e could not face the glance of 
 shame, or sorrow, or disdain: She returned to seek her 
 
160 SPKECH IN^ THE CASE OF 
 
 seducer's pity even till the mornirjg'. Good God! how 
 can I disclose it! — the very guard had orders to r| 
 her access: even by the rabble soldiery she vvas^ 
 into the street, amid the night's dark horrors, the victiiitl 
 of her own credulity, the outcast of another's crime, to| 
 seal her guilty woes with suicide, or lead a living d eatl| 
 amid the tainted sepulchres of a promiscuous pro 
 tion! Far, far am I from sorry that it was so. Horl 
 beyond thought as is this aggravation, I only hear in i| 
 the voice of the Deity in thunder upon the crime. Yesl 
 yes; it is the present God arming the vicious agenf 
 against the vice, and terrifying from its conception by 
 the turpitude to which it may lead. But what aggrava- 
 tion does seduction need ! A^ice is its essence, lust its 
 end, hypocrisy its instrument, and innocence its victim. 
 Must I detail its miseries? Who depopulates the home 
 ©f virtue, making the child an orphan and the parent 
 childless? Who wrests its crutch from the tottering 
 helplessness of piteous age? Who wrings its happiness 
 from the heart of youth? Who shocks the vision of the 
 public eye? Who infects your very thoroughfares with 
 disease, disgust, obscenity, and profaneness? Who pol- 
 lutes the harmless scenes where modesty resorts for 
 mirth, and toil for recreation, with sights that stain tlie 
 pure and shock the sensitive? Are these the phrases 
 of an interested advocacy? is there one amongst you 
 but has v^itnessed their verification ? Is there one 
 amongst you so fortunate, or so secluded, as not to 
 have wept over the wreck of health, and youth, and 
 ioveliness, and talent, the fatal trophies of the sedu- 
 cer's triumph — some form, perhaps, where every grace 
 xvas squandered, and every beauty paused to waste its 
 
CUKKjHTON \. TOWNSEND. 161 
 
 bloom, and every beam of mind and tone of melody 
 poured their profusion of the public wonder; all that a 
 parent's prayer could ask, or a lover's adoration fancy; 
 in whom even pollution looked so lovely, that virtue 
 would have made her more than human ? Is there an 
 epithet too vile for such a spoiler? Is there a punish- 
 ment too severe for such depravity? I know not upon 
 what complaisance this English seducer may calculate 
 from a jury (if this country: I know not, indeed, whether 
 he may not think he does your wives and daughters 
 some honour by their contamination. But I know well 
 what reception he would experience from a jury of his 
 own country. 1 know that in such general execration do . 
 they view this crime, they think no possible plea a j^al- 
 liation! no, not the mature age of the seduced; not her 
 previously protracted absence from her parents; not a 
 levity approaching almost to absolute guilt; not an in - 
 discretion in the mother, that bore every colour of con- 
 nivance; and in this opinion they have been supported 
 by all the venerable authorities with whom age, in- 
 tegrity, and learning have adorned the judgment seat; 
 Gentlemen, I come armed with these authorities. In 
 the case of TuUidge against Wade; my Lord, it appear- 
 ed the person seduced was thirty years of age, and long 
 before absent from her home; yet, on a motion to set 
 aside the verdict for excessive damages, what was the 
 language of Chief Justice Wilmot? "I regret," said 
 lie, *' that they were not greater; though the plaintiff's 
 loss did not amount to twenty shillings, the jury were 
 riglit in giving ample damages, because such actions 
 should be encouraged for example's sake." Justice 
 ClLve v-ished th^y liad given twice the sum, and in this 
 2 
 
162 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 opinion the whole bench concurred. There was a case 
 where the gh-l was of mature ivge, and living apart from 
 her parents; here, the victim is almost a child, and was 
 never for a moment separated from her home. Again, 
 in the case of " Bennet against Alcott," on a similar 
 motion, grounded on the apparently overwhelming 
 fact, that the mother of the girl had actually sent the 
 defendant into her daughter's bed-chamber, where the 
 criminality occurred, Justice BuUer declared, "he 
 thought tlie parent's indiscretion no excuse for the de- 
 fendant's culpability;" and the verdict of 200/. damages 
 was conHiined. I'here was a case of hteral connivance; 
 here^ will they have the hardihoo.d to hint even its sus- 
 picion? You all must remember, Gentlemen, the case 
 of our own countryman, Captain Gore, against whom, 
 only the other day, an English jury gave a verdict of 
 1,500/. damages, though it was proved that the person 
 alledged to have been seduced was herself the seducer,| 
 going even so fiir as to throw gravel up at the windows 
 of the defendant; yet Lord Ellenborough refused to" 
 disturb the verdict. Thus you may see 1 rest not on my 
 own proofless unsupported dictum. I rely upon grave 
 decisions and venerable authorities— not only on the in- 
 dignant denunciation of the moment, but on the delibe- 
 rate concurrence of the enlightened and the dispassion- 
 ate. I see my learned opponent smile. I tell him I would 
 not care if the books were an absolute blank upon the 
 subject. I would then make the human heart my au- 
 thority ! I would appeal to the bosom of every man 
 who hears me, whether such a crime^should grow un- 
 punished into a precedent; whether innocence should 
 •be made the subject of a brutal speculation^ whether 
 
CREIGHTON V. TOWNSEND. 163 
 
 the sacred seal of filial obedience, upon which the 
 Almighty Parent has affixed his eternal fiat, should be 
 violated by a blasphemous and selfish libertinism! 
 
 Gentlemen, if the cases I have quoted, palliated as 
 they were, have been humanely marked by ample 
 damages, what should you give here where there is 
 nothing to excuse — where there is every thing to ag. 
 gravate! The seduction was deliberate, it was three 
 months in progress, its victim was almost a child, it 
 committed under the most alluring promises, it was 
 followed by a deed of the most dreadful cruelty; but, 
 above all, it was the act of a man commissioned by his 
 own country, and paid by this, for the enforcement of 
 the laws, and the preservation of society. No man more 
 respects than I do the well-earned reputation of the 
 British army; 
 
 " It is a school 
 Where every principle tending to honour 
 Is taught— iffollovjed.''^ 
 
 But in the name of that distinguished army, I here so- 
 lemnly appeal against an act, which would blight its 
 greenest laurels, and lay its trophies prostrate in the 
 dust. Let them war, but be it not on domestic happi- 
 ness;let them invade, but be their country's hearths 
 inviolable; let them achieve a triumph wherever their 
 banners fi}^, but be it not over morals, innocence, and 
 virtue. I know not by what palliation the defendant 
 means to mitigate this enormity; — will he plead her 
 youth? it should have been her protection; — will he 
 plead her levity? i deny the fact; but even v/ere it 
 
\ ■ 
 
 164 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 true, wliat is it to him? what right has any man to 
 speculate on the temperature of your wives and yout 
 daughters, that he may defile your bed, or desolate 
 your habitation? Will he plead poverty? I never knew 
 a seducea or an adulterer that did not. He should have 
 considered that before. But is poverty an excuse for 
 crime? Our law says, he who has not a purse to pay for 
 it, must sufter for it in his person. It is a most wise 
 declaration; and for my part, 1 never hear such a per- 
 son plead poverty, that my first emotion is not a 
 thanksgiving, that Providence has denied, at least, the 
 instrumentality of wealth to the accomplishment of his 
 purposes. Gentlemen, I see you agree with me. 1 waive 
 tlie topic; and I again tell you, that if what I know will 
 be his chief defence were true, it should avail him 
 nothing. He had no right to speculate on this wretched 
 creature's levity to ruin her, and still less to ruin her 
 family. Remember, however. Gentlemen, that even 
 had this wretched child been indiscreet, it is not in her 
 name we ask for reparation; no, it is in the name of 
 the parents her seducer has heart-broken; it is in the 
 name of the poor helpless family he has desolated; it 
 is in the name of that misery, whose sanctuary he has 
 violated; it is in the name of law, virtue, and morality; 
 it is in the name of that country whose fair fame 
 foreign envy will ma^e responsible for this crime; it 
 is in the name of nature's dearest, tenderest sympa- 
 thies; it is in the name of all that gives your toil an 
 object, and your ease a charm, and your age a hope— 
 1 ask from you the value of the poor Tnan's child. 
 
SPEECH 
 
 IN THE CASE OF BLAKE v. WILKINS: 
 
 DELIVERED IN 
 TffE COUJVTY COURTHOUSE, GALWAY. 
 
 May it please your Lordship, * 
 
 The Plaintiff's Counsel, tell me, Gentlemen,pmost 
 unexpectedly that they have closed his case, and it 
 becomes my duty to state to you that of the defendant. 
 The nature of this action you have already heard. It is 
 one which, in my mind, ought to be very seldom 
 brought, and very sparingly encouraged. It is founded 
 on circumstances of the most extreme delicacy, and it 
 is intended to visit with penal consequences the non- 
 observance of an engagement, which is of the most 
 paramount importance to society, and which of all 
 others, perhaps, ought to be the most unbiassed, — an 
 engagement which, if it be voluntary, judicious, and 
 disinterested, generally produces the happiest effects; 
 but which, if it be either unsuitable or compulsory, 
 engenders not only individual misery, but consequences 
 universally pernicious. There are fQ\Y contracts be- 
 tween human beings which should be more deliberate 
 than that of marriage. I admit it should be very cau- 
 
166 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 tlously promised, but, even when proniisec), I am fur 
 from conceding that it should invariably be performed; 
 a thousand circumstances may form an impediment, 
 change of fortune may render it imprudent, change of 
 affection may make it culpable. The very party to 
 whom the law gives the privilege of complaint has 
 perhaps the most reason to be grateful, — grateful that 
 its happiness has not been surrendered to caprice; 
 grateful that Religion has not constrained an unwilling 
 acquiescence, or made an unavoidable desertion doubly 
 criminal, grateful that an offspring has not been sacri- 
 ficed to the indehcate and ungenerous enforcement; 
 grateful that an innocent secret disinclination did not 
 too late evince itself in an irresistible and irremediable 
 disgust. You will agree with me, however, that if there 
 exists any excuse for such an action, it is on the side 
 of the female, because every female object being more ■ 
 exclusively domestic, such a disappointment is more 
 severe in its visitation; because the very circumstance 
 concentrating their feehngs renders them naturally 
 more sensitive of a wound; because their best trea« 
 sure, their reputation may have suffered from the in- 
 tercourse; because their chances of reparation are less, 
 and their habitual seclusion makes them feel it more; 
 because there is something in the desertion of their 
 lielplessness which almost immerges the illegality in 
 the unmanliness 6f the abandonment. However, if a . 
 man seeks to enforce thisengagement, every one feels 
 some indelicacy attached to the requisition. I do not 
 inquire into the comparative justness of the reasoning, 
 but does not every one feel that there appears some 
 meanness in forcing a female into an alliance? Is it not 
 
BLAKE V. WILKINS. 16/ 
 
 almost saying", *'I will expose to public shame Ihe crc» 
 duUty on which I practised, or you must pay to me the 
 monies numbered, the profits of that heartless specu- 
 lation; I have gambled with your affections, I have se- 
 cured your bond, I will extort the penalty either from 
 your purse or your reputation!" I put a case lo you 
 where the circumstances are reciprocal, where ag^, 
 fortune, situation, are the same, where there is no dis. 
 parity of years to make the supposition ludicrous, 
 where there is no disparity of fortune to render it sus- 
 picious. Let us see whether the present action can be 
 so palliated, or whether it does not exhibit a picture 
 of fraud and avarice, and meanness and hypocrisy, so 
 laughable, that it is almost impossible to criticise it, 
 and yet so debasing, that human pride almost forbids 
 its ridicule. 
 
 It has been left to me to defend my unfortunate old 
 client from the double battery of Love and of Law, 
 which at the age of sixty-five has so unexpectedly 
 opened on her. Oh, Gentlemen, how vainglorious is 
 the boast of beauty! How misapprehended have been the 
 charms of youth, if years and wrinkles can thus despoil 
 their conquests, and depopulate the navy of its prowess, 
 and beguile the bar of its eloquence! How mistaken 
 were all the amatory poets from Anacreon downwards, 
 who preferred the bloom of the rose and the thrill of 
 the nightingale, to the salfron hide and dulcet treble 
 of sixty-five ! Even our own svveet bard has had the 
 folly to declare, that 
 
 " He once had heard tell of an amorous youth 
 Who was caught in his grandmother's bed> 
 
 I 
 
168 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 But owns he had ne'er such a liquorish tooth. 
 As to wish to be there in his stead." 
 
 Royal wisdom has said that we live in a " New Eiia.'^ 
 The reign of old 'women has ccnimenced, and if Johanna 
 Southcote converts England to her creed, why should 
 not Ireland, less pious perhaps, but at least equally pas- 
 sionate^, kneel before the shrine of the irresistible 
 Widow WiLKiNs. It appears^ 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 considered 
 as inseparable. I know not whether any of you have 
 ever seen a very beautiful print representing 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 ex- 
 piring—that identical personage, my Lord, was the 
 happy swain, who, forty or fifty years ago, received 
 the reward of his valour and his skill in the virgin hand 
 of ony iienerable client! The Doctor lived something 
 more than a century, during a great part of which Mrs. 
 Wilkins was his companion — ala^, Gentlemen, long as 
 he lived, he lived not long enough to behold her 
 beauty — 
 
 « That beauty, like the Aloe flower. 
 But blossom'd and bloom'd at fourscore." 
 
 He was, however, so far fascinated as to bequeath to he: 
 the legacies of his patients, when he found he was pre- 
 doomed to follow them. To this circumstance, very far 
 
BLAKE V. WILKINS. 169 
 
 he it from me to hint, that Mrs. W. is indebted fbr any 
 of her attractions. Rich, however, she undoubtedly was, 
 and rich she would still as undoubtedly have continued, 
 had it not been for the intercourse with the family of 
 the Plaintiff. I do not impute it as a crime to them that 
 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 ex- 
 hausted her most prodigal liberality, they should drag 
 her infirmities before the |)ublic gaze, vainly supposing 
 that they could hide their own contemptible avarice in 
 the more prominent exposut'e of her melancholy 
 dotage.' The father of the Plaintiff, it cannot be un- 
 known 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 intimacy, frequent 
 allusion was made to a son whom Mrs. Wilkins had 
 never se^n since he was a child, and who had risen to a 
 lieutenancy in the navy, under the patronage of their 
 relative Sir Betitjamin Bloomfield. In a parent's pane- 
 gyric, the gallant lieutenant was of course all that even 
 hope could picture. Young, gay, heroic, and disinte- 
 rested, the pride of the navy, tiie 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 
 anticlimax to tell you after this, that he is the present 
 Fhv.ntiff. The eloquence of Mrs. Blake was not ex- 
 clusively confined to her encomiums on the lieutenant, 
 '^]\c diverged at times into an episode on the matrimo«- 
 P 
 
ITO SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 nial felicities, painted the joy orpassion and delights of ■ 
 love, and obscurely hinted that Hymen, with his torchj 
 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 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 
 speculations. 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 echpsed the glories of ambition — 
 Trafiilgar, and St. Vincent flitted from his memory — 
 he gave up all for woman, as Mark Antony did before 
 him, and, like the Cupid in Hudibras, he 
 
 <f took his stand 
 
 Upon a widow's jointure land— « 
 His tender sigh and trickling tear 
 Long'd for five hundred pounds a year; 
 And languishing desires were fond 
 Of Statute, Mortgage, Bill, and Bond!" 
 
 —Oh, Gentlemen, only imagine him on the lakes of 
 North America! Alike to him the varieties of season 
 or the vicissitudes of warfare. One sovereign image 
 monopolizes his sensibilities. Does the storm rage? the 
 Widow Wilkins outsighs the whirlwind. Is the Ocean 
 calm? its mirror shows him the lovely Widow Wilkins* 
 Is the battle won? he thins his laurels that the Widow 
 
BLAKE V. WILKINS. iri 
 
 Wilkins may interweave her myrtles. Does the broad- 
 side thunder? he invokes the Widow Wilkins! 
 
 «* A sweet little Cherub she sits up aloft 
 To keep watch for the life of poor Peterl*' 
 
 — Alas, how much he is to be pitied 1 How amply lie 
 should be recompensed! Who but must mourn his sub- 
 lime, disinterested, sweet-souled patriotism! Who but 
 must sympathize with his pure, ardenf, generous afiec* 
 tion! — affection too confiding lo require an intervieiv/^^ 
 aifection too warm to'ivaJit even for an introduction! In- 
 deed, his Amanda herself seemed to think his love was 
 most desirable at a distance, for at the very first visit 
 after his return, he was refused admittance. His capti- 
 .vating charmer was then sick and nurse-tended at her 
 brother's house, after a winter's confinement, reflect- 
 ing, most likely, rather on her funeral than her wed- 
 ding. Mrs. Blake's avarice instantly took the alar ni, and 
 she wrote the letter, which I shall now proceed to read 
 to you. 
 
 [Mr. Vaxdeleur. — 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. 
 
 Mb. O'Connell rose for the purpose of supporting- 
 the propriety of the course pursued by the Defendant's 
 Counsel, when] 
 
 Mr. Phillips resumed— My Lord, although it is ut- 
 terly impossible for the Learned Gentleman to say, in 
 'vhat manner hereafter this letter might be made cvi 
 
172 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 dence, 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 suppression an importance which per- 
 haps its production could not have procured for it. You 
 see Gentlemen, what a cas6 they have when they insist 
 on the withholding of the documents which originated 
 with themselves. I accede to tfieir very polite inter- 
 ference, r grant them, since they entreat it, the mercy 
 oj my silence. Certain it is, however, that a letter was 
 received from Mrs. Blake; and that almost immediately 
 aftef its receipt. Miss Blake; intruded herself at Brov/n- 
 ville, where Mrs. Wilkins was— remained two days — 
 lamented bitterly her not having appeared to the lieu- 
 tenant, when he called to visit her — said that her poor 
 mother had set her heart on an aUiance — that she was 
 sure dear ivom^an^ 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 inchned to con- 
 nect herself with a stranger (poor old fool!) the debts 
 in which her generosity to the family had already in- 
 volved her, formed, at least for the present, an insur- 
 mountable 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 incumbrances, and a renewed represnta- 
 tion of the mother's suspense and the brother's despe- 
 ration. You will not fail to observe, Gentlemen, that 
 while the female conspirators were thus at work, the 
 lover huTiself had never seen the object of his, idolatry. 
 
BLAKE y. WILKINS. i7S 
 
 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 hy proxy. For 
 the gratification of his avarice, he was contented to em- 
 brace age, disease, infirmity, and widowhood — to bind 
 his youthful passions to the carcase for which the grave 
 was opening — to feed by anticipation on the uncold 
 corps and cheat the worm of its reversionary corruption. 
 Educated in a profession proverbially generous, he 
 oifered to barter every joy for money! Born in a coun- 
 try ardent to a fault, he advertised his happiness to tlie 
 highest bidder! and he now solicits an honourable jury 
 to become the panders to this heartless cupidity! Tluis 
 beset, harrassed, conspired against, their miserable 
 victim entered into the contract you have heard — a 
 contract conceived in meanness, extorted by fraud, and 
 sought to be enforced by the most profligate con- 
 spiracy. Trace it through every stage of its progress, in 
 its origin, its means, its effects — from the paren't con» 
 triving it through the sacrifice of her son, and forward- 
 ing it through the indelicate instrumeululity of her 
 daughter, down to the son himself unblushingly ac- 
 ceding to the atrocious combination by which age was 
 to be betrayed and youth degraded, and the odious 
 union of decrepid hist and precocious avarice blasphe- 
 mously consecrated by the solemnities of Religion! Is 
 this the example which as parents you would sanction? 
 Is this the principle you would adopt yourselves? Have 
 you never witnessed the misery of an unmatched mar- 
 riage? Have you never worshipped the bliss by which 
 it has been hallowed, when its torch, kindled at aflfec- 
 lion's altar, gives the noon of life its warmth and it3 
 V2 
 
 ^ 
 
174 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 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 eacli sex, the solemqity of every Church 
 and the Sacramej^t of one, shall be profaned into tlie 
 ceremonial of an obscene and soul-degrading- avarice! 
 
 No sooner was this contract, the device of their co- 
 vetousness and the evidence of their shame, swindled 
 from the wretched object of this conspiracy, than its 
 motive became apparent; they avowed themselves the 
 keepers of tlieir melancholy victim; they watched her 
 movements; they dictated her actions; they forbade all 
 intercourse with her own brother; they duped her inta 
 accepting bills, and let her be arrested for the amount. 
 They exercised the most cruel antf capricious tyranny 
 upon her, now menacing her with the publication of 
 lier follies, and now with the still more horrible en- 
 forcement of a contract that thus betraj^ed its antici- 
 pated inflictions! Can you imagine a more disgusting 
 'cxh1bitio.iv£f how weak and how worthless human na- 
 ture raa3^m,*than this scene exposes? On the one 
 hand, a combination of sex and age, disregarding the . 
 most sacred obligations, and trampling on the most 
 tender ties, from a mean greediness of lucre, that nei- 
 ther honour or gratitude or nature could appease, 
 '' Lucri bonus est odor exregiialibet" On the other hand, 
 the poor shrivelled relic of what once was health, and 
 youth, and animation, sought to be Embraced in its in- 
 fection, and caressed in its infirmity — crawled over and 
 corrupted by the human reptiles, before death had 
 shovelled it to the less odious and more natural ver- 
 min of the grave!! What an object for the specula- " 
 
BLAKE V. WILKINS. 175 
 
 .,uas of avarice! What an angel for the idolatry of 
 youth! Gentlemen, when this miserable dupe to her 
 own doling* vanity and the vice of others, saw how she 
 was treated — when slie 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, hud fallen at his feet to be 
 squeezed and trampled; when she saw the intercourse 
 of her relatives prohibited, the most trifling remem- 
 brances of her ancient friendship denied, the very ex- 
 ercise of her habitual charity denounced; v;lien she 
 saw all that sbe was worth was to be surrciidered to a 
 family confiscation, and that slie was herself to be gilj- 
 bftedin the chains of H.-<:edlock, an example to every su- 
 perannuated dotard, upon whose plunder the ravens 
 of the world might calculate, she came to the wisest 
 determination of her life, and decided th'it licr fortune 
 sliould 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 tite 
 restoration of the contract of which she.fi^d beeii 
 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 returned from 
 the mother, withholding all consent unless the property- 
 was settled on her family, but withholding the contract 
 atthe same time. The wretched old woman could notsus- 
 tainthis conflict. She was taken serioaslyill, 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 Dubliti. There she was re- 
 
176 SPEBCH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 ceived with the utmost kindness by her relative, Mr. 
 Mac Namara, to whonn she confided the dehcacy and 
 distress of her situation. That gentleman, acting at onee 
 as her agent and her friend, instantly repaired to Gal- 
 way, where he had an interview with Mr. Blake. This 
 was long before the commencement of any action. A 
 conversation took place between them on the subject, 
 which m*st, in my mind, set the -present action at rest 
 altogether; because it must show that the non-perform- 
 ance of the contract originated entirely with the plain- 
 tiff himself Mr. Mac Namara inquired, whether it was 
 not true, that Mr. Blake's own family decUned any 
 connexion, unless Mrs. Wilkins consented to settle on 
 them the entire of her property? Mr. Blake replied it 
 was. Mr. Mac Namara rejoined, that her contract did 
 not bind her to any such extent. ** No," replied Blake, 
 " I know it does not; however tell Mrs. Wilkins that I 
 understand she has about 580/. a year, ajid J ivill he 
 content to settle the odd 80/. on ker by way of pocket . 
 Qnoney,^^ Here, of co\irse, 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 interview, which unfolds 
 the motives and illustrates the mind of Mr. Blake more 
 than any observation which 1 can make on it. As one 
 of the inducements to the projected marriage, he ac- 
 tually proposed the prospect of a 50/. annuity as an of- 
 iicer's widow's pension, to which she would be entitled 
 in the event of his decease! 1 will^notstop to remark 
 on the delicacy of this inducement — I will not dwell 
 on the ridicule of the anticipation — I will not advert to 
 
BLAKE V. WILKI^S. 177 
 
 \\\Q 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 ma^i be composed 
 who could thus debase the national liberality! Whajl ! 
 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 generous consolation with which a nation's 
 gratitude cheers the last moments of her dying hero, 
 by tlie portraiture of his children sustained and enno- 
 bled by the legacy of his achievements, to be thus de- 
 liberately perverted into the bribe of a base, reluctant, 
 unnatural prostitution ! Oh ! 1 know of nothing to pa- 
 rallel the self-abasement of such a deed,- except 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 un- 
 feeling conspiracy. Perhaps the Gentlemen would 
 wish also to cushion this document? They do not. 
 Then I shall read it. The letter is addressed to Mrs. 
 Wilkins. 
 
 " G'fl/wqy, Jan. 9, 1817. 
 " Madam, 
 
 •* I have been applied to professionally by Lieu- 
 tenant Peter Blnke to take proceedings against you 
 on rather an unpleasant occasion; but from every letter 
 of your's and other documents, together with the ma- ■ 
 terial and irreparable loss Mr. Blake has sustained in 
 his professional prospects, by means o^ yonr proposals 
 
'"'i^pr 
 
 irS SPEEpH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 to him, makes it indispensably necessary for him ti 
 get remuneration from you. Under these ci 
 stances, I am obliged to say, that I have his dired 
 to take immediate proceedings against you, unless h 
 is in some measure compensated for your breach ol 
 contract and promise to him. I should feel happy that 
 you would save me the necessity of acting profession- 
 ally by settling the business, [You see. Gentlemen, 
 money, money, money, runs through the whole 
 amour,] and not suffer it to come to a public investi- 
 gation, particularly, as I conceive from the legal ad- 
 vice Mr. Blake has got, together with all I have seen, 
 it will ultimately terminate most honourably to his ad' 
 vantage, and to your pecuniary loss. 
 
 " I have the honour to remain, 
 " Madam, 
 " Your very humble Servant, 
 
 "Anthony Martin." 
 
 I. 
 
 I 
 
 Indeed, I think Mr. Anthony Martin is mistaken. In- 
 deed, 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 abandon the navy on 
 such a speculation — to desert so noble a profession — to 
 forfeit the ambition it migTil to have associated — the rank 
 to which it leads— tde glory it may confer, for the pur- 
 pose 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 be- 
 lieve that a member of a profession not less remarkable 
 for the valouir than the generosity of its spirit—a pro- 
 fession as proverbial for its profusion in the harbour as 
 
BLAKE V. WILKINS. 179 
 
 for the prodigality of its life-blood on the wave— a pro- 
 fession ever willing to fling money to the winds, and 
 only anxious that they should waft .through the world 
 its immortal banner crtTusoned ivith the record of a thou- 
 sand victories/ 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, sullen 
 pander to the prostitution of his youth! The fact is, that 
 increasing ill health, and the improbability of promo- 
 tion, combined fo induce his retirement on half pay. 
 You will find this confirmed by the date of his resigna- 
 tion, which was immediately after the battle of Water- 
 loo, which settled (no matter how) the destinies of 
 Ertrope. His constitution was declining, his advance- 
 ment 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." 
 
 He first. Gentlemen, attacked her fortune luith herself, 
 through the artillery of the Church, and having failed 
 in that, he now attacks her fortune toithoiit herself 
 through the assistance of the law. However, if I am 
 instructed rightly, he has nobody but himself to blame 
 for his disappointment. Observe, I do not vouch for the 
 authenticity of this fact; but I do certainly assure you, 
 ! that Mrs. Wilkins was persuaded of it. You know the 
 1 proverbial frailty of our nature. The gallant Lieutenant 
 was not free from It ! Perhaps you imagine that some 
 
180 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 younger, or according to his taste, some older fair on<: 
 weaned him from the widow. Indeed they did not. Ht. 
 had no heart to lose, and yet (can you solve the para- 
 dox?) his infirmity was lqte. As the Poet says— 
 
 " LOVE STILL LOVE.'' 
 
 No, it was not to Vea-us, it was to Bacchus, he sacri- 
 ficed. With an eastern idolatry he commenced at day 
 light, and so persevering was his piety till the shades of 
 night, that when was not on his knees, he could scarcely 
 he 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 !" 
 
 r see by your smiling, Gentlemen, that you correct 
 my error. I perceive your classic memories recurring 
 to, perhaps, the only prototype to be found in history, 
 rbeg his pardon. 1 should not have overlooked 
 
 the immortal Captain Wattle, 
 
 Who was all for love and— a little for the bottle,'^ 
 
 Ardent as our fair ones have been announced to be, 
 they do not prefer a fiame that is so exclusively spirit' 
 ual. Widow W^ilkins, no doubt, did not choose to be 
 singular. In the words of the bard, and, my Lord, I 
 perceive you exciise my dwelling so miicli on the au- 
 thority of the muses, because really on this occasion 
 the minstrel seems to have combined the powers of 
 
BLAKE V. WILKINS. 181- 
 
 poetry with the spirit of prophecy — in the very words 
 of the Bard, 
 
 " He asked her, would she marry him — Widow Wil- 
 kin s answer'd No^— 
 
 Then said he, I'll to the Ocean rock, I'm ready for 
 the slaughter, 
 
 Oh!-*ril shoot at my sad image, as its sighing in tlie 
 water — 
 
 Only think of Widow Wilkins, saying — Go Peter- 
 Go!" 
 
 But, Gentlemen, let us try to be serious, and seri- 
 ously give me leave to ask you, on what grounds does' 
 he solicit yoyr verdict? Is it for the loss of his pro- 
 fession? Does he deserve compensation if he abandoned 
 it for such a purpose — if he deserted 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 dto 
 so? Is there nothing to cast any suspicion on the pre- 
 text? nothing in the aspect of public affairs? in the uni- 
 versal peace? in the uncertainty of being put in com- 
 mission? in the downright impossibility of advancement? 
 Nothing. to make you suspect that he imputes as a con- 
 trivance, what was the manifest result of an accidental 
 contingency? Does he claim on the ground oi sacrificed 
 affection? Oh, Gentlemen only fancy ivhat he han 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 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 
 Q 
 
182 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 year and a cupid in every wrinkle — afTecting to shrinle 
 from the flame of his impatience, and fanning it with 
 the ambrosial sigh of sixty -five!! I cannot paint the 
 fierce meridian transports of the honey moon, 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^ however, his patri- 
 archal charmer (old enough at the time to be the last 
 *^{/^ ^f Methu^alem) with a fifty pound annuity, bemg 
 the balance of his glory against his Majesiy^s Ship, the 
 Hydra ! / 
 
 Give me leave to ask you, is this one of the cases, to 
 meet which, this very rare and delicate action was in- 
 tended? Is this a case where a reciprocity of circum- 
 stances, of affection, or of years, throw even a shade of 
 ratignality over the contract? 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 imagination, I can 
 suppose a man in the very spring of life, when his sensi- 
 bilities are most acute, and his passions most ardent, 
 attaching himself to some object, young, lovely, talent- 
 ed, and accomplished, concentrating, as he thought, 
 every charm of personal perfection, and in whom those 
 charms were only heightened by the modesty that 
 veiled them; perhaps his preference was encouraged; 
 his affection returned; his very sigh echoed until he was 
 conscious of his existence but by, the soul-creating 
 sympathy — until the world seemed but the residence 
 
BLAKE V. WILKINS. ' 183 
 
 of his love, and that love the principle that gave it 
 animation — untilj before the smile of her affection, the 
 whole spectral train of sorrow vanished, and this world 
 of wo, with all its cares and miseries and crimes* 
 brightened ashy enchantment into anticipated paradisell 
 It might happen that this divine affection might be 
 crushed, and that heavenly vision wither into air at the 
 hell-engendered pestilence of parental avarice, leaving 
 youth and health, 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 expiation, 
 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 compeRvation ! 
 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 constancy? Do 
 you believe that the marriage thus sought to be en- 
 forced, 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 recommended. 
 Do you not rather believe that it originated in avarice — 
 that it was promoted by conspiracy— and that it would 
 ?)ot perhaps have lingered through some months of 
 
184 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 crime, and then terminated in a heartless and disgusting | 
 abandonment? 
 
 Gentlemen, these are the questions which you will 
 discuss in your Jury-room. I am not afraid of your de- 
 cision. Remember I ask you for no mitigation of 
 damages. Nothing less than your verdict 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 character — by that verdict you will 
 assure, not only the immense multitude of both sexes 
 that thus so unusually 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 AFFEC- 
 TION. I surrender with confidence ray 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 
 
 OF 
 NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE, 
 
 DOWN TO THE PERIOD OF HIS 
 
 EXILE TO ELBA, 
 
 HE IS fallen! 
 
 We may now pause before that splendid prodigy, 
 which towered amongst us like some ancient ruin, 
 v/hose frown terrified the glance its magnificence at- 
 tracted. 
 
 Grand, gloomy, and peculiar, he sat upon the throne, 
 a sceptred hermit, wrapt iu the solitude of his own 
 originality. 
 
 A mind bold, independent, and decisive — a will, des- 
 potic in its dictates — an energy that distanced expe- 
 dition and a conscience pliable to every ♦touch of 
 interest, marked the outline of this extraordinary cha- 
 racter—the most extraordinary, perhaps, that, in the 
 annals of this world, ever rose, or reigned, or fell. 
 
 Flung into life, in the midst of a Revolution, that 
 quickened every energy of a people who acknow- 
 ledged no superior, he commenced his course, a stran- 
 ger by birth, and a scholar by charity! 
 Q2 
 
186 CHARACTER OF 
 
 With no friend but his sword, and no fortune but h'lS 
 talents, he rushed into the hsts where rank, and wealth, 
 and genius had arrayed themselves, and competition 
 fled from him as from the glance of destiny. He knew 
 no motive but interest' — ^he acknowledged no criterion 
 but success — he worshipped no God but ambition, and 
 with an eastern devotion he knelt at the shrine of liis 
 idolatryj 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 dynasty, 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 Republic: 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 crum- 
 bled, beggars reigned, systems vanished, the wildest 
 theories took the colour of his whim, and all that was 
 venerable, and all that was novel, changed places with 
 tlie rapidity of a drama. Even apparent defeat assumed 
 the appearance of victory — his flight from Egypt con- 
 firmed his destiny — ruin itself only elevated him to 
 empire. 
 
 * In his hypocritical cant after Liberty, in the com- 
 mencement of the Revolution, he assumed the name 
 of Brutus Proh Pudor! 
 
NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. 187 
 
 But if his fortune was great, his genius was trans- 
 cendent; decision flashed upon his councils; and it was 
 the same to decide and to perform. To inferior intel- 
 lects, his combinations appeared perfectly impossible, 
 his plans perfectly impracticable; but in his hands, 
 simplicity marked their development, snd success vin- 
 dicated their adoption. 
 
 ' His person partook the character of his mind — if the 
 one never yielded in the cabinet, the other never bent 
 in the field. ) 
 
 Nature had no obstacles that he did not surmount-— 
 space no opposition that he did not spurn; and whether 
 amid Alpine rocks, Arabian sands, or polar snows, he 
 seemed proof against peril, and empowered with ubi- 
 quity! The whole continent of Europe trembled at be- 
 holdirfg the audacity of his designs, and the miracle of 
 their execution. Scepticism bowed to the prodigies of 
 his performance; romance assumed the air of history; 
 nor was there aught too incredible for belief, or too 
 fanciful 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 tjie 
 chess-board ! 
 
 Amid all these changes he stood immutable as ada- 
 mant. It mattered little whether in the field or tlie 
 drawing room — with the mob or the levee — wearing 
 the jacobin bonnet or the iron crown — banishing a 
 Braganza, or espousing a Hapsbourgh— dictating peace 
 
188 CHARACTER OF 
 
 on a raft to the czar of Russia, or contemplating defeat 
 at the gallows of Leipsic — he was still the same mili- 
 tary despot! 
 
 Cradled in the camp, he was to the last hour the dar- 
 ling of the army; and whether in the camp or in the 
 cabinet he never forsook a friend or forgot a favour. 
 Of all his soldiers, not one abandoned him, till affection 
 was useless, and their first stipulation was for the safety 
 of their favorite. , 
 
 They knew \^ell that if he was lavish of them, he 
 was prodigal of himself; and that if he exposed them 
 to peril, he repaid them with plunder. For the soldier, 
 he subsidized every people; to the people he made 
 even pride pay tribute. The victorious veteran glit- 
 tered with his gains; and the capital, gorgeous with 
 the spoils of art, became the miniature metrop(5hs of 
 the universe. In this wonderful combination, his affec- 
 tation of hterature must not be omitted. The jailor of 
 the press, he affected the patronage of letters — the 
 proscriber of books, he encouraged philosophy — the 
 persecutor 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 de- 
 nouncer 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 contradiction's, and at the same 
 time such an individual consistency, were never united 
 
 * Sir Humphrey Davy was transmitted the first prize 
 of the Academy of Sciences. 
 
NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE- 189 
 
 lithe sfAine character — A Royalist — A Republican and 
 ah Emperor— a Mahometan — a Catholic and a patron 
 of* the Synagogue — a Subaltern and a Sovereign — a 
 Traitor and a Tyrant — a Christian and an Infidel — -he 
 was, through all his vicissitudes, the same stern, impa- 
 tient, inflexible original—the same mysterious incom- 
 prehensible 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'. J 
 
 Such is a faint and feeble picture of Napoleok Buo- 
 naparte, the first, (and it is said to be hoped the last) 
 Emperor of the French. 
 
 That he lias 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 blessing of a 
 Free Constitution; Superstition has found her grave in 
 the ruins of the Inquisition;* and the Feudal system, 
 with its whole train of tyrannic satelhtes, has fled for 
 r evei^ Kings may learn from him that their safest study, 
 
 * What melancholy reflections does not this sen- 
 tence awaken; But three years have elapsed since it 
 was written, and in that .short space all the good ef- 
 fected by Napoleon has been erased by the Legiti» 
 mates, and the most questionable parts of his character 
 badly imitated! — His successors want nothing but his 
 Genius. 
 
190 CHARACTER OF 
 
 as well as their noblest, is the interest of the people; 
 the people are taught by him that there is no despot- 
 ism 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. 
 
SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 . MR. PHILLIPS 
 
 IX THE CASE OF BROWNE u BLAKE: 
 FOR CRIM. COJ\r. 
 
 Delivered in dublin, on the 9th july, isir. 
 
 My Lord and Gentlemen, 
 
 I AM instructed by the plaintiff to lay his Cv^ise before 
 you, and little do 1 wonder at the great interest which 
 it seems to have excited. It is one of those cases which 
 come home to the "business and the bosoms" of man- 
 kind— 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 aJoud for 
 pity and protection! On my first addressing a jury upon 
 -a subject of this nature, I took the high ground to 
 which I deemed myself entitled — I stood upon the 
 purity of "the natidnal chacrater — I relied iipcn that 
 chastity which centuries had made provr.-l ial., and'al- 
 I most drowned the cry of individual suffering in the 
 
192 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 violated reputation of the country. Humbled and 
 abashed, I must resign the topic — indignation at the 
 novelty of the offence has given way to horror at the 
 frequency of its repetition— it is now becortiing almost 
 fashionable umongst us; we are importing the follies, 
 and naturalizing the vices of the continent; scarcely a 
 term passes in these courts, during which some una- 
 bashed adulterer or seducer does not announce him- 
 self improving on the odiousness of his offence, by the 
 profligacy of his justification, 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 orphanage that springs from prostitution; 
 what solitary right, whether of life or of liberty, or of 
 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 — wheu 
 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 dearest 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 
 
BROWNE V. BLAEE. 193 
 
 which I am fateil to unfold, and then tell me whether a 
 single virtue is yet to linger among-st us with impunity 
 — whether honour, friendship or hospitality, are to be 
 sacred — whether that endearing confidence by which 
 the bitterness of this life is sweetened, is to become the 
 instrument of a perfidy beyond conception; and whe- 
 ther the protection of the roof, the fraternity of the 
 board, the obligations of the altar, and the devotion of 
 the heart, are to be so many panders to the hellish 
 abominations they should have puri%d — Hear the case 
 which must go forth to the world, but which 1 trust in 
 God your verdict will accompany, to tell that world, 
 that if there was vice enough amongst us to commit the 
 crime, there is virtue enough to brand it with an in- 
 dignant punishment. 
 
 Of the plaintiff, Mr. Browne, it is quite impossible 
 but you must have heard much—his misfortune has 
 given him sad celebrity, and it does seem a peculiar 
 incident to such misfortune that the loss of happiness is^ 
 almost invariably succeeded by the deprivation of cha- 
 racter. As the less guilty murderer will hide the corse 
 that may lead to his detection, so does the adulterer, by 
 obscuring the reputation of his victim, seek to diminish 
 the moral responsibility he had incurred. Mr. Browne 
 undoubtedly forms no exception to this system — be- 
 trayed by his friend, and abandoned by his wife, his too 
 generous confidence, his too tender love has been 
 slanderously perverted into the sources of his calamity 
 — because he could not tyrannize 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 infatuation of its cunning found its justification eve* 
 R 
 
194 SPEECH IN THE CASE OP 
 
 on the virtues of its victim! I am not deterred by tbe 
 prejudice thus cruelly excited — I appeal from the 
 gossiping credulity of scandal to the grave decisions of 
 fathers and of husbands, and I implore of you, as you 
 value the blessings of your home, not to countenance 
 the calumny which solicits a precedent to excuse their 
 spoliation. At the close of the year 1809, the death of 
 ray client's father gave him the inheritance of an ample 
 fortune. 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 ancient friend, 
 the respectable proprietor of Oran Castle. She was 
 then in the very spring of life, and never did the sun 
 of heaven unfold a lovelier blossom — her look was 
 beauty and her breath was fragrance— the eye that saw 
 her caught a lustre from the vision; and all the virtues 
 seemed to linger round her, like so many spotless 
 spirits enamoured of her loveliness. 
 
 " 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 she 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 worlh- 
 lessness. Can the mind imagine a more delightful vision 
 
BROWNE y. BLAKE. 195 
 
 than that of such a mother, thus young, thus lovely, 
 thus beloved, blessing a husband's heart, basking in a 
 world's smile ; and while she breathed into her little 
 ones, the moral light, showing them that robed in all 
 the light of beauty, it was still 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 cliildren's happiness, this lovely woman, circled 
 in her orbit, all bright, all beauteous in the prosperous 
 hour, and if that hour e'er darkened, only beaming the 
 brighter and the lovelier. What human hand could 
 mar so pure a picture? — What punishment could ade- 
 quately 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 the 
 sunshine of the hour, and vanish with 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 pleasure called, in every case consulted, his 
 day's companion,' and his evening guest, his constant, 
 trusted, bosom confident, and under guise of all, oh 
 human nature! he was his fellest, deadliest, final ene- 
 my! Here, on the authority of this brief do I arraign 
 him, of having wound himself into my client's intimacy 
 •*^of having encouraged that intimacy into friendships 
 
196 SPEECH IiV THE CASE OF 
 
 of having counterfeited a sympathy in his joys and in 
 his sorrows; and when he seemed too pure even fop 
 scepticism itself to doubt him, of having under the 
 very sanctitv of his roof, perpetrated an adultery the 
 most unprecedented and perfidious? If this be true, 
 can the world's wealth defray the penalty of such tur- 
 pitude? Mr. Browne, Gentlemen;, was ignorant of every 
 agricultural pursuit, and, unfortunately adopting the 
 advice of his father-in-law, he cultivated the amuse- 
 iTients of the Currag'h, I say unfortunately, for his own 
 affairs, and by nb means in reference to the pursuit it- 
 self. It is not for me to libel an occupation which the 
 highest, and noblest, and most ilhistrious throughout 
 the empire, countenance by their adoption, which 
 fashion and virtue grace by its attendance, and in which, 
 peers and legislators and princes are not ashamed to 
 appear conspicuous. But if the morahty that counte- 
 nances it be doubtful, by what epithet shall we desig- 
 nate that which would make it an apology for the most 
 profligate of offences? Even if Mr. Browne's pursuits 
 were ever so erroneous, was it for his bosom friend to 
 take advantage of them to ruin him? On this subject, 
 it is sufficient for me to remark, that under circum- 
 stances of prosperity or vicissitudes, was their connu- 
 bial happiness ever even remotely clouded? In fact, 
 the plaintiff disregarded even the amusements that 
 deprived him of her society. He took a house for her 
 in the vicinity of Kildare, furnished it with all that 
 hixury 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, 
 \:p to the unfortunate discovery, they lived on terms 
 
BROWNK V. BL.\lv&. 197 
 
 of the utmost tenderness; not a word, except one of 
 love; not an act, except of nnutiial endearment, 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 justification of the adulterer be 
 adduced. No matter with what delinquent sophistry 
 he may blaspheme through its palliation, God ordained, 
 nature cemented, happiness consecrated that celestial 
 linion, and it is complicated treason against God and 
 man, and society, to intend its violation. The social 
 compact, through every fibre trembles at its conse- 
 quences; not only polic}^, but law, not only law, but 
 nature, not only nature, but religion deprecate and de- 
 nounce it, — parent and offspring, — youth and age— the 
 dead from the tombs — ^the child from its cradle, crea- 
 tures scarce alive, and creatures still unborn ; the 
 grandsire shivering on the verge of death; the infant 
 quickening in the mother's womb; all with one assent 
 re-echo God, and execrate adulte*ry! 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 attempting their 
 separation. Did they do so? That is imperatively your 
 first consideration. T only hope that all the hearts reli- 
 gion has joined together, may have enjoyed the happi- 
 ness 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. Pros- 
 perous and wealthy, fortune had no charms for Mr. 
 Browne, but as it blessed the object of his affections. 
 She made success delightful; she gave his wealth its 
 value. The most splendid equipages— the most costly 
 112 
 
198 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 luxuries, the richest retinue — all that vanity could in- 
 vent to dazzle — all that affection could devise to gratify, 
 vv^ere- her'Sj'and thought too vile for her enj oyment. 
 Great as his fortune was, his love outshone it, and it 
 seenns as if fortune was jealous of the performance. 
 Proverbially capricious, she withdrew her smile, and 
 left him shorn almost of every thing except his love, 
 and the fidelity that crowned it. 
 
 The hour of adversity is woman's hour-^—in the full 
 blaze of fortune's rich meridian, her modest beam re- 
 tires from vulgar notice, but when the clouds of wo 
 collect around us, and shades and 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 
 pov/er 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 pros- 
 perity — 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 more than masculine understand- 
 ing, retrieved, in some degree, his desperate fortunes, 
 and saved the little wr^ck that solaced their retire- 
 ment. 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 was she worth to him to whom she had 
 consecrated the bloom of her youth, the charm of her 
 innocence, the splendour of her beauty, the wealth of 
 h^r tenderness, the power of her genius, the treasure 
 
BROWNE y. BLAKK. 199 
 
 of her fidelity? She, the mother'of his children, the 
 pulse of his heart, the joy of his prosperity, the solace 
 of his misfortunes — what was she worth to him? Fallen 
 as she is, you may still estimate her ; you may see her 
 value even in her ruin. The gem is sullied the diamond 
 is shivered; but even in its dust you may see the mag- 
 r.ificence of its material. After this, they retired to 
 Kockville, their seat in the county of Galway, where 
 they resided in the most domestic manner, on the 
 remnant of their once splendid establishment. The 
 The butterflies, that in their noontide fluttered round 
 them, vanished at the first breath of their adversity; but 
 one early friend still remained faithful and affectionate, 
 and that was the defendant. Mr. Blake is a young 
 gentlenian of about eight and twenty; of splendid 
 fortune, polished in his manners, interesting in his ap- 
 pearance, with many qualities to attach a friend, and 
 every quality to fascinate a female. Most willingly do 
 I pay the tribute which nature claims for him; most 
 bitterly do 1 lament that he has been so ungrateful to 
 so prodigal a benefactress. The more Mr. Browne's 
 fortunes accumulated, the more disinterestedly attached 
 did Mr. Blake appear to him. He sharedvvith him his 
 purse, he assisted him with his counsel; in an affair of 
 honour he placed his life and character in his hands — 
 he introduced his innocent sister, just arrived from an 
 English Nunnery, into the family of his friend — he en- 
 couraged every reciprocity of intercourse between the 
 females; and, to crown all, that no possible suspicion 
 inight attach to him, he seldom travelled without -his 
 Domestic Chaplain! Now, if it shall appear that all this 
 "Wus only a screen for his adultery— that he took ad^ 
 
200 SPEECH IX THE CASE OF 
 
 vantage of his friend's misfortune to seduce the wife of 
 his bosom— that he affected confidence only to betray 
 it — that he perfected the wretchedness he pretended 
 to console, and that in the midst of poverty he lias left 
 his victim, friendless, hopeless, companionless; a hus- 
 band without a w^ife, and a father without a child. Gra- 
 cious God! iri 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 friendship! — You con- 
 vict for robbery— here is one who plundered virtue of 
 her dearest pearl, and dissolved it-— even in the bowl 
 that hospitality held out to him ! ! They pretend that he 
 is innocent! Oh effrontery the most unblushing! Oh 
 vilest insult, added to the deadUest injury! Oh base, 
 detestable, and damnable hypocrisy! Of the final testi- 
 mony it is try.e enough their cunning has deprived us; 
 but under Providence, I shall pour upon this baseness 
 such a flood of hght, that 1 will defy, not the most 
 honourable man merely, but the most charitable sceptic, 
 to touch the Holy Evangelists, and say, by their sanctity, 
 it has not been committed. Attend upon me, now. 
 Gentlemen, step by step, and with me rejoice, that, no 
 matter how cautious may be the conspiracies of guilt, 
 there is a Power above to confound and to discover 
 them. 
 
 On the 27ih of last January, Mary Hines, one of the 
 domestics, received directions from Mrs. Browne, to 
 have breakfast ready very early on the ensuing morn- 
 ing, as the defendant, then on a visit at the house, ex- 
 pressed an inclination to go out to hunt. She was ac- 
 cordingly brushing down the stairs at a very early 
 
BROWNE V. BLAKE. 201 
 
 Fiour, when she observed the handle of the door stir, 
 and fearing- the noise had disturbed her, she ran hastily 
 down stairs to avoid her displeasure. She remained 
 below about three quarters of an hour, when her 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 question at such 
 itn hour, &he sakl she knew uot, but would go down 
 and see whether or not she was in the parlour. Mr. 
 Browne, however, liad good reason to be alarmed, for 
 she was so extremely indisposed going to be'd at night 
 that an express stood actually prepared to bring medi- 
 cal aid from Galway, unless slie appeared better. An 
 tmusutil depression both of mind aud body preyed 
 feipon Mrs. Browne on the^preceding evening. She fre- 
 quently burst into tears, threw her arms around her 
 husband's neck, saying that she was sure another 
 jnomh 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 de- 
 sired that his servant should be sent up to him. She 
 went down — as she was about to return from her in-» 
 effectual search, slie heard her master's voice in the 
 most violent indignation, and almost immediately after 
 Mrs. Browne rushed past her into the parlour, and 
 Ivastily seizing her writing desk, desired her instantly 
 to quit the apartment. Gentlemen, I request you will 
 hear every syllable of this scene in your recollection, 
 but most particularly the anxiety about the writing 
 
S02 SPEECH IN THE. CASE OF 
 
 <Iesk. You will soon find that there was a cogent rea* 
 son for it. Lluie was the wonder that ,Mr. Browne's 
 tone should be that of violence and indignation. He 
 had discovered his wife and friend totally undressed, 
 just as they had escaped from the guilty bed-side 
 where they stood in all the shame and horror of their 
 situation ! He shouted for her brother, and that misera- 
 ble 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 dishonoured 
 my bed — it was not merely, you have sacrificed my 
 happiness— it was not merely, you have widowed me 
 in my youth, and left me the fatlier of an orphan family 
 ~~it was not merely, you have violated a compact to 
 which all the world swore a tacit veneration — but, you 
 ' — you have done it, my friend, my guest, under the 
 very roof barbarians reverence; where you enjoyed my 
 table, where you pledged my happiness; where you 
 saw her in all the lovehness of her virtue, and at the 
 very, hour when our little helpless children were wrapt 
 •n 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 his p)srfidy! 
 must 1 not only brand the inhdelity of a wife and a 
 mother, but must I, amidst the agonies of outraged na- 
 ture, n-ftike the brother the proof of the sister's prosti- 
 tution! Thank God, Gentlemen, I may not be obhged 
 
BKOWNE V. BLAKE, 203 
 
 •) torture you and him and myself, by such instrumen- 
 tality. I tliink the proof is full without it, though it 
 must add another pang to the soul of the poor plaintiff, 
 because it must render it almost impossible that liis 
 little infants are not tlie brood of this adulterous de- 
 pravity. It will be distinctly proved to you by Honoria 
 lirennan, another of the servants, that one night, so 
 far back as the May previous to the last mentioned 
 occurrence, when slie was in the act of arranging the 
 beds, she saw Mr. Blake come up stairs, look cautiously 
 about him, go to Mrs. Browne's bed-room door, and 
 tap at it; that immediately after Mrs. Browne went, 
 with no other covering than her shift, to Mr. Blake's 
 bed-chamber, where the guilty parties locked them- 
 selves up together. Terrified and astonished, the maid 
 retired to the servant's apartments and in about a 
 quarter of an hour after she saw Mrs. Browne in the 
 same habiliments return from the bed-room of Blake 
 into her husband's. Gentlemen, it was by one of those 
 accidents which so often accompany and occasion the 
 development of guilt, that we have arrived at tills evi- 
 dence. It was very natural that she did not wish to 
 I'eveal it; very natural that she did not wish either to 
 expose her mistress^ or aflfiict her unconscious master 
 )vith the recital; very natural that she did not desire to 
 be the instrument (jf so frightful a discovery. How- 
 ever, when she found that concealment was out of the 
 question; that this action was actually in progress, and 
 that the guilty delinquent was publicly triumphing in 
 the absence of proof, and through an herd of slander- 
 ous dependents, cruelly vilifying the character of his 
 victim; she sent a friend to Mr. Browne, and in hi® 
 
204 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 presence, and that of two others, solemnly discovered 
 her melancholy information. Gentlemen, I do entreat 
 of you to examine this woman, ihongh she is an unedu- 
 cated peasant, with all severity, because, if she speaks 
 the truth, I think you will agree with me, that so hor- 
 rible a complication of iniquity never disgraced the 
 annals of a court of justice. He had just risen from the 
 table of his friend — he left his own brother and that 
 friend behind him, and even from the very board of 
 his hospitality he proceeded to the defilement of his 
 bed! Of 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 innocence — 
 
 insulted misfortune betrayed friendship violated 
 
 hospitality — tore up the very foundations of human na- 
 ture, and harried its fragments at the violated altar, aa 
 if to bury religion beneath the ruins of society! Oh, it 
 is guilt might put a Demon to the blush! 
 
 Does our proof rest here! No; though the mind 
 must be sceptical that after this could doubt. A guilty 
 correspondence was carried on between the parties, 
 and though its contents were destroyed by Mrs. 
 Browne on the niorning of the discovery, still we shall 
 ' authenticate the fact beyond suspicion. You shall hear 
 it from the very messenger they entrusted — you shali 
 hear from him too, that the wife and the adulterer 
 both bound him to the utmost secrecy, at once esta- 
 blishing their own collusion and their victim's igno- 
 rance, proving by the very anxiety for concealment, 
 the impossibility of connivance; so true it is that the 
 conviction of guilt will often proceed even from the 
 stratagem for its security. Does our proof rest hercr 
 
BROWNE V. BLAKE. 205 
 
 \o; you shall have it from a gentleman ofunimpeacha^ 
 ble veracity, that the defendant himself confessed the 
 discovery in his bed-room — " 1 will save him," said he, 
 " the trouble of proving it; she was in her shift, and J 
 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 overplus in horses!" Can you imagine any 
 thing more abominable. He seduced from his friend 
 the idol of his soul, and the mother of "his children, and 
 when he was writhing under the recent wound, he de- 
 liberately offers him brutes in compensation! 1 will not 
 depreciate this cruelty by any comment; yet the very 
 brute he would barter for that unnatural mother, would 
 have lost its hfe rather than desert its offspring. Now% 
 Gentlemen, what rational mind but must spurn the as- 
 servation of innocence after this! Why the anxiety 
 about the writing desk? Why a clandestine correspon- 
 dence with her husband's friend? Why remain, at two 
 different periods, for a quarter of an hour together, in 
 a gentleman's bed-chamber, with no other habiliment, 
 at one time, than her bed-dress, at another than her 
 shift. Is this customary with the 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 offer was a judgment by default, 
 a distinct, undeniable corroboration of his guilt. Was 
 1 it that the female character should not suffer? Could 
 I there be a more trumpet-tongued proclamation of her 
 1 S 
 
206 SPEECH IN THE CASE OP 
 
 criminality! Are our witnesses suborned? Let his army 
 of Counsel sift and torture them. Can they prove it? 
 Oh yes, if it be proveable. Let them produce her bro- 
 ther—in our hands, a damning proof to be sure; but 
 then, frightful, afflicting, unatural — in their^ the most 
 consolatory and delightful, the vindication of calum- 
 niated innocence, and that innocence the innocence of 
 a sister. Such is the leading outline of our evidence — 
 evidence which you will only wonder is so convincing 
 in a case whose very nature presupposes the most cau- 
 tious secrecy. The law, indeed, Gentlemen, duly esti- 
 mating the difficulty of final proof in this species of 
 action has recognized the validity of inferential evi- 
 dence, but on that subject his Lordship must direct you. 
 Do they rely then on the ground of innocency! If 
 they do, I submit to you on the authority of the law, 
 that inferential evidence is quite sufficient; and on the 
 authority of reason, that in this particular case, the in- 
 ferential testimony amounts to demonstration. Amongst 
 the innumerable calumnies afloat, it has been hinted to 
 me indeed, that they may mean to rely upon what they 
 denominate the indiscretion of the husband. — The mo- 
 ment they have the hardihood to resort to that, they, 
 of course, abandoned all denial of delinquency, and even 
 were it fully proved, it is then worth your most serious 
 consideration, whether you will tolerate such a defence 
 as that. It is in my mind beyond all endurance, that any 
 man should dare to come into a Court of Justice, and 
 on the shadowy pretence of what he may term care- . 
 lessness, ground the most substantial and irreparable 
 injury. Against the unmanly principle of conjugal 
 severity, in the name of civilized society I solemnly 
 
BROWNE V. BLAKE. 207 
 
 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 sus- 
 picion, reduced into the most unmanly and despotic 
 practice. 
 
 "Let barbarous nations whose inhuman love 
 Is wild desire, fierce as the suns they fell ; 
 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 holy faith 
 And equal transport, free as nature live, 
 Disdaining fear." 
 
 But once establish the principle of this moral and do- 
 mestic censorship, and then tell me where is it to begin? 
 Where is it to end? Who shall bound? W^ho shall pre- 
 face it? By what hitherto undiscoverable standard, shall 
 we regulate the shades between solemnity and levity? 
 Will you permit this impudent espionage upon your 
 households; upon the hallowed' privapy of your do- 
 mestic hours; and for what purpose? Why, that the 
 seducer and the adulterer may calculate the security of 
 his cold-blooded libertinism! — that he may steal hke an 
 assassin upon your hours of relaxation, and convert 
 perhaps your confidence into the instrument of your 
 ruin! If this be once permitted as a ground of justifica- 
 tion, we may bid farewell at once to all the dehghtful 
 intercourse of social life.' Spurning as I do at this odious 
 system of organized distrust, suppose the admission 
 made, that my client was careless, indiscreet, culpable, 
 
::08 SPEECH IN THE CASE 6f 
 
 if they will, in his domestic regulations, is it therefore 
 to be endured, that every abandoned burglar should se- 
 duce his wife, or violate his daughter? Is it to be en- 
 dured, that Mr. Blake, of all men should rely on such 
 an infamous and convenient extenuation! He — his 
 friend, his guest, his confidant, he who introduced a 
 spotless sister to this attainted intimacy; shall he say, I 
 associated with you hourly, I affected your familiarity 
 for many years, I accompanied my domesticated minis- 
 ter of religion to your family; I almost naturalized the 
 nearest female relative I had on earth, unsulhed and 
 unmarried as she was within your hosehold : 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 ar- 
 raign 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 do so; but so, I will say, criminally care- 
 ful was he of his interests that he gave him his bond, and 
 made him enter up judgment on that bond, and made 
 him issue an execution on that judgment, ready to be 
 levied in a day, ihat in the wreck of all, the friend of 
 his bosom shouild be at least indemified. It was my im- 
 pression indeed, that under a lease of this nature, 
 amongst lionourable men, so from any unwarrantable 
 privilege created, there was rather a peculiar delicacy 
 incumbent on the donor. I should have thought so still, 
 but for a frightful expression of one of the Counsel on 
 
BROWNE V. BL4KE. 209 
 
 the motion, by which they endeavoured not to trust a 
 Dublin Jury with this issue. — What, exclaimed they, in 
 all the pride of their execrable instructions, "poor 
 plaintiff and 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 a horde of savages, whether 
 it is possible for the most inhuman monster thus to 
 sacrifice to infamy, his character — his wife— his home 
 '■ — his children! In the name of possibility, I deny it; in 
 in the name of humanity, I denounce it; in the name of 
 our common country, and our common nature, 1 im- 
 plore of the Learned Counsel not to promulgate such a 
 slander upon both — but I need not do so; if the seal of 
 advocjicy 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 instinctive feelings as fathers and as 
 husbands, would rebel within them, and wither up the 
 horrid blasphemy upon their lips. 
 
 They will find it difficult to palliate such turpitude— 
 I am sure I find it difficult to aggravate. — It is in itself a 
 hyperbole of wickedness. Honour, innocence, religion, 
 friendship — all that is sanctified or lovely, or endearing 
 in creation. — Ev6n that hallowed, social, shall I not say 
 indigenous virtue—that blessed hospitality — which fo- 
 reign envy could not deny, or foreign robbery despoil— 
 which, when all else had perished, cast a bloom on our 
 desolation, flinging its rich foilage over the nations^l 
 S2 
 
210 SPEECH IIST THE CASB OF 
 
 ruin, as if to hide the monument, while it gave a shelter 
 to the mourner— even that withered away before that 
 pestilence! But what do I say! was virtue merely tlie 
 victim of this adulterer? Worse, worse — it was his in- 
 strument — even on the broken tablet of the decalogue 
 did he whet the dagger for his social assassination — 
 What will you say, when 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 it, had been born in sin, and 
 and he promised to teach it Christianity! And he pro- 
 mised 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 Sacrament ! ! — See then the horrible 
 atrocity of this case as it touches the defendant — but 
 how can y^ou count its miseries as attaching to the 
 plaintiff! He has suffered a pang the most agonizing to 
 human sensibility — it has been inflicted by his friend, 
 and inflicted beneath his roof — it commences at a period 
 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 hi^ estates 
 has entailed by settlement? What compensation can re- 
 prise so unparalleled a sufferer! What solitary conso- 
 lation is there in reserve for him! Is it love? Alas there 
 was one whom he adored with all the heart's idolatry, 
 and she deserted him. Is it friendship? There was one 
 of all the world whom he trusted, and that one be- 
 trayed him. Is it society? The smile of others' happi- 
 ness appears but the epitaph of his own. Is it solitude? 
 Can he be alone while memory striking on the sepul- 
 
BROWNE V. BLAKE. 211 
 
 oil re 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 seeic 
 a mournful solace in his children? Oh, he has no chil- 
 dren — there is the little favourite that she nursed, and 
 there — there — even on its guileless features — there is 
 the horrid smile of the adulterer!! 
 
 Ob Gentlemen, am I this day only the Counsel of my 
 client! no — no —I am the advocate of humanity — of 
 yourselves — your homes — your wives — your families — 
 your little children ; I am glad that this case exhibits 
 such atrocity; unmarked as it is by any mitigatory fea- 
 ture, 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 virtlies 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 o'ths are to be 
 violated; laws disregarded; friendship .betrayed ; hu- 
 manity trample 1; national and individual honour stained; 
 and that a jury of fathers, and of husbands will give 
 such miscreancy a passport to their homes, and wives 
 and daughters; farewell to all that yet remains of Ire- 
 land! But I will not cast such a doubt upon the cha« 
 racier of my country. Against the sneer of the foe, and 
 the scepticism of the foreigner, 1 will still point to 
 the domestic virtues, that no perfidy could barter, and 
 no bribery can purchase, that with a Roman usage, at 
 once embellish and consecrate households, giving to 
 to the society of the hearth all the purity of the altar; 
 that lingering alike in the palace and the cottage, are 
 ^ still to be found scattered over this land; the relic 
 
212 SPEECH IN THE CASE OF 
 
 of what she was; the source perhaps of what she may 
 be; the lone, and stately, and magnificent memorials, 
 that rearing their majesty amid surrounding ruins, 
 serve at once as the land marks of the departed glory, 
 and the models by which the future may be erected. 
 
 Preserve those virtues with a vestal fidelity; mark 
 this day, by your verdict, your horror at their profana- 
 tion, and believe me, when the hand which records 
 that verdict shall be dust, and the tongue that asks its 
 traceless in the grave, many a happy home will bless 
 its consequences, and many a mother teach her little 
 child to hate the impious treason of adultery. 
 
SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 MR. PHILLIPS 
 
 AT THE SLIGO COUNTY MEETING. 
 
 Os Monday the 10th April, there was a large and 
 respectable meeting in the court house, of the gentle- 
 men, clergy, freeholders, and other inhabitants of the 
 coianty of Sligo, for the purpose of taking into consi- 
 deration an address of condolence to the king on the 
 death of his royal father, and of congratulation to his 
 majesty on his accession to the throne. Wm, Parke 
 Esq. high sheriff in the chair. 
 
 Owen Wynne Esq. moved an address. 
 
 Major O'Hara seconded the motion, 
 
 Charles Phillips Esq. then rose and spoke to the fol- 
 I lowing effect: 
 
 I I AM happy; Sir, in having an opportunity of giving 
 
 j my concurrence both in the sentiment and principle 
 
 , of the proposed address. I think it should meet the 
 most perfect unanimity. The departed monarch de- 
 
 j serves, and justly, every tribute which posterity can 
 
 , pay him. He was one of the most popular that ever 
 
 I swayed the sceptre of these countries. He never forgot 
 
214 SPEECH 
 
 his early declaration that he gloried in the name ot 
 Briton, and Britain now reciprocates the sentiment, 
 and glories in the pride of his nativity. He was, indeed, 
 a true born Englishman — brave, generous, benevolent 
 and manly — in the exercise of his sway and the exer- 
 cise of his virtues so perfectly consistent that it is diffi- 
 cult to say whether as a man or sovereign he is most 
 to be regretted. He commenced for the Catholic a con- 
 ciliatory system— he preserved for the Prostestant the 
 inviolability of the constitution — he gave to both a great 
 example in the toleration of his principles and the in- 
 tegrity of his practice. The historian will dwell with 
 delight upon those topics. He will have little to cen- * 
 sure and much to commend. He will speak of arts, 
 manufactures, literature encouraged — he will linger ' 
 long among those private virtues which wreathed 
 themselves around his public station— which identified 
 his domestic with his magisterial character, and made' 
 the father of his family, the father of his people. He 
 will not fail to remark how ample, and at the same 
 time, how discriminating was his patronage, and he 
 will truly say, that if the pencil of West, directed to 
 the sacred volume by his bounty — if the old age of 
 Johnson, cheered and consoled by his royal liberality, 
 were to stand alone, they would undeniably attest the 
 purity of his taste and the piety of his morals. Attri- 
 butes, such as these. Sir, come home to the bosom of 
 every man amongst us — they descend from the throne, 
 they mingle with the fireside, they command more than 
 majesty often can, not only the admiration but the sym- 1 
 pathyof mankind. Nor may weforget,independent of his j 
 most virtuous example in private life, the vast public 
 
ATSLIGD. 215 
 
 feenefitSj which, as a king, his reign conferred upon 
 the country— the liberty of the press, guaranteed, as far 
 as reason can require it, and where restrair^ed, only so 
 restrained as to prevent its running into hcentiousness 
 —the trial by jury fully defined and firmly established 
 —the independence of the bench voluntarily conceded^ 
 which deprived (he executive of a powerful and possi- 
 ble instrument, and vested the rights and property and 
 privilege of the people in the integrity of a now unas- 
 sailable tribunal. These are acts which we should re- 
 gister in our hearts; they should canonize the memory 
 of the monarch; they made his realm the land-mark of 
 European liberty, they made its constitution the model 
 for European imitation. Let us not either in our esti- 
 mate of his characi^ forget the complexion of the 
 limes in which he lived; times of portent and prodigy, 
 enough to perplex the council of the wise, and daunt 
 the valour of the warrior; — in such extremities, expe- 
 rience becomes an infant, and calculation a contingen- 
 cy. From the terrific chaos of the French revolution, a 
 comet rose and blazed athwart our hemisphere, too 
 splendid not to allure, too omiitous not to intimidate, 
 too rapid and too eccentric for human speculation. The 
 whole continent became absorbed in wonder; kings 
 and statesmen and sages fell down and worshipped, 
 and the political orbs, which had hitherto circled in 
 harmony and peace, huivied from our system into the 
 train of its conflagration. There was no order in poli- 
 tics; no consistency in morals; no stedfastness in reli- 
 gion. 
 
 Vice prevailed and impious men bore sway. 
 
216 SPEECH 
 
 Upon the tottering throne the hydra of democracy saS 
 grinning; upon the ruined altar a wretched prostitute 
 received devotion, and waved in mockery the burning 
 cross over the prostrate mummers of the new philoso- 
 phy! All Europe appeared spell-bound; nor like a vul- 
 gar spell did it perish in the waters. It crossed the 
 channel. There were not wanting in England abun- 
 dance of anarchists to denounce the kiug, and of infi- 
 dels to abjure the Deity; turbulent demagogues who 
 made the abused name of freedom the pretence for 
 their own factious selfishness; atheists looking, to be 
 worshipped, repwblicans looking to be crowned; the 
 nobles of the land were proscribed by anticipation, 
 and their property partitioned by the disinterested 
 patriotism of these Agrarian speculators. What do you 
 think it was during that awful crisis which saved Eng- 
 land from'tlie hellish Saturnalia which inverted France?^ 
 Was it the prophetic inspiration of Mr. Burke? The 
 uncertain adhesion of a standing army? The precarious 
 ■ principles of our navy at the Nore? Or the transient 
 • ;. resources of a paper currency? Sir, I believe in my 
 soul this empire owed its salvation during that storm 
 to the personal character of the departed sovereign. 
 When universal warfare was fulminated against mo- 
 narchy, England naturally turned to its representative 
 at home, and what did she find him? Frugal, morale 
 humane, religious, benevolent, domestic; a good father,, 
 a good husband, a good man, rendered the crown she 
 gave him still more loyal, and not only preserving but 
 purifying the trusts she had confided. She looked to 
 his court, and did her morality blush at the splendid 
 debauchery of a Versailles? Did her faith revolt at the 
 
AT SLIGO. 217 
 
 gloomy fanaticism of an Esciirial? Far from it. She saw 
 the dignity which testified her sway tempered by the 
 purity which characterised her worsliip; she saw her dia- 
 dem glowing with the gems of empire, but those gems 
 were illumined by a ray from the altar; she saw that 
 aloft on his triumphal chariot her monarcli needed nut 
 the memento of the republican; he never for a moment 
 forgot that ** he was a man." Sir, it would have been a 
 lot above the condition of humanity, if his measures 
 had not sometimes been impeached by party. But in 
 all the conflicts of public opinion as to their policy, 
 who ever heard an aspersion cast upon his motives? It 
 is very true, had he followed other councils, events 
 might have been different, but it is also well worth 
 while to notice, would our situation have been im- 
 proved? Would Great Britain revolutionised, have 
 given her people purer morals, mere upright tribu- 
 nals, more impartial justice, or more "perfect free- 
 dom" than they now participate ? Did the murder of 
 her prelates, her nobility and her king, followed by, 
 twenty years of military sway, procure for France, # 
 more popular privileges than those of which we have 
 been in undisturbed possession ? Was the chance of 
 some problematical improvement worth the contin- 
 gencies? Should we surrender a present practical re- 
 ality for the fantastic scheme of some Utopian theorist/ 
 Ought we to confound a creation so regular and so 
 lovely for the visionary paradise that chaos might re- 
 veal to us? The experiment has been tried, and what 
 has been the consequence? Look to the continent at 
 this moment. Its unsettled governments! its perturbed 
 spirit! its pestilential doctrines! Go to the tomb of 
 T 
 
218 SPEECH 
 
 Kotzebue ; knock nt the cemetery of the Bourbons; 
 pl'ovidentially I have not to refer to your own mur* 
 dered cabinet: you will find there how much easier it 
 is to desolate than to create; how possible it is to ruin; 
 how almost impracticable to restore. 
 
 Even in a neighbouring county in your own island, 
 look at the enormous temptation which has been of- 
 fered in vain to its impoverished peasantry to induce 
 them — to what? Why merely to surrender a murder- 
 ous assassin well known to have been one of a numer- 
 * 
 
 ous association. Do you think such principles are na- 
 tural to our people? Do you not think they are the result 
 of system? Which do you beheve that such a sickening 
 coincidence both at home and abroad is miraculous or 
 premeditated? Sir, there is but one solution. You may 
 depend upon it, the gulf is not yet closed whence the 
 dreadful doctrines of treason, and assassination, and 
 infidelity have issued. Men's minds are still ft verish 
 and delirious, and whether they nickname the fever 
 illumination in Germany, liberality in Faance, radical- 
 ism in England, or by some more vulgar and unmean- 
 ing epithet at home, they are all children of the same 
 parent; all so many common and convulsive indications 
 of the internal vitalityfof the revolutionary volcano. Sir, 
 I am not now to learn that those opinions are unpalat- 
 able to certain ultra patriots of the hour. I declared 
 them before, and I now reiterate them still more em- 
 phatically, because they have expressed a very impru- 
 dent surprise thtit such opinions should proceed from 
 me. Sir, if they mean to insinuate that I ever approved 
 the practice or professed the principles of their infa- 
 mous fraternity, they insinuate a base, slanderous, and 
 
AT ^IGO. 219 
 
 malignant falsliood. I hold it to be the boimden duty 
 of every honest man who ever pro!.< 'indeed a hberal 
 opinion, to come forward and declarr his abhorrence 
 of such doctrines. What! because I urn liberal, must I 
 become rebellious? because I am toleraiji, must i re- 
 nounce my creed? They have mistaken ijie very much. 
 Though I vi^ould approve of any rational, practicable 
 reform ; though I would go very far upon the road of 
 liberality, 1 would not move for either, no, not one 
 single inch, unless loyalty religion ..veoe to bear me 
 company. I know tiot what tbey mean by their " Ra- 
 dical Reform," unless they mean to uproot the Throne, 
 the Altar, ad the State. I do not believe their chimera 
 of annual parliaments and universal suffrage, I prefer 
 a legislature comprising the wealth, the talent, and the 
 education of the realm, to a radical directory of shoe- 
 less coblers, and shopless apothecaries. I fly for pro- 
 tection to my king, and for consolation to my God, from 
 the lawless, creedless, murderous, blasphemous ban- 
 ditti, who postpone them both to the putrid carcase of 
 an outlawed infidel. Denounce me if you choose. I 
 would sooner die to-morrow beneath the dagger of 
 your hate, than live in the infectious leprosy of your 
 friendship. My fellow-countrymen, it is high time to 
 pause. Our very virtues by excess, may become vices. 
 Let us aid the aggrieved, but let us not abet the assas- 
 sin; let us tolerate the sectarian, not countenance the 
 infidel; let us promulgate, if we can, an universal good, 
 without shaking the basis of our social system, or the 
 blessed foundation of our eternal hope. My own senti- 
 ments, as to the most hmited toleration of all sects of 
 Christians, you are not ndw, for the first time, to be 
 
22G SPEECH 
 
 made acquainted with. I know that many good men, 
 and many much abler men, dissent from me; and while 
 I give them full credit on the score of sincerity, 1 only 
 seek the same concession for myself. I would open the 
 gates of constitutional preferment to all my fellow- 
 subjects of every religious creed, wide as I expand to 
 them the affections of my own heart. It is in my mind 
 but fair, that he v/ho protects a state should receive a 
 reciprocity of privileges; that ho man should be made 
 familiar with its burthens, and at the same time be told 
 he must remain a stranger to its benefits. This is an 
 humble but conscientious opinion, given freely but not 
 servilely — seeking to make others free, I will not sub- 
 mit to become a slave myself, or compromise one par- 
 ticle of selfrespect. Nay, more. Sir, though I would 
 give, and give voluntarily, every liberal enfranchise- 
 ment, I would not withdraw one prop — I would not 
 deface even one useless ornament on the porch of the 
 constitution; it has been founded by wisdom, defended 
 by valour, consecrated by years, and cemented by the 
 purest blood of patriotism : at every step beneath its 
 sacred dome, we meet some holy relic, some sublime 
 memorial; the tombs of the heroes^ and sages, and mar- 
 tyrs of our history! the graves of the Russels and the 
 Sydneys; the statues of the Hardwicks and the Hales; 
 the sainted relics of departed piety; the table of the 
 laws to which king and people are alike resjionsible; 
 the eternal altar on whose divine commandments all 
 those laws are founded; sublime, hallowed, invaluable 
 treasures! unimpaired and imperishable be the temple 
 that protects them! In the fullness of my heart I say to 
 it, '' Esto perpetua,'^ may no political Marius ever rest 
 
AT SLIGO. 221 
 
 upon its ruins. Sir, in reference to the congratulatory- 
 part of your address, I cannot wish the august person- 
 age to whom it refers a more auspicious wish than that 
 he may follow implicitly the footsteps of his father. — 
 These ways are ** ways of pleasantness," these paths 
 are " paths of peace."'! hope his reign may be as hap- 
 py as his Regency has been victorious, and that in the 
 plenitude of power he will r.emember the country for- 
 got not him when tliat power was very distant. These 
 are not times, however, to be either too exigent or too 
 unreasonable; the atheist meets us in our noon day- 
 walk; the assassin waits not for the night's conceal- 
 ment; all ranks, and sects, and parties should unite; all 
 that is sacred in the eye of every christian, dear to 
 every parent, and valuable to -every man, is menaced 
 with annihilation; every cause of difference, whether 
 real or imaginary, should be now suspended, until the 
 national shout of "fear God, honour the king," drowns 
 the warwhoop of impiety and treason; if we are to Hve, 
 my countrymen, let us live in the security of laws; if » 
 we are to die^ let us die in the consolations of religioH. 
 
 T2 
 
SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 MR- PHILLIPS 
 
 DELIVERED AT 
 
 THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE BRITISH ANB 
 
 FOREIGN AUXILIARY BIBLE SOCIETY, 
 
 LONDON. 
 
 Although I have not had the lionotir ejtl^er of pro- 
 posing or seconding any of your Resolutions, still, as a 
 native of that country so pointedly alluded to in your 
 report, I hope I may be indulged in afcv/ observations. 
 The crisis in which we are placed is, I hope, a suffi- 
 cient apology in itself for any intrusion; but 1 find such 
 apology is rendered more than unnecessary by the 
 courtesy of this reception. Indeed, my Lord, when we 
 see omens which are every day arising — when we see 
 blasphemy openly avowed — when we see the Scrip- 
 tures audaciously ridiculed — when in this Christiari Mo- 
 narchy the den of the repubhcan and the deist yawns 
 for the unwary in your most public thoroughfares — 
 when marts are ostentatiously opened, where the moral 
 poison may be purchased, whose subtle venom enters 
 
AT LONDON. 223 
 
 ibe very soul — when infidelity has become an article of 
 commerce, and man's perdition may be cheapened at 
 the stall of every pedlar — no friend of society should 
 continue silent — it is no longer a question of pohtical 
 privilege— of sectarian controversy — of theological dis- 
 cussion;--it is become a question, whether Christianity 
 itself shall stand, or whether we shall let go the firm 
 anchor of our faith, and drift without chart, or helm, 
 or compass, into the shoreless ocean of impiety and 
 blood! I despise as much as any man, the whine of 
 bigotry — I will go as far as any man for rational liberty, 
 but I will not depose my God to deify the infidel, or 
 tear in pieces the charter of the State, and grope 
 for a constitution amongst the murky pigeon-holes of 
 every creedless, lawless, infuriated regicide. When I 
 saw the other day, my Lord, the chief bacchanal of 
 their orgies — the man with whom the Apostles were 
 cheats, and the Prophets liars, and Jesus an imposter, 
 on his memorable trial, withering hour after hour with 
 the most horrid blasphemies — surrounded by the vota- 
 ries of every sect, and the heads of every faith— the 
 Christian Archbishop — the Jewish Rabbi — the men 
 most eminent for their piety and their learning, whom 
 he had purposely collected to hear his infidel ridicule 
 of all they reverenced — when I saw him raise the Holy 
 Bible in one hand, and the Age of Reason in the other, 
 as it were confronting the Almighty with a rebel Vv^orm, 
 till the pious Judge grew pale, and the patient Jury 
 interposed, and the self-convicted wretch himself, after 
 having raved away all his original impiety, was reduced 
 into a mere machine, for the reproduction of the 
 ribald blasphemy of olhers—I could not help excluinv 
 
224 SPEECH 
 
 ing, "Infatuated man— if all your impracticable mad- 
 ness could be realized, what would you give us in ex- 
 change for our establishment? What would you substi- 
 tute for that just tribunal — for whom would you 
 displace that independent Judge and that impartial 
 Jury?— Would you really burn the Gospel and erase 
 the statutes, for the dreadful equivalent of the crucifix 
 and the guiUotinel" Indeed, if I was asked for a practi- 
 cal panegyric on our Constitution, I would adduce the 
 very trial of that criminal — and if the legal annals of 
 any country upon earth furnished an instance, not 
 merely of such justice, but of such patience, and for- 
 bearance, such almost culpable indulgence, I would 
 concede to him the triumph. I hope, too, in what I say, 
 I shall not be considered as forsaking thiit illustrious 
 example — I hope I am above an insult on any man in 
 his situation-^perhaps, had I the power, I would follow 
 the example further than I ought — perhaps I would 
 even humble him into an evidence of the very spirit he 
 spurned — and as our creed was reviled in his person, 
 and vindicated in his conviction, so I would give it its 
 noblest triumph injiis sentence, and merely consign 
 him to the punishment of it$ mercy. 
 
 But, indeed,^ my Lord, the fate of this half infidel, 
 half trading martyr, matters very little in comparison 
 of that of the thousands 4ie has corrupted. He has 
 literally disseminated a moral plague, against which 
 even the nation's quarrantine can scarce avail us. It has 
 poisoned the fresh blood of infancy — it has disheartened 
 the last hope of age — if his own account of its circula-^ 
 tion be correct, hundreds of thousands must be thiis 
 instant tainted with the infectious venom, whose sting 
 
AT LONDON. 225 
 
 dies not with tlie destruction of the body. Imagine not 
 because the pestilence smites not at once that its 
 fatahty is less certain — imagine not because the lower 
 orders are the earhest victims, that the most elevated 
 will not suffer in their turn; the most mortal chillness 
 begins at the extremities, and you may depend upon it, 
 nothing but time and apathy are wanting to change this 
 healthful land into a charnel-house, where murder, 
 anarchy, and prostitution, and the whole hell-brood of 
 infidelity, will quaff the heart's blood of the consecrated 
 and the noble. My Lord, I am the more indignant at 
 these designs, because they are sought to be concealed 
 in the disguise of liberty. It is the duty of every real 
 friend to liberty to tear the mask from the fiend who 
 has usurped it. No, no, this is not our Island Goddess, 
 bearing the mountain freshness on her cheeks, and 
 scattering the valley's bounty from her hand, known by 
 the lights that herald her fair presence, the peaceful 
 virtues that attend her path, and the long blaze of 
 glory that- lingers in her train — it is a demon, speak- 
 ing fair indeed—tempting our faith with airy hopes and 
 visionary realms, but even within the foldings of its 
 mantle, hiding the bloody symbol of its purpose. Hear 
 not its sophistry; guard your child against it; draw round 
 your homes, the consecrated circle which it dare not 
 enter. You will find an amulet in the religion of your 
 country — it is the great mound raised by the Almighty 
 for the protection of humanity — it stands between you 
 and the lava of human passions; and oh, believe me, if 
 you wait tamely by, while it is basely undermined, the 
 fiery deluge will roll on, before which all that you hold 
 dear, or venerable, or sacred will wither into ashes, 
 
:226 SPEECH 
 
 Believe no one who tells you that the friends of free» 
 dom are now, or ever were, the enemies of religion. 
 They know too well that rebelUon against God cannot 
 prove the basis of government for man, and that the 
 loftiest structure impiety can raise is but the Babel 
 monument of its impotence, and its pride, mocking the 
 builders with a moment's strength and then covering 
 them with inevitable confusion. Do you want an ex- 
 ample? — only look to France, 'the microscopic vision 
 of your rabble blasphemers has not sight enough to 
 contemplate the mighty minds which commenced her 
 revolution. The wit — the sage — ^the orator — the hero— . 
 the whole family of genius furnished forth their trea- 
 sures, and gave them nobly to the nation's exigence ; 
 they had great provocation— they had a glorious cause 
 — they had all that human potency could give them. 
 But they relied too much upon this human potency — 
 they abjured their God, and, as a natural consequence, 
 they murdered their king — they culled their polluted 
 deities from the brothel, and the fall of the idol extin- 
 guished the flame of the altar. — They crowded the scaf- 
 fold with all their country held of genius or of virtue, 
 and when the peerage and the prelacy were exhausted, 
 the mob-executioner of to-day became the mob-victim 
 of to-morrow. No sex was spared — no age respected — 
 no suffering pitied — and all this they did in the sacred 
 name of hberty, though in the deluge of human blood, 
 they left not a mountain top for the ark of liberty to 
 rest on. But Providence was neither "dead nor sleep- 
 ing." it mattered not that for a moment their impiety 
 seemed to prosper — that victory panted after their en- 
 sanguined banners— that as their msatiate eagle soare^l 
 
AT LONDON. 22T 
 
 against the sun, he seemed but to replume his wing and 
 to renew his vision — it was only for a moment, and you 
 see at last that in the very banquet of their triumph, 
 the Almighty's vengeance blazed upon the nvall, and 
 their diadem fell from the brow of the idolater. 
 
 My Lord, I will not abjure the altar, the throne, and 
 the constitution for the bloody tinsel of this revolution- 
 ary pantomine. I prefer my pod, to the impious de- 
 mocracy of their pantheon— I will not desert my king 
 for the political equality of their pandemonium. I must 
 see some better authority than the Fleet-street temple,, 
 before I forego the principles which I imbibed in my 
 youth, and to which I look forward as the consolation 
 of my age; those all-protecting principles which at once 
 guard, and consecrate, and sweeten the social inter- 
 course — which give life, happiness; and death, hope; 
 which constitute man's purity, his best protection^ 
 placing the infant's cradle and the female's couch be- 
 neath the sacred shelter of the national morality. 
 Neither Mr. Paine or Mr. Palmer, nor all the venom- 
 breathing brood, shall swindle from me the book where 
 I have learned these precepts — ^In despite of all their 
 scoff, and scorn, and menacing, I say, of the sacred 
 volume they would obUterate, it is a book of facts, as 
 well authenticated as any heathen history — a book of 
 miracles, incontestibly avouched— a book of prophecy, 
 confirmed by past as well as present fulfilment — a book 
 of poetry, pure and natural^ and elevated even to in- 
 spiration — a book of morals, such as human wisdom 
 never framed for the perfection of human happiness. 
 My Lord, I will abide by the precepts, admire the 
 beauty, revere the mysteries, and, as hv in me lies. 
 
228 SPEECH 
 
 practise the mandates of this sacred volume; and shoulc 
 the ridicule of earth, and the blasphemy of hell assail 
 me, I shall console myself by the contemplation of 
 those blessed spirits, who, in the same holy cause, have 
 toiled, and shone, and suffered. In the " goodly fellow- 
 ship of the Saints'*— in the "noble army of the Mar- 
 tyrs"— in the society of the great, and good, and wise 
 of every nation; if my sinfulness be not cleansed, and 
 my darkness illuminated, at least my pretentionless 
 submission may be excused. If I err with the luminaries 
 I have chosen for my guides, I confess myself capti- 
 vated by the loveliness of their aberrations. If they 
 err, it is in an heavenly region — if they wander, it is in 
 fields of light — if they aspire, it is at all events a glori- 
 ous daring; and rather than sink with infidelity into 
 the dust, I am content to cheat myself with their vision 
 of eternity. It may indeed be nothing but delusion, 
 but then I err with the disciples of philosophy and of 
 virtue — with men who have drank deep at the fountain 
 of human knowledge, but who dissolved not the pearl 
 of their salvation in the draught. I err with Bacon, the 
 great Bacon, the great confidant of nature, fraught 
 with all the learning of the past, and almost prescient 
 of the future; yet too wise not to know his weakness, 
 and too philosophic not to feel his ignorance. I err with 
 Milton, rising on an angel's wing to heaven, and like 
 the bird of morn, soaring out of light, amid the music 
 of his grateful piety. I err with Locke, whose pure 
 philosophy only taught him to adore its source, whose 
 warm love of genuine liberty was never chilled into 
 rebellion with its author. I err with Newton, whose 
 star like spirit, shooting athwart the darkness of the 
 
AT LONDON. 229 
 
 sphere, too soon to re -ascend to the home of his 
 
 *• . 
 nativity. With men hke these, my Lord, 1 shall remain 
 
 in error, nor shall I desert those errors even for the 
 dnmken death-bed of a Paine, or the delirious war- 
 whoop of the surviving fiends, who would erect his 
 altar on the ruins of society. In my opinion it is diffi- 
 cult to say, wdietlier their tenets are more ludicrous, 
 or more detestable. They will not obey the King or 
 the Prince, or the Parhament, or the Constitution, but 
 they will obey anarchy. They will not believe in the 
 Prophets— in Moses — in the Apostles—in Christ — but 
 they believe Tom Paine! With no government but 
 confusion, and no creed but scepticism, I believe, in my 
 soul, they would abjure the one if it became legitimate. 
 and rebel against the other if it was once established.— 
 Holding, my Lord, opinions such as these, I could 
 consider myself culpable, if, at such a crisis, I did not 
 declare them. A lover of my country, I yet draw a 
 line between patriotism and rebellion. A warm friend 
 to liberty of conscience, I will not confound toleration 
 with infideliy. With all its ambiguity, I shall die in the 
 doctrines af the Christian faith; and with all its errors* 
 I am contented to live under the glorious safeguards of 
 the British Constitution. 
 
LETTER 
 
 OF 
 
 MR. PHILLIPS 
 
 TO THE KING. 
 
 Sire, 
 When I presume to address you on the subject which 
 afflicts and agitates the country, I do so with the most 
 profound sentiments of respect and loyalty. But I am 
 no flatterer. I wish well to your illustrious house, and 
 therefore address you in the tone of simple truth — the 
 interests of the King and Qween are identified, and her 
 majesty's advocate must be your's. The degradation of 
 any branch of your family, must, in some degree, com- 
 promise the dignity of all, and be assured there is as 
 much danger as discredit in familiarizing the public 
 eye to such a spectacle. I have no doubt that the 
 present exhibition is not your royal wish; I have no 
 doubt it is the work of wily sycophants and slanderers, 
 who have persuaded you of vvhat they know to be false,' 
 in the base hope that it may turn out to be profitable. 
 With the view, then, of warning you against interested 
 hypocrisy, and of giving to your heart its natural hu- 
 mane and noble inclination, I invoke your attention to 
 the situation of your persecuted consort! I implore of 
 you to consider whether it would not be for the safety 
 
THE KING. 231 
 
 of the state, for the tranquility of the country, for the 
 honour of your liouse, and for the interests alike of 
 royalty and humanity, that an helpless female should 
 be permitted to pass in peace the few remaining years 
 which unmerited misery has spared to her. 
 
 It is now Sire, about five and twenty years since her 
 majesty landed on the shores of England — a princes 
 hy birtii — a queen by marriage — the relatives of kings 
 — and th-e daughter and the sister of a hero. She was 
 then young— direct from the indulgence of a paternal 
 court — the blessing of her aged parents, of whom she 
 was the hope and stay — and happiness shone brightly 
 o'er her; her life had been all sunshine — time for her 
 had only trod on flowers; and if the visions which en- 
 dear, and decorate and hallow home, were vanished for 
 ever, still did she resign them for the sacred name of 
 wife, and sworn affection of a royal husband, and the 
 •allegiance of a glorious and gallant people. She was no 
 more to see her noble father's hand unhelm the war- 
 rior's brow to fondle over his child — no more for her 
 a mother's tongue delighted as it taught, that ear 
 which never heard a strain, that eye which never 
 opened on a scene, but those of careless, crimeless, 
 I cloudless infancy, was now about to change its dulcet 
 I tones and fairy visions for the accent and the coun- 
 I try of tlie stranger. But she had heard the character of 
 > Britons — she knew that cliivalry and courage co-ex- 
 J isted— she knew that where the brave man and the 
 free man dwelt, the very name ofiuoman bore a charm- 
 ed sway, and where the voice of England echoed your 
 I'oyal pledge, to "love and worship, and cleave to her 
 alone," she but looked upon your Sire's example, and 
 
232 LETTER TO 
 
 your nation's annals, and was satisfied. — Pause and 
 contemplate her enviable station at the hour of these 
 unhappy nuptials! The created world could scarcely 
 exhibit a more interesting spectacle. There was no 
 earthly bliss of which she was not either in the posses- 
 sion or tlie expectancy. Roy«l alike by birth and alli- 
 ance — honoured as the choice of England's heir, re- 
 puted the most accomplished gentleman in Europe— 
 her reputation spotless as the unfallen snow — her ap- 
 proach heralded by a people's prayer, and her footsteps 
 obliterated by an obsequious nobility — her youth, 
 like the lovely season which it tipified, one crowded 
 garland of rich and fragrant blossoms, refreshing every 
 eye with present beauty, and filling every heart with 
 promised benefits!— No wonder that she feared no 
 famine in that spring tide of her happiness — no wonder 
 that the speech was rapture, and her step was buoy- 
 ancy! She was the darling of parent's hearts; a king- 
 dom was her dower— her very glance, like the sun of 
 heaven, diffused fight, and warmth, and luxury around 
 it — in her public hour, fortune concentrated all its rays 
 upon her, and when she shrunk from its too radient 
 noon, it was within the shelter of a husband's love, 
 which God and nature, and duty and morality, assured 
 her un reluctant faith should be eternal. Such was she 
 then, all joy and hope, and generous credulity, the 
 credulity that springs from honour and from innocence. 
 And who could blame it.? You had a world to choose, 
 and she was your selection — your ages were compatible 
 — your births were equal— you had drawn her from 
 the house where she was honourable and happy — you 
 had a prodigal allowance showered on you by the 
 
THE KING. 233 
 
 people — ^you had bowed your anointed head before 
 the altar, and sworn by its majesty to cherish and pro- 
 tect her, and this you did in the presence of that moral 
 nation from whom you hold the crown, and in the face 
 of that church of which you are the guardian. The ties 
 which bound you were of no ordinary texture — you 
 stood not in the situation of some secluded profligate, 
 whose brutal satiety might leave its victim to a death 
 of solitude, where no eye could see, nor echo tell the 
 quiverings of her agony. Your elevation was too lumi- 
 nous and too lofty to be overlooked, and she, who con- 
 fided with a vestal's faith and a virgin's purity in your 
 honour and your morals, had a corroborative pledge in 
 that publicity, which could not leave her to suffer or be 
 sinned against in secret. All the calculations of her 
 reason, all e;vidence of her experience, combined their 
 confirmation. Her own parental home was purity itself, 
 and yours might have bound republicans to royalty; it 
 would have been little less than treason to have doubted 
 you; and, oh! she was right to brush away the painted 
 vermin that infest a court, who would have withered 
 up her youthful heart with the wild errors of your ripe 
 minority! Oh, she was right to trust the honour of 
 ** Fair England's" heir, and weigh but as a breath-blown 
 grain of dust, a thousand follies and a thousand faults 
 balanced against the conscience of her husband. She 
 did confide, and what has been the consequence? 
 
 History must record it, Sire, when the brightest gem 
 in your diadem shall have mouldered, that this young, 
 confiding, inexperienced creature had scarcely heard 
 the last congratulatory address upon her marriage, 
 •when she was exiled from her husband's bed, banished 
 V2 
 
234^ LETTER TO 
 
 from her husband's society, and abandoned to the pol- 
 lution of every slanderous sycophant who chose to 
 crawl over the ruir.? Merciful God! was it meet to leave 
 a human being so situated, with all her passions ex- 
 cited and inflamed to the impulses of such abandon- 
 ment? Was it meet thus to subject her inexperienced 
 youth to the scorpion sting of exasperated pride, and 
 all its iiicidenlal natural temptations? Was it right to 
 fiing the shadow of a husband's frown upon the then 
 unsullied snow of her reputation? Up to the blight of 
 that all'Withering hour no human tongue dared to 
 asperse her charactex'. The sun of patronage was not 
 then strong enough to quicken into life the serpent 
 brood of slanderers: no starveling aliens, no hungry 
 tribe of local expectants, then hoped to fatten upon the 
 offals of the royal reputation. She v/as not long enough 
 in widowhood, to give the spy and the perjurer even 
 a colour for their inventions. The peculiarities of the 
 foreigner; the weakness of the female — the natural 
 vivacity of youthful innocence, could not then be tor- 
 tured into *« demonstrations strong;" for you, yourself, 
 in your recorded letter, had left her purity not only 
 unimpeached, but unsuspected. That invaluable letter, 
 the living document of your separation, gives us the 
 sole reason for your exile, that your "inchnations," 
 were not in your power! That, Sire, and that alone, 
 was the terrific reason which you gave your consort 
 for this heart-rending degradation. Perhaps they were 
 not; but give me leave to ask, are not the obligations 
 of religion independent of us? Has any man a right to 
 square the solemnities of marriage according to his 
 rude caprices? Am I your lowly subject, to understand 
 
THE KING. 235 
 
 ttiat I may kneel before the throne of God, and promise 
 conjugal fidelity till death, and self-absolve myself, 
 whatever moment it suits my " inclination?" Not so 
 will that mitred bench, who see 'her majesty arraigned 
 l>efore them read to you this ceremony. They will tell 
 you it is the most solemn ordinance of man—consecrated 
 by the approving presence of our Savionr — acknow- 
 ledged by the whole civilized community — the source 
 of life's purest pleasures, and of death's happiest con- 
 solations — the rich fountain of our life and being, 
 whose drauglit not only purifies existence, but causes 
 man to live in his posterity; — they will tell you that it 
 cannot perish by '-inclination," but by crime, and that 
 if there is any difference between the prince and the 
 peasant wiio invoke its obhgation, it is the more en- 
 larged duty entailed upon him, to whom the Almighty 
 has vouchsafed the influence of an example. 
 
 Thus, then, within one year after her marriage, was 
 she flung " like a loathsome weed,** upon the world, 
 no cause assigned except your loathing inclination ! It 
 mattered nothing, that for you she had surrendered all 
 her worldly prospects — that she had left her home, her 
 parents and her country — that she had confided in the 
 honour of a prince, and the heart of a man, and the 
 faith of a Christian; she had, it seems, in one little year, 
 "outlived your hking," and the poor, abandoned, 
 branded, heart-rent outcast, must bear it all in silence, 
 for — she w<7s a defenceless wumaTiy and a stranger. Let 
 any man of ordinary feeling think on her situation at 
 l!iis trying crisis, and say he does not feel his heart's 
 blood boil within him! Poor unfortunate! who could 
 have envied her her salaried shame, and her royal hu- 
 
236 LETTER TO 
 
 miliation? The lowest peasant in her reversionary realm 
 was happy in the comparison. The parents that loved 
 her were far, far away — the friends of her youth were 
 in another land — she was alone, and he who should 
 have rushed between her and the bolt of heaven, left 
 her exposed to a rude world's caprices. And yet she 
 lived, and lived without a murmur; her tears were 
 silent — her sighs were lonely; and when you, perhaps, 
 in tlie rich blaze of earth's magnificence, forgot that 
 such a wretch existed, no reproach-of her's awoke your 
 slumbering memory. Perhaps she cherished the vi- 
 sionary hope that the babe whose " perilous infancy'* 
 she cradled, might one day be her hapless mothers 
 advocate! How fondly did she trace each faint resem- 
 blance! Each little casual paternal smile, which played 
 upon the features of that child, and might some distant 
 day be her redemption! How, as it lisped the sacred 
 name of father, did she hope its innocent infant tone 
 might yet awake within that father's breast some fond 
 association! Oh, sacred fancies! Oh, sweet and solemn 
 visions of a mother — who but must hallow thee! Blest 
 be the day-dream that beguiles her heart, and robes 
 each cloud that hovers o'er her child in airy colours of 
 that heart's creation ! Too soon life's wintry whirlwind 
 must come to sweep the prismed vapour into nothing. 
 Thus, Sire, for many and many a heavy year did your 
 deserted Queen beguile her solitude. Meanwhile for 
 you a flattering world assumed its harlot smiles — ^the 
 ready lie denied yoiir errors — the villain courtier deified 
 each act, which in an humble man was merely duty, 
 and mid the din of pomp and mirth, and revelry, if 
 remorse spoke, 'twas inarticulate. Believe me Sire, 
 
THE KING. '2o7 
 
 \vhen all the tongues that flattered you are mute, and 
 all the gaudy pageants that deceived you are not even 
 a shadow, an awful voice will ask in thunder, did your 
 poor wife deserve this treatment,, merely from some 
 distaste of "incUnation?" It must be answered. Did 
 not the altar's vow demand a strict fidelity, and was it 
 not a solemn and a sworn duty, *' for better and for 
 worse," to watch and tend her — correct her wayward- 
 ness by gentle chiding, and fling the fondness of an 
 husband's love between her errors and the world? It 
 must be answered, where the poorest rag upon the 
 poorest beggar in your realm, shall have the splendour 
 of a coronation garment. . 
 
 S.vl, alas! were these sorrows of her solitude — but 
 sad as they were, they were but in their infancy. The 
 first blow passed — a second and severer followed. The 
 darling child, over whose couch she shed her silent 
 tear — upon whose head she poured her daily benedic- 
 tion — in whose infant smile she lived, and moved, and 
 had her being, v;as torn away, and in the mother's 
 sweet endearments she could no longer lose the mise- 
 ries of the wife. Her father, and her laurelled brother 
 too, upon the field of battle, sealed a life of glory, 
 happy in a soldier's death, far happier that this dread- 
 ful day was spared them ! Her sole surviving parent 
 followed soon, and though they left her almost alone 
 on earth, yet how could slie regret them? she has at 
 least the bitter consolation, that their poor child's 
 miseries did not 'break their hearts. Oh, miserable 
 woman! noiade to rejoice over the very grave of her 
 kindred, in mournful gratitude that their hearts are 
 marble. 
 
23S LETTE.R TO 
 
 During a long probation of exile and wo, bereft of 
 parents, country, child and husband, she had one 
 solace still — her character was unblemished. By a re- 
 finement upon cruelty, even that consolation was de- 
 nied her. Twice had she to undergo the inquisition of 
 a secret trial, originating in foul conspiracy, and ending 
 in complete acquittal. The chanty, of her nature was 
 made the source of crime — the peculiarities insepara- 
 ble from her birth were made the ground of accusa- 
 tion—her very servants were questioned whether 
 every thought, and word, and look, and gesture, and 
 visit, were not so many overt acts of adultery; and when 
 her most sacred moments had been heartlessly ex- 
 plored, the tardy verdict which freed her from the 
 guilt, could not absolve, her from tlie humiliating con- 
 sciousness of the accusation. Your gracious father, in- 
 deed, with a benevolence of heart more t-oyal than his 
 royalty, interposed his arm between innocence and 
 punishment; for punishment it was, most deep and 
 grievous, to meet discountenance from all your family, 
 and see the fame which had defied all proof made the 
 capricous sport of hint and insinuation, while that 
 father lived, she still had some protection, even in his 
 night of life thei^e was a sanctity about him which 
 awed the daring of the highway slanderer — his honest, 
 open, genuine English look^, would have silenced a 
 whole banditti of Italians. Your father acted upon the 
 ]>rinciples he professed. He was not more reverenced 
 as a king than he was beloved and respected as a man; 
 and no doubt he felt how poignant it must have been 
 to be denounced as a criminal without crime, and 
 treated as a widow in her husband's life-time. But 
 
THE KING. 2o9 
 
 death was busy with her best protectors, and the ven- 
 erable form is hfeless now, which would have shielded 
 a daughter and a Brunswick. He would have warned 
 the Milan panders to beware the honour of his ancient 
 house; he would have told them that a prying", pettifog- 
 ging, purchased inquisition upon the unconscious pri- 
 vacy of a royal female, was not in the spirit of the En- 
 glish character; he would have disdained the petty lar- 
 ceny of any diplomatic pickpocket; and he would have 
 told the whole rabble of Italian informers and swindling 
 ambassadors, that his daughter's existence should not 
 become a perpetual proscription; that she was doubly 
 allied to him by birth and marriage; and that those who 
 exacted all a wife's obedience, should have previously 
 procured for her husband's countenance. God reward 
 him ! There is not a father or an husband in the land, 
 whose heart does not at this moment make a pilgrim- 
 age to his monument. 
 
 Thus having escaped from two conspiracies equally 
 affecting iier honour and life, finding all conciliation 
 hopeless, bereft by death of every natural protector, 
 and fearing perhaps that practice tnight m.ake perjury 
 eondstent, she reluctantly determined. on leaving Eng;- 
 Jand. One pang alone embiltered her departure — her 
 darhng, and in despite of all discountenance, her du- 
 teous child, clung round her heart with natural tenacity. 
 Parents who love, and feel that very love compelling se- 
 paration, can only feel for her. Yet hov/ could she sub- 
 ject that devoted child tothehumiliation of her mother's 
 misery! How reduce liei* to the sad alternative of se- 
 lecting between separated parents! She chose tljc 
 generous, the noble sacrifice — self-banished, the world 
 
240 LETTER TO 
 
 was before her — one grateful sigli for England— one 
 tear — the last, last tear upon her daughter's head — and 
 she departed. 
 
 Oh Sire, imagine her at that departure! How chang- 
 ed ! how fallen, since a few short years before, she 
 touched the shores of England ! The day -beam fell not 
 on a happier creature — creation caught new colours 
 from her presence, joy sounded its timbrel as she 
 passed, and the flowers of birth, of beauty, and of chi- 
 valry, bowed down before her. But nov\^, alone, an 
 orphan and a widow! her gallant brother in his shroud 
 of glory; no arm to shield, no tongue to advocate, no 
 friend to follow an o'erclouded fortune, branded, de- 
 graded, desolate, she flung herself once more upon 
 the wave, to her less fickle than a husband's promises! 
 I do'not wonder that she has now to pass through a 
 severer ordeal, because impunity gives persecution 
 confidence. But I marvel indeed much, that then, after 
 the agony of an ex parte trial, and the triumph of a 
 complete though lingering exculpation, the natural 
 spirit of English justice did not stand embodied be- 
 tween her and the shore, and bear her indignant to 
 your capital. The people, the peerage, the prelacy 
 should have sprung into unanimous procession; all thab 
 was noble or powerful, or consecrated in the land, 
 should have borne her to the palace gate, and de- 
 manded why their Queen presented to their eye this 
 gross anomaly! Why her anointed brow should bow 
 down in the dust, when a British verdict had pro* 
 nounced her innocence! Why she was refused that 
 conjugal restitution, which her humblest subject had a 
 right to claim! Why the annals of their time should be. 
 
THE Kmc. 241 
 
 disgraced, and the morals of their nation endure the 
 taint of this terrific precedent; and why it was that 
 after their countless sacrifices for your royal house, 
 they should be cursed with this pageantry of royal hu- 
 mihation ! Had they so acted the dire affliction of this 
 day might have been spared us. We should not have 
 seen the filthy sewers of Italy disgorge a living leprosy 
 upon our throne; and slaves and spies, imported from 
 a creedless brothel, land to attaint the sacred Majesty 
 of England ! But who, alas! will succour the unfortu- 
 nate ? The cloud of your displeasure was upon her, 
 and the gay, glittering, countless insect swarm of sum- 
 mer friends, abide but in the sun-beam ! She passed 
 away — with sympathy I doubt not, but in silence. 
 
 Who could have thought, that in a foreign land, the 
 restless fiend of persecution would have haunted her? 
 Who could have thought, that in those distant climes^ 
 where her distracted brain had sought oblivion, the 
 demoniac malice of her enemies would hav^ followed? 
 who could have thought that any human form which 
 had an heart, would have skulked after the mourner 
 in her wanderings, to note and con every unconscious 
 gesture? who could have thought, that such a man there 
 ,was, who had drank at the pure fountain of our British 
 law! who had seen eternal justice in her sanctuary! 
 who had invoked the shades of Holt and Hardwicke, 
 and held high converse with those mighty spirits, 
 whom mercy hailed in heaven as her representatives 
 on earth! 
 
 Yet such a man there was; who, on the classic shores 
 of Como, even in the land of the illustrious Roipan, 
 where every stone entombed an hero, and every scent 
 X 
 
242 LETTER TO 
 
 was redolent of genius, forgot his Jiame, his country, 
 and his calling, to hoard such coinable and rabble slan- 
 der! oh, sacred shades of our departed sages! avert 
 your eyes from this unhallowed spectacle; the spotless 
 ermine is unsullied still; the ark yet stands untainted 
 in the temple, and should unconsecrated hands assail 
 it, there is a lightning still, which would not slumber! 
 No, no; the judgment seat of British law is to be soar- 
 ed, not crawled to ; it must be sought upon an eagle'a 
 pinion and gazed at by an eagle's eye; there is a radiant 
 purity around it, to blast the glance of grovelling spe- 
 culation. His labour was in vain, Sire, the people of 
 Etigland will not hsten to Italian witnesses, nor ought 
 they. Our Queen, has been, before this, twice assailed, 
 and assailed on the same charges. Adultery, nay, preg- 
 nancy, was positively sworn to, one of the ornaments 
 of our navy captain Manby, and one of the most glo- 
 rious heroes who ever gave a nation immortality, a 
 spirit of Marathon or old Thermopylse; he who planted 
 England's red cross on the walls of Acre, and showed 
 jS' apoleoTi, it was invincible, were the branded traitors 
 to their sovereign's bed! Englishmen, and, greater 
 scandal, English ivomen, persons of rank, and birth, 
 and education, were found to depose to this infernal 
 charge! the royal mandate issued for enquiry; Lord 
 Erskine, Lord EUenborough, a man who had dandled 
 accusations from his infancy, sat on the commission; 
 and wh'dt was the result? They found a verdict of perjuiy 
 against her base accusers! The very child for whose 
 parentage she might have shed her sacred blood, was 
 proved beyond all possible denial, to have been but 
 the adoption of her charity. — '' We are happy to de- 
 clare to your majesty our perfect conviction, that therr 
 
THE KING. 243 
 
 IS no foundation whatever for believing', (I quote the 
 very words of the comniissiones,) that the child now 
 with the princess, is the child of her royal highness, 
 or that she was delivered of any child in the year 1802; 
 nor has any thing appeared to us, which would war- 
 rant the belief that she was pregnant in that year, or 
 at any other period imthin the compass of our enquiries.^* 
 Yet people of rank, and station, moving in the highest 
 society in England, admitted even to the sovereign's 
 court, actually volunteered their sworn attestation of 
 this falshood! Twenty years have rolled over her since, 
 and yet the same foul charge of adultery, sustained 
 not as before by the plausible fabrications of English- 
 men, but bolstered by the Iiabitual inventions of Ital- 
 ians, is sought to be affixed to the evening of her life^ in 
 the face of a generous and a loyal people! A kind of 
 sacramental shipload — a packed and assorted cargo of 
 human affidavits has been consigned, it seems, from 
 Italy to Westminster; thirty three thousand pounds of 
 the people's money paid the pedlar who selected the 
 articles; and with this infected freight, which should 
 have performed quarantine before it vomited its 'inoral 
 pestilence amonst us, the Queen of England is sought 
 to be attainted! It cannot be, Sire; we have given 
 much, very much indeed, to foreigners, but we will 
 Kot concede to them the hard-earned principles of 
 British justice. It is not to be endured, that two acquit- 
 tals should be followed by a third experimen^, that 
 when the English testament has failed, an Italian mis- 
 sal^s kiss shall be resorted to; that when people of 
 character here have been discredited, others should 
 f •? recruited who have no character any where,- hni 
 
214 LETTER TO 
 
 above all, it is intolerable, that a defenceless woman 
 should pass her life in endle^ persecution, with one 
 trial in swift succession fojlowicg another, in the hope 
 perhaps, that her noble heart which has defied all proof 
 should perish in the torture of eternal accusation. Send 
 back, then, to Italy, those alien adventurers; the land 
 of their birth, and the habits of their lives, alike unfit 
 for an English court of justice. There is no Spark of 
 freedom — no grace of religion — no sense of morals in 
 their degenerate soil. Eifeminate in manners; sensual 
 from their cradles; crafty, venal, and officious; natural- 
 ized to crime; outcasts of credulity; they have seen 
 from their infancy their court a bagnio, their very 
 churches scenes of daily assassination ! their faith is 
 form; their marriage ceremony a mere mask for the 
 most incestuous intercourses; gold is the god before 
 which they prostrate every impulse of their nature. 
 " A euri sacra fames! quid non mortalia pectora cogis!" 
 the once indignant exclamation of their antiquity, has 
 become the maxim of their modern practice. 
 
 No nice extreme a true Italian knows: 
 But, bid him go to hell — to hell he goes. 
 
 Away with them any where from us; they cannot 
 live in England; they will die in the purity of its moral 
 atmosphere. 
 
 Mealiwhi.^e during this accursed scrutiny, even while 
 the legal blood-hounds were on the scent, the last dear 
 stay which bound her to the world parted, the princess 
 Charlotte died! I will not harrow up a father's feelings, 
 by dwelling on this dreadful recollection. The poet 
 
THE KING. 245 
 
 says, that even grief finds comfort in society, and Eng- 
 land wept with you. But, oh, God! what must have 
 been that hapless mother's misery, when first the dis. 
 mal tidings came upon her! The darhng child over 
 whose cradle she had shed so many tears — whose light- 
 est look was treasured in her memory — who, amid the 
 world's frown, still smiled upon her — the fair and 
 lovely flower, which, when her orb was quenched in 
 tears, lost not its filial, its divine fidelity! It was blighted 
 in its blossom — its verdant stem was withered, and in 
 a fi3reign land she heard it, and alone — no, no, not quite 
 alone. The myrmidons of British hate were around her, 
 and when her heart's salt tears were blinding her, a 
 German nobleman was plundering her letters. Bethink 
 you, Sire, if that fair paragon of daughters Hved, would 
 England's heart be wrung with this inquiry? Oh! she 
 would have torn the diamonds from her brow, and 
 dashed each royal mockery to the earth, and rushed 
 before the people, not in a monarch's, but in nature^s 
 majesty — a child appealing for her persecuted mother! 
 and God would bless the sight, and man would hallow 
 it, and every little infant in the land who felt a mother's 
 warm tear upon her cheek, would turn by instinct to 
 that sacred summons. Your daughter in her shroud, is 
 yet alive. Sire — her spirit is amongst us — it rose un- 
 tombed when her poor mother landed— it walks amid 
 the people- — it has left the angels to protect a parent. 
 The theme is sacred, and I will not sully it — I will 
 not recapitulate the griefs, and, worse than griefs, the 
 little, pitiful, deliberate insults which are burning on 
 every tongue in England. Every hope blighted— every 
 friend discountenanced — her kindred in their grave— 
 X2 
 
2i6 LETTER TO 
 
 her declared innocence made but the herald to a more 
 cruel accusation — her two trials followed by a third, a 
 third on the same charges-r-her royal character insin. 
 uated away by German picklocks and Italian conspira- 
 tors — her divorce sought by an extraordinary proce- 
 dure, upon grounds untenable before any usual lay or 
 ecclesiastical tribunal— her name meanly erased from 
 the Liturgy — her natural rights as a mother disregard- 
 ed, and her civil right as a queen sought to be exter- 
 minated! and all this— all, because she dared to touch 
 the sacred soil of liberty! because she did not banish 
 herself, an implied adulteress! because she would not 
 be bribed into an abandonment of herself and of the 
 country over which she has been called to reign, and 
 to which her heart is bound by the most tender ties, 
 and the most indelible obligations. Yes, she might have 
 lived wherever she selected, in all the magnificence 
 which boundless bribery could procure for her, offer- 
 ed her by those who affect such tenderness for your 
 royal character, and such devotion to the honour of 
 her royal bed. If they thought her guilty, as they al- 
 lege, this daring offer was a double treason — treason 
 to your majesty, whose honour they compromised — 
 treason to the people, whose money they thus prosti- 
 tuted. But she spurned the infamous temptation, and 
 she was right. She was right to front her insatiable ac- 
 cusers; even were she guilty, never was there victim 
 with such crying palliations, but all innocent, as in ]:.. 
 conscience I believe her to be, not perhaps of ,, 
 levities contingent on her birth, and which shall not 
 be converted into constructive crime, but of the cruel 
 charge of adultery, now for a third time produced 
 
THE KING. 247 
 
 against her. She was right, bereft of the court, which 
 was her natural residence, and all buoyant with inno- 
 cence as she felt, bravely to fling herself upon the wave 
 of the people — that people will protect her — Britain's 
 red cross is her flag, and Brunswick's spirit is her 
 pilot. May the Almighty send her royal vessel tri- 
 un)phant into harbour! 
 
 Sire, I am almost done; I have touched but slightly 
 on your Queen's misfortunes — I have contracted the 
 * volume of her injuries to a single page, and if upon 
 that page one word offend you, impute it to my zeal, 
 not my intention. Accustomed all my life to speak the 
 simple truth, I offer it with fearless. honesty to my so- 
 vereign. You are in a difficult — it may be in a most 
 perilous emergency. Banish from your court the syc- 
 ophants who abuse you; surround your palace with ap- 
 proving multitudes, not with armed mercenaries Other 
 crowns may be bestowed by despots and entrenched 
 by cannon; but 
 
 The throne we honour is the people's choice. 
 
 Its safest bulwark is the popular heart, and its bright- 
 est ornament domestic mirtue. Forget not also, there is 
 a throne which is above even the throne of England — > 
 where flatterers cannot come — where kings are seep- 
 treless. The vow*s you made are written in language 
 f ^hter than the sun, and in the course of nature, you 
 1 St soon confront them; prepare the way by effacing 
 now, each seeming, slight and fancied injury; and when 
 you answer the last awful trumpet, be your answer 
 this: "GOD, I FORGAVE— I HOPE TO BE FOR- 
 GIVEN." 
 
248 LETTER T0 
 
 But, if against all policy, and all humanity, and all 
 religion, you should hearken to the counsels which 
 further countenance this unmanly persecution, then 
 niust I appeal not to you but to your parliament. I ap- 
 peal to the sacred prelacy of England, whether the holy 
 vows which their high church administered, have been 
 kept towards this illustrious lady — whether the hand 
 of man should have erased her from that page, with 
 which it is worse than blasphemy in man to interfere 
 — whether, as Heaven's vicegerents, they will not ab- 
 jure the sordid passions of the earth, imitate the in- 
 spired humanity of their Saviour; and hke Him, protect 
 a persecuted creature from the insatiate fangs of ruth- 
 less, bloody, and untiring accusation! 
 
 I appeal to the hereditary peerage of the realm, whe- 
 ther they will aid this levelling denunciation of their 
 Queen— whether they will exhibit the unseemly spec- 
 tacle of illustrious rank and royal lineage degraded for 
 the crime of claiming its inheritance — whether they 
 Avill hold a sort of civil crimination, where the accused 
 is entitled to the mercy of an impeachment ; or whether 
 they will say with their immortal ancestors — " We will 
 not tamper with the laws of England!'* 
 
 I appeal to the ermined, independent judges, whether 
 life is to be made a perpetual indictment — whether two 
 acquittals should not discountenance a third experi- 
 ment — whether, if any subject suitor came to their tri- 
 bunal /Aw* circy^mstanced, claiming either divorce or 
 compensation, they would grant his suit; and I invoke 
 from them, by the eternal majesty of British justice, 
 the same measure for the peasant and the prince! 
 
 J appeal to the Commons in Parliament assembled^ 
 
THE KING. 249 
 
 iepresenting the fathers and the husbands of the nation 
 — I beseech them by the outraged morals of the land! 
 By the overshadowed dignity of the throne! by the ho- 
 liest and tenderest forms of rehgion! by the honour of 
 the army, the sanctity of the church, the safety of the 
 state, and character of the country! by the solemn vir- 
 tues which consecrate their hearths! by those fond en- 
 dearments of nature and ,of habit which attach them to 
 their cherished wives and families, I implore their 
 tears, their protection, and their pity upon the mar- 
 ried widow and the childless mother! 
 
 To those high powers and authorities I appeal with 
 the firmest confidence in their honour, their integrity, 
 and their wisdom. May their conduct justify my faith, 
 and raise no blush on the cheek of our posterity! 
 I have the honour to subscribe myself, 
 ^ Sire, 
 Your Majesty's most faithful subject, 
 
 CHARLES PHILLIPS, 
 
 THE END. 
 
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