way!" till the king's writ stopt the malefactors, and left the subject of the king a waif dropt in the pursuit.

Is it for nothing, my lords, I say this? Is it without intention I state the facts in this way? It is with every intention. It is the duty of the public advocate not so to put forward the object of public attention, as that the skeleton only shall appear, without flesh, or feature, or complexion. I mean every thing that ought to be meant in a court of justice. I mean not only that this execrable attempt shall be intelligible to the court as a matter of law, but shall be understood by the world as an act of state. If advocates had always the honesty and the courage, upon occasions like this, to despise all personal considerations, and to think of no consequence but what may result to the public from the faithful discharge of their sacred trust, these phrenetic projects of power, these atrocious aggressions on the liberty and happiness of men, would not be so often attempted; for, though a certain class of delinquents may be screened from punishment, they cannot be protected from hatred and derision. The great tribunal of reputation will pass its inexorable sentence upon their crimes, their follies, or their incompetency; they will sink themselves under the consciousness of their situation; they will feel the operation of an acid so neutralizing the malignity of their natures, as to make them at least harmless, if it cannot make them honest. Nor is there any thing of risk in the conduct I recommend. If the fire be hot, or the window cold, turn not your back to either; turn your face. So, if you are obliged to arraign the acts of those in high station, approach them not with malice, nor favor, nor fear. Remember, that it is the condition of guilt to tremble, and of honesty to be bold; remember that your false fear can only give them false courage that while you nobly avow the cause of truth, you will find her shield an impenetrable protection; and that no attack can be either hazardous or inefficient, if it be just and resolute.—If Nathan had not fortified himself in the boldness and directness of

his charge, he might have been hanged for the malice of his parable.

It is, my lords, in this temper of mind, befitting every advocate who is worthy of the name, deeply and modestly sensible of his duty, and proud of his privilege, equally exalted above the meanness of temporizing or of offending, most averse from the unnecessary infliction of pain upon any man or men whatsoever, that I now address you on a question, the most vitally connected with the liberty and well being of every man within the limits of the British empire; which, if decided one way, he may be a freeman; which, if de cided the other, he must be a slave. It is not the Irish nation only that is involved in this question. Every member of the three realms is equally embarked; and would to God all England could listen to what passes here this day! they would regard us with more sympathy and respect, when the proudest Briton saw that his liberty was defended in what he would call a provincial court, and by a provincial advocate. The abstract and general question for your consideration is this: : my lord Ellenborough has signed with his own hand a warrant, which has been endorsed by Mr. Bell, an Irish justice, for seizing the person of Mr. Justice Johnson in Ireland, for conveying his person by the most direct way, in such manner as these bailiffs may choose, across the sea, and afterwards to the city of Westminster, to take his trial for an alleged libel against the persons entrusted with the government of Ireland; and to take that trial in a country where the supposed offender did not live at the time of the supposed offence, nor since a period of at least eighteen months previous thereto, has ever resided; where the subject of his accusation is perfectly unknown; where the conduct of his prosecutors, which has been the subject of the supposed libel, is equally unknown; where he has not the power of compelling the attendance of a single witness for his defence. Under that warrant he has been dragged from his family; under that warrant he was on his way to the water's edge:

his transportation has been interrupted by the writ before you, and upon the return of that writ arises the question upon which you are to decide, the legality or illegality of so transporting him for the purpose of trial.

Mr. Curran, after citing various cases in favor of his client, concluded a long and eloquent speech thus: Even if it should be my client's fate to be surrendered to his keepers-to be torn from his familyto have his obsequies performed by torch-light-to be carried to a foreign land, and to a strange tribunal, where no witness can attest his innocence, where no voice that he ever heard can be raised in his defence, where he must stand mute, not of his own malice, but the malice of his enemies-yes even so, I see nothing for him to fear-that all-gracious Being that shields the feeble from the oppressor, will fill his heart with hope, and confidence, and courage; his sufferings will be his armour, and his weakness will be his strength; he will find himself in the hands of a brave, a just, and a generous nation-he will find that the bright examples of her Russels and her Sidneys have not been lost to her children; they will behold him with sympathy and respect, and his persecutors with shame and abhorrence; they will feel too, that what is then his situation, may to-morrow be their own-but their first tear will be shed for him, and the second only for themselves-their hearts will melt in his acquittal; they will convey him kindly and fondly to their shore; and he will return in triumph to his country; to the threshold of his sacred home, and to the weeping welcome of his delighted family; he will find that the darkness of a dreary and a lingering night hath at length passed away, and that joy cometh in the morning. No, my lords, I have no fear for the ultimate safety of my client. Even in these very acts of brutal violence that have been committed against him, do I hail the flattering hope of final advantage to him-and not only of final

advantage to him, but of better days and more prosperous fortune for this afflicted country-that country of which I have so often abandoned all hope, and which I have been so often determined to quit for ever.

Sæpe vale dicto multa sum deinde locutus,
Et quasi discedens oscula summa dabam,
Indulgens animo, pes tardus erat.

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

Quæ cura vivos eadem sequitur tellure repostos.

And, if the transactions of this day had reached me, 1 feel how my heart would have been agonized by the shame of the desertion; nor would my sufferings have been mitigated by a sense of the feebleness of that aid, or the smallness of that service, which I could render or withdraw. They would have been aggravated by the consciousness that however feeble or worthless they were, I should not have dared to thieve them from my country. I have repented-I have staid-and I am at once rebuked and rewarded by the happier hopes that I now entertain. In the anxious sympathy of the public-in the anxious sympathy of my learned brethren, do I catch the happy presage of a brighter fate for Ireland. They see, that within these sacred walls, the cause of liberty and of man may be pleaded with boldness, and heard with favor. I am satisfied they will never forget the great trust, of which they alone are now the remaining depositaries. While they continue to cultivate a sound and literate philosophya mild and tolerating Christianity-and to make

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

66

FINERTY'S TRIAL.

Let me ask you whether you know of any language which could have adequately described the idea of mercy denied where it ought to have been granted, or of any phrase vigorous enough to convey the indignation. which an honest man would have felt upon such a subject? Let me beg of you for a moment to suppose that any one of you had been the writer of this very severe expostulation with the viceroy, and that you had been the witness of the whole progress of this never to be forgotten catastrophe. Let me suppose that you had known the charge upon which Mr. Orr was apprehended, the charge of abjuring that bigotry which had torn and disgraced his country, of pledging himself to restore the people of his country to their place in the constitution, and of binding himself never to be the betrayer of his fellow-laborers in that enterprise; that you had seen him upon that charge removed from his industry and confined in a jail; that through the slow and lingering progress of twelve tedious months, you had seen him confined in a dungeon, shut out from the common use of air and of his own limbs; that day after day you had marked the unhappy captive, cheered by no sound but the cries of his family, or the clanking of his chains; that you had seen him at last brought to his trial; that you had seen the vile and