DANIEL O'CONNELL. IN DEFENCE OF JOHN MAGEE: COURT OF KING'S BENCH, DUBLIN, JULY 27, 1813.

The speeches delivered at Dublin in the summer of 1813 by O’Connell as counsel for John Magee, then on trial for libel, have received the exequatur of Mr. Lecky, who considers them as the “Liberator’s” greatest efforts at the Bar. Magee was the proprietor of the Evening Post newspaper, in which, on the occasion of the Duke of Richmond’s departure from Ireland, there had appeared comments on his conduct as Lord Lieutenant in which the Government, probably with some eagerness, had discovered a libellous tendency. For the Evening Post was notably pro-Catholic; what was more, its circulation and influence were large; and the Government from its own standpoint had good reasons either to repress the sheet or to change its political complexion. Hence the somewhat tenuous charge of libel laid against Magee.

The specimen here presented of O’Connell’s eloquence was, after the trial, piously published by Magee, and later included in that badly printed volume, “Select Speeches of O’Connell,” edited by his son, and published by J. Duffy, Dublin, 1865. With some difficulty a probable text has been constructed out of the impressions of worn types and obvious misprints then given to the world.

The speech itself will be found to be characteristic of O’Connell. The bitter fountains of invective, the sÆva indignatio of a just cause, keen and subtle irony, great facility of phrase and ornament, denunciation, defiance, and then a sudden modulation into an almost fawning fairness of tone—all are here. It is a plea not over-logical in arrangement; often desultory in the show passages; and, from the nature of the case, often legal in reference. But shorn, not only from considerations of space, of certain eccentricities and excursions, it is hoped that it will leave a definite picture of a great rhetorical orator, and of the two jewels of his style,—virile emphasis and impassioned intensity.

I consented to the adjournment yesterday, gentlemen of the jury, from that impulse of nature which compels us to postpone pain; it is, indeed, painful to me to address you; it is a cheerless, a hopeless task to address you—a task which would require all the animation and interest to be derived from the working of a mind fully fraught with the resentment and disgust created in mine yesterday, by that farrago of helpless absurdity with which Mr. Attorney-General regaled you.1

But I am now not sorry for the delay. Whatever I may have lost in vivacity, I trust I shall compensate for in discretion. That which yesterday excited my anger, now appears to me to be an object of pity; and that which then roused my indignation, now only moves to contempt. I can now address you with feelings softened, and, I trust, subdued; and I do, from my soul, declare, that I now cherish no other sensations than those which enable me to bestow on the Attorney-General, and on his discourse, pure and unmixed compassion.

It was a discourse in which you could not discover either order, or method, or eloquence; it contained very little logic, and no poetry at all; violent and virulent, it was a confused and disjointed tissue of bigotry, amalgamated with congenial vulgarity. He accused my client of using Billingsgate, and he accused him of it in language suited exclusively for that meridian. He descended even to the calling of names: he called this young gentleman a “malefactor,” a “Jacobin,” and a “ruffian,” gentlemen of the jury; he called him “abominable,” and “seditious,” and “revolutionary,” and “infamous,” and a “ruffian” again, gentlemen of the jury; he called him a “brothel keeper,” a “pander,” “a kind of bawd in breeches,” and a “ruffian” a third time, gentlemen of the jury.

I cannot repress my astonishment, how Mr. Attorney-General could have preserved this dialect in its native purity; he has been now for nearly thirty years in the class of polished society; he has, for some years, mixed amongst the highest orders in the state; he has had the honor to belong for thirty years to the first profession in the world—to the only profession, with the single exception, perhaps, of the military, to which a high-minded gentleman could condescend to belong—the Irish Bar. To that Bar, at which he has seen and heard a Burgh and a Duquery; at which he must have listened to a Burston, a Ponsonby, and a Curran; to a Bar which still contains a Plunket, a Ball, and, despite of politics, I will add, a Bushe. With this galaxy of glory flinging their light around him, how can he alone have remained in darkness? How has it happened, that the twilight murkiness of his soul, has not been illumined with a single ray shot from their lustre? Devoid of taste and of genius, how can he have had memory enough to preserve this original vulgarity? He is, indeed, an object of compassion, and, from my inmost soul, I bestow on him my forgiveness, and my bounteous pity.2

But not for him alone should compassion be felt. Recollect, that upon his advice—that with him, as the prime mover and instigator of those rash, and silly, and irritating measures of the last five years which have afflicted and distracted this long-suffering country, have originated—with him they have all originated. Is there not then compassion due to the millions whose destinies are made to depend upon his counsel? Is there no pity to those who, like me, must know that the liberties of the tenderest pledges of their affections, and of that which is dearer still, of their country, depend on this man’s advice?

Yet, let not pity for us be unmixed; he has afforded the consolation of hope; his harangue has been heard; it will be reported—I trust faithfully reported; and if it be but read in England, we may venture to hope that there may remain just so much good sense in England as to induce the conviction of the folly and the danger of conducting the government of a brave and long-enduring people by the counsels of so tasteless and talentless an adviser.

See what an imitative animal man is! The sound of ruffian—ruffian—ruffian, had scarcely died on the Attorney-General’s lips, when you find the word honored with all the permanency of print, in one of his pensioned and well-paid, but ill-read, newspapers. Here is the first line in the Dublin Journal of this day:—“The ruffian who writes for the Freeman’s Journal.” Here is an apt scholar—he profits well of the Attorney-General’s tuition. The pupil is worthy of the master—the master is just suited to the pupil.

I now dismiss the style and measure of the Attorney-General’s discourse, and I require your attention to its matter. That matter I must divide, although with him there was no division, into two unequal portions. The first, as it was by far the greater portion of his discourse, shall be that which was altogether inapplicable to the purposes of this prosecution. The second, and infinitely the smaller portion of his speech, is that which related to the subject matter of the indictment which you are to try. He has touched upon and disfigured a great variety of topics. I shall follow him at my good leisure through them. He has invited me to a wide field of discussion. I accept his challenge with alacrity and with pleasure.

This extraneous part of his discourse, which I mean first to discuss, was distinguished by two leading features. The first consisted of a dull and reproving sermon, with which he treated my colleagues and myself, for the manner in which we thought fit to conduct this defence. He talked of the melancholy exhibition of four hours wasted, as he said, in frivolous debate, and he obscurely hinted at something like incorrectness of professional conduct. He has not ventured to speak out, but I will. I shall say nothing for myself; but for my colleagues—my inferiors in professional standing, but infinitely my superiors in every talent and in every acquirement—my colleagues, whom I boast as my friends, not in the routine language of the Bar, but in the sincerity of my esteem and affection; for my learned and upright colleagues, I treat the unfounded insinuation with the most contemptuous scorn!

All I shall expose is the utter inattention to the fact, which, in small things as in great, seems to mark the Attorney-General’s career. He talks of four hours. Why, it was past one before the last of you were digged together by the Sheriff, and the Attorney-General rose to address you before three. How he could contrive to squeeze four hours into that interval, it is for him to explain; nor should I notice it, but that it is the particular prerogative of dulness to be accurate in the detail of minor facts, so that the Attorney-General is without an excuse when he departs from them, and when for four hours you have had not quite two. Take this also with you, that we assert our uncontrollable right to employ them as we have done; and as to his advice, we neither respect, nor will we receive it; but we can afford cheerfully to pardon the vain presumption that made him offer us counsel.

For the rest, he may be assured that we will never imitate his example. We will never volunteer to mingle our politics, whatever they may be, with our forensic duties. I made this the rigid rule of my professional conduct; and if I shall appear to depart from this rule now, I bid you recollect that I am compelled to follow the Attorney-General into grounds which, if he had been wise, he would have avoided.

Yes; I am compelled to follow him into the discussion of his conduct towards the Catholics. He has poured out the full vial of his own praise on that conduct—praise in which, I can safely assure him, he has not a single unpaid rival. It is a topic upon which no unbribed man, except himself, dwells. I admit the disinterestedness with which he praises himself, and I do not envy him his delight, but he ought to know, if he sees or hears a word of that kind from any other man, that that man receives or expects compensation for his task, and really deserves money for his labor and invention.

My lord, upon the Catholic subject, I commence with one assertion of the Attorney-General, which I trust I misunderstood. He talked, as I collected him, of the Catholics having imbibed principles of a seditious, treasonable, and revolutionary nature! He seemed to me, most distinctly, to charge us with treason! There is no relying on his words for his meaning—I know there is not. On a former occasion, I took down a repetition of this charge full seventeen times on my brief, and yet, afterwards, it turned out that he never intended to make any such charge; that he forgot he had ever used those words, and he disclaimed the idea they naturally convey. It is clear, therefore, that upon this subject he knows not what he says; and that these phrases are the mere flowers of his rhetoric, but quite innocent of any meaning!

Upon this account I pass him by, I go beyond him, and I content myself with proclaiming those charges, whosoever may make them, to be false and base calumnies! It is impossible to refute such charges in the language of dignity or temper. But if any man dares to charge the Catholic body, or the Catholic Board, or any individuals of that Board with sedition or treason, I do here, I shall always in this court, in the city, in the field, brand him as an infamous and profligate liar!

Pardon the phrase, but there is no other suitable to the occasion. But he is a profligate liar who so asserts, because he must know that the whole tenor of our conduct confutes the assertion. What is it we seek?

Chief Justice.—What, Mr. O’Connell, can this have to do with the question which the jury are to try?

Mr. O’Connell.—You heard the Attorney-General traduce and calumniate us—you heard him with patience and with temper—listen now to our vindication!

I ask, what is it we seek? What is it we incessantly and, if you please, clamorously petition for? Why, to be allowed to partake of the advantages of the constitution. We are earnestly anxious to share the benefits of the constitution. We look to the participation in the constitution as our greatest political blessing. If we desired to destroy it, would we seek to share it? If we wished to overturn it, would we exert ourselves through calumny, and in peril, to obtain a portion of its blessings? Strange, inconsistent voice of calumny! You charge us with intemperance in our exertions for a participation in the constitution, and you charge us at the same time, almost in the same sentence, with a design to overturn that constitution. The dupes of your hypocrisy may believe you; but, base calumniators, you do not, you cannot, believe yourselves!

The Attorney-General—“this wisest and best of men,” as his colleague, the Solicitor-General, called him in his presence—the Attorney-General next boasted of his triumph over Pope and Popery—“I put down the Catholic Committee; I will put down, at my good time, the Catholic Board.” This boast is partly historical, partly prophetical. He was wrong in his history—he is quite mistaken in his prophecy. He did not put down the Catholic Committee—we gave up that name the moment that it was confessedly avowed that this sapient Attorney-General’s polemico-legal controversy dwindled into a mere dispute about words. He told us that in the English language “pretence” means “purpose”; had it been French and not English, we might have been inclined to respect his judgment, but in point of English we venture to differ with him; we told him “purpose,” good Mr. Attorney-General, is just the reverse of “pretence.” The quarrel grew warm and animated; we appealed to common sense, to the grammar, and to the dictionary; common sense, grammar, and the dictionary decided in our favor. He brought his appeal to this court, your lordship, and your brethren unanimously decided that, in point of law—mark, mark, gentlemen of the jury, the sublime wisdom of law—the court decided that, in point of law, “pretence” does mean “purpose”!

Fully contented with this very reasonable and more satisfactory decision, there still remained a matter of fact between us: the Attorney-General charged us with being representatives; we denied all representation. He had two witnesses to prove the fact for him; they swore to it one way at one trial, and directly the other way at the next. An honorable, intelligent, and enlightened jury disbelieved those witnesses at the first trial—matters were better managed at the second trial—the jury were better arranged. I speak delicately, gentlemen; the jury were better arranged, as the witnesses were better informed; and, accordingly, there was one verdict for us on the representative question, and one verdict against us.

You know the jury that found for us; you know that it was Sir Charles Saxton’s Castle-list jury that found against us. Well, the consequence was that, thus encouraged, Mr. Attorney-General proceeded to force. We abhorred tumult, and were weary of litigation; we new-modelled the agents and managers of the Catholic petitions; we formed an assembly, respecting which there could not be a shadow of pretext for calling it a representative body. We disclaimed representation; and we rendered it impossible, even for the virulence of the most malignant law-officer living, to employ the Convention Act against us—that, even upon the Attorney-General’s own construction, requires representation as an ingredient in the offence it prohibits. He cannot possibly call us representatives; we are the individual servants of the public, whose business we do gratuitously but zealously. Our cause has advanced even from his persecution—and this he calls putting down the Catholic Committee!3

Next, he glorifies himself in his prospect of putting down the Catholic Board. For the present, he, indeed, tells you, that much as he hates the Papists, it is unnecessary for him to crush our Board, because we injure our own cause so much. He says that we are very criminal, but we are so foolish that our folly serves as a compensation for our wickedness. We are very wicked and very mischievous, but then we are such foolish little criminals, that we deserve his indulgence. Thus he tolerates offences, because of their being committed sillily; and, indeed, we give him so much pleasure and gratification by the injury we do our own cause that he is spared the superfluous labor of impeding our petition by his prosecutions, fines, or imprisonments.

He expresses the very idea of the Roman Domitian, of whom some of you possibly may have read; he amused his days in torturing men—his evenings he relaxed in the humble cruelty of impaling flies. A courtier caught a fly for his imperial amusement—“Fool,” said the emperor, “fool, to give thyself the trouble of torturing an animal that was about to burn itself to death in the candle!” Such is the spirit of the Attorney-General’s commentary on our Board. Oh, rare Attorney-General!—Oh, best and wisest of men!!! But, to be serious. Let me pledge myself to you that he imposes on you, when he threatens to crush the Catholic Board. Illegal violence may do it—force may effectuate it; but your hopes and his will be defeated, if he attempts it by any course of law. I am, if not a lawyer, at least a barrister. On this subject I ought to know something, and I do not hesitate to contradict the Attorney-General on this point, and to proclaim to you and to the country that the Catholic Board is perfectly a legal assembly—that it not only does not violate the law, but that it is entitled to the protection of the law, and in the very proudest tone of firmness, I hurl defiance at the Attorney-General!

I defy him to allege a law or a statute, or even a proclamation that is violated by the Catholic Board. No, gentlemen, no; his religious prejudices—if the absence of every charity can be called anything religious—his religious prejudices really obscure his reason, his bigoted intolerance has totally darkened his understanding, and he mistakes the plainest facts and misquotes the clearest law, in the ardor and vehemence of his rancor. I disdain his moderation—I scorn his forbearance—I tell him he knows not the law if he thinks as he says; and if he thinks so, I tell him to his beard, that he is not honest in not having sooner prosecuted us, and I challenge him to that prosecution.

It is strange—it is melancholy, to reflect on the miserable and mistaken pride that must inflate him to talk as he does of the Catholic Board. The Catholic Board is composed of men—I include not myself—of course, I always except myself—every way his superiors, in birth, in fortune, in talents, in rank. What is he to talk of the Catholic Board lightly? At their head is the Earl of Fingal, a nobleman whose exalted rank stoops beneath the superior station of his virtues—whom even the venal minions of power must respect. We are engaged, patiently and perseveringly engaged, in a struggle through the open channels of the constitution for our liberties. The son of the ancient earl whom I have mentioned cannot in his native land attain any honorable distinction of the state, and yet Mr. Attorney-General knows that they are open to every son of every bigoted and intemperate stranger that may settle amongst us.

But this system cannot last; he may insult, he may calumniate, he may prosecute; but the Catholic cause is on its majestic march; its progress is rapid and obvious; it is cheered in its advance, and aided by all that is dignified and dispassionate—by everything that is patriotic—by all the honor, all the integrity, of the empire; and its success is just as certain as the return of to-morrow’s sun, and the close of to-morrow’s eve.

“We will—we must soon be emancipated,” in despite of the Attorney-General, aided as he is by his august allies, the aldermen of Skinner’s-alley. In despite of the Attorney-General and the aldermen of Skinner’s-alley, our emancipation is certain, and not distant.

I have no difficulty in perceiving the motive of the Attorney-General in devoting so much of his medley oration to the Catholic question, and to the expression of his bitter hatred to us, and of his determination to ruin our hopes. It had, to be sure, no connection with the cause, but it had a direct and natural connection with you. He has been, all his life, reckoned a man of consummate cunning and dexterity; and whilst one wonders that he has so much exposed himself upon those prosecutions, and accounts for it by the proverbial blindness of religious zeal, it is still easy to discover much of his native cunning and dexterity. Gentlemen, he thinks he knows his men—he knows you; many of you signed the no-Popery petition; he heard one of you boast of it; he knows you would not have been summoned on this jury if you had entertained liberal sentiments; he knows all this, and therefore it is that he, with the artifice and cunning of an experienced nisi prius advocate, endeavors to win your confidence and command your affections by the display of his congenial illiberality and bigotry.

You are all, of course, Protestants; see what a compliment he pays to your religion and his own, when he endeavors thus to procure a verdict on your oaths; when he endeavors to seduce you to what, if you were so seduced, would be perjury, by indulging your prejudices and flattering you by the coincidence of his sentiments and wishes. Will he succeed, gentlemen? Will you allow him to draw you into a perjury out of zeal for your religion? And will you violate the pledge you have given to your God to do justice, in order to gratify your anxiety for the ascendancy of what you believe to be his church? Gentlemen, reflect on the strange and monstrous inconsistency of this conduct, and do not commit, if you can avoid it, the pious crime of violating your solemn oaths, in aid of the pious designs of the Attorney-General against Popery.

Oh, gentlemen! it is not in any lightness of heart I thus address you—it is rather in bitterness and sorrow; you did not expect flattery from me, and my client was little disposed to offer it to you; besides, of what avail would it be to flatter, if you came here pre-determined, and it is too plain that you are not selected for this jury from any notion of your impartiality?

But when I talk to you of your oaths and of your religion, I would full fain I could impress you with a respect for both the one and the other. I, who do not flatter, tell you, that though I do not join with you in belief, I have the most unfeigned respect for the form of Christian faith which you profess. Would that its substance, not its forms and temporal advantages, were deeply impressed on your minds! Then should I not address you in the cheerless and hopeless despondency that crowds on my mind, and drives me to taunt you with the air of ridicule I do. Gentlemen, I sincerely respect and venerate your religion, but I despise and I now apprehend your prejudices, in the same proportion as the Attorney-General has cultivated them. In plain truth, every religion is good—every religion is true to him who, in his due caution and conscience, believes it. There is but one bad religion, that of a man who professes a faith which he does not believe; but the good religion may be, and often is, corrupted by the wretched and wicked prejudices which admit a difference of opinion as a cause of hatred.

The Attorney-General, defective in argument—weak in his cause, has artfully roused your prejudices at his side. I have, on the contrary, met your prejudices boldly. If your verdict shall be for me, you will be certain that it has been produced by nothing but unwilling conviction resulting from sober and satisfied judgment. If your verdict be bestowed upon the artifices of the Attorney-General, you may happen to be right; but do you not see the danger of its being produced by an admixture of passion and prejudice with your reason? How difficult is it to separate prejudice from reason, when they run in the same direction! If you be men of conscience, then I call on you to listen to me, that your consciences may be safe, and your reason alone be the guardian of your oath, and the sole monitor of your decision.

I now bring you to the immediate subject of this indictment. Mr. Magee is charged with publishing a libel in his paper called the Dublin Evening Post. His lordship has decided that there is legal proof of the publication, and I would be sorry you thought of acquitting Mr. Magee under the pretence of not believing that evidence. I will not, therefore, trouble you on that part of the case; I will tell you, gentlemen, presently, what this publication is; but suffer me first to inform you what it is not—for this I consider to be very important to the strong, and in truth, triumphant defence which my client has to this indictment.

Gentlemen, this is not a libel on Charles Lennox, Duke of Richmond, in his private or individual capacity. It does not interfere with the privacy of his domestic life. It is free from any reproach upon his domestic habits or conduct; it is perfectly pure from any attempt to traduce his personal honor or integrity. Towards the man, there is not the least taint of malignity; nay, the thing is still stronger. Of Charles, Duke of Richmond, personally, and as disconnected with the administration of public affairs, it speaks in terms of civility and even respect.4 It contains this passage which I read from the indictment: “Had he remained what he first came over, or what he afterwards professed to be, he would have retained his reputation for honest open hostility, defending his political principles with firmness, perhaps with warmth, but without rancor; the supporter and not the tool of an administration; a mistaken politician, perhaps, but an honorable man and a respectable soldier.”

The Duke is here in this libel, my lords,—in this libel, gentlemen of the jury, the Duke of Richmond is called an honorable man and a respectable soldier! Could more flattering expressions be invented? Has the most mercenary Press that ever yet existed, the mercenary Press of this metropolis, contained, in return for all the money it has received, any praise which ought to be so pleasing—“an honorable man and a respectable soldier”? I do, therefore, beg of you, gentlemen, as you value your honesty, to carry with you in your distinct recollection this fact, that whatever of evil this publication may contain, it does not involve any reproach against the Duke of Richmond in any other than in his public and official character.

I have, gentlemen, next to require you to take notice that this publication is not indicted as a seditious libel. The word seditious is, indeed, used as a kind of make-weight in the introductory part of the indictment. But mark, and recollect, that this is not an indictment for sedition. It is not, then, for private slander, nor for any offence against the constitution, that Mr. Magee now stands arraigned before you.

In the third place, gentlemen, there is this singular feature in this case, namely, that this libel, as the prosecutor calls it, is not charged in this indictment to be “false.”

The indictment has this singular difference from any other I have ever seen, that the assertions of the publications are not even stated to be false.

They have not had the courtesy to you, to state upon record that these charges, such as they are, were contrary to the truth. This I believe to be the first instance in which the allegation of falsehood has been omitted. To what is this omission to be attributed? Is it that an experiment is to be made, how much further the doctrine of the criminality of truth can be drawn? Does the prosecutor wish to make another bad precedent; or is it in contempt of any distinction between truth and falsehood, that this charge is thus framed; or does he fear that you would scruple to convict, if the indictment charged that to be false which you all know to be true?

However that may be, I will have you to remember that you are now to pronounce upon a publication, the truth of which is not controverted. Attend to the case, and you will find you are not to try Mr. Magee for sedition which may endanger the state, or for private defamation which may press sorely upon the heart, and blast the prospects of a private family; and that the subject matter for your decision is not characterized as false, or described as untrue.

Such are the circumstances which accompany this publication, on which you are to pronounce a verdict of guilt or innocence. The case is with you; it belongs to you exclusively to decide it. His lordship may advise, but he cannot control your decision, and it belongs to you alone to say whether or not, upon the entire matter, you conceive it to be evidence of guilt, and deserving of punishment. The statute law gives or recognizes this your right, and, therefore, imposes this on you as your duty. The legislative has precluded any lawyer from being able to dictate to you. The Solicitor-General cannot now venture to promulgate the slavish doctrine which he addressed to Doctor Sheridan’s jury, when he told them, “not to presume to differ from the Court in matter of law.” The law and the fact are here the same, namely, the guilty or innocent design of the publication.

Indeed, in any criminal case, the doctrine of the Solicitor-General is intolerable. I enter my solemn protest against it. The verdict which is required from a jury in any criminal case has nothing special in it—it is not the finding of the fact in the affirmative or negative—it is not, as in Scotland, that the charge is proved or not proved. No; the jury is to say whether the prisoner be guilty or not; and could a juror find a true verdict, who declared a man guilty upon evidence of some act, perhaps praiseworthy, but clearly void of evil design or bad consequences?

I do, therefore, deny the doctrine of the learned gentleman; it is not constitutional, and it would be frightful if it were. No judge can dictate to a jury—no jury ought to allow itself to be dictated to. If the Solicitor-General’s doctrine were established, see what oppressive consequences might result. At some future period, some man may attain the first place on the bench, by the reputation which is so easily acquired by a certain degree of churchwardening piety, added to a great gravity, and maidenly decorum of manners. Such a man may reach the bench—for I am putting a mere imaginary case—he may be a man without passions, and therefore without vices; he may, my lord, be a man superfluously rich, and, therefore, not to be bribed with money, but rendered partial by his bigotry, and corrupted by his prejudices; such a man, inflated by flattery, and bloated in his dignity, may hereafter use that character for sanctity which has served to promote him, as a sword to hew down the struggling liberties of his country; such a judge may interfere before trial! and at the trial be a partisan!

Gentlemen, should an honest jury—could an honest jury (if an honest jury were again found) listen with safety to the dictates of such a judge? I repeat it, therefore, that the Solicitor-General is mistaken—that the law does not, and cannot, require such a submission as he preached; and at all events, gentlemen, it cannot be controverted, that in the present instance, that of an alleged libel, the decision of all law and fact belongs to you.

I am then warranted in directing to you some observations on the law of libel, and in doing so, I disclaim any apology for the consumption of the time necessary for my purpose. Gentlemen, my intention is to lay before you a short and rapid view of the causes which have introduced into courts the monstrous assertion—that truth is crime!

It is to be deeply lamented that the art of printing was unknown at the earlier periods of our history. If at the time the barons wrung the simple but sublime charter of liberty from a timid, perfidious sovereign, from a violator of his word, from a man covered with disgrace, and sunk in infamy—if at the time when that charter was confirmed and renewed, the Press had existed, it would, I think, have been the first care of those friends of freedom to have established a principle of liberty for it to rest upon which might resist every future assault. Their simple and unsophisticated understandings could never be brought to comprehend the legal subtleties by which it is now argued that falsehood is useful and innocent, and truth, the emanation and the type of heaven, a crime. They would have cut with their swords the cobweb links of sophistry in which truth is entangled; and they would have rendered it impossible to re-establish this injustice without violating the principle of the constitution.

But in the ignorance of the blessing of a free Press, they could not have provided for its security. There remains, however, an expression of their sentiments on our statute books. The ancient parliament did pass a law against the spreaders of false rumors. This law proves two things,—first, that before this statute, it was not considered a crime in law to spread even a false rumor, otherwise the statute would have been unnecessary; and, secondly, that in their notion of crime, falsehood was a necessary ingredient. But here I have to remark upon and regret the strange propensity of judges, to construe the law in favor of tyranny, and against liberty; for servile and corrupt judges soon decided that upon the construction of this law it was immaterial whether the rumors were true or false, and that a law made to punish false rumors, was equally applicable to the true. This, gentlemen, is called construction; it is just that which in more recent times, and of inevitable consequence from purer motives, has converted “pretence” into “purpose.”

When the art of printing was invented, its value to every sufferer, its terror to every oppressor, was soon obvious, and means were speedily adopted to prevent its salutary effects. The Star-Chamber—the odious Star-Chamber—was either created, or, at least, enlarged and brought into activity. Its proceedings were arbitrary, its decisions were oppressive, and injustice and tyranny were formed into a system. To describe it to you in one sentence, it was a prematurely packed jury. Perhaps that description does not shock you much. Let me report one of its decisions, which will, I think, make its horrors more sensible to you—it is a ludicrous as well as a melancholy instance.

A tradesman—a ruffian, I presume, he was styled—in an altercation with a nobleman’s servant, called the swan which was worn on the servant’s arm for a badge, a goose. For this offence—the calling a nobleman’s badge of a swan, a goose—he was brought before the Star-Chamber; he was, of course, convicted; he lost, as I recollect, one of his ears on the pillory, was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, and a fine of £500; and all this to teach him to distinguish swans from geese.

I now ask you, to what is it you tradesmen and merchants are indebted for the safety and respect you can enjoy in society? What is it which has rescued you from the slavery in which persons who are engaged in trade were held by the iron barons of former days? I will tell you; it is the light, the reason, and the liberty which have been created, and will, in despite of every opposition, be perpetuated by the exertion of the Press.

Gentlemen, the Star-Chamber was particularly vigilant over the infant struggles of the Press. A code of laws became necessary to govern the new enemy to prejudice and oppression—the Press. The Star-Chamber adopted, for this purpose, the civil law, as it is called—the law of Rome—not the law at the periods of her liberty and her glory, but the law which was promulgated when she fell into slavery and disgrace, and recognized this principle, that the will of the prince was the rule of the law. The civil law was adopted by the Star-Chamber as its guide in proceedings against, and in punishing libellers; but, unfortunately, only part of it was adopted, and that, of course, was the part least favorable to freedom. So much of the civil law as assisted to discover the concealed libeller, and to punish him when discovered, was carefully selected; but the civil law allowed truth to be a defence, and that part was carefully rejected.

The Star-Chamber was soon after abolished. It was suppressed by the hatred and vengeance of an outraged people, and it has since, and until our days, lived only in the recollection of abhorrence and contempt. But we have fallen upon bad days and evil times; and in our days we have seen a lawyer, long of the prostrate and degraded Bar of England, presume to suggest an high eulogium on the Star-Chamber, and regret its downfall; and he has done this in a book dedicated, by permission, to Lord Ellenborough. This is, perhaps, an ominous circumstance; and as Star-Chamber punishments have been revived—as two years of imprisonment have become familiar—I know not how soon the useless lumber of even well-selected juries may be abolished, and a new Star-Chamber created.

From the Star-Chamber, gentlemen, the prevention and punishment of libels descended to the courts of common law, and with the power they seem to have inherited much of the spirit of that tribunal. Servility at the bar, and profligacy on the bench, have not been wanting to aid every construction unfavorable to freedom, and at length it is taken as granted and as clear law that truth or falsehood are quite immaterial circumstances, constituting no part of either guilt or innocence.

I would wish to examine this revolting doctrine, and, in doing so, I am proud to tell you that it has no other foundation than in the oft-repeated assertions of lawyers and judges. Its authority depends on what are technically called the dicta of the judges and writers, and not upon solemn or regular adjudications on the point. One servile lawyer has repeated this doctrine, from time to time, after another—and one overbearing judge has re-echoed the assertion of a time-serving predecessor; and the public have, at length, submitted.

I do, therefore, feel not only gratified in having the occasion, but bound to express my opinion upon the real law of this subject. I know that opinion is but of little weight. I have no professional rank, or station, or talents to give it importance, but it is an honest and conscientious opinion, and it is this—that in the discussion of public subjects, and of the administration of public men, truth is a duty and not a crime.

You can, at least, understand my description of the liberty of the Press. That of the Attorney-General is as unintelligible as contradictory. He tells you, in a very odd and quaint phrase, that the liberty of the Press consists in there being no previous restraint upon the tongue or the pen. How any previous restraint could be imposed on the tongue it is for this wisest of men to tell you, unless, indeed, he resorts to Doctor Lad’s prescription with respect to the toothache eradication. Neither can the absence of previous restraint constitute a free Press, unless, indeed, it shall be distinctly ascertained, and clearly defined, what shall be subsequently called a crime. If the crime of libel be undefined, or uncertain, or capricious, then, instead of the absence of restraint before publication being an advantage, it is an injury; instead of its being a blessing, it is a curse—it is nothing more than a pitfall and snare for the unwary. This liberty of the Press is only an opportunity and a temptation offered by the law to the commission of crime—it is a trap laid to catch men for punishment—it is not the liberty of discussing truth or discountenancing oppression, but a mode of rearing up victims for prosecution, and of seducing men into imprisonment.

Yet, can any gentleman concerned for the Crown give me a definition of the crime of libel? Is it not uncertain and undefined; and, in truth, is it not, at this moment, quite subject to the caprice and whim of the judge and of the jury? Is the Attorney-General—is the Solicitor-General—disposed to say otherwise? If he do, he must contradict his own doctrine, and adopt mine.

But no, gentlemen, they must leave you in uncertainty and doubt, and ask you to give a verdict, on your oath, without furnishing you with any rational materials to judge whether you be right or wrong. Indeed, to such a wild extent of caprice has Lord Ellenborough carried the doctrine of crime in libel, that he appears to have gravely ruled, that it was a crime to call one lord “a stout-built, special pleader,” although, in point of fact, that lord was stout-built, and had been very many years a special pleader. And that it was a crime to call another lord “a sheep-feeder from Cambridgeshire,” although that lord was right glad to have a few sheep in that county. These are the extravagant vagaries of the Crown lawyers and prerogative judges; you will find it impossible to discover any rational rule for your conduct, and can never rest upon any satisfactory view of the subject, unless you are pleased to adopt my description. Reason and justice equally recognize it, and, believe me, that genuine law is much more closely connected with justice and reason than some persons will avow.

Gentlemen, you are now apprised of the nature of the alleged libel; it is a discussion upon the administration of public men. I have also submitted to you my view of the law applicable to such a publication: we are, therefore, prepared to go into the consideration of every sentence in the newspaper in question.

But before I do so, just allow me to point your attention to the motives of this young gentleman. The Attorney-General has threatened him with fine and a dungeon; he has told Mr. Magee that he should suffer in his purse and in his person. Mr. Magee knew his danger well. Mr. Magee, before he published this paper, was quite apprised that he ran the risk of fine and of imprisonment. He knew also that if he changed his tone—that if he became merely neutral, but especially if he went over to the other side and praised the Duke of Richmond—if he had sufficient gravity to talk, without a smile, of the sorrow of the people of Ireland at his Grace’s departure—if he had a visage sufficiently lugubrious to say so without laughing, to cry out “mournfully, oh! mournfully!” for the departure of the Duke of Richmond—if, at a period when the people of Ireland, from Magherafelt to Dingledecouch, are rejoicing at that departure, Mr. Magee could put on a solemn countenance and pick up a grave and narcotic accent, and have the resolution to assert the sorrow of the people for losing so sweet and civil a Lord Lieutenant—why, in that case, gentlemen, you know the consequences. They are obvious. He might libel certain classes of his Majesty’s subjects with impunity; he would get abundance of money, a place, and a pension—you know he would. The proclamations would be inserted in his paper. The wide-street advertisements, the ordnance, the barrack-board notices, and the advertisements of all the other public boards and offices—you can scarcely calculate how much money he sacrifices to his principles. I am greatly within bounds when I say at least £5000 per annum, of the public money, would reach him if he was to alter his tone, and abandon his opinions.

Has he instructed me to boast of the sacrifices he thus makes? No, gentlemen, no, no; he deems it no sacrifice because he desires no share in the public plunder; but I introduce this topic to demonstrate to you the purity of his intentions. He cannot be actuated, in the part he takes, by mean or mercenary motives; it is not the base lucre of gain that leads him astray. If he be mistaken, he is, at least, disinterested and sincere. You may dislike his political opinions, but you cannot avoid respecting the independence of his principles.

Behold, now, the publication which this man of pure principles is called to answer for as a libel. It commences thus:—

“DUKE OF RICHMOND.

“As the Duke of Richmond will shortly retire from the government of Ireland, it has been deemed necessary to take such a review of his administration as may at least warn his successor from pursuing the errors of his Grace’s conduct. “The review shall contain many anecdotes of the Irish court which were never published, and which were so secret, that his Grace will not fail to be surprised at the sight of them in a newspaper.”

In this paragraph there is nothing libellous; it talks of the errors, indeed, of his Grace’s administration; but I do not think the Attorney-General will venture to suggest that the gentle expression of “errors” is a libel.

To err, gentlemen, is human: and his Grace is admitted, by the Attorney-General, to be but a man; I shall waste none of your time in proving that we may, without offence, treat of his “errors.” But this is not even the errors of the man, but of his administration; it was not infallible, I humbly presume.

I call your particular attention to the third paragraph; it runs thus:—

“If the administration of the Duke of Richmond had been conducted with more than ordinary talent, its errors might in some degree have been atoned for by its ability, and the people of Ireland though they might have much to regret, yet would have something to admire; but truly after the gravest consideration, they must find themselves at a loss to discover any striking feature in his Grace’s administration, that makes it superior to the worst of his predecessors.”

The Attorney-General dwelt much upon this paragraph, gentlemen, and the importance which he attached to it furnishes a strong illustration of his own consciousness of the weakness of his case. What is the meaning of this paragraph? I appeal to you whether it be more than this: that there has been nothing admirable in this administration; that there has not been much ability displayed by it. So far, gentlemen, there is, indeed, no flattery, but still less of libel, unless you are prepared to say that to withhold praise from any administration deserves punishment.

Is it an indictable offence not to perceive its occult talents? Why, if it be, find my client guilty of not being a sycophant and a flatterer, and send him to prison for two years, to gratify the Attorney-General, who tells you that the Duke of Richmond is the best chief governor Ireland ever saw.

But the mischief, I am told, lies in the art of the sentence. Why, all that it says is, that it is difficult to discover the striking features that distinguish this from bad administrations. It does not, gentlemen, assert that no such striking features exist, much less does it assert that no features of that kind exist, or that such features, although not striking, are not easily discernible. So that, really, you are here again required to convict a man for not flattering. He thinks an administration untalented and silly; that is no crime; he says it has not been marked with talent or ability—that it has no striking features; all this may be mistaken and false, yet there is nothing in it that resembles a crime.

And, gentlemen, if it be true—if this be a foolish administration, can it be an offence to say so? If it has had no striking features to distinguish it from bad administrations, can it be criminal to say so? Are you prepared to say that not one word of truth can be told under no less a penalty than years of a dungeon and heavy fines?

Recollect, that the Attorney-General told you that the Press was the protection of the people against the government. Good Heaven! gentlemen, how can it protect the people against the government, if it be a crime to say of that government that it has committed errors, displays little talent, and has no striking features? Did the prosecutor mock you, when he talked of the protection the Press afforded to the people? If he did not insult you by the admission of that upon which he will not allow you to act, let me ask, against what is the Press to protect the people? When do the people want protection? When the government is engaged in delinquencies, oppression, and crimes. It is against these that the people want the protection of the Press. Now, I put it to your plain sense, whether the Press can afford such protection, if it be punished for treating of these crimes.

Still more, can a shadow of protection be given by a Press that is not permitted to mention the errors, the talents, and the striking features of an administration? Here is a watchman admitted by the Attorney-General to be at his post to warn the people of their danger, and the first thing that is done to this watchman is to knock him down and bring him to a dungeon, for announcing the danger he is bound to disclose. I agree with the Attorney-General, the Press is a protection, but it is not in its silence or in its voice of flattery. It can protect only by speaking out when there is danger, or error, or want of ability. If the harshness of this tone be complained of, I ask, what is it the Attorney-General would have? Does he wish that this protection should speak so as not to be understood; or, I again repeat it, does he mean to delude us with the name and the mockery of protection? Upon this ground, I defy you to find a verdict for the prosecutor, without declaring that he has been guilty of an attempt to deceive when he talked of the protection of the Press against errors, ignorance, and incapacity, which it is not to dare even to name. Gentlemen, upon this third paragraph, I am entitled to your verdict, upon the Attorney-General’s own admission.

He, indeed, passed on to the next sentence with an air of triumph, with the apparent certainty of its producing a conviction; I meet him upon it—I read it boldly—I will discuss it with you manfully—it is this:—

“They insulted, they oppressed, they murdered, and they deceived.”

The Attorney-General told us, rather ludicrously, that they, meaning the Duke’s predecessors, included, of course, himself. How a man could be included amongst his predecessors, it would be difficult to discover. It seems to be that mode of expression which would indicate that the Attorney-General, notwithstanding his foreign descent, has imbibed some of the language of the native Irish. But our blunders arise not like this, from a confusion of idea; they are generally caused by too great condensation of thought; they are, indeed, frequently of the head, but never—never of the heart. Would I could say so much for the Attorney-General; his blunder is not to be attributed to his cool and cautious head; it sprung, I much fear, from the misguided bitterness of the bigotry of his heart.

Well, gentlemen, this sentence does, in broad and distinct terms, charge the predecessors of the Duke, but not the Duke himself, with insult, oppression, murder, and deceit. But it is history, gentlemen: are you prepared to silence the voice of history? Are you disposed to suppress the recital of facts—the story of the events of former days? Is the historian, and the publisher of history, to be exposed to indictment and punishment?

Let me read for you two passages from Doctor Leland’s “History of Ireland.” I choose a remote period, to avoid shocking your prejudices by the recital of the more modern crimes of the faction to which most of you belong. Attend to this passage, gentlemen.

“Anno 1574.—A solemn peace and concord was made between the Earl of Essex and Felim O’Nial. However, at a feast, wherein the Earl entertained that chieftain, and at the end of their good cheer, O’Nial, with his wife, were seized; their friends, who attended, were put to the sword before their faces. Felim, together with his wife and brother, were conveyed to Dublin, where they were cut up in quarters.”

How would you have this fact described? In what ladylike terms is the future historian to mention this savage and brutal massacre? Yet Essex was an English nobleman—a predecessor of his Grace; he was accomplished, gallant, and gay; the envied paramour of the virgin queen; and, if he afterwards fell on the scaffold, one of the race of the ancient Irish may be permitted to indulge the fond superstition that would avenge the royal blood of the O’Nial and of his consort on their perfidious English murderer.

But my soul fills with bitterness, and I will read of no more Irish murders. I turn, however, to another page, and I will introduce to your notice another predecessor of his Grace the Duke of Richmond. It is Grey, who, after the recall of Essex, commanded the English forces in Munster. The fort of Smerwick, in Kerry, surrendered to Grey at discretion. It contained some Irish troops, and more than 700 Spaniards. The historian shall tell you the rest:—

“That mercy for which they sued was rigidly denied them. Wingfield was commissioned to disarm them, and when this service was performed, an English company was sent into the fort.

“The Irish rebels found they were reserved for execution by martial law.

“The Italian general and some officers were made prisoners of war: but the garrison was butchered in cold blood; nor is it without pain that we find a service so horrid and detestable committed to Sir Walter Raleigh.”

“The garrison was butchered in cold blood,” says the historian. Furnish us, Mr. Attorney-General, with gentle accents and sweet words to speak of this savage atrocity; or will you indict the author? Alas! he is dead, full of years and respect—as faithful an historian as the prejudices of his day would allow, and a beneficed clergyman of your church. Gentlemen of the jury, what is the mild language of this paper compared with the indignant language of history? Raleigh—the ill-starred Raleigh—fell a victim to a tyrant master, a corrupt or overawed jury, and a virulent Attorney-General; he was baited at the bar with language more scurrilous and more foul than that you heard yesterday poured upon my client. Yet, what atonement to civilization could his death afford for the horrors I have mentioned?

Decide, now, gentlemen, between those libels—between that defamer’s history and my client. He calls those predecessors of his Grace, murderers. History has left the living records of their crimes, from the O’Nial, treacherously slaughtered, to the cruel, cold butchery of the defenceless prisoners. Until I shall see the publishers of Leland and of Hume brought to your bar, I defy you to convict my client.

To show you that my client has treated these predecessors of his Grace with great lenity, I will introduce to your notice one, and only one, more of them; and he, too, fell on the scaffold—the unfortunate Strafford, the best servant a despotic king could desire.

Amongst the means taken to raise money in Ireland for James the First and his son Charles, a proceeding called “a commission to inquire into defective titles” was invented. It was a scheme, gentlemen, to inquire of every man what right he had to his own property, and to have it solemnly and legally determined that he had none. To effectuate this scheme required great management, discretion, and integrity. First, there were 4000 excellent horse raised for the purpose of being, as Strafford himself said, “good lookers-on.” The rest of the arrangement I would recommend to modern practice; it would save much trouble. I will shortly abstract it from two of Strafford’s own letters.

The one appears to have been written by him to the Lord Treasurer; it is dated the 3d December, 1634. He begins with an apology for not having been more expeditious in this work of plunder, for his employers were, it seems, impatient at the melancholy waste of time. He then says:—

“Howbeit, I will redeem the time as much as I can, with such as may give furtherance to the king’s title, and will inquire out fit men to serve upon the juries.”

Take notice of that, gentlemen, I pray you; perhaps you thought that the “packing of juries” was a modern invention—a new discovery. You see how greatly mistaken you were; the thing has example and precedent to support it, and the authority of both are, in our law, quite conclusive.

The next step was to corrupt—oh, no, to interest the wise and learned judges. But commentary becomes unnecessary when I read for you this passage from a letter of his to the King, dated the 9th of December, 1636:—

“Your Majesty was graciously pleased, upon my humble advice, to bestow four shillings in the pound upon your Lord Chief Justice and Lord Chief Baron in this kingdom, fourth of the first yearly rent raised upon the commission of defective title, which, upon observation, I find to be the best given that ever was. For now they do intend it, with a care and diligence, such as if it were their own private, and most certain gaining to themselves; every four shillings once paid, shall better your revenue forever after, at least five pounds.”

Thus, gentlemen of the jury, all was ready for the mockery of law and justice, called a trial.

Now, let me take any one of you; let me place him here, where Mr. Magee stands; let him have his property at stake; let it be of less value, I pray you, than a compensation for two years’ imprisonment; it will, however, be of sufficient value to interest and rouse all your agony and anxiety. If you were so placed here, you would see before you the well-paid Attorney-General, perhaps, malignantly delighted to pour his rancor upon you; on the bench would sit the corrupt and partisan judge, and before you, on that seat which you now occupy, would be placed the packed and predetermined jury.

I beg, sir, to know what would be your feelings, your honor, your rage; would you not compare the Attorney-General to the gambler who played with a loaded die? and then you would hear him talk, in solemn and monotonous tones, of his conscience! Oh, his conscience, gentlemen of the jury!

But the times are altered. The Press, the Press, gentlemen, has effectuated a salutary revolution; a commission of defective titles would no longer be tolerated; the judges can no longer be bribed with money, and juries can no longer be——I must not say it. Yes, they can, you know—we all know they can be still inquired out, and “packed,” as the technical phrase is. But you, who are not packed, you, who have been fairly selected, will see that the language of the publication before us is mildness itself, compared with that which the truth of history requires—compared with that which history has already used.

I proceed with this alleged libel.

The next sentence is this:—

“The profligate, unprincipled Westmoreland”—I throw down the paper and address myself in particular to some of you. There are, I see, amongst you some of our Bible distributors, “and of our suppressors of vice.” Distributors of Bibles, suppressors of vice—what call you profligacy? What is it you would call profligacy? Suppose the peerage was exposed to sale—set up at open auction—it was at that time a judicial office—suppose that its price, the exact price of this judicial office, was accurately ascertained by daily experience—would you call that profligacy? If pensions were multiplied beyond bounds and beyond example—if places were augmented until invention was exhausted, and then were subdivided and split into halves, so that two might take the emoluments of each, and no person do the duty—if these acts were resorted to in order to corrupt your representatives—would you, gentle suppressors of vice, call that profligacy?

If the father of children selected in the open day his adulterous paramour—if the wedded mother of children displayed her crime unblushingly—if the assent of the titled or untitled wittol to his own shame was purchased with the people’s money—if this scene—if these were enacted in the open day, would you call that profligacy, sweet distributors of Bibles? The women of Ireland have always been beauteous to a proverb; they were, without an exception, chaste beyond the terseness of a proverb to express; they are still as chaste as in former days, but the depraved example of a depraved court has furnished some exceptions, and the action of criminal conversation, before the time of Westmoreland unknown, has since become more familiar to our courts of justice.

Call you the sad example which produced those exceptions—call you that profligacy, suppressors of vice and Bible distributors? The vices of the poor are within the reach of control; to suppress them, you can call in aid the churchwarden and the constable; the justice of the peace will readily aid you, for he is a gentleman—the Court of Sessions will punish those vices for you by fine, by imprisonment, and, if you are urgent, by whipping. But, suppressors of vice, who shall aid you to suppress the vices of the great? Are you sincere, or are you, to use your own phraseology, whitewashed tombs—painted charnel-houses? Be ye hypocrites? If you are not—if you be sincere, (and, oh, how I wish that you were)—if you be sincere, I will steadily require to know of you, what aid you expect, to suppress the vices of the rich and great? Who will assist you to suppress those vices? The churchwarden!!—why he, I believe, handed them into the best pew in one of your cathedrals, that they might lovingly hear Divine service together. The constable!! Absurd. The justice of the peace!!—no, upon his honor. As to the Court of Sessions, you cannot expect it to interfere; and my lords the judges are really so busy at the assizes, in hurrying the grand juries through the presentments, that there is no leisure to look after the scandalous faults of the great. Who, then, sincere and candid suppressors of vice, can aid you?—The Press; the Press alone talks of the profligacy of the great; and, at least, shames into decency those whom it may fail to correct. The Press is your, but your only assistant. Go, then, men of conscience, men of religion—go, then, and convict John Magee, because he published that Westmoreland was profligate and unprincipled as a Lord Lieutenant—do, convict, and then return to your distribution of Bibles and to your attacks upon the recreations of the poor, under the name of vices!

Do, convict the only aid which virtue has, and distribute your Bibles that you may have the name of being religious; upon your sincerity depends my client’s prospect of a verdict. Does he lean upon a broken reed?

I pass on from the sanctified portion of the jury which I have latterly addressed, and I call the attention of you all to the next member of the sentence:—

“The cold-hearted and cruel Camden.”

Here I have your prejudices all armed against me. In the administration of Camden, your faction was cherished and triumphant. Will you prevent him to be called cold and cruel? Alas! to-day, why have I not men to address who would listen to me for the sake of impartial justice! But even with you the case is too powerful to allow me to despair.

Well, I do say, the cold and cruel Camden. Why, on one circuit, during his administration, there were one hundred individuals tried before one judge; of these ninety-eight were capitally convicted, and ninety-seven hanged! I understand one escaped; but he was a soldier who murdered a peasant, or something of that trivial nature—ninety-seven victims in one circuit!!!

In the meantime, it was necessary, for the purposes of the Union, that the flame of rebellion should be fed. The meetings of the rebel colonels in the north were, for a length of time, regularly reported to government; but the rebellion was not then ripe enough; and whilst the fruit was coming to maturity, under the fostering hand of the administration, the wretched dupes atoned on the gallows for allowing themselves to be deceived.

In the meantime the soldiery were turned in at free quarters amongst the wives and daughters of the peasantry!!!

Have you heard of Abercrombie, the valiant and the good—he who, mortally wounded, neglected his wound until victory was ascertained—he who allowed his life’s stream to flow unnoticed because his country’s battle was in suspense—he who died the martyr of victory—he who commenced the career of glory on the land, and taught French insolence, than which there is nothing so permanent—even transplanted, it exhibits itself to the third and fourth generation—he taught French insolence, that the British and Irish soldier was as much his superior by land, as the sailor was confessedly by sea—he, in short, who commenced that career which has since placed the Irish Wellington on the highest pinnacle of glory? Abercrombie and Moore were in Ireland under Camden. Moore, too, has since fallen at the moment of triumph—Moore, the best of sons, of brothers, of friends, of men—the soldier and the scholar—the soul of reason and the heart of pity—Moore has, in documents of which you may plead ignorance, left his opinions upon record with respect to the cruelty of Camden’s administration. But you all have heard of Abercrombie’s proclamation, for it amounted to that; he proclaimed that cruelty in terms the most unequivocal; he stated to the soldiery and to the nation, that the conduct of the Camden administration had rendered “the soldiery formidable to all but the enemy.”

Was there no cruelty in thus degrading the British soldier? And say, was not the process by which that degradation was effectuated cruelty? Do, then, contradict Abercrombie, upon your oaths, if you dare; but, by doing so, it is not my client alone you will convict—you will also convict yourselves of the foul crime of perjury.

I now come to the third branch of this sentence; and here I have an easy task. All, gentlemen, that is said of the artificer and superintendent of the Union is this—“the artful and treacherous Cornwallis.” Is it necessary to prove that the Union was effectuated by artifice and treachery? For my part, it makes my blood boil when I think of the unhappy period which was contrived and seized on to carry it into effect; one year sooner, and it would have been a revolution—one year later, and it would have been forever impossible to carry it. The moment was artfully and treacherously seized on, and our country, that was a nation for countless ages, has dwindled into a province, and her name and her glory are extinct forever.

I should not waste a moment upon this part of the case, but that the gentlemen at the other side who opposed that measure have furnished me with some topics which I may not, cannot, omit. Indeed, Mr. Magee deserves no verdict from any Irish jury who can hesitate to think that the contriver of the Union is treated with too much lenity in this sentence; he fears your disapprobation for speaking with so little animosity of the artificer of the Union.

There was one piece of treachery committed at that period, at which both you and I equally rejoice; it was the breach of faith towards the leading Catholics; the written promises made them at that period have been since printed; I rejoice with you that they were not fulfilled; when the Catholic trafficked for his own advantage upon his country’s miseries, he deserved to be deceived. For this mockery, I thank the Cornwallis administration. I rejoice, also, that my first introduction to the stage of public life, was in the opposition to that measure.

In humble and obscure distance, I followed the footsteps of my present adversaries. What their sentiments were then of the authors of the Union, I beg to read to you; I will read them from a newspaper set up for the mere purpose of opposing the Union, and conducted under the control of these gentlemen.5

Having followed the prosecutor through this weary digression, I return to the next sentence of this publication. Yet I cannot—I must detain you still a little longer from it, whilst I supplicate your honest indignation, if in your resentments there be aught of honesty, against the mode in which the Attorney-General has introduced the name of our aged and afflicted sovereign. He says this is a libel on the King, because it imputes to him a selection of improper and criminal chief governors. Gentlemen, this is the very acme of servile doctrine. It is the most unconstitutional doctrine that could be uttered: it supposes that the sovereign is responsible for the acts of his servants, whilst the constitution declares that the King can do no wrong, and that even for his personal acts, his servants shall be personally responsible. Thus, the Attorney-General reverses for you the constitution in theory; and, in point of fact, where can be found, in this publication, any, even the slightest allusion to his Majesty? The theory is against the Attorney-General, and yet, contrary to the fact, and against the theory, he seeks to enlist another prejudice of yours against Mr. Magee.

Prejudice did I call it? Oh, no! it is no prejudice; that sentiment which combines respect with affection for my aged sovereign, suffering under a calamity with which heaven has willed to visit him, but which is not due to any default of his. There never was a sentiment that I should wish to see more cherished—more honored. To you the King may appear an object of respect; to his Catholic subjects he is one of veneration; to them he has been a bountiful benefactor. To the utter disregard of your aldermen of Skinner’s-alley, and the more pompous magnates of William-street, his Majesty procured, at his earnest solicitation from Parliament, the restoration of much of our liberties. He disregarded your anti-Popery petitions. He treated with calm indifference the ebullitions of your bigotry; and I owe to him that I have the honor of standing in the proud situation from which I am able, if not to protect my client, at least to pour the indignant torrent of my discourse against his enemies, and those of his country.

The publication to which I now recall you, goes to describe the effects of the facts which I have shown you to have been drawn from the undisputed and authentic history of former times. I have, I hope, convinced you that neither Leland nor Hume could have been indicted for stating those facts, and it would be a very strange perversion of principle, which would allow you to convict Mr. Magee for that which has been stated by other writers, not only without punishment, but with applause.

That part of the paragraph which relates to the present day is in these words:—

“Since that period the complexion of the times has changed—the country has advanced—it has outgrown submission, and some forms, at least, must now be observed towards the people.

“The system, however, is still the same; it is the old play with new decorations, presented in an age somewhat more enlightened; the principle of government remains unaltered—a principle of exclusion which debars the majority of the people from the enjoyment of those privileges that are possessed by the minority, and which must, therefore, maintain itself by all those measures necessary for a government founded on injustice.”

The prosecutor insists that this is the most libellous part of the entire publication. I am glad he does so; because if there be amongst you a single particle of discrimination, you cannot fail to perceive that this is not a libel—that this paragraph cannot constitute any crime. It states that the present is a system of exclusion. Surely, it is no crime to say so; it is what you all say. It is what the Attorney-General himself gloried in. This is, said he, exclusively a Protestant government. Mr. Magee and he are agreed. Mr. Magee adds that a principle of exclusion on account of religion, is founded on injustice. Gentlemen, if a Protestant were to be excluded from any temporal advantages upon the score of his religion, would not you say that the principle upon which he was excluded was unjust? That is precisely what Mr. Magee says; for the principle which excludes the Catholic in Ireland, would exclude the Protestant in Spain and in Portugal, and then you clearly admit its justice. So that, really, you would condemn yourselves, and your own opinions, and the right to be a Protestant in Spain and Portugal, if you condemn this sentiment.

But I would have you further observe that this is no more than the discussion of an abstract principle of government; it arraigns not the conduct of any individual, or of any administration; it only discusses and decides upon the moral fitness of a certain theory, on which the management of the affairs of Ireland has been conducted. If this be a crime, we are all criminals; for this question, whether it be just or not to exclude from power and office a class of the people for religion, is the subject of daily—of hourly discussion. The Attorney-General says it is quite just; I proclaim it to be unjust—obviously unjust. At all public meetings, in all private companies, this point is decided different ways, according to the temper and the interest of individuals. Indeed, it is but too much the topic of every man’s discourse; and the gaols and the barracks of the country would not contain the hundredth part of those with whom the Attorney-General would have to crowd them if it be penal to call the principle of exclusion unjust. In this court, without the least danger of interruption or reproof, I proclaim the injustice of that principle.

I will then ask whether it be lawful to print that which it is not unlawful to proclaim in the face of a court of justice? And above all, I will ask whether it can be criminal to discuss the abstract principles of government? Is the theory of the law a prohibited subject? I had understood that there was no right so clear and undoubted as that of discussing abstract and theoretic principles, and their applicability to practicable purposes. For the first time do I hear this disputed; and now see what it is the Attorney-General prohibits. He insists upon punishing Mr. Magee; first, because he accuses his administration of “errors”; secondly, because he charges them with not being distinguished for “talents”; thirdly, because he cannot discover their “striking features”; and fourthly, because he discusses an “abstract principle”!

This is quite intelligible—this is quite tangible. I begin to understand what the Attorney-General means by the liberty of the Press; it means a prohibition of printing anything except praise respecting “the errors, the talents, or the striking features” of any administration, and of discussing any abstract principle of government. Thus the forbidden subjects are errors, talents, striking features, and principles. Neither the theory of the government nor its practices are to be discussed; you may, indeed, praise them; you may call the Attorney-General “the best and wisest of men”; you may call his lordship the most learned and impartial of all possible chief justices; you may, if you have powers of visage sufficient, call the Lord Lieutenant the best of all imaginable governors. That, gentlemen, is the boasted liberty of the Press—the liberty that exists in Constantinople—the liberty of applying the most fulsome and unfounded flattery, but not one word of censure or reproof.

Here is an idol worthy of the veneration of the Attorney-General. Yes; he talked of his veneration for the liberty of the Press; he also talked of its being a protection to the people against the government. Protection! Not against errors—not against the want of talents or striking features—nor against the effort of any unjust principle—protection! Against what is it to protect? Did he not mock you? Did he not plainly and palpably delude you, when he talked of the protection of the Press? Yes. To his inconsistencies and contradictions he calls on you to sacrifice your consciences; and because you are no-Popery men, and distributors of Bibles, and aldermen of Skinner’s-alley, and Protestant petitioners, he requires of you to brand your souls with perjury. You cannot escape it; it is, it must be perjury to find a verdict for a man who gravely admits that the liberty of the Press is recognized by law, and that it is a venerable object, and yet calls for your verdict upon the ground that there is no such thing in existence as that which he has admitted, that the law recognizes, and that he himself venerates.

Clinging to the fond but faint hope that you are not capable of sanctioning, by your oaths, so monstrous an inconsistency, I lead you to the next sentence upon this record:

“Although his Grace does not appear to know what are the qualities necessary for a judge in Canada, or for an aide-de-camp in waiting at a court, he surely cannot be ignorant what are requisites for a Lord Lieutenant.”

This appears to be a very innocent sentence; yet the Attorney-General, the venerator of that protection of the people against a bad government—the liberty of the Press—tells you that it is a gross libel to impute so much ignorance to his Grace. As to the aide-de-camp, gentlemen, whether he be selected for the brilliancy of his spurs, the polish of his boots, or the precise angle of his cocked hat, are grave considerations which I refer to you. Decide upon these atrocities, I pray you. But as to the judge in Canada, it cannot be any reproach to his Grace to be ignorant of his qualifications. The old French law prevails in Canada, and there is not a lawyer at the Irish Bar, except, perhaps, the Attorney-General, who is sufficiently acquainted with that law to know how far any man may be fit for the station of judge in Canada.

If this be an ignorance without reproach in Irish lawyers, and if there be any reproach in it, I feel it not, whilst I avow that ignorance—yet, surely it is absurd to torture it into a calumny against the Lord Lieutenant—a military man, and no lawyer. I doubt whether it would be a libel if my client had said that his Grace was ignorant of the qualities necessary for a judge in Ireland—for a chief judge, my lord. He has not said so, however, gentlemen, and true or false, that is not now the question under consideration. We are in Canada at present, gentlemen, in a ludicrous search for a libel in a sentence of no great point or meaning. If you are sapient enough to suspect that it contains a libel, your doubt can only arise from not comprehending it; and that, I own, is a doubt difficult to remove. But I mock you when I talk of this insignificant sentence.

I shall read the next paragraph at full length. It is connected with the Canadian sentence:—

“Therefore, were an appeal to be made to him in a dispassionate and sober moment, we might candidly confess that the Irish would not be disappointed in their hopes of a successor, though they would behold the same smiles, experience the same sincerity, and witness the same disposition towards conciliation.

“What though they were deceived in 1795, and found the mildness of a Fitzwilliam a false omen of concord; though they were duped in 1800, and found that the privileges of the Catholics did not follow the extinction of the parliament! Yet, at his departure, he will, no doubt, state good grounds for future expectation; that his administration was not the time for Emancipation, but that the season is fast approaching; that there were ‘existing circumstances,’ but that now the people may rely upon the virtues even of an hereditary Prince; that they should continue to worship the false idol; that their cries, must, at least, be heard; and that, if he has not complied, it is only because he has not spoken. In short, his Grace will in no way vary from the uniform conduct observed by most of his predecessors, first preaching to the confidence of the people, then playing upon their credulity.

“He came over ignorant—he soon became prejudiced, and then he became intemperate. He takes from the people their money; he eats of their bread, and drinks of their wine; in return, he gives them a bad government, and, at his departure, leaves them more distracted than ever. His Grace commenced his reign by flattery, he continued it in folly, he accompanied it with violence, and he will conclude it with falsehood.”

There is one part of this sentence for which I most respectfully solicit your indulgence and pardon. Be not exasperated with us for talking of the mildness of Lord Fitzwilliam, or of his administration. But, notwithstanding the violence any praise of him has excited amongst you, come dispassionately, I pray you, to the consideration of the paragraph. Let us abstract the meaning of it from the superfluous words. It certainly does tell you that his Grace came over ignorant of Irish affairs, and he acquired prejudices upon those subjects, and he has become intemperate. Let us discuss this part separately from the other matter suggested by the paragraph in question. That the Duke of Richmond came over to Ireland ignorant of the details of our domestic policy cannot be matter either of surprise or of any reproach. A military man engaged in those pursuits which otherwise occupy persons of his rank, altogether unconnected with Ireland, he could not have had any inducement to make himself acquainted with the details of our barbarous wrongs, of our senseless party quarrels, and criminal feuds; he was not stimulated to examine them by any interest, nor could any man be attracted to study them by taste. It is, therefore, no censure to talk of his ignorance—of that with which it would be absurd to expect that he should be acquainted; and the knowledge of which would neither have served, nor exalted, nor amused him.

Then, gentlemen, it is said he became “prejudiced.” Prejudiced may sound harsh in your ears; but you are not, at least you ought not, to decide upon the sound—it is the sense of the word that should determine you. Now what is the sense of the word “prejudice” here? It means the having adopted precisely the opinions which every one of you entertain. By “prejudice” the writer means, and can mean, nothing but such sentiments as you cherish. When he talks of prejudice, he intends to convey the idea that the Duke took up the opinion that the few ought to govern the many in Ireland; that there ought to be a favored, and an excluded class in Ireland; that the burdens of the state ought to be shared equally, but its benefits conferred on a few. Such are the ideas conveyed by the word prejudice; and I fearlessly ask you, is it a crime to impute to his Grace these notions which you yourselves entertain? Is he calumniated—is he libelled, when he is charged with concurring with you, gentlemen of the jury? Will you, by a verdict of conviction, stamp your own political sentiments with the seal of reprobation? If you convict my client, you do this; you decide that it is a libel to charge any man with those doctrines which are so useful to you individually, and of which you boast; or, you think the opinions just, and yet that it is criminal to charge a man with those just opinions. For the sake, therefore, of consistency, and as an approval of your own opinions, I call on you for a verdict of acquittal.

I need not detain you long on the expression “intemperate”; it does not mean any charge of excess of indulgence in any enjoyment; it is not, as the Attorney-General suggested, an accusation of indulging beyond due bounds in the pleasures of the table, or of the bottle; it does not allude, as the Attorney-General says, to midnight orgies, or to morning revels. I admit—I freely admit—that an allusion of that kind would savor of libel, as it would certainly be unnecessary for any purpose of political discussion. But the intemperance here spoken of is mere political intemperance; it is that violence which every man of a fervid disposition feels in support of his political opinions. Nay, the more pure and honest any man may be in the adoption of his opinions, the more likely, and the more justifiable will he be in that ardent support of them which goes by the name of intemperance.

In short, although political intemperance cannot be deemed by cold calculators as a virtue, yet it has its source in the purest virtues of the human heart, and it frequently produces the greatest advantages to the public. How would it be possible to overcome the many obstacles which self-interest, and ignorance, and passion throw in the way of improvement, without some of that ardor of temper and disposition which grave men call intemperance? And, gentlemen, are not your opinions as deserving of warm support as the opinions of other men; or do you feel any inherent depravity in the political sentiments which the Duke of Richmond has adopted from you, that would render him depraved or degraded by any violence in their support? You have no alternative. If you convict my client, you condemn, upon your oaths, your own political creed; and declare it to be a libel to charge any man with energy in your cause.

If you are not disposed to go this length of political inconsistency, and if you have determined to avoid the religious inconsistency of perjuring yourselves for the good and glory of the Protestant religion, do, I pray you, examine the rest of this paragraph, and see whether you can, by any ingenuity, detect that nondescript, a libel, in it. It states in substance this: that this administration, treading in the steps of former administrations, preached to the confidence of the people, and played on their credulity; and that it will end, as those administrations have done, in some flattering prophecy, paying present disappointment with the coinage of delusive hope. That this administration commenced, as usual, with preaching to the confidence of the people, was neither criminal in the fact, nor can it be unpleasant in the recital.

It is the immemorial usage of all administrations and of all stations, to commence with those civil professions of future excellence of conduct which are called, and not unaptly, “preaching to the confidence of the people.” The very actors are generally sincere at this stage of the political farce; and it is not insinuated that this administration was not as candid on this subject as the best of its predecessors. The playing on the credulity of the people is the ordinary state trick. You recollect how angry many of you were with his Grace for his Munster tour, shortly after his arrival here. You recollect how he checked the Mayor of Cork for proposing the new favorite Orange toast; what liberality he displayed to Popish traders and bankers in Limerick; and how he returned to the capital, leaving behind him the impression that the no-Popery men had been mistaken in their choice, and that the Duke of Richmond was the enemy of every bigotry—the friend to every liberality! Was he sincere, gentlemen of the jury, or was this one of those innocent devices which are called—playing on the people’s credulity? Was he sincere? Ask his subsequent conduct. Have there been since that time any other or different toasts cheered in his presence? Has the name of Ireland and of Irishmen been profaned by becoming the sport of the warmth excited by the accompaniment to these toasts? Some individuals of you could inform me. I see another dignitary of your corporation here [said Mr. O’Connell, turning round pointedly to the Lord Mayor]—I see a civic dignitary here, who could tell of the toasts of these days or nights, and would not be at a loss to apply the right name—if he were not too prudent as well as too polite to do so—to that innocent affectation of liberality which distinguished his Grace’s visit to the south of Ireland. It was, indeed, a play upon our credulity, but it can be no libel to speak of it as such; for see the situation in which you would place his Grace; you know he affected conciliation and perfect neutrality between our parties at first; you know he has since taken a marked and decided part with you.

Surely you are not disposed to call this a crime, as it were, to convict his Grace of duplicity, and of a vile hypocrisy. No, gentlemen, I entreat of you not to calumniate the Duke; call this conduct a mere play on the credulity of a people easily deceived—innocent in its intention, and equally void of guilt in its description. Do not attach to those words a meaning which would prove that you yourselves condemned, not so much the writer of them, as the man who gave color and countenance to this assertion. Besides, gentlemen, what is your liberty of the Press worth, if it be worthy of a dungeon to assert that the public credulity has been played upon? The liberty of the Press would be less than a dream, a shadow, if every such phrase be a libel.

But the Attorney-General triumphantly tells you that there must be a libel in this paragraph, because it ends with a charge of falsehood. May I ask you to take the entire paragraph together? Common sense and your duty require you to do so. You will then perceive that this charge of falsehood is no more than an opinion that the administration of the Duke of Richmond will terminate precisely as that of many of his predecessors has done, by an excuse for the past—a flattering and fallacious promise for the future. Why, you must all of you have seen, a short time since, an account of a public dinner in London, given by persons styling themselves “Friends to Religious Liberty.” At that dinner, at which two of the Royal Dukes attended, there were, I think, no less than four or five noblemen who had filled the office of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Gentlemen, at this dinner, they were ardent in their professions of kindness towards the Catholics of Ireland, in their declarations of the obvious policy and justice of conciliation and concession, and they bore ample testimony to our sufferings and our merits. But I appeal from their present declarations to their past conduct; they are now full of liberality and justice to us; yet I speak only the truth of history when I say that, during their government of this country, no practical benefits resulted from all this wisdom and kindness of sentiment; with the single exception of Lord Fitzwilliam, not one of them even attempted to do any good to the Catholics, or to Ireland.

What did the Duke of Bedford do for us? Just nothing. Some civility, indeed, in words—some playing on public credulity—but in act and deed, nothing at all. What did Lord Hardwicke do for us? Oh, nothing, or rather less than nothing; his administration here was, in that respect, a kind of negative quality; it was cold, harsh, and forbidding to the Catholics; lenient, mild, and encouraging to the Orange faction; the public mind lay in the first torpor caused by the mighty fall of the Union, and whilst we lay entranced in the oblivious pool, Lord Hardwicke’s administration proceeded without a trace of that justice and liberality which it appears he must have thought unbefitting the season of his government, and which, if he then entertained, he certainly concealed; he ended, however, with giving us flattering hopes for the future. The Duke of Bedford was more explicit; he promised in direct terms, and drew upon the future exertions of an hereditary Prince, to compensate us for present disappointment. And will any man assert that the Duke of Richmond is libelled by a comparison with Lord Hardwicke; that he is traduced when he is compared with the Duke of Bedford? If the words actually were these, “the Duke of Richmond will terminate his administration exactly as Lord Hardwicke and the Duke of Bedford terminated their administrations”; if those were the words, none of you could possibly vote for a conviction, and yet the meaning is precisely the same. No more is expressed by the language of my client; and, if the meaning be thus clearly innocent, it would be strange, indeed, to call on you for a verdict of conviction upon no more solid ground than this, that whilst the signification was the same, the words were different. And thus, again, does the prosecutor require of you to separate the sense from the sound, and to convict for the sound, against the sense of the passage.

In plain truth, gentlemen, if there be a harshness in the sound, there is none in the words. The writer describes, and means to describe, the ordinary termination of every administration repaying in promise the defaults of performance. And, when he speaks of falsehood, he prophesies merely as to the probable or at least possible conclusion of the present government. He does not impute to any precedent assertion, falsehood; but he does predict, that the concluding promise of this, as of other administrations, depending as those promises always do upon other persons for performance, will remain as former promises have remained—unfulfilled and unperformed. And is this prophecy—this prediction a crime? Is it a libel to prophesy? See what topics this sage venerator of the liberty of the Press, the Attorney-General, would fain prohibit. First, he tells you that the crimes of the predecessors of the Duke must not be mentioned—and thus he forbids the history of past events. Secondly, he informs you that no allusion is to be made to the errors, follies, or even the striking features of the present governors—and thus he forbids the detail of the occurrences of the present day. And, thirdly, he declares that no conjecture shall be made upon what is likely to occur hereafter—and thus he forbids all attempts to anticipate future acts.

It comes simply to this: he talks of venerating the liberties of the Press, and yet he restrains that Press from discussing past history, present story, and future probabilities; he prohibits the past, the present, and the future; ancient records, modern truth, and prophecy, are all within the capacious range of his punishments. Is there anything else? Would this venerator of the liberty of the Press go farther? Yes, gentlemen; having forbidden all matter of history past and present, and all prediction of the future, he generously throws in abstract principles, and, as he has told you that his prisons shall contain every person who speaks of what was, or what is, or what will be, he likewise consigned to the same fate every person who treats of the theory or principles of government; and yet he dares to talk of the liberty of the Press! Can you be his dupes? Will you be his victims? Where is the conscience—where is the indignant spirit of insulted reason amongst you? Has party feeling extinguished in your breasts every glow of virtue—every spark of manhood?

If there be any warmth about you—if you are not clay-cold to all but party feeling, I would, with the air and in the tone of triumph, call you to the consideration of the remaining paragraph which has been spread on the lengthened indictment before you. I divide it into two branches, and shall do no more with the one than to repeat it. I read it for you already; I must read it again:

“Had he remained what he first came over, or what he afterwards professed to be, he would have retained his reputation for honest, open hostility, defending his political principles with firmness, perhaps with warmth, but without rancor; the supporter, and not the tool of an administration; a mistaken politician, perhaps, but an honorable man and a respectable soldier.”

Would to God I had to address another jury! Would to God I had reason and judgment to address, and I could entertain no apprehension from passion or prejudice! Here should I then take my stand, and require of that unprejudiced jury, whether this sentence does not demonstrate the complete absence of private malice or personal hostility. Does not this sentence prove a kindly disposition towards the individual, mixing and mingling with that discussion which freedom sanctions and requires, respecting his political conduct? Contrast this sentence with the prosecutor’s accusation of private malignity, and decide between Mr. Magee and his calumniators. He, at least, has this advantage, that your verdict cannot alter the nature of things; and that the public must see and feel this truth, that the present prosecution is directed against the discussion of the conduct towards the public, of men confided with public authority; that this is a direct attack upon the right to call the attention of the people to the management of the people’s affairs, and that, by your verdict of conviction, it is intended to leave no peaceful or unawed mode of redress for the wrongs and sufferings of the people.

But I will not detain you on these obvious topics. We draw to a close, and I hurry to it. This sentence is said to be particularly libellous:

“His party would have been proud of him; his friends would have praised (they need not have flattered him), and his enemies, though they might have regretted, must have respected his conduct; from the worst quarter there would have been some small tribute of praise; from none any great portion of censure; and his administration, though not popular, would have been conducted with dignity, and without offence. This line of conduct he has taken care to avoid; his original character for moderation he has forfeited; he can lay no claims to any merits for neutrality, nor does he even deserve the cheerless credit of defensive operations. He has begun to act; he has ceased to be a dispassionate chief governor, who views the wickedness and the folly of faction with composure and forbearance, and stands, the representative of majesty, aloof from the contest. He descends; he mixes with the throng; he becomes personally engaged, and having lost his temper, calls forth his private passions to support his public principles; he is no longer an indifferent viceroy, but a frightful partisan of an English ministry, whose base passions he indulges—whose unworthy resentments he gratifies, and on whose behalf he at present canvasses.”

Well, gentlemen, and did he not canvass on behalf of the ministry? Was there a titled or untitled servant of the Castle who was not despatched to the south to vote against the popular, and for the ministerial candidates? Was there a single individual within the reach of his Grace that did not vote against Prittie and Matthew, in Tipperary, and against Hutchinson, in Cork? I have brought with me some of the newspapers of the day, in which this partisanship in the Lord Lieutenant is treated by Mr. Hutchinson in language so strong and so pointed, that the words of this publication are mildness and softness itself when compared with that language. I shall not read them for you, because I should fear that you may imagine I unnecessarily identified my client with the violent but the merited reprobation poured upon the scandalous interference of our government with those elections.

I need not, I am sure, tell you that any interference by the Lord Lieutenant with the purity of the election of members to serve in Parliament, is highly unconstitutional, and highly criminal; he is doubly bound to the most strict neutrality; first, as a peer, the law prohibits his interference; secondly, as representative of the crown, his interference in elections is an usurpation of the people’s rights; it is, in substance and effect, high treason against the people, and its mischiefs are not the less by reason of there being no punishment affixed by the law to this treason.

If this offence, gentlemen, be of daily occurrence—if it be frequently committed, it is upon that account only the more destructive to our liberties, and, therefore, requires the more loud, direct, and frequent condemnation: indeed, if such practices be permitted to prevail, there is an end of every remnant of freedom; our boasted constitution becomes a mockery and an object of ridicule, and we ought to desire the manly simplicity of unmixed despotism. Will the Attorney-General—will his colleague, the Solicitor-General, deny that I have described this offence in its true colors? Will they attempt to deny the interference of the Duke of Richmond in the late elections? I would almost venture to put your verdict upon this, and to consent to a conviction, if any person shall be found so stocked with audacity, as to presume publicly to deny the interference of his Grace in the late elections, and his partisanship in favor of the ministerial candidates. Gentlemen, if that be denied, what will you, what can you think of the veracity of the man who denies it? I fearlessly refer the fact to you; on that fact I build. This interference is as notorious as the sun at noonday; and who shall venture to deny that such interference is described by a soft term when it is called partisanship? He who uses the influence of the executive to control the choice of the representatives of the people, violates the first principles of the constitution, is guilty of political sacrilege, and profanes the very sanctuary of the people’s rights and liberties; and if he should not be called a partisan, it is only because some harsher and more appropriate term ought to be applied to his delinquency.

I will recall to your minds an instance of violation of the constitution, which will illustrate the situation of my client, and the protection which, for your own sakes, you owe him. When, in 1687, King James removed several Protestant rectors in Ireland from their churches, against law and justice, and illegally and unconstitutionally placed Roman Catholic clergymen in their stead, would any of you be content that he should be simply called a partisan? No, gentlemen; my client and I—Catholic and Protestant though we be—agree perfectly in this, that partisan would have been too mild a name for him, and that he should have been branded as a violator of law, as an enemy to the constitution, and as a crafty tyrant who sought to gratify the prejudices of one part of his subjects, that he might trample upon the liberties of all. And what, I would fain learn, could you think of the Attorney-General who prosecuted, or of the judge who condemned, or of the jury who convicted a printer for publishing to the world this tyranny—this gross violation of law and justice? But how would your indignation be roused, if James had been only called a partisan, and for calling him a partisan a Popish jury had been packed, a Popish judge had been selected, and that the printer, who, you will admit, deserved applause and reward, met condemnation and punishment!

Of you—of you, shall this story be told, if you convict Mr. Magee. The Duke has interfered in elections; he has violated the liberties of the subject; he has profaned the very temple of the constitution; and he who has said that in so doing he was a partisan, from your hands expects punishment.

Compare the kindred offences: James deprived the Protestant rectors of their livings; he did not persecute, nor did he interfere with their religion; for tithes, and oblations, and glebes, and church lands, though solid appendages to any church, are no part of the Protestant religion. The Protestant religion would, I presume—and for the honor of human nature I sincerely hope—continue its influence over the human mind without the aid of those extrinsic advantages. Its pastors would, I trust and believe, have remained true to their charge, without the adventitious benefits of temporal rewards; and, like the Roman Catholic Church, it might have shone forth a glorious example of firmness in religion, setting persecution at defiance. James did not attack the Protestant religion; I repeat it; he only attacked the revenues of the Protestant Church; he violated the law and the constitution, in depriving men of that property, by his individual authority, to which they had precisely the same right with that by which he wore his crown. But is not the controlling the election of members of Parliament a more dangerous violation of the constitution? Does it not corrupt the very sources of legislation, and convert the guardians of the state into its plunderers? The one was a direct and undisguised crime, capable of being redressed in the ordinary course of the law, and producing resistance by its open and plain violation of right and of law; the other disguises itself in so many shapes, is patronized by so many high examples, and is followed by such perfect security, that it becomes the first duty of every man who possesses any reverence for the constitution, or any attachment to liberty, to lend all his efforts to detect, and, if possible, to punish it.

To any man who loved the constitution or freedom, I could safely appeal for my client’s vindication; or if any displeasure could be excited in the mind of such a man, it would arise because of the forbearance and lenity of this publication. But the Duke is called a frightful partisan. Granted, gentlemen, granted. And is not the interference I have mentioned frightful? Is it not terrific? Who can contemplate it without shuddering at the consequences which it is likely to produce? What gentler phrase—what ladylike expression should my client use? The constitution is sought to be violated, and he calls the author of that violation a frightful partisan. Really, gentlemen, the fastidiousness which would reject this expression would be better employed in preventing or punishing crime, than in dragging to a dungeon the man who has the manliness to adhere to truth, and to use it. Recollect also—I cannot repeat it too often—that the Attorney-General told you that “the liberty of the Press was the best protection of the people against the government.” Now, if the constitution be violated—if the purity of election be disturbed by the executive, is not this precisely the case when this protection becomes necessary? It is not wanted, nor can the Press be called a protector, so long as the government is administered with fidelity, care, and skill. The protection of the Press is requisite only when integrity, diligence, or judgment do not belong to the administration; and that protection becomes the more necessary in the exact proportion in which these qualities are deficient. But, what protection can it afford if you convict in this instance? For, by doing so you will decide that nothing ought to be said against that want of honesty, or of attention, or of understanding; the more necessary will the protection of the Press become, the more unsafe will it be to publish the truth; and in the exact proportion in which the Press might be useful, will it become liable to punishment. In short, according to the Attorney-General’s doctrine, when the Press is “best employed and wanted most,” it will be most dangerous to use it. And thus, the more corrupt and profligate any administration may be, the more clearly can the public prosecutor ascertain the sacrifice of his selected victim. And call you this protection? Is this a protector who must be disarmed the moment danger threatens, and is bound a prisoner the instant the fight has commenced?

Here I should close the case—here I should shortly recapitulate my client’s defence, and leave him to your consideration; but I have been already too tedious, and shall do no more than recall to your recollection the purity, the integrity, the entire disinterestedness of Mr. Magee’s motives. If money were his object, he could easily procure himself to be patronized and salaried; but he prefers to be persecuted and discountenanced by the great and powerful, because they cannot deprive him of the certain expectation that his exertions are useful to his long-suffering, ill-requited country.

He is disinterested, gentlemen; he is honest; the Attorney-General admitted it, and actually took the trouble of administering to him advice how to amend his fortune and save his person. But the advice only made his youthful blood mantle in that ingenious countenance, and his reply was painted in the indignant look that told the Attorney-General he might offer wealth, but he could not bribe—that he might torture, but he could not terrify! Yes, gentlemen, firm in his honesty, and strong in the fervor of his love of Ireland, he fearlessly awaits your verdict, convinced that even you must respect the man whom you are called upon to condemn. Look to it, gentlemen; consider whether an honest, disinterested man shall be prohibited from discussing public affairs; consider whether all but flattery is to be silent—whether the discussion of the errors and the capacities of the ministers is to be closed forever. Whether we are to be silent as to the crimes of former periods, the follies of the present, and the credulity of the future; and, above all, reflect upon the demand that is made on you to punish the canvassing of abstract principles.

Has the Attorney-General succeeded? Has he procured a jury so fitted to his object, as to be ready to bury in oblivion every fault and every crime, every error and every imperfection of public men, past, present, and future—and who shall, in addition, silence any dissertation on the theory or principle of legislation? Do, gentlemen, go this length with the prosecutor and then venture on your oaths. I charge you to venture to talk to your families of the venerable liberty of the Press—the protection of the people against the vices of the government.

I should conclude, but the Attorney-General compels me to follow him through another subject.6

Let me transport you from the heat and fury of domestic politics; let me place you in a foreign land; you are Protestants—with your good leave, you shall, for a moment, be Portuguese, and Portuguese is now an honorable name, for right well have the people of Portugal fought for their country, against the foreign invader. Oh! how easy to procure a similar spirit, and more of bravery, amongst the people of Ireland! The slight purchase of good words, and a kindly disposition, would convert them into an impenetrable guard for the safety of the Throne and the State. But advice and regret are equally unavailing, and they are doomed to calumny and oppression, the reality of persecution, and the mockery of justice, until some fatal hour shall arrive which may preach wisdom to the dupes, and menace with punishment the oppressor.

In the meantime I must place you in Portugal. Let us suppose for an instant that the Protestant religion is that of the people of Portugal—the Catholic, that of the government—that the house of Braganza has not reigned, but that Portugal is still governed by the viceroy of a foreign nation, from whom no kindness, no favor, has ever flowed, and from whom justice has rarely been obtained, and upon those unfrequent occasions, not conceded generously, but extorted by force, or wrung from distress by terror and apprehension, in a stinted measure and ungracious manner; you, Protestants, shall form, not as with us in Ireland, nine tenths, but some lesser number—you shall be only four fifths of the population; and all the persecution which you have yourselves practised here upon Papists, whilst you, at the same time, accused the Papists of the crime of being persecutors, shall glow around; your native land shall be to you the country of strangers; you shall be aliens in the soil that gave you birth, and whilst every foreigner may, in the land of your forefathers, attain rank, station, emolument, honors, you alone shall be excluded; and you shall be excluded for no other reason but a conscientious abhorrence to the religion of your ancestors.

Only think, gentlemen, of the scandalous injustice of punishing you because you are Protestants. With what scorn—with what contempt do you not listen to the stale pretences—to the miserable excuses by which, under the name of state reasons and political arguments, your exclusion and degradation are sought to be justified. Your reply is ready—“perform your iniquity—men of crimes,” (you exclaim), “be unjust—punish us for our fidelity and honest adherence to truth, but insult us not by supposing that your reasoning can impose upon a single individual either of us or of yourselves.” In this situation let me give you a viceroy; he shall be a man who may be styled—by some person disposed to exaggerate, beyond bounds, his merits, and to flatter him more than enough—“an honorable man and a respectable soldier,” but, in point of fact, he shall be of that little-minded class of beings who are suited to be the plaything of knaves—one of those men who imagine they govern a nation, whilst in reality they are but the instruments upon which the crafty play with safety and with profit. Take such a man for your viceroy—Protestant Portuguese. We shall begin with making this tour from Tralos Montes to the kingdom of Algesiras—as one amongst us should say, from the Giant’s Causeway to the kingdom of Kerry. Upon his tour he shall affect great candor and good-will to the poor, suffering Protestants. The bloody anniversaries of the inquisitorial triumphs of former days shall be for a season abandoned, and over our inherent hostility the garb of hypocrisy shall, for a season, be thrown. Enmity to the Protestant shall become, for a moment, less apparent; but it will be only the more odious for the transitory disguise.

The delusion of the hour having served its purpose, your viceroy shows himself in his native colors; he selects for office, and prefers for his pension list, the men miserable in intellect, if they be but virulent against the Protestants; to rail against the Protestant religion—to turn its holiest rites into ridicule—to slander the individual Protestants, are the surest, the only means to obtain his favor and patronage. He selects from his Popish bigots some being more canine than human, who, not having talents to sell, brings to the market of bigotry his impudence—who, with no quality under heaven but gross, vulgar, acrimonious, disgustful, and shameless abuse of Protestantism to recommend him, shall be promoted to some accountant-generalship, and shall riot in the spoils of the people he traduces, as it were to crown with insult the severest injuries. This viceroy selects for his favorite privy councillor some learned doctor, half lawyer, half divine, an entire brute, distinguished by the unblushing repetition of calumnies against the Protestants. This man has asserted that Protestants are perjurers and murderers in principle—that they keep no faith with Papists, but hold it lawful and meritorious to violate every engagement, and commit every atrocity towards any person who happens to differ with Protestants in religious belief. This man raves thus, in public, against the Protestants, and has turned his ravings into large personal emoluments. But whilst he is the oracle of minor bigots, he does not believe himself; he has selected for the partner of his tenderest joys, of his most ecstatic moments—he has chosen for the intended mother of his children, for the sweetener and solace of his every care, a Protestant, gentlemen of the jury.

Next to the vile instruments of bigotry, his accountant-general and privy councillor, we will place his acts. The Protestants of Portugal shall be exposed to insult and slaughter; an Orange party—a party of Popish Orangemen shall be supposed to exist; they shall have liberty to slaughter the unarmed and defenceless Protestants, and as they sit peaceably at their firesides. They shall be let loose in some Portuguese district, called Monaghan; they shall cover the streets of some Portuguese town of Belfast with human gore; and in the metropolis of Lisbon, the Protestant widow shall have her harmless child murdered in the noon day and his blood shall have flowed unrequited, because his assassin was very loyal when he was drunk, and had an irresistible propensity to signalize his loyalty by killing Protestants. Behold, gentlemen, this viceroy depriving of command, and staying the promotion of, every military man who shall dare to think Protestants men, or who shall presume to suggest that they ought not to be prosecuted. Behold this viceroy promoting and rewarding the men who insulted and attempted to degrade the first of your Protestant nobility. Behold him in public, the man I have described.

In his personal concerns he receives an enormous revenue from the people he thus misgoverns. See in his management of that revenue a parsimony at which even his enemies blush. See the paltry sum of a single joe7 refused to any Protestant charity, while his bounty is unknown even at the Popish institutions for benevolent purposes. See the most wasteful expenditure of the public money—every job patronized—every profligacy encouraged. See the resources of Portugal diminished. See her discords and her internal feuds increased. And, lastly, behold the course of justice perverted and corrupted.

It is thus, gentlemen, the Protestant Portuguese seek to obtain relief by humble petition and supplication. There can be no crime surely for a Protestant, oppressed because he follows a religion which is, in his opinion, true, to endeavor to obtain relief by mildly representing to his Popish oppressors, that it is the right of every man to worship the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience; to state respectfully to the governing powers that it is unjust, and may be highly impolitic, to punish men, merely because they do not profess Popery, which they do not believe; and to submit, with all humility, that to lay the burdens of the state equally, and distribute its benefits partially, is not justice, but, although sanctioned by the pretence of religious zeal, is, in truth, iniquity, and palpably criminal. Well, gentlemen, for daring thus to remonstrate, the Protestants are persecuted. The first step in the persecution is to pervert the plain meaning of the Portuguese language, and a law prohibiting any disguise in apparel, shall be applied to the ordinary dress of the individual; it reminds one of pretence and purpose.

To carry on these persecutions, the viceroy chooses for his first inquisitor the descendant of some Popish refugee—some man with an hereditary hatred to Protestants; he is not the son of an Irishman, this refugee inquisitor—no, for the fact is notorious that the Irish refugee Papists were ever distinguished for their liberality, as well as for their gallantry in the field and talent in the cabinet. This inquisitor shall be, gentlemen, a descendant from one of those English Papists, who was the dupe or contriver of the Gunpowder Plot! With such a chief inquisitor, can you conceive anything more calculated to rouse you to agony than the solemn mockery of your trial? This chief inquisitor begins by influencing the judges out of court; he proceeds to inquire out fit men for his interior tribunal, which, for brevity, we will call a jury. He selects his juries from the most violent of the Popish Orangemen of the city, and procures a conviction against law and common sense, and without evidence. Have you followed me, gentlemen? Do you enter into the feelings of Protestants thus insulted, thus oppressed, thus persecuted—their enemies and traducers promoted, and encouraged, and richly rewarded—their friends discountenanced and displaced—their persons unprotected, and their characters assailed by hired calumniators—their blood shed with impunity—their revenues parsimoniously spared to accumulate for the individual, wastefully squandered for the state—the emblems of discord, the war-cry of disunion, sanctioned by the highest authority, and Justice herself converted from an impartial arbitrator into a frightful partisan?

Yes, gentlemen, place yourselves as Protestants under such a persecution. Behold before you this chief inquisitor, with his prejudiced tribunal—this gambler, with a loaded die; and now say what are your feelings—what are your sensations of disgust, abhorrence, affright? But if at such a moment some ardent and enthusiastic Papist, regardless of his interests, and roused by the crimes that were thus committed against you, should describe, in measured, and cautious, and cold language, scenes of oppression and iniquity—if he were to describe them, not as I have done, but in feeble and mild language, and simply state the facts for your benefit and the instruction of the public—if this liberal Papist, for this, were dragged to the Inquisition, as for a crime, and menaced with a dungeon for years, good and gracious God! how would you revolt at and abominate the men who could consign him to that dungeon! With what an eye of contempt, and hatred, and despair, would you not look at the packed and profligate tribunal which could direct punishment against him who deserved rewards! What pity would you not feel for the advocate who heavily, and without hope, labored in his defence! and with what agonized and frenzied despair would you not look to the future destinies of a land in which perjury was organized and from which humanity and justice had been forever banished! With this picture of yourselves in Portugal, come home to us in Ireland; say, is that a crime, when applied to Protestants, which is a virtue and a merit when applied to Papists? Behold how we suffer here; and then reflect, that it is principally by reason of your prejudices against us that the Attorney-General hopes for your verdict. The good man has talked of his impartiality; he will suppress, he says, the licentiousness of the Press. I have, I hope, shown you the right of my client to discuss the public subjects which he has discussed in the manner they are treated of in the publication before you, yet he is prosecuted. Let me read for you a paragraph which the Attorney-General has not prosecuted—which he has refused to prosecute:

“Ballybay, July 4, 1813.

“A meeting of the Orange Lodges was agreed on, in consequence of the manner in which the Catholics wished to have persecuted the loyalists in this county last year, when they even murdered some of them for no other reason than their being yeomen and Protestants.”

And, again—

“It was at Ballybay that the Catholics murdered one Hughes, a yeoman sergeant, for being a Protestant, as was given in evidence at the assizes by a Catholic witness.”

I have read this passage from the Hibernian Journal of the 7th of this month. I know not whether you can hear, unmoved, a paragraph which makes my blood boil to read; but I shall only tell you, that the Attorney-General refused to prosecute this libeller. Gentlemen, there have been several murders committed in the county of Monaghan, in which Ballybay lies. The persons killed happened to be Roman Catholics; their murderers are Orangemen. Several of the persons accused of these murders are to be tried at the ensuing assizes. The agent applied to me personally, with this newspaper; he stated that the obvious intention was to create a prejudice upon the approaching trials favorable to the murderers, and against the prosecutors. He stated what you—even you—will easily believe, that there never was a falsehood more flagitiously destitute of truth than the entire paragraph. I advised him, gentlemen, to wait on the Attorney-General in the most respectful manner possible; to show him this paragraph, then to request to be allowed to satisfy him as to the utter falsehood of the assertions which this paragraph contained, which could be more easily done, as the judges who went that circuit could prove part of it to be false; and I directed him to entreat that the Attorney-General, when fully satisfied of the falsehood, would prosecute the publisher of this, which, I think, I may call an atrocious libel.

Gentlemen, the Attorney-General was accordingly waited on; he was respectfully requested to prosecute upon the terms of having the falsehood of these assertions first proved to him. I need not tell you he refused. These are not the libellers he prosecutes. Gentlemen, this not being a libel on any individual, no private individual can prosecute for it; and the Attorney-General turns his Press loose on the Catholics of the county of Monaghan, whilst he virulently assails Mr. Magee for what must be admitted to be comparatively mild and inoffensive.

No, gentlemen, he does not prosecute this libel. On the contrary, this paper is paid enormous sums of the public money. There are no less than five proclamations in the paper containing this libel; and, it was proved in my presence, in a court of justice, that, besides the proclamations and public advertisements, the two proprietors of the paper had each a pension of £400 per annum, for supporting government, as it was called. Since that period one of those proprietors has got an office worth, at least, £800 a year; and the son of the other, a place of upwards of £400 per annum: so that, as it is likely that the original pensions continue, here may be an annual income of £2000 paid for this paper, besides the thousands of pounds annually which the insertion of the proclamations and public advertisements cost. It is a paper of the very lowest and most paltry scale of talent, and its circulation is, fortunately, very limited; but it receives several thousands of pounds of the money of the men whom it foully and falsely calumniates.

Would I could see the man who pays this proclamation money and these pensions at the Castle. [Here Mr. O’Connell turned round to where Mr. PeeleB sat.] Would I could see the man who, against the fact, asserted that the proclamations were inserted in all the papers, save in those whose proprietors were convicted of a libel. I would ask him whether this be a paper that ought to receive the money of the Irish people? Whether this be the legitimate use of the public purse? And when you find this calumniator salaried and rewarded, where is the impartiality, the justice, or even the decency of prosecuting Mr. Magee for a libel, merely because he has not praised public men, and has discussed public affairs in the spirit of freedom and of the constitution? Contrast the situation of Mr. Magee with the proprietor of the Hibernian Journal: the one is prosecuted with all the weight and influence of the Crown, the other pensioned by the ministers of the Crown; the one dragged to your bar for the sober discussion of political topics, the other hired to disseminate the most horrid calumnies! Let the Attorney-General now boast of his impartiality; can you credit him on your oaths? Let him talk of his veneration for the liberty of the Press; can you believe him in your consciences? Let him call the Press the protection of the people against the government. Yes, gentlemen, believe him when he says so. Let the Press be the protection of the people; he admits that it ought to be so. Will you find a verdict for him that shall contradict the only assertion upon which he and I, however, are both agreed?

BChief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant.