ultimate destiny of your country in your hands. In that awful name, I do conjure you to have mercy upon your country and yourselves, and so judge now, as you will hereafter be judged: and I do now submit the fate of my client, and of that country which we yet have in common, to your disposal.

MR. FINNERTY WAS FOUND GUILTY.

SPEECH OF MR. CURRAN,

IN DEFENCE OF

MR. OLIVER BOND, FOR HIGH TREASON.

ON TUESDAY, JULY 24th, 1798.

ABSTRACT OF THE INDICTMENT.

Mr. OLIVER BOND, you stand indicted, for "not having the fear of God before your eyes, nor the duty of your allegiance considering, but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil, you did, with other false traitors, conspire and meet together, and contriving and imagining with all your strength this kingdom to disturb, and to overturn by force of arms, &c. the government of this kingdom, on the 20th day of May, in the thirty-eighth year of the reign of the present king, in the parish of St. Michael the archangel, did conspire and meet together about the means of overturning the government; and his majesty of and from his royal state, power and government of this country to deprive and put; and that you, Oliver Bond, with other false traitors, did meet together and make resolutions to procure arms and ammunition for the purpose of arming men to wage war against our sovereign lord the king; and did conspire to overturn by force the lawful government of this kingdom, and to change by force the government thereof; and did assemble and meet together to raise a rebellion in this kingdom; to procure arms to aid and assist in said rebellion; and that you, Oliver Bond, did aid and cause Thomas Reynolds to be a colonel in the county of Kildare, to aid and assist in the said rebellion, and did administer unlawful oaths to said Thomas Reynolds, and to certain other persons, to be united Irishmen, for the purpose of overturning by force the government of this kingdom; and you, the said Oliver Bond, did collect sums of money to furnish arms and

ammunition to the persons in said rebellion, against the duty of your allegiance, contrary to his majesty's peace, his crown and dignity, and contrary to the form of the statute in that case made and provided. And whereas a public war, both by land and sea, is, and hath been carried on by persons exercising the powers of government in France; you, the said Oliver Bond, not having the fear of God before your eyes, did aid and assist the French and men of France to invade this kingdom, to overturn by force the government of this kingdom, and to compass and imagine the death of the king, and so forth. On this indictment you, Oliver Bond, have been this day arraigned, and have pleaded not guilty, and for trial have put yourself on God and your country."

MR. CURRAN.-My lords, and gentlemen of the jury, I am counsel for the prisoner at the bar-it is my duty to lay his case before you. It is a duty that at any time would be a painful one to me, but at present peculiarly so; having, in the course of this long trial, experienced great fatigue both of mind and of body, a fatigue I have felt in common with the learned judges who preside on the bench, and with my brethren of the bar: I feel, as an advocate for my client, the duty of the awful obligation that has devolved upon me.-I do not mean, gentlemen of the jury, to dilate on my own personal fatigues, for I am not in the habit of considering my personal ill state of health, or the anxiety of my mind, in discharging my duty to clients in such awful situations as in the present momentous crisis; I have not been in the habit, gentlemen of the jury, to expatiate to you on personal ill health; in addressing myself to jurors on any common subject, I have not been in the habit of addressing myself to the interposition of the court, or to the good natured consideration of the jury, on behalf of my client. I have mentioned indeed my own enfeebled worn out body, and my worn out state of mind, not out of any paltry respect to myself, nor to draw your attention to myself, but to induce you to reflect upon this; that in the weakness of the advocate, the case of my client, the prisoner at the bar, is not implicated; for his case is so strong in support of his innocence, that it is not to be weakened by the imbecility, or the fatigue of

the advocate.

Gentlemen of the jury, I lament that this case has not been brought forward in a simple, and in the usual way, without any extraneous matter being introduced into it, as I think in justice, and as I think in humanity, it ought to have been. I lament that any little artifices should be employed upon so great and solemn a case as this, more especially in desperate times, than upon more ordinary occasions; and some allegations of criminality have been introduced, as to persons and things, that ought not in my opinion to have been adverted to in a case like this. What, for instance, has this case to do with the motion made by lord Moira in the house of lords in Ireland, in February last, or the accidental conversations with lord Edward Fitzgerald? If you have a feeling for virtue, I trust that lord Moira will be revered as a character that adds a dignity to the peerage. What made that noble character forego his great fortune, quit his extensive demesnes, and the tranquillity of the philosophic mind, but in the great and glorious endeavour to do service to his country? I must repeat, he is an honour to the Irish peerage. Let me ask, why was the name of lord Moira, or lord Wycombe (who happened to dine at sir Duke Giffard's) introduced into this trial? what has that motion which lord Moira introduced in the house of lords to do with the trial of Mr. Oliver Bond on a charge of high treason? Gentlemen of the jury, you have been addressed as against a person by whom a fire has been supposed to have been. kindled, and this too at the period of its being extinguished. [Some ignorant persons in the crowded gallery having created some noise in the court, prevented the learned advocate a few minutes from proceeding.-The court said they would punish any person who dared to interrupt the counsel for the prisoner, and said they hoped Mr. Curran would be able to proceed in stating the prisoner's case.] Mr. Curran, in continuing-I have very little hope to be able to discharge my duty; but I impute the interruption to mere accident; I cannot suppose it was levelled against me, but I am afraid it was excited by prejudice.-[The court remarked, they would maintain the peace and decorum of the court, and they would guard the prisoner from any prejudice. "Mr. Curran, you will state the facts of the prisoner's case to the jury, and shall not be interrupted."]-Mr. Curran, in continuation. Gentlemen of the jury, I was cautioning you against being prejudiced against my unfortunate client; I fear there is much reason why

I should caution you against the influence of any prejudice against the prisoner at the bar. You are to decide on your verdict by the evidence given, and the evidence that on the part of the prisoner will be laid before you; and you will see the evidence does not support the prosecution. You will banish any prejudices, and let your verdict be the result of cool and deliberate investigation, and not given in the heat of the season when men's minds may be heated by the circumstances of the times. I shall lay before you the case of my client, to controvert the evidence given on the part of the prosecution, and shall offer to your consideration some observations in point of law, under the judicial control of the court as to matter of law. I will strip my client's case from the extraneous matter that has been attempted to be fastened on it. I feel, gentlemen, the more warm, when I speak to you in favour of my client's innocency, and to bring his innocency home to your judgments. I know the honesty and rectitude of your characters, and I know my client has nothing to fear from your understanding. It is my duty to state to you, we have evidence to prove to you, that the witness on the part of the prosecutor is undeserving of credit, and it is my duty to apprize you, that it is your duty to examine into the moral character of the witness that has been produced; and it is of the utmost concern you should do this, as your verdict is to decide on the life or death, the fame or dishonour of the prisoner at the bar. With respect to prosecutions brought forward by the state, I have ever been of opinion that the decision is to be by the jury; and as to any matter of law, the jury do derive information from the court; for jurors have, by the constitution, a fixed and permanent power to decide on matter of fact, and the letter of the law the sovereign leaves to be expounded by the mouth of the king's judges. Some censure upon some former occasions hath fallen on former judges, from a breach of this doctrine. Upon a former occasion I differed in my opinion from the learned judge who then presided, as to what I conceived to be the law; as to what is to be construed in the law of high treason, as to compassing or imagining the death of the king; I am not ashamed of the opinion in a point of law I entertained, I never shall be ashamed of it. I am extremely sorry I should differ from the bench in opinion on a point of law, but judges have had different opinions upon the same subject: where an overt-act is laid of compassing and imagining the death of the