hopeless of all succour but that which your verdict shall afford. I have heard of assassination by sword, by pistol, and by dagger, but here is a wretch who would dip the evangelists in bloodif he thinks he has not sworn his victim to death, he is ready to swear, without mercy and without end; but oh! do not, I conjure you, suffer him to take an oath; the arm of the murderer should not pollute the purity of the gospel; if he will swear, let it be on the knife, the proper symbol of his profession!-Gentlemen, I am reminded of the tissue of abomination, with which this deadly calumniator, this O'Brien, has endeavoured to load so large a portion of your adult countrymen. He charges one hundred thousand Irishmen with the deliberate cruelty of depriving their fellow-creatures of their eyes, tongues, and hands! Do not believe the infamous slander! If I were told that there was in Ireland one man who could so debase human nature, I should hesitate to believe that even O'Brien were he. I have heard the argument made use of, that, in cases of a very foul nature, witnesses cannot be found free from imputation; this admitted in its fullest extent, it does not follow, that such evidence is to be accredited without other support. In such cases strong corroboration is necessary, and you would be the most helpless and unfortunate men in the world, if you were under the necessity of attending to the solitary testimony of such witnesses. In the present prosecution two witnesses have been examined, for the respectable character of lord Portarlington must not be polJuted by a combination with O'Brien: if his lordship had told exactly the same story with O'Brien, it could not, however, be considered as corroborating O'Brien, who might as easily have uttered a falsehood to lord Portarlington as he did here; but how much more strongly must you feel yourselves bound to reject his evidence, when appealing to his lordship, he is materially contradicted, and his perjury established. With respect to Clark, he fixes no corroborative evidence whatever to the overt acts laid in the indictment. In endeavouring to slide in evidence of a conspiracy to murder Thompson, what might be the consequence, if such a vile insinuation took possession of your minds?— I am not blinking the question, I come boldly up to it-there is not the most remote evidence to connect the fate of Thompson with the present case, and nothing could show the miserable paucity of his evidence more, than seeking to support it on what 2 T

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did not at all relate to the charge. Five witnesses, as if by the interference of providence, have discredited O'Brien to as many facts.

What did the simple and honest evidence of John Clarke of Blue-bell amount to against O'Brien? it attached the double crime of artifice and perjury, and added robbery to the personification. See now in Dublin there are at this moment thousands and ten thousands of your fellow citizens, anxiously by, waiting to know if you will convict the prisoner on the evidence of a wilful and corrupt perjurer; whether they are, each in his turn, to feel the fatal effects of his condemnation, or whether they are to find protection in the laws from the machinations of the informer. [Mr. Curran having been reminded to observe on the recipe for coining.] No! continued he, let him keep his coining for himself; it suits him well, and is the proper emblem of his conscience, copper washed. Would you let such a fellow as this into your house as a servant under the impressions which his evidence must make on your minds?

If you would not take his services in exchange for wages, will you take his perjury in exchange for the life of a fellow creature? How will you feel, if the assignats of such evidence pass current for human blood! How will you bear the serrated and iron fangs of remorse, gnawing at your hearts, if in the moment of abandonment, you suffer the victim to be massacred even in our arms? But has his perjury stopped here? What said the innocent countryman, Patrick Cavanagh?-Pursuing the even tenor of his way, in the paths of honest industry, he is in the act of fulfilling the decree of his Maker; he is earning his bread by the sweat of his brow, when this villain, less pure than the archfiend who brought this sentence of laborious action on mankind, enters the habitation of peace and humble industry, and, not content with dipping his tongue in perjury and blood, robs the poor man of two guineas! Can you wonder that he crept into the hole of the multitude when the witness would have developed him? do you wonder that he endeavoured to shun your eyes?

At this moment even the bold and daring villany of O'Brien stood abashed; he saw the eye of heaven in that of an innocent and injured man; perhaps the feeling was consummated by a glance from the dock-his heart bore testimony to his guilt, and he fled for the same! Gracious God! have you been so soiled in

the vile intercourse, that you will give him a degree of credit, which you will deny to the candid and untainted evidence of so many honest men? But I have not done with him yet—while an atom of his vileness hangs together, I will separate it, lest you should chance to be taken by it. Was there a human creature brought forward to say he is any other than a villain? did his counsel venture to ask our witnesses, why they discredited him? did he dare to ask on what they established their assertions? no! by this time it is probable Mr. O'Brien is sick of investigation. You find him coiling himself in the scaly circles of his cautious perjury, making anticipated battle against any one who should appear against him; but you see him sink before the proof.

Do you feel, gentlemen, that I have been wantonly aspersing this man's character? Is he not a perjurer, a swindler? and that he is not a murderer, will depend on you. He assumes the character of a king's officer, to rob the king's people of their money; and afterwards, when their property fails him, he seeks to rob them of their lives! What say you to his habitual fellowship with baseness and fraud? He gives a recipe instructing to felony, and counterfeiting the king's coin; and when questioned about it, what is his answer?--why truly, that it was "only a light, easy way of getting money-only a little bit of a humbug." Good God! I ask you, has it ever came across you, to meet with such a constellation of infamy!

Beside the perjury, Clark had nothing to say, scarcely ground to turn on. He swears he was not in the court yesterday-what then? why, he has only perjured himself!—well, call little skirmish up again?-why, it was but a mistake! a little puzzled or so, and not being a lawyer, he could not tell whether he was in court or not! Mr. Clark is a much better evidence than my lord Portarlington-his lordship, in the improvidence of truth, bore a single testimony; while Clark, wisely providing against contingences, swore at both sides of the gutter; but the lesser perjurer is almost forgotten in the greater. No fewer than FIVE perjuries are established against the loyal Mr. O'Brien, who has been "united to every honest man”—if indicted on any one of these, I must tell you, gentlemen, that he could not be sworn in a court of justice; on the testimony of five witnesses, on his own testimony, he stands indicted before you; and, gentlemen, you must refuse him that credit, not to be squandered on such base

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ness and profligacy. The present cause takes in the entire character of your country, which may suffer in the eyes of all Europe by your verdict. This is the first prosecution of the kind brought forward to view.-It is the great experiment of the informers of Ireland, to ascertain how far they can carry on a traffic in human blood! This cannibal informer, this demon, O'Brien, greedy after human gore, has fifteen other victims in reserve, if, from your verdict, he receives the unhappy man at the bar! Fifteen more of your fellow citizens are to be tried on his evidence! Be you then their saviours; let your verdict snatch them from his ravening maw, and interpose between yourselves and endless remorse!

I know, gentleman, I would but insult you, if I were to apologise for detaining you thus long: if I have apology to make to any person, it is to my client, for thus delaying his acquittal. Sweet is the recollection of having done justice, in that hour when the hand of death presses on the human heart! Sweet is the hope which it gives birth to! From you I demand that justice for my client, your innocent and unfortunate fellow subject at the bar; and may you have for it a more lasting reward than the perishable crown we read of, which the ancients placed on the brow of him who saved in battle the life of a fellow citizen.

If you should ever be assailed by the hand of the informer, may you find an all-powerful refuge in the example which you shall set this day; earnestly do I pray that you may never experience what it is to count the tedious hours in captivity, pining in the damps and gloom of the dungeon, while the wicked one is going about at large, seeking whom he may devour. There is another than a human tribunal, where the best of us will have occasion to look back on the little good we have done. In that awful trial, oh! may your verdict this day assure your hopes, and give you strength and consolation in the presence of an ADJUDGING GOD.

[Here ended Mr. Curran's address: and to say that the reporter has done it justice, is a presumption which he disclaims. To keep pace with the rapid flow of his eloquence, is impossible; the hearer stands in astonishment and rapture, viewing the majesty of its course; and he who most admires it, is least able to record it.]

MR. FINNEY WAS ACQUITTED.

SPEECH OF MR. CURRAN,

IN DEFENCE OF MR. PETER FINNERTY,

ON FRIDAY, DECEMBER 22d, 1797.

ABSTRACT OF THE INDICTMENT.

MR. PETER FINNERTY being put to the bar, the pannel of the petty jurors was called; there appeared above one hundred and forty names on it.

The clerk of the crown then gave Mr. Finnerty in charge of the jury, upon an indictment, stating, "That at the general assizes, and general gaol delivery, holden at Carrickfergus, in and for the county of Antrim, on the seventeenth day of April, in the thirtyseventh year of the king, before the honourable Matthias Finucane, one of the judges of his majesty's court of common pleas in Ireland, and the honourable Denis George, one of the barons of his majesty's court of exchequer in Ireland, justices and commissioners assigned to deliver the gaol of our said lord, the king, in and for the county of Antrim, of the several prisoners and malefactors therein, one William Orr, late of Farranshane, in said county Antrim, yeoman, was in lawful manner indicted for feloniously administering a certain oath and engagement, upon a book, to one Hugh Wheatly; which oath and engagement imported to bind the said Hugh Wheatly, who then and there took the same, to be of an association, brotherhood, and society, formed for seditious purposes; and also, for feloniously causing, procuring, and inducing said Hugh Wheatly to take an oath of said import last mentioned, and also for feloniously administering to said Hugh Wheatly another oath, importing to bind said Hugh Wheatly not to inform or give evidence against any brother, associate, or confederate of a certain society then and there formed; and also, for feloniously causing, procuring, and seducing said Hugh Wheatly to take an oath of said