After a suspense comparatively happy, her parents became acquainted with her irrevocable ruin. The miserable mother, supported by the mere strength of desperation, rushed half phrenzied to the castle, where Mr. Townsend was on duty. "Give me back my child!" was all she could articulate. The parental ruin struck the spoiler almost speechless. The few dreadful words, "I have your child," withered her heart up with the horrid joy that death denied its mercy, that her daughter lived, but lived, alas, to infamy. She could neither speak nor hear; she sunk down convulsed and powerless. As soon as she could recover to any thing of effort, naturally did she turn to the residence of Mr. Townsend; his orders had anticipated her -the sentinel refused her entrance. She told her sad narration, she implored his pity; with the eloquence of grief she asked him, had he home, or wife, or children. "Oh, Holy Nature! thou didst not plead in vain!" even the rude soldier's heart relented. He admitted her by stealth, and she once more held within her arms the darling hope of many an anxious hour; duped, desolate, degraded it was true-but still-but still "her child." Gentlemen, if the parental heart cannot suppose what followed, how little adequate am I to paint it. Home this wretched creature could not return; a seducer's mandate and a father's anger equally forbade it. But she gave whatever consolation she was capable; she told the fatal tale of her undoing-the hopes, the promises, the studied specious arts that had seduced her; and with a desperate credulity

still watched the light that, glimmering in the distant vista of her love, mocked her with hope, and was to leave her to the tempest. To all the prophecies of maternal anguish, she would still reply, "Oh, no-in the eye of Heaven he is my husband; he took me from my home, my happiness and you, but still he pledged to me a soldier's honour-but he assured me with a Christian's conscience; for three long months I heard his vows of love; he is honourable and will not deceive; he is human and cannot desert me." 'Hear, Gentlemen, hear, I beseech you, how this innocent confidence was returned. When her indignant father had resorted to Lord Forbes, the commander of the forces, and to the noble and learned head of this Court, both of whom received him with a sympathy that did them honour, Mr. Townsend sent a brother officer to inform her she must quit his residence and take lodgings. In vain she remonstrated, in vain she reminded him of her former purity, and of the promises that betrayed it. She was literally turned out at nightfall to find whatever refuge the God of the shelterless might provide for her. Deserted and disowned, how naturally did she turn to the once happy home, whose inmates she had disgraced, and whose protection she had forfeited! how naturally did she think the once familiar and once welcome avenues looked frowning as she passed! how naturally did she linger like a reposeless spectre round the memorials of her living happiness! Her heart failed her: where a parent's smile had ever cheered her, she could not face the glance of shame, or

sorrow, or disdain. She returned to seek her seducer's pity even till the morning. Good God! how can I disclose it!-the very guard had orders to refuse her access; even by the rabble soldiery she was cast into the street, amid the night's dark horrors, the victim of her own credulity, the outcast of another's crime, to seal her guilty woes with suicide, or lead a living death amid the tainted sepulchres of a promiscuous prostitution! Far, far am I from sorry that it was so. Horrible beyond thought as is this aggravation, I only hear in it the voice of the Deity in thunder upon the crime. Yes, yes; it is the present God arming the vicious agent against the vice, and terrifying from its conception by the turpitude to which it may lead. But what aggravation does seduction need! Vice is its essence, lust its end, hypocrisy its instrument, and innocence its victim. Must I detail its miseries? Who depopulates the home of virtue, making the child an orphan, and the parent childless? Who wrests its crutch from the tottering helplessness of piteous age? Who wrings its happiness from the heart of youth? Who shocks the vision of the public eye? Who infects your very thoroughfares with disease, disgust, obscenity, and profaneness? Who pollutes the harmless scenes where modesty resorts for mirth, and toil for recreation, with sights that stain the pure and shock the sensitive? Are these the phrases of an interested advocacy? Is there one amongst you but has witnessed their verification? Is there one amongst you so fortunate, or so secluded, as not to have

wept over the wreck of health, and youth, and loveliness, and talent, the fatal trophies of the seducer's triumph-some form, perhaps, where every grace was squandered, and every beauty paused to waste its bloom, and every beam of mind and tone of melody poured their profusion on the public wonder; all that a parent's prayer could ask, or lover's adoration fancy; in whom even pollution looked so lovely, that virtue would have made her more than human? Is there an epithet too vile for such a spoiler? Is there a punishment too severe for such depravity? I know not upon what complaisance this English seducer may calculate from a jury of this country; I know not, indeed, whether he may not think he does your wives and daughters some honour by their contamination. But I know well what reception he would experience from a jury of his own country. I know that in such general execration do they view this crime, they think no possible plea a palliation; no, not the mature age of the seduced; not her previously protracted absence from her parents; not a levity approaching almost to absolute guilt; not an indiscretion in the mother, that bore every colour of connivance: and in this opinion they have been supported by all the venerable authorities with whom age, integrity, and learning have adorned the judgment-seat.

Gentlemen, I come armed with these authorities. In the case of Tullidge against Wade, my Lord, it appeared the person seduced was thirty years of age, and long before absent from her home; yet,

on a motion to set aside the verdict for excessive damages, what was the language of Chief Justice Wilmot? "I regret,” said he, " that they were not greater; though the plaintiff's loss did not amount to twenty shillings, the jury were right in giving ample damages, because such actions should be encouraged for example's sake." Justice Clive wished they had given twice the sum, and in this opinion the whole Bench concurred. There was a case where the girl was of mature age, and living apart from her parents: here, the victim is almost a child, and was never for a moment separated from her home. Again, in the case of "Bennet against Alcot," on a similar motion, grounded on the apparently overwhelming fact, that the mother of the girl had actually sent the defendant into her daughter's bed-chamber, where the criminality oscurred, Justice Buller declared, "he thought the parent's indiscretion no excuse for the defendant's culpability;" and the verdict of 2007. damages was confirmed. There was a case of literal connivance: here, will they have the hardihood to hint even its suspicion? You all must remember, Gentlemen, the case of our own countryman, Captain Gore, against whom, only the other day, an English jury gave a verdict of 1,500l. damages, though it was proved that the person alleged to have been seduced was herself the seducer, going even so far as to throw gravel up at the windows of the defendant; yet Lord Ellenborough refused to disturb the verdict. Thus you may see I rest not on my own proofless and unsupported dictum. I rely