SPEECH OF MR. CURRAN,

IN

DEFENCE OF OWEN KIRWAN,

FOR HIGH TREASON;

AT THE SESSION HOUSE, GREEN STREET, ON SATURDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1803.

MR. CURRAN rose and said, that it had become his duty to state to the court and jury the defence of the prisoner. He said he had been chosen for that very unpleasant task, without his concurrence or knowledge; but as soon as he was apprised of it, he accepted it without hesitation. To assist a human being laDouring under the most awful of all situations, trembling in the dreadful alternative of honourable life, or ignominious death, was what no man, worthy of the name, could refuse to man: but it would be peculiarly base in any person who had the honour of wearing the king's gown, to leave the king's subject undefended, until a sentence pronounced upon him had shown, that neither in fact, nor in law, could any defence avail him. He could not, however, but confess, that he felt no small consolation when he compared his present with his former situation upon similar occasions. In those sad times to which he alluded, it was frequently his fate to come forward to the spot where he then stood, with a body sinking under infirmity and disease, and a mind broken with the consciousness of public calamity, created and exasperated by public folly. It had pleased heaven that he should live to survive both those afflictions, and he was grateful to its mercy. I now, said he, come here through a composed and quiet city—I read no expression in any face, save such as marks the ordinary feelings of social life, or the various characters of civil occupation -I see no frightful spectacle of infuriated power, or suffering humanity-1 see no tortures-I hear no shrieks-I no longer see

the human heart charred in the flame of its own vile and paltry passions-black and bloodless-capable only of catching and communicating that destructive fire by which it devours, and is itself devoured. I no longer behold the ravages of that odious bigotry by which we were deformed, and degraded, and disgraced -a bigotry against which no honest man should ever miss an opportunity of putting his countrymen, of all sects and of all descriptions, upon their guard: it is the accursed and promiscuous progeny of servile hypocrisy, of remorseless lust of power-of insatiate thirst of gain-labouring for the destruction of man, under the specious pretences of religion-her banner stolen from the altar of God, and her allies congregated from the abysses of hell, she acts by votaries to be restrained by no compunctions of humanity, for they are dead to mercy; to be reclaimed by no voice of reason, for refutation is the bread on which their folly feeds: they are outlawed alike from their species and their Creator; the object of their crime is social life, and the wages of their sin is social death; for though it may happen that a guilty individual should escape from the law that he has broken, it cannot be so with nations: their guilt is too extensive and unwieldy for such escape: they may rest assured that Providence has, in the natural connexion between causes and their effects, established a system of retributive justice, by which the crimes of nations are sooner or later avenged by their own inevitable consequences. But that hateful bigotry--that baneful discord, which fired the heart of man, and steeled it against his brother, has fled at last, and I trust for ever. Even in this melancholy place I feel myself restored and recreated by breathing the mild atmosphere of justice, mercy, and humanity—I feel I am addressing the parental authority of the law-I feel I am addressing a jury of my countrymen, my fellow subjects, and my fellow christians—against whom my heart is waging no concealed hostility—from whom my face is disguising no latent sentiment of repugnance or disgust. I have not now to touch the high raised strings of an angry passion in those that hear me-nor have I the terror of thinking, that if those strings cannot be snapt by the stroke, they will be only provoked into a more instigated vibration.

Mr. Curran then proceeded to observe, that this happy change in the minds and feelings of all men was the natural consequences of that system of mildness and good temper which had been

recently adopted, and which he strongly exhorted the jury to imitate, and to improve upon-that they might thereby demonstrate to ourselves, to Great Britain, and to the enemy, that we were not that assemblage of fiends which we had been alleged to be unworthy of the ordinary privilege of regular justice, or the lenient treatment of a merciful government.-He said, it was of the utmost importance to be on their guard against the wicked and mischievous representation of the circumstances which called them then together-they ought not to take from any unauthenticated report those facts which they could have directly from sworn evidence. He had heard much of the dreadful extent of the conspiracy against this country-of the narrow escape of the government. They now saw the fact as it was. By the judicious adoption of a mild and conciliatory system of conduct, what was six years ago a formidable rebellion, had now dwindled down to a drunken, riotous insurrection-disgraced, certainly, by some odious atrocities-its objects, whatever they were, no doubt, highly criminal; but, as an attack upon the state, of the most contemptible insignificance.-He did not wonder that the patrons of burning and torture should be vexed that their favourite instruments were not employed in recruiting for the rebellion. He had no doubt but that had they been so employed, the effect would have followed, and that an odious, drunken insurrection, would have been easily swelled into a formidable rebellion-nor was it strange that persons so mortified should vent themselves in wanton exaggerated misrepresentations, and in unmerited censure in slandering the nation in the person of the viceroyand the viceroy in the character of the nation-and that they should do so, without considering that they were weakening the common resources against common danger, by making the different parts of the empire odious to each other; and by holding out to the enemy, and, falsely holding out, that we were too much absorbed in civil discord to be capable of effectual resistance. In making this observation, he said his wish was merely to refute a slander upon his country. He had no pretensions to be the vin. dicator of the lord lieutenant of Ireland, whose person he did not know that he had ever seen at the same time he said, that when he was so necessarily forced upon the subject, he felt no disposition to conceal the respect and satisfaction with which he saw the king's representative comport himself as he did, at a

crisis of no little anxiety, though of no considerable danger, if we may believe the evidence we have heard. He thought it was a proof of his excellency's firmness and good sense, not to discredit his own opinion of his confidence in the public safety, by an ostentatious display of unnecessary open preparation; and he thought he did himself equal honour by preserving his usual temper, and not suffering himself to be exasperated by the event, when it did happen, into the adoption of any violent or precipitate measures. Perhaps he [Mr. Curran] might even be excused if he confessed that he was not wholly free from some professional vanity, when he saw, that the descendant of a great lawyer was capable of remembering, what, without the memory of such an example, he perhaps might not have done, that even in the moment of peril the law is the best safeguard of the constitution. At all events, he felt, that a man, who at all times had so freely censured the extravagances of power and force as he had done, was justified, if not bound, by the consistency of character, to give the fair attestation of his opinion to the exercise of wisdom and humanity wherever he found them; whether in a friend or in a stranger. He hoped, he said, that these preliminary observations were not wantonly and irrelevantly delaying them from the question which they were to try, and which he was ready to enter into; but there still remained a circumstance to be obseryed upon for a moment, before they entered upon the real subject of their inquiry, the guilt or innocence of the prisoner; the fact that had been so impressively stated: the never to be too much lamented fate of that excellent man lord Kilwarden-(and here Mr. Curran drew a character of him, as marked by the most scrupulous anxiety for justice, and by the mildest and tenderest feelings of humanity.)-But, said he, let us not wantonly slander the character of the nation by giving any countenance to the notion, that the horror of such a crime could be extended farther than the actual perpetration of the deed. The general indignation, the tears that were shed at the sad news of his fate, show that we are not that nest of demons on whom any general stigma could attach from such an event; the wicked wretch himself, perhaps, has cut off the very man, through whose humanity he might have escaped the consequences of other crimes; and by an hideous aggravation of his guilt, has given another motive to Providence to trace the murderer's steps, and secure the certain.

ty of his punishment;, but on this occasion the jury should put it out of their minds, and think nothing of that valuable man, save his last advice, "that no person should perish but by the just sentence of the law;" and that advice he hoped they would honour, not by idle praise, but by strict observance.

Mr. Curran now proceeded to state the charge in the indictment, and the evidence adduced; and contended that the testimony showed no fact of conspiracy-no adopted object of treason -no actual attack-no number of persons engaged that could possibly be adequate to the accomplishment of such an object. He strongly reprobated the idea of acting upon what was called notoriety of rebellion-notoriety was at best but another name for reputation, which could not, even by law, be given in evidence in any criminal case, and which a fortiori could not sustain. a verdict of conviction; but, he said, if the actual evidence of the guilt was thus weak, it was not unfair to consider the probability of such a conspiracy at the present time. It was clear from the evidence, that it could not be imputed to any particular sect, or party, or faction, because no sect or faction could fail, had they acted in it, of engaging one hundred times the number of deluded instruments in their design. We may then fairly ask, is it likely that the country at large, setting even apart all moral tie of duty, or allegiance, or the difficulty, or the danger, could see any motive of interest to recommend to them the measure of separating from England, or fraternizing with France? Whether there was any description of men in Ireland who could expect any advantage from such a change? And this reasoning, he said, was more pertinent to the question, because politics were not now, as heretofore, a dead science, in a dead language; they had now become the subject of the day, vernacular and universal, and the repose which the late system of Irish government had given the people for reflection, had enabled them to consider their own condition, and what they, or any other country, could have to hope from France, or rather from its present master. He said he scorned to allude to that personage merely to scold or to revile him; unmeaning obloquy may show that we do not love the object, but certainly that we do not fear him.— He then adverted to the present condition of Bonaparte; a stranger-an usurper-getting possession of a numerous, proud, volatile, and capricious people; getting that possession by military