CONTENTS. at a Public Dinner given by the Catholics of Sligo. at the Catholic Aggregate Meeting in Dublin. MY LORD AND GENTLEMEN, IN this case I am of counsel for the Plaintiff, who has deputed me, with the kind concession of my much more efficient colleagues, to detail to you the story of his misfortunes. In the course of a long friendship which has existed between us, originating in mutual pursuits, and cemented by our mutual attachments, never, until this instant, did I feel any thing but pleasure in the claims which it created, or the duty which it imposed. In selecting me, however, from this bright array of learning and of eloquence, I cannot help being pained at the kindness of a partiality which forgets its interest in the exercise of its affection, and confides the task of practised wisdom to the uncertain guidance of youth and inexperience. He has thought, perhaps, that truth needed no set phrase of speech; that misfortunes should not veil the furrows which its tears had burned; or hide, under the decorations of an artful drapery, the heart-rent heavings with which its bosom throbbed. He has surely thought that, by contrasting mine with the powerful talents selected by his antagonist, he was giving you a proof that the appeal he made was to your reason, not to your feelings ;-to the integrity of your hearts, not the exasperation of your passions. Happily however for him, happily for you, happily for the country, happily for the profession, on subjects such as this, the expeperience of the oldest amongst us is but slender ;-deeds such as this are not indigenous to an Irish soil, or naturalized beneath an Irish climate. We hear of them, indeed,, as we do of the earthquakes that convulse, or the pestilence that infects, less favoured regions; but the record of the calamity is only read with the generous scepticism of innocence,. or.an involuntary thanksgiving to the Providence that has preserved us. No matter how we may have graduated in the scale of nations.; no matter with what wreath we may have been adorned, of what blessings ave may have been denied; no matter what may have been our feuds, our follies, or our misfortunes; it has at least been universally conceded, that ́our hearths were the home of the domestic virtues, and that love, honour, and conjugal fidelity, were the dear and indisputable deities of our household :-around the fire-side of the Irish hovel hospitality circumscribed its sacred circle: and a provision to punish created a suspicion of the possibility of its violation. But of all the ties that bound,—of all the bounties that blessed her,Ireland most obeyed, most loved, most reverenced, the nuptial contract. She saw it the gift of Heaven, the charm of earth, the joy of the present, the promise of the future, the innocence of enjoyment, the chastity of passion, the sacrament of love :-the slender curtain that shades the sanctuary of her marriage-bed, has in its purity the splendour of the mountain snow, and for its protection the texture of the mountain adamant. Gentlemen, that - national sanctuary has been invaded; that venerable divinity has been violated; and its tenderest pledges torn from their shrine, by the polluted rapine of a kindless, heartless, prayerless, remorseless Adulterer! To you,-religion defiled, morals insulted, law despised, public order foully violated, and individual happiness wantonly wounded,-make their melancholy appeal. You will hear the facts with as much patience as indignation will allow ;I will, myself, ask of you, to adjudge them with as much mercy as justice will admit. The Plaintiff in this case is JOHN GUTHRIE; by birth, by education, by profession, by better than all, by practice and by principles, a gentleman. Believe me, it is not from the commonplace of advocacy, or from the blind partiality of friendship, that I say of him, that whether considering the virtues that adorn life, or the blandishments that endear it, he has few superiors. Surely, if a spirit that disdained dishonour, if a heart that knew not guile, if a life above reproach, and a character beyond suspicion, could have been a security against misfortunes, his lot must have been happiness. I speak in the presence of that profession to which he was an ornament, and with whose members his manhood has been familiar; and I say of him, with a confidence that defies refutation, that, whether we consider him in his private or his public station, as a man or as a lawyer, there never breathed that being less capable of exciting enmity towards himself, or of offering, even by implication, an offence to others. If he had a fault, it was, that, above crime, he was above suspicion; and to that noblest error of a noble nature he has fallen a victim. Having spent his youth in the cultivation of a mind which must have one day led him to eminence he became a member of the profession by which I am surrounded. Possessing as he did a moderate independence, and looking forward to the most flattering prospects, it was natural for him to select amongst the other sex, some friend who should adorn his fortunes, and deceive his tons. He found such a friend, or thought he found her, in the person of Miss Warren, the only daughter of an eminent Solicitor.. Young beautiful, and accomplished, she was " adorned with all that earth or heaven could bestow to make her amiable." Virtue never found a fairer temple; beauty never veiled a purer sanctuary: the graces of her mind retained the admiration which her beauty had attracted, and the eye, which her charms fired, became subdued and chastened in the modesty of their association. She was in the dawn of life, with all its fragrance round her, and yet so pure, that even the blush, which sought to hide her lustre, but disclosed the vestal deity that burned beneath it. No wonder an adoring husband anticipated all the joys this world could give him; no wonder the parental eye, which beamed upon their union, saw, in the perspective, an old age of happiness, and a posterity of honour. Methinks I see them at the sacred altar, joining those hands which Heaven commanded none should separate, repaid for many a pang of anxious nurture by the sweet smile of filial piety; and, in the holy rapture of the rite, blessing the Power that blessed their children, and gave them hope their names should live hereafter. It was Virtue's vision! None but fiends could envy it. Year after year confirmed the anticipation; four lovely children blessed their union. Nor was their love the summer passion of prosperity: misfortune proved, afflictions chastened it before the mandate of that mysterious power which will at times despoil the paths of innocence, to decorate the chariot of triumphant villany, my client had to bow in silent resignation. He owed his adversity to the benevolence of his spirit; he "went security for friends;" those friends deceived him; and he was obliged to seek, in other lands, that safe asylum which his own denied him. He was glad to accept an offer of professional business in Scotland during his temporary embarrassment. With a conjugal devotion, Mrs. Guthrie accompanied him; and in her smile the soil of a stranger was a home, the sorrows of adversity were dear to him. During their residence in Scotland, a period of about a year, you will find they lived as they had done in Ireland, and as they continued to do until this calamitous occurrence, in a state of uninterrupted happiness. You shall hear, most satisfactorily, that their domestic life was unsullied and undisturbed. Happy at home, happy in a husband's love, happy in her parents' fondness, happy in the children she had nursed, Mrs. Guthrie carried into every circle, and their was no circle in which her society was not courted, that cheerfulness which never was a companion of guilt or a stranger to innocence. My Client saw her the pride of his family, the favourite of his friends; at once the organ and ornament of his happiness. His ambition awoke, his industry redoubled; and that fortune which though for a season it may frown, never totally abandons probity and virtue, had begun to smile on him. He was beginning to rise in the ranks of his competitors, and rising with such a character, that emulation itself rather rejoiced than envied. It was at this crisis, in this, the noon of his happiness, and day-spring of his fortune, that, to the ruin of both, the Defendant became acquainted with his family. With the serpent's wile, and the serpent's wickedness, he stole into the Eden of domestic life; poisoning all that was pure, polluting all that was lovely, defying God, destroying man, a demon in the disguise of virtue, a herald of hell in the paradise of innocence. His name, Gentlemen, is WILLIAM PETER BAKER DUNSTANVILLE STERNE : one would think he had epithets enough, without adding to them the title of Adulterer. Of his character I know but little, and I am sorry that I know so much. If I am instructed rightly, he is one of those vain and vapid coxcombs, whose vices tinge the frivolity of their follies with something of a more odious character than ridicule-with just head enough to contrive crime, but not heart enough to feel for its consequences; one of those fashionable insects, that folly has painted, and fortune plumed, for the annoyance of our atmosphere; dangerous alike in their torpidity and their animation; infesting where they fly, and poisoning where they repose. It was through the introduction of Mr. Fallon, the son of a most respectable lady, then resident in Temple-street, and a near relative of Mr. Guthrie, that the Defendant and this unfortunate woman first became acquainted : to such an introduction the shadow of a suspicion could not possibly attach. Occupied himself in his professional pursuits, my Client had little leisure for the amusement of society: however, to the protection of Mrs. Fallon, her son, and daughters, moving in the first circles, unstained by any possible imputation, he without hesitation entrusted all that was dear to him. No suspicion could be awakened as to any man to whom such a female as Mrs. Fallon permitted an intimacy with her daughters; while at her house then, and at the parties which it originated, the Defendant and Mrs. Guthrie had frequent opportunities of meeting. Who could have suspected that, under the very roof of virtue, in the presence of a venerable and respected matron, and of that innocent family, whom she had reared up in the sunshine of her example, the most abandoned profligate could have plotted his iniquities! Who would not rather suppose, that, in the rebuke of such a presence, guilt would have torn away the garland from its brow, and blushed itself into virtue. But the depravity of this man was of no common dye the asylum of innocence was selected only as the sanctuary of his crimes; and the pure and the spotless chosen as his associates, because they would be more unsuspected subsidiaries to his wickedness. Nor were his manner and his language less suited than his society to the concealment of his objects. If you believed himself, the sight of suffering affected his nerves; the bare mention of immorality smote upon his conscience; an intercourse with the Continental Courts had refined his mind into a painful sensibility to the barbarisms of Ireland! and yet an internal tenderness towards his native land so irresistibly impelled him to improve it by his residence, that he was a hapless victim to the excess of his feelings!-the exquisiteness of his polish and the excellence of his patriotism! His English estates, he said, amounted to about 10,000l. a year and he retained in Ireland only a trifling 3000l. more, as a kind of trust for the necessities of its inhabitants! In short, according to his own description, he was in religion a saint, and in morals a stoica sort of wandering philanthropist! making, like the Sterne who, he confessed, had the honour of his name and his connexion, a Sentimental Journey in search of objects over whom his heart might weep, and his sensibility expand itself! : How happy it is, that, of the philosophic profligate only retaining the vices and the name, his rashness has led to the arrest of crimes, which he had all his turpitude to commit, without any of his talents to embellish. It was by arts such as I have alluded to,-by pretending the most strict morality, the most sensitive honour, the most high and undeviating principles of virtue,-that the Defendant banished every suspicion of his designs. As far as appearances went, he was exactly what he described himself. His pretentions to morals he sup |