have brought forth their children, relations, and friends; it is not through pride and obstinacy, or any contempt for you, but solely for your honor, and for that of the whole city.

You should know, that there are among our citizens those who do not regard death as an evil, and who give that name only to injustice and infamy. At my age, and with the reputation, true or false, which I have, would it be consistent for me, after all the lessons I have given upon the contempt of death, to be afraid of it myself, and to belie, in my last action, all the principles and sentiments of my past life?

But without speaking of my fame, which I should extremely injure by such a conduct, I do not think it allowable to entreat a judge, nor to be absolved by supplications. He ought to be influenced only by reason and evidence. The judge does not sit upon the bench to show favor, by violating the laws, but to do justice in conforming to them. He does not swear to discharge with impunity whom he pleases, but to do justice where it is due.

Do not, therefore, expect from me, Athenians, that I should have recourse among you to means which I believe neither honest nor lawful, especially upon this occasion, wherein I am accused of impiety by Miletus. If I should influence you by my prayers, and thereby induce you to violate your oaths, it would be undeniably evident, that I teach you not to believe in the gods. Even in defending and justifying myself, I should furnish my adversaries with arms against me, and prove that I believe in no divinity.

But I am very far from such bad thoughts. I am more convinced of the existence of God than my accusers are. I am so convinced, that I abandon myself to God and you, that you may judge of me as you shall deem best for yourselves and me."

CXCIV. EMMETT'S DEFENSE.-No. I.

ROBERT EMMETT, a young Irish patriot, of talent, distinction, and family, took an active part in the Irish rebellion of 1803. Upon its failure, lingering to take leave of a daughter of Curran, (the celebrated Irish barrister,) to whom he was betrothed, he was arrested, tried, condemned, and executed. The lady became deranged, and her history is exquisitely given by Irving in the "Broken Heart," to be found in the New Sixth Eclectic Reader of this series, page 140.

This extract and the three following, form the principal part of Emmett's defense, which was delivered impromptu, and, as a specimen of eloquence, has rarely been equaled. These extracts may be spoken separately or together.

I AM asked what I have to say, why sentence of death should not be pronounced on me, according to law. I have nothing to say which can alter your predetermination, or that it would become me to say with any view to the mitigation of that sentence which you are here to pronounce, and which I must abide. But I have that to say which interests me more than life. I have much to say, why my reputation should be rescued from the load of false accusation and calumny which has been heaped upon it.

I do not imagine that, seated where you are, your minds can be so free from impurity as to receive the least impression from what I am going to utter. I have no hope that I can anchor my character in the breast of a court, constituted and trammeled as this is. I only wish, and it is the utmost I expect, that your lordships may suffer it to float down your memories, untainted by the foul breath of prejudice, until it finds some more hospitable harbor, to shelter it from the rude storm by which it is, at present, buffeted.

Were I only to suffer death, after being adjudged guilty by your tribunal, I should bow in silence, and meet the fate that awaits me, without a murmur. But the sentence of the law which delivers my body to the executioner will, through the ministry of that law, labor, in its own vindication, to consign my character to obloquy: for there must

be guilt somewhere; whether in the sentence of the court, or in the catastrophe, posterity must determine. A man in my situation, has not only to encounter the difficulties of fortune, but those of established prejudice. The man dies, but his memory lives. That mine may not perish, that it may live in the respect of my countrymen, I seize upon this opportunity to vindicate myself from some of the charges alleged against me.

When my spirit shall be wafted to a more friendly port; when my shade shall have joined the bands of those martyred heroes who have shed their blood, on the scaffold and in the field, in defense of their country and of virtue; this is my hope. I wish that my memory and name may animate those who survive me, while I look down with complacency on the destruction of that perfidious government, which upholds its dominion by blasphemy of the Most High; which displays its power over man as over the beasts of the forest; which sets man upon his brother, and lifts his hand, in the name of God, against the throat of his fellow, who believes or doubts a little more, or a little less, than the government standard; a government, which is steeled to barbarity by the cries of the orphans and the tears of the widows which it has made.

CXCV.-EMMETT'S DEFENSE.-No. II.

My lords, it may be a part of the system of angry justice to bow a man's mind, by humiliation, to the purposed ignominy of the scaffold. But worse to me than the scaffold's shame, or the scaffold's terrors, would be the shame of such foul and unfounded imputations as have been laid. against me in this court. You, my lord, are a judge. am the supposed culprit. I am a man you are a man also. By a revolution of power, we might change places, though we never could change characters.

If I stand at the bar of this court, and dare not vindicate my character, what a farce is your justice! If I stand at this bar, and dare not vindicate my character, how dare

you calumniate it? Does the sentence of death, which your unhallowed policy inflicts on my body, also condemn my tongue to silence, and my reputation to reproach? Your executioner may abridge the period of my existence. But while I exist, I shall not forbear to vindicate my character and motives from your aspersions.

As a man to whom fame is dearer than life, I will make the last use of that life in doing justice to that reputation which is to live after me, and which is the only legacy I can leave to those I honor and love, and for whom I am proud to perish. As men, my lord, we must appear, on the great day, at one common tribunal; and it will then remain for the Searcher of all hearts to show the universe who are engaged in the most virtuous actions, or actuated by the purest motives,-my country's oppressors or defenders.*

My lord, shall a dying man be denied the legal privilege of exculpating himself, in the eyes of the community, of an undeserved reproach thrown upon him during his trial, by charging him with ambition, and attempting to cast away, for a paltry consideration, the liberties of his country? Why, then, insult me? Or, rather, why insult justice, in demanding of me why sentence of death should not be pronounced?

I know, my lord, that form prescribes that you should ask the question; the form also presumes the right of answering! This, no doubt, may be dispensed with; and so might the whole ceremony of the trial, since sentence was already pronounced at the castle, before your jury was impaneled. Your lordships are but the priests of the oracle, and I submit to the sacrifice; but I insist on the whole of the forms.

* The judge exclaimed: "Listen, sir, to the sentence of the law."

NEW EC. S.-29

CXCVI.-EMMETT'S DEFENSE.-No. III.

I AM charged with being an emissary of France. An emissary of France? and for what end? It is alleged that I wished to sell the independence of my country! And for what end? Was this the object of my ambition? And is this the mode by which a tribunal of justice reconciles contradictions? No! I am no emissary. My ambition was to hold a place among the deliverers of my country; not in power, nor in profit, but in the glory of the achieve

ment.

Sell my country's independence to France? And for what? For a change of masters? No; but for ambition! O, my country! was it personal ambition that could influence me? Had that been the soul of my actions, could I not, by my education and fortune, by the rank and consideration of my family, have placed myself among the proudest of your oppressors? My country was my idol. To it I sacrificed every selfish, every endearing sentiment; and for it I now offer up my life!

No! my lord. I acted as an Irishman, determined on delivering my country from the yoke of a foreign and unrelenting tyranny, and from the more galling yoke of a domestic faction, its joint partner and perpetrator in the parricide, whose reward is the ignominy of existing with an exterior of splendor, and a consciousness of depravity. It was the wish of my heart to extricate my country from this doubly riveted despotism. I wished to place her independence beyond the reach of any power on earth. I wished to exalt her to that proud station in the world which Providence had fitted her to fill.

Connection with France was, indeed, intended; but only so far as mutual interest would sanction or require. Were the French to assume any authority inconsistent with the purest independence, it would be the signal for their destruction. We sought aid of them; and we sought it, as we had assurance we should obtain it; as auxiliaries in war, and allies in peace. Were the French to come as