public proclamation of informers, with a promise of secrecy and of extravagant reward; I speak not of the fate of those horrid wretches who have been so often transferred from the table to the dock, and from the dock to the pillory; I speak of what your own eyes have seen day after day, during the course of this commission, from the box where you are now sitting; the number of horrid miscreants who avowed upon their oaths that they had come from the very seat of government-from the castle, where they had been worked upon by the fear of death and the hopes of compensation, to give evidence against their fellows; that the mild and wholesome councils of this government are holden over these catacombs of living death, where the wretch that is buried a man, lies till his heart has time to fester and dissolve, and is then dug up a witness.

Is this fancy, or is it fact? Have you not seen him, after his resurrection from that tomb, after having been dug out of the region of death and corruption, make his appearance upon the table, the living image of life and of death, and the supreme arbiter of both? Have you not marked when he entered, how the stormy wave of the multitude retired at his approach? Have you not marked how the human heart bowed to the supremacy of his power, in the undissembled homage of deferential horror? How his glance, like the lightning of heaven, seemed to rive the body of the accused, and mark it for the grave, while his voice warned the devoted wretch of wo and death; a death which no innocence can escape, no art clude, no force resist, no antidote prevent; there was an antidote-a juror's oath: but even that adamantine chain, that bound the integrity of man to the throne of eternal justice, is solved and melted in the breath that issues from the informer's mouth; conscience swings from her mooring, and the appalled and affrighted juror consults his own safety in the surrender of the victim :

Et qua sibi quisque timebat.

Unius in miseri exitium conversa tullere.

Gentlemen, I feel I must have tired your patience; but I have been forced into this length by the prosecutor, who has thought fit to introduce those extraordinary topics, and to bring a question of mere politics to trial under the form of a criminal prosecution. I cannot say I am surprised this has been done, or that

you should be solicited by the same inducements, and from the same motives, as if your verdict was a vote of approbation. I do not wonder that the government of Ireland should stand appalled at the state to which we are reduced. I wonder not they should start at the public voice, and labour to stifle or to contradict it. I wonder not that at this arduous crisis when the very existence of the empire is at stake, and when its strongest and most precious limb is not girt with the sword for battle, but pressed by the tourniquet for amputation; when they find the coldness of death already begun in those extremities where it never ends, that they are terrified at what they have done, and wish to say to the surviving parties of that empire, "they cannot say that we did it." I wonder not that they should consider their conduct as no immaterial question for a court of criminal jurisdiction, and wish anxiously, as on an inquest of blood, for the kind acquittal of a friendly jury. I wonder not that they should wish to close the chasm they have opened by flinging you into the abyss. But trust me, my countrymen, you might perish in it, but you could not close it; trust me, if it is yet possible to close it, it can be done only by truth and honor; trust me, that such an effect could no more be wrought by the sacrifice of a jury, than by the sacrifice of Orr. As a state measure, the one would be as unwise and unavailing as the other; but while you are yet upon the brink, while you are yet visible, let me, before we part, remind you once more of your awful situation. The law upon this subject gives you supreme dominion. Hope not for much assistance from his lordship. On such occasions, perhaps the duty of the court is to be cold and neutral. I cannot but admire the dignity he has supported during this trial; I am grateful for his patience. But let me tell you, it is not his province to fan the sacred flame of patriotism in the jury box; as he has borne with the little extravagances of the law, do you bear with the little failing of the press. Let me therefore remind you, that, though the day may soon come when our ashes shall be scattered before the winds of heaven, the memory of what you do cannot die; it will carry down to your posterity your honour or your shame. In the presence and in the name of that ever living God, I do therefore conjure you to reflect, that you have your characters, your consciences, that you have also the character, perhaps the

ultimate destiny of your country in your hands. In that awful name, I do conjure you to have mercy upon your country and yourselves, and so judge now, as you will hereafter be judged: and I do now subunit the fate of my client, and of that country which we yet have in common, to your disposal.

MR. FINNERTY WAS FOUND GUILTY.

31

SPEECH OF MR. CURRAN,

IN DEFENCE OF

MR. OLIVER BOND, FOR HIGH TREASON.

ON TUESDAY, JULY 24th, 1798.

ABSTRACT OF THE INDICTMENT.

Mr. OLIVER BOND, you stand indicted, for "not having the fear of God before your eyes, nor the duty of your allegiance considering, but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil, you did, with other false traitors, conspire and meet together, and contriving and imagining with all your strength this kingdom to disturb, and to overturn by force of arms, &c. the government of this kingdom, on the 20th day of May, in the thirty-eighth year of the reign of the present king, in the parish of St. Michael the archangel, did conspire and meet together about the means of overturning the government; and his majesty of and from his royal state, power and government of this country to deprive and put; and that you, Oliver Bond, with other false traitors, did meet together and make resolutions to procure arms and ammunition for the purpose of arming men to wage war against our sovereign lord the king; and did conspire to overturn by force the lawful government of this kingdom, and to change by force the government thereof; and did assemble and meet together to raise a rebellion in this kingdom; to procure arms to aid and assist in said rebellion; and that you, Oliver Bond, did aid and cause Thomas Reynolds to be a colonel in the county of Kildare, to aid and assist in the said rebellion, and did administer unlawful oaths to said Thomas Reynolds, and to certain other persons, to be united Irishmen, for the purpose of overturning by force the government of this kingdom; and you, the said Oliver Bond, did collect sums of money to furnish arms and

ammunition to the persons in said rebellion, against the duty of your allegiance, contrary to his majesty's peace, his crown and dignity, and contrary to the form of the statute in that case made and provided. And whereas a public war, both by land and sea, is, and hath been carried on by persons exercising the powers of government in France; you, the said Oliver Bond, not having the fear of God before your eyes, did aid and assist the French and men of France to invade this kingdom, to overturn by force the government of this kingdom, and to compass and imagine the death of the king, and so forth. On this indictment you, Oliver Bond, have been this day arraigned, and have pleaded not guilty, and for trial have put yourself on God and your country."

MR. CURRAN.-My lords, and gentlemen of the jury, I am coun sel for the prisoner at the bar-it is my duty to lay his case before you. It is a duty that at any time would be a painful one to me, but at present peculiarly so; having, in the course of this long trial, experienced great fatigue both of mind and of body, a fatigue I have felt in common with the learned judges who preside on the bench, and with my brethren of the bar: I feel, as an advocate for my client, the duty of the awful obligation that has devolved upon me.—I do not mean, gentlemen of the jury, to di late on my own personal fatigues, for I am not in the habit of considering my personal ill state of health, or the anxiety of my mind, in discharging my duty to clients in such awful situations as in the present momentous crisis; I have not been in the habit, gentlemen of the jury, to expatiate to you on personal ill health; in addressing myself to jurors on any common subject, I have not been in the babit of addressing myself to the interposition of the court, or to the good natured consideration of the jury, on behalf of my client. I have mentioned indeed my own enfeebled worn out body, and my worn out state of mind, not out of any paltry respect to myself, nor to draw your attention to myself, but to induce you to reflect upon this; that in the weakness of the advocate, the case of my client, the prisoner at the bar, is not implicated; for his case is so strong in support of his innocence, that it is not to be weakened by the imbecility, or the fatigue of the advocate.