illuminated the bench by his genius, endeared it by his suavity, and dignified it by his bold uncom promising probity; one of those rare men, who hid the thorns of law beneath the brightest flowers of literature, and, as it were, with the wand of an enchanter, changed a wilderness into a garden! I speak upon that high authority-but I speak on other authority paramount to all!-on the authority of nature rising up within the heart of man, and calling for vengeance upon such an outrage. God forbid, that in a case of this kind we were to grope our way through the ruins of antiquity, and blunder over statutes, and burrow through black letter, in search of an interpretation which Providence has engraved in living letters on every human heart. Yes; if there be one amongst you blessed with a daughter, the smile of whose infancy still cheers your memory, and the promise of whose youth illuminates your hope, who has endeared the toils of your manhood, whom you look up to as the solace of your declining years, whose embrace alleviated the pang of separation, whose glowing welcome hailed your oft anticipated return-oh, if there be one amongst you, to whom those recollections are dear, to whom those hopes are precious-let him only fancy that daughter torn from his caresses by a seducer's arts, and cast upon the world, robbed of her innocence, and then let him ask his heart, "what money could reprise him!"

The defendant, Gentlemen, cannot complain that I put it thus to you. If, in place of seducing,

1

he had assaulted this poor girl-if he had attempted by force what he has achieved by fraud, his life would have been the forfeit; and yet how trifling in comparison would have been the parent's agony! He has no right, then, to complain, if you should estimate this outrage at the price of his very existence! I am told, indeed, this gentleman entertains an opinion, prevalent enough in the age of a feudalism, as arrogant as it was barbarous, that the poor are only a species of property, to be treated according to interest or caprice; and that wealth is at once a patent for crime, and an exemption from its consequences. Happily for this land, the day of such opinions has passed over it -the eye of a purer feeling and more profound philosophy now beholds riches but as one of the aids to virtue, and sees in oppressed poverty only an additional stimulus to increased protection. A generous heart cannot help feeling, that in cases of this kind the poverty of the injured is a dreadful aggravation. If the rich suffer, they have much to console them; but when a poor man loses the darling of his heart-the sole pleasure with which nature blessed him-how abject, how cureless is the despair of his destitution! Believe me, Gentlemen, you have not only a solemn duty to perform, but you have an awful responsibility imposed upon you. You are this day, in some degree, trustees for the morality of the people-perhaps of the whole nation; for, depend upon it, if the sluices of immorality are once opened among the lower orders, the frightful tide, drifting upon its surface all

that is dignified or dear, will soon rise even to the habitations of the highest. I feel, Gentlemen, I have discharged my duty-I am sure you will do your's. I repose my client with confidence in your hands; and most fervently do I hope, that when evening shall find you at your happy fire-side, surrounded by the sacred circle of your children, you may not feel the heavy curse gnawing at your heart, of having let loose, unpunished, the prowler that may devour them.

SPEECH

OF

MR. PHILLIPS

IN

THE CASE OF CREIGHTON v. TOWNSEND;

DELIVERED

IN THE COURT OF COMMON PLEAS,

DUBLIN.

My Lord and Gentlemen,

TAM with my learned brethren counsel for the plaintiff. My friend Mr. Curran has told you the nature of the action. It has fallen to my lot to state more at large to you the aggression by which it has been occasioned. Believe me it is with no paltry affectation of under-valuing my very humble powers that I wish he had selected some more experienced, or at least less credulous advocate. I feel I cannot do my duty; I am not fit to address you, I have incapacitated myself; I know not whether any of the calumnies which have so industriously anticipated this trial, have reached

your ears; but I do confess they did so wound and poison mine, that to satisfy my doubts I visited the house of misery and mourning, and the scene which set scepticism at rest, has set description at defiance. Had I not yielded to those interested misrepresentations, I might from my brief have sketched the fact, and from my fancy drawn the consequences; but as it is, reality rushes before my frighted memory, and silences the tongue and mocks the imagination. Believe me, Gentlemen, you are impannelled there upon no ordinary occasion; nominally, indeed, you are to repair a private wrong, and it is a wrong as deadly as human wickedness can inflict-as human weakness can endure; a wrong which annihilates the hope of the parent and the happiness of the child; which in one moment blights the fondest anticipations of the heart, and darkens the social hearth, and worse than depopulates the habitations of the happy! But, Gentlemen, high as it is, this is far from your exclusive duty. You are to do much more. You are to say whether an example of such transcendant turpitude is to stalk forth for public imitation-whether national morals are to have the law for their protection, or imported crime is to feed upon impunity-whether chastity and religion are still to be permitted to linger in this province, or it is to become one loathsome den of legalized prostitution-whether the sacred volume of the Gospel, and the venerable statutes of the law are still to be respected, or converted into a pedestal on which the mob and the military