The speeches delivered at Dublin in the summer of 1813
by O’Connell as counsel for John Magee, then on trial for
libel, have received the exequatur of Mr. Lecky, who considers
them as the “Liberator’s” greatest efforts at the Bar.
Magee was the proprietor of the Evening Post newspaper, in
which, on the occasion of the Duke of Richmond’s departure
from Ireland, there had appeared comments on his conduct
as Lord Lieutenant in which the Government, probably with
some eagerness, had discovered a libellous tendency. For the
Evening Post was notably pro-Catholic; what was more, its
circulation and influence were large; and the Government
from its own standpoint had good reasons either to repress
the sheet or to change its political complexion. Hence the
somewhat tenuous charge of libel laid against Magee.
The specimen here presented of O’Connell’s eloquence was,
after the trial, piously published by Magee, and later included
in that badly printed volume, “Select Speeches of O’Connell,”
edited by his son, and published by J. Duffy, Dublin,
1865. With some difficulty a probable text has been constructed
out of the impressions of worn types and obvious
misprints then given to the world.
The speech itself will be found to be characteristic of
O’Connell. The bitter fountains of invective, the sæva indignatio
of a just cause, keen and subtle irony, great
facility of phrase and ornament, denunciation, defiance, and
then a sudden modulation into an almost fawning fairness of
tone—all are here. It is a plea not over-logical in arrangement;
often desultory in the show passages; and, from the
nature of the case, often legal in reference. But shorn, not
only from considerations of space, of certain eccentricities
and excursions, it is hoped that it will leave a definite picture
of a great rhetorical orator, and of the two jewels of his style,—virile
emphasis and impassioned intensity.
I consented to the adjournment yesterday,
gentlemen of the jury, from that impulse of
nature which compels us to postpone pain;
it is, indeed, painful to me to address you;
it is a cheerless, a hopeless task to address you—a
task which would require all the animation
and interest to be derived from the working of
a mind fully fraught with the resentment and
disgust created in mine yesterday, by that
farrago of helpless absurdity with which Mr.
Attorney-General regaled you.1
But I am now not sorry for the delay.
Whatever I may have lost in vivacity, I trust I
shall compensate for in discretion. That which
yesterday excited my anger, now appears to me
to be an object of pity; and that which then
roused my indignation, now only moves to
contempt. I can now address you with feelings
softened, and, I trust, subdued; and I do, from
my soul, declare, that I now cherish no other
sensations than those which enable me to
bestow on the Attorney-General, and on his
discourse, pure and unmixed compassion.
It was a discourse in which you could not
discover either order, or method, or eloquence;
it contained very little logic, and no poetry at
all; violent and virulent, it was a confused and
disjointed tissue of bigotry, amalgamated with
congenial vulgarity. He accused my client
of using Billingsgate, and he accused him of it
in language suited exclusively for that meridian.
He descended even to the calling of names: he
called this young gentleman a “malefactor,”
a “Jacobin,” and a “ruffian,” gentlemen of the
jury; he called him “abominable,” and “seditious,”
and “revolutionary,” and “infamous,”
and a “ruffian” again, gentlemen of the jury;
he called him a “brothel keeper,” a “pander,”
“a kind of bawd in breeches,” and a “ruffian”
a third time, gentlemen of the jury.
I cannot repress my astonishment, how Mr.
Attorney-General could have preserved this
dialect in its native purity; he has been now
for nearly thirty years in the class of polished
society; he has, for some years, mixed amongst
the highest orders in the state; he has had the
honor to belong for thirty years to the first
profession in the world—to the only profession,
with the single exception, perhaps, of the military,
to which a high-minded gentleman could
condescend to belong—the Irish Bar. To that
Bar, at which he has seen and heard a Burgh
and a Duquery; at which he must have listened
to a Burston, a Ponsonby, and a Curran; to a
Bar which still contains a Plunket, a Ball, and,
despite of politics, I will add, a Bushe. With
this galaxy of glory flinging their light around
him, how can he alone have remained in darkness?
How has it happened, that the twilight
murkiness of his soul, has not been illumined
with a single ray shot from their lustre?
Devoid of taste and of genius, how can he
have had memory enough to preserve this
original vulgarity? He is, indeed, an object of
compassion, and, from my inmost soul, I bestow
on him my forgiveness, and my bounteous
pity.2
But not for him alone should compassion
be felt. Recollect, that upon his advice—that
with him, as the prime mover and instigator
of those rash, and silly, and irritating measures
of the last five years which have afflicted
and distracted this long-suffering country, have
originated—with him they have all originated.
Is there not then compassion due to the millions
whose destinies are made to depend upon
his counsel? Is there no pity to those who,
like me, must know that the liberties of the
tenderest pledges of their affections, and of
that which is dearer still, of their country,
depend on this man’s advice?
Yet, let not pity for us be unmixed; he has
afforded the consolation of hope; his harangue
has been heard; it will be reported—I trust
faithfully reported; and if it be but read in
England, we may venture to hope that there
may remain just so much good sense in England
as to induce the conviction of the folly
and the danger of conducting the government of
a brave and long-enduring people by the counsels
of so tasteless and talentless an adviser.
See what an imitative animal man is! The
sound of ruffian—ruffian—ruffian, had scarcely
died on the Attorney-General’s lips, when you
find the word honored with all the permanency
of print, in one of his pensioned and well-paid,
but ill-read, newspapers. Here is the first line
in the Dublin Journal of this day:—“The
ruffian who writes for the Freeman’s Journal.”
Here is an apt scholar—he profits well of the
Attorney-General’s tuition. The pupil is worthy
of the master—the master is just suited to the
pupil.
I now dismiss the style and measure of the
Attorney-General’s discourse, and I require your
attention to its matter. That matter I must
divide, although with him there was no division,
into two unequal portions. The first, as it was
by far the greater portion of his discourse, shall
be that which was altogether inapplicable to the
purposes of this prosecution. The second, and
infinitely the smaller portion of his speech,
is that which related to the subject matter
of the indictment which you are to try. He has
touched upon and disfigured a great variety of
topics. I shall follow him at my good leisure
through them. He has invited me to a wide
field of discussion. I accept his challenge with
alacrity and with pleasure.
This extraneous part of his discourse, which
I mean first to discuss, was distinguished by two
leading features. The first consisted of a dull
and reproving sermon, with which he treated my
colleagues and myself, for the manner in which
we thought fit to conduct this defence. He
talked of the melancholy exhibition of four
hours wasted, as he said, in frivolous debate,
and he obscurely hinted at something like
incorrectness of professional conduct. He has
not ventured to speak out, but I will. I shall
say nothing for myself; but for my colleagues—my
inferiors in professional standing, but infinitely
my superiors in every talent and in every
acquirement—my colleagues, whom I boast as
my friends, not in the routine language of the
Bar, but in the sincerity of my esteem and affection;
for my learned and upright colleagues, I
treat the unfounded insinuation with the most
contemptuous scorn!
All I shall expose is the utter inattention to
the fact, which, in small things as in great,
seems to mark the Attorney-General’s career.
He talks of four hours. Why, it was past one
before the last of you were digged together by
the Sheriff, and the Attorney-General rose to
address you before three. How he could contrive
to squeeze four hours into that interval, it
is for him to explain; nor should I notice it,
but that it is the particular prerogative of dulness
to be accurate in the detail of minor facts,
so that the Attorney-General is without an excuse
when he departs from them, and when
for four hours you have had not quite two.
Take this also with you, that we assert our
uncontrollable right to employ them as we
have done; and as to his advice, we neither
respect, nor will we receive it; but we can
afford cheerfully to pardon the vain presumption
that made him offer us counsel.
For the rest, he may be assured that we will
never imitate his example. We will never
volunteer to mingle our politics, whatever they
may be, with our forensic duties. I made this
the rigid rule of my professional conduct; and
if I shall appear to depart from this rule now,
I bid you recollect that I am compelled to follow
the Attorney-General into grounds which,
if he had been wise, he would have avoided.
Yes; I am compelled to follow him into the
discussion of his conduct towards the Catholics.
He has poured out the full vial of his
own praise on that conduct—praise in which, I
can safely assure him, he has not a single unpaid
rival. It is a topic upon which no unbribed
man, except himself, dwells. I admit the disinterestedness
with which he praises himself,
and I do not envy him his delight, but he
ought to know, if he sees or hears a word of
that kind from any other man, that that man
receives or expects compensation for his task,
and really deserves money for his labor and
invention.
My lord, upon the Catholic subject, I commence
with one assertion of the Attorney-General,
which I trust I misunderstood. He talked,
as I collected him, of the Catholics having
imbibed principles of a seditious, treasonable,
and revolutionary nature! He seemed to me,
most distinctly, to charge us with treason!
There is no relying on his words for his meaning—I
know there is not. On a former occasion,
I took down a repetition of this charge
full seventeen times on my brief, and yet, afterwards,
it turned out that he never intended to
make any such charge; that he forgot he had
ever used those words, and he disclaimed the
idea they naturally convey. It is clear, therefore,
that upon this subject he knows not what
he says; and that these phrases are the mere
flowers of his rhetoric, but quite innocent of
any meaning!
Upon this account I pass him by, I go beyond
him, and I content myself with proclaiming
those charges, whosoever may make them,
to be false and base calumnies! It is impossible
to refute such charges in the language of
dignity or temper. But if any man dares to
charge the Catholic body, or the Catholic
Board, or any individuals of that Board with
sedition or treason, I do here, I shall always in
this court, in the city, in the field, brand him
as an infamous and profligate liar!
Pardon the phrase, but there is no other
suitable to the occasion. But he is a profligate
liar who so asserts, because he must know that
the whole tenor of our conduct confutes the
assertion. What is it we seek?
Chief Justice.—What, Mr. O’Connell, can
this have to do with the question which the
jury are to try?
Mr. O’Connell.—You heard the Attorney-General
traduce and calumniate us—you heard him
with patience and with temper—listen now to
our vindication!
I ask, what is it we seek? What is it we
incessantly and, if you please, clamorously
petition for? Why, to be allowed to partake
of the advantages of the constitution. We are
earnestly anxious to share the benefits of the
constitution. We look to the participation in
the constitution as our greatest political blessing.
If we desired to destroy it, would we
seek to share it? If we wished to overturn it,
would we exert ourselves through calumny,
and in peril, to obtain a portion of its blessings?
Strange, inconsistent voice of calumny! You
charge us with intemperance in our exertions
for a participation in the constitution, and you
charge us at the same time, almost in the same
sentence, with a design to overturn that constitution.
The dupes of your hypocrisy may believe
you; but, base calumniators, you do not,
you cannot, believe yourselves!
The Attorney-General—“this wisest and best
of men,” as his colleague, the Solicitor-General,
called him in his presence—the Attorney-General
next boasted of his triumph over Pope
and Popery—“I put down the Catholic Committee;
I will put down, at my good time, the
Catholic Board.” This boast is partly historical,
partly prophetical. He was wrong in his
history—he is quite mistaken in his prophecy.
He did not put down the Catholic Committee—we
gave up that name the moment that it was
confessedly avowed that this sapient Attorney-General’s
polemico-legal controversy dwindled
into a mere dispute about words. He told us
that in the English language “pretence” means
“purpose”; had it been French and not English,
we might have been inclined to respect
his judgment, but in point of English we venture
to differ with him; we told him “purpose,”
good Mr. Attorney-General, is just the reverse
of “pretence.” The quarrel grew warm and
animated; we appealed to common sense, to
the grammar, and to the dictionary; common
sense, grammar, and the dictionary decided in
our favor. He brought his appeal to this court,
your lordship, and your brethren unanimously
decided that, in point of law—mark, mark,
gentlemen of the jury, the sublime wisdom of
law—the court decided that, in point of law,
“pretence” does mean “purpose”!
Fully contented with this very reasonable
and more satisfactory decision, there still remained
a matter of fact between us: the
Attorney-General charged us with being representatives;
we denied all representation. He
had two witnesses to prove the fact for him;
they swore to it one way at one trial, and
directly the other way at the next. An honorable,
intelligent, and enlightened jury disbelieved
those witnesses at the first trial—matters
were better managed at the second trial—the
jury were better arranged. I speak delicately,
gentlemen; the jury were better arranged, as
the witnesses were better informed; and, accordingly,
there was one verdict for us on
the representative question, and one verdict
against us.
You know the jury that found for us; you
know that it was Sir Charles Saxton’s Castle-list
jury that found against us. Well, the
consequence was that, thus encouraged, Mr.
Attorney-General proceeded to force. We abhorred
tumult, and were weary of litigation;
we new-modelled the agents and managers of
the Catholic petitions; we formed an assembly,
respecting which there could not be a
shadow of pretext for calling it a representative
body. We disclaimed representation; and we
rendered it impossible, even for the virulence
of the most malignant law-officer living, to employ
the Convention Act against us—that, even
upon the Attorney-General’s own construction,
requires representation as an ingredient in the
offence it prohibits. He cannot possibly call
us representatives; we are the individual servants
of the public, whose business we do
gratuitously but zealously. Our cause has
advanced even from his persecution—and this
he calls putting down the Catholic Committee!3
Next, he glorifies himself in his prospect of
putting down the Catholic Board. For the
present, he, indeed, tells you, that much as he
hates the Papists, it is unnecessary for him to
crush our Board, because we injure our own
cause so much. He says that we are very
criminal, but we are so foolish that our folly
serves as a compensation for our wickedness.
We are very wicked and very mischievous, but
then we are such foolish little criminals, that we
deserve his indulgence. Thus he tolerates offences,
because of their being committed sillily;
and, indeed, we give him so much pleasure and
gratification by the injury we do our own cause
that he is spared the superfluous labor of impeding
our petition by his prosecutions, fines,
or imprisonments.
He expresses the very idea of the Roman
Domitian, of whom some of you possibly may
have read; he amused his days in torturing
men—his evenings he relaxed in the humble
cruelty of impaling flies. A courtier caught
a fly for his imperial amusement—“Fool,”
said the emperor, “fool, to give thyself the
trouble of torturing an animal that was about
to burn itself to death in the candle!” Such
is the spirit of the Attorney-General’s commentary
on our Board. Oh, rare Attorney-General!—Oh,
best and wisest of men!!!
But, to be serious. Let me pledge myself to
you that he imposes on you, when he threatens
to crush the Catholic Board. Illegal violence
may do it—force may effectuate it; but your
hopes and his will be defeated, if he attempts
it by any course of law. I am, if not a lawyer,
at least a barrister. On this subject I ought to
know something, and I do not hesitate to contradict
the Attorney-General on this point, and
to proclaim to you and to the country that the
Catholic Board is perfectly a legal assembly—that
it not only does not violate the law, but
that it is entitled to the protection of the law,
and in the very proudest tone of firmness, I
hurl defiance at the Attorney-General!
I defy him to allege a law or a statute, or even
a proclamation that is violated by the Catholic
Board. No, gentlemen, no; his religious prejudices—if
the absence of every charity can be
called anything religious—his religious prejudices
really obscure his reason, his bigoted
intolerance has totally darkened his understanding,
and he mistakes the plainest facts and
misquotes the clearest law, in the ardor and
vehemence of his rancor. I disdain his moderation—I
scorn his forbearance—I tell him he
knows not the law if he thinks as he says; and
if he thinks so, I tell him to his beard, that he
is not honest in not having sooner prosecuted us,
and I challenge him to that prosecution.
It is strange—it is melancholy, to reflect
on the miserable and mistaken pride that must
inflate him to talk as he does of the Catholic
Board. The Catholic Board is composed of
men—I include not myself—of course, I always
except myself—every way his superiors, in
birth, in fortune, in talents, in rank. What is
he to talk of the Catholic Board lightly? At
their head is the Earl of Fingal, a nobleman
whose exalted rank stoops beneath the superior
station of his virtues—whom even the venal
minions of power must respect. We are engaged,
patiently and perseveringly engaged, in
a struggle through the open channels of the
constitution for our liberties. The son of the
ancient earl whom I have mentioned cannot in
his native land attain any honorable distinction
of the state, and yet Mr. Attorney-General
knows that they are open to every son of every
bigoted and intemperate stranger that may
settle amongst us.
But this system cannot last; he may insult,
he may calumniate, he may prosecute; but the
Catholic cause is on its majestic march; its
progress is rapid and obvious; it is cheered in its
advance, and aided by all that is dignified and
dispassionate—by everything that is patriotic—by
all the honor, all the integrity, of the empire;
and its success is just as certain as the
return of to-morrow’s sun, and the close of
to-morrow’s eve.
“We will—we must soon be emancipated,” in
despite of the Attorney-General, aided as he is
by his august allies, the aldermen of Skinner’s-alley.
In despite of the Attorney-General and
the aldermen of Skinner’s-alley, our emancipation
is certain, and not distant.
I have no difficulty in perceiving the motive
of the Attorney-General in devoting so much
of his medley oration to the Catholic question,
and to the expression of his bitter hatred to us,
and of his determination to ruin our hopes.
It had, to be sure, no connection with the cause,
but it had a direct and natural connection with
you. He has been, all his life, reckoned a man
of consummate cunning and dexterity; and
whilst one wonders that he has so much exposed
himself upon those prosecutions, and
accounts for it by the proverbial blindness of
religious zeal, it is still easy to discover much of
his native cunning and dexterity. Gentlemen,
he thinks he knows his men—he knows you;
many of you signed the no-Popery petition;
he heard one of you boast of it; he knows
you would not have been summoned on this
jury if you had entertained liberal sentiments;
he knows all this, and therefore it is that he,
with the artifice and cunning of an experienced
nisi prius advocate, endeavors to win your
confidence and command your affections by
the display of his congenial illiberality and
bigotry.
You are all, of course, Protestants; see what
a compliment he pays to your religion and his
own, when he endeavors thus to procure a verdict
on your oaths; when he endeavors to
seduce you to what, if you were so seduced,
would be perjury, by indulging your prejudices
and flattering you by the coincidence of his
sentiments and wishes. Will he succeed, gentlemen?
Will you allow him to draw you into a
perjury out of zeal for your religion? And
will you violate the pledge you have given
to your God to do justice, in order to gratify
your anxiety for the ascendancy of what you
believe to be his church? Gentlemen, reflect
on the strange and monstrous inconsistency of
this conduct, and do not commit, if you can
avoid it, the pious crime of violating your solemn
oaths, in aid of the pious designs of the
Attorney-General against Popery.
Oh, gentlemen! it is not in any lightness of
heart I thus address you—it is rather in bitterness
and sorrow; you did not expect flattery
from me, and my client was little disposed
to offer it to you; besides, of what avail would
it be to flatter, if you came here pre-determined,
and it is too plain that you are not selected for
this jury from any notion of your impartiality?
But when I talk to you of your oaths and
of your religion, I would full fain I could
impress you with a respect for both the one
and the other. I, who do not flatter, tell you,
that though I do not join with you in belief, I
have the most unfeigned respect for the form of
Christian faith which you profess. Would that
its substance, not its forms and temporal advantages,
were deeply impressed on your minds!
Then should I not address you in the cheerless
and hopeless despondency that crowds on my
mind, and drives me to taunt you with the air
of ridicule I do. Gentlemen, I sincerely respect
and venerate your religion, but I despise and I
now apprehend your prejudices, in the same
proportion as the Attorney-General has cultivated
them. In plain truth, every religion is
good—every religion is true to him who, in his
due caution and conscience, believes it. There
is but one bad religion, that of a man who professes
a faith which he does not believe; but
the good religion may be, and often is, corrupted
by the wretched and wicked prejudices which admit
a difference of opinion as a cause of hatred.
The Attorney-General, defective in argument—weak
in his cause, has artfully roused your
prejudices at his side. I have, on the contrary,
met your prejudices boldly. If your verdict
shall be for me, you will be certain that it has
been produced by nothing but unwilling conviction
resulting from sober and satisfied judgment.
If your verdict be bestowed upon the
artifices of the Attorney-General, you may
happen to be right; but do you not see the
danger of its being produced by an admixture
of passion and prejudice with your reason?
How difficult is it to separate prejudice from
reason, when they run in the same direction!
If you be men of conscience, then I call on you
to listen to me, that your consciences may be
safe, and your reason alone be the guardian of
your oath, and the sole monitor of your decision.
I now bring you to the immediate subject of
this indictment. Mr. Magee is charged with
publishing a libel in his paper called the Dublin
Evening Post. His lordship has decided that
there is legal proof of the publication, and I
would be sorry you thought of acquitting Mr.
Magee under the pretence of not believing that
evidence. I will not, therefore, trouble you on
that part of the case; I will tell you, gentlemen,
presently, what this publication is; but
suffer me first to inform you what it is not—for
this I consider to be very important to the
strong, and in truth, triumphant defence which
my client has to this indictment.
Gentlemen, this is not a libel on Charles
Lennox, Duke of Richmond, in his private or
individual capacity. It does not interfere with
the privacy of his domestic life. It is free from
any reproach upon his domestic habits or conduct;
it is perfectly pure from any attempt to
traduce his personal honor or integrity. Towards
the man, there is not the least taint of
malignity; nay, the thing is still stronger. Of
Charles, Duke of Richmond, personally, and as
disconnected with the administration of public
affairs, it speaks in terms of civility and even
respect.4 It contains this passage which I read
from the indictment:
“Had he remained what he first came over,
or what he afterwards professed to be, he
would have retained his reputation for honest
open hostility, defending his political principles
with firmness, perhaps with warmth, but without
rancor; the supporter and not the tool of
an administration; a mistaken politician, perhaps,
but an honorable man and a respectable
soldier.”
The Duke is here in this libel, my lords,—in
this libel, gentlemen of the jury, the Duke of
Richmond is called an honorable man and a
respectable soldier! Could more flattering expressions
be invented? Has the most mercenary
Press that ever yet existed, the mercenary
Press of this metropolis, contained, in return for
all the money it has received, any praise which
ought to be so pleasing—“an honorable man
and a respectable soldier”? I do, therefore,
beg of you, gentlemen, as you value your honesty,
to carry with you in your distinct recollection
this fact, that whatever of evil this
publication may contain, it does not involve
any reproach against the Duke of Richmond
in any other than in his public and official
character.
I have, gentlemen, next to require you to
take notice that this publication is not indicted
as a seditious libel. The word seditious is,
indeed, used as a kind of make-weight in the
introductory part of the indictment. But
mark, and recollect, that this is not an indictment
for sedition. It is not, then, for private
slander, nor for any offence against the constitution,
that Mr. Magee now stands arraigned
before you.
In the third place, gentlemen, there is this
singular feature in this case, namely, that this
libel, as the prosecutor calls it, is not charged
in this indictment to be “false.”
The indictment has this singular difference
from any other I have ever seen, that the
assertions of the publications are not even
stated to be false.
They have not had the courtesy to you, to
state upon record that these charges, such as
they are, were contrary to the truth. This I
believe to be the first instance in which the
allegation of falsehood has been omitted. To
what is this omission to be attributed? Is it
that an experiment is to be made, how much
further the doctrine of the criminality of truth
can be drawn? Does the prosecutor wish to
make another bad precedent; or is it in
contempt of any distinction between truth and
falsehood, that this charge is thus framed; or
does he fear that you would scruple to convict,
if the indictment charged that to be false which
you all know to be true?
However that may be, I will have you to
remember that you are now to pronounce
upon a publication, the truth of which is not
controverted. Attend to the case, and you will
find you are not to try Mr. Magee for sedition
which may endanger the state, or for private
defamation which may press sorely upon the
heart, and blast the prospects of a private
family; and that the subject matter for your
decision is not characterized as false, or described
as untrue.
Such are the circumstances which accompany
this publication, on which you are to pronounce
a verdict of guilt or innocence. The case is
with you; it belongs to you exclusively to decide
it. His lordship may advise, but he cannot
control your decision, and it belongs to you
alone to say whether or not, upon the entire
matter, you conceive it to be evidence of guilt,
and deserving of punishment. The statute law
gives or recognizes this your right, and, therefore,
imposes this on you as your duty. The
legislative has precluded any lawyer from being
able to dictate to you. The Solicitor-General
cannot now venture to promulgate the slavish
doctrine which he addressed to Doctor Sheridan’s
jury, when he told them, “not to presume
to differ from the Court in matter of
law.” The law and the fact are here the same,
namely, the guilty or innocent design of the
publication.
Indeed, in any criminal case, the doctrine of
the Solicitor-General is intolerable. I enter my
solemn protest against it. The verdict which
is required from a jury in any criminal case has
nothing special in it—it is not the finding of
the fact in the affirmative or negative—it is
not, as in Scotland, that the charge is proved
or not proved. No; the jury is to say whether
the prisoner be guilty or not; and could a juror
find a true verdict, who declared a man guilty
upon evidence of some act, perhaps praiseworthy,
but clearly void of evil design or bad
consequences?
I do, therefore, deny the doctrine of the
learned gentleman; it is not constitutional, and
it would be frightful if it were. No judge can
dictate to a jury—no jury ought to allow itself
to be dictated to.
If the Solicitor-General’s doctrine were established,
see what oppressive consequences might
result. At some future period, some man may
attain the first place on the bench, by the reputation
which is so easily acquired by a certain
degree of churchwardening piety, added to a
great gravity, and maidenly decorum of manners.
Such a man may reach the bench—for I
am putting a mere imaginary case—he may be
a man without passions, and therefore without
vices; he may, my lord, be a man superfluously
rich, and, therefore, not to be bribed
with money, but rendered partial by his bigotry,
and corrupted by his prejudices; such a man,
inflated by flattery, and bloated in his dignity,
may hereafter use that character for sanctity
which has served to promote him, as a sword
to hew down the struggling liberties of his
country; such a judge may interfere before
trial! and at the trial be a partisan!
Gentlemen, should an honest jury—could an
honest jury (if an honest jury were again found)
listen with safety to the dictates of such a
judge? I repeat it, therefore, that the Solicitor-General
is mistaken—that the law does
not, and cannot, require such a submission as
he preached; and at all events, gentlemen, it
cannot be controverted, that in the present instance,
that of an alleged libel, the decision of
all law and fact belongs to you.
I am then warranted in directing to you some
observations on the law of libel, and in doing so,
I disclaim any apology for the consumption of
the time necessary for my purpose. Gentlemen,
my intention is to lay before you a short
and rapid view of the causes which have introduced
into courts the monstrous assertion—that
truth is crime!
It is to be deeply lamented that the art
of printing was unknown at the earlier periods
of our history. If at the time the barons
wrung the simple but sublime charter of liberty
from a timid, perfidious sovereign, from a
violator of his word, from a man covered with
disgrace, and sunk in infamy—if at the time
when that charter was confirmed and renewed,
the Press had existed, it would, I think, have
been the first care of those friends of freedom
to have established a principle of liberty for it
to rest upon which might resist every future
assault. Their simple and unsophisticated understandings
could never be brought to comprehend
the legal subtleties by which it is now
argued that falsehood is useful and innocent,
and truth, the emanation and the type of
heaven, a crime. They would have cut with
their swords the cobweb links of sophistry in
which truth is entangled; and they would have
rendered it impossible to re-establish this injustice
without violating the principle of the
constitution.
But in the ignorance of the blessing of a free
Press, they could not have provided for its
security. There remains, however, an expression
of their sentiments on our statute books.
The ancient parliament did pass a law against
the spreaders of false rumors. This law proves
two things,—first, that before this statute, it
was not considered a crime in law to spread
even a false rumor, otherwise the statute would
have been unnecessary; and, secondly, that in
their notion of crime, falsehood was a necessary
ingredient. But here I have to remark upon
and regret the strange propensity of judges, to
construe the law in favor of tyranny, and
against liberty; for servile and corrupt judges
soon decided that upon the construction of
this law it was immaterial whether the rumors
were true or false, and that a law made to punish
false rumors, was equally applicable to the
true.
This, gentlemen, is called construction; it is
just that which in more recent times, and of inevitable
consequence from purer motives, has
converted “pretence” into “purpose.”
When the art of printing was invented, its
value to every sufferer, its terror to every oppressor,
was soon obvious, and means were
speedily adopted to prevent its salutary effects.
The Star-Chamber—the odious Star-Chamber—was
either created, or, at least, enlarged and
brought into activity. Its proceedings were
arbitrary, its decisions were oppressive, and injustice
and tyranny were formed into a system.
To describe it to you in one sentence, it was a
prematurely packed jury. Perhaps that description
does not shock you much. Let me report
one of its decisions, which will, I think, make its
horrors more sensible to you—it is a ludicrous
as well as a melancholy instance.
A tradesman—a ruffian, I presume, he was
styled—in an altercation with a nobleman’s
servant, called the swan which was worn on the
servant’s arm for a badge, a goose. For this
offence—the calling a nobleman’s badge of a
swan, a goose—he was brought before the Star-Chamber;
he was, of course, convicted; he
lost, as I recollect, one of his ears on the pillory,
was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment,
and a fine of £500; and all this to teach him to
distinguish swans from geese.
I now ask you, to what is it you tradesmen
and merchants are indebted for the safety and
respect you can enjoy in society? What is it
which has rescued you from the slavery in
which persons who are engaged in trade were
held by the iron barons of former days? I will
tell you; it is the light, the reason, and the
liberty which have been created, and will, in despite
of every opposition, be perpetuated by
the exertion of the Press.
Gentlemen, the Star-Chamber was particularly
vigilant over the infant struggles of the
Press. A code of laws became necessary to
govern the new enemy to prejudice and oppression—the
Press. The Star-Chamber adopted,
for this purpose, the civil law, as it is called—the
law of Rome—not the law at the periods of
her liberty and her glory, but the law which
was promulgated when she fell into slavery and
disgrace, and recognized this principle, that the
will of the prince was the rule of the law. The
civil law was adopted by the Star-Chamber as
its guide in proceedings against, and in punishing
libellers; but, unfortunately, only part of it
was adopted, and that, of course, was the part
least favorable to freedom. So much of the
civil law as assisted to discover the concealed
libeller, and to punish him when discovered,
was carefully selected; but the civil law allowed
truth to be a defence, and that part was carefully
rejected.
The Star-Chamber was soon after abolished.
It was suppressed by the hatred and vengeance
of an outraged people, and it has since, and
until our days, lived only in the recollection of
abhorrence and contempt. But we have fallen
upon bad days and evil times; and in our days
we have seen a lawyer, long of the prostrate
and degraded Bar of England, presume to suggest
an high eulogium on the Star-Chamber,
and regret its downfall; and he has done this
in a book dedicated, by permission, to Lord
Ellenborough. This is, perhaps, an ominous
circumstance; and as Star-Chamber punishments
have been revived—as two years of imprisonment
have become familiar—I know not
how soon the useless lumber of even well-selected
juries may be abolished, and a new
Star-Chamber created.
From the Star-Chamber, gentlemen, the prevention
and punishment of libels descended
to the courts of common law, and with the
power they seem to have inherited much of the
spirit of that tribunal. Servility at the bar,
and profligacy on the bench, have not been
wanting to aid every construction unfavorable
to freedom, and at length it is taken as granted
and as clear law that truth or falsehood are
quite immaterial circumstances, constituting no
part of either guilt or innocence.
I would wish to examine this revolting doctrine,
and, in doing so, I am proud to tell you
that it has no other foundation than in the oft-repeated
assertions of lawyers and judges. Its
authority depends on what are technically
called the dicta of the judges and writers, and
not upon solemn or regular adjudications on
the point. One servile lawyer has repeated
this doctrine, from time to time, after another—and
one overbearing judge has re-echoed the
assertion of a time-serving predecessor; and the
public have, at length, submitted.
I do, therefore, feel not only gratified in having
the occasion, but bound to express my
opinion upon the real law of this subject. I
know that opinion is but of little weight. I have
no professional rank, or station, or talents to
give it importance, but it is an honest and
conscientious opinion, and it is this—that in the
discussion of public subjects, and of the administration
of public men, truth is a duty and not a
crime.
You can, at least, understand my description
of the liberty of the Press. That of the Attorney-General
is as unintelligible as contradictory.
He tells you, in a very odd and quaint phrase,
that the liberty of the Press consists in there
being no previous restraint upon the tongue or
the pen. How any previous restraint could be
imposed on the tongue it is for this wisest of
men to tell you, unless, indeed, he resorts to
Doctor Lad’s prescription with respect to the
toothache eradication. Neither can the absence
of previous restraint constitute a free
Press, unless, indeed, it shall be distinctly ascertained,
and clearly defined, what shall be subsequently
called a crime. If the crime of libel
be undefined, or uncertain, or capricious, then,
instead of the absence of restraint before publication
being an advantage, it is an injury; instead
of its being a blessing, it is a curse—it is
nothing more than a pitfall and snare for the
unwary. This liberty of the Press is only an
opportunity and a temptation offered by the
law to the commission of crime—it is a trap
laid to catch men for punishment—it is not the
liberty of discussing truth or discountenancing
oppression, but a mode of rearing up victims
for prosecution, and of seducing men into
imprisonment.
Yet, can any gentleman concerned for the
Crown give me a definition of the crime of
libel? Is it not uncertain and undefined; and,
in truth, is it not, at this moment, quite subject
to the caprice and whim of the judge and of
the jury? Is the Attorney-General—is the
Solicitor-General—disposed to say otherwise?
If he do, he must contradict his own doctrine,
and adopt mine.
But no, gentlemen, they must leave you in
uncertainty and doubt, and ask you to give a
verdict, on your oath, without furnishing you
with any rational materials to judge whether
you be right or wrong. Indeed, to such a wild
extent of caprice has Lord Ellenborough carried
the doctrine of crime in libel, that he appears
to have gravely ruled, that it was a crime to
call one lord “a stout-built, special pleader,”
although, in point of fact, that lord was stout-built,
and had been very many years a special
pleader. And that it was a crime to call another
lord “a sheep-feeder from Cambridgeshire,”
although that lord was right glad to have a
few sheep in that county. These are the extravagant
vagaries of the Crown lawyers and
prerogative judges; you will find it impossible
to discover any rational rule for your conduct,
and can never rest upon any satisfactory
view of the subject, unless you are pleased to
adopt my description. Reason and justice
equally recognize it, and, believe me, that genuine
law is much more closely connected with
justice and reason than some persons will avow.
Gentlemen, you are now apprised of the
nature of the alleged libel; it is a discussion
upon the administration of public men. I have
also submitted to you my view of the law applicable
to such a publication: we are, therefore,
prepared to go into the consideration of every
sentence in the newspaper in question.
But before I do so, just allow me to point
your attention to the motives of this young
gentleman. The Attorney-General has threatened
him with fine and a dungeon; he has told
Mr. Magee that he should suffer in his purse
and in his person. Mr. Magee knew his danger
well. Mr. Magee, before he published this
paper, was quite apprised that he ran the risk
of fine and of imprisonment. He knew also
that if he changed his tone—that if he became
merely neutral, but especially if he went over
to the other side and praised the Duke of Richmond—if
he had sufficient gravity to talk,
without a smile, of the sorrow of the people of
Ireland at his Grace’s departure—if he had a
visage sufficiently lugubrious to say so without
laughing, to cry out “mournfully, oh! mournfully!”
for the departure of the Duke of Richmond—if,
at a period when the people of Ireland,
from Magherafelt to Dingledecouch, are rejoicing
at that departure, Mr. Magee could put on
a solemn countenance and pick up a grave and
narcotic accent, and have the resolution to
assert the sorrow of the people for losing so
sweet and civil a Lord Lieutenant—why, in
that case, gentlemen, you know the consequences.
They are obvious. He might libel
certain classes of his Majesty’s subjects with
impunity; he would get abundance of money,
a place, and a pension—you know he would.
The proclamations would be inserted in his
paper. The wide-street advertisements, the
ordnance, the barrack-board notices, and the
advertisements of all the other public boards
and offices—you can scarcely calculate how
much money he sacrifices to his principles. I
am greatly within bounds when I say at least
£5000 per annum, of the public money, would
reach him if he was to alter his tone, and abandon
his opinions.
Has he instructed me to boast of the sacrifices
he thus makes? No, gentlemen, no, no;
he deems it no sacrifice because he desires no
share in the public plunder; but I introduce
this topic to demonstrate to you the purity of
his intentions. He cannot be actuated, in the
part he takes, by mean or mercenary motives;
it is not the base lucre of gain that leads him
astray. If he be mistaken, he is, at least, disinterested
and sincere. You may dislike his
political opinions, but you cannot avoid respecting
the independence of his principles.
Behold, now, the publication which this man
of pure principles is called to answer for as a
libel. It commences thus:—
“DUKE OF RICHMOND.
“As the Duke of Richmond will shortly retire
from the government of Ireland, it has been
deemed necessary to take such a review of his
administration as may at least warn his successor
from pursuing the errors of his Grace’s
conduct.
“The review shall contain many anecdotes
of the Irish court which were never published,
and which were so secret, that his Grace will
not fail to be surprised at the sight of them in
a newspaper.”
In this paragraph there is nothing libellous;
it talks of the errors, indeed, of his Grace’s
administration; but I do not think the Attorney-General
will venture to suggest that the
gentle expression of “errors” is a libel.
To err, gentlemen, is human: and his Grace
is admitted, by the Attorney-General, to be but
a man; I shall waste none of your time in
proving that we may, without offence, treat of
his “errors.” But this is not even the errors
of the man, but of his administration; it was
not infallible, I humbly presume.
I call your particular attention to the third
paragraph; it runs thus:—
“If the administration of the Duke of Richmond
had been conducted with more than
ordinary talent, its errors might in some degree
have been atoned for by its ability, and the
people of Ireland though they might have
much to regret, yet would have something to
admire; but truly after the gravest consideration,
they must find themselves at a loss to
discover any striking feature in his Grace’s
administration, that makes it superior to the
worst of his predecessors.”
The Attorney-General dwelt much upon this
paragraph, gentlemen, and the importance
which he attached to it furnishes a strong illustration
of his own consciousness of the weakness
of his case. What is the meaning of this
paragraph? I appeal to you whether it be
more than this: that there has been nothing
admirable in this administration; that there
has not been much ability displayed by it. So
far, gentlemen, there is, indeed, no flattery, but
still less of libel, unless you are prepared to
say that to withhold praise from any administration
deserves punishment.
Is it an indictable offence not to perceive its
occult talents? Why, if it be, find my client
guilty of not being a sycophant and a flatterer,
and send him to prison for two years, to gratify
the Attorney-General, who tells you that the
Duke of Richmond is the best chief governor
Ireland ever saw.
But the mischief, I am told, lies in the art of
the sentence. Why, all that it says is, that it
is difficult to discover the striking features that
distinguish this from bad administrations. It
does not, gentlemen, assert that no such striking
features exist, much less does it assert that
no features of that kind exist, or that such
features, although not striking, are not easily
discernible. So that, really, you are here again
required to convict a man for not flattering.
He thinks an administration untalented and
silly; that is no crime; he says it has not been
marked with talent or ability—that it has no
striking features; all this may be mistaken and
false, yet there is nothing in it that resembles a
crime.
And, gentlemen, if it be true—if this be a
foolish administration, can it be an offence to
say so? If it has had no striking features to
distinguish it from bad administrations, can it
be criminal to say so? Are you prepared to
say that not one word of truth can be told
under no less a penalty than years of a dungeon
and heavy fines?
Recollect, that the Attorney-General told
you that the Press was the protection of the
people against the government. Good Heaven!
gentlemen, how can it protect the people against
the government, if it be a crime to say of that
government that it has committed errors, displays
little talent, and has no striking features?
Did the prosecutor mock you, when he talked
of the protection the Press afforded to the people?
If he did not insult you by the admission
of that upon which he will not allow you
to act, let me ask, against what is the Press to
protect the people? When do the people want
protection? When the government is engaged
in delinquencies, oppression, and crimes. It is
against these that the people want the protection
of the Press. Now, I put it to your plain
sense, whether the Press can afford such protection,
if it be punished for treating of these
crimes.
Still more, can a shadow of protection be
given by a Press that is not permitted to mention
the errors, the talents, and the striking
features of an administration? Here is a
watchman admitted by the Attorney-General
to be at his post to warn the people of their
danger, and the first thing that is done to this
watchman is to knock him down and bring him
to a dungeon, for announcing the danger he is
bound to disclose. I agree with the Attorney-General,
the Press is a protection, but it is not
in its silence or in its voice of flattery. It can
protect only by speaking out when there is
danger, or error, or want of ability. If the
harshness of this tone be complained of, I ask,
what is it the Attorney-General would have?
Does he wish that this protection should speak
so as not to be understood; or, I again repeat
it, does he mean to delude us with the name
and the mockery of protection? Upon this
ground, I defy you to find a verdict for the
prosecutor, without declaring that he has
been guilty of an attempt to deceive when he
talked of the protection of the Press against
errors, ignorance, and incapacity, which it is
not to dare even to name. Gentlemen, upon
this third paragraph, I am entitled to your
verdict, upon the Attorney-General’s own
admission.
He, indeed, passed on to the next sentence
with an air of triumph, with the apparent
certainty of its producing a conviction; I meet
him upon it—I read it boldly—I will discuss
it with you manfully—it is this:—
“They insulted, they oppressed, they murdered,
and they deceived.”
The Attorney-General told us, rather ludicrously,
that they, meaning the Duke’s predecessors,
included, of course, himself. How
a man could be included amongst his predecessors,
it would be difficult to discover. It
seems to be that mode of expression which
would indicate that the Attorney-General, notwithstanding
his foreign descent, has imbibed
some of the language of the native Irish. But
our blunders arise not like this, from a confusion
of idea; they are generally caused by
too great condensation of thought; they are,
indeed, frequently of the head, but never—never
of the heart. Would I could say so much
for the Attorney-General; his blunder is not to
be attributed to his cool and cautious head; it
sprung, I much fear, from the misguided bitterness
of the bigotry of his heart.
Well, gentlemen, this sentence does, in broad
and distinct terms, charge the predecessors of
the Duke, but not the Duke himself, with insult,
oppression, murder, and deceit. But it is
history, gentlemen: are you prepared to silence
the voice of history? Are you disposed to
suppress the recital of facts—the story of the
events of former days? Is the historian, and
the publisher of history, to be exposed to indictment
and punishment?
Let me read for you two passages from Doctor
Leland’s “History of Ireland.” I choose
a remote period, to avoid shocking your prejudices
by the recital of the more modern crimes
of the faction to which most of you belong.
Attend to this passage, gentlemen.
“Anno 1574.—A solemn peace and concord
was made between the Earl of Essex and Felim
O’Nial. However, at a feast, wherein the Earl
entertained that chieftain, and at the end of
their good cheer, O’Nial, with his wife, were
seized; their friends, who attended, were put
to the sword before their faces. Felim, together
with his wife and brother, were conveyed to
Dublin, where they were cut up in quarters.”
How would you have this fact described?
In what ladylike terms is the future historian
to mention this savage and brutal massacre?
Yet Essex was an English nobleman—a predecessor
of his Grace; he was accomplished,
gallant, and gay; the envied paramour of the
virgin queen; and, if he afterwards fell on the
scaffold, one of the race of the ancient Irish
may be permitted to indulge the fond superstition
that would avenge the royal blood of
the O’Nial and of his consort on their perfidious
English murderer.
But my soul fills with bitterness, and I will
read of no more Irish murders. I turn, however,
to another page, and I will introduce to
your notice another predecessor of his Grace
the Duke of Richmond. It is Grey, who, after
the recall of Essex, commanded the English
forces in Munster. The fort of Smerwick, in
Kerry, surrendered to Grey at discretion. It
contained some Irish troops, and more than
700 Spaniards. The historian shall tell you
the rest:—
“That mercy for which they sued was rigidly
denied them. Wingfield was commissioned to
disarm them, and when this service was performed,
an English company was sent into the
fort.
“The Irish rebels found they were reserved
for execution by martial law.
“The Italian general and some officers were
made prisoners of war: but the garrison was
butchered in cold blood; nor is it without pain
that we find a service so horrid and detestable
committed to Sir Walter Raleigh.”
“The garrison was butchered in cold blood,”
says the historian. Furnish us, Mr. Attorney-General,
with gentle accents and sweet words
to speak of this savage atrocity; or will you
indict the author? Alas! he is dead, full of
years and respect—as faithful an historian as
the prejudices of his day would allow, and a
beneficed clergyman of your church.
Gentlemen of the jury, what is the mild
language of this paper compared with the indignant
language of history? Raleigh—the
ill-starred Raleigh—fell a victim to a tyrant
master, a corrupt or overawed jury, and a virulent
Attorney-General; he was baited at the
bar with language more scurrilous and more
foul than that you heard yesterday poured
upon my client. Yet, what atonement to civilization
could his death afford for the horrors I
have mentioned?
Decide, now, gentlemen, between those libels—between
that defamer’s history and my client.
He calls those predecessors of his Grace, murderers.
History has left the living records of
their crimes, from the O’Nial, treacherously
slaughtered, to the cruel, cold butchery of the
defenceless prisoners. Until I shall see the
publishers of Leland and of Hume brought to
your bar, I defy you to convict my client.
To show you that my client has treated these
predecessors of his Grace with great lenity,
I will introduce to your notice one, and only
one, more of them; and he, too, fell on the
scaffold—the unfortunate Strafford, the best
servant a despotic king could desire.
Amongst the means taken to raise money in
Ireland for James the First and his son Charles,
a proceeding called “a commission to inquire
into defective titles” was invented. It was a
scheme, gentlemen, to inquire of every man
what right he had to his own property, and to
have it solemnly and legally determined that he
had none. To effectuate this scheme required
great management, discretion, and integrity.
First, there were 4000 excellent horse raised for
the purpose of being, as Strafford himself said,
“good lookers-on.” The rest of the arrangement
I would recommend to modern practice;
it would save much trouble. I will shortly
abstract it from two of Strafford’s own letters.
The one appears to have been written by him
to the Lord Treasurer; it is dated the 3d December,
1634. He begins with an apology for
not having been more expeditious in this work
of plunder, for his employers were, it seems,
impatient at the melancholy waste of time.
He then says:—
“Howbeit, I will redeem the time as much as
I can, with such as may give furtherance to the
king’s title, and will inquire out fit men to serve
upon the juries.”
Take notice of that, gentlemen, I pray you;
perhaps you thought that the “packing of
juries” was a modern invention—a new discovery.
You see how greatly mistaken you
were; the thing has example and precedent to
support it, and the authority of both are, in our
law, quite conclusive.
The next step was to corrupt—oh, no, to interest
the wise and learned judges. But commentary
becomes unnecessary when I read for
you this passage from a letter of his to the
King, dated the 9th of December, 1636:—
“Your Majesty was graciously pleased, upon
my humble advice, to bestow four shillings in
the pound upon your Lord Chief Justice and
Lord Chief Baron in this kingdom, fourth of
the first yearly rent raised upon the commission
of defective title, which, upon observation,
I find to be the best given that ever was. For
now they do intend it, with a care and diligence,
such as if it were their own private, and
most certain gaining to themselves; every four
shillings once paid, shall better your revenue
forever after, at least five pounds.”
Thus, gentlemen of the jury, all was ready
for the mockery of law and justice, called a
trial.
Now, let me take any one of you; let me
place him here, where Mr. Magee stands; let
him have his property at stake; let it be of less
value, I pray you, than a compensation for two
years’ imprisonment; it will, however, be of
sufficient value to interest and rouse all your
agony and anxiety. If you were so placed
here, you would see before you the well-paid
Attorney-General, perhaps, malignantly delighted
to pour his rancor upon you; on the
bench would sit the corrupt and partisan judge,
and before you, on that seat which you now
occupy, would be placed the packed and predetermined
jury.
I beg, sir, to know what would be your feelings,
your honor, your rage; would you not
compare the Attorney-General to the gambler
who played with a loaded die? and then you
would hear him talk, in solemn and monotonous
tones, of his conscience! Oh, his conscience,
gentlemen of the jury!
But the times are altered. The Press, the
Press, gentlemen, has effectuated a salutary
revolution; a commission of defective titles
would no longer be tolerated; the judges can
no longer be bribed with money, and juries can
no longer be——I must not say it. Yes, they
can, you know—we all know they can be still
inquired out, and “packed,” as the technical
phrase is. But you, who are not packed, you,
who have been fairly selected, will see that the
language of the publication before us is mildness
itself, compared with that which the truth
of history requires—compared with that which
history has already used.
I proceed with this alleged libel.
The next sentence is this:—
“The profligate, unprincipled Westmoreland”—I
throw down the paper and address
myself in particular to some of you. There
are, I see, amongst you some of our Bible distributors,
“and of our suppressors of vice.”
Distributors of Bibles, suppressors of vice—what
call you profligacy? What is it you
would call profligacy? Suppose the peerage
was exposed to sale—set up at open auction—it
was at that time a judicial office—suppose
that its price, the exact price of this judicial
office, was accurately ascertained by daily experience—would
you call that profligacy? If
pensions were multiplied beyond bounds and
beyond example—if places were augmented until
invention was exhausted, and then were subdivided
and split into halves, so that two might
take the emoluments of each, and no person do
the duty—if these acts were resorted to in order
to corrupt your representatives—would you,
gentle suppressors of vice, call that profligacy?
If the father of children selected in the open
day his adulterous paramour—if the wedded
mother of children displayed her crime unblushingly—if
the assent of the titled or untitled
wittol to his own shame was purchased with
the people’s money—if this scene—if these
were enacted in the open day, would you call
that profligacy, sweet distributors of Bibles?
The women of Ireland have always been beauteous
to a proverb; they were, without an
exception, chaste beyond the terseness of a
proverb to express; they are still as chaste as
in former days, but the depraved example of a
depraved court has furnished some exceptions,
and the action of criminal conversation, before
the time of Westmoreland unknown, has since
become more familiar to our courts of justice.
Call you the sad example which produced
those exceptions—call you that profligacy, suppressors
of vice and Bible distributors? The
vices of the poor are within the reach of control;
to suppress them, you can call in aid the
churchwarden and the constable; the justice of
the peace will readily aid you, for he is a
gentleman—the Court of Sessions will punish
those vices for you by fine, by imprisonment,
and, if you are urgent, by whipping. But, suppressors
of vice, who shall aid you to suppress
the vices of the great? Are you sincere, or are
you, to use your own phraseology, whitewashed
tombs—painted charnel-houses? Be ye hypocrites?
If you are not—if you be sincere,
(and, oh, how I wish that you were)—if you be
sincere, I will steadily require to know of you,
what aid you expect, to suppress the vices
of the rich and great? Who will assist you to
suppress those vices? The churchwarden!!—why
he, I believe, handed them into the best
pew in one of your cathedrals, that they might
lovingly hear Divine service together. The
constable!! Absurd. The justice of the peace!!—no,
upon his honor. As to the Court of Sessions,
you cannot expect it to interfere; and
my lords the judges are really so busy at the
assizes, in hurrying the grand juries through
the presentments, that there is no leisure to
look after the scandalous faults of the great.
Who, then, sincere and candid suppressors of
vice, can aid you?—The Press; the Press alone
talks of the profligacy of the great; and, at least,
shames into decency those whom it may fail to
correct. The Press is your, but your only assistant.
Go, then, men of conscience, men of religion—go,
then, and convict John Magee, because
he published that Westmoreland was profligate
and unprincipled as a Lord Lieutenant—do,
convict, and then return to your distribution of
Bibles and to your attacks upon the recreations
of the poor, under the name of vices!
Do, convict the only aid which virtue has,
and distribute your Bibles that you may have
the name of being religious; upon your sincerity
depends my client’s prospect of a verdict.
Does he lean upon a broken reed?
I pass on from the sanctified portion of the
jury which I have latterly addressed, and I call
the attention of you all to the next member
of the sentence:—
“The cold-hearted and cruel Camden.”
Here I have your prejudices all armed against
me. In the administration of Camden, your
faction was cherished and triumphant. Will
you prevent him to be called cold and cruel?
Alas! to-day, why have I not men to address
who would listen to me for the sake of impartial
justice! But even with you the case is too
powerful to allow me to despair.
Well, I do say, the cold and cruel Camden.
Why, on one circuit, during his administration,
there were one hundred individuals tried before
one judge; of these ninety-eight were capitally
convicted, and ninety-seven hanged! I understand
one escaped; but he was a soldier who
murdered a peasant, or something of that trivial
nature—ninety-seven victims in one circuit!!!
In the meantime, it was necessary, for the
purposes of the Union, that the flame of rebellion
should be fed. The meetings of the rebel
colonels in the north were, for a length of time,
regularly reported to government; but the
rebellion was not then ripe enough; and whilst
the fruit was coming to maturity, under the
fostering hand of the administration, the
wretched dupes atoned on the gallows for allowing
themselves to be deceived.
In the meantime the soldiery were turned in
at free quarters amongst the wives and daughters
of the peasantry!!!
Have you heard of Abercrombie, the valiant
and the good—he who, mortally wounded,
neglected his wound until victory was ascertained—he
who allowed his life’s stream to
flow unnoticed because his country’s battle
was in suspense—he who died the martyr of
victory—he who commenced the career of
glory on the land, and taught French insolence,
than which there is nothing so permanent—even
transplanted, it exhibits itself to the third
and fourth generation—he taught French insolence,
that the British and Irish soldier was as
much his superior by land, as the sailor was
confessedly by sea—he, in short, who commenced
that career which has since placed the
Irish Wellington on the highest pinnacle of
glory? Abercrombie and Moore were in Ireland
under Camden. Moore, too, has since
fallen at the moment of triumph—Moore, the
best of sons, of brothers, of friends, of men—the
soldier and the scholar—the soul of reason
and the heart of pity—Moore has, in documents
of which you may plead ignorance, left his
opinions upon record with respect to the
cruelty of Camden’s administration. But you all
have heard of Abercrombie’s proclamation, for
it amounted to that; he proclaimed that cruelty
in terms the most unequivocal; he stated to the
soldiery and to the nation, that the conduct of
the Camden administration had rendered “the
soldiery formidable to all but the enemy.”
Was there no cruelty in thus degrading the
British soldier? And say, was not the process
by which that degradation was effectuated
cruelty? Do, then, contradict Abercrombie,
upon your oaths, if you dare; but, by doing
so, it is not my client alone you will convict—you
will also convict yourselves of the foul
crime of perjury.
I now come to the third branch of this sentence;
and here I have an easy task. All,
gentlemen, that is said of the artificer and
superintendent of the Union is this—“the artful
and treacherous Cornwallis.” Is it necessary
to prove that the Union was effectuated
by artifice and treachery? For my part, it
makes my blood boil when I think of the
unhappy period which was contrived and seized
on to carry it into effect; one year sooner, and
it would have been a revolution—one year
later, and it would have been forever impossible
to carry it. The moment was artfully and
treacherously seized on, and our country, that
was a nation for countless ages, has dwindled
into a province, and her name and her glory
are extinct forever.
I should not waste a moment upon this part
of the case, but that the gentlemen at the other
side who opposed that measure have furnished
me with some topics which I may not, cannot,
omit. Indeed, Mr. Magee deserves no verdict
from any Irish jury who can hesitate to think
that the contriver of the Union is treated with
too much lenity in this sentence; he fears your
disapprobation for speaking with so little animosity
of the artificer of the Union.
There was one piece of treachery committed
at that period, at which both you and I equally
rejoice; it was the breach of faith towards the
leading Catholics; the written promises made
them at that period have been since printed; I
rejoice with you that they were not fulfilled;
when the Catholic trafficked for his own advantage
upon his country’s miseries, he deserved
to be deceived. For this mockery, I thank the
Cornwallis administration. I rejoice, also, that
my first introduction to the stage of public life,
was in the opposition to that measure.
In humble and obscure distance, I followed
the footsteps of my present adversaries. What
their sentiments were then of the authors of
the Union, I beg to read to you; I will read
them from a newspaper set up for the mere
purpose of opposing the Union, and conducted
under the control of these gentlemen.5
* * * * *
Having followed the prosecutor through this
weary digression, I return to the next sentence
of this publication. Yet I cannot—I must
detain you still a little longer from it, whilst I
supplicate your honest indignation, if in your
resentments there be aught of honesty, against
the mode in which the Attorney-General has
introduced the name of our aged and afflicted
sovereign. He says this is a libel on the King,
because it imputes to him a selection of improper
and criminal chief governors. Gentlemen,
this is the very acme of servile doctrine.
It is the most unconstitutional doctrine that
could be uttered: it supposes that the sovereign
is responsible for the acts of his servants,
whilst the constitution declares that the King
can do no wrong, and that even for his personal
acts, his servants shall be personally responsible.
Thus, the Attorney-General reverses
for you the constitution in theory; and, in
point of fact, where can be found, in this publication,
any, even the slightest allusion to his
Majesty? The theory is against the Attorney-General,
and yet, contrary to the fact, and
against the theory, he seeks to enlist another
prejudice of yours against Mr. Magee.
Prejudice did I call it? Oh, no! it is no prejudice;
that sentiment which combines respect
with affection for my aged sovereign, suffering
under a calamity with which heaven has willed
to visit him, but which is not due to any default
of his. There never was a sentiment that I
should wish to see more cherished—more honored.
To you the King may appear an object
of respect; to his Catholic subjects he is one of
veneration; to them he has been a bountiful
benefactor. To the utter disregard of your
aldermen of Skinner’s-alley, and the more pompous
magnates of William-street, his Majesty
procured, at his earnest solicitation from Parliament,
the restoration of much of our liberties.
He disregarded your anti-Popery petitions.
He treated with calm indifference the ebullitions
of your bigotry; and I owe to him that I
have the honor of standing in the proud situation
from which I am able, if not to protect my
client, at least to pour the indignant torrent of
my discourse against his enemies, and those of
his country.
The publication to which I now recall you,
goes to describe the effects of the facts which I
have shown you to have been drawn from the
undisputed and authentic history of former
times. I have, I hope, convinced you that
neither Leland nor Hume could have been indicted
for stating those facts, and it would be a
very strange perversion of principle, which
would allow you to convict Mr. Magee for that
which has been stated by other writers, not only
without punishment, but with applause.
That part of the paragraph which relates to
the present day is in these words:—
“Since that period the complexion of the
times has changed—the country has advanced—it
has outgrown submission, and some forms,
at least, must now be observed towards the
people.
“The system, however, is still the same; it
is the old play with new decorations, presented
in an age somewhat more enlightened; the
principle of government remains unaltered—a
principle of exclusion which debars the majority
of the people from the enjoyment of those
privileges that are possessed by the minority,
and which must, therefore, maintain itself by
all those measures necessary for a government
founded on injustice.”
The prosecutor insists that this is the most
libellous part of the entire publication. I am
glad he does so; because if there be amongst
you a single particle of discrimination, you cannot
fail to perceive that this is not a libel—that
this paragraph cannot constitute any crime.
It states that the present is a system of
exclusion. Surely, it is no crime to say so; it
is what you all say. It is what the Attorney-General
himself gloried in. This is, said he,
exclusively a Protestant government. Mr.
Magee and he are agreed. Mr. Magee adds
that a principle of exclusion on account of religion,
is founded on injustice. Gentlemen, if
a Protestant were to be excluded from any
temporal advantages upon the score of his religion,
would not you say that the principle
upon which he was excluded was unjust? That
is precisely what Mr. Magee says; for the principle
which excludes the Catholic in Ireland,
would exclude the Protestant in Spain and in
Portugal, and then you clearly admit its justice.
So that, really, you would condemn yourselves,
and your own opinions, and the right to be a
Protestant in Spain and Portugal, if you condemn
this sentiment.
But I would have you further observe that
this is no more than the discussion of an abstract
principle of government; it arraigns not the
conduct of any individual, or of any administration;
it only discusses and decides upon the
moral fitness of a certain theory, on which the
management of the affairs of Ireland has been
conducted. If this be a crime, we are all
criminals; for this question, whether it be just
or not to exclude from power and office a class
of the people for religion, is the subject of daily—of
hourly discussion. The Attorney-General
says it is quite just; I proclaim it to be unjust—obviously
unjust. At all public meetings, in
all private companies, this point is decided
different ways, according to the temper and the
interest of individuals. Indeed, it is but too
much the topic of every man’s discourse; and
the gaols and the barracks of the country would
not contain the hundredth part of those with
whom the Attorney-General would have to
crowd them if it be penal to call the principle
of exclusion unjust. In this court, without the
least danger of interruption or reproof, I proclaim
the injustice of that principle.
I will then ask whether it be lawful to print
that which it is not unlawful to proclaim in the
face of a court of justice? And above all, I
will ask whether it can be criminal to discuss
the abstract principles of government? Is the
theory of the law a prohibited subject? I had
understood that there was no right so clear
and undoubted as that of discussing abstract
and theoretic principles, and their applicability
to practicable purposes. For the first time do
I hear this disputed; and now see what it is the
Attorney-General prohibits. He insists upon
punishing Mr. Magee; first, because he accuses
his administration of “errors”; secondly, because
he charges them with not being distinguished
for “talents”; thirdly, because he
cannot discover their “striking features”; and
fourthly, because he discusses an “abstract
principle”!
This is quite intelligible—this is quite tangible.
I begin to understand what the Attorney-General
means by the liberty of the Press;
it means a prohibition of printing anything
except praise respecting “the errors, the talents,
or the striking features” of any administration,
and of discussing any abstract principle of government.
Thus the forbidden subjects are
errors, talents, striking features, and principles.
Neither the theory of the government nor its
practices are to be discussed; you may, indeed,
praise them; you may call the Attorney-General
“the best and wisest of men”; you may
call his lordship the most learned and impartial
of all possible chief justices; you may, if you
have powers of visage sufficient, call the Lord
Lieutenant the best of all imaginable governors.
That, gentlemen, is the boasted liberty of the
Press—the liberty that exists in Constantinople—the
liberty of applying the most fulsome and
unfounded flattery, but not one word of censure
or reproof.
Here is an idol worthy of the veneration
of the Attorney-General. Yes; he talked of his
veneration for the liberty of the Press; he
also talked of its being a protection to the
people against the government. Protection!
Not against errors—not against the want of talents
or striking features—nor against the effort
of any unjust principle—protection! Against
what is it to protect? Did he not mock you?
Did he not plainly and palpably delude you,
when he talked of the protection of the Press?
Yes. To his inconsistencies and contradictions
he calls on you to sacrifice your consciences;
and because you are no-Popery men, and
distributors of Bibles, and aldermen of Skinner’s-alley,
and Protestant petitioners, he
requires of you to brand your souls with perjury.
You cannot escape it; it is, it must
be perjury to find a verdict for a man who
gravely admits that the liberty of the Press
is recognized by law, and that it is a venerable
object, and yet calls for your verdict upon the
ground that there is no such thing in existence
as that which he has admitted, that the law
recognizes, and that he himself venerates.
Clinging to the fond but faint hope that you
are not capable of sanctioning, by your oaths,
so monstrous an inconsistency, I lead you to
the next sentence upon this record:
“Although his Grace does not appear to
know what are the qualities necessary for a
judge in Canada, or for an aide-de-camp in
waiting at a court, he surely cannot be ignorant
what are requisites for a Lord Lieutenant.”
This appears to be a very innocent sentence;
yet the Attorney-General, the venerator of that
protection of the people against a bad government—the
liberty of the Press—tells you that
it is a gross libel to impute so much ignorance
to his Grace. As to the aide-de-camp, gentlemen,
whether he be selected for the brilliancy
of his spurs, the polish of his boots, or the precise
angle of his cocked hat, are grave considerations
which I refer to you. Decide upon
these atrocities, I pray you. But as to the
judge in Canada, it cannot be any reproach to
his Grace to be ignorant of his qualifications.
The old French law prevails in Canada, and
there is not a lawyer at the Irish Bar, except,
perhaps, the Attorney-General, who is sufficiently
acquainted with that law to know how
far any man may be fit for the station of judge
in Canada.
If this be an ignorance without reproach in
Irish lawyers, and if there be any reproach in it,
I feel it not, whilst I avow that ignorance—yet,
surely it is absurd to torture it into a calumny
against the Lord Lieutenant—a military man,
and no lawyer. I doubt whether it would be a
libel if my client had said that his Grace was
ignorant of the qualities necessary for a judge in
Ireland—for a chief judge, my lord. He has
not said so, however, gentlemen, and true or
false, that is not now the question under consideration.
We are in Canada at present, gentlemen,
in a ludicrous search for a libel in a
sentence of no great point or meaning. If
you are sapient enough to suspect that it contains
a libel, your doubt can only arise from not
comprehending it; and that, I own, is a doubt
difficult to remove. But I mock you when
I talk of this insignificant sentence.
I shall read the next paragraph at full length.
It is connected with the Canadian sentence:—
“Therefore, were an appeal to be made to
him in a dispassionate and sober moment, we
might candidly confess that the Irish would
not be disappointed in their hopes of a successor,
though they would behold the same smiles,
experience the same sincerity, and witness the
same disposition towards conciliation.
“What though they were deceived in 1795,
and found the mildness of a Fitzwilliam a false
omen of concord; though they were duped in
1800, and found that the privileges of the Catholics
did not follow the extinction of the parliament!
Yet, at his departure, he will, no doubt,
state good grounds for future expectation; that
his administration was not the time for Emancipation,
but that the season is fast approaching;
that there were ‘existing circumstances,’
but that now the people may rely upon the
virtues even of an hereditary Prince; that they
should continue to worship the false idol; that
their cries, must, at least, be heard; and that,
if he has not complied, it is only because he
has not spoken. In short, his Grace will in no
way vary from the uniform conduct observed by
most of his predecessors, first preaching to the
confidence of the people, then playing upon
their credulity.
“He came over ignorant—he soon became
prejudiced, and then he became intemperate.
He takes from the people their money; he
eats of their bread, and drinks of their wine; in
return, he gives them a bad government, and,
at his departure, leaves them more distracted
than ever. His Grace commenced his reign by
flattery, he continued it in folly, he accompanied
it with violence, and he will conclude it
with falsehood.”
There is one part of this sentence for which I
most respectfully solicit your indulgence and
pardon. Be not exasperated with us for talking
of the mildness of Lord Fitzwilliam, or
of his administration. But, notwithstanding
the violence any praise of him has excited
amongst you, come dispassionately, I pray you,
to the consideration of the paragraph. Let us
abstract the meaning of it from the superfluous
words. It certainly does tell you that his
Grace came over ignorant of Irish affairs, and
he acquired prejudices upon those subjects, and
he has become intemperate. Let us discuss
this part separately from the other matter suggested
by the paragraph in question. That the
Duke of Richmond came over to Ireland ignorant
of the details of our domestic policy cannot
be matter either of surprise or of any reproach.
A military man engaged in those pursuits which
otherwise occupy persons of his rank, altogether
unconnected with Ireland, he could not have
had any inducement to make himself acquainted
with the details of our barbarous wrongs, of our
senseless party quarrels, and criminal feuds;
he was not stimulated to examine them by any
interest, nor could any man be attracted to
study them by taste. It is, therefore, no censure
to talk of his ignorance—of that with
which it would be absurd to expect that he
should be acquainted; and the knowledge of
which would neither have served, nor exalted,
nor amused him.
Then, gentlemen, it is said he became “prejudiced.”
Prejudiced may sound harsh in your
ears; but you are not, at least you ought not, to
decide upon the sound—it is the sense of the
word that should determine you. Now what is
the sense of the word “prejudice” here? It
means the having adopted precisely the opinions
which every one of you entertain. By
“prejudice” the writer means, and can mean,
nothing but such sentiments as you cherish.
When he talks of prejudice, he intends to convey
the idea that the Duke took up the opinion
that the few ought to govern the many in Ireland;
that there ought to be a favored, and an
excluded class in Ireland; that the burdens of
the state ought to be shared equally, but its
benefits conferred on a few. Such are the ideas
conveyed by the word prejudice; and I fearlessly
ask you, is it a crime to impute to his
Grace these notions which you yourselves entertain?
Is he calumniated—is he libelled,
when he is charged with concurring with you,
gentlemen of the jury? Will you, by a verdict
of conviction, stamp your own political sentiments
with the seal of reprobation? If you
convict my client, you do this; you decide that
it is a libel to charge any man with those doctrines
which are so useful to you individually,
and of which you boast; or, you think the
opinions just, and yet that it is criminal to
charge a man with those just opinions. For
the sake, therefore, of consistency, and as an
approval of your own opinions, I call on you
for a verdict of acquittal.
I need not detain you long on the expression
“intemperate”; it does not mean any charge
of excess of indulgence in any enjoyment; it
is not, as the Attorney-General suggested, an
accusation of indulging beyond due bounds in
the pleasures of the table, or of the bottle; it
does not allude, as the Attorney-General says,
to midnight orgies, or to morning revels. I
admit—I freely admit—that an allusion of that
kind would savor of libel, as it would certainly
be unnecessary for any purpose of political discussion.
But the intemperance here spoken of
is mere political intemperance; it is that violence
which every man of a fervid disposition
feels in support of his political opinions. Nay,
the more pure and honest any man may be in
the adoption of his opinions, the more likely,
and the more justifiable will he be in that
ardent support of them which goes by the
name of intemperance.
In short, although political intemperance cannot
be deemed by cold calculators as a virtue,
yet it has its source in the purest virtues of the
human heart, and it frequently produces the
greatest advantages to the public. How would
it be possible to overcome the many obstacles
which self-interest, and ignorance, and passion
throw in the way of improvement, without
some of that ardor of temper and disposition
which grave men call intemperance? And,
gentlemen, are not your opinions as deserving
of warm support as the opinions of other men;
or do you feel any inherent depravity in the
political sentiments which the Duke of Richmond
has adopted from you, that would render
him depraved or degraded by any violence in
their support? You have no alternative. If
you convict my client, you condemn, upon
your oaths, your own political creed; and
declare it to be a libel to charge any man
with energy in your cause.
If you are not disposed to go this length of
political inconsistency, and if you have determined
to avoid the religious inconsistency of
perjuring yourselves for the good and glory of
the Protestant religion, do, I pray you, examine
the rest of this paragraph, and see whether you
can, by any ingenuity, detect that nondescript,
a libel, in it. It states in substance this: that
this administration, treading in the steps of
former administrations, preached to the confidence
of the people, and played on their
credulity; and that it will end, as those administrations
have done, in some flattering prophecy,
paying present disappointment with the
coinage of delusive hope. That this administration
commenced, as usual, with preaching to
the confidence of the people, was neither criminal
in the fact, nor can it be unpleasant in the
recital.
It is the immemorial usage of all administrations
and of all stations, to commence with
those civil professions of future excellence of
conduct which are called, and not unaptly,
“preaching to the confidence of the people.” The
very actors are generally sincere at this stage
of the political farce; and it is not insinuated
that this administration was not as candid on
this subject as the best of its predecessors.
The playing on the credulity of the people is the
ordinary state trick. You recollect how angry
many of you were with his Grace for his Munster
tour, shortly after his arrival here. You
recollect how he checked the Mayor of Cork
for proposing the new favorite Orange toast;
what liberality he displayed to Popish traders
and bankers in Limerick; and how he returned
to the capital, leaving behind him the impression
that the no-Popery men had been mistaken
in their choice, and that the Duke of Richmond
was the enemy of every bigotry—the friend to
every liberality! Was he sincere, gentlemen
of the jury, or was this one of those innocent
devices which are called—playing on the people’s
credulity? Was he sincere? Ask his
subsequent conduct. Have there been since
that time any other or different toasts cheered
in his presence? Has the name of Ireland and
of Irishmen been profaned by becoming the
sport of the warmth excited by the accompaniment
to these toasts? Some individuals of
you could inform me. I see another dignitary
of your corporation here [said Mr. O’Connell,
turning round pointedly to the Lord Mayor]—I
see a civic dignitary here, who could tell of the
toasts of these days or nights, and would not
be at a loss to apply the right name—if he were
not too prudent as well as too polite to do so—to
that innocent affectation of liberality which
distinguished his Grace’s visit to the south of
Ireland. It was, indeed, a play upon our credulity,
but it can be no libel to speak of it as
such; for see the situation in which you would
place his Grace; you know he affected conciliation
and perfect neutrality between our parties
at first; you know he has since taken a marked
and decided part with you.
Surely you are not disposed to call this a
crime, as it were, to convict his Grace of duplicity,
and of a vile hypocrisy. No, gentlemen,
I entreat of you not to calumniate the
Duke; call this conduct a mere play on the
credulity of a people easily deceived—innocent
in its intention, and equally void of guilt
in its description. Do not attach to those
words a meaning which would prove that you
yourselves condemned, not so much the writer
of them, as the man who gave color and countenance
to this assertion. Besides, gentlemen,
what is your liberty of the Press worth, if it be
worthy of a dungeon to assert that the public
credulity has been played upon? The liberty
of the Press would be less than a dream, a
shadow, if every such phrase be a libel.
But the Attorney-General triumphantly tells
you that there must be a libel in this paragraph,
because it ends with a charge of falsehood.
May I ask you to take the entire paragraph
together? Common sense and your duty
require you to do so. You will then perceive
that this charge of falsehood is no more than
an opinion that the administration of the Duke
of Richmond will terminate precisely as that of
many of his predecessors has done, by an excuse
for the past—a flattering and fallacious
promise for the future. Why, you must all of
you have seen, a short time since, an account
of a public dinner in London, given by persons
styling themselves “Friends to Religious Liberty.”
At that dinner, at which two of the Royal
Dukes attended, there were, I think, no less
than four or five noblemen who had filled the office
of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Gentlemen,
at this dinner, they were ardent in their professions
of kindness towards the Catholics of
Ireland, in their declarations of the obvious
policy and justice of conciliation and concession,
and they bore ample testimony to our sufferings
and our merits. But I appeal from their present
declarations to their past conduct; they are
now full of liberality and justice to us; yet I
speak only the truth of history when I say
that, during their government of this country,
no practical benefits resulted from all this wisdom
and kindness of sentiment; with the single
exception of Lord Fitzwilliam, not one of
them even attempted to do any good to the
Catholics, or to Ireland.
What did the Duke of Bedford do for us?
Just nothing. Some civility, indeed, in words—some
playing on public credulity—but in act
and deed, nothing at all. What did Lord
Hardwicke do for us? Oh, nothing, or rather
less than nothing; his administration here was,
in that respect, a kind of negative quality; it
was cold, harsh, and forbidding to the Catholics;
lenient, mild, and encouraging to the
Orange faction; the public mind lay in the first
torpor caused by the mighty fall of the Union,
and whilst we lay entranced in the oblivious
pool, Lord Hardwicke’s administration proceeded
without a trace of that justice and liberality
which it appears he must have thought
unbefitting the season of his government, and
which, if he then entertained, he certainly concealed;
he ended, however, with giving us
flattering hopes for the future. The Duke of
Bedford was more explicit; he promised in
direct terms, and drew upon the future exertions
of an hereditary Prince, to compensate us
for present disappointment. And will any man
assert that the Duke of Richmond is libelled by
a comparison with Lord Hardwicke; that he is
traduced when he is compared with the Duke of
Bedford? If the words actually were these,
“the Duke of Richmond will terminate his
administration exactly as Lord Hardwicke and
the Duke of Bedford terminated their administrations”;
if those were the words, none of you
could possibly vote for a conviction, and yet the
meaning is precisely the same. No more is expressed
by the language of my client; and, if
the meaning be thus clearly innocent, it would
be strange, indeed, to call on you for a verdict
of conviction upon no more solid ground than
this, that whilst the signification was the same,
the words were different. And thus, again,
does the prosecutor require of you to separate
the sense from the sound, and to convict for
the sound, against the sense of the passage.
In plain truth, gentlemen, if there be a harshness
in the sound, there is none in the words.
The writer describes, and means to describe,
the ordinary termination of every administration
repaying in promise the defaults of performance.
And, when he speaks of falsehood,
he prophesies merely as to the probable or at
least possible conclusion of the present government.
He does not impute to any precedent
assertion, falsehood; but he does predict, that
the concluding promise of this, as of other
administrations, depending as those promises
always do upon other persons for performance,
will remain as former promises have remained—unfulfilled
and unperformed. And is this
prophecy—this prediction a crime? Is it a
libel to prophesy? See what topics this sage
venerator of the liberty of the Press, the Attorney-General,
would fain prohibit. First, he
tells you that the crimes of the predecessors
of the Duke must not be mentioned—and thus
he forbids the history of past events. Secondly,
he informs you that no allusion is to be
made to the errors, follies, or even the striking
features of the present governors—and thus
he forbids the detail of the occurrences of the
present day. And, thirdly, he declares that no
conjecture shall be made upon what is likely
to occur hereafter—and thus he forbids all attempts
to anticipate future acts.
It comes simply to this: he talks of venerating
the liberties of the Press, and yet he restrains
that Press from discussing past history,
present story, and future probabilities; he prohibits
the past, the present, and the future;
ancient records, modern truth, and prophecy,
are all within the capacious range of his punishments.
Is there anything else? Would this
venerator of the liberty of the Press go farther?
Yes, gentlemen; having forbidden all matter of
history past and present, and all prediction of
the future, he generously throws in abstract
principles, and, as he has told you that his
prisons shall contain every person who speaks
of what was, or what is, or what will be, he
likewise consigned to the same fate every
person who treats of the theory or principles
of government; and yet he dares to talk of
the liberty of the Press! Can you be his
dupes? Will you be his victims? Where is
the conscience—where is the indignant spirit
of insulted reason amongst you? Has party
feeling extinguished in your breasts every
glow of virtue—every spark of manhood?
If there be any warmth about you—if you
are not clay-cold to all but party feeling, I
would, with the air and in the tone of triumph,
call you to the consideration of the remaining
paragraph which has been spread on the lengthened
indictment before you. I divide it into
two branches, and shall do no more with the
one than to repeat it. I read it for you
already; I must read it again:
“Had he remained what he first came over,
or what he afterwards professed to be, he would
have retained his reputation for honest, open
hostility, defending his political principles with
firmness, perhaps with warmth, but without
rancor; the supporter, and not the tool of an
administration; a mistaken politician, perhaps,
but an honorable man and a respectable
soldier.”
Would to God I had to address another
jury! Would to God I had reason and judgment
to address, and I could entertain no
apprehension from passion or prejudice! Here
should I then take my stand, and require of
that unprejudiced jury, whether this sentence
does not demonstrate the complete absence
of private malice or personal hostility. Does
not this sentence prove a kindly disposition
towards the individual, mixing and mingling
with that discussion which freedom sanctions
and requires, respecting his political conduct?
Contrast this sentence with the prosecutor’s
accusation of private malignity, and decide between
Mr. Magee and his calumniators. He,
at least, has this advantage, that your verdict
cannot alter the nature of things; and
that the public must see and feel this truth,
that the present prosecution is directed against
the discussion of the conduct towards the public,
of men confided with public authority; that
this is a direct attack upon the right to call the
attention of the people to the management of
the people’s affairs, and that, by your verdict
of conviction, it is intended to leave no peaceful
or unawed mode of redress for the wrongs
and sufferings of the people.
But I will not detain you on these obvious
topics. We draw to a close, and I hurry to
it. This sentence is said to be particularly
libellous:
“His party would have been proud of him;
his friends would have praised (they need not
have flattered him), and his enemies, though
they might have regretted, must have respected
his conduct; from the worst quarter there
would have been some small tribute of praise;
from none any great portion of censure; and
his administration, though not popular, would
have been conducted with dignity, and without
offence. This line of conduct he has taken
care to avoid; his original character for moderation
he has forfeited; he can lay no claims
to any merits for neutrality, nor does he even
deserve the cheerless credit of defensive operations.
He has begun to act; he has ceased to
be a dispassionate chief governor, who views
the wickedness and the folly of faction with
composure and forbearance, and stands, the
representative of majesty, aloof from the contest.
He descends; he mixes with the throng;
he becomes personally engaged, and having lost
his temper, calls forth his private passions to
support his public principles; he is no longer
an indifferent viceroy, but a frightful partisan
of an English ministry, whose base passions
he indulges—whose unworthy resentments he
gratifies, and on whose behalf he at present
canvasses.”
Well, gentlemen, and did he not canvass on
behalf of the ministry? Was there a titled or
untitled servant of the Castle who was not
despatched to the south to vote against the
popular, and for the ministerial candidates?
Was there a single individual within the reach
of his Grace that did not vote against Prittie
and Matthew, in Tipperary, and against Hutchinson,
in Cork? I have brought with me some
of the newspapers of the day, in which this
partisanship in the Lord Lieutenant is treated
by Mr. Hutchinson in language so strong and
so pointed, that the words of this publication
are mildness and softness itself when compared
with that language. I shall not read them for
you, because I should fear that you may imagine
I unnecessarily identified my client with
the violent but the merited reprobation poured
upon the scandalous interference of our government
with those elections.
I need not, I am sure, tell you that any interference
by the Lord Lieutenant with the purity
of the election of members to serve in Parliament,
is highly unconstitutional, and highly
criminal; he is doubly bound to the most strict
neutrality; first, as a peer, the law prohibits
his interference; secondly, as representative of
the crown, his interference in elections is an
usurpation of the people’s rights; it is, in substance
and effect, high treason against the people,
and its mischiefs are not the less by reason
of there being no punishment affixed by the law
to this treason.
If this offence, gentlemen, be of daily occurrence—if
it be frequently committed, it is upon
that account only the more destructive to our
liberties, and, therefore, requires the more loud,
direct, and frequent condemnation: indeed, if
such practices be permitted to prevail, there is an
end of every remnant of freedom; our boasted
constitution becomes a mockery and an object
of ridicule, and we ought to desire the manly
simplicity of unmixed despotism. Will the Attorney-General—will
his colleague, the Solicitor-General,
deny that I have described this offence
in its true colors? Will they attempt to deny
the interference of the Duke of Richmond in
the late elections? I would almost venture to
put your verdict upon this, and to consent to a
conviction, if any person shall be found so
stocked with audacity, as to presume publicly
to deny the interference of his Grace in the
late elections, and his partisanship in favor of
the ministerial candidates. Gentlemen, if that
be denied, what will you, what can you think
of the veracity of the man who denies it? I
fearlessly refer the fact to you; on that fact
I build. This interference is as notorious as
the sun at noonday; and who shall venture to
deny that such interference is described by a
soft term when it is called partisanship? He
who uses the influence of the executive to control
the choice of the representatives of the
people, violates the first principles of the constitution,
is guilty of political sacrilege, and
profanes the very sanctuary of the people’s
rights and liberties; and if he should not be
called a partisan, it is only because some harsher
and more appropriate term ought to be applied
to his delinquency.
I will recall to your minds an instance of
violation of the constitution, which will illustrate
the situation of my client, and the protection
which, for your own sakes, you owe him.
When, in 1687, King James removed several
Protestant rectors in Ireland from their churches,
against law and justice, and illegally and unconstitutionally
placed Roman Catholic clergymen
in their stead, would any of you be content
that he should be simply called a partisan?
No, gentlemen; my client and I—Catholic and
Protestant though we be—agree perfectly in
this, that partisan would have been too mild a
name for him, and that he should have been
branded as a violator of law, as an enemy
to the constitution, and as a crafty tyrant who
sought to gratify the prejudices of one part of
his subjects, that he might trample upon the
liberties of all. And what, I would fain learn,
could you think of the Attorney-General who
prosecuted, or of the judge who condemned, or
of the jury who convicted a printer for publishing
to the world this tyranny—this gross violation
of law and justice? But how would your
indignation be roused, if James had been only
called a partisan, and for calling him a partisan
a Popish jury had been packed, a Popish judge
had been selected, and that the printer, who,
you will admit, deserved applause and reward,
met condemnation and punishment!
Of you—of you, shall this story be told, if you
convict Mr. Magee. The Duke has interfered
in elections; he has violated the liberties of the
subject; he has profaned the very temple of the
constitution; and he who has said that in
so doing he was a partisan, from your hands
expects punishment.
Compare the kindred offences: James deprived
the Protestant rectors of their livings;
he did not persecute, nor did he interfere with
their religion; for tithes, and oblations, and
glebes, and church lands, though solid appendages
to any church, are no part of the Protestant
religion. The Protestant religion would, I
presume—and for the honor of human nature
I sincerely hope—continue its influence over
the human mind without the aid of those extrinsic
advantages. Its pastors would, I trust
and believe, have remained true to their charge,
without the adventitious benefits of temporal
rewards; and, like the Roman Catholic Church,
it might have shone forth a glorious example
of firmness in religion, setting persecution at
defiance. James did not attack the Protestant
religion; I repeat it; he only attacked the revenues
of the Protestant Church; he violated
the law and the constitution, in depriving men
of that property, by his individual authority,
to which they had precisely the same right with
that by which he wore his crown. But is not
the controlling the election of members of
Parliament a more dangerous violation of the
constitution? Does it not corrupt the very
sources of legislation, and convert the guardians
of the state into its plunderers? The one was
a direct and undisguised crime, capable of being
redressed in the ordinary course of the law,
and producing resistance by its open and plain
violation of right and of law; the other disguises
itself in so many shapes, is patronized
by so many high examples, and is followed by
such perfect security, that it becomes the first
duty of every man who possesses any reverence
for the constitution, or any attachment to
liberty, to lend all his efforts to detect, and, if
possible, to punish it.
To any man who loved the constitution or
freedom, I could safely appeal for my client’s
vindication; or if any displeasure could be excited
in the mind of such a man, it would arise
because of the forbearance and lenity of this
publication. But the Duke is called a frightful
partisan. Granted, gentlemen, granted. And
is not the interference I have mentioned frightful?
Is it not terrific? Who can contemplate
it without shuddering at the consequences
which it is likely to produce? What gentler
phrase—what ladylike expression should my
client use? The constitution is sought to
be violated, and he calls the author of that
violation a frightful partisan. Really, gentlemen,
the fastidiousness which would reject
this expression would be better employed in
preventing or punishing crime, than in dragging
to a dungeon the man who has the manliness to
adhere to truth, and to use it. Recollect also—I
cannot repeat it too often—that the Attorney-General
told you that “the liberty of the
Press was the best protection of the people
against the government.” Now, if the constitution
be violated—if the purity of election be
disturbed by the executive, is not this precisely
the case when this protection becomes necessary?
It is not wanted, nor can the Press
be called a protector, so long as the government
is administered with fidelity, care, and skill.
The protection of the Press is requisite only
when integrity, diligence, or judgment do not
belong to the administration; and that protection
becomes the more necessary in the exact
proportion in which these qualities are deficient.
But, what protection can it afford if you convict
in this instance? For, by doing so you
will decide that nothing ought to be said
against that want of honesty, or of attention,
or of understanding; the more necessary will
the protection of the Press become, the more
unsafe will it be to publish the truth; and in
the exact proportion in which the Press might
be useful, will it become liable to punishment.
In short, according to the Attorney-General’s
doctrine, when the Press is “best employed and
wanted most,” it will be most dangerous to use
it. And thus, the more corrupt and profligate
any administration may be, the more clearly
can the public prosecutor ascertain the sacrifice
of his selected victim. And call you this
protection? Is this a protector who must be
disarmed the moment danger threatens, and
is bound a prisoner the instant the fight has
commenced?
Here I should close the case—here I should
shortly recapitulate my client’s defence, and
leave him to your consideration; but I have
been already too tedious, and shall do no more
than recall to your recollection the purity, the
integrity, the entire disinterestedness of Mr.
Magee’s motives. If money were his object,
he could easily procure himself to be patronized
and salaried; but he prefers to be persecuted
and discountenanced by the great and
powerful, because they cannot deprive him of
the certain expectation that his exertions are
useful to his long-suffering, ill-requited country.
He is disinterested, gentlemen; he is honest;
the Attorney-General admitted it, and actually
took the trouble of administering to him advice
how to amend his fortune and save his person.
But the advice only made his youthful blood
mantle in that ingenious countenance, and his
reply was painted in the indignant look that
told the Attorney-General he might offer
wealth, but he could not bribe—that he might
torture, but he could not terrify! Yes, gentlemen,
firm in his honesty, and strong in the
fervor of his love of Ireland, he fearlessly
awaits your verdict, convinced that even you
must respect the man whom you are called
upon to condemn. Look to it, gentlemen;
consider whether an honest, disinterested man
shall be prohibited from discussing public
affairs; consider whether all but flattery is to
be silent—whether the discussion of the errors
and the capacities of the ministers is to be
closed forever. Whether we are to be silent as
to the crimes of former periods, the follies of
the present, and the credulity of the future;
and, above all, reflect upon the demand that is
made on you to punish the canvassing of abstract
principles.
Has the Attorney-General succeeded? Has
he procured a jury so fitted to his object, as to
be ready to bury in oblivion every fault and
every crime, every error and every imperfection
of public men, past, present, and future—and
who shall, in addition, silence any dissertation
on the theory or principle of legislation? Do,
gentlemen, go this length with the prosecutor
and then venture on your oaths. I charge you
to venture to talk to your families of the venerable
liberty of the Press—the protection of the
people against the vices of the government.
I should conclude, but the Attorney-General
compels me to follow him through another subject.6
* * * * *
Let me transport you from the heat and fury
of domestic politics; let me place you in a
foreign land; you are Protestants—with your
good leave, you shall, for a moment, be Portuguese,
and Portuguese is now an honorable
name, for right well have the people of Portugal
fought for their country, against the foreign
invader. Oh! how easy to procure a similar
spirit, and more of bravery, amongst the people
of Ireland! The slight purchase of good
words, and a kindly disposition, would convert
them into an impenetrable guard for the safety
of the Throne and the State. But advice and
regret are equally unavailing, and they are
doomed to calumny and oppression, the reality
of persecution, and the mockery of justice,
until some fatal hour shall arrive which may
preach wisdom to the dupes, and menace with
punishment the oppressor.
In the meantime I must place you in Portugal.
Let us suppose for an instant that the
Protestant religion is that of the people of
Portugal—the Catholic, that of the government—that
the house of Braganza has not
reigned, but that Portugal is still governed by
the viceroy of a foreign nation, from whom no
kindness, no favor, has ever flowed, and from
whom justice has rarely been obtained, and
upon those unfrequent occasions, not conceded
generously, but extorted by force, or wrung
from distress by terror and apprehension, in
a stinted measure and ungracious manner; you,
Protestants, shall form, not as with us in Ireland,
nine tenths, but some lesser number—you
shall be only four fifths of the population; and
all the persecution which you have yourselves
practised here upon Papists, whilst you, at the
same time, accused the Papists of the crime of
being persecutors, shall glow around; your
native land shall be to you the country of
strangers; you shall be aliens in the soil that
gave you birth, and whilst every foreigner may,
in the land of your forefathers, attain rank,
station, emolument, honors, you alone shall be
excluded; and you shall be excluded for
no other reason but a conscientious abhorrence
to the religion of your ancestors.
Only think, gentlemen, of the scandalous
injustice of punishing you because you are
Protestants. With what scorn—with what contempt
do you not listen to the stale pretences—to
the miserable excuses by which, under the
name of state reasons and political arguments,
your exclusion and degradation are sought to
be justified. Your reply is ready—“perform
your iniquity—men of crimes,” (you exclaim),
“be unjust—punish us for our fidelity and
honest adherence to truth, but insult us not
by supposing that your reasoning can impose
upon a single individual either of us or of
yourselves.” In this situation let me give
you a viceroy; he shall be a man who may be
styled—by some person disposed to exaggerate,
beyond bounds, his merits, and to flatter
him more than enough—“an honorable man and
a respectable soldier,” but, in point of fact, he
shall be of that little-minded class of beings who
are suited to be the plaything of knaves—one
of those men who imagine they govern a nation,
whilst in reality they are but the instruments
upon which the crafty play with safety and
with profit. Take such a man for your viceroy—Protestant
Portuguese. We shall begin with
making this tour from Tralos Montes to the
kingdom of Algesiras—as one amongst us
should say, from the Giant’s Causeway to the
kingdom of Kerry. Upon his tour he shall
affect great candor and good-will to the poor,
suffering Protestants. The bloody anniversaries
of the inquisitorial triumphs of former
days shall be for a season abandoned, and over
our inherent hostility the garb of hypocrisy
shall, for a season, be thrown. Enmity to the
Protestant shall become, for a moment, less
apparent; but it will be only the more odious
for the transitory disguise.
The delusion of the hour having served its
purpose, your viceroy shows himself in his
native colors; he selects for office, and prefers
for his pension list, the men miserable in intellect,
if they be but virulent against the Protestants;
to rail against the Protestant religion—to
turn its holiest rites into ridicule—to slander
the individual Protestants, are the surest, the
only means to obtain his favor and patronage.
He selects from his Popish bigots some being
more canine than human, who, not having talents
to sell, brings to the market of bigotry
his impudence—who, with no quality under
heaven but gross, vulgar, acrimonious, disgustful,
and shameless abuse of Protestantism to
recommend him, shall be promoted to some
accountant-generalship, and shall riot in the
spoils of the people he traduces, as it were
to crown with insult the severest injuries. This
viceroy selects for his favorite privy councillor
some learned doctor, half lawyer, half divine,
an entire brute, distinguished by the unblushing
repetition of calumnies against the Protestants.
This man has asserted that Protestants are perjurers
and murderers in principle—that they
keep no faith with Papists, but hold it lawful
and meritorious to violate every engagement,
and commit every atrocity towards any person
who happens to differ with Protestants in religious
belief. This man raves thus, in public,
against the Protestants, and has turned his
ravings into large personal emoluments. But
whilst he is the oracle of minor bigots, he does
not believe himself; he has selected for the
partner of his tenderest joys, of his most ecstatic
moments—he has chosen for the intended
mother of his children, for the sweetener and
solace of his every care, a Protestant, gentlemen
of the jury.
Next to the vile instruments of bigotry, his
accountant-general and privy councillor, we
will place his acts. The Protestants of Portugal
shall be exposed to insult and slaughter;
an Orange party—a party of Popish Orangemen
shall be supposed to exist; they shall
have liberty to slaughter the unarmed and defenceless
Protestants, and as they sit peaceably
at their firesides. They shall be let loose in
some Portuguese district, called Monaghan;
they shall cover the streets of some Portuguese
town of Belfast with human gore; and in the
metropolis of Lisbon, the Protestant widow
shall have her harmless child murdered in the
noon day and his blood shall have flowed unrequited,
because his assassin was very loyal
when he was drunk, and had an irresistible
propensity to signalize his loyalty by killing
Protestants. Behold, gentlemen, this viceroy
depriving of command, and staying the promotion
of, every military man who shall dare to
think Protestants men, or who shall presume to
suggest that they ought not to be prosecuted.
Behold this viceroy promoting and rewarding
the men who insulted and attempted to degrade
the first of your Protestant nobility. Behold
him in public, the man I have described.
In his personal concerns he receives an enormous
revenue from the people he thus misgoverns.
See in his management of that revenue
a parsimony at which even his enemies blush.
See the paltry sum of a single joe7 refused to
any Protestant charity, while his bounty is
unknown even at the Popish institutions for
benevolent purposes. See the most wasteful
expenditure of the public money—every job
patronized—every profligacy encouraged. See
the resources of Portugal diminished. See her
discords and her internal feuds increased. And,
lastly, behold the course of justice perverted
and corrupted.
It is thus, gentlemen, the Protestant Portuguese
seek to obtain relief by humble petition
and supplication. There can be no crime surely
for a Protestant, oppressed because he follows
a religion which is, in his opinion, true, to
endeavor to obtain relief by mildly representing
to his Popish oppressors, that it is the right
of every man to worship the Deity according to
the dictates of his own conscience; to state
respectfully to the governing powers that it is
unjust, and may be highly impolitic, to punish
men, merely because they do not profess Popery,
which they do not believe; and to submit, with
all humility, that to lay the burdens of the
state equally, and distribute its benefits partially,
is not justice, but, although sanctioned
by the pretence of religious zeal, is, in truth,
iniquity, and palpably criminal. Well, gentlemen,
for daring thus to remonstrate, the Protestants
are persecuted. The first step in the
persecution is to pervert the plain meaning of
the Portuguese language, and a law prohibiting
any disguise in apparel, shall be applied to the
ordinary dress of the individual; it reminds
one of pretence and purpose.
To carry on these persecutions, the viceroy
chooses for his first inquisitor the descendant
of some Popish refugee—some man with an
hereditary hatred to Protestants; he is not the
son of an Irishman, this refugee inquisitor—no,
for the fact is notorious that the Irish refugee
Papists were ever distinguished for their liberality,
as well as for their gallantry in the field
and talent in the cabinet. This inquisitor shall
be, gentlemen, a descendant from one of those
English Papists, who was the dupe or contriver
of the Gunpowder Plot! With such a chief
inquisitor, can you conceive anything more
calculated to rouse you to agony than the
solemn mockery of your trial? This chief inquisitor
begins by influencing the judges out
of court; he proceeds to inquire out fit men for
his interior tribunal, which, for brevity, we will
call a jury. He selects his juries from the most
violent of the Popish Orangemen of the city,
and procures a conviction against law and common
sense, and without evidence. Have you
followed me, gentlemen? Do you enter into
the feelings of Protestants thus insulted, thus
oppressed, thus persecuted—their enemies and
traducers promoted, and encouraged, and richly
rewarded—their friends discountenanced and
displaced—their persons unprotected, and their
characters assailed by hired calumniators—their
blood shed with impunity—their revenues parsimoniously
spared to accumulate for the individual,
wastefully squandered for the state—the
emblems of discord, the war-cry of disunion,
sanctioned by the highest authority, and Justice
herself converted from an impartial arbitrator
into a frightful partisan?
Yes, gentlemen, place yourselves as Protestants
under such a persecution. Behold before
you this chief inquisitor, with his prejudiced
tribunal—this gambler, with a loaded die; and
now say what are your feelings—what are
your sensations of disgust, abhorrence, affright?
But if at such a moment some ardent and enthusiastic
Papist, regardless of his interests,
and roused by the crimes that were thus committed
against you, should describe, in measured,
and cautious, and cold language, scenes
of oppression and iniquity—if he were to describe
them, not as I have done, but in feeble
and mild language, and simply state the facts
for your benefit and the instruction of the public—if
this liberal Papist, for this, were dragged
to the Inquisition, as for a crime, and menaced
with a dungeon for years, good and gracious
God! how would you revolt at and abominate
the men who could consign him to that dungeon!
With what an eye of contempt, and
hatred, and despair, would you not look at the
packed and profligate tribunal which could
direct punishment against him who deserved
rewards! What pity would you not feel for
the advocate who heavily, and without hope,
labored in his defence! and with what agonized
and frenzied despair would you not look to the
future destinies of a land in which perjury was
organized and from which humanity and justice
had been forever banished!
With this picture of yourselves in Portugal,
come home to us in Ireland; say, is that a crime,
when applied to Protestants, which is a virtue
and a merit when applied to Papists? Behold
how we suffer here; and then reflect, that it is
principally by reason of your prejudices against
us that the Attorney-General hopes for your
verdict. The good man has talked of his impartiality;
he will suppress, he says, the licentiousness
of the Press. I have, I hope, shown
you the right of my client to discuss the public
subjects which he has discussed in the manner
they are treated of in the publication before
you, yet he is prosecuted. Let me read for you
a paragraph which the Attorney-General has
not prosecuted—which he has refused to prosecute:
“Ballybay, July 4, 1813.
“A meeting of the Orange Lodges was
agreed on, in consequence of the manner in
which the Catholics wished to have persecuted
the loyalists in this county last year, when they
even murdered some of them for no other reason
than their being yeomen and Protestants.”
And, again—
“It was at Ballybay that the Catholics murdered
one Hughes, a yeoman sergeant, for being
a Protestant, as was given in evidence at the
assizes by a Catholic witness.”
I have read this passage from the Hibernian
Journal of the 7th of this month. I know not
whether you can hear, unmoved, a paragraph
which makes my blood boil to read; but I shall
only tell you, that the Attorney-General refused
to prosecute this libeller. Gentlemen, there
have been several murders committed in the
county of Monaghan, in which Ballybay lies.
The persons killed happened to be Roman
Catholics; their murderers are Orangemen.
Several of the persons accused of these murders
are to be tried at the ensuing assizes. The
agent applied to me personally, with this newspaper;
he stated that the obvious intention
was to create a prejudice upon the approaching
trials favorable to the murderers, and against
the prosecutors. He stated what you—even
you—will easily believe, that there never was a
falsehood more flagitiously destitute of truth
than the entire paragraph. I advised him,
gentlemen, to wait on the Attorney-General in
the most respectful manner possible; to show
him this paragraph, then to request to be
allowed to satisfy him as to the utter falsehood
of the assertions which this paragraph contained,
which could be more easily done, as the judges
who went that circuit could prove part of it to
be false; and I directed him to entreat that the
Attorney-General, when fully satisfied of the
falsehood, would prosecute the publisher of
this, which, I think, I may call an atrocious
libel.
Gentlemen, the Attorney-General was accordingly
waited on; he was respectfully requested
to prosecute upon the terms of having the
falsehood of these assertions first proved to
him. I need not tell you he refused. These
are not the libellers he prosecutes. Gentlemen,
this not being a libel on any individual, no private
individual can prosecute for it; and the
Attorney-General turns his Press loose on the
Catholics of the county of Monaghan, whilst
he virulently assails Mr. Magee for what must
be admitted to be comparatively mild and
inoffensive.
No, gentlemen, he does not prosecute this
libel. On the contrary, this paper is paid enormous
sums of the public money. There are no
less than five proclamations in the paper containing
this libel; and, it was proved in my
presence, in a court of justice, that, besides the
proclamations and public advertisements, the
two proprietors of the paper had each a pension
of £400 per annum, for supporting government,
as it was called. Since that period one of those
proprietors has got an office worth, at least,
£800 a year; and the son of the other, a place
of upwards of £400 per annum: so that, as it
is likely that the original pensions continue,
here may be an annual income of £2000 paid
for this paper, besides the thousands of pounds
annually which the insertion of the proclamations
and public advertisements cost. It is a
paper of the very lowest and most paltry scale
of talent, and its circulation is, fortunately, very
limited; but it receives several thousands of
pounds of the money of the men whom it foully
and falsely calumniates.
Would I could see the man who pays this
proclamation money and these pensions at the
Castle. [Here Mr. O’Connell turned round to
where Mr. PeeleB sat.] Would I could see the
man who, against the fact, asserted that the
proclamations were inserted in all the papers,
save in those whose proprietors were convicted
of a libel. I would ask him whether this be a
paper that ought to receive the money of the
Irish people? Whether this be the legitimate
use of the public purse? And when you find
this calumniator salaried and rewarded, where
is the impartiality, the justice, or even the
decency of prosecuting Mr. Magee for a libel,
merely because he has not praised public men,
and has discussed public affairs in the spirit of
freedom and of the constitution? Contrast the
situation of Mr. Magee with the proprietor of
the Hibernian Journal: the one is prosecuted
with all the weight and influence of the Crown,
the other pensioned by the ministers of the
Crown; the one dragged to your bar for the
sober discussion of political topics, the other
hired to disseminate the most horrid calumnies!
Let the Attorney-General now boast of his impartiality;
can you credit him on your oaths?
Let him talk of his veneration for the liberty
of the Press; can you believe him in your consciences?
Let him call the Press the protection
of the people against the government. Yes,
gentlemen, believe him when he says so. Let
the Press be the protection of the people; he
admits that it ought to be so. Will you find a
verdict for him that shall contradict the only
assertion upon which he and I, however, are
both agreed?
Gentlemen, the Attorney-General is bound by
this admission; it is part of his case, and he is
the prosecutor here; it is a part of the evidence
before you, for he is the prosecutor. Then,
gentlemen, it is your duty to act upon that
evidence, and to allow the Press to afford some
protection to the people.
Is there amongst you any one friend to freedom?
Is there amongst you one man who
esteems equal and impartial justice, who values
the people’s rights as the foundation of private
happiness, and who considers life as no boon
without liberty? Is there amongst you one
friend to the constitution—one man who hates
oppression? If there be, Mr. Magee appeals to
his kindred mind, and confidently expects an
acquittal.
There are amongst you men of great religious
zeal—of much public piety. Are you sincere?
Do you believe what you profess? With all
this zeal—with all this piety, is there any conscience
amongst you? Is there any terror of
violating your oaths? Be ye hypocrites, or
does genuine religion inspire ye? If you be
sincere—if you have conscience—if your oaths
can control your interests, then Mr. Magee
confidently expects an acquittal.
If amongst you there be cherished one ray
of pure religion—if amongst you there glow a
single spark of liberty—if I have alarmed religion,
or roused the spirit of freedom in one
breast amongst you, Mr. Magee is safe, and his
country is served; but if there be none—if
you be slaves and hypocrites, he will await
your verdict, and despise it.8