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He has called together legislative bodies, at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records; for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused, for a long time after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large, for their exercise; the State remaining, in the mean time, exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsion within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose, obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others, to encourage their migrations hither; and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws, for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers, to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our Legislatures.

He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power.

He has combined with others, to subject us to a jurisdiction, foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation.

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us.

For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these States. For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world.

For imposing taxes on us, without our consent.

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury. For transporting us beyond sea, to be tried for pretended offences. For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighbouring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once, an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies.

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering, fundamentally, the forms of our governments.

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us, in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection, and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is, at this time, transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries, to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun, with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy, scarcely parallelled in the most barbarous, ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on the high

seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress, in the most humble terms. Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince whose character is thus marked, by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts made, by their legislature, to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them, by the ties of our common kindred, to disavow these usurpations; which would inevitably interrupt our connexions and correspondence. They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind; enemies in war; in peace, friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World, for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these United Colonies are, and, of right, ought to be, free and independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, that all political connexion, between them and the State of Great Britain, is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that, as free and independent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour.

John Hancock, Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjn. Franklin, John Morton, Geo. Clymer, Jas. Smith, Geo. Taylor, James Wilson, Geo. Ross, Cesar Rodney, Geo. Read, Thos. McKean, Wm. Floyd, Phil. Livingston, Frans. Lewis, Lewis Morris, Richd. Stockton, Jno. Wetherspoon, Fras. Hopkinson, John Hart, Abra. Clark, Josiah Bartlett, Matthew Thornton, Wm. Whipple, Sam. Adams, John Adams, Robt. Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry, Step. Hopkins, William Ellery, Roger Sherman, Saml. Huntington, Wm. Williams, Oliver Walcott, Carter Braxton, Francis Lightfoot Lee, Thos. Nelson, Jr. Benjn. Harrison, Th. Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee, George Wythe, Charles Carrol, of Carrolton, Thos. Stone, Wm. Paca, Samuel Chase, Arthur Middleton, Thomas Lynch, Junr. Thos. Hayward, Junr. Edward Rutledge, John Penn, Joseph Hewes, Wm. Hooper, Geo. Walton, Lyman Hall, Button Gwinnet.

SPEECH

Of Mr. Phillips, in the case of Guthrie v. Sterne, delivered in the Court of Common Pleas, Dublin.

My Lord and Gentlemen,

In this case, I am of counsel for the plaintiff, who has deputed me, with the kind concession of my much more efficient colleagues, to detail to you the story of his misfortunes. In the course of a long friendship which has existed between us, originating in mutual pursuits, and cemented by our mutual attachments, never, until this instant, did I feel any thing but pleasure in the claims which it created, or the duty which it imposed. In selecting me, however, from this bright array of learning and of eloquence, I cannot help being pained at the kindness of a partiality, which forgets its interest in the exercise of its affection, and confides the task of practised wisdom, to the uncertain guidance of youth and inexperience. He has thought, perhaps, that truth needed no set phrases of speech; that misfortune should not veil the furrows which its tears had burned; or hide, under the decorations of an artful drapery, the heart-rent heavings with which its bosom throbbed. He has surely thought, that by contrasting mine with the powerful talents selected by his antagonist, he was giving you a proof, that the appeal he made, was to your reason, not to your feelings to the integrity of your hearts, not to the exasperation of your passions. Happily, however, for him, happily for you, happily for the country, happily for the profession, on subjects such as this, the experience of the oldest amongst us is but slender; deeds such as this are not indigenous to an Irish soil, or naturalized beneath an Irish climate. We hear of them, indeed, as we do of the earthquakes that convulse, or the pestilence that infects less favoured regions; but the record of the calamity is only read with the generous scepticism of innocence, or an involuntary thanksgiving to the Providence that has preserved us. No matter how we may have graduated in the scale of nations; no matter with what wreath we may have been adorned, or what blessings we may have been denied; no matter what may have been our feuds, our follies, or our misfortunes, it has at least been universally conceded, that our hearths were the home of the domestic virtues, and that love, honour and conjugal fidelity were the dear and indisputable deities of our householdaround the fireside of the Irish hovel, hospitality circumscribed its sacred circle, and a provision to punish, created a suspicion of the possibility of its violation. But of all the ties that bound; of all the bounties that blessed her, Ireland most obeyed, most loved, most reverenced the nuptial contract. She saw it the gift of Heaven, the charm of earth, the joy of the present, the promise of the future, the innocence of enjoyment, the chastity of passion, the sacrament of love-the slender curtain, that shades the sanctuary of her marriage bed, has in its purity the splendor of the mountain snow, and for its protection the texture of the mountain adamant. Gentlemen, that national sanctuary has been invaded ; that venerable divinity has been violated; and its

tenderest pledges torn from their shrine, by the polluted rapine of a kindless, heartless, prayerless, remorseless adulterer. To you, reli gion defiled, morals insulted, law despised, public order foully violated, and individual happiness wantonly wounded, make their melancholy appeal-you will hear the facts with as much patience as indignation will allow; I will myself ask you to adjudge them with as much mercy as justice will admit.

The plaintiff in this case, is John Guthrie-by birth-by education-by profession, by better than all, by practice and by principles. a gentleman. Believe me it is not from the common place of advocacy, or from the blind partiality of friendship, that I say of him, that whether considering the virtues that adorn life, or the blandishments that endear it, he has few superiors. Surely, if a spirit that disdained dis honour; if a heart that knew not guile; if a life above reproach, and a character beyond suspicion, could have been a security against misfortunes, his lot must have been happiness. I speak in the presence of that profession to which he was an ornament, and with those mem bers his manhood has been familiar, and I say of hiin, with a confidence that defies refutation, that, whether we consider him in his private or his public station--as a man, or as a lawyer, there never breathed that being less capable of exciting enmity towards himself, or of offering, even by implication, an offence to others. If he had a fault, it was, that, above crime, he was above suspicion, and to that noblest error of a noble nature, he has fallen a victim. Having spent his youth in the cultivation of a mind, which must have one day led him to eminence, he became a member of the profession by which I am surrounded. Possessing, as he did, a moderate independence, and looking forward to the most flattering prospects, it was natural for him to select amongst the other sex, some friend who should adorn his fortunes, and deceive his toils. He found such a friend, or thought he had found her, in the person of Miss Warren, the only daughter of an eminent solicitor. Young, beautiful, and accomplished, she was "adorned with all that earth or heaven could bestow to make her amiable." Virtue never found a fairer temple-beauty never veiled a purer sanctuary the graces of her mind retained the admiration which her beauty had attracted, and the eye which her charms fired, became subdued and chastened in the modesty of their association. She was in the dawn of life, with all its fragrance round her, and yet so pure that even the blush which sought to hide her lustre, but disclosed the vestal deity that burned beneath it! No wonder an adoring husband anticipated all the joys this world would give him--no wonder the parental eye which beamed upon their union, saw in the perspective, an old age of happiness, and a posterity of honour.

Methinks I see them at the sacred altar, joining those hands which Heaven commanded none should separate, repaid for many a pang of anxious nurture, by the sweet smile of filial piety, and in the holy rapture of the rite, worshipping the power that blessed their children, and gave them hope, their name should life hereafter. It was vir.ue's vision-none but fiends could envy it. Year after year confirmed the anticipation-four lovely children blessed their union: Nor was their love the summer passion of prosperity; misfortune proved-afflictions chastened it; before the mandate of that mysterious power which will, at times, despoil the paths of innocence, to decorate the chariot of tri

umphant villainy, my client had to bow in silent resignation. He owed his adversity to the benevolence of his spirit. He went security for friends-those friends deceived him, and he was obliged to seek in other lands, that safe asylum which his own denied him. He was glad to accept an offer of professional business in Scotland, during his temporary embarrassment. With a conjugal devotion, Mrs. Guthrie accompanied him, and in her smile the soil of the stranger was a homethe sorrows of adversity were dear to him. During their residence in Scotland, a period of about a year, you will find they lived as they had done in Ireland, and as they continued to do, until this calamitous occurrence, in a state of uninterrupted happiness.

You shall hear most satisfactorily that their domestic life was unsullied and undisturbed. Happy at home, happy in a husband's love, happy in her parent's fondness, happy in the children she had nursed, Mrs. Guthrie carried into every circle, and there was no circle in which her society was not courted, that cheerfulness which never was a companion of guilt, or a stranger to innocence. My client saw her the pride of his family, the favourite of his friends; at once the organ and ornament of his happiness. His ambition awoke, his industry redoubled, and that fortune, which, though for a season it may frown, never totally abandons probity and virtue, had begun to smile on him. He was beginning to rise in the ranks of his competitors, and rising with such a character, that emulation itself rather rejoiced than envied. It was at this crisis, in this, the noon of his happiness, and day-spring of his fortune, that to the ruin of both, the defendant became acquainted with his family. With the serpent's wile and the serpent's wickedness, he stole into the eden of domestic life, poisoning all that was pure, polluting all that was lovely, defying God, destroying man, a dæmon in the disguise of virtue, a herald of hell in the paradise of innocence. His name, gentlemen, is William Peter Baker Dunstanville Sterne : one would think he had epithets enough without adding to them the title of an adulterer. Of his character I know but little, and I am sorry that I know so much; if I am instructed rightly, he is one of those vain and vapid coxcombs, whose vices tinge the frivolity of their follies with something of a more odious character than ridicule. With just head enough to contrive crime, but not heart enough to feel for its consequences; one of those fashionable insects that folly has painted and fortune plumed for the annoyance of our atmosphere; dangerous alike, in their torpidity and their animation; infesting where they fly; and poisoning where they repose.

It was through the introduction of Mr. Fallon, the son of a most respectable lady, then resident in Temple-street, and a near relative of Mr. Guthrie, that the defendant and this unfortunate woman first became acquainted; to such an introduction the shadow of a suspicion could not possibly attach. Occupied himself in his professional pursuits, my client had little leisure for the amusement of society; however, to the protection of Mrs. Fallon, her son and daughters, moving in the first circles, unstained by any possible imputation, he without hesitation entrusted all that was dear to him. No suspicion could be awakened as to any man to whom such a female as Mrs. Fallon permitted an intimacy with her daughters; while at her house then, and at the parties which it originated, the defendant and Mrs. Guthrie had frequent opportunities of meeting. Who could have suspected that

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