4 me. re He ashamed to say, that, in my mind,not the least interesting of those circumstances is the poverty of the man who has made this appeal to Few are the consolations which soothe-hard must be the heart which does not feel for him. He is, gentlemen, a man of lowly birth and humble station; with little wealth but from the labour of his hands, with no rank but the integrity of his character, with no creation but in the circle of his home, and with no ambition, but, when his days are full, to leave that little circle the inheritance of an honest name, and the treasure of a good man's memory. Far inferior, indeed, is he in this respect to his more fortunate antagonist. He, on the contrary, is amply either blessed or cursed with those qua lifications which enable a man to adorn or disgrace the society in which he lives. He is, I understand, the representative of an honourable name, the relative of a distinguished family, the supposed heir to their virtues, the indisputable inheritor of their riches. has been for many years a resident of your country, and has had the advantage of collecting round him all those recollections, which, springing from the scenes of school-boy association, or from the more matured enjoyments of the man, crowd as it were unconsciously to the heart, and cling with a venial partiality to the companion and the friend. So impressed, in truth, has he been with these advantages, that, surpassing the usual expenses of a trial, he has selected a tribunal where he vainly hopes such considerations will have weight, and where he well knows my client's humble rank can have no claim but that to which his miseries may entitle him. I am sure, however, he has wretchedly miscalculated. I know none of you personally; but I have no doubt I am addressing men who will not prostrate their consciences before privilege or power; who will remember that there is a nobility above birth, and a wealth beyond riches; who will feel that, as in the eye of that God to whose aid they have appealed, there is not the minutest difference between the rag and the robe, so in the contemplation of that law which constitutes our boast, guilt can have no protection, or innocence no tyrant ; men who will have pride in proving, that the noblest adage of our poble constitution is not an illusive shadow; and that the peasant's cottage, roofed with straw and tenanted by poverty, stands as inviolate from all invasion, as the mansion of the monarch. My client's name, gentlemen, is Connaghton, and when I have given you his name you have almost all his history. To cultivate the path of honest industry comprises, in one line, "the short and simple annals of the poor," This has been his humble, but at the same time most honourable occupation. It matters little with what artificial nothings chance may distinguish the name, or decorate the person : the child of lowly life, with virtue for its handmaid, holds as proud a title as the highest--as rich an inheritance as the wealthiest. Well has the poet of your country said--that "Princes or Lords may flourish or may fade, For all the virtues which adorn that peasantry, which can render humble life respected, or give the highest stations their most per manent distinctions, my client stands conspicuous: An hundred years of sad vicissitude, and, in this land, often of strong temptation, have rolled away since the little farm on which he lives received his family; and, during all that time not one accusation has disgraced, not one crime has sullied it. The same spot has seen his grandsire and his parent pass away from this world; the villagememory records their worth, and the rustic tear hallows their resting-place. After all, when life's mockeries shall vanish from before us, and the heart that now beats in the proudest bosom here, shall moulder unconscious beneath its kindred clay, art cannot crect a nobler monument, or genius compose a purer panegyric. Such, gentlemen, was almost the only inheritance with which my client entered the world. He did not disgrace it; his youth, his manhood, his age, up to this moment, have passed without a blemish; and he now stands confessedly the head of the little village in which he lives. About five-and-twenty years ago, he married the sister of a highly respectable Roman Catholic clergyman, by whom he had a family of seven children, whom they educated in the principles of morality and religion, and who, until the defendant's interference, were the pride of their humble home, and the charm or the consolation of its vicissitudes. In their virtuous children, the rejoicing parents felt their youth renewed, their age made happy; the days of labour became holidays in their smile; and if the hand of affliction pressed on them, they looked upon their little ones, and their mourning ended. I cannot paint the glorious host of feelings; the joy, the love, the hope, the pride, the blended paradise of rich emotions with which the God of nature fills the father's heart when he beholds his child in all its filial loveliness, when the vision of his infancy rises as it were reanimate before him, and a divine vanity exaggerates every trifle into some mysterious omen, which shall smooth his aged wrinkles, and make his grave a monument of honour! describe them; but, if there be a parent on the jury, he will comprehend me. It is stated to me, that of all his children there were none more likely to excite such feelings in the plaintiff than the unfortunate subject of the present action; she was his favourite daughter, and she did not shame his preference. You shall find, most satisfactorily, that she was without stain or imputation; an aid and a blessing to her parents, and an example to her younger sisters, who looked up to her for instruction. She took a pleasure in assisting in the industry of their home; and it was at a neighbouring market, where she went to dispose of the little produce of that industry, that she unhappily attracted the notice of the defendant. Indeed, such a situation was not without interest,--a young female, in the bloom of her attractions, exerting her faculties in a parent's service, is an object lovely in the eye of God, and, one would suppose, estimable in the eye of mankind. Far different, however, were the sensations which she excited in the defendant. He saw her arrayed, as he confesses, in charms that enchanted him; but her youth, her beauty, the smile of her innocence, and the piety of her toil, but inflamed a brutal and licentious lust, that should have blushed itself away in such a presence. What cared he for the consequences of his gratification?-There was I cannot "No honour, no relenting ruth, To paint the parents fondling o'er their child, What thought he of the home he was to desolate ? What thought he of the happiness he was to plunder? His sensual rapine paused not to contemplate the speaking picture of the cottage-ruin, the blighted hope, the broken heart, the parent's agony, and, last and most withering in the woeful group, the wretched victim herself starv ing on the sin of a promiscuous prostitution, and at length perhaps, with her own hand, anticipating the more tedious murder of its diseases! He need not, if I am instructed rightly, have tortured his faney for the miserable consequences of hope bereft, and expectation plundered Through no very distant vista, he might have seen the form of deserted loveliness weeping over the worthlessness of his worldly expiation, and warning him, that as there were cruelties no repentance could atone, so there were sufferings neither wealth, nor time, nor absence could alleviate.* If his memory should fail him, if he should deny the picture, no man can tell him half so efficiently as the venerable advocate he has so judiciously selected, that a case might arise, where, though the energy of native virtue should defý the spoliation of the person, still crushed affection might leave an infliction on the mind, perhaps less deadly, but certainly not less indelible. I turn from this subject, with an indignation which tortures me into brevity; I turn to the agents by which this contamination was effected. I blush to name them, yet they were worthy of their vocation.— They were no other than a menial servant of Mr. Dillon; and a base, abandoned, profligate ruffian, a brother-in-law of the devoted victim herself, whose bestial appetites he bribed into subserviency! It does seem as if by such a selection he was determined to degrade the dignity of the master, while he violated the finer impulses of the man, by not merely associating with his own servant, but by diverting the purest streams of social affinity into the vitiated sewer of his enjoyment. Seduced by such instruments into a low public-house at Athlone, this unhappy girl heard, without suspicion, their mercenary panegyric of the defendant, when, to her amazement, but no doubt, according to their previous arrangement, he entered and joined their company. I do confess to you. gentlemen, when I first perused this passage in my brief, I flung it from me with a contemptuous incredulity. What! I exclaimed, as no doubt you are all ready to exclaim, can this be possible? Is it thus I am to find the educated youth of Ireland occupied? Is this the employment of the miserable aristocracy that yet lingers in this devoted country? Am I to find them, not in the pursuit of useful science, not in the encouragement of arts or agriculture, not in the relief of an impoverished tenantry, not in the proud march of an unsuccessful but not less sacred patriotism, not in the bright page of warlike immortality, dashing its iron crown from guilty greatness, or feeding freedom's laurel with the blood of * Mr. Phillips here alluded to a verdict of 50007. obtained at the late Galway Assizs against the defendant, at the suit of Miss Wilson, a very beautiful and interesting young lady, for a breach of promise of marriage MI. Whitestone, who now pleaded for Wr. Dillon, was Miss Wilson's advocate against him on the occasion alluded to. the despot-but am I to find them, amid drunken panders and corrupted slaves, debauching the innocence of village life, and even amid the stews of the tavern, collecting or creating the materials of the tavern, collecting or creating the materials of the brothel ! Gentlemen, I am still unwilling to believe it, and, with all the sincerity of Mr. Dillon's advocate, I do entreat you to reject it altogether, if it be not substantiated by the unimpeachable corroboration of an oath. As I am instructed, he did not, at this time, alarm his victim by any direct communication of his purpose; he saw that "she was good as she was fair," and that a premature disclosure would but alarm her virtue into an impossibility of violation. His sattellites, however, acted to admiration. They produced some trifle which he had left for her disposal; they declared he had long felt for her a sincere attachment; as a proof that it was pure, they urged the modesty with which, at a first interview, elevated above her as he was, he avoided its disclosure. When she pressed the madness of the expectation which could alone induce her to consent to his addresses, they assured her that though in the first instance such an event was impossible, still in time it was far from being improbable; that many men from such motives forgot altogether the difference of station, that Mr. Dillon's own family had already proved every obstacle might yield to an all-powerful passion, and induce him to make her his wife, who had reposed an affectionate credulity on his honour! Such were the subtle artifices to which he stooped. Do not imagine, however, that she yielded immediately and implicitly to their persuasions; I should scarcely wonder if she did. Every day shows us the rich, the powerful, and the educated, bowing before the spell of ambition, or avarice, or passion, to the sacrifice of their honour, their country, and their souls: what wonder, then, if a poor, ignorant, peasant girl had at once sunk before the united potency of such temptations! But she did not. Many and many a time the truths which had been inculcated by her adoring parents rose up in arms; and it was not until various interviews, and repeated artifices, and untiring efforts, that she yielded her faith, her fame, and her fortunes, to the disposal of her seducer. Alas, alas! how little did she suppose that a moment was to come when, every hope denounced, and every expectation dashed, he was to fling her for a very subsistence on the charity or the crimes of the world she had renounced for him! How little did she reflect, that in her humble station, unsoiled and sinless, she might look down upon the elevation to which vice would raise her! Yes, even were it a throne, I say she might look down on it. There is not on this earth a lovelier vision; there is not for the skies a more angelic candidate than a young, modest maiden, robed in chastity; no matter what its habitation, whether it be the palace or the hut: "So dear to Heaven is saintly Chastity, And turns it by degrees to the soul's essence, Such is the supreme power of chastity, as described by one of our divinest bards, and the pleasure which I feel in the recitation of such a passage is not a little enhanced, by the pride that few countries more fully afford its exemplification than our own. Let foreign envy decry us as it will, CHASTITY IS THE INSTINCT OF THE IRISH FE-. MALE: the pride of her talents, the power of her beauty, the splendour of her accomplishments, are but so many handmaids of this vestal virtue; it adorns her in the court, it ennobles her in the cottage; whether she basks in prosperity, or pines in sorrow, it clings about her like the diamond of the morning on the mountain flowret, trembling even in the ray that once exhibits and inhales it! Rare in our land is the absence of this virtue. Thanks to the modesty that venerates; thanks to the manliness that brands and avenges its violation. You have seen that it was by no common temptations even this humble villager yielded to seduction. I now come, Gentlemen, to another fact in the progress of this transaction, betraying, in my mind, as base a premeditation, and as low and as deliberate a deception as I ever heard of. While this wretched creature was in a kind of counterpoise between her fear and her affection, struggling as well as she could between passion inflamed and virtue unextinguished, Mr. Dillon ardently avowing that such an event as separation was impossible, ardently avowing an eternal attachment, insisted upon perfecting an article which should place her above the reach of contingencies. Gentlemen, you shall see this document voluntarily executed by an educated and estated gentleman of your country. I know not how you will feel, but for my part I protest I am in a suspense of admiration between the virtue of the proposal and the magnificent prodigality of the provision. Listen to the article: it is all in his own hand-writing: I promise," says he, to give Mary Connaghton the sum of ten pounds sterling per annum, when I part with her; but if she, the said Mary, should at any time hereafter conduct herself improperly, or (mark this, gentlemen) has done so before the drawing of this article, I am not bound to pay the sum of ten pounds, and this article becomes null and void as if the same was never executed. John Dillon." There, gentlemen, there is the notable and dignified document for you! take it into your jury box, for I know not how to comment on it. Oh, yes, I have heard of ambition urging men to crime--I have heard of love inflaming even madness-I have read of passion rushing over law and religion to enjoyment; but never, until this, did I see a frozen avarice chilling the hot pulse of sensuality; and desire pause, before its brutish draught, that it might add deceit to desolation! I need not tell you that having provided in the very execution of this article for its predetermined infringement; that knowing, as he must, any stipulation for the purchase of vice to be invalid by our law; that having in the body of this article inserted a provision against that previous pollution which his prudent caprice might invent hereafter, but which his own conscience, her universal character, and even his own desire for her pos session, all assured him did not exist in the time, I need not tell you that he now urges the invalidity of that instrument; that he now presses that previous pollution; that he refuses from his splendid income the pittance of ten pounds to the wretch he has ruined, and spurns her from him, to pine beneath the reproaches of a parent's |