attributable to the confusion of a mistaken charge, or an absurd vindication; but, without connection with the subject, a new principle of government is advanced, and that is the bayonet! And this is stated in the fullest house, and the most crowded audience, I ever saw. We are to be silenced by corruption within, or quelled by force of arms without. If the strength of numbers or corruption should fail against the cause of the public, it is to be backed by assassination. Nor is it necessary that those avowed principles of bribery and arms should come from any high personal authority; they have been delivered by the known retainers of Administration, in the face of that bench, and heard even without a murmur of dissent or disapprobation.

For my part, I do not know how it may be my destiny to fall;--it may be by chance, or malady, or violence; but, should it be my fate to perish the victim of a bold and honest discharge of my duty, I wil! not shun it. I will do that duty; and, if it should expose me to sink under the blow of the assassin, and become a victim to the public cause, the most sensible of my regrets would be, that on such an altar there should not be immolated a more illustrious sacrifice. As to myself, while I live, I shall despise the peril. I feel in my own spirit the safety of my honor, and in my own and the spirit of the People do I feel strength enough to hold that Administration, which can give a sanction to menaces like these, responsible for their conse quences to the Nation and the individual.

AGAINST RELIGIOUS DISTINCTIONS, 1796.-Curran.

Gentlemen say the Catholics have got everything but seats in Parliament. Are we really afraid of giving them that privilege? Are we seriously afraid that Catholic venality might pollute the immaculate integrity of the House of Commons?—that a Catholic member would be more accessible to a promise, or a pension, or a bribe, than a Protestant? Lay your hands upon your hearts, look in one another's faces, and say Yes, and I will vote against this amendment! But is it the fact that they have everything? Is it the fact that they have the common benefit of the Constitution, or the common protection of the law?

Another gentleman has said, the Catholics have got much, and ought to be content. Why have they got that much? Is it from the minister? Is it from the Parliament, which threw their petition over its bar? No, they got it by the great revolution of human affairs; by the astonishing march of the human mind; a march that has collected too much momentum, in its advance, to be now stopped in its progress. The bark is still afloat; it is freighted with the hopes and liber ties of millions of men; she is already under way; the rower may faint, or the wind may sleep, but, rely upon it, she has already acquired an energy of advancement that will support her course, and bring her to her destination; rely upon it, whether much or little remains, it is now vain to withhold it; rely upon it, you may as well stamp your foot upon the earth, in order to prevent its revoli icn. You cannot stop it! You will

only remain a silly gnomon upon its surface, to meas ure the rapidity of rotation, until you are forced round and buried in the shade of that body whose irresistible course you would endeavor to oppose!

THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS, 1794.-John Philpot Cur

ran.

What, then, remains? The liberty of the Press, only, --that sacred palladium, which no influence, no power, no minister, no Government, which nothing but the depravity or folly or corruption of a jury, can ever destroy. And what calamities are the People saved from, by having public communication left open to them? I will tell you, Gentlemen, what they are saved from, and what the Government is saved from; I will tell you, also, to what both are exposed by shutting up that communication. In one case, sedition speaks aloud, and walks abroad; the demagogue goes forth, the public eye is upon bim,-he frets his busy hour upon the stage; but soon either weariness, or bribe, or punishment, or disappointment, bears him down, or drives him off, and he appears no more. In the other case, how does the work of sedition go forward? Night after night, the muffled rebel steals forth in the dark, and casts another and another brand upon the pile, to which, when the hour of fatal maturity shall arrive, he will apply the torch.

In that awful moment of a Nation's travail, of the last gasp of tyranny, and the first breath of freedom, how pregnant is the exampie! The Press extinguished,

the People enslaved, and the Prince undone! As the advocate of society, therefore, of peace, of domestic liberty, and the lasting union of the two countries, I conjure you to guard the liberty of the Press, that great sentinel of the State, that grand detector of public imposture! Guard it, because, when it sinks, there sinks with it, in one common grave, the liberty of the subject, and the security of the Crown!

DESCRIPTION OF MR. ROWAN, 1794,-John Philpot Cur

ran.

Gentlemen, if you still have any doubt as to the guilt or innocence of the defendant, give me leave to suggest to you what circumstances you ought to consider, in order to found your verdict. You should consider the character of the person accused; and in this your task is easy. I will venture to say there is not a man in. this Nation more known than the gentleman who is the subject of this prosecution; not only by the part he has taken. in public concerns, and which he has taken in common with many, but still more so by that extraordinary sympathy for human affliction, which, I am sorry to think, he shares with so small a number. There is not a day that you hear the cries of your starving manufacturers in your streets, that you do not also see the advocate of their sufferings, that you do not see his honest and manly figure, with uncovered head, soliciting for their relief,-searching the frozen heart of charity for every string that can be touched by compassion, ard urging the force of every argument

and every mocive, save that which his modesty sup presses, the authority of his own generous example.

Or, if you see him not there, you may trace his steps to the private abodes of disease, and famine, and despair,—the messenger of Heaven, bringing with him food, and medicine, and consolation. Are these the materials of which you suppose anarchy and public rapine to be formed? Is this the man on whom to fasten the abominable charge of goading on a frantic populace to mutiny and bloodshed? Is this the man likely to apostatize from every principle that can bind him to the State-his birth, his property, his education, his character, and his children? Let me tell you, gentlemen of the jury, if you agree with his prosecutors, in thinking that there ought to be a sacrifice of such a man on such an occasion, and upon the credit of such evidence you are to convict him, never did you, never can you give a sentence, consigning any man to public punishment, with less danger to his person or to his fame; for where, to fling contumely or ingratitude at his head, could the hireling be found, whose private distresses he had not endeavored to alleviate, or whose public condition he had not labored to improve?

I will not relinquish the confidence that this day will be the period of my client's sufferings; and that, however mercilessly he has been hitherto pursued, your verdict will send him home to the arms of his family and the wishes of his country. But if (which Heaven forbid) it hath still been unfortunately determined, that, because he has not bent to power and authority,because he would not how down before the golden calf,