atrocious invasion of household peace; this portentous disregard of everything held sacred amongst men good or evil. Nothing, indeed, can be more affecting than even to be called upon to state the evidence I must bring before you; I can scarcely pronounce to you that the victim of the defendant's lust was the mother of nine children, seven of them females and infants, unconscious of their unhappy condition, deprived of their natural guardian, separated from her for ever, and entering the world with a dark cloud hanging over them.-But it is not in the descending line alone that the happiness of this worthy family is invaded. It hurts me to call before you the venerable progenitor of both the father and the children, who has risen by extraordinary learning and piety to his eminent rank in the Church, and who, instead of receiving, unmixed and undisturbed, the best consolation of age, in counting up the number of his descendants, carrying down the name and honor of his house to future times, may be forced to turn aside his face from some of them, that bring to his remembrance the wrongs which now oppress him, and which it is his duty to forget, because it is his otherwise impossible, duty to forgive them.

Gentlemen, if I make out this case by evidence (and, if I do not, forget everything you have heard, and reproach me for having abused your honest feelings,) I have established a claim for damages that has no parallel in the annals of fashionable adultery. It is rather like the entrance of Sin and Death into this lower world.-The undone pair were living like our first parents in Paradise, till this demon saw and envied their happy condition.-Like them, they were in a moment cast down from the pinnacle of human happiness into the very lowest abyss of sorrow and despair. In one point, indeed, the resemblance does not hold, which, while it aggravates the crime, redoubles the sense of suffering.-It was not from an enemy, but from a friend, that this evil proceeded. I have just had put into my hand, a quotation from the Psalms upon this subject, full of that unaffected simplicity which so strikingly characterizes the sublime and sacred poet :

"It is not an open enemy that hath done me this dishonor, for then I could have borne it.

"Neither was it mine adversary that did magnify himself against me; for then, peradventure, I would have hid myself from him.

"But it was even thou, my companic n, my guide, mine own familiar friend."

This is not the language of counsel, but the inspired language of truth. I ask you solemnly, upon your honors and your paths, if you would exchange the plaintiff's former situation

for his present, for an hundred times the compensation he requires at your hands. I am addressing myself to affectionate husbands and to the fathers of beloved children.-Suppose I were to say to you, there is twenty thousand pounds for youembrace your wife for the last time, and the child that leans upon her bosom and smiles upon you-retire from her house and make way for the adulterer-wander about an object for the hand of scorn to point its slow unmoving finger atthink no more of the happiness and tranquillity of your former state-I have destroyed them for ever; but never mind-don't make yourself uneasy-here is a draft upon my banker, it will be paid at sight-there is no better man in the city. I can see you think I am mocking you, Gentlemen, and well you may; but it is the very pith and marrow of this cause. It is impossible to put the argument in mitigation of damages in plain English, without talking such a language, as appears little better than insults to your understandings, dress it up as you

will.

But it may be asked,-if no money can be an adequate or indeed any compensation, why is Mr. Markham a plaintiff in a CIVIL ACTION? Why does he come here for money?—Thank God, Gentlemen, IT IS NOT MY FAULT. I take honor to myself, that I was one of those who endeavored to put an end to this species of action, by the adoption of a more salutary course of proceeding. I take honor to myself, that I was one of those who supported in Parliament, the adoption of a law to pursue such outrages with the terrors of criminal justice. I thought then, and I shall always think, that every act malum in se directly injurious to an individual, and most pernicious in its consequences to society, should be considered to be a misdemeanor. Indeed I know of no other definition of the term: the Legislature, however, thought otherwise, and I bow to its decision; but the business of this day may produce some changes of opinion on the subject. I never meant that every adultery was to be similarly considered. Undoubtedly there are cases where it is comparatively venial, and Judges would not overlook the distinctions.-I am not a pretender to any extraordinary purity. My severity is confined to cases in which there can be but one sentiment amongst men of honor, as to the offence, though they may differ in the mode and measure of its correction.

It is this difference of sentiment, Gentlemen, that I am alone afraid of; I fear you may think there is a sort of limitation in verdicts, and that you may look to precedents for the amount of damages, though you can find no precedent for the magnitude of the crime; but you might as well abolish the action

altogether, as lay down a principle which limits the conse quences of adultery to what it may be convenient for the adulterer to pay. By the adoption of such a principle, or by any mitigation of severity, arising even from an insufficient reprobation of it, you unbar the sanctuary of domestic happiness, and establish a sort of license for debauchery, to be sued out like other licenses, at its price;-a man has only to put money into his pocket, according to his degree and fortune, and he may then debauch the wife or daughter of his best friend, at the expense he chooses to go to.-He has only to say to himself what Iago says to Rodrigo in the play—

"Put money in thy purse-go to put money in thy purse.”

Persons of immense fortunes might, in this way, deprive the best men in the country of their domestic satisfactions, with what to them might be considered as impunity. The most abandoned profligate might say to himself, or to other profligates, "I have suffered judgment by default-let them send down their Deputy Sheriff to the King's-Arms Tavern; I shall be concealed from the eye of the public-I have drawn upon my banker for the utmost damages, and I have as much more to spare to-morrow, if I can find another woman whom I would choose to enjoy at such a price." In this manner I have seen a rich delinquent, too lightly fined by courts of criminal justice, throw down his bank-notes to the officers, and retire with a deportment, not of contrition, but contempt.

For these reasons, Gentlemen, I expect from you to day the full measure of damages demanded by the plaintiff. Having given such a verdict, you will retire with a monitor within, confirming that you have done right-you will retire in sight of an approving public, and an approving Heaven. Depend upon it, the world cannot be held together without morals; nor can morals maintain their station in the human heart without religion, which is the corner-stone of the fabric of human virtue.

We have lately had a most striking proof of this sublime and consoling truth, in one result, at least, of the revolution which has astonished and shaken the earth. Though a false philoso phy was permitted for a season to raise up her vain fantastic front, and to trample down the Christian establishments and institutions, yet, on a sudden, God said, "Let there be light and there was light." The altars of religion were restored not purged indeed of human errors and superstitions, not re formed in the just sense of reformation, yet the Christian religion is still re-established; leading on to farther reformation;→

fulfilling the hope, that the doctrines and practice of Christianity shall overspread the face of the earth.

Gentlemen, as to us, we have nothing to wait for ;—we have long been in the centre of light-we have a true religion and a free government, AND YOU ARE THE PILLARS AND SUPPORTERS OF

BOTH.

I have nothing further to add, except that, since the defendant committed the injury complained of, he has sold his estate, and is preparing to remove into some other country. Be it so.

Let him remove; but you will have to pronounce the penalty of his return. It is for you to declare whether such a person is worthy to be a member of our community. But if the feebleness of your jurisdiction, or a commiseration which destroys the exercise of it, shall shelter such a criminal from the consequences of his crimes, individual security is gone, and the rights of the public are unprotected. Whether this be our condition or not, I shall know by your verdict.

MR. ERSKINE'S SPEECH,

FOR THE DEFENDANT IN THE CASE OF HOWARD vs. BINGHAM.

GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY,

My learned friend, as counsel for the plaintiff, has bespoke an address from me, as counsel for the defendant, which you must not, I assure you, expect to hear. He has thought it right (partly in courtesy to me, as I am willing to believe,) and in part for the purposes of his cause, that you should suppose you are to be addressed with eloquence which I never possessed, and which if I did, I should be incapable at this moment of exerting; because the most eloquent man, in order to exert his eloquence, must have his mind free from embarrassment on the occasion on which he is to speak:-I am not in that condition. My learned friend has expressed himself as the friend of the plaintiff's family: He does not regard that family more than I do; and I stand in the same predicament towards my own honorable client and his relations; I know him and them, and because I know them, I regard them also: my embarrassment, however, only arises at being obliged to discuss this question in a public court of justice, because, could it have been the subject of private reference, I should have felt none at all in being called upon to settle it.

Gentlemen, my embarrassment is abundantly increased, when I see present a noble person, high, very high in rank in this kingdom, but not higher in rank than he is in my estimation:I speak of the noble Duke of Norfolk, who most undoubtedly must feel not a little, at being obliged to come here as a witness for the defendant, in the cause of a plaintiff so nearly allied to himself: I am persuaded no man can have so little sensibility, as not to feel that a person in my situation, must be greatly embarrassed in discussing a question of this nature before such an audience, and between such parties as I have described.

Gentlemen, my learned friend desired you would take care not to suffer argument, or observation, or eloquence, to be called into the field, to detach your attention from the evidence in the cause, upon which alone you ought to decide; I wish my learned friend, at the moment he gave you that caution, had not himself given testimony of a fact, to which he stood the solitary witness: I wish he had not introduced his own evidence,