you might be seen hovering over the dome, like an ill-omened bird of night, with sepulchral notes, with cadaverous aspect, and broken beak, ready to stoop and pounce upon your prey. You can be trusted by no man; the people cannot trust you, the ministers cannot trust you-you deal out the most impartial treachery to both; you tell the nation it is ruined by other men, when it is sold by yourself; you fled from the Embargo Bill; you fled from the Mutiny Bill; you fled from the Sugar Bill. I therefore tell you, in the face of your country, before all the world, and to your very beard, you are not an honest

man.

Mr. Flood. "I have heard very extraordinary language indeed, and I challenge any man to say that any thing half so unwarrantable was ever uttered in this House. The right honourable gentleman set out with declaring he did not wish to use personality; and no sooner had he opened his mouth, than forth issues all the venom that ingenuity and disappointed vanity, for two years brooding over corruption, has been able to produce. But taint my public character it cannot ; four and twenty years employed in your service has established that: and as to my private, let that be learned from my friends, from those under my own roof. To these I appeal; and this appeal I boldly make, with an utter contempt of insinuations, false as they are illiberal."

XV.-MR. GRATTAN IN REPLY TO MR. CORRY.

HAS the gentleman done? Has he completely done? He was unparliamentary from the beginning to the end of his speech. There was scarcely a word he uttered that was not a violation of the privileges of the House; but I did not call him to order-why? because the limited talents of some men render it impossible for them to be severe without being unparliamentary. But, before I sit down, I shall show him how to be severe and parliamentary at the same time. On any other occasion I should think myself justifiable in treating with silent contempt any thing which might fall from that honourable member; but there are times when the insignificance of the accuser is lost in the magnitude of the accusation. I know the difficulty the honourable gentleman laboured under when he attacked me; conscious that, on a comparative view of our characters, public and private, there is nothing he could say which would injure me. The public would not believe the charge; I despise the falsehood. If such a charge were made

by an honest man, I would answer it in the manner I shall do before I sit down. But I shall first reply to it when not made by an honest man.

The right honourable gentleman has called me "an unimpeached traitor." I ask, why not "traitor," unqualified by any epithet? I will tell him; it was because he dared not. It was the act of a coward, who raises his arm to strike, but has not courage to give the blow. I will not call him villain, because it would be unparliamentary, and he is a privy councillor. I will not call him fool, because he happens to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. But I say he is one who has abused the privilege of parliament and freedom of debate, to the uttering language, which, if spoken out of the House, I should answer only with a blow. I care not how high his situation, how low his character, how contemptible his speech; whether a privy councillor or a parasite, my answer would be a blow.

The right honourable member has told me, I deserted a profession where wealth and station were the reward of industry and talent. If I mistake not, that gentleman endeavoured to obtain those rewards by the same means; but he soon deserted the occupation of a barrister for that of a parasite and pander. He fled from the labour of study to flatter at the table of the great. He found the lord's parlour a better sphere for his exertions than the hall of the Four Courts; the house of a great man, a more convenient way to power and to place; and that it was easier for a statesman of middling talents to sell his friends, than a lawyer of no talents to sell his clients.

For myself, whatever corporate or other bodies have said or done to me, I from the bottom of my heart forgive them. I feel I have done too much for my country to be vexed at them. I would rather that they should not feel or acknowledge what I have done for them, and call me traitor, than have reason to say I sold them. I will always defend myself against the assassin; but with large bodies it is different. the people I shall bow: they may be my enemy-I never

will be theirs.

Το

The right honourable gentleman says I fled from the country after exciting one rebellion; and that I have returned to raise another. No such thing. The charge is false. The civil war had not commenced when I left the kingdom; and I could not have returned without taking a part. On the one side, there was the camp of the rebel; on the other, the camp of the minister-a greater traitor than that rebel. The stronghold of the constitution was no-where to be found. I agree

that the rebel who rises against the government should have suffered; but I missed on the scaffold the right honourable gentleman. Two desperate parties were in arms against the constitution. The right honourable gentleman belonged to one of those parties, and deserved death. I could not join the rebel-I could not join the government-I could not join torture-I could not join half-hanging-I could not join freequarter-I could take part with neither. I was, therefore, absent from a scene where I could not be active without selfreproach, nor indifferent with safety.

Many honourable gentlemen thought differently from me: I respect their opinions, but I keep my own; and I think now as I thought then, that the treason of the minister against the liberties of the people, was infinitely worse than the rebellion of the people against the minister.

I have returned, not, as the right honourable member has said, to raise another storm-I have returned to discharge an honourable debt of gratitude to my country, that conferred a great reward for past services, which, I am proud to say, was not greater than my desert. I have returned to protect that constitution, of which I was the parent and the founder, from the assassination of such men as the honourable gentleman and his unworthy associates. They are corrupt-they are seditious-and they, at this very moment, are in a conspiracy against their country. I have returned to refute a libel, as false as it is malicious, given to the public under the appellation of a report of the committee of the Lords. Here I stand ready for impeachment or trial: I dare accusation. I defy the honourable gentleman; I defy the government; I defy the whole phalanx: let them come forth. I tell the ministers I will neither give them quarter, nor take it. I am here to lay the shattered remains of my constitution on the floor of this House, in defence of the liberties of my country.

XVI. MR. CURRAN IN DEFENCE OF MR. FINNERY.

Is a tyranny of this kind to be borne with, where law is said to exist? Shall the horrors which surround the informer, the ferocity of his countenance, and the terrors of his voice, cast such a wide and appalling influence, that none dare approach and save the victim whom he marks for ignominy and death?

Gentlemen, are you prepared, I ask you seriously, are you prepared to embark your respectable characters in the same bottom with this detestable informer? Are you prepared, when

he shall come forward against ten thousand of your fellowcitizens, to assist him in digging the graves which he has destined to receive them, one by one? No! could your hearts yield for a moment to the suggestion, your own reflections would vindicate the justice of God, and the insulted character of man; you would fly from the secrets of your chamber, and take refuge in the multitude, from those "compunctious visitings" which meaner men could not look on without horDo not think I am speaking disrespectfully of you when I say, that, while such an informer can be found, it may be the lot of the proudest among you to be in the dock instead of the jury-box: how then, on such an occasion, would any of you feel, if such evidence as has been heard this day were adduced against you?

ror.

The application affects you-you shrink from the imaginary situation. Remember, then, the great mandate of your religion, and "Do unto all men as you would they should do unto you." Why do you condescend to listen to me with such attention? Why are you so anxious, if, even from me, any thing should fall, tending to enlighten you on the present awful occasion? It is because, bound by the sacred obligation of an oath, your hearts will not allow you to forfeit it. Have you any doubt that it is the object of the informer to take down the prisoner for the reward that follows? Have you not seen with what more than instinctive keenness this blood-hound has pursued his victim? how he has kept him in view from place to place, until he hunts him through the avenues of the court to where the unhappy man now stands, hopeless of all succour but that which your verdict shall afford? I have heard of assassination by sword, by pistol, and by dagger; but here is a wretch who would dip the Evangelists in blood: if he think he has not sworn his victim to death, he is ready to swear, without mercy and without end. But oh! do not, I conjure you, suffer him to take an oath; the arm of the murderer should not pollute the purity of the Gospel: if he will swear, let it be on the knife, the proper symbol of his profession.

XVII.-MR. CURRAN, ON UNIVERSAL EMANCIPATION.

I PUT it to your oaths: do you think that a blessing of that kind-that a victory obtained by justice, over bigotry and oppression should have a stigma cast upon it, by an ignominious sentence upon men bold and honest enough to pro

pose that measure?-to propose the redeeming of Religion from the abuses of the Church, the reclaiming of three millions of men from bondage, and giving liberty to all who had a right to demand it?-giving, I say, in the so much censured words of this paper, giving "Universal Emancipation!" I speak in the spirit of the British law, which makes liberty commensurate with, and inseparable from, British soil;-which proclaims, even to the stranger and sojourner, the moment he sets his foot upon British earth, that the ground on which he treads is holy, and consecrated by the genius of Universal Emancipation. No matter in what language his doom may have been pronounced;-no matter what complexion, incompatible with freedom, an Indian or an African sun may have burnt upon him; no matter in what disastrous battle his liberty may have been cloven down;— no matter with what solemnities he may have been devoted upon the altar of slavery;-the first moment he touches the sacred soil of Britain, the altar and the god sink together in the dust; his soul walks abroad in her own majesty; his body swells beyond the measure of the chains that burst from around him; and he stands redeemed, regenerated, and disenthralled, by the irresistible genius of "Universal Emancipation."

XVIII.-LORD ERSKINE, IN DEFENCE OF MR. STOCKDALE.

GENTLEMEN of the jury,-If this be a wilfully false account of the instructions given to Mr. Hastings for his government, and of his conduct under them, the author and publisher of this defence deserves the severest punishment, for a mercenary imposition on the public. But if it be true that he was directed to make the "safety and prosperity of Bengal the first object of his attention," and that, under his administration, it has been safe and prosperous; if it be true that the security and preservation of our possessions and revenues in Asia, were marked out to him as the great leading principle of his government, and that those possessions and revenues, amidst unexampled dangers, have been secured and preserved; then a question may be unaccountably mixed with your consideration, much beyond the consequence of the present prosecution; involving, perhaps, the merit of the impeachment itself which gave it birth;-a question which the Commons, as prosecutors of Mr. Hastings, should, in common prudence, have avoided; unless, regretting the unwieldy length of their proceedings against him, they wished to afford him the opportunity of