It

this strange anomalous defence. For, although I am neither his counsel, nor desire to have any thing to do with his guilt or innocence; yet, in the collateral defence of my client, I am driven to state matter which may be considered by many as hostile to the impeachment. For, if our dependencies have been secured, and their interests promoted, I am driven, in defence of my client, to remark, that it is mad and preposterous to bring, to the standard of justice and humanity, the exercise of a dominion founded upon violence and terror. may, and must be true, that Mr. Hastings has repeatedly offended against the rights and privileges of Asiatic government, if he was the faithful deputy of a power which could not maintain itself for an hour without trampling upon both he may, and must, have offended against the laws of God and nature, if he was the faithful viceroy of an empire wrested in blood from the people to whom God and nature had given it; he may, and must, have preserved that unjust dominion over timorous and abject nations by a terrifying, overbearing, insulting superiority, if he was the faithful administrator of your government; which, having no root in consent or affection, no foundation in similarity of interests, nor support from any one principle which cements men together in society, could only be upheld by alternate stratagem and force. The unhappy people of India, feeble and effeminate as they are from the softness of their climate, and subdued and broken as they have been by the knavery and strength of civilization, still occasionally start up in all the vigour and intelligence of insulted nature:-to be governed at all, they must be governed with a rod of iron; and our empire in the East would, long since, have been lost to Great Britain, if civil skill and military prowess had not united their efforts to support an authority which Heaven never gave, by means which it never can sanction.

Gentlemen, I think I can observe that you are touched with this way of considering the subject; and I can account for it. I have not been considering it through the cold medium of books, but have been speaking of man and his nature, and of human dominion, from what I have seen of them myself, amongst reluctant nations submitting to our authority. I know what they feel, and how such feelings can alone be repressed. I have heard them in my youth from a naked savage, in the indignant character of a prince surrounded by his subjects, addressing the governor of a British colony; holding a bundle of sticks in his hand, as the notes of his

unlettered eloquence. "Who is it," said the jealous ruler over the desert, encroached upon by the restless foot of English adventure-" Who is it that causes this river to rise in the high mountains, and to empty itself in the ocean? Who is it that causes to blow the loud winds of winter, and that calms them again in the summer? Who is it that rears up the shade of those lofty forests, and blasts them with the quick lightning at his pleasure? The same Being who gave to you a country on the other side of the waters, and gave ours to us; and by this title we will defend it!" said the warrior, throwing down his tomahawk upon the ground, and raising the war-sound of his nation. These are the feelings of subjugated man all round the globe; and depend upon it, nothing but fear will control, where it is vain to look for affection.

These reflections are the only antidotes to those anathemas of superhuman eloquence which have lately shaken these walls that surround us. If England, from a lust of ambition and dominion, will insist on maintaining a despotic rule over distant nations, and give commission to her viceroys to govern them, with no other instructions than to preserve them, and to secure permanently their revenues; with what consis tency can she place herself in the moral chair, and affect to be shocked at the execution of her own orders? Such a proceeding, gentlemen, begets serious reflection. It would be better, perhaps, for the masters and servants of all such governments, to join in supplication, that the great Avenger of violated humanity may not confound them together in one common judgment.

XIX.-MR. SHERIDAN'S PANEGYRIC ON JUSTICE.

JUSTICE is not a halt and miserable object; it is not the ineffective bauble of an Indian pagod; it is not the portentous phantom of despair; it is not like any fabled monster formed in the eclipse of reason, and found in some unhallowed grove of superstitious darkness and political dismay! No, my lords.

In the happy reverse of all these, I turn from this disgusting caricature, to the real image,-Justice! I have now before me, august and pure, the abstract idea of all that would be perfect in the spirits and the aspirings of men;-where the mind rises; where the heart expands; where the countenance is ever placid and benign; where her favourite attitude is-to stoop to the unfortunate; to hear their cry, and to help them; to rescue and relieve; to succour and save! Majestic from

its mercy; venerable from its utility; uplifted, without pride; firm, without obduracy; beneficent in each preference; lovely, though in her frown!

On that justice I rely, deliberate and sure; abstracted from all party purpose and political speculation; not in words, but in facts. You, my lords, who hear me, I conjure, by those rights it is your best privilege to preserve; by that fame it is your best pleasure to inherit; by all those feelings, which refer to the first term in the series of existence, the original compact of our nature, our controlling rank in the creation! This is the call on all to administer to truth and equity, as they would satisfy the laws and satisfy themselves, with the most exalted bliss possible or conceivable for our nature—the self-approving consciousness of virtue, when the condemnation we look for will be one of the most ample mercies accomplished for mankind since the creation of the world.

XX.-MR. O'CONNELL IN DEFENCE OF MR. MAGEE-THE LAW

OF LIBEL.

GENTLEMEN, you are now to pronounce upon a publication, the truth of which is not controverted. The case is with you: it belongs to you exclusively to decide it. His Lordship may advise, but he cannot control your decision; and it belongs to you alone to say, whether or not, upon the entire matter, you conceive it to be evidence of guilt, and deserving of punishment. The Statute-law gives or recognises this your right, and imposes it on you as your duty. No judge can dictate to a jury-no jury ought to allow itself to be dictated to.

If the contrary doctrine were established, see what oppressive consequences might result. At some future period, some man may attain the first place on the bench, through the reputation which is so easily acquired-by a certain degree of churchwardening piety, added to a great gravity and maidenly decorum of manners. Such a man may reach the benchfor I am putting a mere imaginary case:-He may be a man without passions, and therefore without vices; he may be, my lord, a man superfluously rich, and therefore, not to be bribed with money, but rendered partial by his bigotry, and corrupted by his prejudices; such a man, inflated by flattery and bloated in his dignity, may hereafter use that character for sanctity which has served to promote him, as a sword to hew down the struggling liberties of his country-such a judge may interfere before trial, and at the trial be a partisan!

Gentlemen, should an honest jury-could an honest jury, (if an honest jury were again found) listen with safety to the dictates of such a judge? I repeat, that the law does not and cannot require such submission as has been preached; and at all events, gentlemen, it cannot be controverted that, in the present instance that of an alleged libel,-the decision of all law and fact belongs to you. I am then warranted in directing to you some observations on the law of libel; and in doing so, my intention is to lay before you a short and rapid view of the causes which have introduced into courts the monstrous assertion that truth is crime!

It is to be deeply lamented that the art of Printing was unknown at the earlier periods of our history. If, at the time the barons wrung the simple but sublime charter of liberty from a timid, perfidious sovereign-from a violator of his word -from a man covered with disgrace, and sunk in infamy; if at the time when that charter was confirmed and renewed, the Press had existed; it would, I think, have been the first care of those friends of freedom to have established a principle of liberty for it to rest upon, which might resist every future assault. Their simple and unsophisticated understandings could never be brought to comprehend the legal subtleties by which it is now argued that falsehood is useful and innocent, and truth, the emanation and the type of heaven, a crime. They would have cut with their swords the cobweb links of sophistry in which truth is entangled; and they would have rendered it impossible to re-establish this injustice, without violating a principle of the constitution.

When the art of Printing was invented, its value to every sufferer, its terror to every oppressor, was soon obvious; therefore means were speedily adopted to prevent its salutary effects. The Star-Chamber-the odious Star-Chamber-was either created, or, at least, enlarged and brought into activity. Its proceedings were arbitrary, its decisions were oppressive, and injustice and tyranny were formed into a system. To describe it in one sentence, it was a prematurely packed jury. The Star-Chamber was particularly vigilant over the infant struggles of the Press. A code of laws became necessary to govern this new enemy to prejudice and oppression. The StarChamber adopted, for this purpose, the civil law as it is called -the law of Rome:-not the law at the periods of her liberty and her glory, but the law which was promulgated when she fell into slavery and disgrace, and recognised this principlethat the will of the prince was the rule of the law. The civil

R

law was adopted by the Star-Chamber as its guide in proceeding against and in punishing libellers; but, unfortunately, only part of it was adopted-and that, of course, was the part least favourable to freedom. So much of the civil law as assisted to discover the concealed libeller, and to punish him when discovered, was carefully selected; but the civil law allowed truth to be a defence-and that part was carefully rejected.

From the Star-Chamber, gentlemen, the prevention and punishment of libels descended to the courts of common law; and, with the power, they seem to have inherited much of the spirit of that tribunal. Servility at the bar, and profligacy on the bench, have not been wanting to aid every construction unfavourable to freedom: and, at length, it is taken as granted, and as clear law, that truth or falsehood is quite immaterial, constituting no part of either guilt or innocence.

I would wish to examine this revolting doctrine; and, in doing so, I am proud to tell you that it has no other foundation than in the oft-repeated assertions of lawyers and judges. One servile writer has stated this doctrine, from time to time, after another and one overbearing judge has re-echoed the assertion of a time-serving predecessor-and the public have, at length, submitted. I do therefore feel not only gratified in having the occasion, but bound to express my opinion upon the real law of this subject. I know that opinion is but of little weight. I have no professional rank or station to give it importance; but it is an honest and conscientious opinion, and it is this;-that, in the discussion of public subjects, and of the administration of public men, truth is a duty and not a crime.

For my part, I frankly avow that I shudder at the scenes around me. I cannot, without horror, view this interfering and intermeddling with judges and juries: it is vain to look for safety to person or property, whilst this system is allowed to pervade our courts: the very fountain of justice may be corrupted at its source; and those waters which should confer health and vigour throughout the land, can then diffuse nought but mephitic and pestilential vapours to disgust and to destroy. If honesty, if justice be silent, yet prudence ought to check these practices. We live in a new era, a melancholy era-in which perfidy and profligacy are sanctioned by high authority: the base violation of plighted faith, the deep stain of dishonour, infidelity in love, treachery in friendship, the abandonment of every principle, and the adoption of every frivolity and of every vice that can excite hatred combined