* * * * *
Having followed the prosecutor through this weary digression, I return to the next sentence of this publication. Yet I cannot—I mustdetain you still a little longer from it, whilst I supplicate your honest indignation, if in your resentments there be aught of honesty, against the mode in which the Attorney-General has introduced the name of our aged and afflicted sovereign. He says this is a libel on the King, because it imputes to him a selection of improper and criminal chief governors. Gentlemen, this is the very acme of servile doctrine. It is the most unconstitutional doctrine that could be uttered: it supposes that the sovereign is responsible for the acts of his servants, whilst the constitution declares that the King can do no wrong, and that even for his personal acts, his servants shall be personally responsible. Thus, the Attorney-General reverses for you the constitution in theory; and, in point of fact, where can be found, in this publication, any, even the slightest allusion to his Majesty? The theory is against the Attorney-General, and yet, contrary to the fact, and against the theory, he seeks to enlist another prejudice of yours against Mr. Magee.
Prejudice did I call it? Oh, no! it is no prejudice; that sentiment which combines respect with affection for my aged sovereign, suffering under a calamity with which heaven has willedto visit him, but which is not due to any default of his. There never was a sentiment that I should wish to see more cherished—more honored. To you the King may appear an object of respect; to his Catholic subjects he is one of veneration; to them he has been a bountiful benefactor. To the utter disregard of your aldermen of Skinner’s-alley, and the more pompous magnates of William-street, his Majesty procured, at his earnest solicitation from Parliament, the restoration of much of our liberties. He disregarded your anti-Popery petitions. He treated with calm indifference the ebullitions of your bigotry; and I owe to him that I have the honor of standing in the proud situation from which I am able, if not to protect my client, at least to pour the indignant torrent of my discourse against his enemies, and those of his country.
The publication to which I now recall you, goes to describe the effects of the facts which I have shown you to have been drawn from the undisputed and authentic history of former times. I have, I hope, convinced you that neither Leland nor Hume could have been indicted for stating those facts, and it would be a very strange perversion of principle, whichwould allow you to convict Mr. Magee for that which has been stated by other writers, not only without punishment, but with applause.
That part of the paragraph which relates to the present day is in thesewords:—
“Since that period the complexion of the times has changed—the country has advanced—it has outgrown submission,and some forms, at least, must now be observed towards the people.
“The system, however, is still the same; it is the old play with new decorations, presented in an age somewhat more enlightened; the principle of government remains unaltered—a principle of exclusion which debars the majority of the people from the enjoyment of those privileges that are possessed by the minority, and which must, therefore, maintain itself by all those measures necessary for a government founded on injustice.”
The prosecutor insists that this is the most libellous part of the entire publication. I am glad he does so; because if there be amongst you a single particle of discrimination, you cannot fail to perceive that this is not a libel—that this paragraph cannot constitute any crime. It states that the present is a system ofexclusion. Surely, it is no crime to say so; it is what you all say. It is what the Attorney-General himself gloried in. This is, said he, exclusively a Protestant government. Mr. Magee and he are agreed. Mr. Magee adds that a principle of exclusion on account of religion, is founded on injustice. Gentlemen, if a Protestant were to be excluded from any temporal advantages upon the score of his religion, would not you say that the principle upon which he was excluded was unjust? That is precisely what Mr. Magee says; for the principle which excludes the Catholic in Ireland, would exclude the Protestant in Spain and in Portugal, and then you clearly admit its justice. So that, really, you would condemn yourselves, and your own opinions, and the right to be a Protestant in Spain and Portugal, if you condemn this sentiment.
But I would have you further observe that this is no more than the discussion of an abstract principle of government; it arraigns not the conduct of any individual, or of any administration; it only discusses and decides upon the moral fitness of a certain theory, on which the management of the affairs of Ireland has been conducted. If this be a crime, we are allcriminals; for this question, whether it be just or not to exclude from power and office a class of the people for religion, is the subject of daily—of hourly discussion. The Attorney-General says it is quite just; I proclaim it to be unjust—obviously unjust. At all public meetings, in all private companies, this point is decided different ways, according to the temper and the interest of individuals. Indeed, it is but too much the topic of every man’s discourse; and the gaols and the barracks of the country would not contain the hundredth part of those with whom the Attorney-General would have to crowd them if it be penal to call the principle of exclusion unjust. In this court, without the least danger of interruption or reproof, I proclaim the injustice of that principle.
I will then ask whether it be lawful to print that which it is not unlawful to proclaim in the face of a court of justice? And above all, I will ask whether it can be criminal to discuss the abstract principles of government? Is the theory of the law a prohibited subject? I had understood that there was no right so clear and undoubted as that of discussing abstract and theoretic principles, and their applicability to practicable purposes. For the first time doI hear this disputed; and now see what it is the Attorney-General prohibits. He insists upon punishing Mr. Magee; first, because he accuses his administration of “errors”; secondly, because he charges them with not being distinguished for “talents”; thirdly, because he cannot discover their “striking features”; and fourthly, because he discusses an “abstract principle”!
This is quite intelligible—this is quite tangible. I begin to understand what the Attorney-General means by the liberty of the Press; it means a prohibition of printing anything except praise respecting “the errors, the talents, or the striking features” of any administration, and of discussing anyabstract principle of government. Thus the forbidden subjects are errors, talents, striking features, and principles. Neither the theory of the government nor its practices are to be discussed; you may, indeed, praise them; you may call the Attorney-General “the best and wisest of men”; you may call his lordship the most learned and impartial of all possible chief justices; you may, if you have powers of visage sufficient, call the Lord Lieutenant the best of all imaginable governors. That, gentlemen, is the boasted liberty of thePress—the liberty that exists in Constantinople—the liberty of applying the most fulsome and unfounded flattery, but not one word of censure or reproof.
Here is an idol worthy of the veneration of the Attorney-General. Yes; he talked of his veneration for the liberty of the Press; he also talked of its being a protection to the people against the government. Protection! Not against errors—not against the want of talents or striking features—nor against the effort of any unjust principle—protection! Against what is it to protect? Did he not mock you? Did he not plainly and palpably delude you, when he talked of the protection of the Press? Yes. To his inconsistencies and contradictions he calls on you to sacrifice your consciences; and because you are no-Popery men, and distributors of Bibles, and aldermen of Skinner’s-alley, and Protestant petitioners, he requires of you to brand your souls with perjury. You cannot escape it; it is, it must be perjury to find a verdict for a man who gravely admits that the liberty of the Press is recognized by law, and that it is a venerable object, and yet calls for your verdict upon the ground that there is no such thing in existenceas that which he has admitted, that the law recognizes, and that he himself venerates.
Clinging to the fond but faint hope that you are not capable of sanctioning, by your oaths, so monstrous an inconsistency, I lead you to the next sentence upon this record:
“Although his Grace does not appear to know what are the qualities necessary for a judge in Canada, or for an aide-de-camp in waiting at a court, he surely cannot be ignorant what are requisites for a Lord Lieutenant.”
This appears to be a very innocent sentence; yet the Attorney-General, the venerator of that protection of the people against a bad government—the liberty of the Press—tells you that it is a gross libel to impute so much ignorance to his Grace. As to the aide-de-camp, gentlemen, whether he be selected for the brilliancy of his spurs, the polish of his boots, or the precise angle of his cocked hat, are grave considerations which I refer to you. Decide upon these atrocities, I pray you. But as to the judge in Canada, it cannot be any reproach to his Grace to be ignorant of his qualifications. The old French law prevails in Canada, and there is not a lawyer at the Irish Bar, except, perhaps, the Attorney-General, who is sufficientlyacquainted with that law to know how far any man may be fit for the station of judge in Canada.
If this be an ignorance without reproach in Irish lawyers, and if there be any reproach in it, I feel it not, whilst I avow that ignorance—yet, surely it is absurd to torture it into a calumny against the Lord Lieutenant—a military man, and no lawyer. I doubt whether it would be a libel if my client had saidthat his Grace was ignorant of the qualities necessary for a judgein Ireland—for achief judge, my lord. He has not said so, however, gentlemen, and true or false, that is not now the question under consideration. We are in Canada at present, gentlemen, in a ludicrous search for a libel in a sentence of no great point or meaning. If you are sapient enough to suspect that it contains a libel, your doubt can only arise from not comprehending it; and that, I own, is a doubt difficult to remove. But I mock you when I talk of this insignificant sentence.
I shall read the next paragraph at full length. It is connected with the Canadiansentence:—
“Therefore, were an appeal to be made to him in a dispassionate and sober moment, we might candidly confess that the Irish wouldnot be disappointed in their hopes of a successor, though they would behold the same smiles, experience the same sincerity, and witness the same disposition towards conciliation.
“What though they were deceived in 1795, and found the mildness of a Fitzwilliam a false omen of concord; though they were duped in 1800, and found that the privileges of the Catholics did not follow the extinction of the parliament! Yet, at his departure, he will, no doubt, state good grounds for future expectation; that his administration was not the time for Emancipation, but that the season is fast approaching; that there were ‘existing circumstances,’ but that now the people may rely upon the virtues even of an hereditary Prince; that they should continue to worship the false idol; that their cries, must, at least, be heard; and that, if he has not complied, it is only because he has not spoken. In short, his Grace will in no way vary from the uniform conduct observed by most of his predecessors, first preaching to the confidence of the people, then playing upon their credulity.
“He came over ignorant—he soon became prejudiced, and then he became intemperate. He takes from the people their money; heeats of their bread, and drinks of their wine; in return, he gives them a bad government, and, at his departure, leaves them more distracted than ever. His Grace commenced his reign by flattery, he continued it in folly, he accompanied it with violence, and he will conclude it with falsehood.”
There is one part of this sentence for which I most respectfully solicit your indulgence and pardon. Be not exasperated with us for talking of the mildness of Lord Fitzwilliam, or of his administration. But, notwithstanding the violence any praise of him has excited amongst you, come dispassionately, I pray you, to the consideration of the paragraph. Let us abstract the meaning of it from the superfluous words. It certainly does tell you that his Grace came over ignorant of Irish affairs, and he acquired prejudices upon those subjects, and he has become intemperate. Let us discuss this part separately from the other matter suggested by the paragraph in question. That the Duke of Richmond came over to Ireland ignorant of the details of our domestic policy cannot be matter either of surprise or of any reproach. A military man engaged in those pursuits which otherwise occupy persons of his rank, altogetherunconnected with Ireland, he could not have had any inducement to make himself acquainted with the details of our barbarous wrongs, of our senseless party quarrels, and criminal feuds; he was not stimulated to examine them by any interest, nor could any man be attracted to study them by taste. It is, therefore, no censure to talk of his ignorance—of that with which it would be absurd to expect that he should be acquainted; and the knowledge of which would neither have served, nor exalted, nor amused him.
Then, gentlemen, it is said he became “prejudiced.” Prejudiced may sound harsh in your ears; but you are not, at least you ought not, to decide uponthe sound—it isthe senseof the word that should determine you. Now what is the sense of the word “prejudice” here? It means the having adopted precisely the opinions which every one of you entertain. By “prejudice” the writer means, and can mean, nothing but such sentiments asyou cherish. When he talks of prejudice, he intends to convey the idea that the Duke took up the opinion that the few ought to govern the many in Ireland; that there ought to be a favored, and an excluded class in Ireland; that the burdens ofthe state ought to be shared equally, but its benefits conferred on a few. Such are the ideas conveyed by the word prejudice; and I fearlessly ask you, is it a crime to impute to his Grace these notions whichyouyourselves entertain? Is he calumniated—is he libelled, when he is charged with concurring with you, gentlemen of the jury? Will you, by a verdict of conviction, stamp your own political sentiments with the seal of reprobation? If you convict my client, you do this; you decide that it is a libel to charge any man with those doctrines which are so useful to you individually, and of which you boast; or, you think the opinions just, and yet that it is criminal to charge a man with those just opinions. For the sake, therefore, of consistency, and as an approval of your own opinions, I call on you for a verdict of acquittal.
I need not detain you long on the expression “intemperate”; it does not mean any charge of excess of indulgence in any enjoyment; it is not, as the Attorney-General suggested, an accusation of indulging beyond due bounds in the pleasures of the table, or of the bottle; it does not allude, as the Attorney-General says, to midnight orgies, or to morning revels. Iadmit—I freely admit—that an allusion of that kind would savor of libel, as it would certainly be unnecessary for any purpose of political discussion. But the intemperance here spoken of is mere political intemperance; it is that violence which every man of a fervid disposition feels in support of his political opinions. Nay, the more pure and honest any man may be in the adoption of his opinions, the more likely, and the more justifiable will he be in that ardent support of them which goes by the name of intemperance.
In short, although political intemperance cannot be deemed by cold calculators as a virtue, yet it has its source in the purest virtues of the human heart, and it frequently produces the greatest advantages to the public. How would it be possible to overcome the many obstacles which self-interest, and ignorance, and passion throw in the way of improvement, without some of that ardor of temper and disposition which grave men call intemperance? And, gentlemen, are not your opinions as deserving of warm support as the opinions of other men; or do you feel any inherent depravity in the political sentiments which the Duke of Richmond has adopted from you, that would renderhim depraved or degraded by any violence in their support? You have no alternative. If you convict my client, you condemn, upon your oaths, your own political creed; and declare it to be a libel to charge any man with energy in your cause.
If you are not disposed to go this length of political inconsistency, and if you have determined to avoid the religious inconsistency of perjuring yourselves for the good and glory of the Protestant religion, do, I pray you, examine the rest of this paragraph, and see whether you can, by any ingenuity, detect that nondescript, a libel, in it. It states in substance this: that this administration, treading in the steps of former administrations, preached to the confidence of the people, and played on their credulity; and that it will end, as those administrations have done, in some flattering prophecy, paying present disappointment with the coinage of delusive hope. That this administration commenced, as usual, with preaching to the confidence of the people, was neither criminal in the fact, nor can it be unpleasant in the recital.
It is the immemorial usage of all administrations and of all stations, to commence withthose civil professions of future excellence of conduct which are called, and not unaptly, “preaching to the confidence of the people.” The very actors are generally sincere at this stage of the political farce; and it is not insinuated that this administration was not as candid on this subject as the best of its predecessors. Theplaying on the credulity of the peopleis the ordinary state trick. You recollect how angry many of you were with his Grace for his Munster tour, shortly after his arrival here. You recollect how he checked the Mayor of Cork for proposing the new favorite Orange toast; what liberality he displayed to Popish traders and bankers in Limerick; and how he returned to the capital, leaving behind him the impression that the no-Popery men had been mistaken in their choice, and that the Duke of Richmond was the enemy of every bigotry—the friend to every liberality! Was he sincere, gentlemen of the jury, or was this one of those innocent devices which are called—playing on the people’s credulity? Was he sincere? Ask his subsequent conduct. Have there been since that time any other or different toasts cheered in his presence? Has the name of Ireland and of Irishmen been profaned by becoming thesport of the warmth excited by the accompaniment to these toasts? Some individuals of you could inform me. I see another dignitary of your corporation here [said Mr. O’Connell, turning round pointedly to the Lord Mayor]—I see a civic dignitary here, who could tell of the toasts of these days or nights, and would not be at a loss to apply the right name—if he were not too prudent as well as too polite to do so—to that innocent affectation of liberality which distinguished his Grace’s visit to the south of Ireland. It was, indeed, a play upon our credulity, but it can be no libel to speak of it as such; for see the situation in which you would place his Grace; you know he affected conciliation and perfect neutrality between our parties at first; you know he has since taken a marked and decided part with you.
Surely you are not disposed to call this a crime, as it were, to convict his Grace of duplicity, and of a vile hypocrisy. No, gentlemen, I entreat of you not to calumniate the Duke; call this conduct a mere play on the credulity of a people easily deceived—innocent in its intention, and equally void of guilt in its description. Do not attach to those words a meaning which would prove that youyourselves condemned, not so much the writer of them, as the man who gave color and countenance to this assertion. Besides, gentlemen, what is your liberty of the Press worth, if it be worthy of a dungeon to assert that the public credulity has been played upon? The liberty of the Press would be less than a dream, a shadow, if every such phrase be a libel.
But the Attorney-General triumphantly tells you that there must be a libel in this paragraph, because it ends with a charge of falsehood. May I ask you to take the entire paragraph together? Common sense and your duty require you to do so. You will then perceive that this charge of falsehood is no more than an opinion that the administration of the Duke of Richmond will terminate precisely as that of many of his predecessors has done, by an excuse for the past—a flattering and fallacious promise for the future. Why, you must all of you have seen, a short time since, an account of a public dinner in London, given by persons styling themselves “Friends to Religious Liberty.” At that dinner, at which two of the Royal Dukes attended, there were, I think, no less than four or five noblemen who had filled the office of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Gentlemen,at this dinner, they were ardent in their professions of kindness towards the Catholics of Ireland, in their declarations of the obvious policy and justice of conciliation and concession, and they bore ample testimony to our sufferings and our merits. But I appeal from their present declarations to their past conduct; they are now full of liberality and justice to us; yet I speak only the truth of history when I say that, during their government of this country, no practical benefits resulted from all this wisdom and kindness of sentiment; with the single exception of Lord Fitzwilliam, not one of them even attempted to do any good to the Catholics, or to Ireland.
What did the Duke of Bedford do for us?Just nothing.Some civility, indeed, in words—some playing on public credulity—but in act and deed, nothing at all. What did Lord Hardwicke do for us? Oh, nothing, or rather less than nothing; his administration here was, in that respect, a kind of negative quality; it was cold, harsh, and forbidding to the Catholics; lenient, mild, and encouraging to the Orange faction; the public mind lay in the first torpor caused by the mighty fall of the Union, and whilst we lay entranced in the obliviouspool, Lord Hardwicke’s administration proceeded without a trace of that justice and liberality which it appears he must have thought unbefitting the season of his government, and which, if he then entertained, he certainly concealed; he ended, however, with giving us flattering hopes for the future. The Duke of Bedford was more explicit; he promised in direct terms, and drew upon the future exertions of anhereditary Prince, to compensate us for present disappointment. And will any man assert that the Duke of Richmond is libelled by a comparison with Lord Hardwicke; that he is traduced when he is compared with the Duke of Bedford? If the words actually were these, “the Duke of Richmond will terminate his administration exactly as Lord Hardwicke and the Duke of Bedford terminated their administrations”; if those were the words, none of you could possibly vote for a conviction, and yet the meaning is precisely the same. No more is expressed by the language of my client; and, if the meaning be thus clearly innocent, it would be strange, indeed, to call on you for a verdict of conviction upon no more solid ground than this, that whilst the signification was the same, the words were different. And thus, again,does the prosecutor require of you to separate the sense from the sound, and to convict for the sound, against the sense of the passage.
In plain truth, gentlemen, if there be a harshness in the sound, there is none in the words. The writer describes, and means to describe, the ordinary termination of every administration repaying in promise the defaults of performance. And, when he speaks of falsehood, he prophesies merely as to the probable or at least possible conclusion of the present government. He does not impute to any precedent assertion, falsehood; but he does predict, that the concluding promise of this, as of other administrations, depending as those promises always do upon other persons for performance, will remain as former promises have remained—unfulfilled and unperformed. And is this prophecy—this prediction a crime? Is it a libel to prophesy? See what topics this sage venerator of the liberty of the Press, the Attorney-General, would fain prohibit. First, he tells you that the crimes of the predecessors of the Duke must not be mentioned—and thus he forbids the history of past events. Secondly, he informs you that no allusion is to be made to the errors, follies, or even the strikingfeatures of the present governors—and thus he forbids the detail of the occurrences of the present day. And, thirdly, he declares that no conjecture shall be made upon what is likely to occur hereafter—and thus he forbids all attempts to anticipate future acts.
It comes simply to this: he talks of venerating the liberties of the Press, and yet he restrains that Press from discussing past history, present story, and future probabilities; he prohibits the past, the present, and the future; ancient records, modern truth, and prophecy, are all within the capacious range of his punishments. Is there anything else? Would this venerator of the liberty of the Press go farther? Yes, gentlemen; having forbidden all matter of history past and present, and all prediction of the future, he generously throws inabstract principles, and, as he has told you that his prisons shall contain every person who speaks of what was, or what is, or what will be, he likewise consigned to the same fate every person who treats of the theory or principles of government; and yet he dares to talk of the liberty of the Press! Can you be his dupes? Will you be his victims? Where is the conscience—where is the indignant spiritof insulted reason amongst you? Has party feeling extinguished in your breasts every glow of virtue—every spark of manhood?
If there be any warmth about you—if you are not clay-cold to all but party feeling, I would, with the air and in the tone of triumph, call you to the consideration of the remaining paragraph which has been spread on the lengthened indictment before you. I divide it into two branches, and shall do no more with the one than to repeat it. I read it for you already; I must read it again:
“Had he remained what he first came over, or what he afterwards professed to be, he would have retained his reputation forhonest, open hostility, defending his political principles with firmness, perhaps with warmth, but without rancor; the supporter, and not the tool of an administration; a mistaken politician, perhaps, but an honorable man and a respectable soldier.”
Would to God I had to address another jury! Would to God I had reason and judgment to address, and I could entertain no apprehension from passion or prejudice! Here should I then take my stand, and require of that unprejudiced jury, whether this sentencedoes not demonstrate the complete absence of private malice or personal hostility. Does not this sentence prove a kindly disposition towards the individual, mixing and mingling with that discussion which freedom sanctions and requires, respecting his political conduct? Contrast this sentence with the prosecutor’s accusation of private malignity, and decide between Mr. Magee and his calumniators. He, at least, has this advantage, that your verdict cannot alter the nature of things; and that the public must see and feel this truth, that the present prosecution is directed against the discussion of the conduct towards the public, of men confided with public authority; that this is a direct attack upon the right to call the attention of the people to the management of the people’s affairs, and that, by your verdict of conviction, it is intended to leave no peaceful or unawed mode of redress for the wrongs and sufferings of the people.
But I will not detain you on these obvious topics. We draw to a close, and I hurry to it. This sentence is said to be particularly libellous:
“His party would have been proud of him; his friends would have praised (they need nothave flattered him), and his enemies, though they might have regretted, must have respected his conduct; from the worst quarter there would have been some small tribute of praise; from none any great portion of censure; and his administration, though not popular, would have been conducted with dignity, and without offence. This line of conduct he has taken care to avoid; his original character for moderation he has forfeited; he can lay no claims to any merits for neutrality, nor does he even deserve the cheerless credit of defensive operations. He has begun to act; he has ceased to be a dispassionate chief governor, who views the wickedness and the folly of faction with composure and forbearance, and stands, the representative of majesty, aloof from the contest. He descends; he mixes with the throng; he becomes personally engaged, and having lost his temper, calls forth his private passions to support his public principles; he is no longer an indifferent viceroy, but a frightful partisan of an English ministry, whose base passions he indulges—whose unworthy resentments he gratifies, and on whose behalf he at present canvasses.”
Well, gentlemen, and did he not canvass onbehalf of the ministry? Was there a titled or untitled servant of the Castle who was not despatched to the south to vote against the popular, and for the ministerial candidates? Was there a single individual within the reach of his Grace that did not vote against Prittie and Matthew, in Tipperary, and against Hutchinson, in Cork? I have brought with me some of the newspapers of the day, in which this partisanship in the Lord Lieutenant is treated by Mr. Hutchinson in language so strong and so pointed, that the words of this publication are mildness and softness itself when compared with that language. I shall not read them for you, because I should fear that you may imagine I unnecessarily identified my client with the violent but the merited reprobation poured upon the scandalous interference of our government with those elections.
I need not, I am sure, tell you that any interference by the Lord Lieutenant with the purity of the election of members to serve in Parliament, is highly unconstitutional, and highly criminal; he is doubly bound to the most strict neutrality; first, as a peer, the law prohibits his interference; secondly, as representative of the crown, his interference in elections is anusurpation of the people’s rights; it is, in substance and effect, high treason against the people, and its mischiefs are not the less by reason of there being no punishment affixed by the law to this treason.
If this offence, gentlemen, be of daily occurrence—if it be frequently committed, it is upon that account only the more destructive to our liberties, and, therefore, requires the more loud, direct, and frequent condemnation: indeed, if such practices be permitted to prevail, there is an end of every remnant of freedom; our boasted constitution becomes a mockery and an object of ridicule, and we ought to desire the manly simplicity of unmixed despotism. Will the Attorney-General—will his colleague, the Solicitor-General, deny that I have described this offence in its true colors? Will they attempt to deny the interference of the Duke of Richmond in the late elections? I would almost venture to put your verdict upon this, and to consent to a conviction, if any person shall be found so stocked with audacity, as to presume publicly to deny the interference of his Grace in the late elections, and his partisanship in favor of the ministerial candidates. Gentlemen, if that be denied, what will you, what can you thinkof the veracity of the man who denies it? I fearlessly refer the fact to you; on that fact I build. This interference is as notorious as the sun at noonday; and who shall venture to deny that such interference is described by a soft term when it is called partisanship? He who uses the influence of the executive to control the choice of the representatives of the people, violates the first principles of the constitution, is guilty of political sacrilege, and profanes the very sanctuary of the people’s rights and liberties; and if he should not be called a partisan, it is only because some harsher and more appropriate term ought to be applied to his delinquency.
I will recall to your minds an instance of violation of the constitution, which will illustrate the situation of my client, and the protection which, for your own sakes, you owe him. When, in 1687, King James removed several Protestant rectors in Ireland from their churches, against law and justice, and illegally and unconstitutionally placed Roman Catholic clergymen in their stead, would any of you be content that he should be simply called a partisan? No, gentlemen; my client and I—Catholic and Protestant though we be—agree perfectly inthis, that partisan would have been too mild a name for him, and that he should have been branded as a violator of law, as an enemy to the constitution, and as a crafty tyrant who sought to gratify the prejudices of one part of his subjects, that he might trample upon the liberties of all. And what, I would fain learn, could you think of the Attorney-General who prosecuted, or of the judge who condemned, or of the jury who convicted a printer for publishing to the world this tyranny—this gross violation of law and justice? But how would your indignation be roused, if James had been only called a partisan, and for calling him a partisan a Popish jury had been packed, a Popish judge had been selected, and that the printer, who, you will admit, deserved applause and reward, met condemnation and punishment!
Ofyou—ofyou, shallthis story be told, if you convict Mr. Magee. The Duke has interfered in elections; he has violated the liberties of the subject; he has profaned the very temple of the constitution; and he who has said that in so doing he was a partisan, from your hands expects punishment.
Compare the kindred offences: James deprived the Protestant rectors of their livings;he did not persecute, nor did he interfere with their religion; for tithes, and oblations, and glebes, and church lands, though solid appendages to any church, are no part of the Protestant religion. The Protestant religion would, I presume—and for the honor of human nature I sincerely hope—continue its influence over the human mind without the aid of those extrinsic advantages. Its pastors would, I trust and believe, have remained true to their charge, without the adventitious benefits of temporal rewards; and, like the Roman Catholic Church, it might have shone forth a glorious example of firmness in religion, setting persecution at defiance. James did not attack the Protestant religion; I repeat it; he only attacked the revenues of the Protestant Church; he violated the law and the constitution, in depriving men of that property, by his individual authority, to which they had precisely the same right with that by which he wore his crown. But is not the controlling the election of members of Parliament a more dangerous violation of the constitution? Does it not corrupt the very sources of legislation, and convert the guardians of the state into its plunderers? The one was a direct and undisguised crime, capable of beingredressed in the ordinary course of the law, and producing resistance by its open and plain violation of right and of law; the other disguises itself in so many shapes, is patronized by so many high examples, and is followed by such perfect security, that it becomes the first duty of every man who possesses any reverence for the constitution, or any attachment to liberty, to lend all his efforts to detect, and, if possible, to punish it.
To any man who loved the constitution or freedom, I could safely appeal for my client’s vindication; or if any displeasure could be excited in the mind of such a man, it would arise because of the forbearance and lenity of this publication. But the Duke is called a frightful partisan. Granted, gentlemen, granted. And is not the interference I have mentioned frightful? Is it not terrific? Who can contemplate it without shuddering at the consequences which it is likely to produce? What gentler phrase—what ladylike expression should my client use? The constitution is sought to be violated, and he calls the author of that violation a frightful partisan. Really, gentlemen, the fastidiousness which would reject this expression would be better employed inpreventing or punishing crime, than in dragging to a dungeon the man who has the manliness to adhere to truth, and to use it. Recollect also—I cannot repeat it too often—that the Attorney-General told you that “the liberty of the Press was the best protection of the people against the government.” Now, if the constitution be violated—if the purity of election be disturbed by the executive, is not this precisely the case when this protection becomes necessary? It is not wanted, nor can the Press be called a protector, so long as the government is administered with fidelity, care, and skill. The protection of the Press is requisite only when integrity, diligence, or judgment do not belong to the administration; and that protection becomes the more necessary in the exact proportion in which these qualities are deficient. But, what protection can it afford if you convict in this instance? For, by doing so you will decide that nothing ought to be said against that want of honesty, or of attention, or of understanding; the more necessary will the protection of the Press become, the more unsafe will it be to publish the truth; and in the exact proportion in which the Press might be useful, will it become liable to punishment.In short, according to the Attorney-General’s doctrine, when the Press is “best employed and wanted most,” it will be most dangerous to use it. And thus, the more corrupt and profligate any administration may be, the more clearly can the public prosecutor ascertain the sacrifice of his selected victim. And call you this protection? Is this a protector who must be disarmed the moment danger threatens, and is bound a prisoner the instant the fight has commenced?
Here I should close the case—here I should shortly recapitulate my client’s defence, and leave him to your consideration; but I have been already too tedious, and shall do no more than recall to your recollection the purity, the integrity, the entire disinterestedness of Mr. Magee’s motives. If money were his object, he could easily procure himself to be patronized and salaried; but he prefers to be persecuted and discountenanced by the great and powerful, because they cannot deprive him of the certain expectation that his exertions are useful to his long-suffering, ill-requited country.
He is disinterested, gentlemen; he is honest; the Attorney-General admitted it, and actually took the trouble of administering to him advicehow to amend his fortune and save his person. But the advice only made his youthful blood mantle in that ingenious countenance, and his reply was painted in the indignant look that told the Attorney-General he might offer wealth, but he could not bribe—that he might torture, but he could not terrify! Yes, gentlemen, firm in his honesty, and strong in the fervor of his love of Ireland, he fearlessly awaits your verdict, convinced that even you must respect the man whom you are called upon to condemn. Look to it, gentlemen; consider whether an honest, disinterested man shall be prohibited from discussing public affairs; consider whether all but flattery is to be silent—whether the discussion of the errors and the capacities of the ministers is to be closed forever. Whether we are to be silent as to the crimes of former periods, the follies of the present, and the credulity of the future; and, above all, reflect upon the demand that is made on you to punish the canvassing of abstract principles.
Has the Attorney-General succeeded? Has he procured a jury so fitted to his object, as to be ready to bury in oblivion every fault and every crime, every error and every imperfectionof public men, past, present, and future—and who shall, in addition, silence any dissertation on the theory or principle of legislation? Do, gentlemen, go this length with the prosecutor and then venture on your oaths. I charge you to venture to talk to your families of the venerable liberty of the Press—the protection of the people against the vices of the government.
I should conclude, but the Attorney-General compels me to follow him through another subject.6
* * * * *
Let me transport you from the heat and fury of domestic politics; let me place you in a foreign land; you are Protestants—with your good leave, you shall, for a moment, be Portuguese, and Portuguese is now an honorable name, for right well have the people of Portugal fought for their country, against the foreign invader. Oh! how easy to procure a similar spirit, and more of bravery, amongst the people of Ireland! The slight purchase of good words, and a kindly disposition, would convert them into an impenetrable guard for the safety of the Throne and the State. But advice and regret are equally unavailing, and they are doomed to calumny and oppression, the realityof persecution, and the mockery of justice, until some fatal hour shall arrive which may preach wisdom to the dupes, and menace with punishment the oppressor.
In the meantime I must place you in Portugal. Let us suppose for an instant that the Protestant religion is that of the people of Portugal—the Catholic, that of the government—that the house of Braganza has not reigned, but that Portugal is still governed by the viceroy of a foreign nation, from whom no kindness, no favor, has ever flowed, and from whom justice has rarely been obtained, and upon those unfrequent occasions, not conceded generously, but extorted by force, or wrung from distress by terror and apprehension, in a stinted measure and ungracious manner; you, Protestants, shall form, not as with us in Ireland, nine tenths, but some lesser number—you shall be only four fifths of the population; and all the persecution which you have yourselves practised here upon Papists, whilst you, at the same time, accused the Papists of the crime of being persecutors, shall glow around; your native land shall be to you the country of strangers; you shall be aliens in the soil that gave you birth, and whilst every foreigner may,in the land of your forefathers, attain rank, station, emolument, honors, you alone shall be excluded; and you shall be excluded for no other reason but a conscientious abhorrence to the religion of your ancestors.
Only think, gentlemen, of the scandalous injustice of punishing you because you are Protestants. With what scorn—with what contempt do you not listen to the stale pretences—to the miserable excuses by which, under the name of state reasons and political arguments, your exclusion and degradation are sought to be justified. Your reply is ready—“perform your iniquity—men of crimes,” (you exclaim), “be unjust—punish us for our fidelity and honest adherence to truth, but insult us not by supposing that your reasoning can impose upon a single individual either of us or of yourselves.” In this situation let me give you a viceroy; he shall be a man who may be styled—by some person disposed to exaggerate, beyond bounds, his merits, and to flatter him more than enough—“an honorable man and a respectable soldier,” but, in point of fact, he shall be of that little-minded class of beings who are suited to be the plaything of knaves—one of those men who imagine they govern a nation,whilst in reality they are but the instruments upon which the crafty play with safety and with profit. Take such a man for your viceroy—Protestant Portuguese. We shall begin with making this tour from Tralos Montes to the kingdom of Algesiras—as one amongst us should say, from the Giant’s Causeway to the kingdom of Kerry. Upon his tour he shall affect great candor and good-will to the poor, suffering Protestants. The bloody anniversaries of the inquisitorial triumphs of former days shall be for a season abandoned, and over our inherent hostility the garb of hypocrisy shall, for a season, be thrown. Enmity to the Protestant shall become, for a moment, less apparent; but it will be only the more odious for the transitory disguise.
The delusion of the hour having served its purpose, your viceroy shows himself in his native colors; he selects for office, and prefers for his pension list, the men miserable in intellect, if they be but virulent against the Protestants; to rail against the Protestant religion—to turn its holiest rites into ridicule—to slander the individual Protestants, are the surest, the only means to obtain his favor and patronage. He selects from his Popish bigots some beingmore canine than human, who, not having talents to sell, brings to the market of bigotry his impudence—who, with no quality under heaven but gross, vulgar, acrimonious, disgustful, and shameless abuse of Protestantism to recommend him, shall be promoted to some accountant-generalship, and shall riot in the spoils of the people he traduces, as it were to crown with insult the severest injuries. This viceroy selects for his favorite privy councillor some learned doctor,half lawyer, half divine, an entire brute, distinguished by the unblushing repetition of calumnies against the Protestants. This man has asserted that Protestants are perjurers and murderers in principle—that they keep no faith with Papists, but hold it lawful and meritorious to violate every engagement, and commit every atrocity towards any person who happens to differ with Protestants in religious belief. This man raves thus, in public, against the Protestants, and has turned his ravings into large personal emoluments. But whilst he is the oracle of minor bigots, he does not believe himself; he has selected for the partner of his tenderest joys, of his most ecstatic moments—he has chosen for the intended mother of his children, for the sweetener andsolace of his every care, a Protestant, gentlemen of the jury.
Next to the vile instruments of bigotry, his accountant-general and privy councillor, we will place his acts. The Protestants of Portugal shall be exposed to insult and slaughter; an Orange party—a party of Popish Orangemen shall be supposed to exist; they shall have liberty to slaughter the unarmed and defenceless Protestants, and as they sit peaceably at their firesides. They shall be let loose in some Portuguese district, called Monaghan; they shall cover the streets of some Portuguese town of Belfast with human gore; and in the metropolis of Lisbon, the Protestant widow shall have her harmless child murdered in the noon day and his blood shall have flowed unrequited, because his assassin was very loyal when he was drunk, and had an irresistible propensity to signalize his loyalty by killing Protestants. Behold, gentlemen, this viceroy depriving of command, and staying the promotion of, every military man who shall dare to think Protestants men, or who shall presume to suggest that they ought not to be prosecuted. Behold this viceroy promoting and rewarding the men who insulted and attempted to degradethe first of your Protestant nobility. Behold him in public, the man I have described.
In his personal concerns he receives an enormous revenue from the people he thus misgoverns. See in his management of that revenue a parsimony at which even his enemies blush. See the paltry sum of a single joe7refused to any Protestant charity, while his bounty is unknown even at the Popish institutions for benevolent purposes. See the most wasteful expenditure of the public money—every job patronized—every profligacy encouraged. See the resources of Portugal diminished. See her discords and her internal feuds increased. And, lastly, behold the course of justice perverted and corrupted.
It is thus, gentlemen, the Protestant Portuguese seek to obtain relief by humble petition and supplication. There can be no crime surely for a Protestant, oppressed because he follows a religion which is, in his opinion, true, to endeavor to obtain relief by mildly representing to his Popish oppressors, that it is the right of every man to worship the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience; to state respectfully to the governing powers that it is unjust, and may be highly impolitic, to punishmen, merely because they do not profess Popery, which they do not believe; and to submit, with all humility, that to lay the burdens of the state equally, and distribute its benefits partially, is not justice, but, although sanctioned by the pretence of religious zeal, is, in truth, iniquity, and palpably criminal. Well, gentlemen, for daring thus to remonstrate, the Protestants are persecuted. The first step in the persecution is to pervert the plain meaning of the Portuguese language, and a law prohibiting anydisguisein apparel, shall be applied to the ordinarydressof the individual; it reminds one ofpretenceandpurpose.
To carry on these persecutions, the viceroy chooses for his first inquisitor the descendant of some Popish refugee—some man with an hereditary hatred to Protestants; he is not the son of an Irishman, this refugee inquisitor—no, for the fact is notorious that the Irish refugee Papists were ever distinguished for their liberality, as well as for their gallantry in the field and talent in the cabinet. This inquisitor shall be, gentlemen, a descendant from one of those English Papists, who was the dupe or contriver of the Gunpowder Plot! With such a chief inquisitor, can you conceive anything morecalculated to rouse you to agony than the solemn mockery of your trial? This chief inquisitor begins by influencing the judges out of court; he proceeds to inquire out fit men for his interior tribunal, which, for brevity, we will call a jury. He selects his juries from the most violent of the Popish Orangemen of the city, and procures a conviction against law and common sense, and without evidence. Have you followed me, gentlemen? Do you enter into the feelings of Protestants thus insulted, thus oppressed, thus persecuted—their enemies and traducers promoted, and encouraged, and richly rewarded—their friends discountenanced and displaced—their persons unprotected, and their characters assailed by hired calumniators—their blood shed with impunity—their revenues parsimoniously spared to accumulate for the individual, wastefully squandered for the state—the emblems of discord, the war-cry of disunion, sanctioned by the highest authority, and Justice herself converted from an impartial arbitrator into a frightful partisan?
Yes, gentlemen, place yourselves as Protestants under such a persecution. Behold before you this chief inquisitor, with his prejudiced tribunal—this gambler, with a loaded die; andnow say what are your feelings—what are your sensations of disgust, abhorrence, affright? But if at such a moment some ardent and enthusiastic Papist, regardless of his interests, and roused by the crimes that were thus committed against you, should describe, in measured, and cautious, and cold language, scenes of oppression and iniquity—if he were to describe them, not as I have done, but in feeble and mild language, and simply state the facts for your benefit and the instruction of the public—if this liberal Papist, for this, were dragged to the Inquisition, as for a crime, and menaced with a dungeon for years, good and gracious God! how would you revolt at and abominate the men who could consign him to that dungeon! With what an eye of contempt, and hatred, and despair, would you not look at the packed and profligate tribunal which could direct punishment against him who deserved rewards! What pity would you not feel for the advocate who heavily, and without hope, labored in his defence! and with what agonized and frenzied despair would you not look to the future destinies of a land in which perjury was organized and from which humanity and justice had been forever banished!
With this picture of yourselves in Portugal, come home to us in Ireland; say, is that a crime, when applied to Protestants, which is a virtue and a merit when applied to Papists? Behold how we suffer here; and then reflect, that it is principally by reason of your prejudices against us that the Attorney-General hopes for your verdict. The good man has talked of his impartiality; he will suppress, he says, the licentiousness of the Press. I have, I hope, shown you the right of my client to discuss the public subjects which he has discussed in the manner they are treated of in the publication before you, yet he is prosecuted. Let me read for you a paragraph which the Attorney-General has not prosecuted—which he has refused to prosecute:
“Ballybay, July 4, 1813.“A meeting of the Orange Lodges was agreed on, in consequence of the manner in which the Catholics wished to have persecuted the loyalists in this county last year,when they even murdered some of them for no other reason than their being yeomen and Protestants.”
“Ballybay, July 4, 1813.
“A meeting of the Orange Lodges was agreed on, in consequence of the manner in which the Catholics wished to have persecuted the loyalists in this county last year,when they even murdered some of them for no other reason than their being yeomen and Protestants.”
And,again—
“It was at Ballybay thatthe Catholics murdered one Hughes, a yeoman sergeant, for beinga Protestant, as was given in evidence at the assizes by a Catholic witness.”
“It was at Ballybay thatthe Catholics murdered one Hughes, a yeoman sergeant, for beinga Protestant, as was given in evidence at the assizes by a Catholic witness.”
I have read this passage from theHibernian Journalof the 7th of this month. I know not whether you can hear, unmoved, a paragraph which makes my blood boil to read; but I shall only tell you, that the Attorney-General refused to prosecute this libeller. Gentlemen, there have been several murders committed in the county of Monaghan, in which Ballybay lies. The persons killed happened to be Roman Catholics; their murderers are Orangemen. Several of the persons accused of these murders are to be tried at the ensuing assizes. The agent applied to me personally, with this newspaper; he stated that the obvious intention was to create a prejudice upon the approaching trials favorable to the murderers, and against the prosecutors. He stated what you—even you—will easily believe, that there never was a falsehood more flagitiously destitute of truth than the entire paragraph. I advised him, gentlemen, to wait on the Attorney-General in the most respectful manner possible; to show him this paragraph, then to request to be allowed to satisfy him as to the utter falsehood of the assertions which this paragraph contained,which could be more easily done, as the judges who went that circuit could prove part of it to be false; and I directed him to entreat that the Attorney-General, when fully satisfied of the falsehood, would prosecute the publisher of this, which, I think, I may call an atrocious libel.
Gentlemen, the Attorney-General was accordingly waited on; he was respectfully requested to prosecute upon the terms of having the falsehood of these assertions first proved to him. I need not tell you he refused. These are not the libellersheprosecutes. Gentlemen, this not being a libel on any individual, no private individual can prosecute for it; and the Attorney-General turns his Press loose on the Catholics of the county of Monaghan, whilst he virulently assails Mr. Magee for what must be admitted to be comparatively mild and inoffensive.
No, gentlemen, he does not prosecute this libel. On the contrary, this paper is paid enormous sums of the public money. There are no less than five proclamations in the paper containing this libel; and, it was proved in my presence, in a court of justice, that, besides the proclamations and public advertisements, thetwo proprietors of the paper had each a pension of £400 per annum, for supporting government, as it was called. Since that period one of those proprietors has got an office worth, at least, £800 a year; and the son of the other, a place of upwards of £400 per annum: so that, as it is likely that the original pensions continue, here may be an annual income of £2000 paid for this paper, besides the thousands of pounds annually which the insertion of the proclamations and public advertisements cost. It is a paper of the very lowest and most paltry scale of talent, and its circulation is, fortunately, very limited; but it receives several thousands of pounds of the money of the men whom it foully and falsely calumniates.
Would I could see the man who pays this proclamation money and these pensions at the Castle. [Here Mr. O’Connell turned round to where Mr. PeeleBsat.] Would I could see the man who, against the fact, asserted that the proclamations were inserted in all the papers, save in those whose proprietors were convicted of a libel. I would ask him whether this be a paper that ought to receive the money of the Irish people? Whether this be the legitimate use of the public purse? And when you findthis calumniator salaried and rewarded, where is the impartiality, the justice, or even the decency of prosecuting Mr. Magee for a libel, merely because he has not praised public men, and has discussed public affairs in the spirit of freedom and of the constitution? Contrast the situation of Mr. Magee with the proprietor of theHibernian Journal: the one is prosecuted with all the weight and influence of the Crown, the other pensioned by the ministers of the Crown; the one dragged to your bar for the sober discussion of political topics, the other hired to disseminate the most horrid calumnies! Let the Attorney-General now boast of his impartiality; can you credit him on your oaths? Let him talk of his veneration for the liberty of the Press;can youbelieve him in your consciences? Let him call the Press the protection of the people against the government. Yes, gentlemen, believe him when he says so. Let the Press be the protection of the people; he admits that it ought to be so. Will you find a verdict for him that shall contradict the only assertion upon which he and I, however, are both agreed?