a falsehood to Lord Portarlington as he did here; but how much more strongly must you feel yourselves bound to reject his evidence, when appealing to his lordship, he is materially contradicted, and his perjury established. With respect to Clarke, he fixes no corroborative evidence whatever to the overt acts laid in the indictment. In endeavouring to slide in evidence of a conspiracy to murder Thompson, what might be the consequence if such a vile insinuation took possession of your minds? I am not blinking the question, I come boldly up to it-there is not the most remote evidence to connect the fate of Thompson with the present case, and nothing could show the miserable paucity of his evidence more than seeking to support it on what did not at all relate to the charge. Five witnesses, as if by the interference of Providence, have descredited O'Brien to as many facts.

What did the simple and honest evidence of John Clarke, of Blue-bells, amount to against O'Brien? It attached the double crime of artifice and perjury, and added robbery to the personification. See how in Dublin there are at this moment thousands and ten thousands of your fellow-citizens, anxiously waiting to know if you will convict the prisoner on the evidence of a wilful and corrupt perjurer whether they are, each in his turn, to feel the fatal effects of his condemnation, or whether they are to find protection in the laws from the machinations of the informer. [Mr. Curran having been reminded to observe on the recipe for coining.] No! continued he, let him keep his coining for himself; it will not pass in common with other species-it suits him well, and is the proper emblem of his conscience, copper-washed. Would you let such a fellow as this into your house as a servant, under the impression which his evidence must make on your minds?

If you would not take his services in exchange for wages, would you take his perjury in exchange for the life of a fellow creature? How will you feel, if the assignats of such.

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evidence pass current for human blood? How will you bear the serrated and iron fangs of remorse, gnawing at your hearts, if, in the moment of abandonment, you suffer the victim to be massacred even in your arms? But has his perjury stopt here? What said the innocent countryman, Patrick Cavanagh? Pursuing the even tenor of his way in the paths of honest industry, he is in the act of fulfilling the decree of his maker; he is earning his bread by the sweat of his brow, when this villain, less pure than the arch fiend who brought the sentence of laborious action on mankind, enters the habitation of peace and humble industry, and, not content with dipping his tongue in perjury and blood, robs the poor man of two guineas! Can you wonder that he crept into the hole of the multitude, when the witness would have developed him? Do you wonder that he endeavoured to shun your eyes?

At this moment, even the bold and daring villany of O'Brien stood abashed; he saw the eye of Heaven in that of an innocent and injured man; perhaps the feeling was consummated by a glance from the dock-his heart bore testimony to his guilt, and he fled for the same! Gracious God! have you been so soiled in the vile intercourse, that you will give him a degree of credit which you will deny to the candid and untainted evidence of so many honest men? But I have not done with him yet-while an atom of his vileness hangs together, I will separate it, lest you should chance to be tainted by it. Was there a human creature brought forward to say he is any other than a villain? Did his counsel venture to ask our witnesses why they discredited him? Did he dare to ask on what they established their assertions?—NoBy this time it is probable Mr. O'Brien is sick of investigation. You find him coiling himself in the scaly circles of his cautious perjury, making anticipated battle against any one who should appear against him-but you see him sink before the proof.

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Do you feel, gentlemen, that I have been wantonly aspersing this man's character? Is he not a perjurer, a swindler, and that he is not a murderer, will depend on you. He assumes the character of a king's officer, to rob the king's people of their money, and afterwards, when their property fails him, he seeks to rob them of their lives! What say you to his habitual fellowship with baseness and fraud? He gives a recipe instructing to felony, and counterfeiting the king's coin, and when questioned about it, what is his answer? Why, truly, that it was "only a light, easy way of getting money"-" only a little bit of a humbug." Good God! I ask you, has it ever come across you, to meet with such a constellation of infamy!

Beside the perjury, Clarke had nothing to say, scarcely ground to turn on-) -He swears he was not in the court yesterday; what then? Why, he has only perjured himself! Well, call little Skirmish up again-Why it was but a mistake a little puzzled or so, and not being a lawyer, he could not tell whether he was in court or not! Mr. Clarke is a much better evidence than my Lord Portarlington-his lordship, in the improvidence of truth, bore a single testimony, while Clarke, wisely providing against contingencies, swore at both sides of the gutter; but the lesser perjurer is almost forgotten in the greater. No fewer than five perjuries are established against the loyal Mr. O'Brien, who has been "united to every honest man.' If indicted on any one of these, I must tell you, gentlemen, that he could not be sworn in a court of justice; on the testimony of five witnesses, on his own testimony, he stands indicted before you; and, gentlemen, you must refuse him that credit, not to be squandered on such baseness and profligacy. The present cause takes in the entire character of your country, which may suffer in the eyes of all Europe by your verdict. This is the first prosecution of the kind brought forward to view. It is the great experiment of the informers of Ireland, to ascertain how far they can carry on a traffick in human blood! This

cannibal informer, this demon, O'Brien, greedy after human gore, has fifteen other victims in reserve, if, from your verdict, he receives the unhappy man at the bar! Fifteen more of your fellow-citizens are to be tried on his evidence! Be you then their saviours; let your verdict snatch them from his ravening maw, and interpose between yourselves and endless remorse!

I know, gentlemen, I would but insult you, if I were to apologize for detaining you thus long; if I have an apology to make to any person, it is to my client, for thus delaying his acquittal. Sweet is the recollection of having done justice in that hour when the hand of death presses on the human heart. Sweet is the hope which it gives birth to! From you I demand that justice for my client, your innocent and unfortunate fellow-subject at the bar, and may you have for it a more lasting reward than the perishable crown we read of which the ancients placed on the brow of him who saved in battle the life of a fellow-citizen.

If you should ever be assailed by the hand of the informer, may you find an all-powerful refuge in the example which you shall set this day; earnestly do I pray that you may never experience what it is to count the tedious hours in cap. tivity, pining in the damps and gloom of the dungeon, while the wicked one is going about at large, "seeking whom he may devour." There is another than a human tribunal, where the best of us will have occasion to look back on the little good we have done. In that awful trial, O! may your verdict this day assure your hopes, and give you strength and consolation in the presence of an ADJUDGING GOD.

Mr. Solicitor-General followed Mr. Curran, but as he dwelt chiefly on the points and explanations of law, already so often repeated, we deem it unnecessary to lay them before our readers again.

The Hon. Judge Chamberlaine, charging the jury, spoke in substance as follows:

Gentlemen of the jury, the charge against the prisoner has been truly stated, to be of a nature the most atrocious,

inasmuch as an attempt to overturn the government of a country, by disturbing the peace and security of society, endangers the life and liberties of every individual; but it has also been truly said, that in proportion to the atrocity of a crime, should be the evidence brought forward to establish it. Two species of high treason have been laid in the indictment; on these I do not think it necessary to observe at length; the counsel on both sides seem well agreed on the subject; these two are, compassing the king's death, and adhering to his enemies. Every man of plain sense must know what is meant by the latter. [Here his lordship instanced, as explanatory, the cases of Lord Preston, Doctor Hensil, and the Rev. Mr. Jackson.] The completion of the design is not necessary to constitute the guilt. If we were to wait for the event in such a case, it would be idle to talk of punishment.

The only count in the indictment for you to consider, is, the adhering to the king's enemies. In support of the others, Mr. Baron Smith is of opinion with me, there has no proof whatsoever been advanced. The witness O'Brien swears to several facts going to prove adherence to the king's enemies; but before I state a particle of his evidence, I must give you this caution, that, if you believe he has wilfully and deliberately committed perjury on this trial, you are to reject every part of his testimony; if you are of opinion that you would find him guilty, if indicted before you for perjury, you must reject him altogether-for, atrocious as the crime of high treason is, it is better twenty traitors should escape, than one innocent man be deprived of his life.

His lordship concluded his observations thus-"It is a dangerous experiment, and which I never will countenance, to admit the evidence of a witness who, on trial, commits wilful perjury. There is, it is true, some corroborating testimony against the prisoner; but to make him a traitor, and fix on him a design of aiding and abetting the king's enemies, I see no evidence whatever; and I trust in God, that perjury will not find a suffrage in your verdict, or in the laws of this country.”