can give you no information; go to M'Cann, he can inform you." Upon the evidence, therefore, of Reynolds, rests this man's life; for the written evidence found in the room cannot, in my apprehension, affect Bond, if you are, as no doubt you will be, of opinion, Bond was not in the room where the papers were found.

There is not any evidence of the conversation before Mr. Swan came, and he found on the table a paper written on, and the ink not dry, "I A. B. was duly elected." It was not found upon the prisoner at the bar. The papers found might affect the persons in the room; but, at the time of the seizure of the papers, Bond was in the warehouse in custody of Serjeant Dugan, and was not brought up stairs until after the arrest. The papers found upon Bond might be read in evidence against him, but, I conceive, not those found in the room. What was the intention of mentioning the letters from Reynolds, found on the prisoner at the bar? It was stated, but not read in evidence, merely to apologize for Reynolds's not attending the meeting on the 12th of March. Reynolds says he got it again and burnt it. Reynolds did not pretend to state to you he knew from Bond what the object of the meeting was; and it is material to observe, that Bond's name was not found entered in the list of the persons who made returns, and attended the meeting.

Mr. Bond has been resident in this city 20 years; in your walks of life, gentlemen of the jury, you never heard any thing to his prejudice before this charge. I know my duty to my client, and must tell you if you have had prejudices I know you will discard them. I am not paying you any compliments; I have spoken under the feelings of an Irishman during the course of these trials; I have endeavoured to speak to your understandings; I have not ventured to entreat you on behalf of my client, because I am sure you will give your justice and your merits free operation in your minds and consciences at this trial. I am sure you will

try the cause fairly, and admit every circumstance into your reflection. In a case between the crown and the prisoner, I have not ventured to address you on the public feelings at this important crisis; you will preserve the subject for the sake of the law, and preserve the law for the sake of the crown. You are to decide by your sober and deliberate understandings, and hold the balance equal between the crown and the subject, for you are called upon to pronounce your sentence of condemnation or acquittal of the prisoner at the bar. If you should be mistaken in your verdict, it cannot shake the safety of the state; you are called upon, with the less anxiety, because whichever way your verdict may be, you are not to be told, remember the safety of your king, or of your own safety; you are to have in recollection your solemn oath to decide according to the evidence, and give such a verdict as may always be satisfactory to your consciences to the last moment of your existence.

The court will tell you, it is your province to decide on matter of fact, and as to opinion on matter of law, the court will explain that to you. Your verdict can never die. As to my opinions of the law, whatever they may be, I shall never have an opportunity of uttering them to you again; your verdict will stamp infamy on the prisoner, or support the throne of the law; I need not remind you that the present moment is awful. My friends, if you suffer your conscien. ces to be influenced, to be degraded, into opinions of the consequences of your verdict; you are bound to decide by the evidences, the glorious privilege of trial by jury. If martial law must cut the thread of brotherly affection, the necessity of it will cease; for verdicts of honest jurors will restore your country to peace and tranquillity, and the liberties of your country will by that means be secured, and the supreme government of the nation be protected and supported, whatever the form of that government may be. Let me, however, ask, is there no species of law to be resorted to but terror? Let me observe to you, that the moral law is de

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stroyed, when it is stained with the effusion of blood, and it is much to be regretted, when the terrors of the criminal law are obliged to be resorted to, to enforce obedience to the common law of the land by the people, for the sword may cover the land with millions of deluded men. Is it become necessary to hurl destruction round the land, till it shivers into a thousand particles, to the destruction of all moral law, and all moral obligations? By the common law of the land, no subject, is to be deprived of life, but by a trial of his fellow subjects; but, in times when a rebellion prevails in any country, many suffer without the semblance of a trial by his equals. From the earliest period of history down to the present time, there have been, in some parts of the earth, instances where jurors have done little more than record the opinions given to them by the then judges, but it is the last scene of departing liberty. I have read that in the period of the rebellion, in the last century, in England, that jurors, on trials by the common law of the land, have been swayed in their determination by the unsupported evidence of an informer, and aftertimes have proven their verdict was ill-founded, and the innocence of the convicted persons had afterwards appeared. Trials on charges of high treason are of the utmost moment to the country, not merely with respect to any individual, but of the importance it is to the public, that they should know the blessing of trial by jury, and that the jurors will solely determine on their verdict by the evidences, and maturely weigh the credit of the witnesses against the prisoner.

At some of these trials of late date, some of you have been present, and you know that the objects of the court and of the jurors are to investigate the truth from the evidence produced, and the jurors are sworn to decide and to bring in a true verdict according to the evidences. One witness has been examined on this trial, who, I think, does not deserve credit; but it is you who are the sole judges whom you will give credit to; but though you know this witness has

given evidence on two former trials, and though the then jury did give credit to his testimony, yet you are not to de termine on the faith or precedent of any former jurors, but you are to be solely guided by your own consciences; and you will observe, we have had here two more witnesses to impeach the character of Reynolds, that were not produced on the former trials, and you will, no doubt, throw out of your minds whatever did not come this day before you in the evidence. You will find your verdict flowing from conscious integrity, and the feelings of honourable minds; notwithstanding the evidence of the witness Reynolds, who has been examined upon the table, and whose testimony I need not repeat to you. Perhaps you may be inclined to think he is a perjured witness; perhaps you will not believe the story he has told against the prisoner at the bar, and of his own turpitude; you will do well to consider, it was through a perjured witness that a Russel and a Sydney were convicted in the reign of James II. If juries are not circumspect, to determine only by the evidence adduced before them, and not from any extraneous matter, nor from the slightest breath of prejudice, then what will become of our boasted trial by jury? Then what will become of our boasted constitution in Ireland? When former jurors decided contrary to evidence, it created great effusion of blood in former times. Let me ask, will you, gentlemen, give a verdict through infirmity of body, or through misrepresentation, or through ignorance? You, by your verdict, will give an answer to this.

Gentlemen of the jury, you will weigh in your minds that many inhuman executions did take place in former times, though the then accused underwent the solemnity of a trial; the verdicts of those jurors are not in a state of annihilation, for they remain on the page of history, as a beacon to future jurors; the judges before whom the then accused were tried, have long since paid the debt of nature: they cannot now be called to account why they shrunk from their duty. I call

upon you, gentlemen of the jury, to be firm in the exercise of that solemn duty you are now engaged in; should you be of opinion to bring in a verdict of condemnation against my unfortunate client, for myself I ought to care nothing what impressions may actuate your minds to find such a verdict; it little regardeth me; but it much regardeth you to consider what kind of men you condemn to die, and, before you write their bloody sentence, consider maturely whether the charge against the prisoner is fully proved. If you should, on the evidence you have heard, condemn the prisoner to death, and afterwards repent it, I shall not live among you to trace any proof of your future repentance.

Let me ask, will you, upon take away the life of a man the bar, from his wife and

I said, I rose to tell you what evidence we had to produce on behalf of my client, the prisoner at the bar; we shall lay evidence before you, from which you can infer that the witness produced this day is a perjured man; we have only to show to you, as honest men, that the witness is not deserv ing of credit on his oath; we have nothing more to offer on behalf of my client, the prisoner at the bar. It is your province to deliberate in your consciences, on what evidence you have heard, and whether you will believe the witness you have heard on his oath, or not. the evidence you have heard, of this kind, as the prisoner at from his little children for ever? I told you I was to state the evidences which we had to bring forward on behalf of my unfortunate client; I tell you it is to discredit the testimony of Reynolds; when you have heard our evidences to this point, I cannot suppose you will give your verdict, to doom to death the unhappy and unfortunate prisoner at the bar, and entail infamy on his posterity. We will also produce respectable witnesses to the hitherto unimpeached character of the prisoner at the bar, that he was a man of fair, honest character; you, gentlemen of the jury, have yourselves known him a number of years in this city; let me ask you, do you not know that the prisoner at the bar has always borne the cha