Que cura vivos cadem sequitur tellure repostos.

And, if the transactions of this day had reached me, I feel how my heart would have been agonized by the shame of the desertion; nor would my sufferings have been mitigated by a sense of the feebleness of that aid, or the smallness of that service, which I could render or withdraw. They would have been aggravated by the consciousness that, however feeble or worthless they were, I should not have dared to thieve them from my country. I have repented-I have staid—and I am at once rebuked and rewarded by the happier hopes that I now entertain. In the anxious sympathy of the public -in the anxious sympathy of my learned brethren, do I catch the happy presage of a brighter fate for Ireland. They see that within these sacred walls, the cause of liberty and of man may be pleaded with boldness, and heard with favour. I am satisfied they will never forget the great trust, of which they alone are now the remaining depositaries. While they continue to cultivate a sound and literate philosophy—a mild and tolerating christianity-and to make both the sources of a just and liberal, and constitutional jurisprudence, I see every thing for us to hope; into their hands, therefore, with the most affectionate confidence in their virtue, do I commit these precious hopes. Even I may live long enough yet to see the approaching completion, if not the perfect accomplishment, of them. Pleased shall I then resign the scene to fitter actors —pleased shall I lay down my wearied head to rest, and say, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation."

5

SPEECH

OF MR. CURRAN IN DEFENCE OF LADY PAMELA FITZGERALD, AND HER INFANT CHildren, at THE BAR OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN IRELAND.

LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD having died in prison, before trial, of the wound he received in resisting the person who apprehended him; a bill was brought into parliament to attaint him after his death. Mr. Curran was heard at the bar of the house of commons, against the bill, as counsel for the widow and infant children of that nobleman, (the eldest of whom was only four years old,) on which occasion Mr. Curran delivered the following speech.

Mr. CURRAN said, he rose in support of a petition presented on behalf of Lord Henry Fitzgerald, brother of the deceased Lord Edward Fitzgerald, of Pamela his widow, Edward his only son and heir, an infant of the age of four years, Pamela his eldest daughter, of the age of two years, and Lucy his youngest child, of the age of three months; against the bill of attainder then before the committee. The bill of attainder, he said, had formed the division of the subject into two parts. It asserted the fact of the late Lord Edward's treason; and, secondly, it purported to attaint him, and to vest his property in the crown. He would follow the same order. As to the first bill, he could not but remark upon the strange looseness of the allegation; the bill stated that he had, during his life, and since the first of November last, committed several acts of high treason, without stating what, or when,

or where, or with whom: it then affected to state the dif ferent species of treason of which he had been guilty, viz. conspiring to levy war and endeavouring to persuade the enemies of the king to invade the country. The latter allegation was not attempted to be proved! the conspiring to levy, without actually levying war, was clearly no high treason, and had been repeatedly so determined. Upon this previous and important question, namely, the guilt of Lord Edward (and without the full proof of which no punishment can be just,) he had been asked by the committee, if he had any defence to go into? he was confounded by a question which he could not answer; but upon a very little reflection he saw in that very confusion the most conclusive proof of the injustice of the bill. For what, he said, can be more flagrantly unjust, than to inquire into a fact, of the truth or falsehood of which no human being can have knowledge, save the informer who comes forward to assert it. Sir, said he, I now answer the question. I have no defensive evidence! I have no case! It is impossible I should-I have often of late gone to the dungeon of the captive; but never have I gone to the grave of the dead man to receive instructions for his defence-nor in truth have I ever before been at the trial of a dead man! I offer, therefore, no evidence upon this inquiry; against the perilous example of which, I do protest on behalf of the public, and against the cruelty and injustice of which I do protest in the name of the dead father, whose memory is sought to. be dishonoured, and of his infant orphans, whose bread is SOUGHT to be taken away. Some observations, and but a few, upon the assertions of Reynolds, I will make. [Mr. Curran then observed upon the credit of Reynolds by his own confession.] I do verily believe him in that instance, even though I have heard him assert it upon his oath, by his own confession, an informer, and a bribed informer. A man whom seven respectable witnesses had sworn in a court of justice upon their oaths, not to be credible on his oath-a man upon whose single testimony no jury ever did, nor ever ought, to

pronounce a verdict of guilty. A kind of man to whom the law resorts with abhorrence and from necessity, in order to set the criminal against the crime, but who is made use of by the law upon the same reason that the most noxious poisons are resorted to in medicine. If such the man, look for a moment at his story; he confines himself to mere conversation only with a dead man. He ventures not to introduce any third person, living, or even dead! he ventures to state no act whatever done; he wishes indeed to asperse the conduct of Lady Edward Fitzgerald, but he well knew, that even were she in the country, she could not be adduced as a wit ness to disprove him.

See, therefore, if there be any one assertion to which credit can be given, except this, that he has sworn, and forsworn, that he is a traitor, that he has received five hundred guineas to be an informer, and that his general reputation is to be utterly unworthy of credit.

As to the papers, it was sufficient to say that no one of them, nor even all of them, were ever asserted to contain any positive proof against Lord Edward; that the utmost that could be deduced from them was nothing more than doubt or conjecture, which, had Lord Edward been living, might have been easily explained, to explain which was now impossible; and upon which to found a sentence of guilt, would be contrary to every rule of justice or humanity.

He would therefore pass to the second question. Was this bill of attainder warranted by the principles of reason? the principles of forfeiture in the law of treason? or the usage of parliament in bills of attainder? The subject was of necessity very long; it had nothing to attract attention, but much to repel it. But he trusted that the anxiety of the committee for justice, notwithstanding any dulness either in the subject or in the speaker, would secure to him their attention. Mr. Curran then went into a minute detail of the principles of the law of forfeiture for high treason. The laws of the Per

sians and Macedonians extended the punishment of the traitor to the extinction of all his kindred. That law subject

ed the property and life of every man to the most complicated despotism, because the loyalty of every individual of his kindred was a matter of wild caprice as the will of the most arbitrary despot could be.

This principle was never adopted in any period of our law. At the earliest times of the Saxons, the law of treason acted directly only on the person of the criminal; it took away from him what he actually had to forfeit; his life and property. But as to his children, the law disclaimed to affect them directly; they suffered; but they suffered by a necessary consequence of their father's punishment, which the law could not prevent, and never directly intended. It took away the inheritance, because the criminal, at the time of taking it away, had absolute dominion over it, and might himself have conveyed it away from his family. This, he said, was proved by the instances of conditional fees, at the common law, and estates-tail since the statute de donis. In the former case, the tenant did not forfeit until he had acquired an absolute dominion over the estate by the performance of the condition. Neither in the latter case was the estate-tail made forfeitable until the tenant in tail had become enabled in two ways to obtain the absolute dominion-by a common recovery, or by a fine. Until then the issue in tail, though not only the children of the tenant, but taking from him his estate by descent, could not be disinherited by his crime. A decisive proof, that even the early law of treeson never intended to extend the punishment of the traitor to his children as such, but even this direct punishment upon the traitor himself was to take effect, only upon a condition suggested by the unalterable rules of natural justice, namely, a judgment founded upon conviction, against which he might have made his defence, or upon an outlawry, where he refused to abide his trial. In that case he was punished, because during his life