MY LORD AND GENTLEMEN,

I

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AM instructed by the plaintiff to lay his case before you, and little do I wonder at the great interest which it seems to have excited. It is one of those cases which come home to the business and the bosoms" of mankind-it is not confined to the individuals concerned-it visits every circle from the highest to the lowest-it alarms the very heart of the community, and commands the whole social family to the spot, where human nature, prostrated at the bar of public justice, calls aloud for pity and protection! On my first addressing a jury upon a subject of this nature, I took the high ground to which I deemed myself entitled-I stood upon the purity of the national character-1 relied upon that chastity which centuries had made proverbial, and almost drowned the cry of individual suffering in the violated reputation of the country. Humbled and abashed, I must resign the topic-indignation at the novelty of the offence has given way to horror at the frequency of its repetition it is now becoming almost fashionable amongst us—we are importing the follies, and naturalizing the vices of the continent -scarcely a term passes in these courts, during which some unabashed adulterer or seducer does not announce himself improv

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ing on the odiousness of his offence, by the profligacy of his justification, and, as it were, struggling to record by crimes the desolating progress of our barbarous civilization. Gentlemen, if this be suffered to continue what home shall be safe-what hearth shall be sacred-what parent can for a moment calculate on the possession of bis child-what child shall be secure from the orphanage that springs from prostitutionwhat solitary right, whether of life, or liberty, or property in the land shall sur.. vive amongst us, if that hallowed couch, which modesty has veiled, and love en-. deared, and religion consecrated, is to be invaded by a vulgar and promiscuous liber-. tinism! A time there was, when that couch was inviolable in Ireland-when conjugal infidelity was deemed but an inventionwhen marriage was considered a sacraments of the heart, and faith and affection sent a mingled flame together from the altar; are. such times to dwindle into a legend of tradition! Are the dearest rights of man, and the holiest ordinances of God, no more to be respected!. Is the marriage vow to become but the prelude to perjury and prostitation! Shall our enjoyments debase themselves into an adulterous participation, and our children propogate an incestunus.community! Hear the case which I am fated

to unfold, and then tell me whether a single virtue is yet to linger amongst us with impunity-whether honour, friendship, or hos pitality are to be sacred-whether that endearing confidence, by which the bitterness of this life is sweetened, is to become the instrument of a perfidy beyond conception; and whether the protection of the roof, the fraternity of the board, the obligations of the altar, and the devotion of the heart, are to be so many panders to the hellish abominations they should have purified! Hear the case which must go forth to the world, but which I trust in God your verdict will accompany, to tell that world, that if there was vice enough amongst us to commit the crime, there is virtue enough to brand it with an indignant punishment.

Of the plaintiff, Mr. Browne, it is quite Impossible but you must have heard muchhis misfortune has given him a sad celebrity: and it does seem a peculiar incident to such misfortune, that the loss of happiness is almost invariably succeeded by the deprisation of character. As the less guilty murderer will hide the corse that may lead to his detection, so does the adulterer, by obscuring the reputation of his victim, seek to diminish the moral responsibility he has incurred. Mr. Browne undoubtedly forms no exception to this system-betrayed by bis friend, and abandoned by his wife, his too generous confidence-bis too tender love, have been slanderously perverted into the sources of his calamity. Because he could not tyrannise over her whom he adored, he was careless; because he could not suspect him in whom he trusted, he was careless; and crime, in the infatuation of its cunning, founds its justification even on the virtues of its victim! I am not deterred by the prejudice thus cruelly excited: I appeal from the gossiping credulity of scandal to the grave decisions of fathers and of husbands; and I implore of you, as you value the blessings of your home, not to Countenance the calumny which solicits a precedent to excuse their spoliation. At the close of the year 1809, the death of my client's father gave him the inheritance of an ample fortune. Of all the joys this prosperity created, there was none but yielded to the extacy of sharing it with her he loved, the daughter of his father's ancient friend, the respectable proprietor of Oran Castle. She was then in the very spring of life, and never did the sun of heaven unfold a lovelier blossom. Her look was beauty, and her breath was fragrance; the eye that saw her caught a lustre from the vision and all the virtues seemed to lieger round her, like so many spotless spirits enamoured of her loveliness.

"Yes, she was good as she was fair-
None, none on earth above her :-
As pure in thought as angels are→
To see her, was to love her."

What years of tongueless transport might not her happy husband have anticipated! What one addition could her beauties gain to render them all perfect! In the connubial rapture there was only one, and she was blessed with it. A lovely family of infant children gave her the consecrated name of mother, and with it all that heaven can give of interest to this world's worthlessness. Can the mind imagine a more delightful vision than that of such a mother, thus young, thus lovely, thus beloved, blessing a husband's heart, basking in a world's. smile; and while she breathed into her little ones the moral life, shewing them, that robed in all the light of beauty, it was still possible for their virtues to cast it into the shade. Year after year of hap piness rolled on, and every year but added to their love a pledge to make it happier than the former. Without ambition but her husband's love, without one object but ber children's happiness, this lovely woman circled in her orbit, all bright, all beauteous in the prosperous hour, and if that hour e'er darkened, only beaming the brighter and the lovelier. What human hand could mar so pure a picture! What punishment could adequately visit its viola tion!

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Oh happy love, where love like this is found!

Oh heartfelt rapture! bliss beyond compare!"

8

It was indeed the summer of their lives, and with it came the swarm of summer friends, that revel in the sunshine of the hour, and vanish with its splendour. High and honoured in that crowd, most gay, mest cherished, most professing, stood the defendant Mr. Blake. He was the plaintiff's dearest, fondest friend, to every pleasure called, in every case consulted, his day's companion and his evening's guest, his constant, trusted, bosom confidant; and, under guise of all, oh, human nature! he was his fellest, deadliest, final enemy! Here, on the authority of this brief, do L arraign him, of having wound himself into my client's intimacy; of having encouraged that intimacy into friendship; of having counterfeited a sympathy in his joys and in his sorrows; and, when he seemed too pure even for scepticism to doubt him, of having, under the very sanctity of his roof, perpetrated an adultery the most unprece dented and perfidious! If this be true, can the world's wealth defray the penalty of such turpitude? Mr. Browne, Gentle, men, was a man of fortune, he had no profession, was ignorant of every agricultural pursuit, and, unfortunately adopting the advice of his father-in-law, he cultivated the amusements of the Curragh; I say, unfortunately for his own affairs, and by no means in reference to the pursuit itself. It is not for me to libel an occupation which

with his connsel—in an affair of bonour, he placed his life and character in bis handshe introduced his innocent sister, just arrived from au English nunnery, into the family of his friend – he encouraged every reciprocity of intercourse between the females, and to crown all, that no possible suspicion might attach to him, he seldom travelled without his domestic chaplain!•Now, if it shall appear that all this was only a screen for his adultery-that he took advantage of his friend's misfortunes to seduce the wife of his bosom-that he affected confidence only to betray it—that he perfected the wretchedness he pretended to console, and that in the midst of poverty, he has left his victim, friendless, hopeless, companionless, a husband without a wife, and a father without a child, Gracious God! is it not -enough to turn mercy herself into an executioner! You convict for murder-here is the hand that murdered innocence! You convict for treason~here is the vilest dialoyalty to friendship! You convict for robbry-here is one who plundered virtue of ber purest pearl, and dissolved it even in the bowl that hospitality held out to him!! → They pretend that he is innocent! Oh effrontery, the most unblushing! Oh vilest insult, added to the deadliest injury! Oh base, detestable, and damnable hypocrisy! Of the final testimony, it is true enough, their cunning has deprived us, but under Providence I will pour upon this baseness such a flood of light, that I will defy not the most honourable man merely, but the most charitable sceptic, to touch the Holy Evangelists, and say, by their sanctity, it has not been committed. Attend upon me now, gentlemen, step by step, and with me rejnice that, no matter how cautious may be the consp⋅racies of guilt, there is a Power above to confound and to discover them.

On the 27th of last January, Mary Hines, one of the domestics, received directions from Mrs. Browne, to have breakfast ready very early on the ensuing morning, as the defendant, then on a visit at the house, expressed an inclination to go out to hunt, She was accordingly brushing down the + Blairs at a very early hour, when she ob* served the haudle of her mistress's door stir, 1- and fearing the noise had disturbed her, she

preyed upon Mrs. Browne on the preceding evening. She frequently burst into tears, threw her arms around her husband's neck, saying that she was sure another month would separate her for ever from him and her dear children. It was no accidental omen. Tou surely the warning of Providence was upon her. When the maid was going down, Mr. Blake appeared at his door totally undressed, and in a tone of much confusion desired that his servant should be sent up to him. She went down→→ as she was about to return from her ineffectual search, she heard her master's voice in the most violent indignation, and almost immediately after Mrs. Browne rushed past her into the parlour, and hastily seizing her writing-desk, desired her instantly to quit the apartment, Gentlemen, I request you will bear every syllable of this scene in your recollection, but most particularly the anxiety about the writing-desk. You will soon find that there was a cogent reason for it. Little was the wonder that Mr. Browne's tone should be that of violence and indignation. He had actually discovered his wife and friend totally undressed, just as they had escaped from the guilty bed side where they stood in all the shame and horror of their situation! He shouted for her brother, and that miserable brother had the agony of witnessing his guilty sister in the bed-room of her paramour, both almost literally in a state of nudity. Blake! Blake! exclaimed the heart-struck husband, is this the return you have made for my hospitality? Oh, heavens! what a reproach was there! It was not merely, you have disbonoured my bed-it was not merely, you have sacrificed my happiness-it was not merely, you have widowed me in my youth, and left me the father of an orphan family➡ it was not merely you have violated a compact to which all the world swore a tacit veneration-but, you—you have done it, my friend, my guest, under the very roof bar barians reverence; where you enjoyed my table, where you pledged my happiness, where you saw her in all the loveliness of her virtue, and at the very hour when our little helpless children were wrapt in that repose of which you have for ever robbed their miserable parents! I do confess when I paused here in the perusal of these instructions, the very life blood froze within my veins. What, said 1, must I not only reveal this guilt! must I not only expose this perfidy! must I not only brand the infidelity of a wife and mother, but must 1, amid the agonies of outraged nature, make the brother the proof of the sister's prostitution! Thank God, gentlemen, I may not be obliged to torture you and hini and myself, by such instrumentality. I think the proof is full without it, though it must add another pang to the soul of the poor plaintiff, because it must render it almost impossible that his little infants are not the brood of this adul

terous depravity. It will be distinctly proved to you by Honoria Brennan, another of the servants, that one night, so far back as the May previous to the last mentioned occurrence, when she was in the act of arranging the beds, she saw Mr. Blake come up stairs, look cautiously about him, go to Mrs. Browne's bed-room door, and tap at it; that immediately after Mrs, Browne went, with no other covering than her shift, to Mr. Blake's bed-chamber, where the guilty parties locked themselves up to gether. Terrified and astonished, the maid retired to the servants' apartments, and in about a quarter of an hour after she saw Mrs. Browne in the same habiliments return from the bed-room of Blake into her husband's. Gentlemen, it was by one of those accidents which so often accompany and occasion the developement of guilt, that we have arrived at this evidence. It was very natural that she did not wish to reveal it; very natural that she did not wish either to expose her mistress, or afflict her uncouacious master with the recital; very natural that she did not desire to be the instrument of so frightful a discovery. However, when she found that concealment was out of The question; that this action was actually in progress, and that the guilty delinquent was publicly triumphing in the absence of proof, and through an herd of slanderous dependants, cruelly vilifying the character of his victim; she sent a friend to Mr. Browne, and in his presence and that of two others, solemnly discovered her melancholy information. Gentlemen, I do entreat of you to examine this woman, though she is an uneducated peasant, with all severity, because, if she speaks the truth, I think you will agree with ine that so horrible a complication of iniquity never disgraced the annals of a court of Justice. He had just risen from the table of his friend-he left his own brother and that friend behind him, and even from the very board of his hospitality, he proceeded to the defilement of his bed! Of mere adultery I had heard before. It was bad enough-a breach of all law, religion, and morality-but-what shall I call this?-that seduced innocence→ insulted misfortune-betrayed friendshipviolated hospitality-tore up the very foun dations of human nature, and hurled its fragments at the violated altar, as if to bory religion beneath the ruins of society!! Oh it is guilt might put a dæmon to the blush!

Does our proof rest here? No-though the mind must be sceptical that after this could doubt. A guilty correspondence was carried on between the parties, and though its contents were destroyed by Mrs. Browne on the morning of the discovery, still we shall authenticate the fact beyond suspicion. You shall bear it from the very messenger they entrusted-you shall hear it. from him, too, that the wife and the adulterer both

bound him to the strictest secresy, at once establishing their own collusion and their victim's ignorance, proving by the very anxiety for concealment, the impossibility of connivance; so true it is that the convic tion of guilt will often proceed even from the stratagem for its security. Does our proof rest here? No-you shall have it from a gentleman of unimpeachable verncity, that the defendant himself confessed the discovery in the bed-room-“ I will save him, said he, the trouble of proving it she was in her shift, and I was in my shirt-I know very well a jury will award damages against me-ask Browne will he agree to compromise it-he owes me some money, and I will give him the overplus in horses!" Can you imagine any thing mora abominable; he seduced from his friend the idol of his soul, and the mother of his children, and when he was writhing under the recent wound, he deliberately offers him brutes in compensation! I will not depreciate this cruelty by any comment s yet the very brute he would barter for that unnatural mother would have lost its life rather than desert its offspring. Now, gentlemen, what rational mind but must spurn the asseveration of innocence after this? Why the anxiety about the writing desk? Why a clandestine correspondence with her husband's friend? Why remain, at two different periods, for a quarter of an hour together, in a gentleman's bed-chamber, with no other habiliment at one time than her bed-dress, at another than her shift? Is this customary with the mar ried females of this country? Is this to be a precedent for your wives and daughters, sanctioned too by you, their parents and their husbands? Why did he confess that a verdict for damages must go against him, and make the offer of that unfeeling compro mise? Was it for concealment ?—The transaction was as common as the air he breathed. Was it because he was innocent ?—The very offer was a judgment by default, a distinct, undeniable corroboration of his guilt. Was it that the female's character should not suffer?-Could there be a more trumpettongued proclamation of her criminality? Are our witnessses suborned ?— Let his army of counsel sift and torture them. Can they prove it?-Oh yes, if it be proveable, let them produce her brother, in our hands a damning proof to be sure; but then fright ful, afflicting, unnatural-in theirs the most consolatory and delightful, the vindication of calumniated innocence, and that innocence the innocence of a sister. Such is the leading outline of our evidence, evidence which you will only wonder is so convincing in a case whose very nature presupposes the most canttious secrecy. The law, indeed, gentlemen, dely estimating the difficulty of final proof in this species of action, has recognized the validity of inferential evidence; but on that subject his Lordship must direct you.