ject of public interest, at a time that the whole press

of the coun

try was leagued with Mr. Wallace in hunting down an individual whose conduct was about to become the subject of legal investigation.

He defied the jury to discover one assignable motive of malice to the conduct of the defendant, either in endeavouring to prevent the due administration of justice, to provoke breaches of the law, to vilify the character of Mr. 'Wallace, or infringe on the privileges of the bar, which constituted the several charges in the counts of the indictment.

As to motives of malice in the defendant, there was nothing, he believed, imputable to his client. On the contrary, his friendly disposition to Mr. Wallace, had been made manifest before. When that gentleman was candidate for Drogheda, Mr. Staunton, on that and other occasions, inserted paragraphs, complimentary of Mr. Wallace, in The Freeman's Journal, of which he was at that time the editor. He had, many years ago, risen by his talents to the sole editorship of The Freeman's Journal, which he held, enjoying a salary of near £500 a-year, until he undertook the publication of The Weekly Register, with the view of advancing himself in the world. In The Freeman's Journal, and in his own paper, he had always given Mr. Wallace the warmest support as a public man; thus showing, that so far from having any feeling of malice or ill-will towards Mr. Wallace, he always entertained for him the most favourable sentiments.

And here (said Mr. O'C.) give me leave respectfully to say, that from being unaccustomed to trials of this nature in this country, you are, to a certain extent, I might almost say, unfit to try this case. If I was addressing a jury of Englishmen, where cases of this nature are. better understood, they would call on me to prove the truth of the statements contained in the publication, and if proved to be true, they would acquit my client.

As to the charge of these publications impeding public jus tice, they could only prevent it in either of two ways: either in prejudicing the minds of the jury, and thereby preventing conviction, or by prejudicing the bench, in order to prevent punishment. The case on which this prejudice was supposed to take place was the assault on Mr. Wallace; and he asked the jury if, after the strong evidence which had been given of that assault, could they hesitate to convict Mr. McNamara, although they had read a hundred such publications? He was confident

they could not. Idle as it was to talk of prejudicing the minds of the jury, it was doubly so to suppose it could sway the bench, whom the habitual exercise of a dispassionate judgment had raised far above such influence.

The privileges of the bar formed another topic of consideration. Unquestionably, they were proud and valuable privileges; but their value should make persons discreet and circumspect in the use of them. It could not be denied that they had on many occasions been exercised to an unwarrantable extent. They were intended for the protection not only of the members of the bar, but also for the due attainment of justice; they had been, however, frequently perverted to the purpose of trampling down justice with the individual. The abuse of them now was less frequent, and the reason was, because the bench was every day improving. The bar did not require protection from the subject, but the subject required protection from the bar.

Their verdict would, in a measure, decide what limit was to be placed to a barrister, in the statement and animadversions, by the manner in which they would deal with a person who had only remarked upon the introduction of a third person into a statement of a leading counsel--that person a respectable female, unconnected altogether with the case, and yet visited with the severest epithets. It had been proved that at the trial of Caila v. M'Namara, a great deal of intemperance had been shown, and shown at the time of taking a bill of exceptions, when there might be supposed to be least occasion for it.

As to the vilification of the character of Mr. Wallace, there was nothing in the publication which could even warrant such an imputation. On the contrary, one of the publications stated him to be "a man of talent and spirit." The statements in these publications were the assertion of facts which were not disproved, and some editorial observations mitigatory of the conduct of Mr. R. M'Namara. Here Mr. O'Connell read several paragraphs from The Freeman's Journal Patriot, Dublin Journal, &c.. which animadverted in severe terms on the conduct of Mr. R. M'Namara; and Mr. O'Connell asked if, whilst the whole press of Dublin was teeming with vituperation on the conduct of that unfortunate gentleman, it was not admissible to offer something in mitigation? He (Mr. O'C.) would be satisfied to rest the case of his client on the constitutional principle, that every man should be accounted innocent until proved to be guilty. And whilst every other paper was wrongfully prejudicing the public on the side of guilt, even before accusation, his

client alone appeared on the side of mercy, and maintained the propriety of not condemning Mr. M'Namara before trial.

Mr. O'Connell dwelt on this point with much force and eloquence. He could wish to have seen this matter amicably adjusted before it came into court. At one time he hoped that an adjustment would take place, but as it was on the eve of settlement there came a question of costs. He regretted that Mr. Wallace was advised to stoop to the consideration of them, which, if. unadvised, he was sure he would not do. His client could not pay costs. The payment of them would be his ruin. After adverting to a variety of other exculpatory topics, Mr. O'Connell conjured the jury to pause before they plunged a young gentleman in goal, for the blameless exercise of his duty as a proprietor of the public press-to hesitate before they tore this last remnant from the freedom of discussion-the right of remarking truly on the conduct of public men, and on public transactions. If the press was to be despoiled of this privilege, it ceased to be a moral benefit, and would become a mischievous machine, at the beck and influence of every person who was rich and powerful enough to control it.

A burst of applause from a crowded court followed the delivery of this speech.,

1

Mr. Staunton was, notwithstanding, convicted, and suffered an imprisonment in Kilmainnam. But conviction and condemnation, merited or unmerited, was sure to be a Catholic's fate before a city of Dublin jury, chosen and packed as they were, and still often are, by the foulest means and practices of the Orange sheriffs.

We hasten on to a letter of Mr. O'Connell's, on the subject of the annual Orange demonstrations in Dublin :

TO HIS EXCELLENCY MARQUIS WELLESLEY,

&c., &c., &c.

"Merrion-square, July 11th, 1822. "MY LORD-To-morrow will finally decide the character of your administration. The oppressed and neglected Catholics of Ireland had fondly hoped, that they might have obtained from a friend, placed in the exalted situation which your excellency occupies, a recommendation in favour of their claims. You took an early opportunity to crush that hope for ever. In your reply to the address of the Catholics of the county Clare, you told the Irish people that you came here to administer the laws, not to alter them.'

"My lord, but a few weeks elapsed, when you deemed it expedient to recommend the insurrection act, and the act to suspend the labeas corpus. That the latter was not wanting, is

now admitted by everybody; and that any necessity is a justification of the former, remains, in my humble judgment, to be proved.

“It still remains for your excellency to administer the laws. Hitherto the Catholics have felt no advantages from your excellency's administration. The system by which we are governed -the cold system of exclusion and distrust-is precisely the same as that of the most rigid of your predecessors. One prinripal actor, to be sure, has been withdrawn from the scene, and we may deem the alteration a compliment; but I am yet to learn what benefit we are to derive from it; and I appeal to your lordship, whether the change to which I allude has not been amply compensated for to the exclusionists, by the removal of the mildest, kindest, and best public man Ireland has ever yet seen-Mr. Grant.

"Your excellency came to administer the laws. My lord, I most respectfully, but, at the same time, most firmly call upon you to administer them. The exhibition intended (it is said) for to-morrow, is plainly a violation of the law. It is an open and public excitement to a breach of the peace; it is a direct provocation to tumult; it obstructs the public streets, by collecting on the one side an insulting, and on the other, an irritated concourse of persons. It is, my lord, for these, and other obvious reasons, a manifest violation of the law.

"I pledge myself to prove, before any court, or to any impartial jury, that the usual annual exhibition on the 12th of July is illegal.

"I make this pledge under no small risk. I have certainly as large, probably a larger professional income than any man in a stuff gown ever had at the Irish bar--an income depending mainly upon the public notion that I understand something of my profession. I could not afford to forfeit that public confidence; and yet I freely consent to forfeit it all, unless I am able to demonstrate to any judicial tribunal, that the annual exhibitions of the 12th of July are illegal.

"Having given this pledge, I again respectfully call upon your excellency to vindicate the exalted character you have heretofore acquired, to do justice to the high name you bear, and to fulfil the duties of the exalted station which you occupy.

"As you cannot alter, I again respectfully, dutifully, but firmly call upon you to administer the law, and to suppress an illegal and insulting nuisance.

"My lord, you do not, cannot want, the means of suppressing

this nuisance. One word from you will be abundantly sufficient to do it.. The expensive police of Dublin is at your disposal. With one word you can remove every one of them, from the chief magistrate in the chief office to the lowest retainer in the patrole department.

"The corporation has, to be sure, the power to nominate to many of those situations, but that influence, which, alas! ir deemed necessary over higher assemblies, is preserved in perfect purity over the corporation by your Excellency's undoubted right to dismiss the nominees of the corporation, at your pleasure, from those lucrative situations in the police.

"You do not, my lord, want the power to administer the law. To say nothing of the military force at your disposal, you can command, and it is within the limits (and would it were within the practice) of our constitution to command them, all the liberal Protestants, constituting a most numerous and respectable body; and the entire Catholic population of Dublin, as special constables, to keep the peace, and prevent a violation of the law.

"You have, my lord, ample power, and God forbid it should ever be said, that you wanted the inclination to administer the laws impartially towards all classes of his Majesty's subjects.

"I say nothing of his most gracious Majesty's parting admonition; Ι say nothing of the disinterested and affectionate loyalty which the Catholics showed to their sovereign, on his visit to Ireland; and I scorn to boast of the active part so humble an individual as myself took upon that important occasion. My lord, the Catholics forgot injuries, and what is infinitely more difficult, forgave insults, to effect a reconciliation with their Protestant fellow-subjects; and in no one instance have the Catholics, since the King's visit, violated in deed, or even in word, the spirit of that amicable concord which they then sought, and believed they had attained. I now defy the most active of our calumniators to point out any one single act, or even any one single word, by which the Catholics have violated that concord.

"But, alas! how speedily, how completely, how entirely has it been violated upon the other side. On the other side, those men who were loudest in proclaiming sentiments of amity, what has been their conduct since? But I will not dwell upon this painful subject; I will only say, that the Catholics deserve and require protection from insult and injury. Will you, my lord, refuse them that protection?

"To-morrow decides the character of your excellency's administration in Ireland. That your conduct then and always may