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his own limbs ; that day after day you had marked the unhappy captive , cheered by no sound but the cries of his family or the clinking of chains ; that you h * d seen him at last brought to trial ; that you had seeu the vile
and perjured informer deposing against his life \ that you had seen the drunken and : worn-out jury give in a verdict of death ; that you had seen the same jury , when returning sobriety had brought back their conscience , prostrate themselves before the humanity of the bench , and pra ^ y that th « mprc y of the crown might save thei ^ character from the reproach of an involuntary crime , their conscience from the torture of eternal
self-condemnation , arid their souls from the indelible stain of innocent blood , let me suppose that you had seer * the respite give *) , and the contrite and honest recommendation transmitted to that seat where mercy was presumed to dwell ; that new and before unheard of crimes are discovered against the
informers ; that the royal mercy seems to relent , and that a new respite is sent to the prisoner ; that time is taken , as the learned counsel for the crown has expressed it , to see whether mercy could be extended or not !—
that after that period of lingering deliberation passed , a third respite is transmitted ; that the unhappy captive himself feels the cheering hope of being restored to a family he had adored , to a character be had never stained , and
to a country that he had ever loved ; that you had seen his wife and children upon their knees giving those tears to gratitude which their locked and frozen hearts could hot give to anguish and despair , and imploring the blessings of eternal Providence on his head , who had -spared the father and restored him to his children ; that you had seen the . olive branch sent into his little ark , but no sign that the waters had subsided . u Al-as !
nor wife , nor children more shall he behold , nor friends nor sacred home /' No seraph mercy unbars the door of his . dungeon and leads him forth to Ijight and life , but the minister ofdeath hoirries him to thje scene of . suffering
and of shame ; where , unmoved i > y theiiQStile array of artillery arid a ? med men , collected together to secure , or to iupujlt , or to disturb him , he dies VRth a ftoleoift declaration of his innocence , and utters his last breath in a
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prayer for his country . Let me now ask you , if any of you had addressed the public ear upon so foul and monstrous a subject , in what language would you have conveyed the feelings of horror and indignation f Would
you have stooped to the meanness of qualified complaint ? Would you have been mean enough— but I eiitreat your forgiveness , I do not think meanl y ojf you ; had I thought so meanly of yoh i could not have suffered my mind to commune with you as it has done * ** „
If I do not , therefore , grossly err in nay opinion of you , you could use no language on a subject like this , that must not lag behind the rapidity of your feelings , and that would not disgrace tliose feelings if it attempted to describe them .
Gentlemen , I am not unconscious that the counsel for the crown seemed to address you with a confidence of a very different kind ; he seemed to expect from you a kind and respectful sympathy with the feelings of the
Castle and the griefs of chided authority . ~~ Perhaps he may know you better than I do ; if he does , he has spoken to you as he ought ; he has been right in telling you that if the reprobation of'this ' writer be weak , it is because his genius could not make
it stronger ; he has been right in teHing you , that feis language has not been , braided and festooned as elegantly as it might , that he has not pinched the miserable plaits of -his phraseology ,
nor placed his patches and feathers with the ; correctness of millinery , which became so exalted a personage . If you agree with him , —if jou think that the man who ventures , at the
hazard of his own life , to rescue from the deep the drowning honour of his country , must not presume upon the guilty familiarity of plucking it up by the locks ;— -I have no more to say ; do a courteous thing . Upright arid hpuestjyrors t find a civil and obliging verdict against the printer . And when you have done so , \ riareti through the rank ' s of your fellow-citizen $ jto
your own homes , and begr their looks as ybu pass aloug ; retire to 4 he bosom of your families . and * yo 6 V ^ children , aud when you are presiding over the morality of the parental board , fell those infants who are to be the futiire men of Ireland the history of this day ,, Form their young minds by your pre-
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Specimens of Mr * CupravCs Eloquence . bky
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1818, page 547, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2480/page/11/
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