be the shame of such foul and unfounded imputations. as have been laid against me in this court. You, my lord, are a judge; I am the supposed culprit—I am a man; you are a man also. By a revolution of power, we might change places, though we never could change characters. If I stand at the bar of this court, and dare not vindicate my character, what a farce is your justice! If I stand at this bar, and dare not vindicate my character how dare you calumniate it! Does the sentence of death, which your unhallowed policy inflicts upon my body, also condemn my tongue to silence, and my reputation to reproach? Your executioner may abridge the period of my existence; but, while I exist, I shall not forbear to vindicate my character and motives from your aspersions; and, as a man to whom fame is dearer than life, I will make the last use of that life in doing justice to that reputation which is to live after me, and which is the only legacy I can leave to those I honor and love, and for whom I am proud to perish. As men, we must appear, on the great day, at one common tribunal; and it will then remain for the Searcher of all hearts to show a collective universe, who was engaged in the most virtuous actions, or actuated by the purest motives-my country's oppressors, or myself. I am charged with being an emissary of France. An emissary of France! And for what end? It is alleged that I wished to sell the independence of my country! And for what end! Was this the object of my ambition! And is this the mode by which a tribunal of justice reconciles contradictions? No; I am no emissary. My ambition was to hold a place among the deliverers of my country-not in power, not in profit, but, in the glory of the achievement. Sell my country's independence to France! and for what? A change of masters? No; but for ambition. Oh, my country! had it been personal ambition that influenced me-had it been the soul of my actions, could I not, by my education and fortune, by the rank and consideration of my family, have placed myself amongst the proudest of your oppressors? My country was my idol. To it I sacrificed every selfish, every endearing sentiment; and for it I now offer up my life. No, my lord, I acted as an Irishman, determined on delivering my country from the yoke of a foreign and unrelenting tyranny, and from the more galling yoke of a domestic faction, its joint partner and perpetrator in parricide, whose rewards are the ignominy of existing with an exterior of splendor, and a consciousness of depravity. It was the wish of my heart to extricate my country from this doubly riveted despotism. I wished to place her independence beyond the reach of any power on earth. I wished to exalt her to that proud station of the world which Providence had destined her to fill. I have been charged with so great importance, in the efforts to emancipate my country, as to be considered the key-stone of the combination of Irishmen, or, as your lordship expressed it, "the life and blood of the conspiracy." You do me honor overmuch- you have given to the subaltern all the credit of a superior. There are men engaged in this conspiracy who are not only superior to me, but even to your own conceptions of yourself, my lord-men before the splendor of whose genius and virtues I should bow with respectful deference, and who would think themselves dishonored to be called your friends-who would not disgrace themselves by shaking your blood-stained hand-[Here he was interrupted.] What, my lord, shall you tell me, on the passage to that scaffold which that tyranny, of which you are only the intermediary executioner, has erected for my murder, that I am accountable for all the blood that has been, and will be, shed in this struggle of the op pressed against the oppressor-shall you tell me this, and must I be so very a slave as not to repel it ?—I, who fear not to approach the omnipotent Judge, to answer for the conduct of my whole life-am I to be appalled and falsified by a mere remnant of mortality here?-by you, too, who, if it were possible to collect all the innocent blood that you have shed, in your unhallowed ministry, in one great reservoir, your lordship might swim in it?-[Here the judge interfered.] Let no man dare, when I am dead, to charge me with dishonor: let no man attaint my memory, by believing that I could engage in any cause but that of my country's liberty and independence; or that I could become the pliant minion of power in the oppression or the miseries of my countrymen. The proclamation of the provisional government speaks my views; from which no inference can be tortured to countenance barbarity or debasement at home, or subjection, or humiliation, or treachery from abroad. I would not have submitted to a foreign invader, for the same reason that I would resist the domestic oppressor. In the dignity of freedom, I would have fought upon the threshold of my country, and its enemy should enter only by passing over my lifeless corpse. And am I, who lived but for my country, who have subjected myself to the dangers of the jealous and watchful op pressor, and now to the bondage of the grave, only to give my countrymen their rights, and my country her independence, to be loaded with calumny, and not suffered to resent and REPEL it? No; God forbid! My lords, you seem impatient for the sacrifice. The blood for which you thirst, is not congealed by the artificial terrors which surround your victim: it circulates warmly and unruffled through the channels which God created for noble purposes. but which you are bent to destroy for purposes so grievous, that they cry to Heaven. Be yet patient. I have but a few words more to say. I am going to my cold and silent grave: my lamp of life is nearly extinguished: my race is run; the grave opens to receive me; and I sink into its bosom. I have but one request to ask at my departure from this world: it is the charity of its silence. Let no man write my epitaph; for, as no man who knows my motives, dares now vindicate them, let not prejudice nor ignorance asperse them. Let them and me repose in obscurity, and my tomb remain uninscribed, until other times and other men can do justice to my character. When my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till them, let my epitaph be written. DONE. -I HAVE THE QUARREL OF BRUTUS AND CASSIUS. (SHAKSPEARE.) Cassius. That you have wronged me, doth appear in this; You have condemned and noted Lucius Pella, Wherein my letters, praying on his side, Brutus. You wronged yourself, to write in such a case. Cas. In such a time as this, it is not meet Cas. I an itching palm? You know that you are Brutus that speak this, Bru. Remember March, the Ides of March remember! Did not great Julius bleed for justice' sake? What villain touched his body, that did stab, I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon, Cas. Brutus, bay not me, I'll not endure it; you forget yourself Bru. Go to; you're not, Cassius. Bru. I say, you are not. Cas. Urge me no more, I shall forget myself; Have mind upon your health, tempt me no farther. Bru. Away, slight man! Cas. Is't possible? Bru. Hear me, for I will speak. Must I give way and room to your rash choler? Cas. O ye gods! ye gods! must I endure all this? break; Go, show your slaves how choleric you are, Must I budge? Must I observe you? Must I stand and crouch Though it do split you; for, from this day forth, Cas. Is it come to this? Bru. You say you are a better soldier: Let it appear so; make your vaunting true, I shall be glad to learn of noble men. Cas. You wrong me every way, you wrong I said an elder soldier, not a better: Did I say better? Bru. If you did, I care not. Cas. When Cesar lived, he durst not thus hav moved me. |