Oh, gentlemen, am I this day only the counsel of my client? No, no; I am the

advocate of humanity--of yourselves--your homes--your wives--your families--your

little children. I am glad that this case exhibits such atrocity; unmarked as it

is by any mitigatory feature, it may stop the frightful advance of this

calamity; it will be met now, and marked with vengeance. If it be not, farewell

to the virtues of your country; farewell to all confidence between man and man;

farewell to that unsuspicious and reciprocal tenderness, without which marriage

is but a consecrated curse. If oaths are to be violated, laws disregarded,

friendship betrayed, humanity trampled, national and individual honor stained,

and if a jury of fathers and of husbands will give such miscreancy a passport to

their homes, and wives, and daughters,--farewell to all that yet remains of

Ireland! But I will not cast such a doubt upon the character of my country.

Against the sneer of the foe, and the skepticism of the foreigner, I will still

point to the domestic virtues, that no perfidy could barter, and no bribery can

purchase, that with a Roman usage, at once embellish and consecrate households,

giving to the society of the hearth all the purity of the altar; that lingering

alike in the palace and the cottage, are still to be found scattered over this

land--the relic of what she was--the source perhaps of what she may be--the

lone, the stately, and magnificent memorials, that rearing their majesty amid

surrounding ruins, serve at once as the landmarks of the departed glory, and the

models by which the future may be erected.

 

Preserve those virtues with a vestal fidelity; mark this day, by your verdict,

your horror of their profanation; and believe me, when the hand which records