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Guilty entitled him to do fo. Neither can it be difputed that a warrant did in fact exift, and that its existence was known, fince it appears that the officers stated in open Court that they had one : And it is not material for me to difpute, nor is it, per haps, difputable, that Mr. O'Connor knew of their intention to arreft him; and, if he did know it, human nature is stronger than all the evidence in the world to convince every man of his difpofition at least to escape from it: and I admit further, that a most honourable perfon, who gave his evidence with a candour which reflects high honour on his character, has added a circumstance which, though it could not be ftrictly received as proof, may be true, for any thing that touches the merits of the cafe, viz. that there had been a communication to the Court that there were difaffected perfons difpofed to rescue the prifoner.

Having admitted these facts, I, in my turn, have a right to bring to your recollection, that it is an indifputable fact, refting upon the whole of the Crown's evidence, that the officers, ftrongly impreffed with this idea, rushed fuddenly and impetuously forward, on Mr. O'Connor's ftepping over the bar when the verdict of Not Guilty was delivered: and indeed Rivett, upon his cross-examination, diftinctly admitted, that owing to the apprehenfion of a refcue, he rushed into Court with more precipitation than, under other circumftances, he could have juftified; and that a great bustle and confufion existed before he approached any of the Defendants, or even faw their perfons. This admitted origin of the disturbance removes all difficulties from the confideration of the caufe; and Mr. Juftice Heath declared, that there was a scene of confufion and violence in Court, fuch as he had never feen, nor could poffibly have expected to fee, in a Court of Justice; and the fingle queftion, therefore, is, what fhare the Defendants had in it? Did the disturbance arife from any original acts of their's? or were they, on the contrary, firft preffed upon by the officers and their affiftants, who, though they might be engaged in what they mistakenly fuppofed to be their duty, from an expectation of refiftance, neceffarily created confufion by their forcible entry into a crowded Court? Were the Defendants engaged in any confpiracy or combination to deliver Mr. O'Connor? That is the great, or rather the only question; because, if this does not appear from the evidence, all their acts, even if they were ultimately to remain as they appear at prefent, are perfectly confiftent with the conduct of gentlemen fuddenly and rudely trampled upon in a tumult, though without, perhaps, being the particular objects of violence by thofe who created it.

The natural courfe of confidering which of thefe propofitions ought to be adopted by reasonable men, is to fet out with tracing a motive. There can be no offence, without fome correfpending

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fponding inducement to commit it. It is not alledged that thefe Gentlemen ignorantly or wantonly infulted the Courtan indifcretion which can only happen amongst the lowest orders of the people: the charge upon them is a deliberate and pre-exifting combination to deliver Mr. O'Connor, by confufion and force, from a warrant which they knew to be im pending; and the acts attempted to be proved upon them can find no place in any reflecting mind, but as they are believed to be the refult of fuch a confpiracy.

Now, I have always understood it to be the great office of a Court of Juftice, when evidence is to be opposed to evi dence, to confider the probabilities of the tranfaction; indeed, a judicial decifion is nothing elfe but the bringing up facts to the ftandard of reafon and experience. I have already defcribed the fituations of the only two Defendants whofe cafes you can have occafion to confider ;-the one, as a high Peer and Magistrate of the Kingdom, with the natural consciousness of the duties infeparable from exalted stations; the other, ftanding in a manner for his very existence upon the dignity and decency of his deportment in the Courts, which habit, as well as principle, had taught him to reverence and refpect. Yet the charge upon fuch perfons is, that open undifguifed acts of violence were committed by them, in a place which the Attorney-General has, with great propriety, affimilated to the place where we now fit-because nothing more forcibly affifts the judgment than by bringing the fcene under the immediate notice of the fenfes ; and I am, befides, fpeaking to Gentlemen of the county of Kent, who muft themselves know the place without the aid of this comparifon, though you cannot know it better than I do. I have spent many laborious hours of my life in the Court at Maidstone; though the labour was always rendered delightful by the reflection that I never had to plead in vain, before Gentlemen of your defcription, the caufe of innocence or truth. Attorney-General, then, has affimilated the Court of Maidftone to this Court-He fays, that the prifoner fat where my Learned Friends now fit behind me; that the bench of the Solicitors, where the confufion began, cannot be better defcribed than by the place occupied by the King's Counsel now fitting around me; the feat of the Counsel may be confidered to be placed where these Gentlemen are now fitting before me; and the vacancy in the middle, between the bench and me at this moment, must be supplied by the table of which we have heard fo much; whilft the Judges there must be confidered to be placed as they are here, elevated in fituation as in rank, and commanding the most diftinct and immediate view of every part of the Court. Under these circumstances, you are asked to believe that Lord Thanet and Mr. Ferguffon-the one poffeffed of a large hereditary fortune in Kent, and who could not but know

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that his perfon was as well known to every man in Maidstone as St. Paul's Church to the inhabitants of Ludgate-Hill-the other standing upon a table within fix yards of the Judges, in the robes of his profeffion, close by a large chandelier, defcribed at that time by all the witneffes to have been fully lighted ;you are defired, I fay, to believe, that these two perfons, without any motive upon earth brought home to them by any part of the evidence, engaged publicly in a scene of audacious riot and violence, in the public face of the most dignified Court; in the prefence of all its numerous Officers; of an acute and intelligent Bar; of the Sheriff and all his train; of a Jury compofed of the prin cipal Gentlemen of the county; and of all that concourfe of attendants upon an important State profecution which either duty or curiofity had collected. I maintain that the hiftory of the world does not furnish an example of fuch a total departure from every principle of human action, and from all common fenfe and prudence, in the commiffion of a crime. The interest of the parties to commit it appears to be nothing-the project utterly impracticable-detection abfolutely certainthe reproach, to men of character, fevere and inevitable-the legal punishment, not less fo; and all thofe confequences notorious to men of the meanest and most uncultivated understandings,

Gentlemen, the mind of man cannot avoid collecting and accumulating thefe abfurdities: but they are too important to be thus run over; they must be viewed feparately, to have their proper effect.

First, then, let us fearch for a motive ftrong enough to impel honourable men to encounter fuch desperate difficulties, in the purfuit of a dishonourable, ufelefs, and impracticable purpofe. Have you any evidence, haye you the fuggeftion, have you even the infinuation of Counsel, that the Defendants ought to be claffed amongst those evil-disposed persons (if any such existed) whom Mr. Juftice Heath took notice of, but upon report only, as attendant on the trial? The Noble Earl came down, under the procefs of a fubpoena, to give evidence for the prifoner; not even of any fact connected with his conduct, but merely to state what he knew of Mr. O'Connor as an acquaintance, and what he had collected from others concerning his character in the common intercourfe with the world. But why should I seek by obfervation to remove the imputation of a motive correfponding with the mifconduct which is imputed, when it is but common justice to the Attorney-General to admit that he did not even attempt to infinuate any thing of the fort? Yet my Noble Friend remains as a criminal before you, charged with the violation of that which is the most facred in civil fociety, branded with the refiftance of authorities the most dignified and important, in order

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that a perfon fuppofed to be an object of high fufpicion by the Government of the Country, might be left at liberty to perpetrate the treasons which the Duke of Portland's warrant had for its object to defeat-treafons which, if fuccefsfully perpetrated, were, in their most direct and obvious confequences, to ftrip the Noble Earl of all the fplendid inheritance of rank and property defcended to him from his ancestors through so many generations. Mr. Ferguffon will forgive me if I fay, that the principal property which he can die poffeffed of, must be the fruits of a profeffion which the fame treafons were pointed to deftroy; yet he, too, must be believed, without a shadow of evidence, or even the fuggeftion of his accufers, to have engaged in the defperate effort of affording shelter and opportunity for treafons which were to diffolve the Courts in which he practifes, to deftroy that fyftem of Law which he has been bred to understand, and to fet up, instead of it, a new order of things, by which he muft defcend from the eminence conferred by education and experience, and mix in the common ranks with ignorant and undifciplined competitors.

But, it feems, they were not indifferent to the deliverance of Mr. O'Connor; for, upon his acquittal, they hastened to the bar, and congratulated him on the verdict. They certainly did fo, in common with many others; and although the impulfe of perfonal kindness which directed them was honourable, it may be fet down, not fo much to the individuals, as to the characteristic benevolence of Englishmen. The characteristics of nations depend more upon their hiftories and their governments, than upon the temperaments of men arifing from natural caufes, The English Conftitution was always, in theory, a Conftitution of Freedom; but it only became fo in practice by the numerous and finally fuccefsful ftruggles of our free and virtuous ancestors against oppreffive abufes of authority. Many eminent perfons to whom this Country is indebted for her Liberties, having ftood upon their trials, and having obtained deliverances from the Tribunals of Juftice, has gradually produced a general fympathy in the minds of Englishmen, when men are standing for life or for death before their country. This is an almoft univerfal, and peculiarly characteristic feature of the inhabitants of Great Britain. It is not confined to the vulgar, as an ignorant and even an immoral prejudice; but pervades all the claffes of fociety. It is compounded of a principle of humanity, of a spirit of national pride and dignity in the freedom of our inftitutions, and of a sense of fecurity derived from them. No reafoning, therefore, can be more false, than that, when men are accused, and even upon pregnant evidence, of confpiracies against the Government, that they who seem to feel an intereft in their deliverance are alienated in their affections to the State. Englishmen of all defcriptions receive

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their fenfe of innocence from their Country's verdict; and they feel a fort of fatisfaction which, I verily believe, exifts in no other country. Irreligion and falfe liberty have been seen to delight in blood, to rejoice in revengeful facrifices, to think it mufic to hear the agonizing groans of expiring fufferers, and a fpectacle of triumph and pleafure to gaze upon their mutilated bodies; but the fenfe of liberty in a country long humanized by the influence of a free government, fhrinks back even from the confequences of the jufteft profecutions, looks with an eye of tenderness upon the accused even before the confcience is convinced of innocence, and feels an invincible impulfe of pleasure in the legal deliverance from guilt. Long, long, may this remain the characteristic feature of our Country! When Mr. O'Connor, therefore, was pronounced not guilty, was it any proof of a confpiracy to rescue him from other charges, that he was congratulated on his deliverance, which he was not only entitled to by the verdict of the Jury, but which the evidence on the trial, and the Judges' remarks on it, had previously and diftinétly anticipated? The queftion, therefore, again recurss-Were the Defendants the active authors of the refcue, for the purpose charged in the Indictment? The MOTIVE is gone already-not only as wholly unafcribable from the total abfence of evidence, but because my Learned Friend who laid the cafe before you was too much a man of honour (as I have already done him the juftice to acknowledge) to afcribe, or even to infinuate, a motive which he knew did not exift, and which he had neither evidence nor reasonable prefumption to fupport.

If, however, a criminal act, tho' without the proof, or even the imputation of a referable principle of action, may still be believed by a Jury difpenfing the mild and rational juftice of this country; the next confideration, in weighing the probabilities, is, how this purpose, fuppofing it still to exift, without any correfponding intereft, was poffibly to be accomplished ?-for men cannot be prefumed to engage in the moft perilous enterprifes, not only without inducement, but without even a fhadow of hope or profpect that their object is practicable. The fituation of the Court is not only prefent to your own recollections from your perfect acquaintance with it, but is brought before your eyes by its juft comparison with this. Mr. O'Connor food at the bar where my Learned Friends now fit, furrounded by hundreds of perfons not attempted to be implicated in any defign to favour his escape: on the right, and on the left, and behind, were the public ftreets of Maidstone, from whence no paffage without obfervation was to be expected; and before they could even be approached, an outlet must first have been made through groves of javelins in the hands of those numerpus officers which the exemplary attention of the Sheriffs of

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