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to direct them with effect.-The next confideration, therefore, which directly follows these immutable principles of judgment, is the fact as it applies to them-Was there either FORCE exerted, or NUMBERS collected, or MEASURES CONCERTED? The Defendants cannot be made refponfible for any act of violence which might be committed by any diforderly persons in the street. It is nothing to them, that Mr. Juftice Buller's fervant was knocked down in one of the avenues of the Court, whilst they were admitted to have been in its centre. What act of disorder or violence do you find committed by Lord Thanet, by Mr. Ferguffon, by Mr. O'Bryen-or by Mr. Gunter Browne, who has been made a defendant only because, without any offence on his part, he appears to have had his head broken! for this gentleman is literally not identified by any part of the proof as having been even in Court at all, except as he was feen complaining to the Judges of an affault committed on himself. Lord Thanet is a man of high fpirit, and of a ftrong body: it must have been a warm intereft, as I have repeatedly obferved to you, that could have embarked him at all in fuch a business; and, when embarked in it, he must reasonably be supposed to have engaged with activity in the accomplishment of an object for which he risked fo much : yet it has appeared already, by the testimony of one of the most respectable and the most correct of all the witneffes for the Crown, and it will be made manifeft hereafter beyond all doubt or question, that, at the very moment (and it was but a moment) when the evidence has the remoteft application to any of the Defendants, he lay back inactively, holding his ftick with both hands acrofs his body, to defend himself from the affaults of only one man, not ftronger than himself, and whofe blows he neither attempted to return, nor invited the aid of others to repel: fo far from it, that Mr. Ferguffon, who is fuppofed to have put his character and fituation to fo much hazard, though he ftood close by, is not even charged with having exerted his ftrength on the occafion, but to have contented himself with flourishing a small stick in his hand without ftriking or aiming at any body-a circumftance neither true, nor poffibly confistent with the truth of the defigns which are imputed to him and no act of violence, or even gesture to incite it, is imputed to any other perfon near this fuppofed focus of confufion, at the only time when Lord Thanet and Mr. Ferguffon are affected even by the folitary evidence of Rivett. So much for the force exerted

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in the purfuit of a purpose which no force proceeding from a few perfons could have accomplished: and as to any previous concert or combination amongst numbers which can poffibly involve them, it is rendered abfolutely incredible by the whole body of the evidence; for the Attorney-General has proved that there were attendant on Court a great number of gentlemen known to profefs the fame principles and opinions with the Defendants, and moft intimately acquainted with Lord Thanet in private life-gentlemen who, I have no doubt, are here at this moment affembled by the juft anxiety of friendship and affection; yet it is not imputed to any of those numbers I allude to, though all present in Court, and within reach of whatever was tranfacted in it, that they took any part, directly or indirectly, by force, by fpeech, or by feeming encouragement, in the scene of diforder which took place. If Lord Thanet, then, is a confpirator, with whom did he confpire? fince, with the exception of the four other Defendants, three of whom must be acquitted for want of evidence, accufation itself does not even attempt to implicate one man of his numerous friends and acquaintance, who muft naturally be fuppofed to have been impreffed with fimilar feelings, nor indeed any one man, high or low, whom he can be proved to have ever spoken to, or seen, in the whole courfe of his exiftence; and if obfcure and unknown perfons are to be taken to have been inftruments in this confufion, there must have been fome evidence of direction or encouragement to others proceeding from the Defendants, which is not attempted to be fworn by any of the witneffes. This most important part of the cafe fhall not, however, be left upon the failure of evidence, or even upon the absence of açcufation for I will call many of these gentlemen, who will tell you that they were wholly ignorant of any defign to rescue the prisoner-that they faw no confufion or riot, except that which the precipitate entry of the officers occafioned; and who, by tracing the Defendants in their eyes through the whole of the period in queftion, will be able pofitively to contradict the most material parts of the evidence which personally affects them.

Gentlemen, the next queftion upon the fcore of probability is this-Suppofing that, contrary to every thing either proved or afferted, the Defendants had felt an intereft in the escape of Mr. O'Connor, and had conceived it to be practicable, could they poffibly have hoped to escape detection-more efpecially Lord Thanet and Mr. Ferguffon, whofe persons were fo notorious-the one, from his high rank and refidence in the county whofe principal inhabitants furrounded him; and the other, from being in his profeffional drefs, in the place affigned to him as Counsel on the trial, and, in the very midst of his companions, engaged in the bufinefs of the Court? Thefe

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gentlemen, therefore, upon the Attorney-General's own admiffion, who has justly affimilated the Court at Maidstone to the one we are now affembled in, could no more have hoped to efcape immediate detection and punishment for the riot they are fuppofed to have engaged in, than I could hope to escape from them, if, taking a strong intereft, as I must be fuppofed to do, in the acquittal of my clients, and thinking there was no safety for them but by making fuch a confufion in Court as to prevent your hearing the evidence, or the Judges' obfervations on it, I fhould, when I had finished my address to you, and the Judge was beginning to fum up to you, publicly begin or join in a fcene of noise and uproar, under the eyes of the Judges, as they now look at me-of the Officers, now fitting before me-of you, the Jury, to whom I am fpeaking-of my numerous friends at the Bar, whose honour is connected with the dignity of the Court -and of the whole croud of fpectators, hundreds of whom I am known to perfonally, and all of whom are acquainted with my perfon.

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Gentlemen, I can obferve, from the abfurdity and impoffibility of the cafe I am putting, that I feem to be trifling with the fubject but that fenfation, which I have no doubt is neral, and which I cannot help even feeling myfelf, difplays the irrefiftible force of the actual cafe before you; because I defy the wit, or wifdom, or imagination, of man, to attempt even a fhadow of a diftinction between the cafe I have put to you and that of Mr. Ferguffon:-for, why should be be fuppofed, any more than myself, who am the object of comparifon, to have embarked in this impracticable project of difgrace, dishonour, and injuftice: in the drefs of Counfel, as much as I am; on the trial which engaged the Court; and in a place, the exact fimilarity of which to the room that holds us is no affertion of mine, but a fact fo unalterably established by the whole evidence as to be employed by both fides as an affiftant to the mind in judging of the accuracy and confiftency of the proof?

The next recourfe to probability, if your judgments, as in all other cafes, are to be governed by reafon and experience, is, if poffible, ftill more unanswerable and decifive.

Suppofing the Defendants, without intereft or motive, and without the poffibility of fuccefs, and without even a chance of efcaping from detection and punishment, to have neverthelefs publicly infulted and disturbed the Court by acts of diferder and violence, WHO MUST HAVE BEEN THE WITNESSES TO SUCH A SCENE? Who, for inftance, must have been the witneffes, if Mr. Ferguffon, as has been afferted, had stood upon the table of the Court-the table round which the Counsel are ranged, directly under the eyes of the Judges and the Jury; and had flourished a ftick round his head, to favour the escape

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of the prifoner, by preventing the officers from approaching him; who, I say again, must have been the witnesses to fuch a phenomenon?-who, amongst the Judges, or Counfel, or officers, or fpectators, but must have feen it ?-who, that had feen it, could poffibly have forgotten it ?--and who, that remembered it, could have hung back from the proof of such inexcufable mifconduct? Yet the proof of this fact, to which the whole Court must have been, as it were, but one eye, and an eye of indignation, is not fupported by any one perfon, either upon the Bench, or at the Bar, or amongst the numerous officers of the Court. On the contrary, we fhall fee, by and by, the difference between the testimony of a reverend Judge of England and that of a Bow-ftreet officer, when I come to advert to the evidence of Mr. Juftice Heath, which is directly and pofitively, inconfiftent with Rivett's, on whofe fingle and unfupported tef timony this extravagant and incredible part of the cafe is alone fupported.

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But, it feems, they have given judgment against themselves, by their demeanour and expreffions upon the occafion. Lord Thanet, it seems, faid to Mr. Juftice Lawrence, as Mr. Abbot expreffed it, who did not hear what the Learned Judge had faid, to which Lord Thanet's words were an answer," that "it was fair he should have a run for it ;'-words which cannot be tortured into any other meaning, more especially when addreffed to one of the Judges of the Court, than that, fpeaking in extenuation of Mr. O'Connor's conduct, who had vifibly made an effort to escape, he thought it fair that a perfon fo circumstanced should have a run for it, if he could; a fentiment which, by the by, no man in his fenfes would have uttered, more efpecially in.fuch a quarter, if he had felt himself at all implicated in a criminal endeavour to affift him: And if Lord Thanet did not speak at this moment with all that complacency which in general fo much diftinguishes him, nor offer, as Mr. Sheridan did, his affiftance to the Judges, it is not at all to be wondered at ; for it must be recollected that he had just suffered in his perfon, not as you have it upon the evidence at present, but had been moft roughly and feverely affaulted. Mr. Juftice Buller is proved to have faid, that Mr. Sheridan conducted himfelf in a manner greatly to his fatisfaction: But the very contraft which this evidence is introduced to furnish, instead of operating against Lord Thanet, is an additional argument in his favour. Lord Thanet and Mr. Sheridan are as one man in every thing which relates to public opinions, and friends in private life. Upon what principle, then, can it be made out that Mr. Sheridan fhould be affifting the Judge, whilft Lord Thanet, who had no connection with Mr. O'Connor which did not equally belong to the other, should be behaving like a madman, unfupported by any of his friends or acquaintances, who

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"advife him to fubmit to his fituation." Now I may fafely affert, that, high as Lord Thanet's rank is, that Learned Judge would not have spoken to him as a perfon from whom he folicited and expected affiftance, if he had himself observed him, or if he had known him to have been obferved by others, difturbing the order of the Court. On the contrary, if there had been a reasonable ground for impeaching Lord Thanet's conduct, the Learned Judge would have executed the law upon him: he would have attached him for his contempt; and furely no perfon in Court had a better opportunity of obferving every thing that paffed in it. Mr. Juftice Lawrence was one of the youngest of the Learned Judges who prefided at the trial, with ftronger health than belonged to all of them, which enabled him to keep up his attention, and to obferve with acuteness: He was, befides, deeply interested in whatever concerned the honour of the Court; and the elevation of the bench on which he fat gave him a full view of every perfon within it. Indeed, Lord Thanet, at the time this mifdemeanour is imputed to him, was directly before him, and under him, and not farther from him than Lord Kenyon at this moment is from me. I have, therefore, a right to fay, that not only nothing is to be pre fumed against Lord Thanet from what he faid, but that, on the contrary, a ftrong prefumption arifes in his favour when we hear the evidence from any other mouth than that of the Learned Judge himself; fince, if he to whom the difcourfe was addressed, and who was the beft judge of the fair conftruction to be put upon it, had confidered it in the light it has been reprefented and relied on, he might have been called as a witness. Mr. Juftice Heath and Mr. Serjeant Shepherd, the Judges in the fame Commiffion, were examined to matters infinitely lefs material.

Gentlemen, let us now paufe a little, to confider the effect which I feel myself entitled to derive from these observations. I confider myself to have advanced no farther in the argument than this:

Firft, That there was no affigned nor affignable motive for the criminal purpofe charged by the indictment.

Secondly, That it was a purpose palpably impracticable, and which, therefore, no reafonable men could poffibly have engaged in with any prospect of fuccefs.

Thirdly, That whatever might have been the probable issue of such an enterprize, detection and punishment were certain. Fourthly,

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