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ON THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS

ND now, gentlemen, let us come to the immediate subject of the trial, as it is brought before you by the charge in the indictment, to which it ought to have been confined; and also, as it is presented to you by the statement of the learned counsel who has taken a much wider range than the mere limits of the accusation, and has endeavored to force upon your consideration extraneous and irrelevant facts, for reasons which it is my duty to explain. The indictment states simply that Mr. Finnerty has published a false and scandalous libel upon the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, tending to bring his government into disrepute, and to alienate the affections of the people; and one would have expected that, without stating any other matter, the counsel for the Crown would have gone directly to the proof of this allegation. But he has not done so; he has gone to a most extraordinary length, indeed, of preliminary observation, and an allusion to facts, and sometimes an assertion of facts, at which, I own, I was astonished, until I saw the drift of these allusions and assertions. Whether you have been fairly dealt with by him, or are now honestly dealt with by me, you must be judges. He has been pleased to say that this prosecution is brought against this letter signed Marcus, merely

1 [This speech was delivered before the Commission court, on December 22, 1797, in behalf of Peter Finnerty, the publisher of the Dublin "Press." Finnerty had been indicted for publishing a severe letter, signed Marcus, addressed to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, in reference to the execution of William Orr. Orr had been tried and executed for administering the oath to a United Irishman. His trial and execution were peculiarly atrocious, because, it was developed soon after the trial, many of the witnesses were perjured, the chief informer was a man of the blackest character, and the jury was openly intimidated, several of them being made drunk while sitting on the case. These facts were communicated to the Lord Lieutenant, and Orr was reprieved three times,

but, after a year's delay, was finally executed. A wave of popular indignation swept over Ireland. Medals were struck bearing the words " Remember Orr," and his name became a watch-word of resistance to tyranny. During this period Finnerty's paper published the Marcus letter, and he was immediately indicted for libel. Curran, as his counsel, made in his behalf the speech here given. His eloquent plea was unavailing. Finnerty was found guilty, and sentenced to spend one hour in the stocks, and to be imprisoned for two years-a sentence which was carried out. Curran's speech is remarkable in that it was delivered impromptu. He had had no time for preparation, and had seen the briefs in the case only a few minutes before speaking-EDITOR.]

as a part of what he calls a system of attack upon government by the paper called the "Press." As to this I will only ask you whether you are fairly dealt with? Whether it is fair treatment to men upon their oaths, to insinuate to them, that the general character of a newspaper (and that general character founded merely upon the assertion of the prosecutor) is to have any influence upon their minds when they are to judge of a particular publication? I will only ask you what men you must be supposed to be when it is thought that even in a court of justice, and with the eyes of the nation upon you, you can be the dupes of that trite and exploded expedient, so scandalous of late in this country, of raising a vulgar and mercenary cry against whatever man or whatever principle it is thought necessary to put down; and I shall therefore merely leave it to your own pride to suggest upon what foundation it could be hoped that a senseless clamor of that kind could be echoed back by the yell of a jury upon their oaths. I trust you see that this has nothing to do with the question.

Gentlemen of the jury, other matters have been mentioned, which I must repeat for the same purpose-that of showing you that they have nothing to do with the question. The learned counsel has been pleased to say, that he comes forward in this prosecution as the real advocate for the liberty of the press, and to protect a mild and merciful government from its licentiousness; and he has been pleased to add, that the constitution can never be lost while its freedom remains, and that its licentiousness alone can destroy that freedom. As to that, gentlemen, he might as well have said that there is only one mortal disease of which a man can die. I can die the death inflicted by tyranny; and when he comes forward to extinguish this paper in the ruin of the printer by a state prosecution, in order to prevent its dying of licentiousness, you must judge how candidly he is treating you, both in the fact and in the reasoning. Is it in Ireland, gentlemen, that we are told licentiousness is the only disease that can be mortal to the press? Has he heard of nothing else that has been fatal to the freedom of publication? I know not whether the printer of the "Northern Star" may have heard of such things in his captivity, but I know that his wife and children are well apprised that a press may be destroyed in the open day, not by its own licentiousness, but by the licentiousness of a

military force. As to the sincerity of the declaration that the State has prosecuted in order to assert the freedom of the press, it starts a train of thought, of melancholy retrospect and direful prospect, to which I did not think the learned counsel would have wished to commit your minds. It leads you naturally to reflect at what times, from what motives, and with what consequences the government has displayed its patriotism by prosecutions of this sort. As to the motives, does history give you a single instance in which the state has been provoked to these conflicts, except by the fear of truth, and by the love of vengeance? Have you ever seen the rulers of any country bring forward a prosecution from motives of filial piety, for libels upon their departed ancestors? Do you read that Elizabeth directed any of those state prosecutions against the libels which the divines of her time had written against her Catholic sister; or against the other libels which the same gentlemen had written against her Protestant father? No, gentlemen, we read of no such thing; but we know she did bring forward a prosecution from motives of personal resentment, and we know that a jury was found time-serving and mean enough to give a verdict which she was ashamed to carry into effect!

I said the learned counsel drew you back to the times that have been marked by these miserable conflicts. I see you turn your thoughts to the reign of the second James. I see you turn your eyes to those pages of governmental abandonment, of popular degradation, of expiring liberty, of merciless and sanguinary persecution; to that miserable period, in which the fallen and abject state of man might have been almost an argument in the mouth of the atheist and blasphemer against the existence of an all-just and an all-wise First Cause; if the glorious era of the Revolution that followed it had not refuted the impious inference, by showing that if man descends, it is not in his own proper motion; that it is with labor and with pain, and that he can continue to sink only until, by the force and pressure of the descent, the spring of his immortal faculties acquires that recuperative energy and effort that hurry him as many miles aloft. He sinks but to rise again. It is at that period that the state seeks for shelter in the destruction of the press; it is in a

The Northern Star" was a paper published in Belfast, which was broken

down and destroyed by the government in the way here referred to.

period like that that the tyrant prepares for the attack upon the people, by destroying the liberty of the press; by taking away that shield of wisdom and of virtue, behind which the people are invulnerable, in whose pure and polished convex, ere the lifted blow has fallen, he beholds his own image, and is turned into stone. It is at those periods that the honest man dares not speak, because truth is too dreadful to be told; it is then humanity has no ears, because humanity has no tongue. It is then the proud man scorns to speak, but like a physician baffled by the wayward excesses of a dying patient, retires indignantly from the bed of an unhappy wretch, whose ear is too fastidious to bear the sound of wholesome advice, whose palate is too debauched to bear the salutary bitter of the medicine that might redeem him; and therefore leaves him to the felonious piety of the slaves that talk to him of life, and strip him before he is cold.

I do not care, gentlemen, to exhaust too much of your attention by following this subject through the last century with much minuteness; but the facts are too recent in your minds not to show you that the liberty of the press and the liberty of the people sink and rise together, and that the liberty of speaking and the liberty of acting have shared exactly the same fate. You must have observed in England that their fate has been the same in the successive vicissitudes of their late depression; and sorry I am to add that this country has exhibited a melancholy proof of their inseparable destiny, through the various and further stages of deterioration down to the period of their final extinction; when the constitution has given place to the sword, and the only printer in Ireland who dares to speak for the people is now in the dock.

Gentlemen, the learned counsel has made the real subject of this prosecution so small a part of his statement, and has led you into so wide a range, certainly as necessary to the object, as inapplicable to the subject of this prosecution, that I trust you will think me excusable in somewhat following his example. Glad am I to find that I have the authority of the same example for coming at last to the subject of this trial. I agree with the learned counsel that the charge made against the Lord Lieuten

The allusion here is to the shield of Minerva having the head of Medusa in its

centre, which turned the beholder into

stone.

ant of Ireland is that of having grossly and inhumanly abused the royal prerogative of mercy, of which the King is only the trustee for the benefit of the people. The facts are not controverted. It has been asserted that their truth or falsehood is indifferent, and they are shortly these, as they appear in this publication:

William Orr was indicted for having administered the oath of a United Irishman. Every man now knows what that oath is; that it is simply an engagement, first, to promote a brotherhood of affection among men of all religious distinctions; secondly, to labor for the attainment of a parliamentary reform; and, thirdly, an obligation of secrecy, which was added to it when the convention law made it criminal and punishable to meet by any public delegation for that purpose. After remaining upwards of a year in jail Mr. Orr was brought to his trial; was prosecuted by the State; was sworn against by a common informer by the name of Wheatley, who himself had taken the obligation, and was convicted under the Insurrection Act, which makes the administering such an obligation felony of death. The jury recommended Mr. Orr to mercy. The judge, with a humanity becoming his character, transmitted the recommendation to the noble prosecutor in this case [the Lord Lieutenant]. Three of the jurors made solemn affidavit in court that liquor had been conveyed into their box; that they were brutally threatened by some of their fellow-jurors with capital prosecution if they did not find the prisoner guilty; and that, under the impression of those threats, and worn down by watching and intoxication, they had given a verdict of guilty against him, though they believed him, in their conscience, to be innocent. That further inquiries were made, which ended in a discovery of the infamous life and character of the informer; that a respite was therefore sent once, and twice, and thrice, to give time, as Mr. Attorney-General has stated, for his Excellency to consider whether mercy could be extended to him or not; and that, with a knowledge of all these circumstances, his Excellency did finally determine that mercy should not be extended to him, and that he was accordingly executed upon that verdict. Of this publication, which the indictment charges to be false and seditious, Mr. Attorney-General is pleased to say that the design of it is to bring the courts of justice into contempt. As