272 



ANNUAL REGISTER, 1813. 



expect submission to the law, 

 so necessary to the well-being 

 of the state, if those whom God 

 and the law have constituted 

 our governors, are to be held up 

 to hatred and detestation — as 

 prone to every vice, and divested 

 of every private and public 

 virtue ? The tremendous licen- 

 tiousness of the press calls for 

 the interposition of the law — if 

 it be not applied, it is impossible 

 to say to what extent the mischief 

 may not lead. It is for you, gen- 

 tlemen, in the capacity which you 

 fill, to apply the wholesome cor- 

 rection of the law to those baneful 

 libels. The state of the public 

 press, at this day, is beyond the 

 licentiousness of all former times 

 and precedents. We remember 

 the state of the press in the year 

 which preceded the rebellion, 

 to the instrumentality of which, 

 in a great degree, that rebel- 

 lion must be imputed ; and I 

 do now seriously aver, that the 

 press at this day goes beyond any 

 thing to which the press of that 

 time went. I do say, that there 

 was nothing so inflammatory, so 

 seditious, or more atrocious, to be 

 found in The Press, or The North- 

 ern Star, than at present exists in 

 the Irish Magazine, the Statement 

 of the Penal Code, and The Dublin 

 Evening Post. If, gentlemen, in 

 my situation, it becomes my duty 

 to bring those violators of the laws 

 to justice, I submit to you if I 

 could overlook the present publi- 

 cation? As to the remainder of 

 this publication, which is not in- 

 troduced upon the record, I will 

 make a few observations on it ; 

 and it will be for the defendant, if 

 possible, to elicit from it any thing 

 in his defence. It has the same 



object, the inflaming the public 

 mind — a libel upon the admini- 

 stration of justice, in respect to the 

 delegates who were prosecuted by 

 my learned friends and myself. 

 This part of the publication relates 

 to us more than the duke of Rich- 

 mond. As to any thing in those 

 transactions, I exclusively claim 

 the responsibility, " Ac/sum qui 

 foci, in me convertite forrum^' I 

 claim that part of this libel, if it 

 can be a libel. — Libel, coming 

 from such a quarter, is, indeed, 

 nothing short of panegyric. We 

 did advise the lord-lieutenant of 

 Ireland that the Catholiccommittee 

 was an unlawful assembly, and was 

 acting in violation of the law. His 

 grace the lord-lieutenant, who is 

 charged in this libel with not being 

 a dispassionate chief-governor, ap- 

 plied to the wickedness of faction 

 nothing but the correction of the 

 law. The committee was proved 

 an unlawful assembly — it has been 

 put down. I will not hesitate to 

 say that if another assembly has 

 sprung out of its ashes, and is 

 treading in its steps, I pledge my- 

 self officially before you, that 

 whenever that assembly shall be 

 doing less good by its folly and 

 vanity, by its extravagance and ex- 

 cesses — at the moment it becomes 

 less ridiculous than mischievous and 

 odious — I will offer my advice to 

 apply the law, and put it down also. 

 I do not shrink from the aspersions 

 of the Evening Post — they have no 

 terrors for me. In the discharge 

 of my duty, going steadily forward, 

 I will not betray the constitution 

 and the law of the country. I will 

 always be, as the whole tenor of 

 my life proves me, an enemy of 

 faction in all its branches, but par- 

 ticularly of that faction which has 



