tion; we should see our country as one large and harmonious family, which can never be accomplished amidst vice and cor ruption, by wars or treaties, by informations ex officio for libels or by any of the tricks and artifices of the state-would to God this system had been followed in the instance before us! Surely the noble house of Fauconberg needed no farther illus tration; nor the still nobler house of Howard, with blood enough to have inoculated half the kingdom.--I desire to be understood to make these observations as general moral reflections, and not personally to the families in question; least of all to the noble house of Norfolk, the head of which is now present; since no man, in my opinion, has more at heart the lib. erty of the subject, and the honor of our country.

Having shown the feeble expectation of happiness from this marriage, the next point to be considered is this-Did Mr. Bingham take advantage of that circumstance to increase the disunion?-I answer, No.-I will prove to you that he conducted himself with a moderation and restraint, and with a command over his passions, which I confess I did not expect to find, and which in young men is not to be expected :—I shall prove to you, by Mr. Greville, that on this marriage taking place with the betrothed object of his affections, he went away a desponding man; his health declined; he retired into the country to restore it; and it will appear, that for months afterwards he never saw this lady until by mere accident he met her; and then, so far was he from endeavoring to renew his connexion with her, that she came home in tears, and said, he frowned at her as he passed: this I shall prove to you by the evidence in the cause.

Gentlemen, that is not all;-it will appear that, when he returned to town, he took no manner of notice of her; and that her unhappiness was beyond all power of expression.-How, indeed, could it be otherwise, after the account I have given you of the marriage?—I shall prove besides, by a gentleman who married one of the daughters of a person to whom this country is deeply indebted for his eminent and meritorious service (Marquis Cornwallis,) that from her utter reluctance to her husband, although in every respect honorable and correct in his manners and behavior, he was not allowed even the privi leges of a husband, for months after the marriage.This I mentioned to you before, and only now repeat it in the statement of the proofs. Nothing better, indeed, could be expected →→who can control the will of a mis-matched, disappointed woman? Who can restrain or direct her passions?I beg leave to assure Mr. Howard (and I hope he will believe me when I say 't,) that I think his conduct towards this lady was just such as

might have been expected from a husband who saw himself to be the object of disgust to the woman he had chosen for his wife and it is with this view only that I shall call a gentleman to say how Mr. Howard spoke of this supposed, but, in my mind, impossible object of his adoration. How, indeed, is it possible to adore a woman when you know her affections are riveted to another ?—It is unnatural!-A man may have that appetite which is common to the brutes, and too indelicate to be described; but he can never retain an affection which is returned with detestation. Lady Elizabeth, I understand, was, at one time, going in a phaeton :-"There she goes," said Mr. Howard; "God damn her-I wish she may break her neckI should take care how I got another." This may seem unfeeling behaviour; but in Mr. Howard's situation, Gentlemen, it was the most natural thing in the world, for they cordially hated one another.--At last, however, the period arrived when this scene of discord became insupportable, and nothing could exceed the generosity and manly feeling of the noble person (the Duke of Norfolk) whose name I have been obliged to use in the course of this cause, in his interference to effect that separation which is falsely imputed to Mr. Bingham:-he felt so much commiseration for this unhappy lady, that he wrote to her in the most affecting style :-I believe I have got a letter from his Grace to Lady Elizabeth, dated Sunderland, July the 27th, that is, three days after their separation; but before he knew it had actually taken place: it was written in consequence of one received from Mr. Howard upon the subject:-among other things he says, "I sincerely feel for you." Now, if the Duke had not known at that time that Mr. Bingham had her earliest and legitimate affections, she could not have been an object of that pity which she received: she was, indeed, an object of the sincerest pity, and the sum and substance of this mighty seduction will turn out to be no more than this; that she was affectionately received by Mr. Bingham after the final period of voluntary separation: at four o'clock this miserable couple had parted by consent, and the chaise was not ordered till she might be considered as a single woman by the abandonment of her husband. Had the separation been legal and for mal, I should have applied to his lordship, upon the most un questionable authorities, to nonsuit the plaintiff; for this action being founded upon the loss of the wife's society, it must ne cessarily fall to the ground if it appears that the society, though not the marriage union, was interrupted by a previous act of his own in that hour of separation I am persuaded he never considered Mr. Bingham as an object of resentment or re

proach; he was the author of his own misfortunes, and I can conceive him to have exclaimed in the language of the poet, as they parted,

-Elizabeth never lov'd me.

Let no man, after me, a woman wed

Whose heart he knows he has not; though she brings

A mine of gold, a kingdom for her dowry.

For let her seem, like the night's shadowy queen,

Cold and contemplative-he cannot trust her:

She may, she will, bring shame and sorrow on him;

The worst of sorrows, and the worst of shames!"

You have therefore, before you, Gentlemen, two young men of fashion, both of noble families, and in the flower of youth; the proceedings, though not collusive, cannot possibly be vindictive; they are indispensably preliminary to the dissolution of an inauspicious marriage, which never should have existed; Mr. Howard may then profit by an useful, though an unpleasant experience, and be happier with a woman whose mind he may find disengaged; whilst the parents of the rising generation, taking warning from the lesson which the business of the day so forcibly teaches, may avert from their families, and the public, that bitterness of disunion, which, while human nature continues to be itself, will ever be produced to the end of time, from similar conjunctures.

Gentlemen, I have endeavored so to conduct this cause as to offend no man:-I have guarded against every expression which could inflict unnecessary pain; and, in doing so, I know that I have not only served my client's interests, but truly represented his honorable and manly disposition. As the case before you cannot be considered by any reasonable man as an occasion for damages, I might here properly conclude; yet, that I may omit nothing which might apply to any possible view of the subject, I will conclude with reminding you, that my client is a member of a numerous family; that, though Lord Lucan's fortune is considerable, his rank calls for a corresponding equipage and expense: he has other children-one already married to an illustrious nobleman, and another yet to be married to some man who must be happy indeed if he shall know her value: Mr. Bingham, therefore, is a man of no fortune; but the heir only of, I trust, a very distant expectation. Under all these circumstances, it is but fair to believe, that Mr. Howard comes here for the reasons I have assigned, and not to take money out of the pocket of Mr. Bingham to put into his own. You will, therefore, consider, Gentlemen, whether it would be creditable for you to offer, what it would be disgraceful for Mr. Howard to receive.

MR. ERSKINE'S SPEECH,

IN DEFENCE OF THOMAS HARDY, INDICTED FOR HIGH TREASON

IN COMPASSING THE DEATH OF THE KING.

We have been induced to insert this celebrated speech entire, because it contains a most learned, eloquent, and successful vindication of the rights of the subject, against the principles of a political prosecution of novel and portentous import. The force and erudition which characterize the technical portions of the argument would justify their introduction, even had it been possible to omit them without material injury to the remainder.-PUB.

GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY,

BEFORE I proceed to the performance of the momentous duty which is at length cast upon me, I desire in the first place to return my thanks to the Judges, for the indulgence I have received in the opportunity of addressing you at this later period of the day, than the ordinary sitting of the Court; when I have had the refreshment which nature but too much required and a few hours' retirement to arrange a little in my mind that immense matter, the result of which I must now endeavor to lay before you. I have to thank you also, Gentlemen, for the very condescending and obliging manner in which you so readily consented to this accommodation; the Court could only speak for itself, referring me to you, whose rests and comforts had been so long interrupted. I shall always remember your kindness.

Before I advance to the regular consideration of this great cause, either as it regards the evidence or the law, I wish first to put aside all that I find in the speech of my learned friend, the Attorney General, which is either collateral to the merits, or in which I can agree with him.-First then, IN THE NAME OF THE PRISONER, and speaking his sentiments, which are well known to be my own also, I concur in the eulogium which you have heard upon the Constitution of our wise forefathers.-But before this eulogium can have any just or useful application, we ought to reflect upon what it is which entitles the Constitution to the praise so justly bestowed upon it. To say nothing at present of its most essential excellence, or rather the very soul of it, viz. the share the people ought to have in their gov. ernment, by a pure representation, for the assertion of which the prisoner stands arraigned as a traitor before you,-what is

it that distinguishes the government of England from the most despotic monarchies? What-but the security which the subject enjoys in a trial and judgment by his equals; rendered doubly secure as being part of a system of law which no expediency can warp, and which no power can abuse with impunity?

The Attorney General's second preliminary observation, I equally agree to.-I anxiously wish with him that you shall bear in memory the anarchy which is desolating France.-Before I sit down, I may perhaps, in my turn, have occasion to reflect a little upon its probable causes; but waiting a season for such reflections, let us first consider what the evil is which has been so feelingly lamented, as having fallen on that unhappy country. It is, that under the dominion of a barbarous state necessity, every protection of law is abrogated and destroyed; -it is, that no man can say, under such a system of alarm and terror, that his life, his liberty, his reputation, or any one human. blessing, is secure to him for a moment: it is, that, if accused of federalism, or moderatism, or incivism, or of whatever else the changing-fashions and factions of the day shall have lifted up into high treason against the State, he must see his friends, his family, and the light of heaven, no more:-the accusation and the sentence being the same, following one another as the thunder pursues the flash. Such has been the state of England, -such is the state of France:-and how then, since they are introduced to you for application, ought they in reason and sobriety to be applied? If this prosecution has been com. menced (as is asserted) to avert from Great Britain the calamities incident to civil confusion, leading in its issues to the deplorable condition of France; I call upon you, Gentlemen, to avert such calamity from falling upon my client, and through his side upon yourselves and upon our country.-Let not him suffer under vague expositions of tyrannical laws, more tyrannically executed.-Let not him be hurried away to predoomed execution, from an honest enthusiasm for the public safety.-I ask for him a trial by this applauded Constitution of our country. -I call upon you to administer the law to him, according to our own wholesome institutions, by its strict and rigid letter:however you may eventually disapprove of any part of his conduct, or, viewing it through a false medium, may think it even wicked, I claim for him, as a subject of England, that the law shall decide upon its criminal denomination :-I protest, in his name, against all appeals to speculations concerning consequences, when the law commands us to look only to INTENTIONS. -If the state be threatened with evils, let Parliament adminis