and simple, but not less sublime and pathetic morality of her Burns-how from the bosom of a country like that, genius, and character, and talents, should be banished to a distant barbarous soil, condemned to pine under the horrid communion of vulgar vice and baseborn profligacy, for twice the period that ordinary caleulation gives to the continuance of human life?

I will not, for the justice and honor of our common country, suffer my mind to be borne away by the melancholy anticipation of Mr. Rowan's conviction; I will not relinquish the confidence, that this day will be the period of his sufferings; and however mercilessly he has been hitherto pursued, that your verdict will send him home to the arms of his family and the wishes of his country. But if, which heaven forbid, it hath still been unfortunately determined, that because he has not bent to power and authority, because he would not bow down before the golden calf and worship it, he is to be bound and cast into the furnace; I do trust in God, that there is a redeeming spirit in the constitution, which will be seen to walk with the sufferer through the flames, and to preserve him unhurt by the conflagration.

EXTRACT FROM MR. CURRAN'S SPEECH ON THE

TRIAL OF FINERTY.

The learned gentleman is pleased to say that the traverser has charged the government with the encouragement of informers. This, Gentlemen, is another small fact that you are to deny at the hazard of your souls, and upon the solemnity of your oaths. You are upon your oaths to say to the sister country, that the government of Ireland uses no such abominable instruments of destruction as informers. Let me ask you honestly, what do you feel, when in my hearing, when in the face of this audience, you are called upon to give a verdict that every man of us, and every man of you, know by the testimony of your own eyes, to be utterly and absolutely false ?-I speak not now of the

public proclamation of informers, with a promise of secrecy and of extravagant reward; I speak not of the fate of those horrid wretches who have been so often transferred from the table to the dock, and from the dock to the pillory; I speak of what your own eyes have seen day after day during the course of this commission, from the box where you are now sitting; the number of horrid miscreants, who avowed upon their oaths, that they had come from the very seat of government from the castle, where they had been worked upon by the fear of death and the hopes of compensation, to give evidence against their fellows, that the mild and wholesome councils of this government are holden over these catacombs of living death, where the wretch that is buried a man, lies till his heart has time to fester and dissolve, and is then dug up a witness.

Is this fancy or is it fact?-Have you not seen him after his resurrection from that tomb, after having been dug out of the region of death and corruption, make his appearance upon the table, the living image of life and of death, and the supreme arbiter of both? Have you not marked when he entered, how the stormy wave of the multitude retired at his approach? Have you not marked how the human heart bowed to the supremacy of his power, in the undissembled homage of deferential horror ?-How his glance, like the lightning of Heaven, seemed to rive the body of the accused, and mark it for the grave, while his voice warned the devoted wretch of woe and death; a death which no innocence can escape, no art elude, no force resist, no antidote prevent. There was an antidote -A Juror's oath-but even that adamantine chain, that bound the integrity of man to the throne of Eternal Justice, is solved and melted in the breath that issues from the informer's mouth-Conscience swings from her mooring, and the appalled and affrighted Puror, consults his own safety in the surrender of the victim.

Let me therefore remind you, that though the day may soon come when our ashes shall be scattered before the winds of Heaven, the memory of what you do cannot die; it will carry down to your posterity your

honor or your shame. In the presence and in the name of that ever living God, I do therefore conjure you to reflect, that you have your characters, your consciences, that you have also the character, perhaps the ultimate destiny of your country in your hands. In that awful name, I do conjure you to have mercy upon your country and upon yourselves, and so to judge now as you will hereafter be judged.

EXTRACT FROM MR. WIRT'S SPEECH ON THE TRIAL OF AARON BURR FOR HIGH TREASON.

A plain man who knew nothing of the curious transmutations which the wit of man can work, would be very apt to wonder, by what kind of legerdemain Aaron Burr had contrived to shuffle himself down to the bottom of the pack as an accessory, and turn up poor Blennerhasset as principal in this treason. It is an honor, I dare say, for which Mr. Blennerhasset is by no means anxious; one which he has never disputed with Col. Burr, and which I am persuaded he would be as little inclined to dispute on this occasion, as on any ether.

Since, however, the modesty of Col. Burr, declines the first rank, and seems di posed to force Mr. Blennerhasset into it, in spite of his blushes, let us compare the cases of the two men and settle this question of precedence between them. It may save a good deal of troublesome ceremony hereafter. In making this comparison, Sir, I shall speak of the two men, and of the part they bore as I believe it to exist and to be substantially capable of proof; although the court has already told us, that as this is a motion to exclude all evidence, generally, we have a right, in resisting it, to suppose the evidence which is behind, strong enough to prove every thing and any thing compatible with the fact of Burr's absence from the island. If it will be more agreeable to the feelings of the prisoner to consider the parallel which I am about to run, or rather the contrast which I am about to exhibit, as a fiction, he is at liberty to do so; I believe it to be a fact.

Who then is Aaron Burr, and what the part which he has borne in this transaction? He is its author; its projector; its active executor. Bold, ardent, restless, and aspiring, his brain conceived it, his hand brought it into action. Beginning his operations in New-York, he associates with him, men whose wealth is to supply the necessary funds. Possessed of the main spring, his personal labor contrives all the ma chinery. Pervading the continent from New-York to New Orleans, he draws into his plan by every allurement which he can contrive, men of all ranks, and all descriptions. To youthful ardor, he presents danger and glory, to ambition, rank and titles, and honors; to avarice, the mines of Mexico. To each person whom he addresses, he presents the object adapted to his taste his recruiting officers are appointed: men are engaged throughout the continent; civil life is indeed quiet upon its surface; but in its bosom this man has contrived to deposit the materials which with the slightest touch of his match produces an explosion to shake the continent. All this, restless ambition has contrived; and in the Autumn of 1806, he goes forth for the last time to apply this match.-On this excursion he meets with Blennerhasset.

Who is Blennerhasset? A native of Ireland, a man of letters; who fled from the storms of his own country, to find quiet in ours. His history shews that war is not the natural element of his mind; if it had been he would never have exchanged Ireland for America. So far is an army from furnishing the society natural and proper to Mr. Blennerhasset's character, that on his arrival in America, he retired even from the population of the Atlantic States, and sought quiet and solitude in the bosom of our western forests. But he carried with him taste, and science, and wealth; and "lo the desert smiled." Possessing himself of a beautiful island in the Ohio, he rears upon it a palace and decorates it with every romantic embellishment of fancy. A shrubbery, that Shenstone might have envied, blooms around him; music that might have charmed Calypso and her nymphs is his, an extensive 0 2

library spreads its treasures before him; a philosophical. apparatus offers to him all the secrets and mysteries of nature peace, tranquillity, and innocence shed their mingled delights around him; and to crown the enchantment of the scene, a wife who is said to be lovely even beyond her sex and graced with every accomplishment that can render it irresistible, had blessed him with her love and made him the father of her children. The evidence would convince you, Sir, that this is but a faint picture of the real life. In the midst of all this peace, this innocence, and tranquillity, this feast of the mind, this pure banquet of the heart-the destroyer comes-he comes to turn this paradise into a hellyet the flowers do not wither at his approach, and no monitory shuddering through the bosom of their unfortunate possessor, warns him of the ruin that is coming upon him. A stranger presents himself.

Intro

duced to their civilities by the high rank which he had lately held in his country, he soon finds his way to their hearts by the dignity and elegance of his demeanor, the light and beauty of his conversation, and the seductive and fascinating powers of his address. The conquest was not a difficult one. Innocence is ever simple and credulous; conscious of no designs itself, it suspects none in others; it wears no guards before its breast; every door and portal and evenue of the heart is thrown open, and all who choose it enter. Such was the state of Eden, when the serpent entered its bowers. The prisoner in a more engaging form, winding himself into the open and unpracticed heart of the unfortunate Blennerhasset, found but little difficulty in changing the native character of that heart and the objects of its affection. By degrees he infuses into it the poison of his own ambition; he breathes into it the fire of his own courage; a daring and a desperate thirst for glory; an ardor panting for all the storm and bustle and hurricane of life.

In a short time the whole man is changed, and every object of his former delight relinquished. No more he enjoys the tranquil scene; it has become at and insipid to his taste: his books are abandoned; his retort and crucible are thrown aside; his shrubbery