her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full mid day beam ; purging and unsealing her long abused sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance; while the whole noise of timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love the twilight, flutter about, amazed at what she means, and in their envious gabble, would prog. nosticate a year of sects and schism."

Gentlemen, what Milton only saw in his mighty imagination, I see in fact. What he expected, but which never came to pass, I see now fulfilling. Methinks I see this noble and puissant nation, not degenerated and drooping to a fatal decay, but casting off the wrinkled skin of corruption to put on again the vigour of her youth.

And it is because others, as well as myself see this, that we have all this uproar. France and its constitution are the mere pretences. It is because Britons begin to recollect the inheritance of their own constitution left them by their ancestors. It is because they are awakened to the corruptions which have fallen upon its most valuable parts, that forsooth the nation is in danger of being destroyed by a single pamphlet.

Gentlemen, I have marked the course of this alarm. It began with the renovation of those exertions for the publick, which the authors of the alarm had themselves originated and deserted; and they became louder and louder when they saw these principles avowed and supported by my admirable and excellent friend, Mr. Fox; the most eminently honest and enlightened statesman, that history brings us acquainted with; a man whom to name is to honour, but whom in attempting adequately to describe, I must fly to Mr. Burke, my constant refuge when eloquence is necessary: a man who to relieve the sufferings of the most distant nations, put to the hazard his ease, his security, his interest, his power, even his darling popularity for the benefit of a people whom he had never seen." How much more then for the inhabitants of his native country: yet this is the man who has

66

been censured and disavowed in the manner we have lately seen.

Gentlemen, I have but a few more words to trouble you with. I take my leave of you with declaring, that all this freedom which I have been endeavouring to assert, is no more than the freedom which belongs to our own inbred constitution. I have not asked you to acquit Mr. Paine upon any new lights or upon any principle but the law, which you are sworn to administer. My great object has been to inculcate, that wisdom and policy, which are the parents of the law of Great Britain, forbid this jealous eye over her subjects; and that on the contrary, they cry aloud, in the language of the poet employed by lord Chatham on the memorable subject of America, unfortunately without effect:

1

"Be to their faults a little blind,

" Be to their virtues very kind;
"Let all their thoughts be unconfined,
"And clap your padlock on the mind."

Engage them by their affections; convince their reason, and they will be loyal from the only principle that can make loyalty sincere, vigorous or rational; a conviction that it is their truest interest, and that their form of government is for their common good. Constraint is the natural parent of resistence, and a pregnant proof, that reason is not on the side of those who use it. You must all remember, gentlemen, Lucian's pleasant story: Jupiter and a countryman were walking together, conversing with great freedom and familiarity upon the subject of heaven and earth. The countryman listened with attention and acquiescence while Jupiter strove only to convince him; but happening to hint a doubt, Jupiter turned hastily round and threatened him with his thunder."Ah! ha!" says the countryman, now Jupiter I know that you are wrong; you're always wrong when you appeal to your thunder."

66

This is the case with me; I can reason with the people of England, but I cannot fight against the thunder of authority.

Gentlemen, this is my defence for free opinions. With regard to myself, I am, and ever have been, obedient and affectionate to the law: to that rule of action, as long as I exist, I shall ever give my voice and my conduct; but I shall ever do as I have done to day, maintain the dignity of my high profession, and perform as I understand them, all its important duties.

MR. ERSKINE'S SPEECH,

ON THE TRIAL OF THOMAS WILLIAMS, FOR THE PUBLICATION OF PAINE'S "AGE OF REASON," BEFORE LORD KENYON, AND A SPECIAL JURY, JULY 24тн, 1797.

IT was at the late dark and portentous period, when religion, morals, and social order were endangered, not less by the insidious approaches, than the open and avowed assaults of the malignant genius of jacobinism, that the Society for the discouragement of vice, and the promotion of virtue, was established in England.

This laudable institution consisting of the wise, the discreet, and the loyal; seeing, how the land was overrun with profligacy and wickedness that had boldly raised their crests, and erected their standards in defiance of every law, human, and divine, resolved to try whether this torrent of vice and immorality might not be restrained by vigilance in the detection, and intrepidity in bringing the offenders to “condign punishment."

In pursuance of this salutary system, the society directed a prosecution against one Thomas Williams, a bookseller, of infamous character, for the publication of that low, obscene, and blasphemous production, the "Age of Reason," which, at the time, with its kindred companion, "The Rights of Man," was industriously circulated, and read, by every hater of his king, and reviler of his God throughout the country.

This speech presents Mr. Erskine in a very favourable point of view. We have too often seen him prostrating his admirable talents to the defence of faction, sedition, and licentiousness; we now behold him the champion of christianity, and with all the powers of a deep judgment, a refined imagination, and an irresistable eloquence successfully stemming the career of errour, impiety and scepticism.

The jury, instantly, found a verdict of Guilty.

SPEECH, &c.

GENTLEMEN OF THE JURY,

THE charge of blasphemy, which is put upon the record against the printer of this publication, is not an accusation of the servants of the crown, but comes before you sanctioned by the oaths of a grand jury of the country. It stood for trial upon a former day; but it happening, as it frequently does, without any imputation to the gentlemen named in the pannel, that a sufficient number did not appear to constitute a full special jury, I thought it my duty to withdraw the cause from trial, till I could have the opportunity which is now open to me of addressing myself to you, who were originally appointed to try it. I pursued this course, however, from no jealousy of the common juries, appointed by the laws for the ordinary service of the court, since my whole life has been one continued experience of their virtues; but because I thought it of great importance, that those, who were to decide upon a cause so very momentous to the publick, should have the highest possible qualifications for the decision. That they should not only be men capable, from their education, of forming an enlightened judgment, but that their situations should be such as to bring them within the full view of their enlightened country, to which, in character and in estimation, they were in their own turns to be responsible.