sistency, which seems to shock the noble Lord, anything but the natural and inevitable progress of all reform 3 People who are oppressed, but who have no hope of obtaining entire justice, beg to be relieved from the most galling part of what they suffer. They assure the oppressor that if he will only relax a little of his severity they will be quite content; and perhaps at the time they believe they will be content. But are expressions of this sort, are mere supplications uttered under distress, to stop every person who utters them and all his posterity to the end of time from asking for entire justice? Am I debarred from trying to recover property of which I have been robbed, because, when the robber's pistol was at my breast, I begged him to take everything that I have and spare my life?

3 §§ 1, 2, 3.

4

* §§ 6, 16.

32.

3

In conclusion, I wish to invite, as I have done on previous occasions, I wish to invite alternative1 suggestions. I have asked for them before, and I ask for them again. I say to my opponents: If you do not like my remedies—if, on the one hand, you think them inadequate; if, on the other hand, you think them extravagant, let us know how you will deal with the problem now before you. How do you propose to help the poor? How do you propose to deal with the competition 2 which now reduces wages to the barest pittance 3? How do you propose to stop the flow of emigration which goes on from the country into the towns? How do you propose to increase the protection of the soil? If you have a better way, we shall joyfully hear of it; but, for my part, neither sneers nor abuse, nor opposition shall induce me to accept as the will of the Almighty, and the unalterable dispensation of His providence, a state of things under which millions lead sordid, hopeless, and monotonous lives, without pleasure in the present, and without hope for the future. The issue is for you; and, for my part, I believe that what the wise and learned have failed to accomplish, the poor and lowly will achieve for themselves.

4

1 § 3.

2 § 1.

3 § 16.

4 § 2.

33.

No circumstances of fortune, you may be sure, will ever induce us to form or tolerate any such design. If the disposition of Providence, which we deprecate, should even prostrate you at our feet, broken in power and spirit, it would be our duty and inclination to revive, by every practical means, that free energy of mind which a fortune unsuitable to your virtue had damped and destroyed, and to put you voluntarily ín possession of those very privileges which you had in vain. attempted to assert by arms; for we solemnly declare that although we should look on a separation from you as a heavy calamity, and the heavier because we know you must have your full share in it, yet we had much rather see you totally independent of this crown and kingdom than joined to it by so unnatural a conjunction as that of freedom with servitude, -a conjunction which, if it were at all practicable, could not fail in the end to be more mischievous to the peace, prosperity, greatness, and power of this nation, than beneficial by an enlargement of the bounds of nominal empire. But because, brethren, these professions are general, and such as even enemies may make when they reserve to themselves the construction of what servitude and what liberty are, we inform you that we adopt your own standard of the blessing of free government.

See §§ 1-6 all through the piece.

34.

Is it not, then, absurd to say that because I wished last year to quiet the English people by giving them that which was beneficial to them, therefore I am bound in consistency 1 to quiet the Irish people this year by giving them that which will be fatal to them? I utterly deny that, in consenting to arm the Government 2 with extraordinary powers for the purpose of repressing disturbances in Ireland, I am guilty of the smallest inconsistency. On what occasion did I ever refuse to support any Government in suppressing disturbances? It is perfectly true that in the debates on the Reform Bill I imputed the tumults and outrages of that year to misrule; 2 § 6.

3 § 3.

but did I ever say that those tumults and outrages ought to be tolerated? I did attribute the riots, the burning of cornstacks, the destruction of property, to the obstinacy with which the Ministers of the Crown had refused to listen to the demands of the people; but did I ever say that the rioters ought not to be imprisoned, or that the incendiaries ought not to be hanged? I did ascribe the disorders in the various towns to the unwise rejection of the Bill by the Lords; but did I ever say that such excesses as were committed in those towns ought not to be put down, if necessary, by the sword 5 ?

This was the advice which a wise and honest Minister would have given to Charles. These were the principles on which that unhappy prince should have acted. But no.1 He would govern, I do not say ill, I do not say tyrannically; I say only this: he would govern the men of his time as if they had been the men of a hundred years before; and therefore it was that all his talents and all his virtues did not save him from unpopularity, from civil war, from a prison, from a bar, from a scaffold.2 These things are written for our instruction. Our lot has been cast in a time analogous in many respects to the time which immediately preceded the meeting of the Long Parliament.3 There is a change in society. There must be a corresponding change in the Government. We are not, we cannot, in the nature of things, be what our fathers were. We are no more like the men of the time of the American War than the men who cried 'Privilege' round the carriage of Charles were like the men who changed their religion once a year at the bidding of Henry the Eighth.*

Yes, you say, but all that display of force was got together on behalf of the proposal of Caecilius. And there the orator went off into a bitter attack on Caecilius, one of the most

distinguished and least arrogant of men. For my part, Judges, I will confine myself to one remark about his character and principle that he acted in such a way in the matter of this proposal that it was his intention to do the best he could1 for his brother, without in any way being brought into conflict with the State. His object was to mitigate the punishment of his brother, not in any way to reopen a question already decided by the courts. There is nothing so important to the stability of the State as that the matters already 2 decided by the courts should not be further debated. I do not think that such allowance should be made for a brother's affection that he should be permitted, in consulting the interests of his family, to forget those of the public. But this man was doing nothing of this kind. His proposal had nothing to do with the courts; he was simply trying to mitigate the penalty which had been settled by the laws of a previous year. When a man complains of a penalty, he is not attacking the decisions of a law-court; he is legitimately trying to improve the law.

These doctrines were eagerly adopted by Marcus Cato, a man of unusual gifts, and familiar with the most learned authorities. He adopted them, not as most men do, for the purposes of discussion, but in order to live by them. In all emergencies or difficulties his conduct is determined by some Stoic maxim. The Equites demand some favour from him : 'Do not act to gratify individuals.' Suppliants arrive, miserable afflicted men : You are a wicked man if you allow yourself to be influenced by pity.' A friend confesses a fault against you, and humbly demands forgiveness: 'It is an infamous crime to pardon any one.' He may urge that his offence was a trivial one: All sins are equal.' You deliver an opinion: A wise man's opinion is fixed and established.' But you have been led, not by the facts, but by supposition: 'The wise man never supposes.' My own philosophical teachers for I will confess that in my youth, when I was diffident of my own opinion, I sought the aid of thinkers

my own teachers were men of a more moderate and humane temper; and if you, Cato, with your endowments, had by some chance had recourse when you were young to these teachers, instead of those you actually consulted and adopted, you might have become, I do not say a wiser man, I do not say a juster nor a stronger man—that is impossible; but, perhaps, a gentler.

The dramatic brevity and vividness must be retained.

38.

Suppose I had been speaking, not before our own citizens, not before our allies, not even before men-but before beasts; nay, let me go a step further, and say, not before beasts, but in a desert and barren place, before the very rocks and stones; if I had there uttered aloud this miserable story, I tell you the very mute and inanimate things would have stirred and melted1 with the recital of such horrors.2 But now that I am speaking before the highest judicial authority 3 of my country, I ought not to fear that you will fail to take the same view of the case as I do myself: that the scoundrel in the dock is the one man who deserves all these unheard-of punishments, as sure as they were undeserved by the wretches whom he forced to undergo them. A little while ago, Judges, when we were listening to the story of how he devised that cruel and lingering death for those innocent and miserable seamen, we could none of us restrain our tears; and we were right to weep at the undeserved fate of our fellow-creatures and fellow-soldiers; but what will now be our feelings when we hear that a man of our own city and of our own blood has suffered this scandalous outrage 2 at the hands of this common enemy of mankind without the shadow of a palliation *?

I saw that the Senate, without which the State cannot be safe, was practically removed from the State altogether; that the consuls, whose duty it was to be the leaders of the public deliberations, had taken steps to prevent any public delibera