duty and pride it would be to make that defence before a fairly chosen Jury.

From all appearances, Gentlemen of the Jury, I have scarcely need to pause for the Solicitor General's determination; it is manifest that he would rather combat a woman, and make false and unjust imputations, (for I have nothing of that feeling or wish which he charges to me) than boldly meet the person who could reply to him, and expose his chicanery. I must therefore proceed to make the best defence I can of the extract from the Republican contained in the Record. The extract, to be fairly stated, must be brought under two heads-the first is, in a general point of view, on the propriety of slaying tyrants; under the second head, which I consider can alone engage your attention, and which I believe to have been the sole cause of this Information, I shall have to defend, to the best of my humble ability, the assertion, that the majority of the present ministers are tyrants. Observe, Gentlemen, the whole of the ministers are not pronounced to be tyrants; nor is any one of them particularized; nor is the recommendation to slay any one of them made; the gist of the article is the supposition of an individual, and I believe there are many such, receiving an unjustifiable injury, and finding no other remedy, and that if he were indifferent about his ownlife, he might prudently slay the person or persons who had exercised tyranny over him in the capacity of ministers. If the ministers have not, nor any member of the present administration has, dealt unjustly towards any such individual, then, Gentlemen, the argument or the recommendation avails nothing, and can only be viewed in the light of a moral precept to persons in power; but if the members of the present administration, or a part of them, have inflicted wanton and unjustifiable injuries on individuals, who can find no remedy, then, Gentlemen, and then only, the article extracted carries force with it, and becomes applicable, and then too, it is as justifiable as it is applicable, and in exact the same proportion. But I will proceed with the first head, or the statement of the general propriety of slaying tyrants, and in due order take the second head into consideration.

Every writer, who has obtained celebrity in discussing moral and political economy, nay, every divine writer, (as some have been called) has argued the necessity of

putting the law of nature in force against tyrants, who have the power and the will to set themselves above all laws made for the welfare of the society in which they may live. Had the defence of this extract devolved upon the proper person, my husband, he would have loaded this table with volumes from the best authorities, and from such authorities as no man in this Court would rise to decry, to support the propriety, and even the necessity of acting upon the recommendation made in the first head of the extract in the record. I consider a defence to be scarcely necessary, as it is impossible to distort the meaning of the words, unless that distortion be made wilfully there is nothing vague, there is nothing obscure; but the language is honest and manly, and as plain and intelligible as the letters of the alphabet. However, Gentlemen of the Jury, as Mr. Solicitor-General prefers prosecuting the wife to the husband, I cannot fully defend this article by a reference to original authorities. I have the will but not the ability, and I must content myself with laying before you written extracts, pledging myself that they have been faithfully made.

I shall shew you, Gentlemen, that the authors, who generally come under the distinction of profane and divine, are quite agreed on this, the point on which you have to decide, as to its propriety; and I trust that I shall be able to impress upon your minds an irresistible conviction, that the extract in the Information is justified both by the laws of God and men. If I shew you, from the best authorities, that it has been ever deemed a moral and meritorious act to slay a tyrant, then, Gentlemen, you will be bound by yonr oaths to acquit me of any malicious intention, or what the Information further charges, of inciting his Majesty's subjects to murder. If, by fair argument and unquestionable authorities, I make it appear plain to you, that to slay a tyrant is not murder, then, Gentlemen, I am falsely accused in the Information, and you will, as honest men, and as men bold enough to be honest, and honest enough to be bold, give me a full and honourable acquittal. You will now perceive, Gentleman, that I have lost sight of my real connection with the Republican, and have taken upon me to defend myself as a principal, because that character is forced upon me, not by my husband but Mr. Solicitor-General. But I, shall now proceed in my defence, which I calculate

on being a complete one, and again draw your attention to my real situation at the close.

As I shall have a great deal to say about tyrants, in an abstract point of view, I would earnestly intreat your attention to my definition of the word tyrant, that you Gentlemen of the Jury, may have a full and fair understanding of the nature of my defence. To proclaim a man a tyrant, there are two things to be considered: first, there must be a society of men governed by wholesome laws, then there must be some individual who, by force or fraud, sets himself above those laws, and rules this society by new laws of his own making, or by his absolute will. It is not until he commits manifest crimes, which those wholesome laws cannot reach, because of his power, that he becomes a tyrant. Whilst wholesome laws operate upon the offences or crimes of every individual, there can be no tyranny in that state. This, Gentlemen, is my definition of tyranny in an individual; but there is another species of tyranny, and that much worse than the tyranny of an individual, I mean the tyranny of an oligarchy. If we refer to ancient history, we find that individual tyranny became more grievous after a society had been governed by a wholesome code of laws, or a code of laws that was well adapted to the society for which it was made, such I consider to have been the code of Moses, of Solon, of Lycurgus, and the Roman code at some periods of the history of that state. It was during the operation of those laws, that tyranny was most felt; because, after those several codes were established, it was supposed, that there were to be no exceptions, but that all persons were to be subject to them. In the first stages of society, tyranny could have not been so grievous; because, mankind were supposed to have lived in a state of banditti, rather than as a society: it was after the adoption of the above wholesome codes of laws, that tyranny was felt, that social intercourse felt its destructive effects, and proclaimed its destruction meritorious.

In those early ages, a repetition of individual tyranny engendered the tyranny of an oligarchy. The tyranny of an oligarchy operates in two points of view, either by its members setting themselves above the laws, which are approved by the society at large, or in their enacting other laws without the consent, and enforcing them to

the injury of, the people. Where the Legislators are not the Representatives of the People, human nature leads us to expect, that there should occasionally be a destructive tyranny exercised, either by an individual, or by an oligarchy. The representative system of government is the only effectual prevention to tyranny, for there the laws must be wholesome, and must be effectual in their operation, if these representatives be frequently changed, or chosen, or renewed; but where there is not a representative system of government, and where tyranny does exist; the only effectual way to be rid of it is, to go to the root and destroy the tyrant or tyrants. I now hope, Gentlemen, that in using the word tyrant or tyranny, I shall not be mistaken as to its import; and in selecting my authorities, I shall consider them equally applicable to the tyranny of an individual, or to the tyranny of an oligarchy. I will begin with what are called profane authors, or the philosophers of Greece and Rome, and support them by numerous authorities from the Bible, which I trust will fully exculpate me from the charge upon the record.

Before I begin to cite, I will read to you the first head of the extract in the Information, which I declare to you has astonished me to see it made a subjeet for prosecution, it is thus, "I will now come to the point with you, and "tell you more than you seem to ask, lest you should "say, that I evade the question. In the first place, I hold "the destruction of tyrants, by putting them to death "suddenly and violently, or if you should think I am not "sufficiently explicit, by assassinating them, to be an "act, just, moral, virtuous, and legal, agreeable to "the law of nature, which should be the foundation of "all other law. A tyrant is the common destroyer of his "species, and any member of that community in which "he dwells and plays the tyrant, that shall receive any "injury from him, may, in my opinion, meritoriously "put him to death. The moralist, or a man with the "most humane mind, will stand aloof, and ask himself the following question, which would have been the "greatest outrage on the laws, morals, and welfare of "this society; that this man who is an avowed and "admitted tyrant should fall by the hand of one whom "he has injured, or that he should have lived to have "made unhappy, miserable, and in continued fear for

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"their lives and properties, every member of this society "that should not feel disposed to flatter and applaud his "wicked measures. Give me an answer to this last question, in the same frank and candid manner in which I am answering your question, and I will give you my "opinion of your morality and virtue."

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This, Gentlemen, is the first head, and I have no hesitation in saying that, as a female, I would not shrink from defending this doctrine before any company of females in this country, and should think the subject not a jot more cruel than a conversation upon war, upon legal punishments, or upon the sports of the field. In short, I think it a conversation much less cruel, than that about the destruction of harmless animals.

Plato, in his plan for a Republic, says, "A tyrant must dispatch all virtuous persons, or he cannot be safe, so that he is brought to the unhappy necessity, either to live among base and wicked persons, or not to live at all:" which signifies, that if there were one virtuous being in the society, the tyrant would be destroyed. Again, he says, "the longer a tyrant lives, the more the tyrannical humour increases in him, like those beasts that grow more vicious as they grow old. New occasions daily happen that necessitates them to new mischiefs, and they must defend one villainy with another." And again, he says, "The ordinary course they took with tyrants in Greece was, to dispatch them secretly, if there was no opportunity of expelling them by an accusation before the citizens."

Aristotle says: "Tyranny is against the law of nature, that is, the law of human society, in which human nature is preserved. For this reason, a tyrant is denied to be partem civitatis, for every part is subject to the whole, and a citizen is he who feels himself obliged to obey, although he has the power to command."

Zenophon says: "The Grecians would not allow murderers to come into their temples, yet in those very temples they erected statues to those who killed tyrants; thinking their deliverers fit companions for their gods." An acknowledgement that to kill a tyrant was the very reverse of murder.

In Athens, by Solón's law, death was not only decreed for the tyrant that oppressed the state, but for all those who took any charge, or did bear any office, while the