6

insolence to Major Sirr; however, he disdains to trample on you-you may appease him by proper and contrite submission; but unless you do, you shall rot where you are. I tell you this, that if government will not protect us, by G-d, we will not them. You will probably (for I know your insolent and ungrateful hardiness) attempt to get out by an habeas corpus, but in that you will find yourself mistaken as much as a rascal deserves.' Hevey was insolent enough to issue an habeas corpus, and a return was made on it, that Hevey was in custody under a warrant from General Graig, on a charge of high treason.' That the return was a gross falsehood, fabricated by. Sirr, I am instructed to assert. The judge, before whom this return was brought, felt that he had no authority to liberate the unhappy prisoner; and thus, by a most inhuman and malicious lie, my client was again remanded to the horrid mansion of pestilence and famine. Upon this, Mr. Hevey, finding that nothing else remained signed a submission dictated by Sandys, was enlarged from confinement, and brought the present action.

The jury awarded Mr. Hevey 1501. damages.

PART V.

The conduct of Mr. Emmett after his arrest-His letter to John Philpot Curran-His associates-Trial and Conviction-His celebrated speech in defence of his character."

AFTER his arrest, the unfortunate Emmett betrayed no tokens of fear or perturbation, but evinced the same calm and dignified aspect which ever distinguished this extraordinary young man.

A few days after, he wrote the following letter to Mr. Curran, detailing the origin and progress of his attachment for the daughter of that gentleman:

"I did not expect you to be my counsel. I nominated you, because not to have done so might have appeared remarkable. Had Mr. been in town, I did not even wish to have seen you; but as he was not, I wrote to you to come to me at once. I know that I have done you a very severe injury, much greater than I can atone for with my life; that atonement I did offer to make before the privy council, by pleading guilty, if these documents were suppressed. I offered, if I were permitted to consult some persons, and if they would consent to an ac

commodation for saving the lives of others, that I would only require for my part of it, the suppression of those documents, and that I would abide the event of my own trial. This also was rejected, and nothing but individual information, (with the exception of names,) would be taken. My intention was, not to leave the suppression of those documents to possibility, but to render it unnecessary for any one to plead for me, by pleading guilty to the charge myself.

"The circumstances that I am now going to mention, I do not state in my own justification. When I first addressed your daughter, I expected that in another week my own fate would be decided. I knew that in case of success, many others might look on me differently from what they did at that moment; but I speak with sincerity, when I say, that I never was anxious for situation or distinction myself, and I do not wish to be united to one who was. I spoke to your daughter, neither expecting, nor, in fact, under such circumstances, wishing, that there should be a return of attachment; but wishing to judge of her dispositions, to know how far they might not be unfavorable or disengaged, and to know what foundation I

might afterwards have to count on. I received no encouragement whatever. She told me she had no attachment for any person, nor did she seem likely to have any that could make her wish to quit you. I staid away till the time had elapsed when I found that the event to which I-allude was to be postponed indefinitely. I returned by a kind of infatuation, thinking that to myself only was I giving pleasure or pain. I perceived no progress of attachment on her part, nor any thing in her conduct to distinguish me from a common acquaintance. Afterwards I had reason to suppose that discoveries were made, and that I should be obliged to quit the kingdom immediately: and I came to make a renunciation of any approach to friendship that might have been formed. On that very day she spoke to me to discontinue my visits; I told her it was my intention, and I mentioned the reason. I then, for the first time, found I was unfortunate, by the manner in which she was affected, that there was a return of affection; and that it was too late to retreat. My own apprehensions, also, I afterwards found, were without cause, and I remained. There has been much culpability on my part in all this, but there has also been a great

deal of that misfortune which seems uniformly to accompany me. That I have written to your daughter since an unfortunate event has taken place, was an additional breach of propriety, for which I have suffered well; but I will candidly confess, that I not only do not feel it to have been of the same extent, but that I consider it to have been unavoidable, after what had passed; for though I will not attempt to justify, in the smallest degree, my former conduct, yet when an attachment was once formed between us-and a sincerer one never did exist-I feel that, peculiarly circumstanced as I then was, to have left her uncertain of my situation would neither have weaned her affections, nor lessened her anxiety; and looking upon her as one whom, if I had lived, I hoped to have had my partner for life, I did hold the removing her anxiety above every other consideration. I would rather have had the affections of your daughter in the back settlements of America, than the first situation this country could afford without them. I know not whether this would be any extenuation of my offence-I know not whether it will be any extenuation of it to know, that if I had that situation in my power at this mo