his motives sincerely and truly, and to vindicate the principles by which he was actuated?  My lords, it may be a part of the system of angry justice to bow a man’s mind by humiliation to the purposed, ignominy of the scaffold; but worse to me than the purposed shame, or the scaffold’s terrors, would be the shame of such foul and unfounded imputations as have been laid against me in this court.  You, my lord, are a judge; I am the supposed culprit.  I am a man; you are a man also.  By a revolution of power we might change places, though we never could change characters.  If I stand at the bar of this court, and dare not vindicate my character, what a farce is your justice!  If I stand at this bar and dare not vindicate my character, how dare you calumniate it.  Does the sentence of death, which your unhallowed policy inflicts on my body, condemn my tongue to silence and my reputation to reproach?  Your executioner may abridge the period of my existence; but while I exist I shall not forbear to vindicate my character and motives from your aspersions; and, as a man, to whom fame is dearer than life, I will make the last use of that life in doing justice to that reputation which is to live after me, and which is the only legacy I can leave to those I honor and love, and for whom I am proud to perish.  As men, my lords, we must appear on the great day at one common tribunal; and it will then remain for the Searcher of all hearts to show a collective universe, who was engaged in the most virtuous actions, or swayed by the purest motives—­my country’s oppressor, or”-----

   [Here he was interrupted, and told to listen to the sentence of the
   law].

“My lords, will a dying man be denied the legal privilege of exculpating himself in the eyes of the community from an undeserved reproach, thrown upon him during his trial, by charging him with ambition, and attempting to cast away for a paltry consideration the liberties of his country?  Why did your lordships insult me?  Or rather, why insult justice, in demanding of me why sentence of death should not be pronounced against me?  I know, my lords, that form prescribes that you should ask the question.  The form also presents the right of answering.  This, no doubt, may be dispensed with, and so might the whole ceremony of the trial, since sentence was already pronounced at the Castle before the jury were empanelled.  Your lordships are but the priests of the oracle, and I insist on the whole of the forms.”

   [Here Mr. Emmet paused, and the court desired him to proceed.]

“I am charged with being an emissary of France.  An emissary of France! and for what end?  It is alleged that I wished to sell the independence of my country; and for what end?  Was this the object of my ambition?  And is this the mode by which a tribunal of justice reconciles contradiction?  No; I am no emissary; and my ambition was to hold a place among the deliverers of my