My Lords,—­This business, which has so long employed the public councils of this kingdom, so long employed the greatest and most august of its tribunals, now approaches to a close.  The wreck and fragments of our cause (which has been dashed to pieces upon rules by which your Lordships have thought fit to regulate its progress) await your final determination.  Enough, however, of the matter is left to call for the most exemplary punishment that any tribunal ever inflicted upon any criminal.  And yet, my Lords, the prisoner, by the plan of his defence, demands not only an escape, but a triumph.  It is not enough for him to be acquitted:  the Commons of Great Britain must be condemned; and your Lordships must be the instruments of his glory and of our disgrace.  This is the issue upon which he has put this cause, and the issue upon which we are obliged to take it now, and to provide for it hereafter.

My Lords, I confess that at this critical moment I feel myself oppressed with an anxiety that no words can adequately express.  The effect of all our labors, the result of all our inquiries, is now to be ascertained.  You, my Lords, are now to determine, not only whether all these labors have been vain and fruitless, but whether we have abused so long the public patience of our country, and so long oppressed merit, instead of avenging crime.  I confess I tremble, when I consider that your judgment is now going to be passed, not on the culprit at your bar, but upon the House of Commons itself, and upon the public justice of this kingdom, as represented in this great tribunal.  It is not that culprit who is upon trial; it is the House of Commons that is upon its trial, it is the House of Lords that is upon its trial, it is the British nation that is upon its trial before all other nations, before the present generation, and before a long, long posterity.

My Lords, I should be ashamed, if at this moment I attempted to use any sort of rhetorical blandishments whatever.  Such artifices would neither be suitable to the body that I represent, to the cause which I sustain, or to my own individual disposition, upon such an occasion.  My Lords, we know very well what these fallacious blandishments too frequently are.  We know that they are used to captivate the benevolence of the court, and to conciliate the affections of the tribunal rather to the person than to the cause.  We know that they are used to stifle the remonstrances of conscience in the judge, and to reconcile it to the violation of his duty.  We likewise know that they are too often used in great and important causes (and more particularly in causes like this) to reconcile the prosecutor to the powerful factions of a protected criminal, and to the injury of those who have suffered by his crimes,—­thus inducing all parties to separate in a kind of good humor, as if they had nothing more than a verbal dispute to settle, or a slight quarrel over a table to compromise.  All this may now be done at the expense of the persons whose cause we pretend to espouse.  We may all part, my Lords, with the most perfect complacency and entire good humor towards one another, while nations, whole suffering nations, are left to beat the empty air with cries of misery and anguish, and to cast forth to an offended heaven the imprecations of disappointment and despair.