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state of nakedness; by following incest, and a community of wives. If the Hindoo should attempt to introduce the burning of widows on the funeral piles of their deceased husbands, or the Mahometan his plurality of wives, or the Pagan his bacchanalian orgies or human sacrifices. If a fanatical sect should spring up, as formerly in the city of Munster, and pull up the pillars of society, or if any attempt should be made to establish the inquisition, then the licentious acts and dangerous practices, contemplated by the constitution, would exist, and the hand of the magistrate would be rightfully raised to chastise the guilty agents.

But until men under pretence of religion, act counter to the fundamental principles of morality, and endanger the well being of the state, they are to be protected in the free exercise of their religion. If they are in error, or if they are wicked, they are to answer to the Supreme Being, not to the unhallowed intrusion of frail fallible mortals.

We speak of this question, not in a theological sense, but in its legal and constitutional bearings. Although we differ from the witness and his brethren, in our religious creed, yet we have no reason to question the purity of their motives, or to impeach their good conduct as citizens. They are protected by the laws and constitution of this country, in the full and free exercise of their religion, and this court can never countenance or authorize the application of insult to their faith, or of torture to their consciences.

There being no evidence against the Defendants, they were acquitted.

IRISH PENAL CODE ABRIDGED.

The law doth best discover the enormities.

THESE were the words of the English Attorney-General, to James I in his celebrated discourse, wherein, without any favour to the Irish, he lays open to his master the atrocious courses of their oppressors. To pursue a tragedy of seven centuries, is not the purpose of this publication; but it is due to the cause, to the court, and above all, to that magistrate who manfully assumed the responsibility of the reasons ac companying its unanimous decision, to shew how malignant the sys tem was, upon which he passed a wise and deliberate animadversion. The massacres, robberies, and perfidies, practised by the English upon the Irish, are no longer buried in doubt, or darkness; they stand upon authorities past all contradiction; records rescued from ob livion, state papers, official reports, charters and title deeds. The historian who recites them, runs no risk; but if there be still surer ground it is that of transcribing from the statute book; for when the malice is so settled and confirmed as to become the characteristic gepus of the law for an uninterrupted series of ages, then it may truly be said that "the law best discovers the enormities."

Whatever were the ancient glories of the Irish nation, they were faded and fallen when the invader found footing on their shores. The rancorous hostilities and petty warfares of numerous little Kings and tyrants, had merged all national pride; and Ireland was subdued by the vice of Irishmen. It happened to them as to every nation which exposes disunion to a crafty, jealous, and vigilant enemy.

The yoke once put on, is not easily shaken off, and ineffectual struggles, but draw the bonds the tighter. Seven centuries of miseries have not yet expiated the first fault of the Irish people; but their history is unlike that of Greeks, Romans, or other great people, subdued and fallen to brutal apathy. Too generous to acquiesce in slavery, and yet too disunited to join in any great effort for death or victory, they had wasted their strength in desultory struggles, and the same race who in all foreign countries have individually borne off the palm of constancy and courage, equal to every task, and faithful

to every trust, have been and still are treated as aliens in their native land.

To give a succinct and intelligible view of the statutory code of Ireland, it may be well to divide it chronologically.

FIRST EPOCH.

From the English invasion to the reformation.

The Irish though far excelling their cotemporaries in refinement and education, were never known to invade the territory of other nations; but their country was still the seat of hospitality to strangers, who resorted there for learning or improvement. Let this short observation serve as a preface to the following English statutes, the earliest that are extant in print. ⠀ctat

Stat. of Kilkenny, 40. Ed. 3. A. D. 1367, makes all alliance by marriage. nurture of infants, or gossipred with the Irish, high treason: and if any man of English race, shall use an Irish name, Irish language, or Irish apparel, or any other guise or fashion of the Irish, if he has lands or tenements, the same shall be seized till he has given security to the chancellor, to conform in all points to the English manner of living, and if he has no lands his body to be taken and imprisoned till he find sureties as aforesaid. “

Stat. of Trim. 25. Hen. 6. A. D. 1447, enacts, that if any be found with their upper lips unshaven for the space of a fortnight, it shall be lawful for any man to take them and their goods, and ransom them and their goods as Irish enemies.

These statutes were levelled not more against the Irish, than the English settlers, who, won from their native ferocity by the social qualities of the Irish, or attracted by the charms of the sex, were treated as "degenerate English," and punished by that title, as the Irish were by the more whimsical title of aliens.

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28. Hen. 6. c. 3. A. D. 1450. Commits the punishment of every offender, to every private liege man of the King.

This is the frankest charter of murder ever granted.

Stat. Ed. 4. c. 2. A. D. 1465. enacts, "that it shall be lawful for all manner of men, that find any theives robbing by day or by night, going or coming, to rob or to steal, in or out, going or coming, having no faithful man of good name or fame in their company, in English appa rel, upon any of the liege people of the king, to take and kill those,

and to cut off their heads without any impeachment of our sovereign Lord the King, his officers, or ministers, or any others; and of any head so cut in the county of Meath, that the cutter of the said head, and his aiders there to him, do cause the said head so cut, to be brought to the Portreeve of the town of Trim, and the said Portreeve shall give him his writing under the seal of the said town, testifying the bringing the said head to him. And it shall be lawful for the bringer of the said head and his aiders to the same, to distrain and levy with their own hands, of every man having one plough land, one penny, and of every other cotter having house and smoke, one half-penny; and if the Portreeve shall refuse such certificate, he is to forfeit £10 recoverable by action." -The Irish Brehon law, to which the people were religiously attached was so humane that no capital punishment was allowed for any crime whatever. This statute, therefore, must have been peculiarly atrocious in the eyesof the Irish. What is meant by the distinction between robbing with a man of good fame in English apparel, and robbing without such a companion, requires a key, which is only to be found in the gross barbarity of the lawgivers. Perhaps the English were not only privileged to rob, but any one of them, might protect a whole gang. Such as it is, this statute was passed under the auspices and immediate government of Lionel duke of Clarence, son to the king.

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LANGUAGE.

28 Hen. 8. c. 15. Every subject of the king inhabiting in this island, shall, to the uttermost of their power and knowledge, use and speak commonly the English language, and shall endeavour themselves to procure their children (if they have any) to speak the same, and according to their abilities, shall bring them up in such places where they shall have occasion to learn the same language, upon pain that every lord spiritual, andtemporal offending herein, shall forfeit for every offence 67. 13s. 4d. every knight and esquire, 31. 6s. 8d. every gentleman and merchant 40s. every free-holder and yeoman 20s.every husbandman, 10s. and every other of the king's subjects within this land, 3s. 4d. one half to the king, and the other to the party that will sue for the same by action of debt, &c. in any of the king's courts, wherein no essoin, shall be allowed.

If any spiritual promotion within this land (chargeable with the

payment of first fruits to the king) at any time become void, such as have title to nominate, &c. shall nominate, &c, to the same, such a person as can speak English, and none other, unless there be no person that can speak English will accept it; and if the patron cannot upon inquiry (within three months after such avoidance) get any such person that can speak English, to accept the same, then he shall cause four proclamations to be openly made, at four several market days, in the next market town adjoining to the said spiritual promotion; that any fit person that can speak English, will come and take the same, he shall have it: and if none come, within five weeks of the first proclamation, to take the same, then the patron may present any honest, able person, albeit he cannot speak English.

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And if any patron do nominate, &c. one that cannot speak English, contrary to the form before recited, and being lawfully convic ted thereof, upon inquiry or presentation, before any of the king's judges, then such nomination, &c. shall be void, and the king shall nominate, present, and give the same to any person that can speak English, and no other and if the king be interrupted, he shall have a Quare Impedit against the disturber, and recover the presentation thereof for that time, in like form as he should have done for any other pro sentation of his own patronage; and if the king present any person that cannot speak English, then the same shall be void, and the patron's former gift to stand in force. Such presentation of the king, shall not prejudice those who at that time had right to the same, but that they may (upon the next avoidance) nominate or give, &c. the same as though no such nomination, &c. had been had by the king.

And every archbishop, bishop, suffragan, and every other, having power to give order of priest-hood, deacon, or sub-deacon, shall at the time of giving such orders, give a corporal oath, to the person so taking any of the said orders as aforesaid, that he shall to the uttermost of his power, endeavour himself to learn the English tongue and language, and use the English order and fashions (if he may learn and attain the same by possibility) in the place where his cure or dwelling shall be, and shall move and teach all others being under his governance, to perform the same: aud every such archbishop, &c. having power to admit, &c. any person to any spiritual promotion, shall, at the time thereof, give unto the person so addmitted, &e. a corporal oath, that he shall to his wit and cunning, endeavour himself to learn and teach the English tongue to all under his cure or governance, and shall bid the beads, and preach the word of God in English, (if he

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