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Latest revision as of 11:37, 26 April 2022

fied forever, that you are to remunerate the plaintiff by the punishment of the defendant. It is not her present value which you are to weight--but it is her value at that time when she sat basking in a husband's love, with the blessing of Heaven on her head, and its purity in her heart; when she sat amongst her family, and administered the morality of the parental board; estimate that past value--compare it with its present deplorable diminution-- and it may lead you to form some judgment of the severity of the injury, and the extent of the compensation. --The Learned Counsel has referred you to other cases, and other countries, for instances of moderate verdicts. I can refer you to some authentic instances of just ones. In the next county, 15,000|. against a subaltern officer. In Travers and McCarthy, 5000|. against a servant. In Tighe against Jones, 10,000|. against a man not worth a shilling. What then ought to be the rule, where rank, and power, and wealth, and station, have combined to render the example of his crime more dangerous--to make his guilt more odious--to make the injury to the plaintiff more grievous, because more conspicuous? I affect no levelling familiarity, when I speak of persons in the higher ranks of society--distinctions of orders are necessary, and I always feel disposed to treat them with respect--but when it is my duty to speak of the crimes by which hey are degraded, I am not so fastidious as to shrink from their ontact, when to touch them is essential to their dissection. How- er, therefore, I should feel on any other occasion, a disposition speak of the noble defendant with the respect due to his sta- n, and perhaps to his qualities, of which he may have many, edeem him from the odium of this transaction, I cannot so lge myself here. I cannot betray my client, to avoid the pain oing my duty. I cannot forget that in this action the con- n, the conduct, and circumstances of the party, are justly peculiarly the objects of your consideration. Who then are parties? The plaintiff, young, amiable, of family and edu- on. Of the generous disinterestedness of his heart, you can m an opinion even from the evidence of the defendant, that declined an alliance which would have added to his fortune and consideration, and which he rejected for an unportioned

unclear sacrilege and impiety. In the most odious contempt of every personal feeling, of public opinion, of common humanity, did he parade this woman to the sea-port, whence he transported his precious cargo to a country where her example may be less mischievous than in her own; where I agree with my learned Colleague, in heartily wishing he my remain with her forever. We are too poor, too simple, too unadvanced a country, for the example of such atchievements.-- When the relaxation of morals is the natural growth and consequence of the great progress of arts and wealth, it is accompanied by a refinement that makes it less gross and shocking: but for such palliations we are at least a century too young. In every point of view in which I can look at the subject, I see you are called upon to give a verdict, of bold, and just, and indignant, and exemplary compensation. The injury of the plaintiff demands it from your justice. The delinquency of the defendant provokes it by its enormity. The rank on which he has relied for impunity, calls upon you to tell him, that crimes does not ascend to the rank of the perpetrator, but the perpetrator sinks from his rank, and descends to the level of his delinquency. The style and mode of his defence is a gross aggravation of his conduct, and a gross insult upon you. Your verdict will, I trust put an end to that encouragement to guilt that is build upon impunity-- the devil, it seems, has saved the Noble Marquis harmless in the past; but your verdict will tell him the term of that indemnity is expired, that his old friend and banker has no more effects in his hands, and that if he draws any more upon him, he must pay his own bills himself. You will do much good by doing so; you may not enlighten his conscience, nor touch his heart, but his frugality will understand the hint. He will adopt the prudence of age, and be deterred from pursuits, in which, though he may be insensible of shame, he will not be regardless of expence. You will do more, you will not only punish him in his tender point, but you will weaken him in his strong one, his money. There is another consideration, Gentlemen, which I think most imperiously demands even a vindictive award of exemplary damages, and that is the breach of hospitality. To us peculiarly does it belong to avenge the violation of its altar. The hospitality