use, and
in the clouds of the night reduced that and every out-office he had
to ashes--a capital felony. It so happens, however, that the house and
offices were, in point of fact, not the property of Reilly at all, but
of a most respectable Protestant gentleman and magistrate, Mr. Hastings,
with whose admirable! character I have no doubt you are all acquainted;
and all that remains for me to say is, that he is the prosecutor in this
case.

"And now, gentlemen, we expect a calm, deliberate, and unbiassed verdict
from you. Look upon the prisoner at the bar as an innocent man until you
can, with a clear conscience, find him guilty of the charges which we
are in a condition to prove against him; but if there be any doubt upon
your minds, I hope you will give him the benefit of it."

Sir Robert Whitecraft, in fact, had no defence, and could procure no
witnesses to counteract the irresistible body of evidence that was
produced against him. Notwithstanding all this, his friends calculated
upon the prejudices of a Protestant jury. His leading counsel made as
able a speech in his defence as could be made under the circumstances.
It consisted, however, of vague generalities, and dwelt upon the state
of the country and the necessity that existed for men of great spirit
and Protestant feeling to come out boldly, and, by courage and energy,
carry the laws that had passed for the suppression of Popery into active
and wholesome operation. "Those laws were passed by the wisest and
ablest assembly of legislators in the world, and to what purpose could
legislative enactments for the preservation of Protestant interests be
passed if men of true faith and loyalty could not be found to carry them
into effect. There were the laws; the prisoner at the bar did not make
those laws, and if he was invested with authority to carry them into
operation, what did he do but discharge a wholesome and important duty?
The country was admitted, on all sides, to be in a disturbed state;
Popery was attempting for years most insidiously to undermine the
Protestant Church, and to sap the foundation of all Protestant
interests; and if, by a pardonable excess of zeal, of zeal in the right
direction, and unconscious lapse in the discharge of what he would call,
those noble but fearful duties had occurred, was it for those who had
a sense of true liberty, and a manly detestation of Romish intrigue at
heart, to visit that upon the head of a true and loyal man as