words. Did I fear that
hereafter when I shall be no more the country I have tried to
serve would think ill of me, I might, indeed, avail myself of
this solemn moment to vindicate my sentiments and my conduct.
But I have no such fear. The country will judge of those
sentiments and that conduct in a light far different from that
in which the jury by which I have been convicted have viewed
them; and by the country, the sentence which you, my lords, are
about to pronounce, will be remembered only as the severe and
solemn attestation of my rectitude and truth. Whatever be the
language in which that sentence be spoken, I know that my fate
will meet with sympathy, and that my memory will be honoured. In
speaking thus, accuse me not, my lords, of an indecorous
presumption. To the efforts I have made in a just and noble
cause, I ascribe no vain importance--nor do I claim for those
efforts any high reward. But it so happens, and it will ever
happen so, that they who have tried to serve their country, no
matter how weak the effort may have been, are sure to receive
the thanks and the blessings of its people. With my country,
then, I leave my memory--my sentiments--my acts--proudly feeling
that they require no vindication from me this day. A jury of my
countrymen, it is true, have found me guilty of the crime of
which I stood indicted. For this I entertain not the slightest
feeling of resentment toward them. Influenced as they must have
been by the charge of the Lord Chief Justice, they could have
found no other verdict. What of that charge? Any strong
observations on it, I feel sincerely, would ill befit the
solemnity of this scene; but I would earnestly beseech of you,
my lord--you, who preside on that bench--when the passions and
the prejudices of this hour have passed away to appeal to your
conscience, and ask of it was your charge as it ought to have
been, impartial and indifferent between the subject and the
Crown. My lords, you may deem this language unbecoming in me,
and perhaps it may seal my fate. But I am here to speak the
truth, whatever it may cost. I am here to regret nothing I have
ever done--to retract nothing I have ever said. I am here to
crave with no lying-lip the life I consecrate to the liberty of
my country. Far from it: even here--here, where the thief, the