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ON THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS

BY

JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN

JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN

1750-1817

John Philpot Curran was a self-made man, though he obtained a university education. But he was born (at Newmarket, near Cork) of humble parents; and his person was mean and diminutive. Despite his physical disadvantages he manifested prodigious eloquence and intrepid courage in espousing the cause of political outlaws. He was able to touch the deepest springs of feeling, and to display sentiments of the purest and loftiest humanity. He possessed the charm and fascination often found in his race; he was a winning companion, and his conversation had irresistible magnetism.

He took his degree at Trinity College, Dublin, studied law at the Middle Temple, London, and was admitted to the Bar in 1775, at the age of five-and-twenty. In 1783 he entered the Irish Parliament, where he joined the opposition, of which Grattan was the leader. He was an orator first of all, and by profession; his forensic triumphs constitute his hold on fame; and the accidents of the epoch gave him abundant material for practice.

The insurrectionists of 1798 in Ireland were persecuted by the English government with relentless cruelty, and it fell to Curran to defend many of them, which he did with a courage and ability which gave him an immense reputation. There is hardly anything finer in forensic oratory than many of these speeches; it stirs the blood even of a later generation to read them; the denunciation of injustice and oppression has never been more forcibly and daringly worded, or the wrongs of the victims more feelingly portrayed. It is easy to believe that a man who could speak thus would be accounted "the most popular advocate of his age and country." His speech on "The Liberty of the Press" was delivered in the trial of a newspaper proprietor who had offended the British government.

Nor can one marvel, after reading his attacks upon the prosecutors, that his chief opponent in the courts, Mr. Fitzgibbons, afterwards Lord Clare, should have passed from a professional to a personal animosity against the great Irishman; a challenge passed between them, and a meeting ensued; but this duel followed the modern French fashion in being bloodless. Nobody was hurt, and both gentlemen preserved their honor.

During the vice-royalty of the Duke of Bedford, in 1806, Curran's patriotism was recognized by his appointment as Master of the Rolls, which he retained till 1814. He then resigned and retired with a pension of three thousand pounds a year. He took up his residence near London, and died at Brompton in 1817, in the sixty-seventh year of his life. His talents," says a contemporary critic, were of the highest order; his wit, his drollery, his eloquence, his pathos, were irresistible, and the style of his oratory was striking and splendid."

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ON THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS

ND now, gentlemen, let us come to the immediate subject of the trial, as it is brought before you by the charge in the indictment, to which it ought to have been confined; and also, as it is presented to you by the statement of the learned counsel who has taken a much wider range than the mere limits of the accusation, and has endeavored to force upon your consideration extraneous and irrelevant facts, for reasons which it is my duty to explain. The indictment states simply that Mr. Finnerty has published a false and scandalous libel upon the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, tending to bring his government into disrepute, and to alienate the affections of the people; and one would have expected that, without stating any other matter, the counsel for the Crown would have gone directly to the proof of this allegation. But he has not done so; he has gone to a most extraordinary length, indeed, of preliminary observation, and an allusion to facts, and sometimes an assertion of facts, at which, I own, I was astonished, until I saw the drift of these allusions and assertions. Whether you have been fairly dealt with by him, or are now honestly dealt with by me, you must be judges. He has been pleased to say that this prosecution is brought against this letter signed Marcus, merely

[This speech was delivered before the Commission court, on December 22, 1797, in behalf of Peter Finnerty, the publisher of the Dublin "Press." Finnerty had been indicted for publishing a severe letter, signed Marcus, addressed to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, in reference to the execution of William Orr. Orr had been tried and executed for administering the oath to a United Irishman. His trial and execution were peculiarly atrocious, because, it was developed soon after the trial, many of the witnesses were perjured, the chief informer was a man of the blackest character, and the jury was openly intimidated, several of them being made drunk while sitting on the case. These facts were communicated to the Lord Lieutenant, and Orr was reprieved three times,

but, after a year's delay, was finally executed. A wave of popular indignation swept over Ireland. Medals were struck bearing the words "Remember Orr," and his name became a watch-word of resistance to tyranny. During this period Finnerty's paper published the Marcus letter, and he was immediately indicted for libel. Curran, as his counsel, made in his behalf the speech here given. His eloquent plea was unavailing. Finnerty was found guilty, and sentenced to spend one hour in the stocks, and to be imprisoned for two years-a sentence which was carried out. Curran's speech is remarkable in that it was delivered impromptu. He had had no time for preparation, and had seen the briefs in the case only a few minutes before speaking-EDITOR.]

as a part of what he calls a system of attack upon government by the paper called the "Press." As to this I will only ask you whether you are fairly dealt with? Whether it is fair treatment to men upon their oaths, to insinuate to them, that the general character of a newspaper (and that general character founded merely upon the assertion of the prosecutor) is to have any influence upon their minds when they are to judge of a particular publication? I will only ask you what men you must be supposed to be when it is thought that even in a court of justice, and with the eyes of the nation upon you, you can be the dupes of that trite and exploded expedient, so scandalous of late in this country, of raising a vulgar and mercenary cry against whatever man or whatever principle it is thought necessary to put down; and I shall therefore merely leave it to your own pride to suggest upon what foundation it could be hoped that a senseless clamor of that kind could be echoed back by the yell of a jury upon their oaths. I trust you see that this has nothing to do with the question.

Gentlemen of the jury, other matters have been mentioned, which I must repeat for the same purpose-that of showing you that they have nothing to do with the question. The learned counsel has been pleased to say, that he comes forward in this prosecution as the real advocate for the liberty of the press, and to protect a mild and merciful government from its licentiousness; and he has been pleased to add, that the constitution can never be lost while its freedom remains, and that its licentiousness alone can destroy that freedom. As to that, gentlemen, he might as well have said that there is only one mortal disease of which a man can die. I can die the death inflicted by tyranny; and when he comes forward to extinguish this paper in the ruin of the printer by a state prosecution, in order to prevent its dying of licentiousness, you must judge how candidly he is treating you, both in the fact and in the reasoning. Is it in Ireland, gentlemen, that we are told licentiousness is the only disease that can be mortal to the press? Has he heard of nothing else that has been fatal to the freedom of publication? I know not whether the printer of the "Northern Star" may have heard of such things in his captivity, but I know that his wife and children are well apprised that a press may be destroyed in the open day, not by its own licentiousness, but by the licentiousness of a

military force. As to the sincerity of the declaration that the State has prosecuted in order to assert the freedom of the press, it starts a train of thought, of melancholy retrospect and direful prospect, to which I did not think the learned counsel would have wished to commit your minds. It leads you naturally to reflect at what times, from what motives, and with what consequences the government has displayed its patriotism by prosecutions of this sort. As to the motives, does history give you a single instance in which the state has been provoked to these conflicts, except by the fear of truth, and by the love of vengeance? Have you ever seen the rulers of any country bring forward a prosecution from motives of filial piety, for libels upon their departed ancestors? Do you read that Elizabeth directed any of those state prosecutions against the libels which the divines of her time had written against her Catholic sister; or against the other libels which the same gentlemen had written against her Protestant father? No, gentlemen, we read of no such thing; but we know she did bring forward a prosecution from motives of personal resentment, and we know that a jury was found time-serving and mean enough to give a verdict which she was ashamed to carry into effect!

I said the learned counsel drew you back to the times that have been marked by these miserable conflicts. I see you turn your thoughts to the reign of the second James. I see you turn your eyes to those pages of governmental abandonment, of popular degradation, of expiring liberty, of merciless and sanguinary persecution; to that miserable period, in which the fallen and abject state of man might have been almost an argument in the mouth of the atheist and blasphemer against the existence of an all-just and an all-wise First Cause; if the glorious era of the Revolution that followed it had not refuted the impious inference, by showing that if man descends, it is not in his own proper motion; that it is with labor and with pain, and that he can continue to sink only until, by the force and pressure of the descent, the spring of his immortal faculties acquires that recuperative energy and effort that hurry him as many miles aloft. He sinks but to rise again. It is at that period that the state seeks for shelter in the destruction of the press; it is in a

The "Northern Star" was a paper published in Belfast, which was broken

VOL. I.-29

down and destroyed by the government in the way here referred to.

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