to-day, and hasten the final decision on the issues really knit
between us and the crown. What was the course adopted by the crown in
the first instance against me? They had before them, on the 9th, just
as well as on the 29th--it is in evidence that they had--the fact
that I, openly and publicly, took part in that demonstration--that
sorrowful and sad protest against injustice (applause). They had
before them then as much as they had before them to-day, or as much
as they will ever have affecting me. For, whatever course I take in
public affairs in this country, I conceal nothing, I take it
publicly, openly, and deliberately. If I err, I am satisfied to abide
the consequences; and, whenever it may suit the weathercock judgment
of Lord Mayo, and his vacillating law advisers, to characterise my
acts or my opinion as illegal, seditious, heretical, idolatrous, or
treasonable, I must, like every other subject, be content to take my
chance of their being able to find a jury sufficiently facile or
sufficiently stupid to carry out their behests against me. But they
did not choose that course at first. They did not summon me as a
principal, but they subpoenaed me as a witness--as a crown
witness--against some of my dearest, personal, and public friends.
The attorney-general, whose word I most fully and frankly accept in
the matter--for I would not charge him with being wanting in personal
truthfulness--denied having had any complicity in the course of
conduct pursued towards me; but where does he lay the responsibility?
On "the police." What is the meaning of that phrase, "the police?" He
surely does not mean that the members of the force, who parade our
streets, exercise viceregal functions (laughter). Who was this person
thus called the "police?" How many degrees above or below the
attorney-general are we to look for this functionary described as
"the police," who has the authority to have a "seditious" man--that
is the allegation--a seditious man--exempted from prosecution? The