“I cannot recollect the situation in which you are in a few days to be placed without emotions of respect, and I had almost said of envy. For myself I will never adopt any conduct for the express purpose of being put upon my trial, but if I be ever so put, I will consider that day as a day of triumph.

“Your trial, if you so please, may be a day such as England, and I believe the world, never saw. It may be the means of converting thousands, and, progressively, millions, to the cause of reason and public justice. You have a great stake, you place your fortune, your youth, your liberty, and your talents on a single throw. If you must suffer, do not, I conjure you, suffer without making use of this opportunity of telling a tale upon which the happiness of nations depends. Spare none of the resources of your powerful mind. Is this a day of reserve, a day to be slurred over in neglect—the day that constitutes the very crisis of your fate?

“It is the nature of the human mind to be great in proportion as it is acted upon by great incitements. Remember this. Now is your day. Never, perhaps never, in the revolution of human affairs, will your mind be the same illustrious and irresistible mind as it will be on this day.

“You stand on as clear ground as man can stand on. You are brought there for meeting in convention to deliberate on grievances. Do not fritter away your defence by anxiety about little things; do not perplex the jury by dividing their attention. Depend upon it, that if you can establish to their full conviction the one great point—the lawfulness of your meeting—you will obtain a verdict.

“That point is fully contained in the Bill of Rights, is the fundamental article of that constitution which Englishmen have been taught to admire. Appeal (for so upon your principles you can) to an authority paramount to the English constitution, to all written Law and parchment constitutions; the Law of universal Reason, authorising men to consult. Ireland was always the least emancipated part of the British Empire. In Ireland they thought proper to pass a tyrannical law taking away this inalienable privilege. But in Britain they do worse; ministers are said to have it in contemplation to pass a similar law here, and in the meantime ‘you, the jury, are called upon to act as if the law were already in existence. Was ever so atrocious a breach of equity and reason? They pride themselves in having drawn us, and a great part of the Scottish nation, into the snare, and overwhelmed us with a destruction which no prudence could foresee, and no innocence avert.’

“Above all, let me entreat you to abstain from harsh epithets and bitter invective. Show that you are not terrible but kind, and anxious for the good of all. Truth will lose nothing by this. Truth can never gain by passion, violence, and resentment It is never so strong as in the firm, fixed mind, that yields to the emotions neither of rage nor fear. It is by calm and recollected boldness that we can shake the pillars of the vault of heaven. How great will you appear if you show that all the injustice with which you are treated cannot move you: that you are too great to be wounded by their arrows; that you still hold the steadfast course that becomes the friend of man, and that while you expose their rottenness you harbour no revenge. The public want men of this unaltered spirit, whom no persecution can embitter. The jury, the world will feel your value, if you show yourself such a man: let no human ferment mix in the sacred work.

“Farewell; my whole soul goes with you. You represent us all.