will restrain Mr. Phillips from reading a letter which cannot hereafter be read in evidence.

Mr. O'CONNELL rose for the purpose of supporting the propriety of the course pursued by the Defendant's Counsel, when]

Mr. PHILLIPS resumed-My Lord, although it is utterly impossible for the Learned Gentleman to say, in what manner hereafter this letter might be made evidence, still my case is too strong to require any cavilling upon such trifles. I am content to save the public time and wave the perusal of the letter. However, they have now given its suppression an importance which perhaps its production could not have procured for it. You see, Gentlemen, what a case they have when they insist on the withholding of the documents which originated with themselves. I accede to their very politic interference. I grant them, since they entreat it, the mercy of my silence. Certain it is, however, that a letter was received from Mrs. Blake; and that almost immediately after its receipt, Miss Blake intruded herself at Brownville, where Mrs. Wilkins was-remained two days-lamented bitterly her not having appeared to the lieutenant, when he called to visit her-said that her poor mother had set her heart on an alliancethat she was sure, dear woman, a disappointment would be the death of her; in short, that there was no alternative but the tomb or the altar! To all this Mrs. Wilkins only replied, how totally ignorant the parties most interested were of each other, and that were she even inclined to connect herself with

a stranger (poor old fool!) the debts in which her generosity to the family had already involved her, formed, at least for the present, an insurmountable impediment. This was not sufficient. In less than a week, the indefatigable Miss Blake returned to the charge, actually armed with an old family-bond to pay off the incumbrances, and a renewed representation of the mother's suspense and the brother's desperation. You will not fail to observe, Gentlemen, that while the female conspirators were thus at work, the lover himself had never even seen the object of his idolatry. Like the maniac in the farce, he fell in love with the picture of his grandmother. Like a prince of the blood, he was willing to woo and to be wedded by proxy. For the gratification of his avarice, he was contented to embrace age, disease, infirmity, and widowhood-to bind his youthful passions to the carcass for which the grave was opening-to feed by anticipation on the uncold corpse, and cheat the worm of its reversionary corruption. Educated in a profession proverbially generous, he offered to barter every joy for money! Born in a country ardent to a fault, he advertised his happiness to the highest bidder! and he now solicits an honourable jury to become the panders to this heartless cupidity! Thus beset, harassed, conspired against, their miserable victim entered into the contract you have heard a contract conceived in meanness, extorted by fraud, and sought to be enforced by the most profligate conspiracy. Trace it through every stage of its progress, in its origin, its means, its effectsfrom the parent contriving it through the sacrifice

of her son, and forwarding it through the indelicate instrumentality of her daughter, down to the son himself unblushingly acceding to the atrocious combination by which age was to be betrayed and youth degraded, and the odious union of decrepit lust and precocious avarice blasphemously consecrated by the solemnities of Religion! Is this the example which as parents you would sanction? Is this the principle you would adopt yourselves? Have you never witnessed the misery of an unmatched marriage? Have you never worshipped the bliss by which it has been hallowed, when its torch, kindled at affection's altar, gives the noon of life its warmth and its lustre, and blesses its evening with a more chastened, but not less lovely illumination? Are you prepared to say, that this rite of heaven, revered by each country, cherished by each sex, the solemnity of every Church and the SACRAMENT of one, shall be profaned into the ceremonial of an obscene and souldegrading avarice!

No sooner was this contract, the device of their covetousness and the evidence of their shame, swindled from the wretched object of this conspiracy, than its motive became apparent; they avowed themselves the keepers of their melancholy victim; they watched her movements; they dictated her actions; they forbade all intercourse with her own brother; they duped her into accepting bills, and let her be arrested for the amount. They exercised the most cruel and capricious tyranny upon her, now menacing her with the publication of her follies, and now with the still more horrible enforce

ment of a contract that thus betrayed its anticipated inflictions! Can you imagine a more disgusting exhibition of how weak and how worthless humannature may be, than this scene exposes? On the ne hand, a combination of sex and age, disregarding the most sacred obligations, and trampling on the most tender ties, from a mean greediness of lucre, that neither honour or gratitude or nature could "Lucri bonus est odor exrequaappease, libet." On the other hand, the poor shrivelled relic, of what once was health, and youth, and animation, sought to be embraced in its infection, and caressed in its infirmity-crawled over and corrupt-. ed by the human reptiles, before death had shovelled it to the less odious and more natural vermin of the grave!! What an object for the speculations of avarice! What an angel for the idolatry of youth! Gentlemen, when this miserable dupe to her own doting vanity and the vice of others, saw how she was treated-when she found herself controlled by the mother, beset by the daughter, beggared by the father, and held by the son as a kind of windfall, that, too rotten to keep its hold, had fallen at his feet to be squeezed and trampled; when she saw the intercourse of her relatives prohibited, the most trifling remembrances of her ancient friendship denied, the very exercise of her habitual charity denounced; when she saw that all she was worth was to be surrendered to a family confiscation, and that she was herself to be gibbetted in the chains of wedlock, an example to every superannuated dotard, upon whose plunder the ravens of the world might

calculate, she came to the wisest determination of her life, and decided that her fortune should remain at her own disposal. Acting upon this decision, she wrote to Mr. Blake, complaining of the cruelty with which she had been treated, desiring the restoration of the contract of which she had been duped, and declaring, as the only means of securing respect, her final determination as to the control over her property. To this letter, addressed to the son, a verbal answer (mark the conspiracy) was returned from the mother, withholding all consent, unless the property was settled on her family, but withholding the contract at the same time. The wretched old woman could not sustain this conflict. She was taken seriously ill, confined for many months in her brother's house, from whom she was so cruelly sought to be separated, until the debts in which she was involved and a recommended change of scene transferred her to Dublin. There she was received with the utmost kindness by her relative, Mr. Mac Namara, to whom she confided the delicacy and distress of her situation. That gentleman, acting at once as her agent and her friend, instantly repaired to Galway, where he had an interview with Mr. Blake. This was long before the commencement of any action. A conversation took place between them on the subject, which must, in my mind, set the present action at rest altogether; because it must show that the non-performance of the contract originated entirely with the plaintiff himself. Mr. Mac Namara inquired, whether it was not true, that Mr. Blake's own family declined any connexion,