2. AARON BURR.

[WILLIAM WIRT was one of the most celebrated advocates and writers of the nineteenth century; he died in 1834. In the celebrated trial of Aaron Burr, Mr. Wirt, who was retained as counsel for the State, displayed a degree of learning and eloquence which drew forth the encomiums of the judges, the press and the people. This success established his reputation; his arguments were read with delight, and his name enrolled among the ablest men of the country. At the bar of the Supreme Court he found, says his biographer, the highest forensic theatre in the country, and perhaps there never was one in any country that presented a more splendid array of learning and talent conjoined. In the causes, too, which it is the official duty of the AttorneyGeneral to prosecute or defend, the most conspicuous counsel of that bar are commonly combined against him. In how many conflicts he sustained these odds against him with a vigor always adequate to the occasion, is well known.]

L

ET us put the case between Burr and Blannerhassett; let us compare the two men, and settle this question of precedence between them. Who Aaron Burr is, we have seen in part already. I will add that, beginning his operations in New York, he associated with him men whose wealth is to supply the necessary funds.

2. Possessed of the main-spring, his personal labor supplies all the machinery. Parading the continent, from New York to New Orleans, he draws into his plan, by every allurement which he can contrive, men of all ranks and descriptions. To youthful ardor he presents danger and glory; to ambition, ranks, and titles, and honors; to avarice, the mines of Mexico. To each person whom he addresses he presents the object adopted to his taste.

3. His recruiting officers are appointed; men are engaged throughout the continent. Civil life is indeed quiet upon its surface, but in its bosom this man has contrived to deposit the materials which, with the slightest touch of his match, would produce an explosion that must shake a continent. All this his restless ambition has contrived, and in the autumn of 1806 he goes forth, for the last time, to apply his match. On this occasion he meets with Blannerhassett.

WILLIAM WIRT

3. WHO IS BLANNERHASSETT?

[From a speech on the trial of Aaron Burr.]

HO is Blannerhassett? A native of Ireland, a man of letters, who fled from the storms of his own country to find quiet in ours. His history shows that war is not the natural element of his mind. If it had been, he never would have changed Ireland for America.

2. So far is an army from furnishing the society natural and proper to Mr. Blannerhassett's character, that on his arrival in America he retired even from the population of the Atlantic States, and sought quiet and solitude in the bosom of our Western forests.

3. But he carried with him taste, and science, and wealth, and lo, the desert smiled! Possessing himself of a beautiful island in the Ohio, he rears upon it a palace, and decorates it with every romantic embellishment of fancy. A shrubbery that Shenstone might have envied, blooms around him. Music that might have charmed Calypso and her nymphs, is his.

4. An extensive library spreads its treasures before him. A philosophical apparatus offers to him all the secret mysteries. of nature. Peace, tranquillity and innocence shed their mingled delights around him.

5. And to crown the enchantment of the scene, a wife who is said to be lovely even beyond her sex, and graced with every accomplishment that can render it irresistible, had blessed him. with her love and made him the father of several children. The evidence would convince you that this is but a faint picture of the real life.

6. In the midst of all this peace, this innocent simplicity, and this tranquillity, this feast of the mind, this pure banquet of the heart, the destroyer comes; he comes to change this paradise into a hell. Yet the flowers do not wither at his approach. No monitory shuddering through the bosom of their unfortunate possessor warns him of the ruin that is coming upon him.

7. A stranger presents himself. Introduced to their civilities by the high rank which he had lately held in his country, he soon finds his way to their hearts by the dignity and elegance. of his demeanor, the light and beauty of his conversation, and the seductive and fascinating power of his address.

8. The conquest was not difficult. Innocence is ever simple and credulous. Conscious of no design itself, it suspects none in others. It wears no guard before its breast. Every door, and portal, and avenue of the heart is thrown open, and all who choose it, enter.

9. Such was the state of Eden when the serpent entered its bowers. The prisoner, in a more engaging form, winding himself into the open and unpractised heart of the unfortunate Blannerhassett, found but little difficulty in changing the native character of that heart and the objects of its affection.

10. By degrees he infuses into it the poison of his own ambition. He breathes into it the fire of his own courage; a daring and desperate thirst for glory, and ardor panting for great enterprises for all the storm, and bustle, and hurricane of life.

11. In a short time the whole man is changed, and every object of his former delight is relinquished. No more he enjoys the tranquil scene; it has become flat and insipid to his taste. His books are abandoned; his retort and crucible are thrown aside; his shrubbery blooms and breathes its fragrance upon the air in vain; he likes it not.

12. His ear no longer drinks the rich melody of music; it longs for the trumpet's clangor and the cannon's roar. Even the prattle of his babes, once so sweet, no longer affects him; and the angel smile of his wife, which hitherto touched his bosom with ecstasy so unspeakable, is now unseen and unfelt.

13. Greater objects have taken possession of his soul. His imagination has been dazzled by visions of diadems, of stars and garters, and titles of nobility. He has been taught to burn with restless emulation at the names of great heroes and conquerors.

14. His enchanted island is destined soon to relapse into a wilderness; and in a few months we find the beautiful and tender partner of his bosom, whom he lately "permitted not the winds of" summer" to visit too roughly," we find her shivering at midnight on the winter banks of the Ohio, and mingling her tears with the torrents that froze as they fell.

15. Yet this unfortunate man, thus deluded from his interest and his happiness, thus seduced from the paths of innocence and peace, thus confounded in the toils that were deliberately spread for him, and overwhelmed by the mastering spirit and genius of another-this man, thus ruined and undone, and made to play a subordinate part in this grand drama of guilt and treason, this man is to be called the principal offender, while he by whom he was thus plunged in misery is comparatively innocent-a mere accessory!

16. Is this reason? Is it law? Is it humanity? Sir, neither the human heart nor the human understanding will bear a perversion so monstrous and absurd! so shocking to the soul! so revolting to reason!

17. Let Aaron Burr, then, not shrink from the high destination which he has courted; and, having already ruined Blannerhassett in fortune, character, and happiness forever, let him not attempt to finish the tragedy by thrusting that ill-fated man between himself and punishment.

WILLIAM WIRT.

4. THE HABEAS CORPUS ACT.

[JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN, in the case of the King against Mr. Justice Johnson, February 4th, 1805, before Chief Baron Lord Avonmore and the other Barons, in the Court of Exchequer.]

I

NOW address you on a question the most vitally connected with the liberty and well-being of every man within the limits of the British Empire ;-which being decided one way, he may be a freeman; which being decided the other, he must

be a slave. I refer to the maintenance of that sacred security for the freedom of Englishmen-so justly called the second Magna Charta of British liberty-the Habeas Corpus Act; the spirit and letter of which is, that the party arrested shall, without a moment's delay, be bailed, if the offence be bail. able.

2. What was the occasion of the law? The arbitrary transportation of the subject beyond the realm; the base and malignant war which the odious and despicable minions of power are forever ready to wage against all those who are honest and bold enough to despise, to expose, and to resist them.

3. Such is the oscitancy of man, that he lies torpid for ages under these aggressions, until, at last, some signal abusethe violation of Lucrece, the death of Virginia, the oppression of William Tell-shakes him from his slumber. For years had those drunken gambols of power been played in England; for years had the waters of bitterness been rising to the brim; at last, a single drop caused them to overflow,-the oppression of a single individual raised the people of England from their sleep.

4. And what does that great statute do? It defines and asserts the right, it points out the abuse; and it endeavors to secure the right, and to guard against the abuse, by giving redress to the sufferer, and by punishing the offender. For years had it been the practice to transport obnoxious persons out of the realm into distant parts, under the pretext of punishment, or of safe custody. Well might they have been said to be sent "to that undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns" for of these wretched travellers how few ever did return!

5. But of that flagrant abuse this statute has laid the axe to the root. It prohibits the abuse; it declares such detention or removal illegal; it gives an action against all persons con cerned in the offence, by contriving, writing, signing, countersigning, such warrant, or advising or assisting therein.

6. Are bulwarks like these ever constructed to repel the