The most eloquent speech, at length, of Mr. Phillips, in the Court of Common Pleas, Dublin, in the case of Guthrie v. Sterne, for adultery : with the author's last corrections : not a single word omitted.

  • Phillips, Charles, 1787?-1859.
Date:
1816
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The most eloquent speech, at length, of Mr. Phillips, in the Court of Common Pleas, Dublin, in the case of Guthrie v. Sterne, for adultery : with the author's last corrections : not a single word omitted. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    night, steals his Ephesian torch into the fane, which it was virtue to adore, and worse than sacrilege to have violated ! Gentlemen, my part is done; yours is about to commence, You have heard this crime—its origin, its progress, its aggravations, its novelty among us. Go and tell your children and your country, whether or not it is to be made a precedent. Oh, how awful is your responsibility ! 1 do not doubt that you will discharge your¬ selves of it as becomes your characters. I am sure, indeed, that you will mourn with me over the almost solitary defect in our otherwise matchless system of jurisprudence, which leaves the per¬ petrators of such an injury as this, subject to no amercement but that of money. I think you will lament the failure of the great Cicero of our age, to bring such an olfence within the cognizance of a criminal jurisdiction: it was a subject suited to his legislati ve mind, w'orthy of his feeling heart, worthy of his immortal elo¬ quence. 1 cannot, my Lord, even remotely allude to Lord Erskine, without gratifying myself by saying of him, that, by the rare union of all that was learned in law with all that was lucid in elo¬ quence ; by the singular combination of all that w as pure in mo¬ rals with all that was profound in wisdom; he has stamped upon every action of his life the blended authority of a great mind, and an unquestionable conviction. I think. Gentlemen, you will re¬ gret the failure of such a man in such an object. The merciless murderer may have manliness to plead; the highway robber may have want to palliate; yet they both are objects of criminal in¬ fliction : but the murderer of connubial bliss, who commits his crime in secrecy;—the robber of domestic joys, whose very wealth, as in this case, may be his instrument;—he is suffered to calculate on the infernal fame which a superfluous expenditure may pur¬ chase. The law, however, is so: and we must only adopt the remedy it affords us. In your adjudication of that remedy, I do not ask too much, when I ask the full extent of your capability : how poor, even so, is the wretched remuneration for an injury which nothing can repair,—for a loss which nothing can alleviate? I)o you think that a mine could recompense my Client for the for¬ feiture of her who was dearer than life to him ? u Oh, had she been but true, Though Heaven had made him such another world, Of one entire and perfect chrysolite, He’d not exchange her for it!” I put it to any of you, what would you take to stand in his situ¬ ation? What would you take to have your prospects blasted, your profession despoiled, your peace ruined, your bed profaned, your parents heart-broken, your children parentless? Believe me. Gen¬ tlemen, if it were not for those children, he would not come here to-day to seek such remuneration; if it were not that, by your verdict, you may prevent those little innocent defrauded wretches from wandering beggars, as well as orphans, on the face of this earth. Oh, I know I need not ask this verdict from your mercy ; .1 need not extort it from your compassion; I will receive it from