Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 13.djvu/342

 fought, but no one was hurt. In the same year he supported Forbes's motion for a place bill, and Grattan's for an inquiry into the sale of peerages, and also advocated the rights of the catholics and parliamentary reform. He made a fierce attack on the government corruption on 12 Feb. 1791, and spoke on the Roman Catholic Disabilities on 18 Feb. 1792, on the approaching war with France on 11 Jan. 1793, and on parliamentary reform on 9 Feb. 1793. ‘He animated every debate,’ says Hardy, Lord Charlemont's biographer, of him, ‘with all his powers; he was copious, splendid, full of wit and life and ardour.’

From 1789 popular discontent had been growing. In August 1792 Archibald Hamilton Rowan, secretary of the Dublin Society of United Irishmen, published, in reply to a proclamation against them, an address to the volunteers of Ireland, inviting them, in view of the public dangers, to resume their arms. The government decided to prosecute him. Rowan desired that Thomas Emmett and the Hon. Simon Butler should defend him, but they finally prevailed on him to entrust the task to Curran, who then entered on that great series of defences in state trials which raised him to his highest fame. The trial did not come on until 29 Jan. 1794. The court was filled with soldiery, who frequently interrupted Curran with menaces. His speech, which occupies twenty-five pages of print (being one of the few which are fully and correctly reported), was delivered from a dozen catchwords on the back of his brief, and was frequently stopped by bursts of applause, and on leaving the court the mob, on this as on many other occasions, took out his horses and dragged his carriage home. Rowan, after a violent summing-up from Lord Clonmel, was convicted and sentenced to two years' imprisonment, followed by seven years' security for good behaviour and a fine of 500l., and a motion on 4 Feb. to set aside the verdict was fruitless. Rowan, however, escaped to France. On 25 June of the same year Curran successfully defended Dr. William Drennan, author of ‘Orellana,’ who had been chairman of the volunteers' meeting at which Rowan's address was adopted; the proof of publication of the seditious libel broke down.

On 23 April he appeared at the Drogheda assizes for the seven ‘Drogheda defenders,’ Kenna, Bird, Hamill, Delahoyde, and three others, on a charge of conspiracy to levy war, and obtained an acquittal. In May he was at Belfast, and obtained an acquittal from a charge of libel for the proprietor of the ‘Northern Star.’ It shows how highly his services were esteemed that at this time there was an initial fee of 10l. necessary to procure the royal license for a king's counsel to appear for a prisoner against the crown. The next in this series of trials was the dramatic case of the Rev. William Jackson, who, after an imprisonment of a year, was at length brought to trial in April 1795 upon the charge of having been sent to Dublin upon a treasonable mission by the committee of public safety. It was the first trial for high treason for a period of a century. The Irish law permitted a conviction upon the testimony of one witness only. Jackson was convicted on such evidence, after a trial which lasted until four o'clock in the morning. He was brought up for judgment on 30 April, and before the arrival of Curran, who was to move in arrest of judgment, died in court of poison taken in prison. Curran had already, two days after the conviction, moved for leave to bring in a bill to assimilate the Irish law of treason to the English. At the attorney-general's request he postponed it lest doubt should seem to be cast on the legality of Jackson's conviction. After this tragic circumstance he dropped it altogether, and the reform was only effected in 1854. In December came the case of James Weldon, who was convicted and hanged for high treason in connection with the ‘Dublin Defenders’ movement. On 22 Dec. 1797 Curran defended Peter Finnerty for a seditious libel, in publishing on 26 Oct. in his newspaper, ‘The Press,’ to which Curran himself had sometimes contributed, a letter by Deane Swift, a grandson of Swift's biographer, fiercely attacking the conduct of the government in Orr's case. William Orr had been tried for administering the ‘United Irishman's’ oaths, and had been convicted by a jury which was alleged to have been drunk and intimidated. The government, however, executed the sentence, and ‘The Press’ virulently attacked them in consequence. In spite of the efforts of Curran and the five other counsel who appeared with him, Finnerty was convicted and sentenced to stand one hour in the pillory, to be imprisoned for two years, and to be fined 20l.

Meantime political events had been taking a darker and darker colour, and Curran had gradually withdrawn from any share in them. From 1789 onwards the government had been endeavouring to secure his adhesion. Kilwarden, when attorney-general, repeatedly pressed him to come over to them. In 1795 only the speedy recall of Lord Fitzwilliam prevented his appointment as solicitor-general. Yet at this juncture, with these hopes, and knowing how short-lived whig administrations were, he had the courage to oppose Grattan's ministerial motion, pledging the House of Commons to a