Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 3.pdf/78



—This day I stand before you charged with high treason. The burden of the charge is heavy, yet far the more so because it hath borrowed the authority of the House of Commons. If they were not interested I might expect a no less easy than I do a safe issue. But let neither my weakness plead my innocence nor their power my guilt. If your lordships will conceive of my defenses as they are in themselves, without reference to either party—and I shall endeavor so to present them—I hope to go hence as clearly justified by you as I now am in the testimony of a good conscience by myself.

My lords, I have all along, during this charge, watched to see that poisoned arrow of treason which some men would fain have feathered in