Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 6.djvu/134

THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS for a moment, that does not know that all which the great body of the people of any country can have from any government is a fair encouragement to their industry and protection for the fruits of their labor. And there is scarcely any man, I believe, who does not know that if a people could become so silly as to abandon their stations in society under pretense of governing themselves, they would become the dupes and the victims of their own folly. But does this publication recommend any such infatuated abandonment or any such desperate assumption?

Gentlemen, let me suggest another observation or two. If still you have any doubt as to the guilt or innocence of the defendant, give me leave to suggest to you what circumstances you ought to consider in order to found your verdict. You should consider the character of the person accused, and in this your task is easy. I will venture to say there is not a man in this nation more known than the gentleman who is the subject of this prosecution, not only by the part he has taken in public concerns, and which he has taken in common with many, but still more so by that extraordinary sympathy for human affliction which, I am sorry to think, he shares with so small a number.

There is not a day that you hear the cries of your starving manufacturers in your streets, that you do not also see the advocate of their sufferings: that you do not see his honest and manly figure, with uncovered head soliciting for 124