ssion or to pave the
way to pardon. Both ideas are alike repugnant to my feelings. That the
public in general have felt indignation at the sentence that has been
passed upon me does honour to their hearts, and tends still to make
my country dear to me, in spite of what I have suffered from the
malignity of persons in power. But, sir, I am not here to complain of
the hardship of my case or about the cruelty of judges, who, for
an act which was never till now ever known or thought to be a legal
offence, have laid upon me a sentence more heavy than they have
ever yet laid upon persons clearly convicted of the most horrid
of crimes--crimes of which nature herself cries aloud against the
commission. If, therefore, it was my object to complain of the cruelty
of my judges, I should bid the public look into the calendar, and see
if they could find a punishment like that inflicted on me; inflicted
by these same judges on any one of these unnatural wretches. It is
not, however, my business to complain of the cruelty of this sentence.
I am here to assert, for the third time, my innocence in the most
unqualified and solemn manner; I am here to expose the unfairness of
the proceedings against me previous to the trial, at the trial,
and subsequent to it; I am here to expose the long train of artful
villainies which have been practised against me hitherto with so much
success.

"I am persuaded, sir, that the House will easily perceive, and every
honourable man, I am sure, participate in my feelings, that the
fine, the imprisonment, the pillory--even that pillory to which I am
condemned--are nothing, that they weigh not as a feather, when put
in the balance against my desire to show that I have been unjustly
condemned. Therefore, sir, I trust that the House will give a fair and
impartial hearing to what I have to say respecting the conduct of
my enemies, to expose which conduct is a duty which I owe to my
constituents, and to my country, not less than to myself.

"In the first place, sir, I here, in the presence of this House, and
with the eyes of the country fixed upon me, most solemnly declare that
I am wholly innocent of the crime which has been laid to my
charge, and for which I have been condemned to the most infamous of
punishments. Having repeated this assertion of my innocence, I next
proceed to complain of the means that have been made use of to effect
my destruction. And first, sir, was it ever before known in this or in
a