Is it an indictable offence not to perceive its occult talents? Why, if it be, find my client guilty of not being a sycophant and a flatterer, and send him to prison for two years, to gratify the Attorney-General, who tells you that the Duke of Richmond is the _best_ chief governor Ireland ever saw. But the mischief, I am told, lies in the art of the sentence. Why, all that it says is, that it is difficult to discover the striking features that distinguish this from bad administrations. It does not, gentlemen, assert that no such striking features exist, much less does it assert that no features of that kind exist, or that such features, although not striking, are not easily discernible. So that, really, you are here again required to convict a man for not flattering. He thinks an administration untalented and silly; that is no crime; he says it has not been marked with talent or ability--that it has no striking features; all this may be mistaken and false, yet there is nothing in it that resembles a crime. And, gentlemen, _if it be true_--if this _be_ a foolish administration, can it be an offence to say so? If it has had no striking features to distinguish it from bad administrations, can it be criminal to say so? Are you prepared to say that not one word of truth can be told under no less a penalty than years of a dungeon and heavy fines? Recollect, that the Attorney-General told you that the Press was the protection of the people against the government. Good Heaven! gentlemen, how can it protect the people against the government, if it be a crime to say of that government that it has committed errors, displays little talent, and has no striking features? Did the prosecutor mock you, when he talked of the protection the Press afforded to the people? If he did not insult you by the admission of that upon which he will not allow you to act, let me ask, against what is the Press to protect the people? When do the people want protection? When the government is engaged in delinquencies, oppression, and crimes. It is against these that the people want the protection of the Press. Now, I put it to your plain sense, whether the Press can afford such protection, if it be punished for treating of these crimes.