Clinging to the fond but faint hope that you are not capable of sanctioning, by your oaths, so monstrous an inconsistency, I lead you to the next sentence upon this record: “Although his Grace does not appear to know what are the qualities necessary for a judge in Canada, or for an aide-de-camp in waiting at a court, he surely cannot be ignorant what are requisites for a Lord Lieutenant.” This appears to be a very innocent sentence; yet the Attorney-General, the venerator of that protection of the people against a bad government--the liberty of the Press--tells you that it is a gross libel to impute so much ignorance to his Grace. As to the aide-de-camp, gentlemen, whether he be selected for the brilliancy of his spurs, the polish of his boots, or the precise angle of his cocked hat, are grave considerations which I refer to you. Decide upon these atrocities, I pray you. But as to the judge in Canada, it cannot be any reproach to his Grace to be ignorant of his qualifications. The old French law prevails in Canada, and there is not a lawyer at the Irish Bar, except, perhaps, the Attorney-General, who is sufficiently acquainted with that law to know how far any man may be fit for the station of judge in Canada. If this be an ignorance without reproach in Irish lawyers, and if there be any reproach in it, I feel it not, whilst I avow that ignorance--yet, surely it is absurd to torture it into a calumny against the Lord Lieutenant--a military man, and no lawyer. I doubt whether it would be a libel if my client had said _that his Grace was ignorant of the qualities necessary for a judge_ in Ireland--for a _chief judge_, my lord. He has not said so, however, gentlemen, and true or false, that is not now the question under consideration. We are in Canada at present, gentlemen, in a ludicrous search for a libel in a sentence of no great point or meaning. If you are sapient enough to suspect that it contains a libel, your doubt can only arise from not comprehending it; and that, I own, is a doubt difficult to remove. But I mock you when I talk of this insignificant sentence. I shall read the next paragraph at full length. It is connected with the Canadian sentence:-- “Therefore, were an appeal to be made to him in a dispassionate and sober moment, we might candidly confess that the Irish would not be disappointed in their hopes of a successor, though they would behold the same smiles, experience the same sincerity, and witness the same disposition towards conciliation.