After describing the magnitude of the
crime, we describe the magnitude of the criminal. We have declared him
to be not only a public robber himself, but the head of a system of
robbery, the captain-general of the gang, the chief under whom a whole
predatory band was arrayed, disciplined, and paid. This, my Lords, is
what we offered to prove fully to you, what in part we have proved, and
the whole of which I believe we could prove. In developing such a mass
of criminality and in describing a criminal of such magnitude as we
have now brought before you, we could not use lenient epithets without
compromising with crime. We therefore shall not relax in our pursuits
nor in our language. No, my Lords, no! we shall not fail to feel
indignation, wherever our moral nature has taught us to feel it; nor
shall we hesitate to speak the language which is dictated by that
indignation. Whenever men are oppressed where they ought to be
protected, we called [call?] it tyranny, and we call the actor a tyrant.
Whenever goods are taken by violence from the possessor, we call it a
robbery, and the person who takes it we call a robber. Money
clandestinely taken from the proprietor we call theft, and the person
who takes it we call a thief.
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