ceiving some soothing satisfaction for what would otherwise have exposed me in the general feelings and opinions of the world. The deceased was a man of popular manners, as I have heard, and with very general acquaintance. I, on the other hand, was in a manner a stranger in this great town, having been devoted from my infancy to the ditties of my profession, in distant seas. If, under these circumstances, words which the deceased intended as offensive, and which he repeatedly invited to be resented, had been passed by and submitted to, they would have passed from mouth to mouth, have been even exaggerated at every repetition, and my honor must have been lost.
“Gentlemen, I am a Captain of the British Navy. My character you can only hear from others; but to maintain any character in that station, I must be respected. When called upon to lead others into honorable dangers, I must not be supposed to be a man who had sought safety by submitting to what custom has taught others to consider as a disgrace. I am not presuming to urge any thing against the laws of God, or of this land. I know that, in the eye of religion and reason, obedience to the law, though against the general feelings of the world, is the first duty, and ought to be the rule of action; but, inputting a construction upon my motives, so as to ascertain the quality of my actions, you will make allowances for my situation. It is impossible to define, in terms, the proper feelings of a gentleman; but their existence has supported this happy country for many ages, and she might perish if they were lost. Gentlemen, I will detain you no longer; I will bring before you many honorable persons, who will speak what they know of me in my profession, and in private life; which will the better enable you to judge whether what I have offered in my defence may safely be received by you as truth. Gentlemen, I submit myself entirely to your judgments. I hope to obtain my liberty through your verdict, and to employ it with honor in defence of the liberties of my country.”
Captain Macnamara afterwards called on the following respectable naval officers, to give evidence as to his character: viz. the Viscounts Hood and Nelson, Lord Hotham, Sir Hyde Parker and Sir Thomas Troubridge; Captains Martin, Towry, Lydiard, Moore, and Waller; also General Churchill and Lord Minto; who all concurred in bearing testimony of his conduct as an officer and a gentleman; and of his being an honorable, good-humoured, pleasant, lively companion, exactly the reverse of a quarrelsome man. The jury withdrew for about ten minutes, and then returned a verdict of, Not Guilty.
Our officer subsequently obtained the command of the Dictator, a 64-gunship, in which he served two years on the Nortli Sea station, and then removed into the Edgar, 74. In 1808
