Any one not used to the formal wording of legal documents may well share the astonishment of the Deaf’un when this astounding rigmarole, being furnished to his legal advisers (Mr. Vincent Dowling and Mr. Serjeant Dowling), was read and explained to him. His truthful and indignant denials of all the serious delinquencies laid to his charge in this farrago of legal fictions were most amusing. Perhaps the way in which these were thrown into rhyme, by what old Jacob Tonson, the bookseller, used to call “a competent pen,” will convey some idea of the Deaf’un’s objections and denial of the charges:—
ADDRESS OF DEAF BURKE TO THE GRAND AND COMMON JURIES OF BEDFORD.
Pull’d up by beaks, before you here I shows,
For what offence, I’m blistered if I knows;
Fam’d thro’ the universe for feats of fists,
Before you stands Deaf Burke, the pugilists.
Yes, honest jurymen, with heart of steels,
I make with confidence my proud appeals,
My case upon its simple merits try—