Chapter 3

I admit I attended the procession. I admit also that I spoke words which I consider very grave and serious words upon that occasion. For my acts on that occasion, for the sense and intention of the words I spoke on that occasion, I am perfectly willing to be put upon my country. Not only for all my acts on that occasion—not only for the words which I spoke on that occasion; but for all my acts or all the words I either spoke or wrote, publicly or privately, upon Irish politics, I am perfectly willing to be put upon my country. In any free country that has real constitutional institutions to guarantee the liberty of the subject—to guarantee the free trial of the subject charged with an offence against either the state or his neighbour, it would be quite absurd to expect a man could be put upon his country and convicted of a crime for doing that and using such words as the vast majority of his fellow-countrymen approve. In this case I believe that a vast majority of my fellow-countrymen do not disapprove of the acts I acknowledge on that occasion, and that they sympathise in the sentiment of the words I then spoke. Therefore the mere fact that a prosecution is preferred against me for that act, and for those words, is the expression of an opinion on my part that this country does not at present enjoy real constitutional institutions, guaranteeing a free trial—guaranteeing that the man accused shall be really put upon his country. Therefore it is absurd to think that any twelve honest men, my neighbours, put upon their oaths, would declare that to be a crime which it is probable that, at least, four-fifths of them believe to be right—right both constitutionally and morally. I am aware—we are all aware—that the gentlemen who represent the crown in this country, have very powerful means at their disposal for obtaining convictions in the form of law and in the form of justice, of any person they think proper to accuse; and without meaning either to sneer or to joke in this matter, I acknowledge the moderation of the gentlemen who represent the government, since they chose to trouble themselves with me at all. I acknowledge their moderation in proposing to indict me now for sedition, for the language which they say I used, because it is possible for them, with the means at their disposal, to have me convicted for murder, or burglary, or bigamy (laughter). I am sorry to say what seems like a sneer, but I use the words in deep and solemn seriousness, and I say no more than I am perfectly ready to be tried fairly or foully (applause in court).

The magistrates reserved their decision till next day; so that there might be decent and seemly pause for the purpose of looking up and pondering the legal precedents, as the legal fiction would have it; and on next day, they announced that they would send all the accused for trial to the next Commission at Green-street, to open on the 10th February, 1868. The several traversers, however, were required to enter merely into their own recognizances in £500 each to appear for trial.

In this police court proceeding the government, confessedly, were morally worsted—utterly humiliated, in fact. So far from creating awe or striking terror, the prosecution had evoked general contempt, scorn, and indignation. To such an extent was this fact recognised, that the government journals themselves, as we have seen, were amongst the loudest in censuring the whole proceeding, and in supporting the general expectation that there was an end of the prosecution.

Not so however was it to be. The very bitterness of the mortification inflicted upon them by their "roll in the dust" on their first legal encounter with the processionists, seemed to render the crown officials more and more vindictive. It was too galling to lie under the public challenge hurled at them by Mr. Bracken, Mr. O'Reilly, and Mr. Sullivan. After twelve days' cogitation, government made up its mind to strike.

On Saturday, 28th December, 1867—just as everyone in Ireland seemed to have concluded that, as the Conservative journals said, there was "an end of" the foolish and ill-advised funeral prosecutions—Mr. Sullivan, Mr. Bracken (one of the funeral stewards), Mr. Jennings, of Kingstown (one of the best known and most trusted of the nationalists of "Dunleary" district). Mr. O'Reilly, (one of the mounted marshals at the procession), and some others, were served with citations to appear on Monday the 30th, at the Head Police Office, to answer charges identical with those preferred on the 16th against Mr. Martin, Dr. Waters, and Mr. Lalor.

Preliminary prosecution No. 2 very much resembled No. 1. Mr. Murphy, Q.C. stated the crown case with fairness and moderation; and the police, as before, gave their evidence like men who felt "duty" and "conscience" in sore disagreement on such an occasion. Mr. Jennings and Mr. O'Reilly were defended, respectively, by Mr. Molloy and Mr. Crean; two advocates whose selection from the junior bar for these critical and important public cases was triumphantly vindicated by their conduct from the first to the last scene of the drama. Mr. Sullivan, Mr. Bracken, and the other accused, were not represented by counsel. On the first-named gentleman (Mr. Sullivan) being formally called on, he addressed the court at some length. He said:—

Please your worship, had the officials of the crown adopted towards me, in the first instance, the course which they have taken upon the present occasion, and had they not adopted the singular course which they pursued in my regard when I last appeared in this court, I should trouble you with no observations. For, as one of the 50,000 persons who, on the 8th of December, in this city, publicly, lawfully, and peacefully demonstrated their protest against what they believed to have been a denial of law and an outrage on justice, I should certainly waste no public time in this preliminary investigation, but rather admit the facts as you perceive I have done to-day, and hasten the final decision on the issues really knit between us and the crown. What was the course adopted by the crown in the first instance against me? They had before them, on the 9th, just as well as on the 29th—it is in evidence that they had—the fact that I, openly and publicly, took part in that demonstration—that sorrowful and sad protest against injustice (applause). They had before them then as much as they had before them to-day, or as much as they will ever have affecting me. For, whatever course I take in public affairs in this country, I conceal nothing, I take it publicly, openly, and deliberately. If I err, I am satisfied to abide the consequences; and, whenever it may suit the weathercock judgment of Lord Mayo, and his vacillating law advisers, to characterise my acts or my opinion as illegal, seditious, heretical, idolatrous, or treasonable, I must, like every other subject, be content to take my chance of their being able to find a jury sufficiently facile or sufficiently stupid to carry out their behests against me. But they did not choose that course at first. They did not summon me as a principal, but they subpoenaed me as a witness—as a crown witness—against some of my dearest, personal, and public friends. The attorney-general, whose word I most fully and frankly accept in the matter—for I would not charge him with being wanting in personal truthfulness—denied having had any complicity in the course of conduct pursued towards me; but where does he lay the responsibility? On "the police." What is the meaning of that phrase, "the police?" He surely does not mean that the members of the force, who parade our streets, exercise viceregal functions (laughter). Who was this person thus called the "police?" How many degrees above or below the attorney-general are we to look for this functionary described as "the police," who has the authority to have a "seditious" man—that is the allegation—a seditious man—exempted from prosecution? The police cannot do that. Who, then? Who was he that could draw the line between John Martin and his friend A.M. Sullivan—exempt the one, prosecute the other—summon the former as a defendant and subpoena the latter as a crown witness? What was the object? It is plain. There are at this moment, I am convinced—who doubts it?—throughout Ireland, as yet unfound out, Talbots and Corridons in the pay of the crown acting as Fenian centres, who, next day, would receive from their employers directions to spread amongst my countrymen the intelligence that I had been here to betray my associate, John Martin (applause). But their plot recoiled—their device was exposed; public opinion expressed its reprobation of the unsuccessful trick; and now they come to mend their hand. The men who were exempted before are prosecuted to-day. Now, your worships, on this whole case—on this entire procedure—I deliberately charge that not we, but the government, have violated the law. I charge that the government are well aware that the law is against them—that they are irresistibly driven upon this attempt to strain and break the law against the constitutional right and liberty of the subject by their mere party exigencies and necessities.

He then reviewed at length the bearing of the Party Processions Act upon the present case; and next proceeded to deal with the subject of the Manchester executions; maintaining that the men were hanged, as were others before them, in like moments of national passion and frenzy, on a false evidence and a rotten verdict. Mr. Sullivan proceeded:—

It is because the people love justice and abhor injustice—because the real crime of those three victims is believed to have been devotion to native land—that the Catholic churches of Ireland resound with prayers and requiem hymns, and the public highways were lined with sympathising thousands, until the guilty fears of the executioners proclaimed it illegal to mourn. Think you, sir, if the crown view of this matter were the true one, would the Catholic clergy of Ireland—they who braved fierce and bitter unpopularity in reprehending the Fenian conspiracy at a time when Lord Mayo's organ was patting it on the back for its 'fine Sardinian spirit'—would these ministers of religion drape their churches for three common murderers? I repel as a calumnious and slanderous accusation against the Catholic clergy of Ireland this charge, that by their mourning for those three martyred Irishmen, they expressed sympathy, directly or indirectly, with murder or life-taking. If an act be seditious, it is not the less illegal in the church than in the graveyard, or on the road to the cemetery. Are we, then, to understand that our churches are to be invaded by bands of soldiery, and our priests dragged from the altars, for the seditious crime of proclaiming aloud their belief in the innocence of Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien? This, sir, is what depends on the decision in this case, here or elsewhere. All this and more. It is to be decided whether, in their capacity of Privy Councillors, the judges of the land shall put forth a proclamation the legality or binding force of which they will afterwards sit as judges to try. It is whether, there being no constitution now allowed to exist in the country, there is to be no law save what a Castle proclamation will construct, permit, or decree; no mourning save what the police will license; no demonstration of opinion save whatever accords with the government views. We hear much of the liberties enjoyed in this country. No doubt, we have fine constitutional rights and securities, until the very time they are most required. When we have no need to invoke them, they are permitted to us; but at the only time when they might be of substantial value, they are, as the phrase goes, "suspended." Who, unless in times of governmental panic, need apprehend unwarranted arrest? When else is theHabeas CorpusAct of such considerable protection to the subject? When, unless when the crown seeks to invade public liberty, is the purity and integrity of trial by jury of such value and importance in political cases? Yet all the world knows that the British government, whenever such a conflict arises, juggles and packs the jury—Mr. Dix—I really cannot allow that language to be used in this court, Mr. Sullivan, with every disposition to accord you, as an accused person, the amplest limits in your observations. Such language goes beyond what I can permit—Mr. Sullivan—I, at once, in respect for your worship, retract the word juggle. I will say the crown manipulates the jury.Mr. Dix—I can't at all allow this line of comment to be pursued—Mr. Sullivan—With all respect for your worship, and while I am ready to use any phrase most suitable for utterance here, I will not give up my right to state and proclaim the fact, however unpalatable, when it is notoriously true. I stand upon my rights to say, that you have all the greater reason to pause, ere you send me, or any other citizen, for trial before a jury in a crown prosecution at a moment like the present, when trial by jury, as the theory of the constitution supposes it, does not exist in the land. I say there is now notoriously no fair trial by jury to be had in this country, as between the subject and the crown. Never yet, in an important political case, have the government in this country dared to allow twelve men indifferently chosen, to pass into the jury-box to try the issue between the subject and the crown. And now, sir, if you send the case for trial, and suppose the government succeed by the juries they are able to empanel here, with 'Fenian' ticketed on the backs of the accused by the real governors of the country—the Heygates and the Bruces—and if it is declared by you that in this land of mourning it has become at last criminal even to mourn—what a victory for the crown! Oh, sir, they have been for years winning such victories, and thereby manufacturing conspiracies—driving people from the open and legitimate expression of their sentiments into corners to conspire and to hide. I stand here as a man against whom some clamour has been raised for my efforts to save my countrymen from the courses into which the government conduct has been driving them, and I say that there is no more revolutionary agent in the land than that persecution of authority which says to the people, "When we strike you, we forbid you to weep." We meet the crown, foot to foot, on its case here. We say we have committed no offence, but that the prosecution against us has been instituted to subserve their party exigencies, and that the government is straining and violating the law. We challenge them to the issue, and even should they succeed in obtaining from a crown jury a verdict against us, we have a wider tribunal to appeal to—the decision of our own consciences and the judgment of humanity (applause).Mr. Murphy, Q.C., briefly replied. He asked his worship not to decide that the procession was illegal, but that this case was one for a court of law and a jury.

Mr. Dix—I really cannot allow that language to be used in this court, Mr. Sullivan, with every disposition to accord you, as an accused person, the amplest limits in your observations. Such language goes beyond what I can permit—

Mr. Sullivan—I, at once, in respect for your worship, retract the word juggle. I will say the crown manipulates the jury.

Mr. Dix—I can't at all allow this line of comment to be pursued—

Mr. Sullivan—With all respect for your worship, and while I am ready to use any phrase most suitable for utterance here, I will not give up my right to state and proclaim the fact, however unpalatable, when it is notoriously true. I stand upon my rights to say, that you have all the greater reason to pause, ere you send me, or any other citizen, for trial before a jury in a crown prosecution at a moment like the present, when trial by jury, as the theory of the constitution supposes it, does not exist in the land. I say there is now notoriously no fair trial by jury to be had in this country, as between the subject and the crown. Never yet, in an important political case, have the government in this country dared to allow twelve men indifferently chosen, to pass into the jury-box to try the issue between the subject and the crown. And now, sir, if you send the case for trial, and suppose the government succeed by the juries they are able to empanel here, with 'Fenian' ticketed on the backs of the accused by the real governors of the country—the Heygates and the Bruces—and if it is declared by you that in this land of mourning it has become at last criminal even to mourn—what a victory for the crown! Oh, sir, they have been for years winning such victories, and thereby manufacturing conspiracies—driving people from the open and legitimate expression of their sentiments into corners to conspire and to hide. I stand here as a man against whom some clamour has been raised for my efforts to save my countrymen from the courses into which the government conduct has been driving them, and I say that there is no more revolutionary agent in the land than that persecution of authority which says to the people, "When we strike you, we forbid you to weep." We meet the crown, foot to foot, on its case here. We say we have committed no offence, but that the prosecution against us has been instituted to subserve their party exigencies, and that the government is straining and violating the law. We challenge them to the issue, and even should they succeed in obtaining from a crown jury a verdict against us, we have a wider tribunal to appeal to—the decision of our own consciences and the judgment of humanity (applause).

Mr. Murphy, Q.C., briefly replied. He asked his worship not to decide that the procession was illegal, but that this case was one for a court of law and a jury.

On this occasion it was unnecessary for Mr. Dix to take any "time to consider his decision." All the accused were bound over in their own recognizances to stand their trials at the forthcoming Commission in Green-street court, on the 10th of February, 1868.

The plunge which the crown officials had shivered so long before attempting had now been taken, and they determined to go through with the work,a l'outrance. In the interval between the last police-court scene described above, and the opening of the Green-street Commission, in February, 1868, prosecutions were directly commenced against theIrishmanand theWeekly Newsfor seditious writing. In the case of the former journal the proprietor tried some skilfully-devised preparatory legal moves and manoeuvers, not one of which of course succeeded, though their justice and legality were apparent enough. In the case of the latter journal—theWeekly News—the proprietor raised no legal point whatsoever. The fact was that when he found the crown not content withonestate prosecution against him (that for the funeral procession), coming upon him witha second, he knew his doom was sealed. He very correctly judged that legal moves would be all in vain—that his conviction,per fas aut ne fas, was to be obtained—that a jury would be packed against him—and that consequently the briefest and most dignified course for him would be to go straight to the conflict and meet it boldly.

On Monday, 10th February, 1868, the commission was opened in Green-street, Dublin, before Mr. Justice Fitzgerald and Baron Deasy. Soon a cunning and unworthy legal trick on the part of the crown was revealed. The prosecuted processionists and journalists had been indicted in thecityvenue, had been returned for trial to thecitycommission by acityjury. But the government at the last moment mistrusted a city jury in this instance—even apackedcity jury—and without any notice to the traversers, sent the indictments before thecountygrand jury, so that they might be tried by a jury picked and packed from the anti-Irish oligarchy of the Pale. It was an act of gross illegality, hardship, and oppression. The illegality of such a course had been ruled and decided in the case of Mr. Gavan Duffy in 1848. But the point was raised vainly now. When Mr. Pigott, of theIrishman, was called to plead, his counsel (Mr. Heron, Q.C.) insisted that he, the traverser, was now in custody of thecitysheriff in accordance with his recognizances, and could not without legal process be removed to the county venue. An exciting encounter ensued between Mr. Heron and the crown counsel, and the court took till next day to decide the point. Next morning it was decided in favour of the crown, and Mr. Pigott was about being arraigned, when, in order that he might not be prejudiced by having attended pending the decision, the attorney-general said, "he would shut his eyes to the fact that that gentleman was now in court," and would have him called immediately—an intimation that Mr. Pigott might, if advised, try the course of refusing to appear. He did so refuse. When next called, Mr. Pigott was not forthcoming, and on the police proceeding to his office and residence that gentleman was not to be found—having, as the attorney-general spitefully expressed it, "fled from justice." Mr. Sullivan's case, had, of necessity, then to be called; and this was exactly what the crown had desired to avoid, and what Mr. Heron had aimed to secure. It was the secret of all the skirmishing. A very general impression prevailed that the crown would fail in getting a jury to convict Mr. Sullivan on any indictment tinctured even ever so faintly with "Fenianism;" and it was deemed of great importance to Mr. Pigott's case to force the crown to begin with the one in which failure was expected—Mr. Sullivan having intimated his perfect willingness to be either pushed to the front or kept to the last, according as might best promise to secure the discomfiture of the government. Mr. Heron had therefore so far out-manoeuvered the crown. Mr. Sullivan appeared in court and announced himself ready for trial, and the next morning was fixed for his arraignment. Up to this moment, that gentleman had expressed his determination not only to discard legal points, but to decline ordinary professional defence, and to address the jury in his own behalf. Now, however, deferring to considerations strongly pressed on him (set forth in his speech to the jury in the funeral procession case), he relinquished this resolution; and, late on the night preceding his trial, entrusted to Mr. Heron, Q.C., Mr. Crean, and Mr. Molloy, his defence on this first prosecution.

Next morning, Saturday, 15th February, 1868, the trial commenced; a jury was duly packed by the "stand-by" process, and notwithstanding a charge by Justice Fitzgerald, which was, on the whole one of the fairest heard in Ireland in a political case for many years, Mr. Sullivan was duly convicted of having, by pictures and writings in his journal theWeekly News, seditiously brought the crown and government into hatred and contempt.

The government officials were jubilant. Mr. Pigott was next arraigned, and after an exceedingly able defence by Mr. Heron, was likewise convicted.

It was now very generally concluded that the government would be satisfied with these convictions, and would not proceed with the funeral procession cases. At all events, it was universally regarded as certain that Mr. Sullivan would not be arraigned on the second or funeral procession indictment, as he now stood convicted on the other—the press charge. But it was not to be so. Elate with their success, the crown officials thought they might even discard their doubts of a city jury; and on Thursday morning, 20th February, 1868, John Martin, Alexander M. Sullivan, Thomas Bracken, and J.J. Lalor,[A]were formally arraigned in thecityvenue.

[A]Dr. Waters, in the interval since his committal on this charge, had been arrested, and was now imprisoned, under the Suspension of theHabeas CorpusAct. He was not brought to trial on the procession charge.

It was a scene to be long remembered, that which was presented in the Green-street court-house on that Thursday morning. The dogged vindictiveness of the crown officials, in persisting with this second prosecution, seemed to have excited intense feeling throughout the city, and long before the proceedings opened the court was crowded in every part with anxious spectators. When Mr. Martin entered, accompanied by his brother-in-law, Dr. Simpson, and Mr. Ross Todd, and took his seat at the travelers' bar, a low murmur of respectful sympathy, amounting to applause, ran through the building. And surely it was a sight to move the heart to see this patriot—this man of pure and stainless life, this man of exalted character, of noble soul, and glorious principles—standing once more in that spot where twenty years before he stood confronting the same foe in the same righteous and holy cause—standing once more at that bar whence, twenty years before, he was led off manacled to a felon's doom for the crime of loving Ireland! Many changes had taken place in the interval, but over the stern integrity ofhissoul time had wrought no change. He himself seemed to recall at this moment his last "trial" scene on this spot, and, as he cast his gaze around, one could detect on his calm thoughtful face something of sadness, yet of pride, as memory doubtless pictured the spectacle of twenty years ago.

Mr. Sullivan, Mr. Bracken, and Mr. Lalor, arrived soon after, and immediately the judges appeared on the bench the proceedings began.

On their lordships, Mr. Justice Fitzgerald and Mr. Baron Deasy, taking their seats upon the bench,Mr. Smartt (deputy clerk of the crown) called upon John Martin, Alexander M. Sullivan, John J. Lalor, and Thomas Bracken, to come and appear as they were bound to do in discharge of their recognizances.All the traversers answered.Mr. Smartt then proceeded to arraign the traversers under an indictment charging in the first count—"That John Martin, John C. Waters, John J. Lalor, Alexander M. Sullivan, and Thomas Bracken, being malicious, seditious, and ill-disposed persons, and intending to disturb the peace and tranquillity of the realm, and to excite discontent and disaffection, and to excite the subjects of our Lady the Queen in Ireland to hatred and dislike of the government, the laws, and the administration of the laws of this realm, on the 8th day of December, in the year of our Lord, 1867, unlawfully did assemble and meet together with divers other persons, amounting to a large number—to wit, fifteen thousand persons—for the purpose of exciting discontent and disaffection, and for the purpose of exciting her Majesty's subjects in Ireland to hatred of her government and the laws of this realm, in contempt of our Lady the Queen, in open violation of the laws of this realm, and against the peace of our Lady the Queen, her crown and dignity." The second count charged that the defendants intended "to cause it to be believed that the three men who had been duly tried, found guilty, and sentenced, according to law, for murder, at Manchester, in England, had been illegally and unjustly executed; and to excite hatred, dislike, and disaffection against the administration of justice, and the laws of this realm, for and in respect of the execution of the said three men." A third count charged the publication at the unlawful assembly laid in the first and second counts of the false and seditious words contained in Mr. John Martin's speech. A fourth and last count was framed under the Party Processions' Act, and charged that the defendants "did unlawfully meet, assemble, and parade together, and were present at and did join in a procession with divers others, and did bear, wear, and have amongst them in said procession certain emblems and symbols, the display whereof was calculated to and did tend to provoke animosity between different classes of her Majesty's subjects, against the form of the statute in such case made and provided, and against the peace of our Lady the Queen, her crown and dignity."The traversers severally pleaded not guilty.The Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, Dr. Ball, Q.C.; Mr. Charles Shaw, Q.C.; Mr. James Murphy, Q.C.; Mr. R.H. Owen, Q.C.; and Mr. Edward Beytagh, instructed by Mr. Anderson, Crown Solicitor, appeared to prosecute.Mr. Martin, Mr. Sullivan, and Mr. Bracken were not professionally assisted.Mr. Michael T. Crean, instructed by Mr. John T. Scallan, appeared for Mr. Lalor.

On their lordships, Mr. Justice Fitzgerald and Mr. Baron Deasy, taking their seats upon the bench,

Mr. Smartt (deputy clerk of the crown) called upon John Martin, Alexander M. Sullivan, John J. Lalor, and Thomas Bracken, to come and appear as they were bound to do in discharge of their recognizances.

All the traversers answered.

Mr. Smartt then proceeded to arraign the traversers under an indictment charging in the first count—"That John Martin, John C. Waters, John J. Lalor, Alexander M. Sullivan, and Thomas Bracken, being malicious, seditious, and ill-disposed persons, and intending to disturb the peace and tranquillity of the realm, and to excite discontent and disaffection, and to excite the subjects of our Lady the Queen in Ireland to hatred and dislike of the government, the laws, and the administration of the laws of this realm, on the 8th day of December, in the year of our Lord, 1867, unlawfully did assemble and meet together with divers other persons, amounting to a large number—to wit, fifteen thousand persons—for the purpose of exciting discontent and disaffection, and for the purpose of exciting her Majesty's subjects in Ireland to hatred of her government and the laws of this realm, in contempt of our Lady the Queen, in open violation of the laws of this realm, and against the peace of our Lady the Queen, her crown and dignity." The second count charged that the defendants intended "to cause it to be believed that the three men who had been duly tried, found guilty, and sentenced, according to law, for murder, at Manchester, in England, had been illegally and unjustly executed; and to excite hatred, dislike, and disaffection against the administration of justice, and the laws of this realm, for and in respect of the execution of the said three men." A third count charged the publication at the unlawful assembly laid in the first and second counts of the false and seditious words contained in Mr. John Martin's speech. A fourth and last count was framed under the Party Processions' Act, and charged that the defendants "did unlawfully meet, assemble, and parade together, and were present at and did join in a procession with divers others, and did bear, wear, and have amongst them in said procession certain emblems and symbols, the display whereof was calculated to and did tend to provoke animosity between different classes of her Majesty's subjects, against the form of the statute in such case made and provided, and against the peace of our Lady the Queen, her crown and dignity."

The traversers severally pleaded not guilty.

The Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, Dr. Ball, Q.C.; Mr. Charles Shaw, Q.C.; Mr. James Murphy, Q.C.; Mr. R.H. Owen, Q.C.; and Mr. Edward Beytagh, instructed by Mr. Anderson, Crown Solicitor, appeared to prosecute.

Mr. Martin, Mr. Sullivan, and Mr. Bracken were not professionally assisted.

Mr. Michael T. Crean, instructed by Mr. John T. Scallan, appeared for Mr. Lalor.

And now came the critical stage of the case.Would the crown pack the jury?The clerk of the crown began to call the panel, when—

John Keegan was called and ordered to stand by on the part of the crown.Mr. Sullivan—My lord, have I any right to challenge?Mr. Justice Fitzgerald—You have Mr. Sullivan, for cause.Mr. Sullivan—And can the crown order a juror to stand by without a cause assigned?Mr. Justice Fitzgerald—The crown has a right to exercise that privilege.Mr. Sullivan—Well, I will exercise no challenge, for cause or without cause. Let the crown select a jury now as it pleases.Subsequently George M'Cartney was called, and directed to stand by.Patrick Ryan was also ordered to stand by.Mr. Martin—I protest against this manner of selecting a jury. I do so publicly.J.J. Lalor—I also protest against it.Thomas Bracken—And I also.

John Keegan was called and ordered to stand by on the part of the crown.

Mr. Sullivan—My lord, have I any right to challenge?

Mr. Justice Fitzgerald—You have Mr. Sullivan, for cause.

Mr. Sullivan—And can the crown order a juror to stand by without a cause assigned?

Mr. Justice Fitzgerald—The crown has a right to exercise that privilege.

Mr. Sullivan—Well, I will exercise no challenge, for cause or without cause. Let the crown select a jury now as it pleases.

Subsequently George M'Cartney was called, and directed to stand by.

Patrick Ryan was also ordered to stand by.

Mr. Martin—I protest against this manner of selecting a jury. I do so publicly.

J.J. Lalor—I also protest against it.

Thomas Bracken—And I also.

The sensation produced by this scene embarrassed the crown officials not a little. It dragged to light the true character of their proceeding. Eventually the following twelve gentlemen were suffered by the crown to pass into the box as a "jury"—[Footnote: Not one Catholic was allowed to pass into the box. Every Catholic who came to the box was ordered to "Stand by."]

SAMUEL EAKINS, Foreman. WILLIAM DOWNES GRIFFITH. EDWARD GATCHELL. THOMAS MAXWELL HUTTON. MAURICE KERR. WILLIAM LONGFIELD. JOSEPH PURSER. THOMAS PAUL. JAMES REILLY. JOHN GEORGE SHIELS. WILLIAM O'BRIEN SMYTH. GEORGE WALSH.

The Solicitor-General, Mr. Harrison, stated the case for the prosecution. Next the police repeated their evidence—their description of the procession—as given before the magistrates, and the government short-hand writer proved Mr. Martin's speech. The only witnesses now produced who had not testified at the preliminary stage were a Manchester policeman named Seth Bromley, who had been one of the van escort on the day of the rescue, and the degraded and infamous crown spy, Corridon. The former—eager as a beagle on the scent to run down the prey before him—left the table amidst murmurs of derision and indignation evoked by his over-eagerness on his direct examination, and his "fencing" and evasion on cross-examination. The spy Corridon was produced "to prove the existence of the Fenian conspiracy." Little notice was taken of him. Mr. Crean asked him barely a trivial question or two. Mr. Martin and Mr. Sullivan, when asked if they desired to cross-examine him, replied silently by gestures of loathing; and the wretch left the table—crawled from it—like a crippled murderer from the scene of his crime.

This closed the case for the crown, and Mr. Crean, counsel for Mr. Lalor, rose to address the jury on behalf of his client. His speech was argumentative, terse, forcible, and eloquent; and seemed to please and astonish not only the auditors but the judges themselves, who evidently had not looked for so much ability and vigour in the young advocate before them. Although the speeches of professional advocates do not come within the scope of this publication, Mr. Crean's vindication of the national colour of Ireland—probably the most telling passage in his address—has an importance which warrants its quotation here:—

Gentlemen, it is attempted in this case to make the traversers amenable under the Party Processions' Act, because those in the procession wore green ribbons. Gentlemen, this is the first time, in the history of Irish State Prosecutions which mark the periods of gloom and peril in this country, that the wearing of a green ribbon has been formally indicted; and I may say it is no good sign of the times that an offence which has been hitherto unknown to the law should now crop up for the first time in this year of grace, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight. Not even in the worst days of Lord Castlereagh's ill-omened regime was such an attempt as this made to degrade the green of Ireland into a party colour, and to make that which has long been regarded as a national emblem the symbol of a faction. Gentlemen, there is no right-minded or right-hearted man—looking back upon the ruinous dissensions and bitter conflicts which have been the curse and bane of this country—who will not reprobate any effort to revive and perpetuate them. There is no well-disposed man in the community who will not condemn and crush those persons—no matter on what side they may stand—who make religion, which should be the fountain and mother of all peace and blessings, the cause of rancour and animosity. We have had, unhappily, gentlemen, too much of this in Ireland. We have been too long the victims of that wayward fate of which the poet wrote, when he said:—"Whilst our tyrants join in hate,We never joined in love."But, gentlemen, I will ask of you if you ever before heard, until this time, that the green of Ireland was the peculiar colour of any particular sect, creed, or faction, or that any of the people of this country wore it as the peculiar emblem of their party, and for the purpose of giving annoyance and of offering insult to some other portion of their fellow-countrymen. I must say that I never heard before that Catholic or Protestant, or Quaker or Moravian, laid claim to this colour as a symbol of party. I thought all Irishmen, no matter what altar they bowed before, regarded the green as the national colour of Ireland. If it is illegal to wear the green, all I can say is that the Constabulary are guilty of a constant and continuing breach of the law. The Lord and Lady Lieutenant will probably appear on next Patrick's Day, decorated with large bunches of green shamrock. Many of the highest officials of the government will do the same; and is it to be thought for one moment that they, by wearing this green emblem of Ireland and of Irish nationality, are violating the law of the land. Gentlemen, it is perfectly absurd to think so. I hope this country has not yet so fallen as that it has become a crime to wear the green. I trust we have not yet come to that pass of national degradation, that a jury of Irishmen can be found so forgetful of their country's dignity and of their own as to brand with a mark of infamy a colour which is associated with so many recollections, not of party triumphs, but of national glories—not with any sect, or creed, or party, but with a nation and a race whose children, whether they were the exiled soldiers of a foreign state, or the soldiers of Great Britain—whether at Fontenoy or on the plains of Waterloo, or on the heights of Fredericksburgh, have nobly vindicated the chivalry and fame of Ireland! It is for them that the green has its true meaning. It is to the Irishman in a distant land this emblem is so dear, for it is entwined in his memory, not with any miserable faction, but with the home and the country which gave him birth. I do hope that Irishmen will never be ashamed in this country to wear the green, and I hope an attempt will never again be made in an Irish court of justice to punish Irishmen for wearing that which is a national colour, and of which every man who values his country should feel proud.

But, gentlemen, I will ask of you if you ever before heard, until this time, that the green of Ireland was the peculiar colour of any particular sect, creed, or faction, or that any of the people of this country wore it as the peculiar emblem of their party, and for the purpose of giving annoyance and of offering insult to some other portion of their fellow-countrymen. I must say that I never heard before that Catholic or Protestant, or Quaker or Moravian, laid claim to this colour as a symbol of party. I thought all Irishmen, no matter what altar they bowed before, regarded the green as the national colour of Ireland. If it is illegal to wear the green, all I can say is that the Constabulary are guilty of a constant and continuing breach of the law. The Lord and Lady Lieutenant will probably appear on next Patrick's Day, decorated with large bunches of green shamrock. Many of the highest officials of the government will do the same; and is it to be thought for one moment that they, by wearing this green emblem of Ireland and of Irish nationality, are violating the law of the land. Gentlemen, it is perfectly absurd to think so. I hope this country has not yet so fallen as that it has become a crime to wear the green. I trust we have not yet come to that pass of national degradation, that a jury of Irishmen can be found so forgetful of their country's dignity and of their own as to brand with a mark of infamy a colour which is associated with so many recollections, not of party triumphs, but of national glories—not with any sect, or creed, or party, but with a nation and a race whose children, whether they were the exiled soldiers of a foreign state, or the soldiers of Great Britain—whether at Fontenoy or on the plains of Waterloo, or on the heights of Fredericksburgh, have nobly vindicated the chivalry and fame of Ireland! It is for them that the green has its true meaning. It is to the Irishman in a distant land this emblem is so dear, for it is entwined in his memory, not with any miserable faction, but with the home and the country which gave him birth. I do hope that Irishmen will never be ashamed in this country to wear the green, and I hope an attempt will never again be made in an Irish court of justice to punish Irishmen for wearing that which is a national colour, and of which every man who values his country should feel proud.

When Mr. Crean resumed his seat—which he did amidst strong manifestations of applause—it was past three o'clock in the afternoon. It was not expected that the case would have proceeded so far by that hour, and Mr. Martin and Mr. Sullivan, who intended each to speak in his own behalf, did not expect to rise for that purpose before next day, when it was arranged that Mr. Martin would speak first, and Mr. Sullivan follow him. Now, however, it was necessary some one of them should rise to his defence, and Mr. Martin urged that Mr. Sullivan should begin.

By this time the attendance in court, which, during the Solicitor-General's speech and the crown evidence, thinned down considerably, had once more grown too great for the fair capacity of the building. There was a crush within, and a crowd without. When Mr. Sullivan was seen to rise, after a moment's hurried consultation with Mr. Martin, who sat beside him, there was a buzz, followed by an anxious silence. For a moment the accused paused, almost overcome (as well he might have been) by a sense of the responsibility of this novel and dangerous course. But he quickly addressed himself to the critical task he had undertaken, and spoke as follows:—[Footnote: As Mr. Sullivan delivered this speech without even the ordinary assistance of written notes or memoranda, the report here quoted is that which was published in the newspapers of the time. Some few inaccuracies which he was precluded from correcting then (being a prisoner when this speech was first published), have been corrected for this publication.]

My lords and gentlemen of the jury—I rise to address you under circumstances of embarassment which will, I hope, secure for me a little consideration and indulgence at your hands. I have to ask you at the outset to banish any prejudice that might arise in your minds against a man who adopts the singular course—who undertakes the serious responsibility—of pleading his own defence. Such a proceeding might be thought to be dictated either by disparagement of the ordinary legal advocacy, by some poor idea of personal vanity, or by way of reflection on the tribunal before which the defence is made. My conduct is dictated by neither of these considerations or influences. Last of all men living should I reflect upon the ability, zeal, and fidelity of the Bar of Ireland, represented as it has been in my own behalf within the past two days by a man whose heart and genius are, thank God, still left to the service of our country, and represented, too, as it has been here this day by that gifted young advocate, the echoes of whose eloquence still resound in this court, and place me at disadvantage in immediately following him. And assuredly I design no disrespect to this court; either to tribunal in the abstract, or to the individual judges who preside; from one of whom I heard two days ago delivered in my own case a charge of which I shall say—though followed by a verdict which already consigns me to a prison—that it was, judging it as a whole, the fairest, the clearest, the most just and impartial ever given to my knowledge, in a political case of this kind in Ireland between the subject and the crown. No; I stand here in my own defence to-day, because long since I formed the opinion that, on many grounds, in such a prosecution as this, such a course would be the most fair and most consistent for a man like me. That resolution I was, for the sake of others, induced to depart from on Saturday last, in the first prosecution against me. When it came to be seen that I was the first to be tried out of two journalists prosecuted, it was strongly urged on me that my course, and the result of my trial, might largely affect the case of the other journalist to be tried after, me; and that I ought to waive my individual views and feelings, and have the utmost legal ability brought to bear in behalf of the case of the national press at the first point of conflict. I did so. I was defended by a bar not to be surpassed in the kingdom for ability and earnest zeal; yet the result was what I anticipated. For I knew, as I had held all along, that in a case like this, where law and fact are left to the jury, legal ability is of no avail if the crown comes in with its arbitrary power of moulding the jury. In that case, as in this one, I openly, publicly, and distinctly announced that I for my part would challenge no one, whether with cause or without cause. Yet the crown—in the face of this fact—and in a case where they knew that at least the accused had no like power of peremptory challenge—did not venture to meet me on equal footing; did not venture to abstain from their practice of absolute challenge; in fine, did not dare to trust their case to twelve men "indifferently chosen," as the constitution supposes a jury to be. Now, gentlemen, before I enter further upon this jury question, let me say that with me this is no complaint merely against "the Tories." On this as well as on numerous other subjects, it is well known that it has been my unfortunate lot to arraign both Whigs and Tories. I say further, that I care not a jot whether the twelve men selected or permitted by the crown to try me, or rather to convict me, by twelve of my own co-religionists and political compatriots, or twelve Protestants, Conservatives, Tories, or "Orangemen." Understand me clearly on this. My objection is not to the individuals comprising the jury. You may be all Catholics, or you may be all Protestants, for aught that affects my protest, which is against the mode by which you are selected—selected by the crown—their choice for their own ends—and not "indifferently chosen" between the crown and the accused. You may disappoint, or you may justify the calculations of the crown official, who has picked you out from the panel, by negative or positive choice (I being silent and powerless)—you may or may not be all he supposes—the outrage on the spirit of the constitution is the same. I say, by such a system of picking a jury by the crown, I am not put upon my country. Gentlemen, from the first moment these proceedings were commenced against me, I think it will be admitted that I endeavoured to meet them fairly and squarely, promptly and directly. I have never once turned to the right or to the left, but gone straight to the issue. I have from the outset declared my perfect readiness to meet the charges of the crown. I did not care when or where they tried me. I said I would avail of no technicality—that I would object to no juror—Catholic, Protestant, or Dissenter. All I asked—all I demanded—was to be "put upon my country," in the real, fair, and full sense and spirit of the constitution. All I asked was that the crown would keep its hand off the panel, as I would keep off mine. I had lived fifteen years in this city; and I should have lived in vain, if, amongst the men that knew me in that time, whatever might be their political or religious creed, I feared to have my acts, my conduct, or principles tried. It is the first and most original condition of society that a man shall subordinate his public acts to the welfare of the community, or at least acknowledge the right of those amongst whom his lot is cast, to judge him on such an issue as this. Freely I acknowledge that right. Readily have I responded to the call to submit to the judgment of my country, the question whether, in demonstrating my sorrow and sympathy for misfortune, my admiration for fortitude, my vehement indignation against what I considered to be injustice, I had gone too far and invaded the rights of the community. Gentlemen, I desire in all that I have to say to keep or be kept within what is regular and seemly, and above all to utter nothing wanting in respect for the court; but I do say, and I do protest, that I have not got trial by jury according to the spirit and meaning of the constitution. It is as representatives of the general community, not as representatives of the crown officials, the constitution supposes you to sit in that box. If you do not fairly represent the community, and if you are not empanelled indifferently in that sense, you are no jury in the spirit of the constitution. I care not how the crown practice may be within the technical letter of the law, it violates the intent and meaning of the constitution, and it is not "trial by jury." Let us suppose the scene removed, say, to France. A hundred names are returned on what is called a panel by a state functionary for the trial of a journalist charged with sedition. The accused is powerless to remove any name from the list unless for over-age or non-residence. But the imperial prosecutor has the arbitrary power of ordering as many as he pleases to "stand aside." By this means he puts or allows on the jury only whomsoever he pleases. He can, beforehand, select the twelve, and, by wiping out, if it suits him, the eighty-eight other names, put the twelve of his own choosing into the box. Can this be called trial by jury? Would not it be the same thing, in a more straightforward way, to let the crown-solicitor send out a policeman and collect twelve well-accredited persons of his own mind and opinion? For my own part, I would prefer this plain-dealing, and consider far preferable the more rude but honest hostility of a drum-head court martial (applause in the court). Again I say, understand me well, I am objecting to the principle, the system, the practice, and not to the twelve gentlemen now before me as individuals. Personally, I am confident that being citizens of Dublin, whatever your views or opinions, you are honourable and conscientious men. You may have strong prejudices against me or my principles in public life—very likely you have; but I doubt not that though these may unconsciously tinge your judgment and influence your verdict, you will not consciously violate the obligations of your oath. And I care not whether the crown, in permitting you to be the twelve, ordered three, or thirteen, or thirty others to "stand by"—or whether those thus arbitrarily put aside were Catholics or Protestants, Liberals, Conservatives, or Nationalists—the moment the crown put its finger at all on the panel, in a case where the accused had no equal right, the essential character of the jury was changed, and the spirit of the constitution was outraged. And now, what is the charge against my fellow-traversers and myself? The solicitor-general put it very pithily awhile ago when he said our crime was "glorifying the cause of murder." The story of the crown is a very terrible, a very startling one. It alleges a state of things which could hardly be supposed to exist amongst the Thugs of India. It depicts a population so hideously depraved that thirty thousand of them in one place, and tens of thousands in various other places, arrayed themselves publicly in procession to honour and glorify murder—to sympathise with murderers as murderers. Yes, gentlemen, that is the crown case, or they have no case at all—that the funeral procession in Dublin on the 8th December last was a demonstration of sympathy with murder as murder. For you will have noted that never once in his smart narration of the crown story, did Mr. Harrison allow even the faintest glimmer to appear of any other possible complexion or construction of our conduct. Why, I could have imagined it easy for him not merely to state his own case, but to state ours too, and show where we failed, and where his own side prevailed. I could easily imagine Mr. Harrison stating our view of the matter—and combatting it. But he never once dared to even mention our case. His whole aim was to hide it from you, and to fasten, as best such efforts of his could fasten, in your minds this one miserable refrain—"They glorified the cause of murder and assassination." But this is no new trick. It is the old story of the maligners of our people. They call the Irish a turbulent, riotous, crime-loving, law-hating race. They are for ever pointing to the unhappy fact—for, gentlemen, it is a fact—that between the Irish people and the laws under which they now live there is little or no sympathy, but bitter estrangement and hostility of feeling or of action. Bear with me if I examine this charge, since an understanding of it is necessary in order to judge our conduct on the 8th December last. I am driven upon this extent of defence by the singular conduct of the solicitor-general, who, with a temerity which he will repent, actually opened the page of Irish history, going back upon it just so far as it served his own purpose, and no farther. Ah! fatal hour for my prosecutors when they appealed to history. For assuredly, that is the tribunal that will vindicate the Irish people, and confound those who malign them as sympathisers with assassination and glorifiers of murder—Solicitor-General—My lord, I must really call upon you—I deny that I ever—Mr. Justice Fitzgerald—Proceed, Mr. Sullivan.Mr. Sullivan—My lord, I took down the solicitor-general's words. I quote them accurately as he spoke them, and he cannot get rid of them now. "Glorifiers of the cause of murder" was his designation of my fellow-traversers and myself, and our fifty thousand fellow-mourners in the funeral procession; and before I sit down I will make him rue the utterance. Gentlemen of the jury, if British law be held in "disesteem"—as the crown prosecutors phrase it—here in Ireland, there is an explanation for that fact, other than that supplied by the solicitor-general; namely, the wickedness of seditious persons like myself, and the criminal sympathies of a people ever ready to "glorify the cause of murder." Mournful, most mournful, is the lot of that land where the laws are not respected—nay, revered by the people. No greater curse could befall a country than to have the laws estranged from popular esteem, or in antagonism with the national sentiment. Everything goes wrong under such a state of things. The ivy will cling to the oak, and the tendrils of the vine reach forth towards strong support. But more anxiously and naturally still does the human heart instinctively seek an object of reverence and love, as well as of protection and support, in law, authority, sovereignty. At least, among a virtuous people like ours, there is ever a yearning for those relations which are, and ought to be, as natural between a people and their government as between the children and the parent. I say for myself, and I firmly believe I speak the sentiments of most Irishmen when I say, that so far from experiencing satisfaction, we experience pain in our present relations with the law and governing power; and we long for the day when happier relations may be restored between the laws and the national sentiment in Ireland. "We Irish are no race of assassins or "glorifiers of murder." From the most remote ages, in all centuries, it has been told of our people that they were pre-eminently a justice-loving people. Two hundred and fifty years ago the predecessor of the solicitor-general—an English attorney-general—it may be necessary to tell the learned gentleman that his name was Sir John Davis (for historical as well as geographical knowledge[B]seems to be rather scarce amongst the present law officers of the crown), (laughter)—held a very different opinion of them from that put forth to-day by the solicitor-general. Sir John Davis said no people in the world loved equal justice more than the Irish even where the decision was against themselves. That character the Irish have ever borne and bear still. But if you want the explanation of this "disesteem" and hostility for British law, you must trace effect to cause. It will not do to stand by the river side near where it flows into the sea, and wonder why the water continues to run by. Not I—not my fellow-traversers—not my fellow-countrymen—are accountable for the antagonism between law and popular sentiment in this country. Take up the sad story where you will—yesterday, last month, last year, last century—two centuries ago, three centuries, five centuries, six centuries—and what will you find? English law presenting itself to the Irish people in a guise forbidding sympathy or respect, and evoking fear and resentment. Take it at its birth in this country. Shake your minds free of legal theories and legal fictions, and deal with facts. This court where I now stand is the legal and political heir, descendant, and representative of the first law court of the Pale six or seven centuries ago. Within that Pale were a few thousand English settlers, and of them alone did the law take cognizance. The Irish nation—the millions outside the Pale—were known only as "the king's Irish enemie." The law classed them with the wild beasts of nature whom it was lawful to slay. Later on in our history we find the Irish near the Pale sometimes asking to be admitted to the benefits of English law, since they were forbidden to have any of their own; but their petitions were refused. Gentlemen, this was English law as it stood towards the Irish people for centuries; and wonder, if you will, that the Irish people held it in "disesteem:—[B]On Mr. Sullivan's first trial the solicitor-general, until stopped and corrected by the court, was suggesting to the jury that there was no such place as Knockrochery, and that a Fenian proclamation which had been published in theWeekly Newsas having been posted at that place, was, in fact, composed in Mr. Sullivan's Office. Mr. Justice Deasy, however, pointedly corrected and reproved this blunder on the part of Mr. Harrison."The Irish were denied the right of bringing actions in any of the English courts in Ireland for trespasses to their lands, or for assaults or batteries to their persons. Accordingly, it was answer enough to the action in such a case to say that the plaintiff was an Irishman, unless he could produce a special charter giving him the rights of an Englishman. If he sought damage against an Englishman for turning him out of his land, for the seduction of his daughter Nora, or for the beating of his wife Devorgil, or for the driving off of his cattle, it was a good defence to say he was a mere Irishman. And if an Englishman was indicted for manslaughter, if the man slain was an Irishman, he pleaded that the deceased was of the Irish nation, and that it was no felony to kill an Irishman. For this, however, there was a fine of five marks payable to the king; but mostly they killed us for nothing. If it happened that the man killed was a servant of an Englishman, he added to the plea of the deceased being an Irishman, that if the master should ever demand damages, he would be ready to satisfy him."That was the egg of English law in Ireland. That was the seed—that was the plant—do you wonder if the tree is not now esteemed and loved? If you poison a stream at its source, will you marvel if down through all its courses the deadly element is present? Now trace from this, its birth, English law in Ireland—trace down to this hour—and examine when or where it ever set itself to a reconciliation with the Irish people. Observe the plain relevancy of this to my case. I, and men like me, are held accountable for bringing law into hatred and contempt in Ireland: and in presenting this charge against me the solicitor-general appealed to history. I retort the charge on my accusers; and I will trace down to our own day the relations of hostility which English law itself established between itself and the people of Ireland. Gentlemen, for four hundred years—down to 1607—the Irish people had no existence in the eye of the law; or rather much worse, were viewed by it as "the King's Irish enemie." But even within the Pale, how did it recommend itself to popular reverence and affection? Ah, gentlemen, I will show that in those days, just as there have been in our own, there were executions and scaffold-scenes which evoked popular horror and resentment—though they were all "according to law," and not be questioned unless by "seditionists." The scaffold streamed with the blood of those whom the people loved and revered—how could they love and revere the scaffold? Yet, 'twas all "according to law." The sanctuary was profaned and rifled; the priest was slain or banished—'twas all "according to law," no doubt, and to hold law in "disesteem" is "sedition." Men were convicted and executed "according to law;" yet the people demonstrated sympathy for them, and resentment against their executioners—most perversely, as a solicitor-general, doubtless, would say. And, indeed, the State Papers contain accounts of those demonstrations written by crown officials which sound very like the solicitor-general's speech to-day. Take, for instance, the execution—"according to law"—of the "Popish bishop" O'Hurley. Here is the letter of a state functionary on the subject:—"I could not before now so impart to her Majesty as to know her mind touching the same for your lordship's direction. Wherefore, she having at length resolved, I have accordingly, by her commandment, to signify her Majesty's pleasure unto you touching Hurley, which is this:—That the man being so notorious and ill a subject, as appeareth by all the circumstances of his cause he is, you proceed, if it may be, to his execution by ordinary trial of him for it. How be it, in case you shall find the effect of his course DOUBTFUL by reason of the affection of such as shall be on his jury, and by reason of the supposal conceived by the lawyers of that country, that he can hardly be found guilty for his treason committed in foreign parts against her Majesty. Then her pleasure is you take A SHORTER WAY WITH HIM, by martial law. So, as you may see, it is referred to your discretion, whether of those two ways your lordship will take with him, and the man being so resolute to reveal no more matter, it is thought best to have no FURTHER TORTURES used against him, but that you proceed FORTHWITH TO HIS EXECUTION in manner aforesaid. As for her Majesty's good acceptation of your careful travail in this matter of Hurley, you need nothing to doubt, and for your better assurance thereof she has commanded me to let your lordship understand that, as well as in all others the like, as in the case of Hurley, she cannot but greatly allow and commend YOUR DOINGS."Well, they put his feet into tin boots filled with oil, and then placed him standing in the fire. Eventually they cut off his head, tore out his bowels, and cut the limbs from his body. Gentlemen, 'twas all "according to law;" and to demonstrate sympathy for him and "disesteem" of that law was "sedition." But do you wonder greatly that law of that complexion failed to secure popular sympathy and respect? One more illustration, gentlemen, taken from a period somewhat later on. It is the execution—"according to law," gentlemen; entirely "according to law"—of another Popish bishop named O'Devany. The account is that of a crown official of the time—some most worthy predecessor of the solicitor-general. I read it from the recently published work of the Rev. C.P. Meehaun. "On the 28th of January, the bishop and priest, being arraigned at the King's Bench, were each condemned of treason, and adjudged to be executed the Saturday following; which day being come, a priest, or two of the Pope's brood, with holy water and other holy stuffs"—(no sneer was that at all, gentlemen; no sneer at Catholic practices, for a crown official never sneers at Catholic practices)—"were sent to sanctify the gallows whereon they were to die. About two o'clock, p.m., the traitors were delivered to the sheriffs of Dublin, who placed them in a small car, which was followed by a great multitude. As the car progressed the spectators knelt down; but the bishop sitting still, like a block, would not vouchsafe them a word, or turn his head aside. The multitude, however, following the car, made such a dole and lamentation after him, as the heavens themselves resounded the echoes of their outcries." (Actually a seditious funeral procession—made up of the ancestors of those thirty-thousand men, women, and children, who, according to the solicitor-general, glorified the cause of murder on the 8th of last December.) "Being come to the gallows, whither they were followed by troops of the citizens, men and women of all classes, most of the best being present, the latter kept up such a shrieking, such a howling, and such a hallooing, as if St. Patrick himself had been gone to the gallows, could not have made greater signs of grief; but when they saw him turned from off the gallows, they raised thewhobubwith such a maine cry, as if the rebels had come to rifle the city. Being ready to mount the ladder, when he was pressed by some of the bystanders to speak, he repeated frequentlySine me quæso. The executioner had no sooner taken off the bishop's head, but the townsmen of Dublin began to flock about him, some taking up the head with pitying aspect, accompanied with sobs and sighs; some kissed it with as religious an appetite as ever they kissed the Pax; some cut away all the hair from the head, which they preserved for a relic; some others were practisers to steal the head away, but the executioner gave notice to the sheriffs. Now, when he began to quarter the body, the women thronged about him, and happy was she that could get but her handkerchief dipped in the blood of the traitor; and the body being once dissevered in four quarters, they neither left, finger nor toe, but they cut them off and carried them away; and some others that could get no holy monuments that appertained to his person, with their knives they shaved off chips from the hallowed gallows; neither could they omit the halter wherewith he was hanged, but it was rescued for holy uses. The same night after the execution, a great crowd flocked about the gallows, and there spent the fore part of the night in heathenish howling, and performing many Popish ceremonies; and after midnight, being then Candlemas day, in the morning having their priests present in readiness, they had Mass after Mass till, daylight being come, they departed to their own houses." There was "sympathy with sedition" for you, gentlemen. No wonder the crown official who tells the story—same worthy predecessor of Mr. Harrison—should be horrified at such a demonstration. I will sadden you with no further illustrations of English law, but I think it will be admitted that after centuries of such law, one need not wonder if the people hold it in "hatred and contempt." With the opening of the seventeenth century, however, came a golden and glorious opportunity for ending that melancholy—that terrible state of things. In the reign of James I., English law, for the first time, extended to every corner of this kingdom. The Irish came into the new order of things frankly and in good faith; and if wise counsels prevailed then amongst our rulers, oh, what a blessed ending there might have been to the bloody feud of centuries. The Irish submitted to the Gaelic King, to whom had come in the English crown. In their eyes he was of a friendly, nay of a kindred race. He was of a line of Gaelic kings that had often befriended Ireland. Submitting to him was not yielding to the brutal Tudor. Yes, that was the hour, the blessed opportunity for laying the foundation of a real union between the three kingdoms; a union of equal national rights under the one crown. This was what the Irish expected; and in this sense they in that hour accepted the new dynasty. And it is remarkable that from that day to this, though England has seen bloody revolutions and violent changes of rulers, Ireland has ever held faithfully—too faithfully—to the sovereignty thus adopted. But how were they received? How were their expectations met? By persecution, proscription, and wholesale plunder, even by that miserable Stuart. His son came to the throne. Disaffection broke out in England and Scotland. Scottish Protestant Fenians, called "Covenanters," took the field against him, because of the attempt to establish Episcopalian Protestantism as a state church. By armed rebellion against their lawful king, I regret to say it, they won rights which now most largely tend to make Scotland contented and loyal. I say it is to be regretted that those rights were thus won; for I say that even at best it is a good largely mixed with evil where rights are won by resorts of violence or revolution. His concessions to the Calvanist Fenians in Scotland did not save Charles. The English Fenians, under their Head Centre Cromwell, drove him from the throne and murdered him on a scaffold in London. How did the Irish meanwhile act? They stood true to their allegiance. They took the field for the King. What was the result? They were given over to slaughter and plunder by the brutal soldiery of the English Fenians. Their nobles and gentry were beggared and proscribed; their children were sold as white slaves to West Indian planters; and their gallant struggles for the king, their sympathy for the royalist cause, was actually denounced by the English Fenians as "sedition," "rebellion," "lawlessness," "sympathy with crime." Ah, gentlemen, the evils thus planted in our midst will survive, and work their influence; yet some men wonder that English law is held in "disesteem" in Ireland. Time went on, gentlemen; time went on. Another James sat on the throne; and again English Protestant Fenianism conspired for the overthrow of their sovereign. They invited "foreign emissaries" to come over from Holland and Sweden, to begin the revolution for them. They drove their legitimate king from the throne—never more to return. How did the Irish act in that hour? Alas! Ever too loyal—ever only too ready to stand by the throne and laws if only treated with justice or kindliness—they took the field for the king, not against him. He landed on our shores; and had the English Fenians rested content with rebelling themselves, and allowed us to remain loyal as we desired to be, we might now be a neighbouring but friendly and independent kingdom under the ancient Stuart line. King James came here and opened his Irish parliament in person. Oh, who will say in that brief hour at least the Irish nation was not reconciled to the throne and laws? King, parliament, and people, were blended in one element of enthusiasm, joy, and hope, the first time for ages Ireland had known such a joy. Yes—We, too, had our day—it was brief, it is ended—When a King dwelt among us—no strange King—but OURS.When the shout of a people delivered ascended,And shook the green banner that hung on yon towers,We saw it like leaves in the summer-time shiver;We read the gold legend that blazoned it o'er—"To-day—now or never; to-day and for ever"—Oh, God! have we seen it to see it no more!(Applause in court). Once more the Irish people bled and sacrificed for their loyalty to the throne and laws. Once more confiscation devastated the land, and the blood of the loyal and true was poured like rain. The English Fenians and the foreign emissaries triumphed, aided by the brave Protestant rebels of Ulster. King William came to the throne—a prince whose character is greatly misunderstood in Ireland: a brave, courageous soldier, and a tolerant man, could he have had his way. The Irish who had fought and lost, submitted on terms, and had law even now been just or tolerant, it was open to the revolutionaryregimeto have made the Irish good subjects. But what took place? The penal code came, in all its horror to fill the Irish heart with hatred and resistance. I will read for you what a Protestant historian—a man of learning and ability—who is now listening to me in this court—has written of that code. I quote "Godkin's History," published by Cassell of London:—"The eighteenth century," says Mr. Godkin, "was the era of persecution, in which the law did the work of the sword more effectually and more safely. Then was established a code framed with almost diabolical ingenuity to extinguish natural affection—to foster perfidy and hypocrisy—to petrify conscience—to perpetuate brutal ignorance—to facilitate the work of tyranny—by rendering the vices of slavery inherent and natural in the Irish character, and to make Protestantism almost irredeemably odious as the monstrous incarnation of all moral perversions."Gentlemen, in that fell spirit English law addressed itself to a dreadful purpose here in Ireland; and, mark you, that code prevailed down to our own time; down to this very generation. "Law" called on the son to sell his father; called on the flock to betray the pastor. "Law" forbade us to educate—forbid us to worship God in the faith of our fathers. "Law" made us outcasts—scourged us, trampled us, plundered us—do you marvel that, amongst the Irish people, law has been held in "disesteem?" Do you think this feeling arises from "sympathy with assassination or murder?" Yet, if we had been let alone, I doubt not that time would have fused the conquerors and the conquered, here in Ireland, as elsewhere. Even while the millions of the people were kept outside the constitution, the spirit of nationality began to appear; and under its blessed influence toleration touched the heart of the Irish-born Protestant. Yes—thank God—thank God, for the sake of our poor country, where sectarian bitterness has wrought such wrong—it was an Irish Protestant Parliament that struck off the first link of the penal chain. And lo! once more, for a bright brief day, Irish national sentiment was in warm sympathy and heartfelt accord with the laws. "Eighty-two" came. Irish Protestant patriotism, backed by the hearty sympathy of the Catholic millions, raised up Ireland to a proud and glorious position; lifted our country from the ground, where she lay prostrate under the sword of England—but what do I say? This is "sedition." It has this week been decreed sedition to picture Ireland thus.[C]Well, then, they rescued her from what I will call the loving embrace of her dear sister Britannia, and enthroned her in her rightful place, a queen among the nations. Had the brightness of that era been prolonged—picture it, think of it—what a country would ours be now? Think of it! And contrast what we are with what we might be! Compare a population filled with burning memories—disaffected, sullen, hostile, vengeful—with a people loyal, devoted, happy, contented; and England, too, all the happier, the more secure, the more great and free. But sad is the story. Our independent national legislature was torn from us by means, the iniquity of which, even among English writers, is now proclaimed and execrated. By fraud and by force that outrage on law, on right, and justice, was consummated. In speaking thus I speak "sedition." No one can write the facts of Irish history, without committing sedition. Yet every writer and speaker now will tell you that the overthrow of our national constitution, sixty-seven years ago, was an iniquitous and revolting scheme. But do you, then, marvel that the laws imposed on us by the power that perpetrated that deed are not revered, loved, and respected? Do you believe that that want of respect arises from the "seditions" of men like my fellow-traversers and myself? Is it wonderful to see estrangement between a people and laws imposed on them by the over-ruling influence of another nation? Look at the lessons—unhappy lessons—taught our people by that London legislature where their own will is overborne. Concessions refused and resisted as long as they durst be withheld; and when granted at all, granted only after passion has been aroused and the whole nation been embittered. The Irish people sought Emancipation. Their great leader was dogged at every step by hostile government proclamations and crown prosecutions. Coercion act over coercion act was rained upon us; yet O'Connell triumphed. But how and in what spirit was Emancipation granted? Ah there never was a speech more pregnant with mischief, with sedition, with revolutionary teaching—never words tended more to bring law and government into contempt—than the words of the English premier when he declared Emancipation must, sorely against his will, be granted if England would not face a civil war. That was a bad lesson to teach Irishmen. Worse still was taught them. O'Connell, the great constitutional leader, a man with whom loyalty and respect for the laws was a fundamental principle of action, led the people towards further liberation—the liberation, not of a creed, but a nation. What did he seek? To bring once more the laws and the national will into accord; to reconcile the people and the laws by restoring the constitution of queen, lords, and commons. How was he met by the government? By the nourish of the sword; by the drawn sabre and the shotted gun, in the market place and the highway. "Law" finally grasped him as a conspirator, and a picked jury gave the crown then, as now, such verdict as was required. The venerable apostle of constitutional doctrines was consigned to prison, while a sorrowing—aye, a maddened nation, wept for him outside. Do you marvel that they held in "disesteem" the law and government that acted thus? Do you marvel that to-day, in Ireland, as in every century of all those through which I have traced this state of things, the people and the law scowl upon each other? Gentlemen, do not misunderstand the purport of my argument. It is not for the purpose—it would be censurable—of merely opening the wounds of the past that I have gone back upon history somewhat farther than the solicitor-general found it advantageous to go. I have done it to demonstrate that there is a truer reason than that alleged by the crown in this case for the state of war—for unhappily that is what it is—which prevails between the people of Ireland and the laws under which they now live. And now apply all this to the present case, and judge you my guilt—judge you the guilt of those whose crime, indeed, is that they do not love and respect law and government as they are now administered in Ireland. Gentlemen, the present prosecution arises directly out of what is known as the Manchester tragedy. The solicitor-general gave you his version, his fanciful sketch of that sad affair; but it will be my duty to give you the true facts, which differ considerably from the crown story. The solicitor-general began with telling us about "the broad summer's sun of the 18th September" (laughter). Gentlemen, it seems very clear that the summer goes far into the year for those who enjoy the sweets of office; nay, I am sure it is summer "all the year round" with the solicitor-general while the present ministry remain in. A goodly golden harvest he and his colleagues are making in this summer of prosecutions; and they seem very well inclined to get up enough of them (laughter). Well, gentlemen, I'm not complaining of that, but I will tell you who complain loudly—the "outs," with whom it is midwinter, while the solicitor-general and his friends are enjoying this summer (renewed laughter). Well, gentlemen, some time last September two prominent leaders of the Fenian movement—alleged to be so at least—named Kelly and Deasy, were arrested in Manchester. In Manchester there is a considerable Irish population, and amongst them it was known those men had sympathisers. They were brought up at the police court—and now, gentlemen, pray attentively mark this. The Irish executive that morning telegraphed to the Manchester authorities a strong warning of an attempted rescue. The Manchester police had full notice—how did they treat the timely warning sent from Dublin; a warning which, if heeded, would have averted all this sad and terrible business which followed upon that day? Gentlemen, the Manchester police authorities scoffed at the warning. They derided it as a "Hirish" alarm. What! The idea of low "Hirish" hodmen or labourers rescuing prisoners from them, the valiant and the brave! Why, gentlemen, the Seth Bromleys of the "force" in Manchester waxed hilarious and derisive over the idea. They would not ask even a truncheon to put to flight even a thousand of those despised "Hirish;" and so, despite specific warning from Dublin, the van containing the two Fenian leaders, guarded by eleven police officers, set out from the police office to the jail. Now, gentlemen, I charge on the stolid vain gloriousness in the first instance, and the contemptible pusilanimity in the second instance, of the Manchester police—the valiant Seth Bromleys—all that followed. On the skirts of the city the van was attacked by some eighteen Irish youths, having three revolvers—three revolvers, gentlemen, and no more—amongst them. The valour of the Manchester eleven vanished at the sight of those three revolvers—some of them, it seems, loaded with blank cartridge! The Seth Bromleys took to their heels. They abandoned the van. Now, gentlemen, do not understand me to call those policemen cowards. It is hard to blame an unarmed man who runs away from a pointed revolver, which, whether loaded or unloaded, is a powerful persuasion to—depart. But I do say that I believe in my soul that if that had occurred here in Dublin, eleven men of our metropolitan police whould have taken those three revolvers or perished in the attempt (applause). Oh, if eleven Irish policemen had run away like that from a few poor English lads with barely three revolvers, how the press of England would yell in fierce denunciation—why, they would trample to scorn the name of Irishman—(applause in the court, which the officials vainly tried to silence).[C]For publishing an illustration in theWeekly Newsthus picturing England's policy of coercion, Mr. Sullivan had been found guilty of seditious libel on the previous trial.Mr. Justice Fitzgerald—If these interruptions continue, the parties so offending must be removed.Mr. Sullivan—I am sorry, my lord, for the interruption; though not sorry the people should endorse my estimate of the police. Well, gentlemen, the van was abandoned by its valiant guard; but there remained inside one brave and faithful fellow, Brett by name. I am now giving you the facts as I in my conscience and soul believe they occurred—and as millions of my countrymen—aye, and thousands of Englishmen, too—solemnly believe them to have occurred, though they differ in one item widely from the crown version. Brett refused to give up the key of the van, which he held; and the attacking party commenced various endeavours to break it open. At length one of them called out to fire a pistol into the lock, and thus burst it open. The unfortunate Brett at that moment was looking through the keyhole, endeavouring to get a view of the inexplicable scene outside, when he received the bullet and fell dead. Gentlemen, that may be the true, or it may be the mistaken version. You may hold to the other, or you may hold to this. But whether I be mistaken therein, or otherwise, I say here, as I would say if I stood now before my Eternal Judge on the Last Day, I solemnly believe the mournful episode to have happened thus—I solemnly believe that the man Brett was shot by accident, and not by design. But even suppose your view differs sincerely from mine, will you, can you, hold that I, thus conscientiously persuaded, sympathise with murder, because I sympathise with men hanged for that which I contend was accident, and not murder? That is exactly the issue in this case. Well, the rescued Fenian leaders got away; and then, when all was over—when the danger was passed—valour tremendous returned to the fleet of foot Manchester police. Oh, but they wreaked their vengeance that night on the houses of the poor Irish in Manchester! By a savage razzia they soon filled the jails with our poor countrymen seized on suspicion. And then broke forth all over England that shout of anger and passion which none of us will ever forget. The national pride had been sorely wounded; the national power had been openly and humiliatingly defied; the national fury was aroused. On all sides resounded the hoarse shout for vengeance, swift and strong. Then was seen a sight the most shameful of its kind that this century has exhibited—a sight at thought of which Englishmen yet will hang their heads for shame, and which the English historian will chronicle with reddened check—those poor and humble Irish youths led into the Manchester dock in chains! In chains! Yes; iron fetters festering wrist and ankle! Oh, gentlemen, it was a fearful sight; for no one can pretend that in the heart of powerful England there could be danger those poor Irish youths would overcome the authorities and capture Manchester. For what, then, were those chains put on untried prisoners? Gentlemen, it was at this point exactly that Irish sympathy came to the side of those prisoners. It was when we saw them thus used, and saw that, innocent or guilty, they would be immolated—sacrificed to glut the passion of the hour—that our feelings rose high and strong in their behalf. Even in England there were men—noble-hearted Englishmen, for England is never without such men—who saw that if tried in the midst of this national frenzy, those victims would be sacrificed; and accordingly efforts were made for a postponement of the trial. But the roar of passion carried its way. Not even till the ordinary assizes would the trial be postponed. A special commission was sped to do the work while Manchester jurors were in a white heat of panic, indignation, and fury. Then came the trial, which was just what might be expected. Witnesses swore ahead without compunction, and jurors believed them without hesitation. Five men arraigned together as principals—Allen, Larkin, O'Brien, Shore, and Maguire—were found guilty, and the judge concerning in the verdict, were sentenced to death. Five men—not three men, gentlemen—five men in the one verdict, not five separate verdicts. Five men by the same evidence and the same jury in the same verdict. Was that a just verdict? The case of the crown here to-day is that it was—that it is "sedition" to impeach that verdict. A copy of that conviction is handed in here as evidence to convict me of sedition for charging as I do that that was a wrong verdict, a bad verdict, a rotten and a false verdict. But what is the fact? That her Majesty's ministers themselves admit and proclaim that it was a wrong verdict, a false verdict. The very evening those men were sentenced, thirty newspaper reporters sent up to the Home Secretary a petition protesting that—the evidence of the witnesses and the verdict of the jury notwithstanding—there was at least one innocent man thus marked for execution. The government felt that the reporters were right and the jurors wrong. They pardoned Maguire as an innocent man—that same Maguire whose legal conviction is here put in as evidence that he and four others were truly murderers, to sympathise with whom is to commit sedition—nay, "to glorify the cause of murder." Well, after that, our minds were easy. We considered it out of the question any man would be hanged on a verdict thus ruined, blasted, and abandoned; and believing those men innocent of murder, though guilty of another most serious legal crime—rescue with violence, and incidental, though not intentional loss of life—we rejoiced that a terrible mistake was, as we thought, averted. But now arose in redoubled fury the savage cry for blood. In vain good men, noble and humane men, in England tried to save the national honour by breasting this horrible outburst of passion. They were overborne. Petitioners for mercy were mobbed and hooted in the streets. We saw all this—we saw all this; and think you it did not sink into our hearts? Fancy if you can our feelings when we heard that yet another man out of five was respited—ah, he was an American, gentlemen—an American, not an Irishman—but that the three Irishmen, Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien, were to die—were to be put to death on a verdict and on evidence that would not hang a dog in England! We refused to the last to credit it; and thus incredulous, deemed it idle to make any effort to save their lives. But it was true; it was deadly true. And then, gentlemen, the doomed three appeared in a new character. Then they rose into the dignity and heroism of martyrs. The manner in which they bore themselves through the dreadful ordeal ennobled them for ever It was then we all learned to love and revere them as patriots and Christians. Oh, gentlemen, it is only at this point I feel my difficulty in addressing you whose religious faith is not that which is mine. For it is only Catholics who can understand the emotions aroused in Catholic hearts by conduct such as theirs in that dreadful hour. Catholics alone can understand how the last solemn declarations of such men, after receiving the last sacraments of the Church, and about to meet their Great Judge face to face, can outweigh the reckless evidence of Manchester thieves and pickpockets. Yes; in that hour they told us they were innocent, but were ready to die; and we believed them. We believe them still. Aye, do we! They did not go to meet their God with a falsehood on their lips. On that night before their execution, oh, what a scene! What a picture did England present at the foot of the Manchester scaffold! The brutal populace thronged thither in tens of thousands. They danced; they sang; they blasphemed; they chorused "Rule Britannia," and "God save the Queen," by way of taunt and defiance of the men whose death agonies they had come to see! Their shouts and brutal cries disturbed the doomed victims inside the prison as in their cells they prepared in prayer and meditation to meet their Creator and their God. Twice the police had to remove the crowd from around that wing of the prison; so that our poor brothers might in peace go through their last preparations for eternity, undisturbed by the yells of the multitude outside. Oh, gentlemen, gentlemen—that scene! That scene in the grey cold morning when those innocent men were led out to die—to die an ignominious death before that wolfish mob! With blood on fire—with bursting hearts—we read the dreadful story here in Ireland. We knew that these men would never have been thus sacrificed had not their offence been political, and had it not been that in their own way they represented the old struggle of the Irish race. We felt that if time had but been permitted for English passion to cool down, English good feeling and right justice would have prevailed; and they never would have been put to death on such a verdict. All this we felt, yet we were silent till we heard the press that had hounded those men to death falsely declaring that our silence was acquiescence in the deed that consigned them to murderers' graves. Of this I have personal knowledge, that, here in Dublin at least, nothing was done or intended, until theEvening Maildeclared that popular feeling which had had ample time to declare itself, if it felt otherwise, quite recognised the justice of the execution. Then we resolved to make answer. Then Ireland made answer. For what monarch, the loftiest in the world, would such demonstrations be made, the voluntary offerings of a people's grief! Think you it was "sympathy for murder" called us forth, or caused the priests of the Catholic Church to drape their churches? It is a libel to utter the base charge. No, no. With the acts of those men at that rescue we had nought to say. Of their innocence of murder we were convinced. Their patriotic feelings, their religious devotion, we saw proved in the noble, the edifying manner of their death. We believed them to have been unjustly sacrificed in a moment of national passion; and we resolved to rescue their memory from the foul stains of their maligners, and make it a proud one for ever with Irishmen. Sympathy with murder, indeed! What I am about to say will be believed; for I think I have shown no fear of consequences in standing by my acts and principles—I say for myself, and for the priests and people of Ireland, who are affected by this case, that sooner would we burn our right hands to cinders than express, directly or indirectly, sympathy with murder; and that our sympathy for Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien is based upon the conviction that they were innocent of any such crime. Gentlemen, having regard to all the circumstances of this sad business, having regard to the feelings under which we acted, think you is it a true charge that we had for our intent and object the bringing of the administration of justice into contempt? Does a man, by protesting, ever so vehemently, against an act of a not infallible tribunal, incur the charge of attempting its overthrow? What evidence can be shown to you that we uttered a word against the general character of the administration of justice in this country, while denouncing this particular proceeding, which we say was a fearful failure of justice—a horrible blunder, a terrible act of passion! None—none. I say, for myself, I sincerely believe that in this country of ours justice is administered by the judges of the Irish Bench with a purity and impartiality between man and man not to be surpassed in the universal world. Let me not be thought to cast reflection on this court, or the learned judges before whom I now stand, if I except in a certain sense, and on some occasions, political trials between the subject and the crown. Apart from this, I fearlessly say the bench of justice in Ireland fully enjoys and is worthy of respect and homage. I care not from what political party its members be drawn, I say that, with hardly an exception, when robed with the ermine, they become dead to the world of politics, and sink the politician in the loftier character of representative of Sacred Justice. Yet, gentlemen, holding those views, I would, nevertheless, protest against and denounce such a trial as that in Manchester, if it had taken place here in Ireland. For, what we contend is that the men in Manchester would never have been found guilty on such evidence, would never have been executed on such a verdict, if time had been given to let panic and passion pass away—time to let English good sense and calm reason and, sense of justice have sway. Now, gentlemen, judge ye me on this whole case; for I have done. I have spoken at great length, but I plead not merely my own cause but the cause of my country. For myself I care little. I stand before you here with the manacles, I might say, on my hands. Already a prison cell awaits me in Kilmainham. My doom, in any event, is sealed. Already a conviction has been obtained against me for my opinions on this same event; for it is not one arrow alone that has been shot from the crown office quiver at me—at my reputation, my property, my liberty. In a few hours more my voice will be silenced; but before the world is shut out from me for a term, I appeal to your verdict—to the verdict of my fellow-citizens—of my fellow-countrymen—to judge my life, my conduct, my acts, my principles and say am I a criminal. Sedition, in a rightly ordered community, is indeed a crime. But who is it that challenges me? Who is it that demands my loyalty? Who is it that calls out to me, "Oh, ingrate son, where is the filial affection, the respect, the obedience, the support, that is my due? Unnatural, seditious, and rebellious child, a dungeon shall punish your crime!" I look in the face of my accuser, who thus holds me to the duty of a son. I turn to see if there I can recognise the features of that mother, whom indeed I love, my own dear Ireland. I look into that accusing face, and there I see a scowl, and not a smile. I miss the soft, fond voice, the tender clasp, the loving word. I look upon the hands reached out to grasp me—to punish me; and lo, great stains, blood red, upon those hands; and my sad heart tells me it is the blood of my widowed mother, Ireland. Then I answer to my accuser—"You have no claim on me—on my love, my duty, my allegiance. You are not my mother. You sit indeed in the place where she should reign. You wear the regal garments torn from her limbs, while she now sits in the dust, uncrowned and overthrown, and bleeding, from many a wound. But my heart is with her still. Her claim alone is recognised by me. She still commands my love, my duty, my allegiance; and whatever the penalty may be, be it prison chains, be it exile or death, to her I will be true" (applause). But, gentlemen of the jury, what is that Irish nation to which my allegiance turns? Do I thereby mean a party, or a class, or creed? Do I mean only those who think and feel as I do on public questions? Oh, no. It is the whole people of this land—the nobles, the peasants, the clergy the merchants, the gentry, the traders, the professions—the Catholic, the Protestant, the Dissenter. Yes. I am loyal to all that a good and patriotic citizen should be loyal to; I am ready, not merely to obey, but to support with heartfelt allegiance, the constitution of my own country—the Queen as Queen of Ireland, and the free parliament of Ireland once more reconstituted in our national senate-house in College—green. And reconstituted once more it will be. In that hour the laws will again be reconciled with national feeling and popular reverence. In that hour there will be no more disesteem, or hatred, or contempt for the laws: for, howsoever a people may dislike and resent laws imposed upon them against their will by a subjugating power, no nation disesteems the laws of its own making. That day, that blessed day, of peace and reconciliation, and joy, and liberty, I hope to see. And when it comes, as come it will, in that hour it will be remembered for me that I stood here to face the trying ordeal, ready to suffer for my country—walking with bared feet over red hot ploughshares like the victims of old. Yes; in that day it will be remembered for me, though a prison awaits me now, that I was one of those journalists of the people who, through constant sacrifice and self-immolation, fought the battle of the people, and won every vestige of liberty remaining in the land. (As Mr. Sullivan resumed his seat, the entire audience burst into applause, again and again renewed, despite all efforts at repression.)

Solicitor-General—My lord, I must really call upon you—I deny that I ever—

Mr. Justice Fitzgerald—Proceed, Mr. Sullivan.

Mr. Sullivan—My lord, I took down the solicitor-general's words. I quote them accurately as he spoke them, and he cannot get rid of them now. "Glorifiers of the cause of murder" was his designation of my fellow-traversers and myself, and our fifty thousand fellow-mourners in the funeral procession; and before I sit down I will make him rue the utterance. Gentlemen of the jury, if British law be held in "disesteem"—as the crown prosecutors phrase it—here in Ireland, there is an explanation for that fact, other than that supplied by the solicitor-general; namely, the wickedness of seditious persons like myself, and the criminal sympathies of a people ever ready to "glorify the cause of murder." Mournful, most mournful, is the lot of that land where the laws are not respected—nay, revered by the people. No greater curse could befall a country than to have the laws estranged from popular esteem, or in antagonism with the national sentiment. Everything goes wrong under such a state of things. The ivy will cling to the oak, and the tendrils of the vine reach forth towards strong support. But more anxiously and naturally still does the human heart instinctively seek an object of reverence and love, as well as of protection and support, in law, authority, sovereignty. At least, among a virtuous people like ours, there is ever a yearning for those relations which are, and ought to be, as natural between a people and their government as between the children and the parent. I say for myself, and I firmly believe I speak the sentiments of most Irishmen when I say, that so far from experiencing satisfaction, we experience pain in our present relations with the law and governing power; and we long for the day when happier relations may be restored between the laws and the national sentiment in Ireland. "We Irish are no race of assassins or "glorifiers of murder." From the most remote ages, in all centuries, it has been told of our people that they were pre-eminently a justice-loving people. Two hundred and fifty years ago the predecessor of the solicitor-general—an English attorney-general—it may be necessary to tell the learned gentleman that his name was Sir John Davis (for historical as well as geographical knowledge[B]seems to be rather scarce amongst the present law officers of the crown), (laughter)—held a very different opinion of them from that put forth to-day by the solicitor-general. Sir John Davis said no people in the world loved equal justice more than the Irish even where the decision was against themselves. That character the Irish have ever borne and bear still. But if you want the explanation of this "disesteem" and hostility for British law, you must trace effect to cause. It will not do to stand by the river side near where it flows into the sea, and wonder why the water continues to run by. Not I—not my fellow-traversers—not my fellow-countrymen—are accountable for the antagonism between law and popular sentiment in this country. Take up the sad story where you will—yesterday, last month, last year, last century—two centuries ago, three centuries, five centuries, six centuries—and what will you find? English law presenting itself to the Irish people in a guise forbidding sympathy or respect, and evoking fear and resentment. Take it at its birth in this country. Shake your minds free of legal theories and legal fictions, and deal with facts. This court where I now stand is the legal and political heir, descendant, and representative of the first law court of the Pale six or seven centuries ago. Within that Pale were a few thousand English settlers, and of them alone did the law take cognizance. The Irish nation—the millions outside the Pale—were known only as "the king's Irish enemie." The law classed them with the wild beasts of nature whom it was lawful to slay. Later on in our history we find the Irish near the Pale sometimes asking to be admitted to the benefits of English law, since they were forbidden to have any of their own; but their petitions were refused. Gentlemen, this was English law as it stood towards the Irish people for centuries; and wonder, if you will, that the Irish people held it in "disesteem:—

[B]On Mr. Sullivan's first trial the solicitor-general, until stopped and corrected by the court, was suggesting to the jury that there was no such place as Knockrochery, and that a Fenian proclamation which had been published in theWeekly Newsas having been posted at that place, was, in fact, composed in Mr. Sullivan's Office. Mr. Justice Deasy, however, pointedly corrected and reproved this blunder on the part of Mr. Harrison.

"The Irish were denied the right of bringing actions in any of the English courts in Ireland for trespasses to their lands, or for assaults or batteries to their persons. Accordingly, it was answer enough to the action in such a case to say that the plaintiff was an Irishman, unless he could produce a special charter giving him the rights of an Englishman. If he sought damage against an Englishman for turning him out of his land, for the seduction of his daughter Nora, or for the beating of his wife Devorgil, or for the driving off of his cattle, it was a good defence to say he was a mere Irishman. And if an Englishman was indicted for manslaughter, if the man slain was an Irishman, he pleaded that the deceased was of the Irish nation, and that it was no felony to kill an Irishman. For this, however, there was a fine of five marks payable to the king; but mostly they killed us for nothing. If it happened that the man killed was a servant of an Englishman, he added to the plea of the deceased being an Irishman, that if the master should ever demand damages, he would be ready to satisfy him."

That was the egg of English law in Ireland. That was the seed—that was the plant—do you wonder if the tree is not now esteemed and loved? If you poison a stream at its source, will you marvel if down through all its courses the deadly element is present? Now trace from this, its birth, English law in Ireland—trace down to this hour—and examine when or where it ever set itself to a reconciliation with the Irish people. Observe the plain relevancy of this to my case. I, and men like me, are held accountable for bringing law into hatred and contempt in Ireland: and in presenting this charge against me the solicitor-general appealed to history. I retort the charge on my accusers; and I will trace down to our own day the relations of hostility which English law itself established between itself and the people of Ireland. Gentlemen, for four hundred years—down to 1607—the Irish people had no existence in the eye of the law; or rather much worse, were viewed by it as "the King's Irish enemie." But even within the Pale, how did it recommend itself to popular reverence and affection? Ah, gentlemen, I will show that in those days, just as there have been in our own, there were executions and scaffold-scenes which evoked popular horror and resentment—though they were all "according to law," and not be questioned unless by "seditionists." The scaffold streamed with the blood of those whom the people loved and revered—how could they love and revere the scaffold? Yet, 'twas all "according to law." The sanctuary was profaned and rifled; the priest was slain or banished—'twas all "according to law," no doubt, and to hold law in "disesteem" is "sedition." Men were convicted and executed "according to law;" yet the people demonstrated sympathy for them, and resentment against their executioners—most perversely, as a solicitor-general, doubtless, would say. And, indeed, the State Papers contain accounts of those demonstrations written by crown officials which sound very like the solicitor-general's speech to-day. Take, for instance, the execution—"according to law"—of the "Popish bishop" O'Hurley. Here is the letter of a state functionary on the subject:—

"I could not before now so impart to her Majesty as to know her mind touching the same for your lordship's direction. Wherefore, she having at length resolved, I have accordingly, by her commandment, to signify her Majesty's pleasure unto you touching Hurley, which is this:—That the man being so notorious and ill a subject, as appeareth by all the circumstances of his cause he is, you proceed, if it may be, to his execution by ordinary trial of him for it. How be it, in case you shall find the effect of his course DOUBTFUL by reason of the affection of such as shall be on his jury, and by reason of the supposal conceived by the lawyers of that country, that he can hardly be found guilty for his treason committed in foreign parts against her Majesty. Then her pleasure is you take A SHORTER WAY WITH HIM, by martial law. So, as you may see, it is referred to your discretion, whether of those two ways your lordship will take with him, and the man being so resolute to reveal no more matter, it is thought best to have no FURTHER TORTURES used against him, but that you proceed FORTHWITH TO HIS EXECUTION in manner aforesaid. As for her Majesty's good acceptation of your careful travail in this matter of Hurley, you need nothing to doubt, and for your better assurance thereof she has commanded me to let your lordship understand that, as well as in all others the like, as in the case of Hurley, she cannot but greatly allow and commend YOUR DOINGS."

Well, they put his feet into tin boots filled with oil, and then placed him standing in the fire. Eventually they cut off his head, tore out his bowels, and cut the limbs from his body. Gentlemen, 'twas all "according to law;" and to demonstrate sympathy for him and "disesteem" of that law was "sedition." But do you wonder greatly that law of that complexion failed to secure popular sympathy and respect? One more illustration, gentlemen, taken from a period somewhat later on. It is the execution—"according to law," gentlemen; entirely "according to law"—of another Popish bishop named O'Devany. The account is that of a crown official of the time—some most worthy predecessor of the solicitor-general. I read it from the recently published work of the Rev. C.P. Meehaun. "On the 28th of January, the bishop and priest, being arraigned at the King's Bench, were each condemned of treason, and adjudged to be executed the Saturday following; which day being come, a priest, or two of the Pope's brood, with holy water and other holy stuffs"—(no sneer was that at all, gentlemen; no sneer at Catholic practices, for a crown official never sneers at Catholic practices)—"were sent to sanctify the gallows whereon they were to die. About two o'clock, p.m., the traitors were delivered to the sheriffs of Dublin, who placed them in a small car, which was followed by a great multitude. As the car progressed the spectators knelt down; but the bishop sitting still, like a block, would not vouchsafe them a word, or turn his head aside. The multitude, however, following the car, made such a dole and lamentation after him, as the heavens themselves resounded the echoes of their outcries." (Actually a seditious funeral procession—made up of the ancestors of those thirty-thousand men, women, and children, who, according to the solicitor-general, glorified the cause of murder on the 8th of last December.) "Being come to the gallows, whither they were followed by troops of the citizens, men and women of all classes, most of the best being present, the latter kept up such a shrieking, such a howling, and such a hallooing, as if St. Patrick himself had been gone to the gallows, could not have made greater signs of grief; but when they saw him turned from off the gallows, they raised thewhobubwith such a maine cry, as if the rebels had come to rifle the city. Being ready to mount the ladder, when he was pressed by some of the bystanders to speak, he repeated frequentlySine me quæso. The executioner had no sooner taken off the bishop's head, but the townsmen of Dublin began to flock about him, some taking up the head with pitying aspect, accompanied with sobs and sighs; some kissed it with as religious an appetite as ever they kissed the Pax; some cut away all the hair from the head, which they preserved for a relic; some others were practisers to steal the head away, but the executioner gave notice to the sheriffs. Now, when he began to quarter the body, the women thronged about him, and happy was she that could get but her handkerchief dipped in the blood of the traitor; and the body being once dissevered in four quarters, they neither left, finger nor toe, but they cut them off and carried them away; and some others that could get no holy monuments that appertained to his person, with their knives they shaved off chips from the hallowed gallows; neither could they omit the halter wherewith he was hanged, but it was rescued for holy uses. The same night after the execution, a great crowd flocked about the gallows, and there spent the fore part of the night in heathenish howling, and performing many Popish ceremonies; and after midnight, being then Candlemas day, in the morning having their priests present in readiness, they had Mass after Mass till, daylight being come, they departed to their own houses." There was "sympathy with sedition" for you, gentlemen. No wonder the crown official who tells the story—same worthy predecessor of Mr. Harrison—should be horrified at such a demonstration. I will sadden you with no further illustrations of English law, but I think it will be admitted that after centuries of such law, one need not wonder if the people hold it in "hatred and contempt." With the opening of the seventeenth century, however, came a golden and glorious opportunity for ending that melancholy—that terrible state of things. In the reign of James I., English law, for the first time, extended to every corner of this kingdom. The Irish came into the new order of things frankly and in good faith; and if wise counsels prevailed then amongst our rulers, oh, what a blessed ending there might have been to the bloody feud of centuries. The Irish submitted to the Gaelic King, to whom had come in the English crown. In their eyes he was of a friendly, nay of a kindred race. He was of a line of Gaelic kings that had often befriended Ireland. Submitting to him was not yielding to the brutal Tudor. Yes, that was the hour, the blessed opportunity for laying the foundation of a real union between the three kingdoms; a union of equal national rights under the one crown. This was what the Irish expected; and in this sense they in that hour accepted the new dynasty. And it is remarkable that from that day to this, though England has seen bloody revolutions and violent changes of rulers, Ireland has ever held faithfully—too faithfully—to the sovereignty thus adopted. But how were they received? How were their expectations met? By persecution, proscription, and wholesale plunder, even by that miserable Stuart. His son came to the throne. Disaffection broke out in England and Scotland. Scottish Protestant Fenians, called "Covenanters," took the field against him, because of the attempt to establish Episcopalian Protestantism as a state church. By armed rebellion against their lawful king, I regret to say it, they won rights which now most largely tend to make Scotland contented and loyal. I say it is to be regretted that those rights were thus won; for I say that even at best it is a good largely mixed with evil where rights are won by resorts of violence or revolution. His concessions to the Calvanist Fenians in Scotland did not save Charles. The English Fenians, under their Head Centre Cromwell, drove him from the throne and murdered him on a scaffold in London. How did the Irish meanwhile act? They stood true to their allegiance. They took the field for the King. What was the result? They were given over to slaughter and plunder by the brutal soldiery of the English Fenians. Their nobles and gentry were beggared and proscribed; their children were sold as white slaves to West Indian planters; and their gallant struggles for the king, their sympathy for the royalist cause, was actually denounced by the English Fenians as "sedition," "rebellion," "lawlessness," "sympathy with crime." Ah, gentlemen, the evils thus planted in our midst will survive, and work their influence; yet some men wonder that English law is held in "disesteem" in Ireland. Time went on, gentlemen; time went on. Another James sat on the throne; and again English Protestant Fenianism conspired for the overthrow of their sovereign. They invited "foreign emissaries" to come over from Holland and Sweden, to begin the revolution for them. They drove their legitimate king from the throne—never more to return. How did the Irish act in that hour? Alas! Ever too loyal—ever only too ready to stand by the throne and laws if only treated with justice or kindliness—they took the field for the king, not against him. He landed on our shores; and had the English Fenians rested content with rebelling themselves, and allowed us to remain loyal as we desired to be, we might now be a neighbouring but friendly and independent kingdom under the ancient Stuart line. King James came here and opened his Irish parliament in person. Oh, who will say in that brief hour at least the Irish nation was not reconciled to the throne and laws? King, parliament, and people, were blended in one element of enthusiasm, joy, and hope, the first time for ages Ireland had known such a joy. Yes—

We, too, had our day—it was brief, it is ended—When a King dwelt among us—no strange King—but OURS.When the shout of a people delivered ascended,And shook the green banner that hung on yon towers,We saw it like leaves in the summer-time shiver;We read the gold legend that blazoned it o'er—"To-day—now or never; to-day and for ever"—Oh, God! have we seen it to see it no more!

(Applause in court). Once more the Irish people bled and sacrificed for their loyalty to the throne and laws. Once more confiscation devastated the land, and the blood of the loyal and true was poured like rain. The English Fenians and the foreign emissaries triumphed, aided by the brave Protestant rebels of Ulster. King William came to the throne—a prince whose character is greatly misunderstood in Ireland: a brave, courageous soldier, and a tolerant man, could he have had his way. The Irish who had fought and lost, submitted on terms, and had law even now been just or tolerant, it was open to the revolutionaryregimeto have made the Irish good subjects. But what took place? The penal code came, in all its horror to fill the Irish heart with hatred and resistance. I will read for you what a Protestant historian—a man of learning and ability—who is now listening to me in this court—has written of that code. I quote "Godkin's History," published by Cassell of London:—

"The eighteenth century," says Mr. Godkin, "was the era of persecution, in which the law did the work of the sword more effectually and more safely. Then was established a code framed with almost diabolical ingenuity to extinguish natural affection—to foster perfidy and hypocrisy—to petrify conscience—to perpetuate brutal ignorance—to facilitate the work of tyranny—by rendering the vices of slavery inherent and natural in the Irish character, and to make Protestantism almost irredeemably odious as the monstrous incarnation of all moral perversions."

Gentlemen, in that fell spirit English law addressed itself to a dreadful purpose here in Ireland; and, mark you, that code prevailed down to our own time; down to this very generation. "Law" called on the son to sell his father; called on the flock to betray the pastor. "Law" forbade us to educate—forbid us to worship God in the faith of our fathers. "Law" made us outcasts—scourged us, trampled us, plundered us—do you marvel that, amongst the Irish people, law has been held in "disesteem?" Do you think this feeling arises from "sympathy with assassination or murder?" Yet, if we had been let alone, I doubt not that time would have fused the conquerors and the conquered, here in Ireland, as elsewhere. Even while the millions of the people were kept outside the constitution, the spirit of nationality began to appear; and under its blessed influence toleration touched the heart of the Irish-born Protestant. Yes—thank God—thank God, for the sake of our poor country, where sectarian bitterness has wrought such wrong—it was an Irish Protestant Parliament that struck off the first link of the penal chain. And lo! once more, for a bright brief day, Irish national sentiment was in warm sympathy and heartfelt accord with the laws. "Eighty-two" came. Irish Protestant patriotism, backed by the hearty sympathy of the Catholic millions, raised up Ireland to a proud and glorious position; lifted our country from the ground, where she lay prostrate under the sword of England—but what do I say? This is "sedition." It has this week been decreed sedition to picture Ireland thus.[C]Well, then, they rescued her from what I will call the loving embrace of her dear sister Britannia, and enthroned her in her rightful place, a queen among the nations. Had the brightness of that era been prolonged—picture it, think of it—what a country would ours be now? Think of it! And contrast what we are with what we might be! Compare a population filled with burning memories—disaffected, sullen, hostile, vengeful—with a people loyal, devoted, happy, contented; and England, too, all the happier, the more secure, the more great and free. But sad is the story. Our independent national legislature was torn from us by means, the iniquity of which, even among English writers, is now proclaimed and execrated. By fraud and by force that outrage on law, on right, and justice, was consummated. In speaking thus I speak "sedition." No one can write the facts of Irish history, without committing sedition. Yet every writer and speaker now will tell you that the overthrow of our national constitution, sixty-seven years ago, was an iniquitous and revolting scheme. But do you, then, marvel that the laws imposed on us by the power that perpetrated that deed are not revered, loved, and respected? Do you believe that that want of respect arises from the "seditions" of men like my fellow-traversers and myself? Is it wonderful to see estrangement between a people and laws imposed on them by the over-ruling influence of another nation? Look at the lessons—unhappy lessons—taught our people by that London legislature where their own will is overborne. Concessions refused and resisted as long as they durst be withheld; and when granted at all, granted only after passion has been aroused and the whole nation been embittered. The Irish people sought Emancipation. Their great leader was dogged at every step by hostile government proclamations and crown prosecutions. Coercion act over coercion act was rained upon us; yet O'Connell triumphed. But how and in what spirit was Emancipation granted? Ah there never was a speech more pregnant with mischief, with sedition, with revolutionary teaching—never words tended more to bring law and government into contempt—than the words of the English premier when he declared Emancipation must, sorely against his will, be granted if England would not face a civil war. That was a bad lesson to teach Irishmen. Worse still was taught them. O'Connell, the great constitutional leader, a man with whom loyalty and respect for the laws was a fundamental principle of action, led the people towards further liberation—the liberation, not of a creed, but a nation. What did he seek? To bring once more the laws and the national will into accord; to reconcile the people and the laws by restoring the constitution of queen, lords, and commons. How was he met by the government? By the nourish of the sword; by the drawn sabre and the shotted gun, in the market place and the highway. "Law" finally grasped him as a conspirator, and a picked jury gave the crown then, as now, such verdict as was required. The venerable apostle of constitutional doctrines was consigned to prison, while a sorrowing—aye, a maddened nation, wept for him outside. Do you marvel that they held in "disesteem" the law and government that acted thus? Do you marvel that to-day, in Ireland, as in every century of all those through which I have traced this state of things, the people and the law scowl upon each other? Gentlemen, do not misunderstand the purport of my argument. It is not for the purpose—it would be censurable—of merely opening the wounds of the past that I have gone back upon history somewhat farther than the solicitor-general found it advantageous to go. I have done it to demonstrate that there is a truer reason than that alleged by the crown in this case for the state of war—for unhappily that is what it is—which prevails between the people of Ireland and the laws under which they now live. And now apply all this to the present case, and judge you my guilt—judge you the guilt of those whose crime, indeed, is that they do not love and respect law and government as they are now administered in Ireland. Gentlemen, the present prosecution arises directly out of what is known as the Manchester tragedy. The solicitor-general gave you his version, his fanciful sketch of that sad affair; but it will be my duty to give you the true facts, which differ considerably from the crown story. The solicitor-general began with telling us about "the broad summer's sun of the 18th September" (laughter). Gentlemen, it seems very clear that the summer goes far into the year for those who enjoy the sweets of office; nay, I am sure it is summer "all the year round" with the solicitor-general while the present ministry remain in. A goodly golden harvest he and his colleagues are making in this summer of prosecutions; and they seem very well inclined to get up enough of them (laughter). Well, gentlemen, I'm not complaining of that, but I will tell you who complain loudly—the "outs," with whom it is midwinter, while the solicitor-general and his friends are enjoying this summer (renewed laughter). Well, gentlemen, some time last September two prominent leaders of the Fenian movement—alleged to be so at least—named Kelly and Deasy, were arrested in Manchester. In Manchester there is a considerable Irish population, and amongst them it was known those men had sympathisers. They were brought up at the police court—and now, gentlemen, pray attentively mark this. The Irish executive that morning telegraphed to the Manchester authorities a strong warning of an attempted rescue. The Manchester police had full notice—how did they treat the timely warning sent from Dublin; a warning which, if heeded, would have averted all this sad and terrible business which followed upon that day? Gentlemen, the Manchester police authorities scoffed at the warning. They derided it as a "Hirish" alarm. What! The idea of low "Hirish" hodmen or labourers rescuing prisoners from them, the valiant and the brave! Why, gentlemen, the Seth Bromleys of the "force" in Manchester waxed hilarious and derisive over the idea. They would not ask even a truncheon to put to flight even a thousand of those despised "Hirish;" and so, despite specific warning from Dublin, the van containing the two Fenian leaders, guarded by eleven police officers, set out from the police office to the jail. Now, gentlemen, I charge on the stolid vain gloriousness in the first instance, and the contemptible pusilanimity in the second instance, of the Manchester police—the valiant Seth Bromleys—all that followed. On the skirts of the city the van was attacked by some eighteen Irish youths, having three revolvers—three revolvers, gentlemen, and no more—amongst them. The valour of the Manchester eleven vanished at the sight of those three revolvers—some of them, it seems, loaded with blank cartridge! The Seth Bromleys took to their heels. They abandoned the van. Now, gentlemen, do not understand me to call those policemen cowards. It is hard to blame an unarmed man who runs away from a pointed revolver, which, whether loaded or unloaded, is a powerful persuasion to—depart. But I do say that I believe in my soul that if that had occurred here in Dublin, eleven men of our metropolitan police whould have taken those three revolvers or perished in the attempt (applause). Oh, if eleven Irish policemen had run away like that from a few poor English lads with barely three revolvers, how the press of England would yell in fierce denunciation—why, they would trample to scorn the name of Irishman—(applause in the court, which the officials vainly tried to silence).

[C]For publishing an illustration in theWeekly Newsthus picturing England's policy of coercion, Mr. Sullivan had been found guilty of seditious libel on the previous trial.

Mr. Justice Fitzgerald—If these interruptions continue, the parties so offending must be removed.

Mr. Sullivan—I am sorry, my lord, for the interruption; though not sorry the people should endorse my estimate of the police. Well, gentlemen, the van was abandoned by its valiant guard; but there remained inside one brave and faithful fellow, Brett by name. I am now giving you the facts as I in my conscience and soul believe they occurred—and as millions of my countrymen—aye, and thousands of Englishmen, too—solemnly believe them to have occurred, though they differ in one item widely from the crown version. Brett refused to give up the key of the van, which he held; and the attacking party commenced various endeavours to break it open. At length one of them called out to fire a pistol into the lock, and thus burst it open. The unfortunate Brett at that moment was looking through the keyhole, endeavouring to get a view of the inexplicable scene outside, when he received the bullet and fell dead. Gentlemen, that may be the true, or it may be the mistaken version. You may hold to the other, or you may hold to this. But whether I be mistaken therein, or otherwise, I say here, as I would say if I stood now before my Eternal Judge on the Last Day, I solemnly believe the mournful episode to have happened thus—I solemnly believe that the man Brett was shot by accident, and not by design. But even suppose your view differs sincerely from mine, will you, can you, hold that I, thus conscientiously persuaded, sympathise with murder, because I sympathise with men hanged for that which I contend was accident, and not murder? That is exactly the issue in this case. Well, the rescued Fenian leaders got away; and then, when all was over—when the danger was passed—valour tremendous returned to the fleet of foot Manchester police. Oh, but they wreaked their vengeance that night on the houses of the poor Irish in Manchester! By a savage razzia they soon filled the jails with our poor countrymen seized on suspicion. And then broke forth all over England that shout of anger and passion which none of us will ever forget. The national pride had been sorely wounded; the national power had been openly and humiliatingly defied; the national fury was aroused. On all sides resounded the hoarse shout for vengeance, swift and strong. Then was seen a sight the most shameful of its kind that this century has exhibited—a sight at thought of which Englishmen yet will hang their heads for shame, and which the English historian will chronicle with reddened check—those poor and humble Irish youths led into the Manchester dock in chains! In chains! Yes; iron fetters festering wrist and ankle! Oh, gentlemen, it was a fearful sight; for no one can pretend that in the heart of powerful England there could be danger those poor Irish youths would overcome the authorities and capture Manchester. For what, then, were those chains put on untried prisoners? Gentlemen, it was at this point exactly that Irish sympathy came to the side of those prisoners. It was when we saw them thus used, and saw that, innocent or guilty, they would be immolated—sacrificed to glut the passion of the hour—that our feelings rose high and strong in their behalf. Even in England there were men—noble-hearted Englishmen, for England is never without such men—who saw that if tried in the midst of this national frenzy, those victims would be sacrificed; and accordingly efforts were made for a postponement of the trial. But the roar of passion carried its way. Not even till the ordinary assizes would the trial be postponed. A special commission was sped to do the work while Manchester jurors were in a white heat of panic, indignation, and fury. Then came the trial, which was just what might be expected. Witnesses swore ahead without compunction, and jurors believed them without hesitation. Five men arraigned together as principals—Allen, Larkin, O'Brien, Shore, and Maguire—were found guilty, and the judge concerning in the verdict, were sentenced to death. Five men—not three men, gentlemen—five men in the one verdict, not five separate verdicts. Five men by the same evidence and the same jury in the same verdict. Was that a just verdict? The case of the crown here to-day is that it was—that it is "sedition" to impeach that verdict. A copy of that conviction is handed in here as evidence to convict me of sedition for charging as I do that that was a wrong verdict, a bad verdict, a rotten and a false verdict. But what is the fact? That her Majesty's ministers themselves admit and proclaim that it was a wrong verdict, a false verdict. The very evening those men were sentenced, thirty newspaper reporters sent up to the Home Secretary a petition protesting that—the evidence of the witnesses and the verdict of the jury notwithstanding—there was at least one innocent man thus marked for execution. The government felt that the reporters were right and the jurors wrong. They pardoned Maguire as an innocent man—that same Maguire whose legal conviction is here put in as evidence that he and four others were truly murderers, to sympathise with whom is to commit sedition—nay, "to glorify the cause of murder." Well, after that, our minds were easy. We considered it out of the question any man would be hanged on a verdict thus ruined, blasted, and abandoned; and believing those men innocent of murder, though guilty of another most serious legal crime—rescue with violence, and incidental, though not intentional loss of life—we rejoiced that a terrible mistake was, as we thought, averted. But now arose in redoubled fury the savage cry for blood. In vain good men, noble and humane men, in England tried to save the national honour by breasting this horrible outburst of passion. They were overborne. Petitioners for mercy were mobbed and hooted in the streets. We saw all this—we saw all this; and think you it did not sink into our hearts? Fancy if you can our feelings when we heard that yet another man out of five was respited—ah, he was an American, gentlemen—an American, not an Irishman—but that the three Irishmen, Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien, were to die—were to be put to death on a verdict and on evidence that would not hang a dog in England! We refused to the last to credit it; and thus incredulous, deemed it idle to make any effort to save their lives. But it was true; it was deadly true. And then, gentlemen, the doomed three appeared in a new character. Then they rose into the dignity and heroism of martyrs. The manner in which they bore themselves through the dreadful ordeal ennobled them for ever It was then we all learned to love and revere them as patriots and Christians. Oh, gentlemen, it is only at this point I feel my difficulty in addressing you whose religious faith is not that which is mine. For it is only Catholics who can understand the emotions aroused in Catholic hearts by conduct such as theirs in that dreadful hour. Catholics alone can understand how the last solemn declarations of such men, after receiving the last sacraments of the Church, and about to meet their Great Judge face to face, can outweigh the reckless evidence of Manchester thieves and pickpockets. Yes; in that hour they told us they were innocent, but were ready to die; and we believed them. We believe them still. Aye, do we! They did not go to meet their God with a falsehood on their lips. On that night before their execution, oh, what a scene! What a picture did England present at the foot of the Manchester scaffold! The brutal populace thronged thither in tens of thousands. They danced; they sang; they blasphemed; they chorused "Rule Britannia," and "God save the Queen," by way of taunt and defiance of the men whose death agonies they had come to see! Their shouts and brutal cries disturbed the doomed victims inside the prison as in their cells they prepared in prayer and meditation to meet their Creator and their God. Twice the police had to remove the crowd from around that wing of the prison; so that our poor brothers might in peace go through their last preparations for eternity, undisturbed by the yells of the multitude outside. Oh, gentlemen, gentlemen—that scene! That scene in the grey cold morning when those innocent men were led out to die—to die an ignominious death before that wolfish mob! With blood on fire—with bursting hearts—we read the dreadful story here in Ireland. We knew that these men would never have been thus sacrificed had not their offence been political, and had it not been that in their own way they represented the old struggle of the Irish race. We felt that if time had but been permitted for English passion to cool down, English good feeling and right justice would have prevailed; and they never would have been put to death on such a verdict. All this we felt, yet we were silent till we heard the press that had hounded those men to death falsely declaring that our silence was acquiescence in the deed that consigned them to murderers' graves. Of this I have personal knowledge, that, here in Dublin at least, nothing was done or intended, until theEvening Maildeclared that popular feeling which had had ample time to declare itself, if it felt otherwise, quite recognised the justice of the execution. Then we resolved to make answer. Then Ireland made answer. For what monarch, the loftiest in the world, would such demonstrations be made, the voluntary offerings of a people's grief! Think you it was "sympathy for murder" called us forth, or caused the priests of the Catholic Church to drape their churches? It is a libel to utter the base charge. No, no. With the acts of those men at that rescue we had nought to say. Of their innocence of murder we were convinced. Their patriotic feelings, their religious devotion, we saw proved in the noble, the edifying manner of their death. We believed them to have been unjustly sacrificed in a moment of national passion; and we resolved to rescue their memory from the foul stains of their maligners, and make it a proud one for ever with Irishmen. Sympathy with murder, indeed! What I am about to say will be believed; for I think I have shown no fear of consequences in standing by my acts and principles—I say for myself, and for the priests and people of Ireland, who are affected by this case, that sooner would we burn our right hands to cinders than express, directly or indirectly, sympathy with murder; and that our sympathy for Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien is based upon the conviction that they were innocent of any such crime. Gentlemen, having regard to all the circumstances of this sad business, having regard to the feelings under which we acted, think you is it a true charge that we had for our intent and object the bringing of the administration of justice into contempt? Does a man, by protesting, ever so vehemently, against an act of a not infallible tribunal, incur the charge of attempting its overthrow? What evidence can be shown to you that we uttered a word against the general character of the administration of justice in this country, while denouncing this particular proceeding, which we say was a fearful failure of justice—a horrible blunder, a terrible act of passion! None—none. I say, for myself, I sincerely believe that in this country of ours justice is administered by the judges of the Irish Bench with a purity and impartiality between man and man not to be surpassed in the universal world. Let me not be thought to cast reflection on this court, or the learned judges before whom I now stand, if I except in a certain sense, and on some occasions, political trials between the subject and the crown. Apart from this, I fearlessly say the bench of justice in Ireland fully enjoys and is worthy of respect and homage. I care not from what political party its members be drawn, I say that, with hardly an exception, when robed with the ermine, they become dead to the world of politics, and sink the politician in the loftier character of representative of Sacred Justice. Yet, gentlemen, holding those views, I would, nevertheless, protest against and denounce such a trial as that in Manchester, if it had taken place here in Ireland. For, what we contend is that the men in Manchester would never have been found guilty on such evidence, would never have been executed on such a verdict, if time had been given to let panic and passion pass away—time to let English good sense and calm reason and, sense of justice have sway. Now, gentlemen, judge ye me on this whole case; for I have done. I have spoken at great length, but I plead not merely my own cause but the cause of my country. For myself I care little. I stand before you here with the manacles, I might say, on my hands. Already a prison cell awaits me in Kilmainham. My doom, in any event, is sealed. Already a conviction has been obtained against me for my opinions on this same event; for it is not one arrow alone that has been shot from the crown office quiver at me—at my reputation, my property, my liberty. In a few hours more my voice will be silenced; but before the world is shut out from me for a term, I appeal to your verdict—to the verdict of my fellow-citizens—of my fellow-countrymen—to judge my life, my conduct, my acts, my principles and say am I a criminal. Sedition, in a rightly ordered community, is indeed a crime. But who is it that challenges me? Who is it that demands my loyalty? Who is it that calls out to me, "Oh, ingrate son, where is the filial affection, the respect, the obedience, the support, that is my due? Unnatural, seditious, and rebellious child, a dungeon shall punish your crime!" I look in the face of my accuser, who thus holds me to the duty of a son. I turn to see if there I can recognise the features of that mother, whom indeed I love, my own dear Ireland. I look into that accusing face, and there I see a scowl, and not a smile. I miss the soft, fond voice, the tender clasp, the loving word. I look upon the hands reached out to grasp me—to punish me; and lo, great stains, blood red, upon those hands; and my sad heart tells me it is the blood of my widowed mother, Ireland. Then I answer to my accuser—"You have no claim on me—on my love, my duty, my allegiance. You are not my mother. You sit indeed in the place where she should reign. You wear the regal garments torn from her limbs, while she now sits in the dust, uncrowned and overthrown, and bleeding, from many a wound. But my heart is with her still. Her claim alone is recognised by me. She still commands my love, my duty, my allegiance; and whatever the penalty may be, be it prison chains, be it exile or death, to her I will be true" (applause). But, gentlemen of the jury, what is that Irish nation to which my allegiance turns? Do I thereby mean a party, or a class, or creed? Do I mean only those who think and feel as I do on public questions? Oh, no. It is the whole people of this land—the nobles, the peasants, the clergy the merchants, the gentry, the traders, the professions—the Catholic, the Protestant, the Dissenter. Yes. I am loyal to all that a good and patriotic citizen should be loyal to; I am ready, not merely to obey, but to support with heartfelt allegiance, the constitution of my own country—the Queen as Queen of Ireland, and the free parliament of Ireland once more reconstituted in our national senate-house in College—green. And reconstituted once more it will be. In that hour the laws will again be reconciled with national feeling and popular reverence. In that hour there will be no more disesteem, or hatred, or contempt for the laws: for, howsoever a people may dislike and resent laws imposed upon them against their will by a subjugating power, no nation disesteems the laws of its own making. That day, that blessed day, of peace and reconciliation, and joy, and liberty, I hope to see. And when it comes, as come it will, in that hour it will be remembered for me that I stood here to face the trying ordeal, ready to suffer for my country—walking with bared feet over red hot ploughshares like the victims of old. Yes; in that day it will be remembered for me, though a prison awaits me now, that I was one of those journalists of the people who, through constant sacrifice and self-immolation, fought the battle of the people, and won every vestige of liberty remaining in the land. (As Mr. Sullivan resumed his seat, the entire audience burst into applause, again and again renewed, despite all efforts at repression.)

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