The Felon's Track Part 9

I pa.s.s over the details, and come to the last act in the infamous drama, called his trial.

The following account of the closing scene is not mine. Feeling inadequate to describe a scene of which even a distant recollection is exciting, I asked a friend who felt the deepest interest in the trial to describe it. With what he has written I entirely agree, save one sentence. He says that it was owing to the action of the council of the Confederation John Mitchel's personal friends were allowed to be a.s.saulted, with impunity, by the police. I do not think so. With respect to the decision of the council, I feel bound to a.s.sume my share of its responsibility, although I yielded to it with the utmost reluctance and regret:--

On the morning of Sat.u.r.day, the 27th May, 1849, the court was crowded to a greater excess than usual, even in those days. About the empty dock were the personal friends of Mr. Mitchel, those who agreed with him, and those who did not. A little retired on either side sat John Martin, and John Kenyon--in front were William H. Mitchel, brother of the prisoner and his only relative in court, T. Devin Reilly, Thomas F. Meagher, John B. Dillon, Michael Doheny, Richard O'Gorman, Martin O'Flaherty (Mr.

Mitchel's attorney), Charles O'Hara and others whom we have forgotten.

A little in advance, on the left of the dock, were the stalls reserved during the sham trial for the counsel for the defence. As yet they were only occupied by the junior advocates, Sir Colman O'Loghlen and John O'Hagan. The benches at the right of the dock, and nearer to the bench, reserved for the Attorney-General and his retainers, were vacant. The Sheriff and his white stick occupied their box, and the galleries to the right and left were crowded with jurymen--those who "had done their business," and those who were eager for employment to do more. The bench of the judges held two empty chairs. And police officers and other mercenaries, dotted thickly over the court, "concluded and set off the arrangements."

An old man, low of stature, and stooped, pa.s.sed through a side door, and walked slowly and decrepidly into the benches of the prisoner's counsel.

Whispers, and then applause from the galleries, were heard and pa.s.sed by him unheeded. Quietly and unostentatiously he moved to his seat--the junior advocates, and all the Confederates in the body of the court, rising and bowing to him in silence. It was the solitary Republican of the United Irish day, Robert Holmes, coming to discharge his last duty to the great Republican of a younger century.

The applause of the galleries was hushed by the crier's voice--"Silence!

take off your hats"; and on the right stalked in the gaunt figure of James Henry Monahan. Triumph, animosity and fear marked his night-bird face. Even yet it was hoped the great opponent of his "government," whom by rascality alone he could convict, would strike his colours, and sue for mercy. Even yet it was feared that a rescue would be attempted. How possible the former was, the reader may judge. The latter was rendered impossible by the council of the Confederation, and the few who cherished the design in the council's despite, had attempted an _emeute_ the night previous, and were beaten and placed _hors de combat_. As Monahan and his retainers entered, the red face of Lefroy oozed through the bench curtains, and followed by the pale Moore, "the court was seated."

As yet the dock was empty, save that the jailor of Newgate and his deputy occupied each a corner.

There was a dead silence.

"Jailor, put forward John Mitchel," said the official, whose duty is to make such orders.

A grating of bolts--a rustling of chains, were heard behind. The low door-way at the back of the dock opened, and between turnkeys Mitchel entered.

Ascending the steps to the front of the dock, and lifting, as he advanced, the glazed dark cap he wore during his imprisonment, as gracefully as if he entered a drawing-room, he took his stand in a firm but easy att.i.tude. His appearance was equally removed from bravado and fear. His features, usually placid and pale, had a rigid clearness about them that day we can never forget. They seemed, from their transparency and firmness, like some wondrous imagination of the artist's chisel, in which the marble, fancying itself human, had begun to breathe. The eye was calm and bright--the mouth, the feature round which danger loves to play, though easy, motionless, and with lips apart, had about it an air of immobility and quiet scorn, which was not the effect of muscular action, but of nature in repose. And in his whole appearance, features, att.i.tude and look, there was a conscious pride and superiority over his opponents, which, though unpresuming and urbane, seemed to speak louder than words--"I am the victor here to-day."

He saluted quietly those friends about the dock he had not that day seen, conversing with one or two, and bowing to those at a distance. He then directed his eyes to the court.

After some preliminary forms, Baron Lefroy commenced operations, by stating that he had called the case the first that morning, in order to give time for any application to be made in court by, or on behalf of, the prisoner of the crown.

Again there was a silence of some minutes. The judges looked at each other inquiringly. The crown prosecutor watched the prisoner's counsel.

Upon the prisoner himself all other eyes were fixed.

There was no reply.

"Business proceeded." The "Clerk of the Crown," rising to ask the usual question--"If Mr. Mitchel had anything to say why judgment should not be pa.s.sed upon him?"

"I _have_," he answered, and after a momentary look at judges, jury-box and sheriff, he slowly continued: "I have to say that I have been tried by a packed jury--by the jury of a partisan sheriff--by a jury not empanelled, even according to the law of England, I have been found guilty by a packed jury obtained by a juggle--a jury not empanelled by a sheriff, but by a juggler."

Here he was interrupted by the sheriff rising, and, in high indignation, claiming the protection of the court.

"That is the reason," continued Mitchel, "that is the reason why I object to the sentence being pa.s.sed on me."

"That imputation," interrupted Lefroy, "upon the conduct of the sheriff I must p.r.o.nounce to be most unwarranted and unfounded." And this discriminating judge continued to show that the imputation was so--concluding with the a.s.sertion that the sheriff "had done his duty in the case." Then without pausing, he proceeded to the usual lecture, full of hypocritical cant with which British judges usually preface their awards, however infamous. He alluded to the personal condition of Mr.

Mitchel, and expressed his regrets that a person of such merits should be in such circ.u.mstances, Then having dilated on the enormity of the offence, he a.s.sured Mr. Mitchel that he had been found guilty of many heinous charges against the Queen and the Imperial Crown, and among others, of felonious intending to levy war upon that gentlewoman, and that the evidence was furnished by the prisoner's self. "How, therefore," he continued, "you think yourself justified in calling it the verdict of a packed jury, and thus imputing perjury to twelve of your countrymen--deliberate and wilful perjury--"

"No," interrupted the prisoner, "I did not impute perjury to the jury."

"I understood," said the speaker on the bench, "that you had stated, in arrest of judgment, that you had been found guilty by a packed jury."

"I did," was the reply.

Robert Holmes rose, during the judge's speech, and said, "My lords, with the greatest respect, what I said was, that though he might be statutably guilty, he was not, in my opinion, morally guilty. I repeat that opinion now."

This avowal, so boldly and firmly made by the veteran Republican, was answered by all the audience, not pensioned, with plaudits.

Baron Lefroy would say no more on that point, only that the court could not acquiesce in a line of defence "which appeared to it very little short of, or amounting to, as objectionable matter as that for which the prisoner had been found guilty.

"I," replied the aged advocate, "I am answerable for that under your Act of Parliament."

Loud applause followed. "Are there no policemen in court?" shouted Baron Lefroy. The High Sheriff "had given strict orders," he said, "to have all removed who would interrupt." "Make prisoners of them," said the judge. "I wish you to understand," he continued, still excited, and addressing Mr. Mitchel, who during these episodes, stood unmoved, "that we have with the utmost anxiety and with a view to come to a decision upon the measure of punishment which it would be our duty to impose, postponed the pa.s.sing of sentence on you until this morning." Then, having stated the various considerations which induced him to believe that the punishment should be lenient, and the equally various considerations which induced him to believe the contrary, Lefroy concluded as follows: "We had to consider all this--to look at the magnitude of the crime, and to look also at the consideration, that if this were not the first case brought under the Act, our duty might have obliged us to carry out the penalty it awards to the utmost extent; but, taking into consideration, that this is the first conviction under the Act--though the offence has been as clearly proved as any offence under the Act could be--the sentence of the court is, that you be transported beyond the seas for the term of fourteen years."

The listeners to the hypocritical sentence which concluded Lefroy's speech, heard the sentence with astonishment and indignation. Mr.

Mitchel merely asked, apparently without any astonishment, if he might now address some remarks to the court. The leave asked was granted, and a silence still as death awaited the prisoner.

"The law," he said, in his usual manly tone, and unexcited manner, "the law has now done its part, and the Queen of England, her crown and government in Ireland are now secure--'pursuant to Act of Parliament.' I have done my part, also. Three months ago I promised Lord Clarendon and his government in this country, that I would provoke him into his 'courts of justice,' as places of this kind are called, and that I would force him publicly and notoriously to pack a jury against me to convict me, or else that I would walk out a free man from this dock to meet him in another field.

"My lord, I knew I was setting my life on that cast; but I warned him that, in either case, the victory would be with me; and the victory is with me. Neither the jury, nor the judges, nor any other man in this court, presumes to imagine that it is a criminal who stands in this dock."

He was interrupted with the plaudits of the auditory; and again continued:--

"I have kept my word. I have shown what the law is made of in Ireland. I have shown that her majesty's government sustains itself in Ireland by packed juries, by partisan judges, by perjured sheriffs--"

Here he was interrupted by Lefroy, who said, "the court could not sit there to hear him arraign the jurors of the country, the sheriffs of the country, the administration of justice, the tenure by which the crown of England holds that country. The trial was over. Everything the prisoner had to say previous to the judgment, the court was ready to hear, and did hear. They could not suffer him (Mr. Mitchel) to stand at that bar to repeat, very nearly, a repet.i.tion of the offence for which he had been sentenced."

"I will not say," Mr. Mitchel continued, "anything more of that kind.

But I say this--"

Lefroy again interrupted him, to the effect that, within certain limits the prisoner might proceed.

"I have acted," he then said, "I have acted all through this business, from the first, under a strong sense of duty. I do not regret anything I have done, and I believe that the course which I have opened is only commenced. The Roman," he continued in one of those bursts of eloquence, with which he used to electrify men, stretching forth his clenched hand and arm, "the Roman who saw his hand burning to ashes before the tyrant, promised that three hundred should follow out his enterprise. Can I not promise for one, for two, for three, aye for hundreds?"

Here he pointed to his friends, Reilly, Martin, and Meagher. A burst of wild enthusiasm followed.

"Officer! officer! remove Mr. Mitchel," was heard from Lefroy. A rush was made on the dock, and the foremost ranks sprung from the galleries, with out-stretched arms to vow with him too. The judges rushed in terror from the benches--the turnkeys seized the hero, and in a scene of wild confusion he half walked, and was half forced through the low, dark door-way in the rear, waving his hand in a quiet farewell. The bolts grated, the gate slammed, and he was seen no more.

Men stood in affright, and looked in each others' faces wonderingly.

They had seen a Roman sacrifice in this modern world, and they were mute.

An hour elapsed--the excited crowd had pa.s.sed away; and the partisan judges, nervous and ill at ease, ventured upon the bench again.

They were seated, and seemed to be settling down to get through "business" as well as they could, when Mr. Holmes, whose defence of Mr.

Mitchel had been so offensive to them, rose. "My lords," he said, "I think I had a perfect right to use the language I did yesterday. I wish now to state that what I said yesterday as an advocate, I adopt to-day, as my own opinion. I here avow all I have said; and, perhaps, under this late Act of Parliament, her Majesty's Attorney-General, if I have violated the law, may think it his duty to proceed against me in that way. But if I have violated the law in anything I said, I must, with great respect to the court, a.s.sert that I had a perfect right to state what I stated; and now I say in deliberation, that the sentiments I expressed with respect to England, and her treatment of this country, are my sentiments, and I here openly avow them. The Attorney-General is present--I retract nothing--these are my well-judged sentiments--these are my opinions, as to the relative position of England and Ireland, and if I have, as you seem to insinuate, violated the law by stating those opinions, I now deliberately do so again. Let her Majesty's Attorney-General do _his_ duty to his government, I have done _mine_ to my country."

Such was the conclusion of the trial of John Mitchel. The brother-in-law and friend of Robert Emmet, the republican of our fathers' days, came to attest the justice of the republican of our own, and to vie with him in defying and scorning the infamous laws of England.

It is needless to say that the English officials did not dare accept the challenge so n.o.bly and defiantly flung down before the very dock whence one victim had just been borne.

I feel tempted to add a word of a scene that intervened, in which I took a part. When the sheriff recovered his self-possession, he ordered several to be arrested; among others, Mr. Meagher. The officer who seized him acted rudely and violently, which led to further confusion, and the exchange of blows. At last Mr. Meagher and myself were secured and removed to prison. When order was restored, we were brought out before the court, and asked for an expression of regret. I answered, that having heard Mr. Mitchel express, in the dock, sentiments in which I entirely concurred, I took immediate occasion to mark my most distinct and emphatic approval. In doing this I had no intention of an affront to the court. But as to retract, or regret, no punishment in the power of that or any other court to inflict, would compel me to do either one or the other.