The "Wearing of the Green," Part 5

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 a.s.sisted.

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 a.s.signed?

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 embarra.s.sed 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 pa.s.s into the box as a "jury"--[Footnote: Not one Catholic was allowed to pa.s.s into the box. Every Catholic who came to the box was ordered to "_Stand by_."]

SAMUEL EAKINS, Foreman.

WILLIAM DOWNES GRIFFITH.

EDWARD GATCh.e.l.l.

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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.s 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 a.s.sociated 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 n.o.bly 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 a.s.sistance 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 circ.u.mstances of embara.s.sment 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 G.o.d, 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 a.s.suredly 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 Sat.u.r.day 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 surpa.s.sed in the kingdom for ability and earnest zeal; yet the result was what I antic.i.p.ated. 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 const.i.tution 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 const.i.tution 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 const.i.tution. 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 fort.i.tude, 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 const.i.tution. It is as representatives of the general community, not as representatives of the crown officials, the const.i.tution 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 const.i.tution. I care not how the crown practice may be within the technical letter of the law, it violates the intent and meaning of the const.i.tution, 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 const.i.tution 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 a.s.sa.s.sination." 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 a.s.suredly, that is the tribunal that will vindicate the Irish people, and confound those who malign them as sympathisers with a.s.sa.s.sination 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 a.s.sa.s.sins 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 cla.s.sed 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 pet.i.tions 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:--[Footnote 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 the _Weekly News_ as 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 trespa.s.ses to their lands, or for a.s.saults 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 circ.u.mstances 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 a.s.surance 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 ill.u.s.tration, 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 Sat.u.r.day 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 mult.i.tude. 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 mult.i.tude, 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 cla.s.ses, 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 the _whobub_ with 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 frequently _Sine me quaeso_. 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 appet.i.te 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 Ma.s.s after Ma.s.s 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 ill.u.s.trations 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 n.o.bles 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 sh.o.r.es; 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, G.o.d! 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 revolutionary _regime_ to 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 "G.o.dkin's History," published by Ca.s.sell of London:--

"The eighteenth century," says Mr. G.o.dkin, "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 G.o.d 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 a.s.sa.s.sination 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 const.i.tution, the spirit of nationality began to appear; and under its blessed influence toleration touched the heart of the Irish-born Protestant. Yes--thank G.o.d--thank G.o.d, 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.