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[Transcriber's note: The spelling inconsistencies of the original are
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THE

"WEARING OF THE GREEN,"

_OR_

THE PROSECUTED FUNERAL PROCESSION.

       *       *       *       *       *

  Let the echoes fall unbroken;
     Let our tears in silence flow;
  For each word thus nobly spoken,
     Let us yield a nation's woe;
  Yet, while weeping, sternly keeping
     Wary watch upon the foe.

_Poem in the_ "NATION."

DUBLIN:

A.M. SULLIVAN, ABBEY STREET.

1868.




THE

PROSECUTED FUNERAL PROCESSION.

       *       *       *       *       *

The news of the Manchester executions on the morning of Saturday, 23rd
November, 1867, fell upon Ireland with sudden and dismal disillusion.

In time to come, when the generation now living shall have passed away,
men will probably find it difficult to fully realize or understand the
state of stupor and amazement which ensued in this country on the first
tidings of that event; seeing, as it may be said, that the victims had
lain for weeks under sentence of death, to be executed on this date. Yet
surprise indubitably was the first and most overpowering emotion; for,
in truth, no one up to that hour had really credited that England would
take the lives of those three men on a verdict already publicly admitted
and proclaimed to have been a blunder. Now, however, came the news that
all was over--that the deed was done--and soon there was seen such an
upheaving of national emotion as had not been witnessed in Ireland for a
century. The public conscience, utterly shocked, revolted against the
dreadful act perpetrated in the outraged name of justice. A great billow
of grief rose and surged from end to end of the land. Political
distinctions disappeared or were forgotten. The Manchester Victims--the
Manchester Martyrs, they were already called--belonged to the Fenian
organization; a conspiracy which the wisest and truest patriots of
Ireland had condemned and resisted; yet men who had been prominent in
withstanding, on national grounds, that hopeless and disastrous
scheme--priests and laymen--were now amongst the foremost and the
boldest in denouncing at every peril the savage act of vengeance
perpetrated at Manchester. The Catholic clergy were the first to give
articulate expression to the national emotion. The executions took place
on Saturday; before night the telegraph had spread the news through the
island; and on the next morning, being Sunday, from a thousand altars
the sad event was announced to the assembled worshippers, and prayers
were publicly offered for the souls of the victims. When the news was
announced, a moan of sorrowful surprise burst from the congregation,
followed by the wailing and sobbing of women; and when the priest, his
own voice broken with emotion, asked all to join with him in praying the
Merciful God to grant those young victims a place beside His throne, the
assemblage with one voice responded, praying and weeping aloud!

The manner in which the national feeling was demonstrated on this
occasion was one peculiarly characteristic of a nation in which the
sentiments of religion and patriotism are so closely blended. No stormy
"indignation meetings" were held; no tumult, no violence, no cries for
vengeance arose. In all probability--nay, to a certainty--all this would
have happened, and these ebullitions of popular passion would have been
heard, had the victims not passed into eternity. But now, they were gone
where prayer alone could follow; and in the presence of this solemn fact
the religious sentiment overbore all others with the Irish people. Cries
of anger, imprecations, and threats of vengeance, could not avail the
dead; but happily religion gave a vent to the pent-up feelings of the
living. By prayer and mourning they could at once, most fitly and most
successfully, demonstrate their horror of the guilty deed, and their
sympathy with the innocent victims.

Requiem Masses forthwith were announced and celebrated in several
churches; and were attended by crowds everywhere too vast for the sacred
edifices to contain. The churches in several instances were draped with
black, and the ceremonies conducted with more than ordinary solemnity.
In every case, however, the authorities of the Catholic church were
careful to ensure that the sacred functions were sought and attended for
spiritual considerations, not used merely for illegitimate political
purposes; and wherever it was apprehended that the holy rites were in
danger of such use, the masses were said privately.

And soon public feeling found yet another vent; a mode of manifesting
itself scarcely less edifying than the Requiem Masses; namely, funeral
processions. The brutal vengeance of the law consigned the bodies of
Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien to dishonoured graves; and forbade the
presence of sympathising friend or sorrowing relative who might drop a
tear above their mutilated remains. Their countrymen now, however,
determined that ample atonement should be made to the memory of the dead
for this denial of the decencies of sepulture. On Sunday, 1st December,
in Cork. Manchester, Mitchelstown, Middleton, Limerick, and Skibbereen,
funeral processions, at which thousands of persons attended, were held;
that in Cork being admittedly the most imposing, not only in point of
numbers, but in the character of the demonstration and the demeanour of
the people.

For more than twenty years Cork city has held an advanced position in
the Irish national struggle. In truth, it has been one of the great
strongholds of the national cause since 1848. Nowhere else did the
national spirit keep its hold so tenaciously and so extensively amidst
the people. In 1848 Cork city contained probably the most formidable
organization in the country; formidable, not merely in numbers, but in
the superior intelligence, earnestness, and determination of the men;
and even in the Fenian conspiracy, it is unquestionable that the
southern capital contributed to that movement men--chiefly belonging to
the mercantile and commercial classes--who, in personal worth and
standing, as well as in courage, intelligence, and patriotism, were the
flower of the organization. Finally, it must be said, that it was Cork
city by its funeral demonstration of the 1st December, that struck the
first great blow at the Manchester verdict, and set all Ireland in
motion. [Footnote: It may be truly said set the Irish race all over the
world in motion. There is probably no parallel in history for the
singular circumstance of these funeral processions being held by the
dispersed Irish in lands remote, apart, as pole from pole--in the old
hemisphere and in the new--in Europe, in America, in Australia;
prosecutions being set on foot by the English government to punish them
at both ends of the world--in Ireland and in New Zealand! In Hokatika
the Irish settlers--most patriotic of Ireland's exiles--organized a
highly impressive funeral demonstration. The government seized and
prosecuted its leaders, the Rev. Father Larkin, a Catholic clergyman,
and Mr. Wm. Manning, editor of the _Hokatika Celt_. A jury, terrified by
Fenian panic, brought them in "guilty," and the patriot priest and
journalist were consigned to a dungeon for the crime of mourning for the
dead and protesting against judicial murder.]

Meanwhile the Irish capital had moved, and was organizing a
demonstration destined to surpass all that had yet been witnessed. Early
in the second week of December, a committee was formed for the purpose
of organizing a funeral procession in Dublin, worthy of the national
metropolis. Dublin would have come forward sooner, but the question of
the _legality_ of the processions that were announced to come off the
previous week in Cork and other places, had been the subject of fierce
discussion in the government press; and the national leaders were
determined to avoid the slightest infringement of the law or the least
inroad on the public peace. It was only when, on the 3rd of December,
Lord Derby, the Prime Minister, replying in the House of Lords to Lord
Dufferin, declared the opinion of the crown that the projected
processions were not illegal, that the national party in Dublin decided
to form a committee and organize a procession. The following were Lord
Derby's words:--

   "He could assure the noble lord that the government would continue to
   carry out the law with firmness and impartiality. The Party
   Processions Act, however, did not meet the case of the funeral
   processions, the parties engaged in them having, by not displaying
   banners or other emblems, kept within the law as far as his
   information went."

Still more strong assurance was contained in the reply of the Irish
Chief Secretary, Lord Mayo, to a question put by Sir P. O'Brien in the
House of Commons. Lord Mayo publicly announced and promised that if any
new opinion as to the legality of the processions should be arrived
at--that is, should the crown see in them anything of illegality--_due
and timely notice would be given_ by proclamation, so that no one might
offend through ignorance. Here are his words:--

   "It is the wish of the government to act strictly in accordance with
   the law; _and of course ample notice will be given either by
   proclamation or otherwise_."

The Dublin funeral committee thereupon at once issued the following
announcement, by placard and advertisement:--

   GOD SAVE IRELAND!
   A PUBLIC FUNERAL PROCESSION

   In honour of the Irish Patriots
   Executed at Manchester, 23rd November,
   Will take place in Dublin
   On Sunday next, the 8th inst.

       *       *       *       *       *

   The procession will assemble in Beresford-place, near the Custom
   House, and will start from thence at the hour of twelve o'clock noon.

       *       *       *       *       *

   No flags, banners, or party emblems will be allowed.

       *       *       *       *       *

   IRISHMEN

   Assemble in your thousands, and show by your numbers and your orderly
   demeanour your sympathy with the fate of the executed patriots.

       *       *       *       *       *

   IRISHWOMEN

   You are requested to lend the dignity of your presence to this
   important National Demonstration.

   By Order of the Committee.

   JOHN MARTIN, Chairman.
   J.C. WATERS, Hon. Secretary.
   JAMES SCANLAN, Hon. Secretary.
   J.J. LALOR, Hon. Secretary.
   DONAL SULLIVAN, Up. Buckingham-street, Treasurer.

The appearance of the "funeral procession placards" all over the city on
Thursday, 5th December, increased the public excitement. No other topic
was discussed in any place of public resort, but the event forthcoming
on Sunday. The first evidence of what it was about to be, was the
appearance of the drapery establishments in the city on Saturday
morning; the windows, exteriorly and interiorly, being one mass of crape
and green ribbon--funeral knots, badges, scarfs, hat-bands, neckties,
&c., exposed for sale. Before noon most of the retail, and several of
the wholesale houses had their entire stock of green ribbon and crape
exhausted, it being computed that _nearly one hundred thousand yards_
had been sold up to midnight of Saturday! Meantime the committee sat _en
permanance_, zealously pushing their arrangements for the orderly and
successful carrying out of their great undertaking--appointing stewards,
marshals, &c.--in a word, completing the numerous details on the
perfection of which it greatly depended whether Sunday was to witness a
successful demonstration or a scene of disastrous disorder. On this, as
upon every occasion when a national demonstration was to be organized,
the trades of Dublin, Kingstown, and Dalkey, exhibited that spirit of
patriotism for which they have been proverbial in our generation. From
their ranks came the most efficient aids in every department of the
preparations. On Saturday evening the carpenters, in a body, immediately
after their day's work was over, instead of seeking home and rest,
refreshment or recreation after their week of toil, turned into the
_Nation_ office machine rooms, which they quickly improvised into a vast
workshop, and there, as volunteers, laboured away till near midnight,
manufacturing "wands" for the stewards of next morning's procession.

Sunday, 8th December, 1867, dawned through watery skies. From shortly
after day-break, rain, or rather half-melted sleet, continued to fall;
and many persons concluded that there would be no attempt to hold the
procession under such inclement weather. This circumstance was, no
doubt, a grievous discouragement, or rather a discomfort and an
inconvenience; but so far from preventing the procession, it was
destined to add a hundred-fold to the significance and importance of the
demonstration. Had the day been fine, tens of thousands of persons who
eventually only lined the streets, wearing the funeral emblems, would
have marched in the procession as they had originally intended; but
hostile critics would in this case have said that the fineness of the
day and the excitement of the pageant had merely caused a hundred
thousand persons to come out for a holiday. Now, however, the depth,
reality, and intensity of the popular feeling was about to be keenly
tested. The subjoined account of this memorable demonstration is
summarised from the Dublin daily papers of the next ensuing publication,
the report of the _Freeman's Journal_ being chiefly used:--

   As early as ten o'clock crowds began to gather in Beresford-place,
   and in an hour about ten thousand men were present. The morning had
   succeeded to the hopeless humidity of the night, and the drizzling
   rain fell with almost dispiteous persistence. The early trains from
   Kingstown and Dalkey, and all the citerior townlands, brought large
   numbers into Dublin; and Westland-row, Brunswick, D'Olier, and
   Sackville-streets, streamed with masses of humanity. A great number
   of the processionists met in Earlsfort-terrace, all round the
   Exhibition, and at twelve o'clock some thousands had collected. It
   was not easy to learn the object of this gathering; it may have been
   a mistake, and most probably it was, as they fell in with the great
   body in the course of half an hour. The space from the quays,
   including the great sweep in front of the Custom-house, was swarming
   with men, and women, and small children, and the big ungainly crowd
   bulged out in Gardiner-street, and the broad space leading up
   Talbot-street. The ranks began to be formed at eleven o'clock amid a
   down-pour of cold rain. The mud was deep and aqueous, and great pools
   ran through the streets almost level with the paths. Some of the more
   prominent of the men, and several of the committee, rode about
   directing and organizing the crowd, which presented a most
   extraordinary appearance. A couple of thousand young children stood
   quietly in the rain and slush for over an hour; while behind them, in
   close-packed numbers, were over two thousand young women. Not the
   least blame can be attached to those who managed the affairs of the
   day, inasmuch as the throng must have far exceeded even their most
   sanguine expectations. Every moment some overwhelming accession
   rolled down Abbey-street or Eden-quay, and swelled the already
   surging multitude waiting for the start. Long before twelve o'clock,
   the streets converging on the square were packed with spectators or
   intending processionists. Cabs struggled hopelessly to yield up the
   large number of highly respectable and well-attired ladies who had
   come to walk. Those who had hired vehicles for the day to join the
   procession were convinced of the impracticable character of their
   intention; and many delicate old men who would not give up the
   design, braved the terrors of asthma and bronchitis, and joined the
   rain-defying throng. Right across the spacious ground was one
   unmoving mass, constantly being enlarged by ever-coming crowds. All
   the windows in Beresford-place were filled with spectators, and the
   rain and cold seemed to have no saddening effect on the numerous
   multitude. The various bands of the trade were being disposed in
   their respective positions, and the hearses were a long way off and
   altogether in the back-ground, when, at a quarter to twelve, the
   first rank of men moved forward. Almost every one had an umbrella,
   but they were thoroughly saturated with the never-ceasing down-pour.
   As the steady, well-kept, twelve-deep ranks moved slowly out, some
   ease was given to those pent up behind; and it was really wonderful
   to see the facility with which the people adapted themselves to the
   orders of their directors. Every chance of falling in was seized, and
   soon the procession was in motion. The first five hundred men were of
   the artisan class. They were dressed very respectably, and each man
   wore upon his left shoulder a green rosette, and on his left arm a
   band of crape. Numbers had hat-bands depending to the shoulder;
   others had close crape intertwined carefully with green ribbon around
   their hats; and the great majority of the better sort adhered to this
   plan, which was executed with a skill unmistakably feminine. Here and
   there at intervals a man appeared with a broad green scarf around his
   shoulders, some embroidered with shamrocks, and others decorated with
   harps. There was not a man throughout the procession but was
   conspicuous by some emblem of nationality. Appointed officers walked
   at the sides with wands in their hands and gently kept back the
   curious and interested crowd whose sympathy was certainly
   demonstrative. Behind the five hundred men came a couple of thousand
   young children. These excited, perhaps, the most considerable
   interest amongst the bystanders, whether sympathetic, neutral, or
   opposite. Of tender age and innocent of opinions on any subject, they
   were being marshalled by their parents in a demonstration which will
   probably give a tone to their career hereafter; and seeds in the
   juvenile mind ever bear fruit in due season. The presence of these
   shivering little ones gave a serious significance to the
   procession--they were hostages to the party who had organized the
   demonstration. Earnestness must indeed have been strong in the mind
   of the parent who directed his little son or daughter to walk in
   saturating rain and painful cold through five or six miles of mud and
   water, and all this merely to say "I and my children were there." It
   portends something more than sentiment. It is national education with
   a vengeance. Comment on this remarkable constituent was very frequent
   throughout the day, and when toward evening this band of boys sang
   out with lusty unanimity a popular Yankee air, spectators were
   satisfied of their culture and training. After the children came
   about one hundred young women who had been unable to gain their
   proper position, and accepted the place which chance assigned them.
   They were succeeded by a band dressed very respectably, with crape
   and green ribbons round their caps. These were followed by a number
   of rather elderly men, probably the parents of the children far
   ahead. At this portion of the procession, a mile from the point, they
   marched four deep, there having been a gradual decline from the
   front. Next came the bricklayers' band all dressed in green caps, a
   very superior-looking body of men. Then followed a very imposing
   well-kept line, composed of young men of the better class, well
   attired and respectable looking. These wore crape hat-bands, and
   green rosettes with harps in the centre. Several had broad green body
   scarfs, with gold tinsel shamrocks and harps intertwined. As this
   portion of the procession marched they attracted very considerable
   attention by their orderly, measured tread, and the almost soldierly
   precision with which they maintained the line. They numbered about
   four or five thousand, and there were few who were not young, sinewy,
   stalwart fellows. When they had reached the further end of
   Abbey-street, the ground about Beresford-place was gradually becoming
   clear, and the spectator had some opportunity afforded of glancing
   more closely at the component parts of the great crowd. All round the
   Custom-house was still packed a dense throng, and large streams were
   flowing from the northern districts, Clontarf, the Strand, and the
   quays. The shipping was gaily decorated, and many of the masts were
   filled with young tars, wearing green bands on their hats. At
   half-past twelve o'clock, the most interesting portion of the
   procession left the Custom-house. About two thousand young women, who
   in attire, demeanour, and general appearance, certainly justified
   their title to be called ladies walked in six-deep ranks. The general
   public kept pace with them for a great distance. The green was most
   demonstrative, every lady having shawl, bonnet, veil, dress, or
   mantle of the national hue. The mud made sad havoc of their attire,
   but notwithstanding all mishaps they maintained good order and
   regularity. They stretched for over half a-mile, and added very
   notably to the imposing appearance, of the procession. So great was
   the pressure in Abbey-street, that for a very long time there were no
   less than three processions walking side-by-side. These halted at the
   end of the street, and followed as they were afforded opportunity.
   One of the bands was about to play near the Abbey-street Wesleyan
   House, but when a policeman told them of the proximity of the place
   of worship, they immediately desisted. The first was a very long way
   back in the line, and the foremost men must have been near the
   Ormond-quays, when the four horses moved into Abbey-street. They were
   draped with black cloths, and white plumes were at their heads. The
   hearse also had white plumes, and was covered with black palls. On
   the side was "William P. Allen." A number of men followed, and then
   came a band. In the earlier portion of the day there were seen but
   two hearses, the second one bearing Larkin's name. It was succeeded
   by four mourning coaches, drawn by two horses each. A large number
   of young men from the monster houses followed in admirable order. In
   this throng were very many men of business, large employers, and
   members of the professions. Several of the trades were in great
   force. It had been arranged to have the trade banners carried in
   front of the artisans of every calling, but at the suggestion of the
   chairman this design was abandoned. The men walked, however, in
   considerable strength. They marched from their various
   committee-rooms to the Custom-house. The quay porters were present to
   the number of 500, and presented a very orderly, cleanly appearance.
   They were comfortably dressed, and walked close after the hearse
   bearing Larkin's name. Around this bier were a number of men bearing
   in their hands long and waving palms--emblems of martyrdom. The
   trades came next, and were led off by the various branches of the
   association known as the Amalgamated Trades. The plasterers made
   about 300, the painters 350, the boot and shoemakers mustered 1,000,
   the bricklayers 500, the carpenters 300, the slaters 450, the sawyers
   200, and the skinners, coopers, tailors, bakers, and the other
   trades, made a very respectable show, both as to numbers and
   appearance. Each of these had representatives in the front of the
   procession, amongst the fine body of men who marched eight deep. The
   whole ground near the starting place was clear at half-past one, and
   by that time the demonstration was seen to a greater advantage than
   previously. All down Abbey-streets, and in fact throughout the
   procession, the pathways were crowded by persons who were practically
   of it, though not in it. Very many young girls naturally enough
   preferred to stand on the pathways rather than to be saturated with
   mud and water. But it may truly be said that every second man and
   woman of the crowds in almost every street were of the procession.
   Cabs filled with ladies and gentlemen remained at the waysides all
   day watching the march. The horses' heads were gaily decorated with
   green ribbons, while every Jehu in the city wore a rosette or a crape
   band. Nothing of special note occurred until the procession turned
   into Dame-street. The appearance of the demonstration was here far
   greater than at any other portion of the city. Both sides of the
   street, and as far as Carlisle-bridge, were lined with cabs and
   carriages filled with spectators who were prevented by the bitter
   inclemency of the day from taking an active part in the proceedings.
   The procession was here grandly imposing, and after Larkin's hearse
   were no less than nine carriages, and several cabs. It is stated that
   Mrs. Luby and Miss Mulcahy occupied one of the vehicles, and
   relatives of others now in confinement were alleged to have been
   present. One circumstance, which was generally remarked as having
   great significance, was the presence in one line of ten soldiers of
   the 86th Regiment. They were dressed in their great overcoats, which
   they wore open so as to show the scarlet tunic. These men may have
   been on leave, inasmuch as the great military force were confined to
   barracks, and kept under arms from six o'clock, a.m. The cavalry were
   in readiness for action, if necessary. Mounted military and police
   orderlies were stationed at various points of the city to convey any
   requisite intelligence to the authorities, and the constabulary at
   the depot, Phoenix Park, were also prepared, if their services should
   be required. At the police stations throughout the city large numbers
   of men were kept all day under arms. It is pleasant to state that no
   interference was necessary, as the great demonstration terminated
   without the slightest disturbance. The public houses generally
   remained closed until five o'clock, and the sobriety of the crowds
   was the subject of the general comment.

   From an early hour in the morning every possible position along the
   quays that afforded a good view of the procession was taken advantage
   of, and, despite the inclemency of the weather, the parapets of the
   various bridges, commencing at Capel-street, were crowded with
   adventurous youths, who seemed to think nothing of the risks they ran
   in comparison with the opportunities they had of seeing the great
   sight in all its splendour. From eleven until twelve o'clock the
   greatest efforts were made to secure good places The side walks were
   crowded and impassable. The lower windows of the houses were made the
   most of by men who clutched the shutters and bars, whilst the upper
   windows were, as a general rule, filled with the fair sex, and it is
   almost unnecessary to add that almost every man, woman, and child
   displayed some emblem suitable to the occasion. Indeed, the
   originality of the designs was a striking feature. The women wore
   green ribbons and veils, and many entire dresses of the favourite
   colour. The numerous windows of the Four Courts accommodated hundreds
   of ladies, and we may mention that within the building were two
   pieces of artillery, a plentiful supply of rockets, and a number of
   policemen. It was arranged that the rockets should be fired from the
   roof in case military assistance was required. Contrary to the
   general expectation, the head of the procession appeared at
   Essex-bridge shortly before twelve o'clock. As it was expected to
   leave Beresford-place about that time, and as such gigantic
   arrangements are seldom carried out punctually, the thousands of
   people who congregated in this locality were pleasantly disappointed
   when a society band turned the corner of Mary-street and came towards
   the quays, with the processionists marching in slow and regular time.
   The order that prevailed was almost marvellous--not a sound was heard
   but the mournful strains of the music, and the prevalent feeling was
   expressed, no doubt, by one or two of the processionists, who said in
   answer to an inquiry, "We will be our own police to-day." They
   certainly were their own police, for those who carried white wands
   did not spare themselves in their endeavours to maintain order in the
   ranks. As we have mentioned already, the first part of the procession
   reached Capel-street shortly before twelve o'clock, and some idea of
   the extent of the demonstration may be formed from the fact that the
   hearses did not come in view until a quarter-past one o'clock. They
   appeared at intervals of a quarter of an hour, and were received by a
   general cry of "hush." The number of fine, well-dressed young women
   in the procession here was the subject of general remark, whilst the
   assemblage of boys astonished all who witnessed it on account of its
   extent. The variety of the tokens of mourning, too, was remarkable.
   Numbers of the women carried laurel branches in addition to green
   ribbons and veils, and many of the men wore shamrocks in their hats.
   The procession passed along the quays as far as King's-bridge, and it
   there crossed and passed up Stevens'-lane. The windows of all the
   houses _en route_ were crowded chiefly with women, and the railings
   at the Esplanade and at King's-bridge, were crowded with spectators.

   About one o'clock the head of the procession, which had been
   compressed into a dense mass in Stevens'-lane, burst like confined
   water when relieved of restraint, on entering James's-street, where
   every window and doorstep was crowded. Along the lines of footway
   extending at either side from the old fountain up to James's-gate,
   were literally tented over with umbrellas of every hue and shade,
   held up as protection against the cold rain that fell in drizzling
   showers and made the streetway on which the vast numbers stood ankle
   deep in the slushy mud. The music of the "Dead March in Saul," heard
   in the distance, caused the people to break from the lines in which
   they had partially stood awaiting the arrival of the procession,
   which now, for the first time, began to assume its full proportions.
   As it moved along the quays at the north side of the river, every
   street, bridge, and laneway served to obstruct to a considerable
   extent its progress and its order, owing to interruption from
   carriage traffic and from the crowds that poured into it and swelled
   it in its onward course. In the vast multitudes that lined this great
   western artery of the city, the greatest order and propriety were
   observed, and all seemed to be impressed with the one solemn and
   all-pervading idea that they were assembled to express their deep
   sympathy with the fate of three men whom they believed had been
   condemned and had suffered death unjustly. Even amongst the young
   there was not to be recognised the slightest approach to levity, and
   the old characteristics of a great Irish gathering were not to be
   perceived anywhere. The wrong, whether real or imaginary, done to
   Allen, O'Brien, and Larkin, made their memory sacred with the
   thousands that stood for hours in the December wet and cold of
   yesterday, to testify by their presence their feelings and their
   sympathies. The horsemen wearing green rosettes, trimmed with crape,
   who rode in advance of the procession, kept back the crowds at either
   side that encroached on the space in the centre of the street
   required for the vast coming mass to move through. On it came, the
   advance with measured tread, to the music of the band in front, and
   notwithstanding the mire which had to be waded through, the line went
   on at quiet pace, and with admirable order, but there was no effort
   at anything like semi-military swagger or pompous demonstration.
   Every window along the route of the procession was fully occupied by
   male and female spectators, all wearing green ribbons and crape, and
   in front of several of the houses black drapery was suspended. The
   tide of men, women, and children continued to roll on in the
   drenching rain, but nearly all the fair processionists carried
   umbrellas. It was not till the head of the vast moving throng had
   reached James's-gate that anything like a just conception could be
   formed of its magnitude, as it was only now that it was beginning to
   get into regular shape and find room to extend itself. The persons
   whose duty it was to keep the several parts of the procession well
   together had no easy part to play, as the line had to be repeatedly
   broken to permit the ordinary carriage traffic of the streets to go
   on with as little delay as possible. The _cortege_ at this point
   looked grand and solemn in the extreme because of its vastness, and
   also because of all present appearing to be impressed with the one
   idea. The gloomy, wet, and cheerless weather was quite in keeping
   with the funeral march of 35,000 people. The bands were placed at
   such proper distances that the playing of one did not interfere with
   the other. After passing James's-gate the band in front ceased to
   perform, and on passing the house 151 Thomas-street every head was
   uncovered in honour of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, who was arrested and
   mortally wounded by Major Sirr and his assistants in the front
   bedroom of the second floor of that house. Such was the length of the
   procession, that an hour had elapsed from the time its head entered
   James's-street before the first hearse turned the corner of
   Stevens'-lane. In the neighbourhood of St. Catherine's church a vast
   crowd of spectators had settled down, and every available elevation
   was taken possession of. At this point a large portion of the
   streetway was broken up for the purpose of laying down water-pipes,
   and on the lifting-crane and the heaps of earth the people wedged and
   packed themselves, which showed at once that this was a great centre
   of attraction--and it was, for here was executed the young and
   enthusiastic Robert Emmet sixty-four years ago. When Allen, O'Brien,
   and Larkin were condemned to death as political offenders, some of
   the highest and the noblest in the land warned the government to
   pause before the extreme penalty pronounced on the condemned men
   would be carried into effect, but all remonstrance was in vain, and
   on last Saturday fortnight, three comparatively unknown men in their
   death passed into the ranks of heroes and martyrs, because it was
   believed, and believed generally, that their lives were sacrificed to
   expediency, and not to satisfy justice. The spot where Robert Emmet
   closed his young life on a bloody scaffold was yesterday regarded by
   thousands upon thousands of his countrymen and women as a holy place,
   and all looked upon his fate as similar to that of the three men
   whose memory they had assembled to honour, and whose death they
   pronounced to be unjust. It would be hard to give a just conception
   of the scene here, as the procession advanced and divided, as it
   were, into two great channels, owing to the breaking up of the
   streetway. On the advance of the _cortege_ reaching the top of
   Bridgefoot-street every head was uncovered, and nothing was to be
   heard but the measured tread of the vast mass, but as if by some
   secret and uncontrollable impulse a mighty, ringing, and enthusiastic
   cheer, broke from the moving throng as the angle of the footway at
   the eastern end of St. Catherine's church, where the scaffold on
   which Emmet was executed stood, was passed. In that cheer there
   appeared to be no fiction, as it evidently came straight from the
   hearts of thousands, who waved their hats and handkerchiefs, as did
   also the groups that clustered in the windows of the houses in the
   neighbourhood. As the procession moved on from every part of it the
   cheers rose again and again, men holding up their children, and
   pointing out the place where one who loved Ireland, "not wisely but
   too well," rendered up his life. When the hearse with white plumes
   came up bearing on the side draperies the words "William P. Allen,"
   all the enthusiasm and excitement ceased, and along the lines of
   spectators prayers for the repose of the soul of the departed man
   passed from mouth to mouth; and a sense of deep sadness seemed to
   settle down on the swaying multitude as the procession rolled along
   on its way. After this hearse came large numbers of females walking
   on bravely, apparently heedless of the muddy streets and the
   unceasing rain that came down without a moment's intermission. When
   the second hearse, bearing white plumes and the name of "Michael
   O'Brien" on the side pendants, came up, again all heads were
   uncovered, and prayers recited by the people for the everlasting rest
   of the departed. Still onward rolled the mighty mass, young and old,
   and in the entire assemblage was not to be observed a single person
   under the influence of drink, or requiring the slightest interference
   on the part of the police, whose exertions were altogether confined
   to keeping the general thoroughfare clear of obstruction. Indeed,
   justly speaking, the people required no supervision, as they seemed
   to feel that they had a solemn duty to discharge. Fathers were to be
   seen bearing in their arms children dressed in white and decorated
   with green ribbons, and here, as elsewhere, was observed unmistakable
   evidence of the deep sympathy of the people with the executed men.
   This was, perhaps, more strikingly illustrated as the third hearse,
   with sable plumes, came up bearing at either side the name of
   "Michael Larkin;" prayers for his soul's welfare were mingled with
   expressions of commiseration for his widow and children. At the
   entrance to Cornmarket, where the streetway narrows, the crushing
   became very great, but still the procession kept its onward course.
   On passing the shop of Hayburne, who, it will be remembered, was
   convicted of being connected with the Fenian conspiracy, a large
   number of persons in the procession uncovered and cheered. In the
   house of Roantree, in High-street, who was also convicted of
   treason-felony, a harp was displayed in one of the drawingroom
   windows by a lady dressed in deep mourning, and the procession loudly
   cheered as it passed on its route.

   Standing at the corner of Christchurch-place, a fine view could be
   had of the procession as it approached Winetavern-street from
   High-street. The compact mass moved on at a regular pace, while from
   the windows on either side of the streets the well-dressed citizens,
   who preferred to witness the demonstration from an elevated position
   rather than undergo the fatigues and unpleasantness of a walk through
   the city in such weather, eagerly watched the approach of the
   procession. Under the guidance of the horsemen and those whose wands
   showed it was their duty to marshal the immense throng, the
   procession moved at an orderly pace down Winetavern-street, which,
   spacious as it is, was in a few minutes absolutely filled with the
   vast crowds. The procession again reached the quays, and moved along
   Wood-quay and Essex-quay, and into Parliament-street, which it
   reached at twenty minutes to two o'clock. Passing down
   Parliament-street, and approaching the O'Connell statue, a number of
   persons began to cheer, but this was promptly suppressed by the
   leaders, who galloped in advance for some distance with a view to the
   preservation of the mournful silence that had prevailed. This was
   strictly enjoined, and the instruction was generally observed by the
   processionists. The reverential manner in which the many thousands of
   the people passed the statue of the Liberator was very observable. A
   rather heavy rain was falling at the time, yet there were thousands
   who uncovered their heads as they looked up to the statue which
   expressed the noble attitude and features of O'Connell. As the
   procession moved along through Dame-street the footways became
   blocked up, and lines of cabs took up places in the middle of the
   carriageway, and the police exercised a wise discretion in preventing
   vehicles from the surrounding streets driving in amongst the crowds.
   By this means the danger of serious accident was prevented without
   any public inconvenience being occasioned, as a line parallel to that
   which the procession was taking was kept clear for all horse
   conveyances. Owing to the hour growing late, and a considerable
   distance still to be gone over, the procession moved at a quick pace.
   In anticipation of its arrival great crowds collected in the vicinity
   of the Bank of Ireland and Trinity College, where the _cortege_ was
   kept well together, notwithstanding the difficulty of such a vast
   mass passing on through the heart of the city filled at this point
   with immense masses of spectators. Oil passing the old
   Parliament-house numbers of men in the procession took of their hats,
   but the disposition to cheer was suppressed, as it was at several
   other points along the route. Turning down Westmoreland-street, the
   procession, marshalled by Dr. Waters on horseback, passed slowly
   along between the thick files of people on each side, most of whom
   displayed the mourning and national symbols, black and green. The
   spacious thoroughfare in a few minutes was filled with the dense
   array, which in close compact ranks pressed on, the women, youths,
   and children, bearing bravely the privations of the day, the bands
   preceding and following the hearses playing the Dead March, the
   solemn notes filling the air with mournful cadence. The windows of
   the houses on each side of the street were filled with groups of
   spectators of the strange and significant spectacle below. With the
   dark masses of men, broken at intervals by the groups of females and
   children, still stretched lengthily in the rere, the first section of
   the procession crossed Carlisle-bridge, the footways and parapets of
   which were thronged with people, nearly all of whom wore the usual
   tokens of sympathy. Passing the bridge, a glance to the right, down
   the river, revealed the fact that the ships, almost without
   exception, had their flags flying half mast high, and that the
   rigging of several were filled with seamen, who chose this elevated
   position to get a glimpse of the procession as it emerged into
   Sackville-street. Here the sight was imposing. A throng of spectators
   lined each side of the magnificent thoroughfare, and the lofty houses
   had their windows on each side occupied with spectators. Pressing
   onwards with measured, steady pace, regardless of the heavy rain, the
   cold wind, and the gloomy sky, the procession soon filled
   Sackville-street from end to end with its dense dark mass, which
   stretching away over Carlisle-bridge, seemed motionless in the
   distance. The procession defiled to the left of the site of the
   O'Connell monument at the head of the street, and the national
   associations connected with this spot was acknowledged by the large
   numbers of the processionists, who, with uncovered heads, marched
   past, some expressing their feelings with a subdued cheer. The
   foremost ranks were nearing Glasnevin when the first of the hearses
   entered Sackville-street, which, at this moment, held a numberless
   throng of people, processionists, and spectators, the latter, as at
   all the other points of the route, exhibiting prominently the sable
   and green emblems, which evidenced their approval of the
   demonstration. The hearses slowly passed along, followed by the
   mourning carriages, the bands playing alternately "Adeste Fidelis"
   and the "Dead March," and then followed the deep column of the
   processionists, still marching onwards with unflagging spirit,
   thousands seeming to be thoroughly soaked with the rain, which was
   falling all the morning. Sackville-street was perhaps the best point
   from which to get a correct notion of the enormous length of the
   procession, and of the great numbers that accompanied it on its way
   without actually entering the ranks. The base of the Nelson monument
   was covered with spectators, and at the corners of Earl-street and
   Henry-street there were stationary crowds, who chose these positions
   to get a good view of the great display as it progressed towards
   Cavendish-row. Through this comparatively narrow thoroughfare the
   procession passed along into North Frederick-street and
   Blessington-street, and thence by Upper Berkeley-street to the
   Circular-road. Along this part of the route there were crowds of
   spectators, male and female, most of whom wore the crape, and green
   ribbons, all hurrying forward to the cemetery, the last stage of the
   long and fatiguing journey of the procession. As the first part of
   the array passed the Mater Misericordiæ Hospital, and came in sight
   of the Mountjoy Prison, they gave a cheer, which was caught up by
   those behind, and as file after file passed the prison the cheers
   were repeated. With unbroken and undiminished ranks the procession
   pressed on towards Glasnevin; but when the head had reached the
   cemetery, the closing section must have been far away in the city.
   The first part of the procession halted outside the gate of the
   cemetery, the spacious area in front of which was in a few moments
   completely filled by the dense masses who came up. A move then became
   necessary, and accordingly the procession recommenced its journey by
   passing through the open gates of the cemetery down the pathways
   leading to the M'Manus grave, followed by some of the bands playing
   the "Adeste Fidelis." As fast as the files passed through others
   marched up, and when, after some time the carriage containing Mr.
   John Martin arrived, the open ground fronting the cemetery was one
   enormous mass of the processionists, while behind on the road leading
   up to this point thousands were to be seen moving slowly forward to
   the strains of the "Dead March," given out by the bands immediately
   in front of the hearses.


   MR. MARTIN'S ADDRESS.

   On the arrival of the procession at the cemetery Mr. Martin was
   hailed with loud applause. It being understood he would make some
   observations, the multitude gathered together to hear him. He
   addressed the vast multitude from the window of a house overlooking
   the great open space in front of the cemetery. On presenting himself
   he was received with enthusiastic cheering. When silence was obtained
   he said:--

   "Fellow-countrymen--This is a strange kind of funeral procession
   in which we are engaged to-day. We are here, a vast multitude
   of men, women, and children in a very inclement season of
   the year, under rain and through mud. We are here escorting three
   empty hearses to the consecrated last resting place of those who die
   in the Lord (cheers). The three bodies that we would tenderly bear to
   the churchyard, and would bury in consecrated ground with all the
   solem rites of religion, are not here. They are away in a foreign and
   hostile land (hear, hear), where they have been thrown into
   unconsecrated ground, branded by the triumphant hatred of our enemies
   as the vile remains of murderers (cries of 'no murderers,' and
   cheers). Those three men whose memories we are here to-day to
   honour--Allen, O'Brien, and Larkin--they were not murderers (great
   cheering). [A Voice--Lord have mercy on them.] Mr. Martin--These men
   were pious men, virtuous men--they were men who feared God and loved
   their country. They sorrowed for the sorrows of the dear old native
   land of their love (hear, hear). They wished, if possible, to save
   her, and for that love and for that wish they were doomed to an
   ignominious death at the hands of the British hangman (hear, hear).
   It was as Irish patriots that these men were doomed to death
   (cheers). And it was as Irish patriots that they met their death
   (cheers). For these reasons, my countrymen, we here to-day have
   joined in this solemn procession to honour their memories (cheers).
   For that reason we say from our hearts, 'May their souls rest in
   peace' (cries of Amen, and cheers). For that reason, my countrymen,
   we join in their last prayer, 'God save Ireland' (enthusiastic
   cheering). The death of these three men was an act of English policy.
   [Here there was some interruption caused by the fresh arrivals and
   the pushing forward.] I beg of all within reach of my voice to end
   this demonstration as we have carried it through to the present time,
   with admirable patience, in the best spirit, with respect, silence
   and solemnity, to the end (cheers, and cries of 'we will'). I say the
   death of these men was a legal murder, and that legal murder was an
   act of English policy (cheers)--of the policy of that nation which
   through jealousy and hatred of our nation, destroyed by fraud and
   force our just government sixty-seven years ago (cheers). They have
   been sixty-seven sad years of insult and robbery--of
   impoverishment--of extermination--of suffering beyond what any other
   subject people but ours have ever endured from the malignity of
   foreign masters (cheers). Nearly through all these years the Irish
   people continued to pray for the restoration of their Irish national
   rule. They offered their forgiveness to England. They offered even
   their friendship to England if she would only give up her usurped
   power to tyrannise over us, and leave us to live in peace, and as
   honourable neighbours. But in vain. England felt herself strong
   enough to continue to insult and rob us, and she was too greedy and
   too insolent to cease from robbing and insulting us (cheers). Now it
   has come to pass as a consequence of that malignant policy pursued
   for so many long years--it has come to pass that the great body of
   the Irish people despair of obtaining peaceful restitution of our
   national rights (cheers). And it has also come to pass that vast
   numbers of Irishmen, whom the oppression of English rule forbade to
   live by honest industry in their own country, have in America learned
   to become soldiers (cheers). And those Irish soldiers seem resolved
   to make war against England (cheers). And England is in a panic of
   rage and fear in consequence of this (loud cheers). And being in a
   panic about Fenianism, she hopes to strike terror into her Irish
   malcontents by a legal murder (loud cheers). England wanted to show
   that she was not afraid of Fenianism--[A Voice--'She will be.'] And
   she has only shown that she is not afraid to do injustice in the face
   of Heaven and of man. Many a wicked statute she has framed--many a
   jury she has packed, in order to dispose of her Irish political
   offenders--but in the case of Allen, O'Brien, and Larkin, she has
   committed such an outrage on justice and decency as to make even many
   Englishmen stand aghast. I shall not detain you with entering into
   details with which you are all well acquainted as to the shameful
   scenes of the handcuffing of the untried prisoners--as to the
   shameful scenes of the trial up to the last moment, when the three
   men--our dearly beloved Irish brethren, were forced to give up their
   innocent lives as a sacrifice for the cause of Ireland (loud cheers);
   and, fellow-countrymen, these three humble Irishmen who represented
   Ireland on that sad occasion demeaned themselves as Christians, as
   patriots, modestly, courageously, piously, nobly (loud cheers). We
   need not blush for them. They bore themselves all through with a
   courage worthy of the greatest heroes that ever obtained glory upon
   earth. They behaved through all the trying scenes I referred to with
   Christian patience--with resignation to the will of God--(hear,
   hear)--with modest, yet proud and firm adherence to principle
   (cheers). They showed their love to Ireland and their fear of God
   from the first to the last (cheers). It is vain for me to attempt to
   detain you with many words upon this matter. I will say this, that
   all who are here do not approve of the schemes for the relief of
   Ireland that these men were supposed to have contemplated; but all
   who love Ireland, all generous, Christian men, and women, and
   children of Ireland--all the children growing up to be men and women
   of Ireland (hear, hear)--all those feel an intense sympathy, an
   intense love for the memories of these three men whom England has
   murdered in form of law by way of striking terror into her Irish
   subjects. Fellow-countrymen, it is idle almost for me to persist in
   addressing weak words of mine to you--for your presence here
   to-day--your demeanour all through--the solemn conduct of the vast
   multitude assembled directly under the terrorism of a hostile
   government--say more than the words of the greatest orator--more than
   the words of a Meagher could say for you (cheers). You have behaved
   yourselves all through this day with most admirable spirit as good
   Irishmen and women--as good boys and girls of holy Ireland ought to
   be (cheers), and I am sure you will behave so to the end (cries of
   yes, yes). This demonstration is mainly one of mourning for the fate
   of these three good Irishmen (cheers), but fellow-countrymen, and
   women, and boys, and girls, it is also one of protest and indignation
   against the conduct of our rulers (hear, hear, and cheers) Your
   attendance here to-day is a sufficient protest. Your orderly
   behaviour--your good temper all through this wretched weather--your
   attendance here in such vast numbers for such a purpose--avowedly and
   in the face of the terrorism of the government, which falls most
   directly upon the metropolis--that is enough for protest. You in your
   multitudes, men, women, and children, have to-day made that protest.
   Your conduct has been admirable for patience, for good nature, for
   fine spirit, for solemn sense of that great duty you were resolved to
   do. You will return home with the same good order and
   inoffensiveness. You will join with me now in repeating the prayer of
   the three martyrs whom we mourn--'God save Ireland!' And all of you,
   men, women, and boys and girls that are to be men and women of holy
   Ireland, will ever keep the sentiment of that prayer in your heart of
   hearts." Mr. Martin concluded amid enthusiastic cheering.

   At the conclusion of his address, Mr. Martin, accompanied by a large
   body of the processionists, proceeded to the cemetery, where Mr.
   Martin visited the grave of Terence Bellew M'Manus. The crowds walked
   around the grave as a mark of respect for the memory of M'Manus. Mr.
   Martin left the cemetery soon after, end went to his carriage; the
   people gathered about him and thanked him, and cheered him loudly.
   The vast assemblage dispersed in the most orderly and peaceful
   manner, and returned to their homes. They had suffered much from the
   severity of the day, but they exhibited to the end the most
   creditable endurance and patience. In the course of an hour the roads
   were cleared and the city soon resumed its wonted quiet
   aspect.[Footnote: In consequence of some vile misstatements in the
   government press, which represented the crowd to have not only
   behaved recklessly, but to have done considerable damaged to the
   graves, tombs, shrubs, and fences in the cemetery, Mr. Coyle,
   secretary to the Cemetery Board, published in the _Freeman_ an
   official contradiction, stating that not one sixpence worth of damage
   had been done. It is furthermore worthy of note, that at the city
   police offices next morning not one case arising out of the
   procession was before the magistrates, and the charges for
   drunkenness were one-fourth below the average on Mondays!]

Of the numbers in the procession "An Eye-witness," writing in the
_Freeman_, says:--


   The procession took one hour and forty minutes to pass the Four
   Courts. Let us assume that as the average time in which it would pass
   any given point, and deduct ten minutes for delays during that time.
   If, then, it moved at the rate of two and a-half miles per hour, we
   find that its length, with those suppositions, would be three and
   three-quarters miles. From this deduct a quarter of a mile for breaks
   or discrepancies, for we find the length of the column, if it moved
   in a continuous line, to be three and a-half miles. We may now
   suppose the ranks to be three feet apart, and consisting of ten in
   each, at an average. The total number is therefore easily obtained by
   dividing the product of 3-1/2 and 5,280 by 3, and multiplying the
   quotient by 10. This will give as a result 61,600 which, I think, is
   a fair approximation to the number of people in the procession alone.


Even in the columns of the _Irish Times_ a letter appeared giving an
honest estimate of the numbers in the procession. It was signed
"T.M.G.," and said:--

   I believe there was not fewer than 60,000 persons taking part in the
   procession on Sunday. My point of observation was one of the best in
   the city, seeing, as I could, from the entrance to the Lower Castle
   Yard to the College Gates. I was as careful in my calculation as an
   almost quick march would allow. There were also a few horsemen, three
   hearses, and sixty-one hired carriages, cabs, and cars. A
   correspondent in your columns this morning speaks of rows of from
   four to nine deep; I saw very many of from ten to sixteen deep,
   especially among the boys. The procession, took exactly eighty
   minutes to pass this. There were several thousand onlookers within my
   view.

Of the ladies in the procession the _Freeman's Journal_ bore the
following testimony, not more generous than truthful:--

   The most important physical feature was not, however, the respectable
   dress, the manly bearing, the order, discipline, and solemnity of the
   men, but the large bodies of ladies who, in rich and costly attire,
   marched the whole length of the long route, often ankle deep in mud,
   utterly regardles of the incessant down-pour of rain which deluged
   their silks and satins, and melted the mourning crape till it seemed
   incorporated with the very substance of the velvet mantles or rich
   shawls in which so many of the fair processionists were enveloped. In
   vain did well-gloved hands hold thousands of green parasols and
   umbrellas over their heads as they walked four and five deep through
   the leading thoroughfares yesterday. The bonnets with their 'green
   and crape' were alone defensible, velvets and Paisleys, silks and
   satins, met one common fate--thorough saturation. Yet all this and
   more was borne without a murmur. These ladies, and there were many
   hundreds of them, mingled with thousands in less rich attire, went
   out to cooperate with their fathers, brothers, and sweethearts in
   honouring three men who died upon the ignominious gallows, and they
   never flinched before the torrents, or swerved for an instant from
   the ranks. There must be some deep and powerful influence underlying
   this movement that could induce thousands of matrons and girls of
   from eighteen to two and-twenty, full of the blushing modesty that
   distinguishes Irishwomen, to lay aside their retiring characteristics
   and march to the sound of martial music through every thoroughfare in
   the metropolis of this country decked in green and crape.

The Dublin correspondent of the _Tipperary Free Press_ referred to the
demonstration as follows:--

   Arrived in Sackville-street we were obliged to leave our cab and
   endeavour, on foot, to force a way to our destination. This
   magnificent street was crowded to repletion, and the approaches to
   Beresford-place were 'black with people.' It was found necessary,
   owing to the overwhelming numbers that assembled, to start the
   procession before the hour named for its setting forth, and so it was
   commenced in wonderful order, considering the masses that had to be
   welded into shape. Marshals on foot and on horseback proceeded by the
   side of those in rank and file, and they certainly wore successful in
   preserving regularity of procedure. Mourning coaches and cabs
   followed, and after each was a procession of women, at least a
   thousand in number. Young and old were there--all decked in some
   shape or other with green; many green dresses--some had green
   feathers in their hats, but all had green ribbons prominently
   displayed. The girls bore all the disagreeability of the long route
   with wonderful endurance; it was bitterly cold--a sleety rain fell
   during the entire day, and the roads were almost ankle deep in
   mud--yet when they passed me on the return route they were apparently
   as unwearied as when I saw them hours before. As the procession
   trooped by--thousand after thousand--there was not a drunken man to
   be seen--all were calm and orderly, and if they were, as many of them
   were--soaked through--wet to the skin--they endured the discomfiture
   resolutely. The numbers in the procession have been variously
   estimated, but in my opinion there could not have been less than
   50,000. But the demonstration was not confined to the processionists
   alone; they walked through living walls, for along the entire route a
   mass of people lined the way, the great majority of whom wore some
   emblem of mourning, and every window of every house was thronged with
   ladies and children, nearly all of whom were decorated. All semblance
   of authority was withdrawn from sight, but every preparation had been
   made under the personal direction of Lord Strathnairn, the
   commander-in-chief, for the instant intervention of the military, had
   any disturbances taken place. The troops were confined to barracks
   since Saturday evening; they were kept in readiness to march at a
   moment's notice; the horses of the cavalry were saddled all day long,
   and those of the artillery were in harness. A battery of guns was in
   the rere yard of the Four Courts, and mounted orderlies were
   stationed at arranged points so as to convey orders to the different
   barracks as speedily as possible. But, thanks to Providence, all
   passed off quietly; the people seemed to feel the responsibility of
   their position, and accordingly not even an angry word was to be
   heard throughout the vast assemblage that for hours surged through
   the highways of the city.

The _Ulster Observer_, in the course of a beautiful and sympathetic
article, touched on the great theme as follows:--

   The main incidents of the singular and impressive event are worthy of
   reflection. On a cold December morning, wet and dreary as any morning
   in December might be, vast crowds assembled in the heart of Dublin to
   follow to consecrated ground the empty hearses which bore the names
   of the Irishmen whom England doomed to the gallows as murderers. The
   air was piercingly chill, the rain poured down in torrents, the
   streets were almost impassable from the accumulated pools of mingled
   water and mud, yet 80,000 people braved the inclemency of the
   weather, and unfalteringly carried out the programme so fervently
   adopted. Amongst the vast multitude there were not only stalwart men,
   capable of facing the difficulties of the day, but old men, who
   struggled through and defied them; and, strangest of all, 'young
   ladies, clothed in silk and velvet,' and women with tender children
   by their sides, all of whom continued to the last to form a part of
   the _cortege_, although the distance over which it passed must have
   taxed the strongest physical energy. What a unanimity of feeling, or
   rather what a naturalness of sentiment does not this wonderful
   demonstration exhibit? It seems as if the 'God save Ireland' of the
   humble successors of Emmet awoke in even the breast of infancy the
   thrill which must have vibrated sternly and strongly in the heart of
   manhood. Without exalting into classical grandeur the simple and
   affectionate devotion of a simple and unsophisticated people, we
   might compare this spectacle to that which ancient Rome witnessed,
   when the ashes of Germanicus were borne in solemn state within her
   portals. There were there the attendant crowd of female mourners, and
   the bowed heads and sorrowing hearts of strong men. If the Irish
   throngs had no hero to lament, who sustained their glory in the
   field, and gained for them fresh laurels of victory, theirs was at
   least a more disinterested tribute of grief, since it was paid to the
   unpretending merit which laid down, life with the simple prayer of
   'God save Ireland!' Amidst all the numerous thousands who proceeded
   to Glasnevin, there was not, probably, one who would have sympathised
   with any criminal offence, much less with the hideous one of murder.
   And yet these thousands honoured and revered the memory of the men
   condemned in England as assassins, and ignominiously buried in
   felons' graves.


This mighty demonstration--at once so unique, so solemn, so impressive,
so portentous--was an event which the rulers of Ireland felt to be of
critical importance. Following upon the Requiem Masses and the other
processions, it amounted to a great public verdict which changed beyond
all resistance the moral character of the Manchester trial and
execution. If the procession could only have been called a "Fenian"
demonstration, then indeed the government might hope to detract from its
significance and importance. The sympathy of "co-conspirators" with
fallen companions could not well be claimed as an index of general
_public opinion_. But here was a demonstration notoriously apart from
Fenianism, and it showed that a moral, a peaceable, a virtuous, a
religious people, moved by the most virtuous and religious instincts,
felt themselves coerced to execrate as a cowardly and revolting crime
the act of state policy consummated on the Manchester gibbet. In fine,
the country was up in moral revolt against a deed which the perpetrators
themselves already felt to be of evil character, and one which they
fain would blot for ever from public recollection.

What was to be done? For the next ensuing Sunday similar demonstrations
were announced in Killarney, Kilkenny, Drogheda, Ennis, Clonmel,
Queenstown, Youghal, and Fermoy--the preparations in the first named
town being under the direction of, and the procession about to be led
by, a member of parliament, one of the most distinguished and
influential of the Irish popular representatives--The O'Donoghue. What
was to be done? Obviously, as the men had been hanged, there could be no
halting halfway now. Having gone so far, the government seemed to feel
that it must need go the whole way, and choke off, at all hazards, these
inconvenient, these damnatory public protests. No man must be allowed to
speak the Unutterable Words, which, like the handwriting on the wall in
the banquetting hall of Belshazzar, seemed ever to be appearing before
the affrighted consciences of Ireland's rulers. Be it right or be it
wrong, be it justice or be it murder, the act must now be upheld--in
fact, must not be alluded to. There must be _silence_ by law, on what
had been done beneath the Manchester gallows-tree.

But here there presented itself a difficulty. Before the government had
any idea that the public revulsion would become so alarmingly extensive,
the responsible ministers of the crown, specifically interrogated on the
point, had, as we have seen, declared the funeral processions not to be
illegal, and how, now, could the government interpose to prevent them?
It certainly was a difficulty which there was no way of surmounting save
by a proceeding which in any country constitutionally governed would
cost its chief authors their lives on impeachment. The government,
notwithstanding the words of its own responsible chiefs--_on the faith
of which the Dublin procession was held, and numerous others were
announced_--decided to treat as illegal the proceedings they had but a
week before declared to be _not_ illegal; decided to prosecute the
processionists who had acted on the government declarations; and decided
to prevent, by sabre and cannon--by slaughter if necessary--the further
processions announced in Killarney, Clonmel, Kilkenny, and elsewhere!

On the evening of Thursday, the 12th December, Dublin city was flung
into the most intense excitement by the issue of the following
Government Proclamation:--

       *       *       *       *       *

   BY THE LORD LIEUTENANT AND COUNCIL OF IRELAND.

   A PROCLAMATION.

   ABERCORN.

   Whereas it has been publicly announced that a meeting is to assemble
   in the city of _Kilkenny_, and that a procession is to take place
   there on Sunday, 15th day of December instant:

   And whereas placards of the said intended meeting and procession have
   been printed and circulated, stating that the said intended
   procession is to take place in honour of certain men lately executed
   in Manchester for the crime of murder, and calling upon Irishmen to
   assemble in thousands for the said procession:

   And whereas meetings and processions of large numbers of persons have
   been already held and have taken place in different parts of the
   United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland under the like pretence,
   at some of which, and particularly at a meeting and procession in the
   city of Dublin, language of a seditious and inflammatory character
   has been used, calculated to excite discontent and disaffection in
   the minds of her Majesty's subjects, and to create ill-will and
   animosity amongst them, and to bring into hatred and contempt the
   government and constitution of the country as by law established:

   And whereas the said intended meeting and procession, and the objects
   of the persons to be assembled, and take part therein, are not legal
   or constitutional, but are calculated to bring into hatred and
   contempt the government of the United Kingdom as by law established,
   and to impede the administration of justice by intimidation, and the
   demonstration of physical force.

   Now we, the Lord Lieutenant and General Governor of Ireland, by and
   with the advice of her Majesty's Privy Council in Ireland, being
   satisfied that such meetings and processions as aforesaid can only
   tend to serve the ends of factious, seditions, and traitorous
   persons, and to the violation of the public peace, do hereby caution
   and forewarn all persons whomsoever that they do abstain from
   assembling at any such meeting, and from joining or taking part in
   any such procession.

   And we do hereby order and enjoin all magistrates and officers
   entrusted with the preservation of the public peace, and others whom
   it may concern, to aid and assist the execution of the law, in
   preventing the said intended meeting and procession, and in the
   effectual suppression of the same.

   Given at the Council Chamber in Dublin, this Twelfth day of
   December, 1807.


   RICHARD C. DUBLIN.
   A. BREWSTER, C.
   MAYO.
   STRATHNAIRN.
   FRED. SHAW.
   R. KEATINGE.
   WILLIAM KEOGH.
   JOHN E. WALSH.
   HEDGES EYRE CHATTERTON.
   ROBERT R. WARREN.

Everybody knew what this proclamation meant. It plainly enough announced
that not only would the further demonstrations be prevented, but that
the Dublin processionists were to feel "the vengeance of the law"--that
is the vengeance of the Manchester executioners. Next day the city was
beset with the wildest rumours as to the arrests to be made or the
prosecutions to be commenced. Everyone seemed to conclude of course that
Mr. John Martin, Mr. A.M. Sullivan, and the Honorary Secretaries of the
Procession Committee, were on the crown prosecutor's list; but besides
these the names of dozens of gentlemen who had been on the committee, or
who had acted as stewards, marshals, &c., at the funeral, were likewise
mentioned. On Saturday it became known that late on the previous evening
crown summonses had been served on Mr. J.J. Lalor, Dr. J.C. Waters, and
Mr. James Scanlan, requiring them to attend on the following Tuesday at
the Head Police Office to answer informations sworn against them for
taking part in an "illegal procession" and a "seditious assembly." A
summons had been taken out also against Mr. Martin; but as he had left
Dublin for home on Friday, the police officers proceeded after him to
Kilbroney, and "served" him there on Saturday evening.

Beside and behind this open move was a secret castle plot so utterly
disreputable that, as we shall see, the Attorney-General, startled by
the shout of universal execration which it elicited, sent his official
representative into public court to repudiate it as far as _he_ was
concerned, and to offer a public apology to the gentlemen aggrieved by
it. The history of that scandalous proceeding will appear in what
follows.

On Monday, 16th December, 1867, the Head Police Office, Exchange-court,
Dublin, presented an excited scene. The daily papers of the day report
the proceedings as follows:--

   At one o'clock, the hour appointed by the summons, the defendants
   attended in court, accompanied by their professional advisers and a
   number of friends, including Alderman Plunkett, Mr. Butler, T.C.; the
   Rev. P. Langan, P.P., Ardcath; A.M. Sullivan, T.C.; T.D. Sullivan,
   J.J. Lalor, &c. Mr. Dix and Mr. Allen, divisional magistrates,
   presided. Mr. James Murphy, Q.C., instructed by Mr. Anderson,
   represented the crown. Mr. Heron, Q.C., and Mr. Molloy appeared for
   J.J. Lalor. Mr. Crean appeared for Dr. Waters. Mr. Scallan appeared
   as solicitor for J.J. Lalor and for Dr. Waters.

   It was generally understood, on arrival at the Head-office, that the
   cases would be heard in the usual court up stairs, and, accordingly,
   the defendants and the professional gentlemen waited in the court for
   a considerable time after one o'clock. It was then stated that the
   magistrates would sit in another court down stairs, and all the
   parties moved towards the door for the purpose of going there. Then
   another arrangement was made, that the change would not take place,
   and the parties concerned thereupon returned to their places. But in
   a few minutes it was again announced that the proceedings would be in
   the court down stairs. A general movement was made again by
   defendants, by counsel, by solicitors, and others towards that court,
   but on arriving at the entrances they were guarded by detectives and
   police. The benches, which ought to have been reserved for the bar
   and solicitors, and also for the press, were occupied by detectives,
   and for a considerable time great difficulty was experienced in
   getting places.

   Mr. George M'Dermott, barrister, applied to the magistrates to assign
   a place for the members of the bar.

   Mr. Dix--I don't know that the bar, unless they are engaged in the
   cases, have any greater privilege than anyone else. We have a
   wretched court here.

   Mr. M'Dermott said the bar was entitled to have room made for them
   when it could be done.

   Mr. W.L. Hackett--All the seats should not be occupied by policemen
   to the exclusion of the bar.

   Mr. Scallan, solicitor, who spoke from the end of the table,
   said--Your worships, I am solicitor for one of the traversers, and I
   cannot get near my counsel to communicate with him. The court is
   filled with detectives.

   Mr. Molloy--My solicitor has a right to be here; I want my solicitor
   to be near me.

   Mr. Dix--Certainly; how can men defend their clients if they are
   inconvenienced.

   An appeal was then made to the detectives who occupied the side bar
   behind the counsel to make way.

   Mr. Murphy, Q.C., said one was a policeman who was summoned. Mr.
   Dix--The police have no right to take seats.

   The detectives then yielded, and the professional gentlemen and the
   reporters were accommodated.

   Mr. Dix then called the cases.

   Mr. Molloy--I appear with Mr. Heron, Q.C., on behalf of J.J. Lalor.

   Mr. Crean--I appear for Dr. Waters.

   Mr. John Martin--I appear on behalf of myself.

   Mr. Crean--I understand there is an impression that Dr. Waters has
   been summoned, but he has not.

   Mr. Dix--If he appears that cures any defect.

   Mr. Crean--I appear on his behalf, but I believe his personal
   attendance is necessary.

   Mr. Dix--Does anyone appear for Mr. Scanlan?

   There was no answer.

   Mr. Murphy, Q.C.--I ask whether Dr. Waters and Mr. Lalor appear in
   court.

   Mr. Molloy--My client Mr. Lalor, is in court.

   Mr. Crean--I believe my client is not in court.

   Mr. Murphy, Q.C.--I will prove the service of the summons against Dr.
   Waters. If there is any defect in the summons it can be remedied. I
   will not proceed against any person who does not appear.

   Mr. Dix--Am I to take it there is no appearance for Dr. Waters or Mr.
   Scanlan?

   Mr. Crean--I appear for Dr. Waters. I believe he is not in court. It
   was stated in the newspapers that he was summoned, but I am
   instructed he has not been summoned at all.

Mr. Murphy, Q.C., then proceeded in a careful and precise address to
state the case for the crown. When he had concluded, and was about
calling evidence, the following singular episode took place:--

   Mr. Dix--You only proceed against two parties?

   Mr. Murphy--I shall only proceed against the parties who
   attend--against those who do not attend I shall not give evidence.

   Mr. John Martin--If I am in order I would say, to save the time of
   the court and to save the public money, that I would be very glad to
   offer every facility to the crown. I believe, Sir, you (to Mr.
   Murphy) are the crown?

   Mr. Murphy--I represent the crown.

   Mr. Martin--I will offer every facility to the crown for establishing
   the facts both as to my conduct and my words.

   Mr. A.M. Sullivan--I also will help you to put up some one, as you
   seem scarce of the accused. I have been summoned myself--

   Mr. Dix--Who are you?

   Mr. Sullivan--My name is Alexander M. Sullivan, and, meaning no
   disrespect to either of the magistrates, I publicly refuse even to
   be sworn. I was present at the funeral procession--I participated in
   it openly, deliberately, heartily--and I denounce as a personal and
   public outrage the endeavour to degrade the national press of this
   country by attempting to place in the light of--

   Mr. Dix--I cannot allow this. This is not a place for making
   speeches. I understand you are not summoned here at all.

   Mr. Murphy--He is only summoned as a witness.

   Mr. Dix--When you (to Mr. Sullivan) are called on will be the time to
   hear you, not now.

   Mr. Sullivan--I ask your worship, with your usual courtesy, to hear
   me while I complain publicly of endeavouring to place the editor of a
   national journal on the list of crown witnesses in this court as a
   public and personal indignity--and as an endeavour to destroy the
   influence of that national press, whose power they feel and fear, but
   which they dare not prosecute. I personally complain--

   Mr. Murphy--I don't know that this should be permitted.

   Mr. Sullivan--Don't interrupt me for a moment.

   Mr. Dix--Mr. Sullivan wants to have himself included in the summons
   and charge.

   Mr. Murphy--That cannot be done at present.

   Mr. Sullivan--With one sentence I will conclude.

   Mr. Murphy--I don't intend to have you called as a witness--

   Mr. Sullivan--It is an endeavour to accomplish my imprisonment for
   contempt, when the government "willing to wound, afraid to strike,"
   know that they dare not accuse me as a Fenian--

   Mr. Dix--You are not here as a Fenian.

   Mr. Sullivan--For a moment. Knowing well, your worship, that they
   could not get in all Ireland a jury to convict me, to secure my
   imprisonment openly and fairly, they do this. I now declare that I
   participated in that funeral, and I defy those who were guilty of
   such cowardice as to subpoena me as a crown witness (applause).

   Mr. Crean--I perceive that my client, Dr. C. Waters, is now in court.
   In order to facilitate business, I shall offer no further objection;
   but, as a matter of fact, he was not summoned.

Then the case proceeded, the police giving their evidence on the whole
very fairly, and testifying that the procession was one of the most
peaceable, orderly, solemn, and impressive public demonstrations ever
seen in Dublin. Against Mr. Martin it was testified that he marched at
the head of the procession arm-in-arm with Mr. A.M. Sullivan and another
gentleman; and that he delivered the memorable speech at the cemetery
gate. Against Dr. Waters and Mr. Lalor it was advanced that they were
honorary secretaries of the funeral committee, and had moreover acted,
the former as a marshal, the latter as a steward in the procession. It
was found, however, that the case could not be closed that day; and
accordingly, late in the evening, the magistrates intimated that they
would adjourn over to next morning. Suddenly from the body of the court
is heard a stentorian voice:--

   Mr. Bracken--I am summoned here as a crown witness. My name is Thomas
   Bracken. I went, heart and soul into that procession (applause)--

   Mr. Anderson, junior--I don't know this gentleman.

   Mr. Bracken--I am very proud that neither you nor any one like you
   knows me (applause).

   Mr. Dix--I cannot hear you.

   Mr. Bracken--I have been brought here as a crown witness away from my
   business, and losing my time here.

   Mr. Donal Sullivan--I am another, and I avow myself in the same way.

   Several voices--"So am I."

   Mr. Bracken--I want to know why I should be taken from my business,
   by which I have to support my family, and put me before the eyes of
   my countrymen as a crown witness (applause)? I went heart and soul
   into the procession, and I am ready to do the same to-morrow, and
   abide by the consequences (applause). It is curious that the
   government should point me out as a crown witness.

   Mr. Murphy--I ask for an adjournment till to-morrow.

   Mr. Dix--It is more convenient to adjourn now.

   Mr. Martin--I don't want to make any insinuations against the
   gentlemen who represent the crown, nor against the police, but I
   mention the fact, in order that they may relieve themselves from the
   odium which would attach to them if they cannot explain it. This
   morning a paragraph appears in one of the principal Dublin daily
   papers, the _Irish Times_, in which it is said that I, John Martin,
   have absconded; I must presume that the information was supplied to
   that paper either by the crown representatives or by the police.

   Mr. Murphy, Q.C.--It is right to state, so far as I am informed, that
   an endeavour was made to serve Mr. Martin in Dublin. When the
   summonses were issued he was not in Dublin, but had gone down to the
   country, either to his own or the house of his brother, or--

   Mr. Ross Todd, who sat beside Mr. Martin, here jumped up and said,
   "To his own house, sir, to his own house"--

   Mr. Murphy--Very well. A constable was sent down there, and saw Mr.
   Martin, and he reported that Mr. Martin said he would attend
   forthwith.

   Mr. Dix--And he has done so?

   Mr. Murphy--I have no other knowledge. It was briefed to me that Mr.
   Martin said he would attend forthwith.

   Mr. Martin--I am glad I have given the representatives of the crown
   an opportunity of making that statement. But I cannot understand how,
   when the representatives of the crown had the information, and when I
   told the constables I would attend--as I have done at great
   inconvenience and expense to myself--I cannot understand how a
   newspaper should come to say I had absconded.

   Mr. Murphy--I cannot understand it either; I can only tell the facts
   within my own knowledge.

   Mr. Molloy said it seemed very extraordinary that witnesses should be
   summoned, and the crown say they were not.

   Mr. Sullivan wished his summons to be examined. Did the magistrates
   sign it?

   Mr. Dix--Unless I saw the original I could not say.

   Mr. J.J. Lalor--Sir John Gray has been summoned as a witness, too. It
   is monstrous.

   Sir John Gray, M.P.--I wish to state to your worship the unpleasant
   circumstances under which I find myself placed. At an advanced hour
   on Saturday I learned that the crown intended to summon as witnesses
   for the prosecution some of the gentlemen connected with my
   establishment. I immediately communicated with the crown prosecutor,
   and said it was unfair towards these gentlemen to have them placed in
   such an odious position, and that their refusal to act as crown
   witnesses might subject them to serious personal consequences; I said
   it would not be right of me to allow any of the gentlemen of my
   establishment to subject themselves to the consequences of such
   refusal, as I knew well they would all refuse. I suggested, if any
   unpleasant consequences should follow, they should fall on the head
   of the establishment alone (applause). I said "summon me, and deal
   with me." I am here now, sir, to show my respect for you personally
   and for this court; but I wish to state most distinctly that I will
   never consent to be examined as a crown witness (applause).

   Mr. Anderson, jun., here interposed.

   Sir John Gray--I beg your pardon. I am addressing the bench, and I
   hope I won't be interrupted. Some of my family are going to-night to
   England to spend the Christmas with my son. I intend to escort them.
   I will not be here to-morrow. I wish distinctly to state so. If I
   were here, my respect for you and the bench, would induce me to be
   present, but I would be present only to declare what I have already
   stated, that I would not consent to be sworn or to give any evidence
   whatever in this prosecution. I think it right to add that I attach
   no blame whatever to the police authorities in this transaction. They
   have, I am sure, performed their duty in this case with that
   propriety which has always characterised their conduct. Neither do I
   attach any blame to the crown prosecutor. I simply desire to state,
   with the most profound respect for the bench and the court, that I
   will not be a witness (loud applause).

   Mr. Anderson--We don't intend to examine Sir John Gray, but I wish to
   say that if the police believed any one could give important
   evidence, it is a new proposition to me that it is an indignity upon
   a man to summon him as a crown witness--

   Mr. A.M. Sullivan--I say it is an indignity, and that the crown
   solicitor should not seek to shift the responsibility on the police,
   who only do what they are told.

   Mr. Anderson--I am not trying to shift anything.

   Mr. Sullivan--You are. You are trying to shift the responsibility of
   having committed a gross indignity upon a member of parliament, upon
   myself, and upon many honest men here.

   Several persons holding up summonses said "hear, hear," and "yes."

   Mr. Sullivan--This I charge to have been done by Mr. Anderson as his
   base revenge upon honest men who bade him defiance. Mr. Anderson must
   answer for this conduct. It is a vile conspiracy--a plot against
   honest men, who here now to his face tell him they scorn and defy him
   (applause).

   Mr. Dix--I adjourn the case till one o'clock to-morrow.

   The proceedings were then adjourned.

So far have we quoted from the _Freeman's Journal_. Of the closing scene
_Saunders's News-Letter_, grieving sorely over such a fiasco, gives the
following account:--

   The adjournment of the court was attended with a scene of tumult and
   disorder that was rarely, or never, witnessed in a police court, in
   presence of the magistrates and a large number of police--both
   inspectors and detectives. The crowd of unwilling witnesses who had
   been summoned to give evidence against the defendants, clamorously
   protested against being brought there as crown witnesses, avowed that
   they were present taking part in the procession, and loudly declared
   that they would not attend at any subsequent hearing of the case. The
   latter part of the case indeed was marked with frequent interruptions
   and declarations of a similar kind, often very vociferously uttered.
   The proceedings terminated amid the greatest and unchecked disorder.

In plain words, "Scene I, Act I," in what was meant to be a most solemn,
awe-inspiring government function, turned out an unmistakable farce, if
not a disastrous break down. Even the government journals themselves,
without waiting for "Scene II.," (though coming off immediately) raised
a shout of condemnation of the discreditable bungle, and demanded that
it should be forthwith abandoned. Considering the course ultimately
taken by the government, these utterances of the government organs
themselves, have a serious meaning and are of peculiar importance. The
ultra-orange _Evening Mail_ (Tuesday, 17th December,) said:--

   THE POLICE-COURT SCENE.

   The scenes of yesterday in the Dublin police-court will cause an
   astonished public to put the question, is the government insane? They
   suppress the processions one day, and on the next proceed with
   deliberation to destroy all possible effect from such an act by
   inviting the magistrates' court to be used as a platform from whence
   a fresh roar of defiance may be uttered. The originators of the
   seditious demonstrations are charged with having brought the
   government of the kingdom into hatred and contempt; but what step
   taken, or word spoken or written, from the date of the first
   procession to the last, brought the government into anything like the
   "contempt" into which it plunged itself yesterday? The prosecutions
   now instituted are in themselves an act of utter weakness. We so
   declared when we imagined that they would be at least rationally
   conducted; but what is to be said now? It is literally impossible to
   give any sane explanation of the course taken in summoning as a crown
   witness one who must have been known to be prepared to boast of his
   participation in the procession. Mr. Sullivan boldly bearded the
   prosecutors of his brethren. It was a splendid opportunity for him.
   "I was present (he said) at that funeral procession. I participated
   in it, deliberately and heartily. I call this a personal and public
   outrage, to endeavour to drag the national press of this country--".
   Timid and ineffectual attempts were made by the magistrate to protect
   his court and position from insult, but Mr. Sullivan had the field,
   and would hold it. "He might help the crown to put some one else up,"
   he said, "as they are scarce, perhaps, in accused." The summoning of
   him was, he resumed, an "attempt to destroy the national press, whose
   power the crown feels and fears, but which they dare not prosecute."
   Mr. Sullivan was suffered to describe the conduct of the crown
   prosecutors at another stage as an "infamous plot." The government
   desired "to accomplish his imprisonment; they were willing to wound
   but afraid to strike." "They knew (he added) that they would not get
   a jury in all Ireland to agree to convict me; and I now characterise
   the conduct of the crown as base and cowardly." Another witness, in a
   halting way, entered a like protest against being supposed to have
   sympathy with the crown in the case; and the net result was a very
   remarkable triumph for what Mr. Sullivan calls the "national
   press"--a title wholly misapplied and grossly abused. Are we to have
   a succession of these "scenes in court?"

_Saunders's News-Letter_ of the same date dealt with the subject as
follows:--

   The first step in what appears to be a very doubtful proceeding was
   taken yesterday by the law advisers of the crown. We refer to the
   prosecution instituted against the leaders and organisers of the
   Fenian procession which took place in this city on Sunday, the 8th
   instant, in honour of the memories of the men executed at Manchester
   for murder. As to the character of that demonstration we never
   entertained any doubt. But it must be remembered that similar
   demonstrations had taken place a week previously in London, in
   Manchester, and in Cork, and that not only did the authorities not
   interfere to prevent them, but that the prime minister declared in
   the House of Lords that they were not illegal. Lord Derby doubtless,
   intended to limit his observations to the violition of the Party
   Processions Act, without pronouncing any opinion as to the legality
   or illegality of the processions, viewed under another aspect, as
   seditious assemblies. But his language was calculated to mislead,
   and, as a matter of fact, was taken by the Fenian sympathisers as an
   admission that their mock funeral processions were not unlawful. It
   is not to be wondered at, therefore, however much to be deplored,
   that the disaffected portion of the population should have eagerly
   taken advantage of Lord Derby's declaration to make a safe display of
   their sympathies and of their strength. They were encouraged to do so
   by the toleration already extended towards their fellows in England
   and in Cork, as well as by the statement of the prime minister. Under
   these circumstances the prosecution of persons who took part in the
   Dublin procession, even as organisers of that proceeding, appears to
   us to be a matter of doubtful policy. Mr. John Martin, the leader of
   the movement, stands in a different position from his companions.
   They confined themselves to walking in the procession; he delivered
   an inflammatory and seditious speech, for which he alone is
   responsible, and which might have been made the subject of a separate
   proceeding against him. To do Mr. Martin justice, he showed no desire
   to shirk the responsibility he has incurred. At the police-court,
   yesterday, he frankly avowed the part he had taken in the procession,
   and offered to acknowledge the speech which he delivered on that
   occasion. If, however, the policy which dictated the prosecution be
   questionable, there can be no doubt at all as to the objectionable
   manner in which some of the persons engaged in it have
   acted--assuming the statement to be true that Mr. Sullivan,
   proprietor and editor of the _Nation_ newspaper, and Sir John Gray,
   proprietor of the _Freeman's Journal_, have been summoned as crown
   witnesses. Who is responsible for this extraordinary proceeding it is
   at present impossible to say. Mr. Murphy, Q.C., the counsel for the
   crown, declared that he did not intend to examine Mr. Sullivan; Mr.
   Anderson, the son of the crown solicitor, who appears to be entrusted
   with the management of these prosecutions, denied that he had
   directed the summonses to be served, and Mr. Dix, the magistrate,
   stated that he had not signed them. Tot Mr. Sullivan produced the
   summons requiring him to attend as a witness, and in the strongest
   manner denounced the proceeding as a base and cowardly attempt on the
   part of the government to imprison for contempt of court, a
   "national journalist" whom they dared not prosecute. Sir John Gray,
   ill less violent language, complained of an effort having been made
   to place some of the gentlemen in his employment in the "odious
   position of crown witnesses," and stated that he himself had been
   subpoenaed, but would decline to give evidence. We have not concealed
   our opinion as to the proper way of dealing with Mr. Sullivan. As the
   weekly disseminator of most exciting and inflammatory articles, he is
   doing much to promote disaffection and encourage Fenianism. In no
   other country in the world would such writing be tolerated for a day;
   and, assuredly it ought not to be permitted in Ireland in perilous
   and exciting times like the present. But if Mr. Sullivan has offended
   against the law, let him be proceeded against boldly, openly, and
   fairly. He has, we think, a right to complain of being summoned as a
   witness for the crown; but the government have even more reason to
   complain of the conduct of their servants in exposing them by their
   blunders to ridicule and contempt. It is too bad that with a large
   and highly-paid staff of lawyers and attorneys the government
   prosecutions should be conducted in a loose and slovenly manner. When
   a state prosecution has been determined upon, every step ought to be
   carefully and anxiously considered, and subordinate officials should
   not be permitted by acts of officious zeal to compromise their
   superiors and bring discredit on the administration of the law.

The Liberal-Conservative _Irish Times_ was still more outspoken:--

   While all commend the recent action of the government, and give the
   executive full credit for the repression by proclamation of
   processions avowedly intended to be protests against authority and
   law, it is generally regretted that prosecutions should have been
   instituted against some of those who had taken part in these
   processions. Had these menacing assemblages been held after the
   proclamations were issued, or in defiance of the authorities, the
   utmost power should have been exerted to put them down, and the
   terrors of the law would properly have been invoked to punish the
   guilty. But, bearing in mind the fact that these processions had been
   declared by the head of the government--expressing, no doubt, the
   opinion entertained at that time by the law officers of the crown,
   that these processions were "not illegal"--remembering, too, that
   similar processions had been already held without the slightest
   intimation of opposition on the part of government; and recollecting,
   also, that the proclamation was everywhere implicitly obeyed, and
   without the least wish to dispute it, we cannot avoid regretting that
   the government should have been advised, at the last hour, to
   institute prosecutions of such a nature. Once, however, it was
   determined to vindicate the law in this way, the utmost care should
   have been taken to maintain the dignity of the proceedings, and to
   avoid everything calculated to create annoyance, irritation, or
   offence. If we except the moderate and very able speech of Mr.
   Murphy, Q.C., there is no one part of the proceedings in the
   police-court which merits commendation. Some of the witnesses utterly
   broke down; opportunity was given for utterances not calculated to
   increase respect for the law; and disloyal sentiments were boldly
   expressed and cheered until the court rang again. Great and serious
   as was the mistake in not obtaining an accurate legal opinion
   respecting the character of these meetings at the first, and then
   prohibiting them, a far greater mistake is now, we think, committed
   in instituting _these retrospective prosecutions_. For this mistake
   the law officers of the crown must, we infer, be held responsible.
   Were they men of energy and vigour, with the necessary knowledge of
   the world, they would not have suffered the executive to permit
   processions first, and then prohibit them, and at the same time try
   men for participating in what had been pronounced not to be illegal.
   We exonerate the attorney-general from the error of summoning to give
   evidence persons who openly gloried in the part they had taken in
   these meetings. To command the presence of such witnesses was of the
   nature of an offence. There was no ground, for instance, for
   supposing that Mr. Sullivan would have played the informer against
   the friends who had walked with him in the procession--such is not
   his character, his feeling, or his sense of honour. The summoning of
   those who had moved with, and as part of, the multitude, to give
   evidence against their fellows, was not only a most injudicious, but
   a futile expedient, and naturally has caused very great
   dissatisfaction and annoyance. The circumstance, however, proves that
   the prosecutions was instituted without that exact care and minute
   attention to all particulars which are necessary in a case of this
   kind.

Even the _Daily Express_, the, all-but subsidised, if not the secretly
subsidised, organ of the ultra-orange section of the Irish
administration, had to own the discomfiture of its patrons:--

   Are our police offices to become a kind of national journals court?
   Is the "national press of Ireland" then and there to bid for the
   support immediately of the gallery, and more remotely of that portion
   of the population which is humourously called the Irish Nation? These
   speculations are suggested by a curious scene which took place at the
   inquiry at the police office yesterday, and which will be found
   detailed in another column. Mr. Sullivan, the editor of the _Nation_,
   seized the opportunity of being summoned as a witness, to denounce
   the government for not including him in the prosecution. He
   complained "of endeavouring to place the editor of a national journal
   on the list of crown witnesses in this court as a public and
   personal indignity," and as an endeavour to destroy the influence of
   the national press. It is certainly an open avowal to declare that
   the mere placing of the name of the editor of a "national" journal
   upon the list of crown witnesses is an unparalleled wrong. But Sir
   John Gray was still more instructive. From him we learn that a
   witness summoned to assist the crown in the prosecution of sedition
   is placed in an "odious position." Odious it may be, but in the eyes
   of whom? Surely not of any loyal subject? A paid informer, or
   professional spy, may be personally odious in the eyes of those who
   make use of his services. But we have yet to learn how a subject who
   is summoned to come forward to assist the government fills an odious
   position in the opinion of his loyal fellow-subjects. We should
   rather have supposed him to be entitled to their gratitude. However
   that may be, Sir John Gray came gallantly to the rescue of several
   "gentlemen connected with his establishment," whom, he was informed,
   the government intended to summon as witnesses. This, he knew, they
   would all refuse. "I suggested, if any unpleasant consequences should
   follow, that they should fall on the head of the establishment
   alone." He called upon the authorities to summon him. We do complain
   of our police-courts being made the scenes of open avowals of
   determination to thwart, or, at least, not to assist the government
   in their endeavours to prosecute treason and sedition. We can imagine
   no principle on which a subject could object to assisting the crown
   as a witness, which, if followed to its logical consequences, would
   not justify open rebellion. It is certainly a dangerous doctrine to
   preach that it is allowable, nay, even praiseworthy in a subject to
   refuse to give evidence when called upon to do so by the crown. There
   is a disposition too prevalent in this country to regard the law as
   an enemy, and opposition to it, either by passive obstruction or
   active rebellion, as a praiseworthy and patriotic act. Can we wonder
   at this when we hear opposition to constituted authority openly
   preached by the instructors of "the nation," and witness the
   eagerness of the "national press" to free itself from the terrible
   suspicion of coming to the assistance, even involuntarily, of the
   government in its struggle with sedition and treason?

It was amidst such an outburst of vexation and indignation as this, even
from the government journals themselves, that the curtain rose next
morning on Act II. in the Head Police Office. A very unique episode
commenced the proceedings on this day also. At the resumption of the
case, Mr. Murphy, Q.C., on behalf of the crown, said:--

   Mr. Sullivan and some other gentlemen complained yesterday of having
   been served with summonses to give evidence in those cases. I am
   directed by the attorney-general to state that he regrets it, and
   that it was done without his authority. He never gave any directions
   to have those persons summoned, nor was it done by anyone acting
   under his directions. It occurred in this way. General directions
   were given to the police to summon parties to give evidence in order
   to establish the charge against those four gentlemen who are summoned
   for taking an active part in the procession. The police, in the
   exercise of their discretion thought it might be necessary to summon
   parties who took part in the procession, but there was no intention
   on the part of those aiding on behalf of the crown to summon parties
   to give evidence who themselves took part in the procession, and I am
   sorry it occurred.

   Mr. Dix--I may mention that a magistrate when signing a summons knows
   nothing of the witnesses. If they were all living in Jamacia he
   merely signs it as a matter of form.

   Mr. A.M. Sullivan--I thank your worship and Mr. Murphy, and I think
   it will be seen that had your worship not allowed me yesterday to
   make the protest I did, the attorney-general would not have the
   opportunity of making the disclaimer which it became the dignity of
   the government to make. The aspect of the case yesterday was very
   adverse towards Sir John Gray, myself, and other gentlemen. Although
   my brother signed his name to the notice, he was not summoned as
   principal but as a witness, but if necessary, he was determined to
   stand side by side in the dock with Mr. Martin.

   Mr. Allen--I am very glad of the explanation, because I was blamed
   for allowing persons making speeches here yesterday. I think if a man
   has any ground of complaint the sooner it is set right the better.

   Mr. Sullivan--I have to thank the bench.

   Mr. Allen--I am glad that a satisfactory arrangement has been come to
   by all parties, because there is an objection entertained by some
   persons to be brought into court as witnesses for the crown.

   Mr. Sullivan--Especially a public journalist.

   Mr. Allen--Quite so.

   Mr. Heron then proceeded to cross-examine the witness.

It was elicited from the government reporter, that, by a process which
he called "throwing in the vowels," he was able to make Mr. Martin's
speech read sufficiently seditious. Mr. D.C. Heron, Q.C., then addressed
the court on behalf of Mr. J.J. Lalor; and Mr. Michael Crean, barrister,
on behalf of Dr. Waters. Mr. Martin, on his own behalf, then spoke as
follows:--

   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 the _Habeas Corpus_ Act 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.

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 the
_Irishman_ and the _Weekly News_ for 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--the _Weekly News_--the proprietor raised
no legal point whatsoever. The fact was that when he found the crown not
content with _one_ state prosecution against him (that for the funeral
procession), coming upon him with _a 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 the _city_ venue, had been returned for trial to the _city_
commission by a _city_ jury. But the government at the last moment
mistrusted a city jury in this instance--even a _packed_ city jury--and
without any notice to the traversers, sent the indictments before the
_county_ grand 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 the _Irishman_, was
called to plead, his counsel (Mr. Heron, Q.C.) insisted that he, the
traverser, was now in custody of the _city_ sheriff 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 the _Weekly
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
the _city_ venue. [Footnote A: Dr. Waters, in the interval since his
committal on this charge, had been arrested, and was now imprisoned,
under the Suspension of the _Habeas Corpus_ Act. 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 of _his_ soul 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.

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.

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.

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:--[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 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 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 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
   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
   "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). [Footnote C: For publishing an illustration in the _Weekly
   News_ thus 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 the _Evening Mail_ declared 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.)

The effect of this speech certainly was very considerable. Mr. Sullivan
spoke for upwards of two hours and forty minutes, or until nearly a
quarter past six o'clock. During the delivery of his address, twilight
had succeeded day-light; the court attendants, later still, with silent
steps and taper in hand, stole around and lit the chandeliers, whose
glare upon the thousand anxious faces below, seemed to lend a still more
impressive aspect to the scene. The painful idea of the speaker's peril,
which was all-apparent at first amongst the densely-packed audience,
seemed to fade away by degrees, giving place to a feeling of triumph, as
they listened to the historical narrative of British misrule in Ireland,
by which Irish "disesteem" for British law was explained and justified,
and later on to the story of the Manchester tragedy by which Irish
sympathy with the martyrs was completely vindicated. Again and again in
the course of the speech, they burst into applause, regardless of
threatened penalties; and at the close gave vent to their feelings in a
manner that for a time defied all repression.

When silence was restored, the court was formally adjourned to next day,
Friday, at 10 o'clock, a.m.

The morning came, and with it another throng; for it was known Mr.
Martin would now speak in his turn. In order, however, that his speech,
which was sure to be an important one, might close the case against the
crown, Mr. Bracken, on the court resuming, put in _his_ defence very
effectively as follows:--

   My lords--I would say a word or two, but after Mr. Sullivan's grand
   and noble speech of last evening, I think it now needless on my part.
   I went to the procession of the 8th December, assured that it was
   right from reading a speech of the Earl of Derby in the newspapers.
   There was a sitting of the Privy Council in Dublin on the day before,
   and I sat in my shop that night till twelve o'clock, to see if the
   procession would be forbidden by government. They, however, permitted
   it to take place, and I attended it fully believing I was right. That
   is all I have to say.

This short speech--delivered in a clear musical and manly voice--put the
whole case against the crown in a nut-shell. The appearance of the
speaker too--a fine, handsome, robust, and well-built man, in the prime
of life, with the unmistakable stamp of honest sincerity on his
countenance and in his eye--gave his words greater effect with the
audience; and it was very audibly murmured on all sides that he had
given the government a home thrust in his brief but telling speech.

Then Mr. Martin rose. After leaving court the previous evening he had
decided to commit to writing what he intended to say; and he now read
from manuscript his address to the jury. The speech, however, lost
nothing in effect by this; for any auditor out of view would have
believed it to have been spoken, as he usually speaks, _extempore_, so
admirably was it delivered. Mr. Martin said:--

   My lords and gentlemen of the jury--I am going to trouble this court
   with some reply to the charge made against me in this indictment.
   But I am sorry that I must begin by protesting that I do not consider
   myself as being now put upon my country to be tried as the
   constitution directs--as the spirit of the constitution
   requires--and, therefore, I do not address you for my legal defence,
   but for my vindication before the tribunal of conscience--a far more
   awful tribunal, to my mind, than this. Gentlemen, I regard you as
   twelve of my fellow-countrymen, known or believed by my prosecutors
   to be my political opponents, and selected for that reason for the
   purpose of obtaining a conviction against me in form of law.
   Gentlemen, I have not the smallest purpose of casting an imputation
   against your honesty or the honesty of my prosecutors who have
   selected you. This is a political trial, and in this country
   political trials are always conducted in this way. It is considered
   by the crown prosecutors to be their duty to exclude from the
   jury-box every juror known, or suspected, to hold or agree with the
   accused in political sentiment. Now, gentlemen, I have not the least
   objection to see men of the most opposite political sentiments to
   mine placed in the jury-box to try me, provided they be placed there
   as the constitution commands--provided they are twelve of my
   neighbours indifferently chosen. As a loyal citizen I am willing and
   desirous to be put upon my county, and fairly tried before any twelve
   of my countrymen, no matter what may happen to be the political
   sentiments of any of them. But I am sorry and indignant that this is
   not such a trial. This system by which over and over again loyal
   subjects of the Queen in Ireland are condemned in form of law for
   seeking, by such means as the constitution warrants, to restore her
   Majesty's kingdom of Ireland to the enjoyment of its national
   rights--this system, of selecting anti-Repealers and excluding
   Repealers from the jury box, when a Repealer like me is to be tried,
   is calculated to bring the administration of justice into disesteem,
   disrepute, and hatred. I here protest against it. My lords and
   gentlemen of the jury, before I offer any reply to the charges in
   this indictment, and the further development of those charges made
   yesterday by the learned gentleman whose official duty it was to
   argue the government's case against me, I wish to apologise to the
   court for declining to avail myself of the professional assistance of
   the bar upon this occasion. It is not through any want of respect for
   the noble profession of the bar that I decline that assistance. I
   regard the duties of a lawyer as among the most respectable that a
   citizen can undertake. His education has taught him to investigate
   the origin, and to understand principles of law, and the true nature
   of loyalty. He has had to consider how the interests of individual
   citizens may harmonise with the interests of the community, how
   justice and liberty may be united, how the state may have both order
   and contentment. The application of the knowledge which he has
   gained--viz., the study of law to the daily facts of human
   society--sharpens and strengthens all his faculties, clears his
   judgment, helps him to distinguish true from false, and right from
   wrong. It is no wonder, gentlemen, that an accomplished and virtuous
   lawyer holds a high place in the aristocracy of merit in every free
   country. Like all things human, the legal profession has its dark as
   well as its bright side, has in it germs of decay and rotten foulness
   as well as of health and beauty; but yet it is a noble profession,
   and one which I admire and respect. But, above all, I would desire to
   respect the bar of my own country, and the Irish bar--the bar made
   illustrious by such memories as those of Grattan and Flood, and the
   Emmets, and Curran, and Plunket, and Saurin, and Holmes, and Sheil,
   and O'Connell. I may add, too, of Burke and of Sheridan, for they
   were Irish in all that made them great. The bar of Ireland wants this
   day only the ennobling inspirations of national freedom to raise it
   to a level with the world. Under the Union very few lawyers have been
   produced whose names can rank in history with any of the great names
   I have mentioned. But still, even the present times of decay, and
   when the Union is preparing to carry away our superior courts, and
   the remains of our bar to Westminster, and to turn that beautiful
   building upon the quay into a barrack like the Linen Hall, or an
   English tax-gatherer's office like the Custom House, there are many
   learned, accomplished, and respectable lawyers at the Irish bar, and
   far be it from me to doubt but that any Irish lawyer who might
   undertake my defence would loyally exert himself as the lofty idea of
   professional honour commands to save me from a conviction. But to
   this attack upon my character as a good citizen and upon my liberty,
   my lords and gentlemen, the only defence I could permit to be offered
   would be a full justification of my political conduct, morally,
   constitutionally, legally--a complete vindication of my acts and
   words alleged to be seditious and disloyal, and to retort against my
   accusers the charge of sedition and disloyalty. Not, indeed, that I
   would desire to prosecute these gentlemen upon that charge, if I
   could count upon convicting them and send them to the dungeon instead
   of myself. I don't desire to silence them, or to hurt a hair of their
   wigs because their political opinions differed from mine. Gentlemen,
   this prosecution against me, like the prosecutions just accomplished
   against two national newspapers, is part of a scheme of the ministers
   of the crown for suppressing all voice of protest against the Union,
   for suppressing all public complaint against the deadly results of
   the Union, and all advocacy by act, speech, or writing for Repeal of
   the Union. Now I am a Repealer so long as I have been a politician at
   all--that is for at least twenty-four years past. Until the national
   self-government of my country be first restored, there appears to me
   to be no place, no _locus standi_ (as lawyers say), for any other
   Irish political question, and I consider it to be my duty as a
   patriotic and loyal citizen, to endeavour by all honourable and
   prudent means to procure the Repeal of the Act of the Union, and the
   restoration of the independent Irish government, of which my country
   was (as I have said in my prosecuted speech), "by fraud and force,"
   and against the will of the vast majority of its people of every
   race, creed, and class, though under false form of law, deprived
   sixty-seven years ago. Certainly, I do not dispute the right of you,
   gentlemen, or of any man in this court, or in all Ireland, to
   approve of the Union, to praise it, if you think right, as being wise
   and beneficent, and to advocate its continuance openly by act,
   speech, and writing. But I naturally think that my convictions in
   this matter of the Union ought to be shared by you also, gentlemen,
   and by the learned judges, and the lawyers, both crown lawyers and
   all others, and by the policemen and soldiers, and all faithful
   subjects of her Majesty in Ireland. Now, gentlemen, such being my
   convictions, were I to entrust my defence in this court to a lawyer,
   he must speak as a Repealer, not only for me, but for himself, not
   only as a professional advocate, but as a man, and from the heart. I
   cannot doubt but that there are very many Irish lawyers who privately
   share my convictions about Repeal. Believing as I do in my heart and
   conscience, and with all the force of the mind that God has given me,
   that Repeal is the right and the only right policy for Ireland--for
   healing all the wounds of our community, all our sectarian feuds, all
   our national shame, suffering, and peril--for making our country
   peaceful, industrious, prosperous, respectable, and happy--I cannot
   doubt but that in the enlightened profession of the bar there must be
   very many Irishmen who, like me, consider Repeal to be right, and
   best, and necessary for the public good. But, gentlemen, ever since
   the Union, by fraud and force and against the will of the Irish
   people, was enacted--ever since that act of usurpation by the English
   parliament of the sovereign rights of the queen, lords, and commons
   of Ireland--ever since this country was thereby rendered the subject
   instead of the sister of England--ever since the Union, but
   especially for about twenty years past, it has been the policy of
   those who got possession of the sovereign rights of the Irish crown
   to appoint to all places of public trust, emolument, or honour in
   Ireland only such as would submit, whether by parole or by tacit
   understanding, to suppress all public utterance of their desire for
   the Repeal of the Union such as has been the persistent policy
   towards this country of those who command all the patronage of Irish
   offices, paid and unpaid--the policy of all English ministers,
   whether Whig or Tory, combined with the disposal of the public
   forces--such a policy is naturally very effective in not really
   reconciling, but in keeping Ireland quietly subject to the Union. It
   is a hard trial of men's patriotism to be debarred from all career of
   profitable and honourable distinction in the public service of their
   own country. I do not wonder that few Irish lawyers, in presence of
   the mighty power of England, dare to sacrifice personal ambition and
   interest to what may seem a vain protest against accomplished facts.
   I do not wish to attack or offend them--as this court expresses it,
   to impute improper motives to them--by thus simply stating the sad
   facts which are relevant to my own case in this prosecution, and
   explaining that I decline professional assistance, because few
   lawyers would be so rash as to adopt my political convictions, and
   vindicate my political conduct as their own, and because if any
   lawyer were so bold as to offer me his aid on my own terms, I am too
   generous to permit him to ruin his professional career for my sake.
   Such are the reasons, gentlemen of the jury and my lords, why I am
   now going through this trial, not _secundum artum_, but like an
   eccentric patient who won't be treated by the doctors but will quack
   himself. Perhaps I would be safer if I did not say a word about the
   legal character of the charge made against me in this indictment.
   There are legal matters as dangerous to handle as any drugs in the
   pharmacopoeia. Yet I shall trouble you for a short time longer, while
   I endeavour to show that I have not acted in a way unbecoming a good
   citizen. The charge against me in this indictment is that I took part
   in an illegal procession by the provisions of the statute entitled in
   the Party Processions' Act. His lordship enumerated seven conditions,
   the violation of some one of which is necessary to render an assembly
   illegal at common law. Those seven conditions are--1. That the
   persons forming the assembly met to carry out an unlawful purpose. 2.
   That the numbers in which the persons met endangered the public
   peace. 3. That the assembly caused alarm to the peaceful subjects of
   the Queen. 4. That the assembly created disaffection. 5. That the
   assembly incited her Majesty's Irish subjects to hate her Majesty's
   English subjects--his lordship did not say anything of the case of an
   assembly inciting the Queen's English subjects to hate the Queen's
   Irish subjects, but no such case is likely to be tried here. 6. That
   the assembly intended to asperse the right and constitutional
   administration of justice; and 7. That the assembly intended to
   impair the functions of justice and to bring the administration of
   justice into disrepute. I say that the procession of the 8th December
   did not violate any one of these conditions--1. In the first place
   the persons forming that procession did not meet to carry out any
   unlawful purpose--their purpose was peaceably to express their
   opinion upon a public act of the public servants of the crown. 2. In
   the second place the numbers in which those persons met did not
   endanger the public peace. None of those persons carried arms.
   Thousands of those persons were women and children. There was no
   injury or offence attempted to be committed against anybody, and no
   disturbance of the peace took place. 3. In the third place the
   assembly caused no alarm to the peaceable subjects of the
   Queen--there is not a tittle of evidence to that effect. 4. In the
   fourth place the assembly did not create disaffection, neither was it
   intended or calculated to create disaffection. On the contrary, the
   assembly served to give peaceful expression to the opinion
   entertained by vast numbers of her Majesty's peaceful subjects upon a
   public act of the servants of the crown, an act which vast numbers of
   the Queen's subjects regretted and condemned. And thus the assembly
   was calculated to prevent or remove disaffection, and such open and
   peaceful manifestations of the real opinions of the Queen's subjects
   upon public affairs is the proper, safe, and constitutional way in
   which they may aid to prevent disaffection. 5. In the fifth place the
   assembly did not incite the Irish subjects of the Queen to hate her
   Majesty's subjects. On the contrary, it was a proper constitutional
   way of bringing about a right understanding upon a transaction which,
   if not fairly and fully explained and set right, must produce hatred
   between the two peoples. That transaction was calculated to produce
   hatred. But those who protest peaceably against such a transaction
   are not the party to be blamed, but those responsible for the
   transaction. 6. In the sixth place the assembly had no purpose of
   aspersing the right and constitutional administration of justice. Its
   tendency was peaceably to point out faults in the conduct of the
   servants of the crown, charged with the administration of justice,
   which faults were calculated to bring the administration of justice
   into disrepute. 7. Nor, in the seventh place, did the assembly impair
   the functions of justice, or intend or tend to do so. Even my
   prosecutors do not allege that judicial tribunals are infallible. It
   would be too absurd to make such an allegation in plain words. It is
   admitted on all hands that judges have sometimes given wrong
   directions, that juries have given wrong verdicts, that courts of
   justice have wrongfully appreciated the whole matter for trial. When
   millions of the Queen's subjects think that such wrong has been done,
   is it sedition for them to say so peaceably and publicly? On the
   contrary, the constitutional way for good citizens to act in striving
   to keep the administration of justice pure and above suspicion of
   unfairness, is by such open and peaceable protests. Thus, and thus
   only, may the functions of justice be saved from being impaired. In
   this case wrong had been done. Five men had been tried together upon
   the same evidence, and convicted together upon that evidence, and
   while one of the five was acknowledged by the crown to be innocent,
   and the whole conviction was thus acknowledged to be wrong and
   invalid, three of the five men were hanged upon that conviction. My
   friend, Mr. Sullivan, in his eloquent and unanswerable speech of
   yesterday, has so clearly demonstrated the facts of that unhappy and
   disgraceful affair of Manchester, that I shall merely say of it that
   I adopt every word he spoke upon the subject for mine, and to justify
   the sentiment and purpose with which I engaged in the procession of
   the 8th December. I say the persons responsible for that transanction
   are fairly liable to the charge of acting so as to bring the
   administration of justice into contempt, unless, gentlemen, you hold
   those persons to be infallible and hold that thay can do no wrong.
   But, gentlemen, the constitution does not say that the servants of
   the crown can do no wrong. According to the constitution the
   sovereign can do no wrong, but her servants may. In this case they
   have done wrong. And, gentlemen, you cannot right that wrong, nor
   save the administration of justice from the disreputation into which
   such proceedings are calculated to bring it, by giving a verdict to
   put my comrades and myself into jail for saying openly and peaceably
   that we believe the administration of justice in that unhappy affair
   did do wrong. But further, gentlemen, let us suppose that you twelve
   jurors, as well as the servants of the crown who are prosecuting me,
   and the two judges, consider me to be mistaken in my opinion upon
   that judicial proceeding, yet you have no right under the
   constitution to convict me of a misdemeanour for openly and peaceably
   expressing my opinion. You have no such right; and as to the wisdom
   of treating my differences of opinion and the peaceable expression of
   it as a penal offence--and the wisdom of a political act ought to be
   a serious question with all good and loyal citizens--consider that
   the opinion you are invited by the crown prosecutors to pronounce to
   be a penal offence is not mine alone, nor that of the five men herein
   indicted, but is the opinion of all the 30,000 persons estimated by
   the crown evidence to have taken part in the assembly of the 8th of
   December; is the opinion besides of the 90,000 or 100,000 others who,
   standing in the streets of this city, or at the open windows
   overlooking the streets traversed by the procession that day,
   manifested their sympathy with the objects of the procession; is the
   opinion, as you are morally certain, of some millions of your Irish
   fellow-subjects. By indicting me for the expression of that opinion
   the public prosecutors virtually indict some millions of the Queen's
   peaceable Irish subjects. It is only the convenience of this
   court--which could not hold the millions in one batch of traversers,
   and which would require daily sittings for several successive years
   to go through the proper formalities for duly trying all those
   millions; it is only the convenience of this court that can be
   pretended to relieve the crown prosecutors from the duty of trying
   and convicting all those millions if it is their duty to try and
   convict me. The right principles of law do not allow the servants of
   the crown to evade or neglect their duty of bringing to justice all
   offenders against the law. I suppose these gentlemen may allege that
   it is at their discretion what offenders against the law they will
   prosecute. I deny that the principles of the law allow them, or allow
   the Queen such discretion. The Queen, at her coronation services,
   swears to do justice to all her subjects according to the law. The
   Queen, certainly, has the right by the constitution to pardon any
   offenders against the law. She has the prerogative of mercy. But
   there can be no pardon, no mercy, till after an offence be proved in
   due course of law by accusation of the alleged offenders before the
   proper tribunals, followed by the plea of guilty or the jurors'
   verdict of guilty. And to select one man or six men for trial,
   condemnation, and punishment, out of, say, four millions who have
   really participated in the same alleged wicked, malicious, seditious,
   evil-disposed, and unlawful proceeding, is unfair to the six men, and
   unfair to the other 3,999,994 men--is a dereliction of duty on the
   part of the officers of the law, and is calculated to bring the
   administration of justice into disrepute. Equal justice is what the
   constitution demands. Under military authority an army may be
   decimated, and a few men may properly be punished, while the rest are
   left unpunished. But under a free constitution it is not so. Whoever
   breaks the law must be made amenable to punishment, or equal justice
   is not rendered to the subjects of the Queen. Is it not pertinent,
   therefore, gentlemen, for me to say to you this is an unwise
   proceeding which my prosecutors bid you to sanction by a verdict? I
   have heard it asked by a lawyer addressing this court as a question
   that must be answered in the negative--can you indict a whole nation?
   If such a proceeding as this prosecution against the peaceable
   procession of the 8th December receives the sanction of your verdict,
   that question must be answered in the affirmative. It will need only
   a crown prosecutor, an attorney-general, and a solicitor-general, two
   judges, and twelve jurors, all of the one mind, while all the other
   subjects of the Queen in Ireland are of a different mind, and the
   five millions and a half of the Queen's subjects of Ireland outside
   that circle of seventeen of her Majesty's subjects, may be indicted,
   convicted, and consigned to penal imprisonment in due form of law--a
   law as understood in political trials in Ireland. Gentlemen, I have
   thus far endeavoured to argue from the common sense of mankind, with
   which the principles of law must be in accord, that the peaceable
   procession of the 8th of December--that peaceable demonstration of
   the sentiment of millions of the Queen's subjects in Ireland--did not
   violate any of the seven conditions of the learned judge to the grand
   jury in defining what constitutes an illegal assembly at common law;
   and I have also argued that the prosecution is unwise, and calculated
   to excite discontent. Gentlemen, I shall now endeavour to show you
   that the procession of the 8th of December did not violate the
   statute entitled the Party Processions' Act. The learned judge in his
   charge told the grand jury that under this act all processions are
   illegal which carry weapons of offence, or which carry symbols
   calculated to promote the animosity of some other class of her
   Majesty's subjects. Applying the law to this case, his lordship
   remarked that the processions of the 8th of December had something of
   military array--that is, they went in regular order with a regular
   step. But, gentlemen, there were no arms in that procession, there
   were no symbols in that procession intended or calculated to provoke
   animosity in any other class of the Queen's subjects, or in any human
   creature. There were neither symbol, nor deed, or word intended to
   provoke animosity, and as to the military array--is it not absurd to
   attribute a warlike character to an unarmed and perfectly peaceful
   assemblage, in which there were some thousands of women and children?
   No offence was given or offered any human being. The authorities were
   so assured of the peacefulness and inoffensiveness of the assemblage
   that the police were withdrawn in a great measure from their ordinary
   duties of preventing disorders. And as to the remark that the people
   walked with a regular step, I need only say that was done for the
   sake of order and decorum. It would be merely to doubt whether you
   are men of common sense if I argued any further to satisfy you that
   the procession did not violate the Party Processions' Act, such as it
   is defined by the learned judge. The speech delivered on that
   occasion is an important element in forming a judgment upon the
   character and object of the procession. The speech declared the
   procession to be a peaceable expression of the opinion of those who
   composed it upon an important public transaction, an expression of
   sorrow and indignation at an act of the ministers of the government.
   It was a protest against that act--a protest which those who
   disapproved of it were entitled by the constitution to make, and
   which they made, peaceably and legitimately. Has not every individual
   of the millions of the Queen's subjects the right to say so say
   openly whether he approves or disapproves of any public act of the
   Queen's ministers? Has not all the Queen's subjects the right to say
   altogether if they can without disturbance of the Queen's peace? The
   procession enabled many thousands to do that without the least
   inconvenience or danger to themselves, and with no injury or offence
   to their neighbours. To prohibit or punish peaceful, inoffensive,
   orderly, and perfectly innocent processions upon pretence that they
   are constructively unlawful, is unconstitutional tyranny. Was it done
   because the ministers discovered that the terror of suspended habeas
   corpus had not in this matter stifled public opinion? Of course, if
   anything be prohibited by government, the people obey--of course I
   obey. I would not have held the procession had I not understood that
   it was permitted. But understanding that it was permitted, and so
   believing that it might serve the people for a safe and useful
   expression of their sentiment, I held the procession. I did not hold
   the procession because I believed it to be illegal, but because I
   believed it to be legal and understood it to be permitted. In this
   country it is not law that must rule a loyal citizen's conduct, but
   the caprice of the English ministers. For myself, I acknowledge that
   I submit to such a system of government unwillingly, and with
   constant hope for the restoration of the reign of law, but I do
   submit. Why at first did the ministers of the crown permit an
   expression of censure upon that judicial proceeding at Manchester by
   a procession--why did they not warn her Majesty's subjects against
   the danger of breaking the law? Was it not because they thought that
   the terrors of the suspended habeas corpus would be enough to prevent
   the people from coming openly forward at all to express their real
   sentiments? Was it because they found that so vehement and so general
   was the feeling of indignation at that unhappy transaction at
   Manchester that they did venture to come openly forward--with perfect
   peacefulness and most careful observance of the peace to express
   their real sentiments--that the ministry proclaimed down the
   procession, and now prosecute us in order to stifle public opinion?
   Gentlemen of the jury, I have said enough to convince any twelve
   reasonable men that there was nothing in my conduct in the matter of
   that procession which you can declare on your oaths to be "malicious,
   seditious, ill-disposed, and intended to disturb the peace and
   tranquility of the realm." I shall trouble you no further, except by
   asking you to listen to the summing up of this indictment, and, while
   you listen to judge between me and the attorney-general. I shall read
   you my words and his comment. Judge of us, Irish jurors, which of us
   two are guilty:--"Let us, therefore, conclude this proceeding by
   joining heartily, with hats off, in the prayer of those three men,
   'God save Ireland.'" "Thereby," says the attorney-general in his
   indictment, "meaning, and intending to excite hatred, dislike, and
   animosity against her Majesty and the government, and bring into
   contempt the administration of justice and the laws of this realm,
   and cause strife and hatred between her Majesty's subjects in Ireland
   and in England, and to excite discontent and disaffection against her
   Majesty's government." Gentlemen, I have now done.

   Mr. Martin sat down amidst loud and prolonged applause.

This splendid argument, close, searching, irresistible, gave the _coup
de grace_ to the crown case. The prisoners having called no evidence,
according to honourable custom having almost the force of law, the
prosecution was disentitled to any rejoinder. Nevertheless, the crown
put up its ablest speaker--a man far surpassing in attainments as a
lawyer and an orator both the Attorney and Solicitor-General--Mr. Ball,
Q.C., to press against the accused that technical right which honourable
usage reprehended as unfair! No doubt the crown authorities felt it was
not a moment in which they could afford to be squeamish or scrupulous.
The speeches of Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Martin had had a visible effect
upon the jury--had, in fact, made shreds of the crown case; and so Mr.
Ball was put up as the last hope of averting the "disaster" of a
failure. He spoke with his accustomed ability and dignity, and made a
powerful appeal in behalf of the crown. Then Mr. Justice Fitzgerald
proceeded to charge the jury, which he did in his own peculiarly calm,
precise, and perspicuous style. At the outset, referring to the protest
of the accused against the conduct of the crown in the jury challenges,
he administered a keen rebuke to the government officials. It was, he
said, no doubt the strict legal _right_ of the crown to act as it had
done; yet, considering that this was a case in which the accused was
accorded no corresponding privilege, the exercise of that right in such
a manner by the crown certainly was, in his, Mr. Justice Fitzgerald's
estimation, _a subject for grave objection_.

Here there was what the newspaper reporters call "sensation in court."
What! Had it come to this, that one of the chief institutions of the
land--a very pillar of the crown and government--namely, _jury-packing_,
was to be reflected upon from the bench itself. Monstrous!

The charge, though mild in language, was pretty sharp on the
"criminality" of such conduct as was _imputed_ to the accused, yet
certainly left some margin to the jury for the exercise of their opinion
upon "the law and the facts."

At two o'clock in the afternoon the jury retired to consider their
verdict, and as the judges at the same moment withdrew to their chamber,
the pent-up feelings of the crowded audience instantly found vent in
loud Babel-like expressions and interchange of comments on the charge,
and conjectures as to the result. "Waiting for the verdict" is a scene
that has often been described and painted. Everyone of course concluded
that half-an-hour would in any case elapse before the anxiously watched
jury-room door would open; but when the clock hands neared three,
suspense intense and painful became more and more visible in every
countenance. It seemed to be only now that men fully realized all that
was at stake, all that was in peril, on this trial! _A conviction in
this case rendered the national colour of Ireland for ever more an
illegal and forbidden emblem_! A conviction in this case would degrade
the symbol of nationality into a badge of faction! To every fevered
anxious mind at this moment rose the troubled memories of gloomy
times--the "dark and evil days" chronicled in that popular ballad, the
music and words of which now seemed to haunt the watchers in the
court:--

  "Oh, Patrick, dear, and did you hear
    The news that's going round?
  The shamrock is by law forbid.
    To grow on Irish ground.
  No more St. Patrick's day we'll keep--
    His colour can't be seen,
  For there's a bloody law again
    The Wearing of the Green."

But hark! There is a noise at the jury-room door! It opens--the jury
enter the box. A murmur, swelling to almost a roar, from the crowded
audience, is instantly followed by a deathlike stillness. The judges are
called; but by this time it is noticed that the foreman has not the
"issue-paper" ready to hand down; and a buzz goes round--"a question; a
question!" It is even so. The foreman asks:--

   Whether, if they believed the speech of Mr. Martin to be in itself
   seditious, should they come to the conclusion that the assemblage was
   seditious?

Mr. Justice Fitzgerald answers _in the negative_, and a thrill goes
through the audience. Nor is this all. One of the jurors declares there
is no chance whatever of their agreeing to a verdict! Almost a cheer
breaks out. The judge, however, declares they must retire again; which
the jury do, very reluctantly and doggedly; in a word, very unlike men
likely to "persuade one another."

When the judges again leave the bench for their chamber, the crowd in
court give way outright to joy. Every face is bright; every heart is
light; jokes go round, and there is great "chaff" of the crown
officials, and of the "polis," who, poor fellows, to tell the truth,
seem to be as glad as the gladdest in the throng. Five o'clock
arrives--half-past five--the jury must suavely be out soon now. At a
quarter to six they come; and for an instant the joke is hushed, and
cheeks suddenly grow pale with fear lest by any chance it might be evil
news. But the faces of the jurymen tell plainly "no verdict." The judges
again are seated. The usual questions in such cases: the usual answers.
"No hope whatever of an agreement." Then after a reference to the
Solicitor-General, who, in sepulchral tone, "supposes" there is "nothing
for it" but to discharge the jury, his lordship declares the jury
discharged.

Like a volley there burst a wild cheer, a shout, that shook the
building! Again and again it was renewed; and, being caught up by the
crowd outside, sent the tidings of victory with electrical rapidity
through the city. Then there was a rush at Mr. Martin and Mr. Sullivan.
The former especially was clasped, embraced, and borne about by the
surging throng, wild with joy. It was with considerable difficulty any
of the traversers could get away, so demonstrative was the multitude in
the streets. Throughout the city the event was hailed with rejoicing,
and the names of the jurymen, "good and bad" were vowed to perpetual
benediction. For once, at least, justice had triumphed; or rather,
injustice had been baulked. For once, at least, the people had won the
day; and the British Government had received a signal overthrow in its
endeavour to proscribe--

"THE WEARING OF THE GREEN."

       *       *       *       *       *

For one of the actors in the above-described memorable scene, the
victory purchased but a few hours safety. Next morning Mr. A.M. Sullivan
was placed again at the bar to hear his sentence--that following upon
the first of the prosecutions hurled against him (the _press_
prosecution), on which he had been found guilty. Again the court was
crowded--this time with anxious faces, devoid of hope. It was a brief
scene. Mr. Justice Fitzgerald announced the sentence--six months in
Richmond Prison; and amidst a farewell demonstration that compelled the
business of the court to be temporarily suspended, the officials led
away in custody the only one of the prosecuted processionists who
expiated by punishment his sympathy with the fate of the Martyred Three
of Manchester.

END.







End of Project Gutenberg's The Wearing of the Green, by A.M. Sullivan