THE NEWSPAPER. 



[1844. 



re ly injured that he 



« .m Henuev was *> severe ^ ad _ 



l|iJ« a * _.t- fnr tae product" ^ „ t ],p, s em- 



ft *** V r S ri^on Friday morning, and 

 «rf«k^ lwa f Irlin- of documentary evi- 

 1 .Ub » .«-*f «S2 iL reports of pro- 



iU c — rtrt y^< froui reports u» i/iv- 



^rrl^S"'rtic>sand 1 ette,, 



to in the K - 1 Ass ^ n », Jo*™*/ newspaper. 

 J^.^.^;; her ^ thro* additional 

 ■ 2* « r _1^ the indictment. This 



t 





*£Z.Z * »« .ttr^vegt^n I r »h 



enee 



f tbeir previous familiar ac- 

 . „., c nnlv tendered as 



ia ^sequence o -»k tendered 



. -jth the greatei part, y* ^ ,L ¥ina , aA t] 



S lu ; n r not otherwise authenticated than 



^ UnublUhed by the traversers. 



*? J Tdtt ti n o\ all the documentary 



***■ ^ andD l! testimony was given re- 



'* ( ICt ti T-' Arbitration Court" at Black- 

 um ° f . aQ TT for lhe Crown closed. 



of CO 



g 



* m ° -i - rhp rase for me crown cioseu. 



far ta* pnaecutiou. It wi 



££2 ofatrSlX. Se Uourt consensu lu uuu, 

 ^tn^atill next morning to open their case. 

 *fEK.7-THE DEFENCE.^The Court was much 

 J^ta id!v turning at an early hour, from the 

 SKai*, to bear Mr. Sbeil open he defence of the 

 Sir,. Tbegreatest stillness prevailed in Court when 

 tar Umcd .eotKman commenced his statement. His 

 ciord.us. wai i delivered in a low and weak tone of voice, 

 aike bad tiie appearance of labouring under indisposi 

 u«- .. w ^. said he. was the trust reposed in th 



„■«. How tacred, said he, was the trust reposed in the 



Jan! how great the task he had undertaken! In 



tat iiUett cwmction of its magnitude he rose to ad- 



lac Court, humbled but undismayed. He had 



jace iu the Jury upon the asceudancy of prin- 



otteour prejudice in their minds. He had coutidence 



it aiatelf, d d from a thorough conviction of the 



•(his client. The father and son were indicted 



,— the same blood tlowed in their veins — their 



•ere the same. With the father he had toiled 



if in the great work of Catholic Emanci- 



ited in the spirit of peace, aud in that spirit 



31 to its glorious consummation. From the 



»i*<ice<ls imputed to him he knew him to 



••aM »ita abhorrence. It was that persuasion that 



••a" u'n him and lift him to a level with the lofty 



*fia wkieb he should have to treat, in resisting a prose- 



?*■ aoperaileltd iu the annals of criminal jurisprudence 



jV *j|j*" ,tr 7- Tlje Attorney-General in his statement 



•■'ewed to facta and events which occupied a period 



^■^■^■onths. It was extraordinary that during 



J no (x<$cio information had ever been 

 pntewtion instituted against the traversers or 

 ^participated in these acts. The Attornev- 

 *■ acted more like a French Commissary of 

 |J,JV W ;^ keeping watch and wa * " 



w»i a! leddowni|,t ° a mere u artfi 



To est™, IT rMSOfl ° f Mch ion g and g reat forbearance ? 

 ta«fc2i«J M,re,anddeco y- Mr - Duff y mi g ht have 



^S^rT n, ! ght Mr - Barrett aTld Dr ' Gra 7— 



Lto^G*!'*!' WOul(1 nct bave answered the 



aa^ Itt^Lj^TTj I ,ur Pose. He was no fisher with tod 



* r^: leTurtTu* ' th a net in which he Wed to catch 



•f^ati > i ; ef ' t 1 hree . ed 1 it ,° rS ° f »«W«* 



«* 



bfauJ lVe een res P » s 'ble for each 



D . bohjxrt *^ upon a charge ° f 



^ preaa of t J dv:inta g e ow *«■• The 



* «he Dr 1 Irt!a " d m W* as «* have been 



ofthV: CUUon ' He next referred to the 



2**** indie' it' a ' he lheatre in Lo,d WeUealey's 



^•'tk.tdayd, i f 5 racons P™y ; but a Protest- 

 ed" 1 c ty and aC( l uitt ed them. 



*k*m Sir Walter Seoitfa life of 



Sr-i 



tWa 



low 



effort 



worts f ft . • ., ' ,o, ' ia •» i"»u 



^b itexilt!?- f- C0Untry f,om ^^ate 



?> --i 



^4 



^ 



btera con r.' , a , e hr8t " Libera " 



^ Mr o-V n , ansuage as st,0 "g 



attan L°. 9 0nne11 - Why were ru.r 



n, £ >«tan~ y;,^ v-°? nei1 - why 



H«ai 



l; Ster had l earnt 



not 



racy in 1782? 



a lesson from 



W,; colonies «•„ V a lesson fro 



it *** ZZ e lo t st - but lre i'»»i w< 



a«ri.j .• ' ec °gnition of n,^ . . . 



^^^Z C T^\° ( the gr eat pr'incip! 



^a!?; ;df ro : dtheybeuseda ^he.. 



" bledUMn, t,nctlons? 



*~i- -eiaji^able Lo „ lnc110ns ." said the Riffhfc 



SLt*5S the '«icc rouJS y f ! au f »»^itutei for 



iSb^or SJ he -Minister S o ° *" a Wrtena«w 



L"** r he lftnri /"' U| l *»e hr-.tr " ^"' fc **> wrote 





m * h «nce Th ts an(l t!,c 

 ^ a2 ^ Pro^ 0118 ^ «rt*£J5j*« Ministerial 



' , ^T tt, tn« * u * t!, »«t are trJ Uie «"utualwr„ n? , 



^^u^ t f eaa^^Jjt fell jaifa^ 



encounters of sectarian ferocity in which our country bleeding 

 and lacerated is trodden under foot. We convert the island, 

 noblest of the world, into a receptacle of degradation and of 

 suffering, counteract the designs of Providence, and enter into 

 3 conspiracy for the frustration of the beneficent designs of God." 



This burst of eloquence was received throughout the 

 Court with an involuntary manifestation of applause. The 

 Chief Justice intimated that if the interruption were 

 renewed the Court must be cleared. Mr. Sheil expressed 

 his regret at the interruption and proceeded. He referred 

 to the Imperial Parliament of Cromwell, in which the 

 Irish members (according to Burton's report) complained 

 of their attendance upon a foreign Parliament, and asked 

 to have a Parliament of their own. He then passed down 

 to the period when the Union was agitated and carried— to 

 the speeches of Saurin, Plunket, and Bushe, and other 

 familiar topics. He then touched upon the various griev- 

 ances of Ireland since the Union, and the failure of all the 

 promises which accompanied the passing of that measure. 

 In 1800 Mr. O'Connell first spoke against the Union. 

 In 1810 he made a speech precisely similar to those for 

 which he was now arraigned. His intentions were pure 

 then, it could not be denied. If the language were the 

 same now the intention must be identified as the same 

 also. If the present indictment could be sustained, an 

 indictment for a conspiracy might have been preferred 

 against those who had associated themselves to obtain 

 Catholic Emancipation. How too was the Reform Bill 

 carried ? Who were the conspirators who embarked iD 

 that fearful enterprise ? Should he answer— Lord Grey, 

 Lord J. Russell, Lord Althorp, and to crown the list, Sir 

 J. Graham, now Home Secretary ? Let gamblers denounce 

 vice, drunkards denounce debauch, when Graham com- 

 plained of agitation. It had been recommended that the 

 Imperial Parliament should sit at certain intervals in 

 Dublin. To that proposition he saw no sound objection ; 

 and he then painted a glowing picture of the advantages 

 that would accrue from the realisation of that project. He 

 would not deny that strong speeches had been made by 

 his client and the other traversers, but he denied that they 

 were more exciting or inflammatory than those which 

 were spoken in almost all popular assemblies, Whig,. 

 Radical, or Conservative. Could they believe that in an 

 old age not premature Mr. O'Connell could engage in an 

 insane undertaking, in which his own life and the lives of 

 those dearer to him than himself, and the lives of thou- 

 sands of his countrymen would be sacrificed ? Could he 

 blast the laurels he had won, and lay prostrate that great 

 moral monument which he had raised so high that it was 

 visible from the remotest region of the world ? 



«« There is nor," said the right hen. gentleman, " a great city 

 in Europe in which upon the day when the great intelligence 

 shall be expected to arrive, men will not stop each other in the 

 public way and inquire whether twelve men upon their oaths 

 have doomed to Incarceration the man who gave liberty to Ire- 

 land. Whatever may be your adjudication he is prepared to meet 

 it. He know i that the eyes of the world are upon him, and that 

 posterity whether in a gaol or out of it will look back to him 

 with admiration. He is almost indifferent to what may beiai 

 him, and is far more aolieitOlM for others at this moment than for 

 himself. But i— at the commencement of what I have said to 

 you— 1 told you that I WM not unmoved, and that many inci- 

 dents of my political lite, the strange alternations of fortune 

 through which I have passed, came back upon me; but now the 

 bare possibility at which I have glanced has 1 acknowledge 

 almost unmanned me. Shall I who stretch out to you in behalf 

 of the son the hand whose fettera the father had struck oft, live 

 to cast my ej es upon that domicile of sorrow, in tne vicinity of 

 this great metropolis and say, * 'Tis there they have immured the 

 Liberator oi Ireland with his fondest and best-beloved child? 

 No ! it shall never be ! You will not consign him to the spot to 

 which the Attorney-General invites you to surrender him. No. 

 When the sprintr shall have come again and the winter shall 

 have pa>scii — when the spring shall have come again, it is not 

 through the window! of this mansion that the father of such a 

 son, ami the son of such a father, shall look upon those greeu 

 hills on which the eyes oi so many a captive have gazed so wist- 

 fully in vain ; but in their own mountain home again they shall 

 listen to the murmur, of the great Atlantic; they shall go forth 

 and inhale the freshness of the morning air together; 'they shall 

 be free of mountain solitude ; ' they will be encompassed with 

 the loftiest images or lib-.-ity upon every side; and if time shall 

 have stolen its Buppleness from the father's knee, or impaired the 

 firmness of his tread, he shall lean on the child of her that watches 

 over him from heaven, and shall look out from some high place 

 far and wide into the island, whose greatne-s and whose glory 

 shall be for ever associated with his name. In your love or jus- 

 tice— in y,,ur love of Ireland— in your love of honesty and fair 

 play— I place my confidence. I ask you for an acquittal, not 



only for the Mike of your country but for your own. Upon the 



day when this trial "shall have been brought to a termination, 

 wheu, amidst the burst ot public expectancy, in answer to the 



solemn interrogatory which shall be pot to you b? the officer ot 



the Court, yon shall answer ' Not. Guilty,' with what a transport 

 will that glorious negative be welcomed ! How will you be blest 

 adored» worshipped | and when retiring from tbi.- scene of ex- 

 citement and ot pass:on, von shall return to your own tranquil 



homes, how pleasurably will you look upon your children, luthe 



consciousness that you have left them a patrimony ot peace by 

 impressing upon the Cabinet, that some other measure besides a 



^tate prosecution is n ecessar> lor the pacification of your country." 



The speecli was delivered in the most fervid and impas- 

 sioned manner, and at the conclusion the right lion, gen- 

 tleman appeared to be suffering much from exhaustion. 

 A tremendous cheer greeted him as he sat down and soon 

 afterward* the Court adjourned. 



Thirteenth Day.— On Monday morning Mr. John 

 O'Connell requested permission to make a brief explana- 

 tion, lest any misunderstanding respecting his opinions 

 should arise from what had fallen from his distinguished 

 counsel Mr. Sheil on Saturday, respecting the occasional 

 sitting of the Imperial Parliament in Dublin. He deemed 

 it nccesMirv to state that he could not, under any circum- 

 stances whatever, consent to the slightest compromise on 

 the question of the Repeal of the Union. He never could 

 be a party to any arrangement which might in the heat 

 degree compromise the ii alienable light of Ireland to 

 national and domestic legislation. — Mr. Moore, Q.C., then 

 proceeded to addr« the Jury on the part of the Rev. Mr. 

 Tiemey. Alluding to the institution of this prosecution 



arjci the manner in which it had been conducted from the 



in these | outset, he strongly deprecated the conduct of the Atiorney- 



dodg 



He 



Dean 

 Irish 



as 

 e 



i 

 thev 



General and the Executive. If, he asked, the meetings 

 were illegal, why had the Government permitted them to 

 go on for such a length of time without prosecuting the 

 parties ? The Attorney-General if he believed those meet- 

 ings to be illegal and dangerous, had been guilty of a 

 criminal dereliction of duty, as the law-officer of the 

 Government, in permitting them. The learned gentleman 

 referred to the tardy and sudden interference of the 

 Government on the very eve of the Clontarf meeting, 

 under circumstances which rendered their interposition 

 perilous to the public peace. Mr. O'Connell by an almost 

 saperhuman exertion had prevented the people from at- 

 tending that meeting, and to him the great merit was due 

 of averting the calamitous consequences that must have 

 ensued from any collision between the military and the 

 populace. Tne learned gentleman proceeded at consi- 

 derable length to review the evidence, contending that 

 the prosecution had totally failed, whilst there was 

 not the slightest evidence of " conspiracy, " and con- 

 cluded by expressing his full conviction that the Jury 

 would return a verdict acquitting the traversers. — 

 Mr. Hatchel then rose on the part of Mr. Ray, the 

 well-known Secretary of the Repeal Association, and con- 

 tended that his client was a mere paid clerk of that 

 society, and ought to incur no legal liability on that 

 account, as the association was not an illegal one. He 

 had made no speeches, printed no libels — he was a mere 

 officer of a perfectly lawful society. He was a man with a 

 large family and had no other business to attend to. He 

 had attended the Tara meeting, but quite as an excursion 

 of pleasure. — It then became Mr. Fitzgibbon's turn to 

 speak for his client Dr. Gray ; but he pleaded indisposi- 

 tion, and requested theCouit to indulge him with a post- 

 ponement to next morning. Some discussion arose on this 

 head. The Attorney-General complained of the delay, 

 but the Court after a good deal of hesitation at length 

 consented to the adjournment. The proceedings conse- 

 quently closed at the unusual hour of two o'clock. 



Fourteenth Day.— Mr. Fitzgibbon, as Counsel for 

 Dr. Gray, entered upon his address on Tuesday. The 

 Court was less crowded than upon any previous day. Mr. 

 O'Connell sat beside Mr. Fitzgibbon for a short time, and 

 then announced through counsel that he was obliged by 

 particular business to absent himself. Mr. Fitzgibbon 

 said he was counsel for Dr. Gray, but so mixed together 

 were the parties in this case, and so multifarious the evi- 

 dence, he would not attempt to separate the case of his 

 client from that of the other traversers. He would treat 

 the case merely as a lawyer— and survey it solely in its 

 legal aspect. He considered this mode of prosecution for 

 a constructive conspiracy as unconstitutional and unfair ; 

 it was a sort of Ministerial scourge, used for the purpose 

 of persecuting and lashing a free people. He reminded 

 the three leading counsel for the Crown that State pro- 

 secutions had proved damaging to the reputation of many 

 eminent lawyers. He said, without disparagement to any 

 living member of the profession in any country, that the 

 Crown counsel had followed the example of Lord Coke 

 himself, whose virtue and dignity as a lawyer were not proof 

 against those personal feelings that in all cases had ever 

 governed theconductofastate lawyer in a state prosecution. 

 The name of the great Lord Coke came down to succeeding 

 generations with the foul blot upon it of his prosecution 

 of Sir Walter Raleigh— and there were other remarkable 

 instances of the same kind. The present was a prosecu- 

 tion which ought at all events to have been carried on 

 fairly. It was a contest in the very temple of justice for 

 the character and liberty of the subject ; and on the side 

 of the prosecutor especially was one which demanded the 

 utmost candour, circumspection, and fairness. But such 

 had not been the conduct pursued in this instance. As to 

 the law as laid down by the Attorney-General he did not 

 concur in his statement of it. It was not necessary per- 

 haps for his learned colleague, Mr. Moore, to controvert 

 that statement, for he was concerned for a gentleman who 

 had only attended a single meeting— a man against whom 

 no acts of confederacy beyond one or two of a trifling or 

 isolated character had been proved. He however could 

 not make that peculiar case for his client Dr. Gray. He 

 therefore felt bound to inquire into the law of the subject 

 —and to expose the absurdity that would result from tak- 

 ing it as the Attorney-General had stated it. The learned 

 gentleman then entered upon a long and elaborate legal in- 

 vestigation, the great object of which appeared to be to decry 

 the doctrine of constructive treason and constructive con- 

 spiracy. Mr. Fi-zgibbon not having finished his speech at 2 

 o'clock, the Court, as it usually does, adjourned for a short 

 time. In about half-an-hour the Judges returned, when Mr. 

 Fitzgibbon said that while he was endeavouring during 

 the adjournment of the Court to take a little rest, ren- 

 dered necessary by his state of health, a note was placed 

 in his hand signed by the Attorney-General, which he 

 deemed it his duty to return. In that note the Attorney- 

 General aaid that he had in his address to the Court given 

 him personal offence, telling him that if he did not 

 apologise at once, to name his friend. A scene of much 

 excitement ensued, which lasted nearly balf-an-hour. 

 Mr. Fitzgibbon called upqn the Attorney-General to 

 produce the note conveying the challenge, but he did 

 not comply with the demand. The Judges consulted 

 together, and at length Mr. Moore, Q.C., one of 

 the traversers' counsel, threw out a conciliatory sug- 

 gestion, for which he was thanked by the Chief Justice, 

 who said the Court would give no sort of opinion with 

 regard to the conduct of gtntleuen on either side, more 

 especially when such a case as the present was pending 

 before the Jury and the public at large. They felt however 

 that of every "member in the pro on the Attorney- 

 General nan thai last man who ought to allow himself to 

 be betrayed into such an expression of feeling. The At- 



