Chapter IX: Part 9

"'May the grass wither from his feet;
The woods deny him shelter; earth a home;
The dust a grave; the sun his light:
And heaven its God!'

"Let Massey remember from this day forth that he carries with him, as
my able and eloquent counsel (Mr. Dowse) has stated, a serpent that
will gnaw his conscience, will carry about him in his breast a living
hell from which he can never be separated. I, my lords, have no
desire for the name of a martyr; I seek not the death of a martyr;
but if it is the will of the Almighty and Omnipotent God that my
devotion for the land of my birth shall be tested on the scaffold, I
am willing there to die in defence of the right of men to free
government--the right of an oppressed people to throw off the yoke of
thraldom. I am an Irishman by birth, an American by adoption; by
nature a lover of freedom--an enemy to the power that holds my native
land in the bonds of tyranny. It has so often been admitted that the
oppressed have a right to throw off the yoke of oppression, even by
English statesmen, that I do not deem it necessary to advert to the
fact in a British court of justice. Ireland's children are not, never
were, and never will be, willing or submissive slaves; and so long as
England's flag covers one inch of Irish soil, just so long will they
believe it to be a divine right to conspire, imagine, and devise
means to hurl it from power, and to erect in its stead the God-like
structure of self-government. I shall now, my lords, before I go any
further, perform one important duty to my learned, talented, and
eloquent counsel. I offer them that which is poor enough, the thanks,
the sincere and heartfelt thanks of an honest man. I offer them, too,
in the name of America, the thanks of the Irish people. I know that I
am here without a relative--without a friend--in fact, 3,000 miles
away from my family. But I know that I am not forgotten there. The
great and generous Irish heart of America to-day feels for me--to-day
sympathises with and does not forget the man who is willing to tread
the scaffold--aye, defiantly--proudly, conscious of no wrong--in
defence of American principles--in defence of liberty. To Messrs.
Butt, Dowse, O'Loghlen, and all the counsel for the prisoners, for
some of whom I believe Mr. Curran will appear, and my very able
solicitor, Mr. Lawless, I return individually and collectively, my
sincere and heartfelt thanks.

"I shall now, my lords, as no doubt you will suggest to me, think of
the propriety of turning my attention to the world beyond the grave.
I shall now look only to that home where sorrows are at an end, where
joy is eternal. I shall hope and pray that freedom may vet dawn on
this poor down-trodden country. It is my hope, it is my prayer, and
the last words that I shall utter will be a prayer to God for
forgiveness, and a prayer for poor old Ireland. Now, my lords; in
relation to the other man, Corridon, I will make a few remarks.
Perhaps before I go to Corridon, I should say much has been spoken on
that table of Colonel Kelly, and of the meetings held at his lodgings
in London. I desire to state, I never knew where Colonel Kelly's
lodgings were. I never knew where he lived in London, till I heard
the informer, Massey, announce it on the table. I never attended a
meeting at Colonel Kelly's; and the hundred other statements that
have been made about him. I now solemnly declare on my honour as a
man--as a dying man--these statements have been totally unfounded and
false from beginning to end. In relation to the small paper that was
introduced here, and brought against me as evidence, as having been
found on my person in connexion with that oath, I desire to say that
that paper was not found on my person. I knew no person whose name
was on that paper. O'Beirne, of Dublin, or those other delegates you
heard of, I never saw or met. That paper has been put in there for
some purpose. I can swear positively it is not in my handwriting. I
can also swear I never saw it; yet it is used as evidence against me.
Is this justice? Is this right? Is this manly? I am willing if I have
transgressed the laws to suffer the penalty, but I object to this
system of trumping up a case to take away the life of a human being.
True, I ask for no mercy. I feel that, with my present emaciated
frame and somewhat shattered constitution, it is bettor that my life
should be brought to an end than that I should drag out a miserable
existence in the prison dens of Portland. Thus it is, my lords, I
accept the verdict. Of course my acceptance of it is unnecessary, but
I am satisfied with it. And now I shall close. True it is there are
many feelings that actuate me at this moment. In fact, these few
disconnected remarks can give no idea of what I desire to state to
the court. I have ties to bind me to life and society as strong as
any man in this court can have. I have a family I love as much as any
man in this court loves his family. But I can remember the blessing I
received from an aged mother's lips as I left her the last time. She,
speaking as the Spartan mother did, said--'Go, my boy, return either
with your shield or upon it.' This reconciles me--this gives me
heart. I submit to my doom; and I hope that God will forgive me my
past sins. I hope also, that inasmuch as He has for seven hundred
years preserved Ireland, notwithstanding all the tyranny to which she
has been subjected, as a separate and distinct nationality, He will
also assist her to retrieve her fallen fortunes--to rise in her
beauty and majesty, the Sister of Columbia, the peer of any nation in
the world."

General Burke, as our readers are well aware, was not executed. The government shrank from carrying out the barbarous sentence of the law, and his punishment was changed to the still more painful, if less appalling fate, of penal servitude for life. Of General Burke's private character we have said little; but our readers will be able to understand it from the subjoined brief extracts from two of his letters. On the very night previous to his trial he wrote to his mother from Kilmainham Prison:--

... "On last Easter Sunday I partook of Holy Communion at a late
mass, I calculated the difference of time between this longitude and
yours, for I knew that you and my dear sisters were partaking of the
sacrament at early mass on that day, as was your wont, and I felt
that our souls were in communion together."

We conclude with the following letter from General Burke, which has never before been published, and which we are sure will be of deep interest to our readers. It is addressed to the reverend gentleman who had been his father confessor in Clonmel:--

"KILMAINHAM GOAL,

"_4th, Month of Mary._

"DEAR REV. FATHER,

" ... I am perfectly calm and resigned, with my thoughts firmly
centered with hope in the goodness and mercy of that kind Redeemer,
whose precious blood was shed for my salvation; as also in the
mediation and intercession of His Blessed Mother, who is my Star of
Hope and Consolation. I know, dear father, I need not ask you to be
remembered in your prayers, for I feel that in your supplication to
the Throne of Mercy I have not been forgotten.... I have only one
thought which causes me much sorrow, and that is that my good and
loving mother will break down under the weight of her affliction,
and, oh, God, I who loved her more than the life which animates the
hand that writes to be the cause of it! This thought unmans and
prostrates me. I wrote to her at the commencement of my trial, and
told her how I thought it would terminate, and spoke a long and last
farewell. I have not written since; it would break my heart to
attempt it; but I would ask you as an especial favour that you would
write to her and tell her I am happy and reconciled to the will of
God who has given me this opportunity of saving my immortal soul. I
hope to hear from you before I leave this world."

"Good-bye, father, and that God may bless you in your ministry is the
prayer of an obedient child of the church."

"THOMAS F. BURKE."

* * * * *

CAPTAIN JOHN M'AFFERTY.

It is not Irish-born men alone whose souls are filled with a chivalrous love for Ireland, and a stern hatred of her oppressor. There are amongst the ranks of her patriots none more generous, more resolute, or more active in her cause than the children born of Irish parents in various parts of the world. In London, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, and all the large towns of Great Britain, throughout the United States, and in the British colonies, many of the best known and most thorough-going "Irishmen" are men whose place of birth was not beneath the Irish skies, and amongst them are some who never saw the shores of the Green Isle. One of these men was Captain John M'Afferty. He was born of Irish parents in the State of Ohio, in the year 1838, and at their knees he heard of the rights and wrongs of Ireland, learned to sympathise with the sufferings of that country, and to regard the achievement of its freedom as a task in which he was bound to bear a part. He grew up to be a man of adventurous and daring habits, better fitted for the camp than for the ordinary ways of peaceful life; and when the civil war broke out he soon found his place in one of those regiments of the Confederacy whose special duty lay in the accomplishment of the most hazardous enterprises. He belonged to the celebrated troop of Morgan's guerillas, whose dashing feats of valour so often filled the Federal forces with astonishment and alarm. In the latter part of 1865 he crossed over to this country to assist in leading the insurrection which was then being prepared by the Fenian organization. He was arrested, as already stated in these pages, on board the steamer at Queenstown before he had set foot on Irish soil; when brought to trial at Cork, in the month of December, the lawyers discovered that being an alien, and having committed no overt act of treason within the Queen's dominions, there was no case against him, and he was consequently discharged. He then went back to America, took an active part in some Fenian meetings, made a speech at one of them which was held at Jones's Wood, and when the report of the proceedings appeared in print, he, with a sense of grim humour, posted a copy containing his oration to the governor of Mountjoy Prison, Dublin. In the latter part of 1866, when James Stephens was promising to bring off immediately the long-threatened insurrection, M'Afferty again crossed the ocean, and landed in England. There he was mainly instrumental in planning and organizing that extraordinary movement, the raid on Chester, which took place on Monday, 11th of February, 1867. It is now confessed, even by the British authorities themselves, that but for the timely intimation of the design given by the informer Corridon, M'Afferty and his party would probably have succeeded in capturing the old Castle, and seizing the large store of arms therein contained. Finding their movements anticipated, the Fenian party left Chester as quietly as they had come, and the next that was heard of M'Afferty was his arrest, and that of his friend and companion John Flood, on the 23rd of February, in the harbour of Dublin, after they had got into a small boat from out of the collier "New Draper," which had just arrived from Whitehaven. M'Afferty was placed in the dock of Green-street court-house for trial on Wednesday, May 1st, while the jury were absent considering their verdict in the case of Burke and Doran. On Monday, May the 6th, he was declared guilty by the jury. On that day week a Court of Appeal, consisting of ten of the Irish judges, sat to consider some legal points raised by Mr. Butt in the course of the trial, the most important of which was the question whether the prisoner, who had been in custody since February 23rd, could be held legally responsible for the events of the Fenian rising which occurred on the night of the 5th of March. Their lordships gave an almost unanimous judgment against the prisoner on Saturday, May 18th, and on the Monday following he was brought up for sentence, on which occasion, in response to the usual question, he spoke as follows:--

"My lords--I have nothing to say that can, at this advanced stage of
the trial, ward off that sentence of death, for I might as well hurl
my complaint (if I had one) at the orange trees of the sunny south,
or the tall pine trees of the bleak north, as now to speak to the
question why sentence of death should not be passed upon me according
to the law of the land; but I do protest loudly against the injustice
of that sentence. I have been brought to trial upon a charge of high
treason against the government of Great Britain, and guilt has been
brought home to me upon the evidence of one witness, and that witness
a perjured informer. I deny distinctly that there have been two
witnesses to prove the overt act of treason against me. I deny
distinctly that you have brought two independent witnesses to two
overt acts. There is but one witness to prove the overt act of
treason against me. I grant that there has been a cloud of
circumstantial evidence to show my connection (if I may please to use
that word) with the Irish people in their attempt for Irish
independence, and I claim that as an American and as an alien, I have
a reason and a right to sympathise with the Irish people or any other
people who may please to revolt against that form of government by
which they believe they are governed tyrannically. England
sympathised with America. She not only sympathised, but she gave her
support to both parties; but who ever heard of an Englishman having
been arrested by the United States government for having given his
support to the Confederate States of America and placed on his trial
for high treason against the government? No such case ever has been.
I do not deny that I have sympathised with the Irish people--I love
Ireland--I love the Irish people. And, if I were free to-morrow, and
the Irish people were to take the field for independence, my sympathy
would be with them; I would join them if they had any prospect
whatever of independence, but I would not give my sanction to the
useless effusion of blood, however done; and I state distinctly that
I had nothing whatever to do, directly or indirectly, with the
movement that took place in the county of Dublin. I make that
statement on the brink of my grave. Again, I claim that I have a
right to be discharged of the charge against me by the language of
the law by which I have been tried. That law states that you must
have two independent witnesses to prove the overt act against the
prisoner. That is the only complaint I have to make, and I make that
aloud. I find no fault with the jury, no complaint against the
judges. I have been tried and found guilty. I am perfectly satisfied
that I will go to my grave. I will go to my grave like a gentleman
and a Christian, although I regret that I should be cut off at this
stage of my life--still many an noble Irishman fell in defence of the
rights of my southern clime. I do not wish to make any flowery speech
to win sympathy in the court of justice. Without any further remarks
I will now accept the sentence of the court."

Mr. Justice Fitzgerald then in the "solemn tone of voice" adopted on such occasions proceeded to pass sentence in the usual form, fixing the 12th day of June as the date on which the execution should take place.

The prisoner heard the sentence without giving the slightest symptoms of emotion, and then spoke as follows:--

"I will accept my sentence as becomes a gentleman and a Christian. I
have but one request to ask of the tribunal, and that is that after
the execution of the sentence my remains shall be turned over to Mr.
Lawless to be by him interred in consecrated ground as quietly as he
possibly can. I have now, previous to leaving the dock, once more to
return my grateful and sincere thanks to Mr. Butt, the star of the
Irish bar, for his able and devoted defence on behalf of me and my
friends. Mr. Butt, I thank you. I also return the same token of
esteem to Mr. Dowse, for the kind and feeling manner in which he
alluded to the scenes in my former life. Those kind allusions recall
to my mind many moments--some bright, beautiful, and glorious--and
yet some sad recollections arise of generous hopes that floated o'er
me, and now sink beyond the grave. Mr. Butt, please convey to Mr.
Dowse my grateful and sincere thanks. Mr. Lawless, I also return you
my thanks for your many acts of kindness--I can do no more."

He was not executed however. The commutation of Burke's sentence necessitated the like course in all the other capital cases, and M'Afferty's doom was changed to penal servitude for life.

* * * * *

EDWARD DUFFY.

On the day following that on which M'Afferty's sentence was pronounced, the trial of three men, named John Flood, Edward Duffy, and John Cody was brought to a conclusion. When they were asked what they had to say why sentence should not be passed on them, Cody denied with all possible earnestness the charge of being president of an assassination committee, which had been brought against him. Flood--a young man of remarkably handsome exterior--declared that the evidence adduced against himself was untrue in many particulars. He alluded to the Attorney-General's having spoken of him as "that wretched man, Flood." "My lords," said he, "if to love my country more than my life makes me a wretched man, then I am a very wretched man indeed." Edward Duffy, it might be supposed by anyone looking at his emaciated frame, wasted by consumption, and with the seal of death plainly set on his brow, would not be able to offer any remarks to the court; but he roused himself to the effort. The noble-hearted young fellow had been previously in the clutches of the government for the same offence. He was arrested with James Stephens and others at Fairfield House, in November, 1865, but after a brief imprisonment was released in consideration of the state of his health, which seemed such as would not leave him many days to live. But, few or many, Duffy could not do otherwise than devote them to the cause he had at heart. He was re-arrested at Boyle on the 11th of March, and this time the government took care they would not quit their hold of him. The following is the speech which, by a great physical effort, he delivered from the dock, his dark eyes brightening, and his pallid features lighting up with the glow of an earnest and lofty enthusiasm while he spoke:--

"The Attorney-General has made a wanton attack on me, but I leave my
countrymen to judge between us. There is no political act of mine
that I in the least regret. I have laboured earnestly and sincerely
in my country's cause, and I have been actuated throughout by a
strong sense of duty. I believe that a man's duty to his country is
part of his duty to God, for it is He who implants the feeling of
patriotism in the human breast. He, the great searcher of hearts,
knows that I have been actuated by no mean or paltry ambition--that I
have never worked for any selfish end. For the late outbreak I am not
responsible; I did all in my power to prevent it, for I knew that,
circumstanced as we then were, it would be a failure. It has been
stated in the course of those trials that Stephens was for peace.
This is a mistake. It may be well that it should not go
uncontradicted. It is but too well known in Ireland that he sent
numbers of men over here to fight, promising to be with them when the
time would come. The time did come, but not Mr. Stephens. He remained
in France to visit the Paris Exhibition. It may be a very pleasant
sight, but I would not be in his place now. He is a lost man--lost to
honour, lost to country. There are a few things I would wish to say
relative to the evidence given against me at my trial, but I would
ask your lordships to give me permission to say them after sentence.
I have a reason for asking to be allowed to say them after sentence
has been passed."

The Chief Justice--"That is not the usual practice. Not being tried
for life, it is doubtful to me whether you have a right to speak at
all. What you are asked to say is why sentence should not be passed
upon you, and whatever you have to say you must say now."

"Then, if I must say it now I declare it before my God that what
Kelly swore against me on the table is not true. I saw him in
Ennisgroven, but that I ever spoke to him on any political subject I
declare to heaven I never did. I knew him from a child in that little
town, herding with the lowest and vilest. Is it to be supposed I'd
put my liberty into the hands of such a character? I never did it.
The next witness is Corridon. He swore that at the meeting he
referred to I gave him directions to go to Kerry to find O'Connor,
and put himself in communication with him. I declare to my God every
word of that is false. Whether O'Connor was in the country or whether
he had made his escape, I know just as little as your lordships; and
I never heard of the Kerry rising until I saw it in the public
papers. As to my giving the American officers money that night,
before my God, on the verge of my grave, where my sentence will send
me, I say that also is false. As to the writing that the policeman
swore to in that book, and which is not a prayer-book, but the
'Imitation of Christ,' given to me by a lady to whom I served my
time, what was written in that book was written by another young man
in her employment. That is his writing not mine. It is the writing
of a young man in the house, and I never wrote a line of it."

The Lord Chief Justice--"It was not sworn to be in your handwriting."

"Yes, my lord, it was. The policeman swore it was in my
hand-writing."

The Lord Chief Justice--"That is a mistake. It was said to be like
yours."

"The dream of my life has been that I might be fighting for Ireland.
The jury have doomed me to a more painful, but not less glorious
death. I now bid farewell to my friends and all who are dear to me.

"'There is a world where souls are free,
Where tyrants taint not nature's bliss;
If death that bright world's opening be,
Oh, who would live a slave in this.'

"I am proud to be thought worthy of suffering for my country; when I
am lying in my lonely cell I will not forget Ireland, and my last
prayer will be that the God of liberty may give her strength to shake
off her chains."

John Flood and Edward Duffy were then sentenced each to fifteen years of penal servitude, and Cody to penal servitude for life.

Edward Duffy's term of suffering did not last long. A merciful Providence gave his noble spirit release from its earthly tenement before one year from the date of his sentence had passed away. On the 21st of May, 1867, his trial concluded; on the 17th of January, 1868, the patriot lay dead in his cell in Millbank Prison, London. The government permitted his friends to remove his remains to Ireland for interment; and they now rest in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin, where friendly hands oft renew the flowers on his grave, and many a heartfelt prayer is uttered that God would give the patriot's soul eternal rest, and "let perpetual light shine unto him."

* * * * *

STEPHEN JOSEPH MEANY.

The connexion of Stephen Joseph Meany with Irish politics dates back to 1848, when he underwent an imprisonment of some months in Carrickfergus Castle, under the provisions of the _Habeas Corpus_ Suspension Act. He had been a writer on one of the national newspapers of that period, and was previously a reporter for a Dublin daily paper. He joined the Fenian movement in America, and was one of the "Senators" in O'Mahony's organization. In December, 1866, he crossed over to England, and in the following month he was arrested in London, and was brought in custody across to Ireland. His trial took place in Dublin on the 16th of February, 1867, when the legality of the mode of his arrest was denied by his counsel, and as it was a very doubtful question, the point was reserved to be considered by a Court of Appeal. This tribunal sat on May the 13th, 1867, and on May the 18th, their decision confirming the conviction was pronounced. It was not until the 21st of the following month, at the Commission of Oyer and Terminer that he was brought up for sentence. He then delivered the following able address to show "why sentence should not be passed on him":--

"My lords--There are many reasons I could offer why sentence should
not--could not--be pronounced upon me according to law, if seven
months of absolute solitary imprisonment, and the almost total disuse
of speech during that period, had left me energy enough, or even
language sufficient to address the court. But yielding obedience to a
suggestion coming from a quarter which I am bound to respect, as well
indeed as in accordance with my own feelings, I avoid everything like
speech-making for outside effect. Besides, the learned counsel who so
ably represented me in the Court of Appeal, and the eminent judges
who in that court gave judgment for me, have exhausted all that could
be said on the law of the case. Of their arguments and opinions your
lordships have judicial knowledge. I need not say that both in
interest as in conviction I am in agreement with the constitutional
principles laid down by the minority of the judges in that court, and
I have sufficient respect for the dignity of the court--sufficient
regard to what is due to myself--to concede fully and frankly to the
majority a conscientious view of a novel and, it may be, a difficult
question.

"But I do not ask too much in asking that before your lordships
proceed to pass any sentence you will consider the manner in which
the court was divided on that question--to bear in mind that the
minority declaring against the legality and the validity of the
conviction was composed of some of the ablest and most experienced
judges of the Irish bench or any bench--to bear in mind that one of
these learned judges who had presided at the Commission Court was one
of the most emphatic in the Court of Criminal Appeal in declaring
against my liability to be tried; and moreover--and he ought to
know--that there was not a particle of evidence to sustain the cause
set up at the last moment, and relied upon by the crown, that I was
an 'accessory before the fact' to that famous Dublin overt act, for
which, as an afterthought of the crown, I was in fact tried. And I
ask you further to bear in mind that the affirmance of the conviction
was not had on fixed principles of law--for the question was
unprecedented--but on a speculative view of a suppositious case, and
I must say a strained application of an already over-strained and
dangerous doctrine--the doctrine of constructive criminality--the
doctrine of making a man at a distance of three thousand miles or
more, legally responsible for the words and acts of others whom he
had never seen, and of whom he had never heard, under the fiction, or
the 'supposition,' that he was a co-conspirator. The word
'supposition' is not mine, my lords; it is the word put forward
descriptive of the point by the learned judges presiding at my trial;
for I find in the case prepared by these judges for the Court of
Criminal Appeal the following paragraph:--

"'Sufficient evidence was given on the part of the crown of acts of
members of the said association in Ireland not named in the
indictment in promotion of the several objects aforesaid, and done
within the county of the city of Dublin, to sustain some of the overt
acts charged in the indictment supposing them to be the acts of the
defendant himself.'

"Fortified by such facts--with a court so divided, and with opinions
so expressed--I submit that, neither according to act of parliament,
nor in conformity with the practice at common law, nor in any way in
pursuance of the principles of that apocryphal abstraction, that
magnificent myth--the British constitution--am I amenable to the
sentence of this court--or any court in this country. True, I am in
the toils, and it may be vain to discuss how I was brought into them.
True, my long and dreary imprisonment--shut away from all converse or
association with humanity, in a cell twelve feet by six--the
humiliations of prison discipline--the hardships of prison fare--the
handcuffs, and the heartburnings--this court and its surroundings of
power and authority--all these are 'hard practical facts,' which no
amount of indignant protests can negative--no denunciation of the
wrong refine away; and it may be, as I have said, worse than
useless--vain and absurd--to question the right where might is
predominant. But the invitation just extended to me by the officer of
the court means, if it means anything--if it be not like the rest, a
solemn mockery--that there still is left to me the poor privilege of
complaint. And I do complain. I complain that law and justice have
been alike violated in my regard--I complain that the much belauded
attribute 'British fair play' has been for me a nullity--I complain
that the pleasant fiction described in the books as 'personal
freedom' has had a most unpleasant illustration in my person--and I
furthermore and particularly complain that by the design and
contrivance of what are called 'the authorities,' I have been brought
to this country, not for trial but for condemnation--not for justice
but for judgment.

"I will not tire the patience of the court, or exhaust my own
strength, by going over the history of this painful case--the
kidnapping in London on the mere belief of a police-constable that I
was a Fenian in New York--the illegal transportation to Ireland--the
committal for trial on a specific charge, whilst a special messenger
was despatched to New York to hunt up informers to justify the
illegality and the outrage, and to get a foundation for any charge. I
will not dwell on the 'conspicuous absence' of fair play, in the
crown at the trial having closed their cases without any reference to
the Dublin transaction, but, as an afterthought, suggested by their
discovered failure, giving in evidence the facts and circumstances of
that case, and thus succeeding in making the jury convict me for an
offence with which up to that moment the crown did not intend to
charge me. I will not say what I think of the mockery of putting me
on trial in the Commission Court in Dublin for alleged words and acts
in New York, and though the evidence was without notice, and the
alleged overt acts without date, taunting me with not proving an
_alibi_, and sending that important ingredient to a jury already ripe
for a conviction. Prove an _alibi_ to-day in respect of meetings held
in Clinton Hall, New York, the allegations relating to which only
came to my knowledge yesterday! I will not refer with any bitter
feeling to the fact that whilst the validity of the conviction so
obtained was still pending in the Court of Criminal Appeal, the Right
Hon. and Noble the Chief Secretary for Ireland declared in the House
of Commons that 'that conviction was the most important one at the
Commission'--thus prejudicing my case, I will not say willingly; but
the observation was, at least, inopportune, and for me unfortunate.

"I will not speak my feeling on the fact that in the arguments in the
case in the Court for Reserved Cases, the Right Hon. the
Attorney-General appealed to the passions--if such can exist in
judges--and not to the judgment of the court, for I gather from the
judgment of Mr. Justice O'Hagan, that the right hon. gentleman made
an earnest appeal 'that such crimes' as mine 'should not be allowed
to go unpunished'.--forgetful, I will not say designedly forgetful,
that he was addressing the judges of the land, in the highest court
of the land, on matters of law, and not speaking to a pliant Dublin
jury on a treason trial in the court-house of Green-street.

"Before I proceed further, my lords, there is a matter which, as
simply personal to myself I should not mind, but which as involving
high interests to the community, and serious consequences to
individuals, demand a special notice. I allude to the system of
manufacturing informers. I want to know, if the court can inform me,
by what right a responsible officer of the crown entered my solitary
cell at Kilmainham prison on Monday last--unbidden and
unexpected--uninvited and undesired. I want to know what
justification there was for his coming to insult me in my solitude
and in my sorrow--ostensibly informing me that I was to be brought up
for sentence on Thursday, but in the same breath adroitly putting to
me the question if I knew any of the men recently arrested near
Dungarvan, and now in the prison of Kilmainham. Coming thus, with a
detective dexterity, carrying in one hand a threat of sentence and
punishment--in the other as a counterpoise and, I suppose an
alternative, a temptation to treachery. Did he suppose that seven
months of imprisonment had so broken my spirit, as well as my health,
that I would be an easy prey to his blandishments? Did he dream that
the prospect of liberty which newspaper rumour and semi-official
information held out to me was too dear to be forfeited for a
trilling forfeiture of honour? Did he believe that by an act of
secret turpitude I would open my prison doors only to close them the
faster on others who may or may not have been my friends--or did he
imagine he had found in me a Massey to be moulded and manipulated
into the service of the crown, or a Corridon to have cowardice and
cupidity made the incentives to his baseness. I only wonder how the
interview ended as it did; but I knew I was a prisoner, and
self-respect preserved my patience and secured his safety. Great, my
lords, as have been my humiliation in prison, hard and heart-breaking
as have been the ordeals through which I have passed since the 1st of
December last, there was no incident or event of that period fraught
with more pain on the one hand, or more suggestiveness on the other,
than this sly and secret attempt at improvising an informer. I can
forget the pain in view of the suggestiveness; and unpleasant as is
my position here to-day, I am almost glad of the opportunity which
may end in putting some check to the spy system in prisons. How many
men have been won from honour and honesty by the stealthy visit to
the cell is more of course than I can say--how many have had their
weakness acted upon, or their wickness fanned into flame by which
means I have no opportunity of knowing--in how many frailty and folly
may have blossomed into falsehood it is for those concerned to
estimate. There is one thing, however, certain--operating in this way
is more degrading to the tempter than to the tempted; and the
government owes it to itself to put an end to a course of tactics
pursued in its name, which in the results can only bring its
humiliation--the public are bound in self-protection to protect the
prisoner from the prowling visits of a too zealous official.

"I pass over all these things, my lords, and I ask your attention to
the character of the evidence on which alone my conviction was
obtained. The evidence of a special, subsidized spy, and of an
infamous and ingrate informer.

"In all ages, and amongst all peoples, the spy has been held in
marked abhorrence. In the amnesties of war there is for him alone no
quarter; in the estimate of social life no toleration; his
self-abasement excites contempt, not compassion; his patrons despise
while they encourage; and they who stoop to enlist the services
shrink with disgust from the moral leprosy covering the servitor. Of
such was the witness put forward to corroborate the informer, and
still not corroborating him. Of such was that phenomenon, a police
spy, who declared himself an unwilling witness for the crown! There
was no reason why in my regard he should be unwilling--he knew me not
previously. I have no desire to speak harshly of Inspector Doyle; he
said in presence of the Crown Solicitor, and was not contradicted,
that he was compelled by threats to ascend the witness table; he may
have had cogent reasons for his reluctance in his own conscience. God
will judge him.

"But how shall I speak of the informer, Mr. John Devany? What
language should be employed in describing the character of one who
adds to the guilt of perfidy to his associates the crime of perjury
to his God?--the man who eating of your bread, sharing your
confidence, and holding, as it were, your very purse-strings, all the
time meditates your overthrow and pursues it to its accomplishment?
How paint the wretch who, under pretence of agreement in your
opinions, worms himself into your secrets only to betray them; and
who, upon the same altar with you, pledges his faith and fealty to
the same principles, and then sells faith, and fealty, and
principles, and you alike, for the unhallowed Judas guerdon? Of such,
on his own confession was that distinguished upholder of the British
crown and government, Mr. Devany. With an affrontery that did not
falter, and knew not how to blush, he detailed his own participation
in the acts for which he was prosecuting me as a participator. And is
the evidence of a man like that--a conviction obtained upon such
evidence--any warrant for a sentence depriving me of all that make
life desirable or enjoyable?

"He was first spy for the crown--in the pay of the crown, under the
control of the crown, and think you he had any other object than to
do the behests of the crown?

"He was next the traitor spy, who had taken that one fatal step, from
which in this life there is no retrogression--that one plunge in
infamy from which there is no receding--that one treachery for which
there is no earthly forgiveness; and, think you, he hesitated about a
prejury more or less to secure present pay and future patronage? Here
was one to whom existence offers now no prospect save in making his
perfidy a profession, and think you he was deterred by conscience
from recommending himself to his patrons? Think you that when at a
distance of three thousand miles from the scenes he professed to
describe, he could lie with impunity and invent without detection, he
was particular to a shade in doing his part of a most filthy bargain?
It is needless to describe a wretch of that kind--his own actions
speak his character. It were superfluous to curse him, his whole
existence will be a living, a continuing curse. No necessity to use
the burning words of the poet and say:--

"'May life's unblessed cup for him
Be drugged with treacheries to the brim.'

"Every sentiment in his regard of the country he has dishonoured, and
the people he has humbled, will be one of horror and hate. Every sigh
sent up from the hearts he has crushed and the homes he has made
desolate, will be mingled with execrations on the name of the
informer. Every heart-throb in the prison cells of this land where
his victims count time by corroding his thought--every grief that
finds utterance from these victims in the quarries of Portland will
go up to heaven freighted with curses on the Nagles, the Devanys, the
Masseys, the Gillespies, the Corridons, and the whole host of
mercenary miscreants, who, faithless to their friends and recreant to
their professions, have, paraphrasing the words of Moore, taken their
perfidy to heaven seeking to make accomplice of their God--wretches
who have embalmed their memories in imperishable infamy, and given
their accursed names to an inglorious immortality. Nor will I
speculate on their career in the future. We have it on the best
existing authority that a distinguished informer of antiquity seized
with remorse, threw away his blood-money, 'went forth and hanged
himself.' We know that in times within the memory of living men a
government actually set the edifying and praiseworthy example of
hanging an informer when they had no further use of his valuable
services--thus _dropping_ his acquaintance with effect. I have no
wish for such a fate to any of the informers who have cropped out so
luxuriantly in these latter days--a long life and a troubled
conscience would, perhaps, be their correct punishment--though
certainly there would be a consistent compensation--a poetic
justice--in a termination so exalted to a career so brilliant.

"I leave these fellows and turn for a moment to their victims. And, I
would here, without any reference to my own case, earnestly implore
that sympathy with political sufferers should not be merely
telescopic in its character, 'distance lending enchantment to the
view;' and that when your statesmen sentimentalize upon, and your
journalists denounce far-away tyrannies--the horrors of Neapolitan
dungeons--the abridgement of personal freedom in Continental
countries--the exercise of arbitrary power by irresponsible authority
in other lands--they would turn their eyes homeward, and examine the
treatment and the sufferings of their own political prisoners. I
would, in all sincerity, suggest that humane and well-meaning men,
who exert themselves for the remission of the death-penalty as a
mercy, would rather implore that the doors of solitary and silent
captivity should be remitted to the more merciful doom of an
immediate relief from suffering by immediate execution--the
opportunity of an immediate appeal from man's cruelty to God's
justice. I speak strongly on this point because I feel it deeply. I
speak not without example. At the Commission at which I was tried
there was tried also and sentenced a young man named Stowell. I well
remember that raw and dreary morning, the 12th March, when handcuffed
to Stowell I was sent from Kilmainham Prison to the County Gaol of
Kildare. I well remember our traversing, so handcuffed, from the town
of Sailing to the town of Naas, ancle deep in snow and mud, and I
recall now with pain our sad foreboding of that morning. These in
part have been fulfilled. Sunday after Sunday I saw poor Stowell at
chapel in Naas Gaol drooping and dying. One such Sunday--the 12th
May--passed and I saw him no more. On Wednesday, the 15th, he was, as
they say, _mercifully_ released from prison, but the fiat of mercy
had previously gone forth from a higher power--the political convict
simply reached his own home to die, with loving eyes watching by his
death-bed. On Sunday, the 19th May, he was consigned to another
prison home in Glasnevin Cemetery. May God have mercy on his
soul--may God forgive his persecutors--may God give peace and
patience to those who are doomed to follow.

"Pardon this digression, my lords, I could not avoid it. Returning to
the question, why sentence should not be pronounced upon me, I would
ask your lordships' attention to the fact showing, even in the
estimate of the crown, the case is not one for sentence.

"On the morning of my trial, and before the trial, terms were offered
to me by the crown. The direct proposition was made through my
solicitor, through the learned counsel who so ably defended me,
through the Governor of Kilmainham Prison--by all three--that if I
pleaded guilty to the indictment, I should get off with six months'
imprisonment. Knowing the pliancy of Dublin juries in political
cases, the offer was, doubtless, a tempting one. Valuing liberty, it
was almost resistless--in view of a possible penal servitude--but
having regard to principle, I spurned the compromise. I then gave
unhesitatingly, as I would now give, the answer, that not for a
reduction of the punishment to six hours would I surrender
faith--that I need never look, and could never look, wife or
children, friends or family, in the face if capable of such a selfish
cowardice. I could not to save myself imperil the safety of others--I
could not plead guilty to an indictment in which six others were
distinctly charged by name as co-conspirators with me--one of those
six since tried, convicted, and sentenced to death--I could not
consent to obtain my own pardon at their expense--furnish the crown
with a case in point for future convictions, and become, even though
indirectly, worthy to rank with that brazen battalion of venal
vagabonds, who have made the Holy Gospel of God the medium of barter
for their unholy gain, and obtained access to the inmost heart of
their selected victim only to coin its throbbing into the traitor's
gold and traffic on its very life-blood.

"Had I been charged simply with my own words and deeds I would have
no hesitation in making acknowledgement. I have nothing to repent
and nothing to conceal--nothing to retract and nothing to
countermand; but in the language of the learned Lord Chief Baron in
this case, I could not admit 'the preposterous idea of thinking by
deputy' any more than I could plead guilty to an indictment which
charge others with crime. Further, my lords, I could not acknowledge
culpability for the acts and words of others at a distance of three
thousand miles--others whom I had never seen, of whom I had never
heard, and with whom I never had had communication. I could not admit
that the demoniac atrocities, described as Fenian principles by the
constabulary-spy Talbot, ever had my sanction or approval or the
sanction or approval of any man in America.

"If, my lords, six months' imprisonment was the admeasurement of the
law officers of the crown as an adequate punishment for my alleged
offence--assuming that the court had jurisdiction to try and
punish--then, am I now entitled to my discharge independent of all
other grounds of discharge, for I have gone through seven months of
an imprisonment which could not be excelled by demon ingenuity in
horror and in hardship--in solitude, in silence and in suspense. Your
lordships will not only render further litigation necessary by
passing sentence for the perhaps high crime--but still the untried
crime--of refusing to yield obedience to the crown's proposition for
my self-abasement. You will not, I am sure, visit upon my rejection
of Mr. Anderson's delicate overture--you will not surely permit the
events occurring, unhappily occurring, since my trial to influence
your judgments. And do not, I implore you, accept as a truth,
influencing that judgement, Talbot's definition of the objects of
Feminism. Hear what Devany, the American informer, describes them to
be. 'The members,' he says, 'were _pledged by word of honour_ to
promote love and harmony amongst all classes of Irishmen and to
labour for the independence of Ireland.' Talbot says that in Ireland
'the members are _bound by oath_ to seize the property of the
country and murder all opposed to them.' Can any two principles be
more distinct from each other? Could there be a conspiracy for a
common object by such antagonistic means? To murder all opposed to
your principles may be an effectual way of producing unanimity, but
the quality of love and harmony engendered by such a patent process,
would be extremely equivocal. Mr. Talbot, for the purposes of his
evidence, must have borrowed a leaf from the History of the French
Revolution, and adopted as singularly telling and appropriate for
effect the saying attributed to Robespiere: 'Let us cut everybody's
throat but our own, and then we are sure to be masters.'

"No one in America, I venture to affirm, ever heard of such designs
in connexion with the Fenian Brotherhood. No one in America would
countenance such designs. Revolutionists are not ruffians or
rapparees. A judge from the bench at Cork, and a noble lord in his
place in parliament, bore testimony to that fact, in reference to the
late movement; and I ask you, my lords--I would ask the country from
this court--for the sake of the character of your countrymen--to
believe Devany's interpretation of Fenianism--tainted traitor though
he be--rather than believe that the kindly instincts of Irishmen, at
home and abroad--their generous impulses--their tender
sensibilities--all their human affections, in a word--could
degenerate into the attributes of the assassin, as stated by that
hog-in-armour, that crime-creating Constable Talbot.

"Taking other ground, my lords, I object to any sentence upon me. I
stand at this bar a declared citizen of the United States of America,
entitled to the protection of such citizenship; and I protest against
the right to pass any sentence in any British court for acts done, or
words spoken, or alleged to be done or spoken, on American soil,
within the shades of the American flag, and under the sanction of
American institutions. I protest against the assumption that would in
this country limit the right of thought, or control the liberty of
speech in an assemblage of American citizens in an American city. The
United States will, doubtless, respect and protect her neutrality
laws and observe the comity of nations, whatever they may mean in
practice, but I protest against the monstrous fiction--the
transparent fraud--that would seek in ninety years after the
evacuation of New York by the British to bring the people of New York
within the vision and venue of a British jury--that in ninety years
after the last British bayonet had glistened in an American sunlight,
after the last keel of the last of the English fleet ploughed its
last furrow in the Hudson or the Delaware--after ninety years of
republican independence--would seek to restore that city of New York
and its institutions to the dominion of the crown and government of
Great Britain. This is the meaning of it, and disguise it as you may,
so will it be interpreted beyond the Atlantic. Not that the people of
America care one jot whether S.J. Meany were hanged, drawn, and
quartered to-morrow, but that there is a great principle involved.
Personally, I am of no consequence; politically, I represent in this
court the adopted citizen of America--for, as the _New York Herald_,
referring to this case, observed, if the acts done in my regard are
justifiable, there is nothing to prevent the extension of the same
justice to any other adopted citizen of the States visiting Great
Britain. It is, therefore, in the injustice of the case the influence
lies, and not in the importance of the individual.

"Law is called 'the perfection of reason.' Is there not danger of its
being regarded as the very climax of absurdity if fictions of this
kind can be turned into realities on the mere caprice of power. As a
distinguished English journalist has suggested in reference to the
case, 'though the law may doubtless be satisfied by the majority in
the Court of Appeal, yet common sense and common law would be widely
antagonistic if sentence were to follow a judgment so obtained.'