The Sun.
London, England, 1848-05-22 00:00:00

-

IRELAND.
TRIAL OF MR. MITCHEL.
Dr- IL , MIT 20.—The Commission was opened this
clay by Noon Leroy
.and Mr. Justice Moore. Great
_
exattamerit prevailed in the immediate vicinity of the
cow t, owing to the desire of the people to see air.
Mi seise'. It will be seen by the report that the Judge in
s charge but delicately alluded to his case.
COMMISSION COURT.
At eleven o'clock the presiding Judges, Baron Lefroy
and Justice Moore, accompanied by the Right Hon. the
Zord Mayer, entered the court, and opened the Com-
mission.
The Marshal of Dublin (Mr. Reynolds), who was in
attendance, with the ether city officers, on the Lord
Jatayar, seated himself in front of the bench, near the
dock, and quietly unfolding the United Irishman, pro-
ceeded to read it.
The following gentlemen were sworn on the grand
j Aries :
City—Peter Digges La Touche, foreman; Simon Foot,
Sir Richard Baker, Sylvester Young, Jawes Turbot,
'Thomas M'Enery, Thomas Winans, Richard Wright,
Daniel Hutton, Richard Armitt, Abraham Studdart,
J... Stokes, William Woodreffe, Gustavus Wilson,
A.e in Stopford, John Astell, George Hodges, Henry
Downas, Snow,
Jervis, Denis Moylan, William Todd,
Thonasz Snow, and Thomas altDonnell,Esqs.
County—Thomas James Quentin, foreman; William
Worthington, Emmanuel Bayley, Henry M‘Manus,
Andrew Rogers, John Gosson, Archibald Ferguson,
Johan Madden. Matthew Callaghan, WM. Parker; Benja-
znin Bidon, Charles Fletcher, Anthony Fox, John Stod-
den, Thomas Sherlock, Horatio Jude, Henry Slade, Paul
Barry, Jolla Kirkwood, Edward Fox, Anthony Browne,
James Oct, and John Aylmer, Esqs.
The Right Hon. Baron LZ7BOY proceeded to charge
the jury. He said—Gentlemen of the jury, lam now
in a condition to address anti on the case, which in the
marling it appeared to the Court was not ripe for your
consideration, or for the Court making any observation
wen it. Tire case, as I stated to you, then appeared on
*e face dr the calendar in an ambiguous light. It is
the case of a prisoner of the name of John Mitchel, and
the return en the calendar is that he was committed for
publishing a seditious libel. It was then impossible to
ascertain with that precision which is necessary, what
the nature of the charge against the prisoner might be;
might either be for a misdemeanour in publishing a
seditious libel, or it might be a charge of felony under
the late Aet. In either case it was a subject to which it
was quite befitting the Court should call your attention
with a view to give you assistance. Now we are enabled
to kaove what the nature of the charge is, for we
have been apprised that a bill of felony under the late
Act is about to be sent up to you. I congratulate you,
gentlemen, and I think you may congratulate the court,
that the case for your consideration is one of the
character which it is, and not such as it might have been
if it were the case of a bill for a misdemeanour for a
seditious publication. You have now to consider the
caga,aof a well-defiled and known offence to the law,
wrieh * under the late Act described with an accuracy
and precision which will leave you comparatively no
difficulty in the discharge of the duty you have to fulfil.
r fur
ub-
Unfortanately in the case of a misdemeanwll
up o
which
.fishing a seditious libel, a practice has g
ineolves the jury and the court in considartraoadbeleindirffiecspect
difficulty
in disposing of cases of that sort. A l
to topics and to observations quite ofan at tunmeasured ex-
tent, and so far as I can see immeasurable, has grown
up, which has rendered the administration of justice
-in that sort of cases extremely difficult, and ex-
t
TY embarrassing both to court and jury.
ifbwever, gentlemen, you have not in this case
to grope your way through unbounded regions to a sort
of terra incognita of sedition. You have only to con.
sidc'r an offauce well known to the law, and which is
limited and described by this Act to which it is now my
duty to mai your attention. The indictment about to be
seat up to you is framed upon the first two sections of
the Aot, the one founded upon the compassing, imagin-
ing, and intending to deprive the Queen of her style,
title, rol name, and of the Imperial Crown of the
United kingdom ; and the tither upon the " compassing
end imagining." for the purpose of levying war against
the Crown, to compel her Majesty by force or constraint
to atter her councils and measures. And the mode in
which the indictment charges the utterance and expres-
sions of those intents, is, by eseir insertion of, and pub-
latation in a paper called the United Irishman. There
are, betides the counts supported by reference to that
publication, two counts charging that by divers other
publications after the passing of the Act, both before
and after the 6tiaflay of May, which is the day first
named in the indictment, the prisoner did endeavour to
excite her Majesty's subjects to assist in bringing into
eithet the same felonious compassing, and did also give
inatauctions as to the manner in which such compassings
delight to be carried into effect. This law, gentlemen, I
bove to elsserae to you, is not altogether a new law, for
the previsions of this Act are to be found in other
Acts long antecedent to it in substance and in terms, but
only wader a different character, and subject to a diffe-
*nt penalty. In fact, the matters which, by this late
lact, are made felonies, punishable by transportation or
imprisonment, were, previous to this Act, at least in
Egghead, hit treason—punishable, of course, by death.
That certainly eAs the law of England ; a doubt
existed whether it was the law in Ireland ; and one of
the objects of the present Act was to remove
that doubt. The present Act, which removes all doubt
ae to Ireland, is not a new law, nor can it be looked
upon as a law of extreme rigour or severity.
On the contrary, it is a law lowering the character of
the offence, and mitigating most materially the punish-
ment that is to attend it. You are now called upon to
give this law effect, provided a case is made out to your
satisfaction, coming within the provisions of the Act. I
must *serve that the Acs does not require that the com-
passing, or purpose, or intent, should be carried into
affect; but it does require that there should be such
a manifestation of the intent as the Act specifies—not
that any man should in the dark, or under the mere
suspicion of entertaining any such intent, be convicted
or be in danger of conviction, but that those purposes or
intentions should be manifested by some writing or
publication by the party charged with entertaining those
intentions, or by sense other overt act, or matter evinc-
ing clearly that the party accused did entertain such
intent. Then the Act declares the person so entertain-
ing any. of those intentions, and manifesting them in
slaty of the ways pointed out by the Act, shall be guilty
of felony within the Act. I will now call your atten-
tion to the course which this indictment takes. After
charging this felonious compassing and intention of
the two kinds I have stated to you, it goes on to state
that the prisoner did publish in that newspaper certain
speeehee made by himself, and that it appears from that
publication, and from those speeches so published by
himaelf, that he did entertain the purpose and design
ascribed to bins by the indictment, of depriving the
Queen of her sovereignty over these realms, and levy-
ing war against her for tete purpose of compelling her
Majesty to change her councils or measures. It will,
thareffere, be far you to say, in the first instance,
whether those publietations which are set out in the in-
dictment are brought home to the prisoner as being his
pnalicathon, published by him or by his authority. If
you :fall not be so satisfied, then there would be an
end to the 'Alleged publication; but if you should be
sated fleet the publication was his, and chargeable
to, then you will have to consider whether the
mamCese purpose and intent ascribed to him in
tire two particulars I have already adverted to,
tamely, the purpose or intent of depriving her Majesty
of Ilse sovereignty of these realms, or secondly, the
puiposie or intent of levying war against her Majesty for
the pteepese of compelling her by force to alter her
counatie or measures, is established, I have not been
able en go over the publications very minutely ; but on
glancing over them, as far as I have been able, to direct
yaw atiention to what might strike me as must material
for your consideration, I have particularly remarked
one passage, to which I shall now refer. It is this :
" Give up for ever that old interpretation you put upon
the word 'repeal.' Repeal is no priest movement ; it
is no sectstnan movement ; it is no money swindle, nor
• eighty-two' delitsion, nor puffing, nor O'Connellism,
or Vullaghmast-green cap's stage play, nor
forma sounding inanity of any sort
got up for
any pas n's profit or praise. It is the mightya
p -
glonaje struggle of a nation hastening tobe borns
into new naNsal life ; in the which unspeakable throes
alit the parts and powers and elements of our Irish exist-
enc.—our confederations, our Protestant repeal asso-
ciations, oar tenant-right societies, our clubs, cliques,
and commi4tees, amidst confusion enough and the sad-
dest jostling and jumbling, are all inevitably tending,
however uoconsciuusly, to the one same and illustrious
awl.—not a local Legislature—not a return to our an-
cient eenstitutioae—not a golden link, or a patchwork
Parliament, or a College-green chapel-of-ease to St.
Stephen's—but an Irish Republic, one and indivisible."
Those who are addressed are advised to give up the old
interpretation of the word " repeat," to renounce every-
thAig that was heretofore connected with her Majesty's
sciereignty in this United Kingdom as Queen of Great
Britain and Ireland, and now the call is for an inde-
pendent Irish Republic. Gentlemen, it is for you to
construe his, and see if you elan even imagine any
seal in which her Majesty can be Queen of this
tatted Kingdom of England and Ireland, and yet
Iretand be an independent republic. If you dan, con-
sistently with common sense and the interpretation of
these words, entertain nay doubt upon that subject, you
then will be at liberty to hold that this passage does not
maaifest the purpose and intent of depriving her Majesty
of her state and title of Queen of the United Kingdom.
Tale ries* sentence I find in it is this:—" Hove are we
to meet that day? In arms, my countrymen—in arms."
You will look over the rest of it, and see if there be
anything in it tending to disclaim, to qualify, or to recall
as casual or over-hasty, any expression in the course of
this speech; but you will also have to consider, that
after haviag been made, this speech is published—an
act of deliberation which you must take into your ac-
count if you should find any attempt is made to repre-
sent this es an over-hasty, unintentional expression. If
here be
t taything substantial and real to qualify that
passage, and take out of it the sting, g• the prisoner
the benefit of it; but supposingtidat passage to
stand—as it does—ensaiti
eyed
and unexplained, it
will be for yon
on ao say whether any doubt
remains yo* mind of the felonious intention, and of
age being brought home to the prisoner. The neat
Laaaand on which this indiotment is sought to be su s-
'-'mased is the intention to levy war against her M
wash the View and intention to compel aje sty,
her, by force or
eonaltrains, to change bra measures or her Councils.
Gausinneq, it is not necessary that this intention to levy
war should be caaried into elect. Thecharge is the
^+l emet - sin the intending, the avow'
ima catalpas ing the intention to
ie„,:r ear. is peeeeaary, before you can be called upon
-ca-a..a.a.-- to &mac any intention to the party, to
ki•-••=7., L,,,k • le, ifi warngainst the know whati in
f ,aaae poiat af kw y gSevere*, It is
oca-4tata.all* rft to tell what is not necessary to constitnte that
• , ,OL •
eace. is not necessary that an army should be
tireayed, or that it should be trainedaacitt
tined, or
officered, or furnished with all the 'milt oats
• war. The law requires no such thing to smut: