The Sun.
London, England, 1848-10-07 00:00:00

Sitefling .-At'll"•

LONDON, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1848.

The first of the State trials in Ireland will most
probably terminate this day. The brilliant and
effective speech with which Mr. WHITESIDE opened
the case for the defence left little, indeed, to be urged
by his talented coadjutor ; so that we may fairly pre-
sume the speech as to evidence for the defence, the
reply of the Solicitor-General on behalf of the
Crown, and the charge of the L6rd Chief Justice
will be disposed of, and the verdict of the jury (preg•
nant with such momentous results to the prisoner)
returned before the rising of the Court this evening.
We may now, therefore, venture to comment upon
the nature of the charge, and the evidence by which
it laos been supported, without the slightest danger of
interfering in any degree with the just and impartial
administration of the law, or of unduly prejudicing
the jury, either for or against the unfortunate gen-
tleman whose future fate, even while we write, hangs
trembling in the balance.
_ _ _

Whutever may be the result of the present in-
vestigation, whether the prisoner be thereby ac-
quitted of the capital treason, laid to his charge,
or consigned to an ignominious death upon the scaf-
fold, with the mutilation of his lifeless corpse,
aid the corruption of the blood of his in-
nocent off,pring, it must be admitted, that
all that profound learning, extraordinary tact, foren-
sio skill, quick-witted intelligence, unflinching courage
and devotion, and the most winning and persuasive
eloquence could suggest on his behalf, were most
clearly and efficiently brought forward by the accom-
plished advocate whose services he was enabled to
secure. Nothing in any degree capable of a favour-
able construction was omitted, while the points that
pressed most strongly against him were explained
away, or made to bear upon other matters which,
though they might amount to grave misde-
meanours, could not, it was contended, be
regarded as overt acts establishing the treason-
able intention either of levying war against
her Most Gracious MAJESTY, or of compassing
and imagining the death of the Sovereign. But,
though the prisoner was thus fortunate in the counsel
by whom his cause was advocated, he was not
Equally so in the law under which he was tried, and
it is impossible not to perceive that he, a subject of
the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland,
was deprived of strictly legal rights and privileges
to which he would most certainly have been entitled
had the alleged offences been committed upon this side
of St. George's Channel, and himself brought to trial
on English ground.
It must be borne in mind that the sta.

to upon which the indictment: was framed

was one enacted by an English Parliament,
with which the Irish Legislature had no
concern whatsoever. It is now nearly five centuries
since that statute, written in the old Norman French,
in which the Acts of the Legislature and the pro-
eve dings of the law courts were carried on in the 14th
century, received the royal assent and became the
law of the land. It was passed in the 25th year of
the reign of EDWARD 111., for the purpose of defining
the crime of Treason, in compliance with a petition
from the Commons, who four years previously had
pr►yed " that it may be declared in Parliament to
vs hat cases of accroachment the royal power extended,
whereby Lords lost their profit of the forfeitures of
their tenants, and the accused their benefit of clergy."
This statute expressly and clearly defined the specific
acts that should be held and adjudged treason. These
were not only offences directly affecting the person
of the Sovereign, as compassing or imagining his
death or deposition, or levying war against him, but