The Sun.
London, England, 1859-04-04 00:00:00

THE PIICENIX CONSPIRACY.

Mr. Daniel Sullivan, one of the chiefs of the
Plicenix conspiracy in the south, was on Friday
convicted, at Tralee, of treason, and sentenced to
undergo ten years' penal servitude, a light punish-
ment for an offence that would, but a few years ago,
have subjected the convict to an ignominious death.
As you have been already informed, a mock heroic
scene was enacted in open court, the counsel of the
prisoner being the performers on the occasion. They
all " threw up their briefs ; " but why the outside
public and the mere spectators could not ascertain
until the conclusion of the trial. It now appears
that when the prisoner saw an unimpeachable jury
sworn he determined to make a scene, to give up a
case which was indefensible on its merits, and trust
to the effect of the following letter to his attorney,
which this functionary thought to have read in
open court; but the presiding judge most properly
refused to permit any such mockery in the presence
of the jury :

" March 31, 1859
" Dear Sir,—Having seen every Catholic who was called
upon to try me, including men of the highest station and
respectability, set aside by the crown, and an exclusively
Protestant jury empannelled to try me, who am a Catholic,
and this course having been taken after every effort had
been made in the public press to create prejudice against
me in the minds of Protestants, I feel that a jury has been
unfairly chosen to convict me. I will, therefore, be no
party to going through the mockery of a defence, and I
withdraw all authority from you, and from my counsel,
and I leave those who prosecute me to do as they think
proper.—Yours, "DANIEL SULLIVAN.
" Joseph J. O'Riordan, Esq."
The jury, however, supplied the place of the
prisoner's counsel in an efficient manner. A large
number of witnesses having given their testimony,
and undergone a very close cross•examination by
the jurymen themselves—
Baron Greene then summed up the evidence.
At two o'clock the jury retired to consider their
verdict, and returned into court at ten minutes to
three with a verdict of guilty.
The demeanour of the prisoner throughout indi-
cated self-possession and firmness.
Baron Greene inquired of counsel for the Crown
what they proposed to do.
The Solicitor-General—My lord, it is not the
intention of the Crown to proceed with the trial of
any other prisoners at the present assizes.
Baron Greene, in pronouncing sentence upon the
prisoner, spoke as follows :—Daniel Sullivan, you
have been convicted on an indictment charging you
with having harboured the intention and design of
dethroning the Queen, and deposing her from her
royal style and dignity as Sovereign of this United
Kingdom. The offence of which you have been
convicted was formerly high treason, and before
the passing of the act of Parliament under which
you have been indicted, it would have been my
duty, had you been convicted, to have sentenced
you to death ; that statute has altered the character
of the offence of which you have been convicted from
high treason to felony, and thus imposed a milder
sentence than that which existed prior to the pass-
ing of the act which relates to that class of offences.
It is impossible for any one who has heard the
evidence adduced upon this trial to doubt the pro-
priety of the verdict which has been given. lam
bound to express my concurrence in that verdict.
I regret that it has appeared in the course of the
evidence that you were a national schoolmaster. It
is certainly a deplorable consideration to reflect
that a person entrusted with the education of the
youth of the country, as you have been, should
have become a member of such a confederacy as
has been proved in the course of this trial—one
utterly subversive of the constitution and laws of
this country, and utterly at variance with the alle-
giance due to the Crown ; binding you to throw off
that allegiance, and to join strangers and foreigners
in subverting the constitution, and, in fact, enter-
ing upon a course of conduct the consequences of
which would be, if successful, the utter subversion
•of all established law and order in this country. I
regret, I say, to find that you have been iu the
situation of a national schoolmaster, and the evi-
dence tends to show that others concerned with
you in this guilty conspiracy have also been school-
masters, entrusted with the education of the youth
of this country. The Act of Parliament under
which you have been convicted imposes on the
crime the extreme penalty of transportation for life,
or what is now substituted in the place of it penal
servitude for life. I am most anxious to deal as
leniently with you as the discretion given me by
the Act of Parliament enables me to do, and as is
consistent with my solemn obligations to the law
and to the public. I will exercise that discretion
which is vested in me by not sentencing you to the
extreme penalty which I am authorised to pro-
nounce against you, but I must pronounce a sen-
tence which will mark, my sense of its enormity--
I say enormity, because itis difficult to say to what
dangerous consequences these machinations might
have reached had they not been arrested by the
institution of this proseeution, and the bringing of
One offender at least to the bar of public justice.
Taking into consideration all the circumstances of
this case, I have determined to pronounce against
you a sentence of penal servitude for a period of
ten years. This is the sentence of the court.
Mr. Coffey, who; with Mr. Nellgan and Mr.
O'Hagan, entered the court just as the jury entered
the box to hand in their verdict, applied that the
other prisoners should be admitted to bail. One of
them was a mere boy, and was suffering under symp-
toms of fever, and there was an affidavit on the file
that further incarceration would be utter destruc-
tion to the prisoners. They had been in confine-
, meat from the 4th of December, and he hoped that

the Crown would not oppose the application. The
prisoners were ready for their trial, and the Crown
had postponed it until next assizes.
The Solicitor General said it was not possible for
him, acting for the crown, tc consent to such an
application. The prisoners m 4 ;ht have been tried
at the present assizes if they ha, 1 joined challenges,
The Court of Queen's Bench would sit in a fort-
night, and the prisoners might make such an ap-
plication to that court as they might be advised.
Mr.O'Hagan and Mr. Coffey pressed the Court,
in the exercise of its discretion, to grant the appli-
cation.
His lordship refused the motion, observing that it
might be a different thing if the Court of Queen's
Bench did not sit so soon.
The Solicitor-General suggested that in reference
to the one prisoner a memorial should be forwarded
to the Goverment.
On the application of Mr. Coffey,
His lordship then stated that he wox old make no
rule on the application, so that it n tight not be
hereafter prejudiced.
The business of the assizes then terminated.