The Sun.
London, England, 1844-06-01 00:00:00

THE IRISH STATE TRIALS.

FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF' THIS DAY.
CHRONICLE.Yesterday the Lord Chancellor, after a
rather prolonged consultation with Sir James Graham, com-
municated to the judges who had assembled, we-believe, to
arrange the Circuits, that it would be necessary to postpone
them, as -their Lordships' assistance would be required in the
hearing of the writ of error, in the case of the Queen against
O'Connell and others. The argument will be heard with the
least possible delnv. It will be seen from our report of the
proceedings in the Irish Court of Queen's Bench, that, in re-
fusing the application of Mr. Moore;:that the sentence should
not be carried. into effect until after the writ of error was

heard, the judges intimated their regret that they had no
poWer to comply with their application. They all expressed
their sense of the very great hardship to which the traversers
Would be subjected, should they be found to have a good case
in the writ of error, and yet have undergone a portion of the
punishment. Mr. Justice Burton, in delivering his opinion,
said, "He felt a considerable degree of anxiety about the
me. He concurred in opinion with the Learned Chief-
Justice, that the motion could not be granted ; but he
thought something might be done with equal justice to all
parties. It would be, a source of great uneasiness to his
mind if the Court sentenced parties to imprisonment—that
the punishment was inflicted—and that afterwards it would
be found that such sentence was illegal and improper."
Although the account brought by our express stated that
Mr. O'Connell was in the custody of the Sheriff, yet we can-
not believe that the Crown will insist upon their right to
send him to gaol peneiing awritof error. This would be the

climax of their revengeful injustice.
HERALD.,--The curtain has at length dropped upon the
long and tedious drama of the Irish State Trials. On Thurs
day the conspirators, hunted through all their shifts and
doublings, received the judgment of the Court : Mr. O'Connell
to be imprisoned for twelve months, to pay a fine of 2,0001.,
and to give security in 10,000/. to keep the peace for seven
years ; the six remaining traversers to be each imprisoned
.for nine months, each to pay a fine of 501. and to give
security in 2,0001: to keep the peace. The delivering of the
judgment caused some shouting, in which a few Roman Ca-
tholic members of the junior bar disgracefully distinguished
themselves ; but the scene has been, we are assured, prodi-

. .
giously exaggerated, in order to produce an effect in this
country. The majority of the reporters in Dublin are, in
fact, Repealers, by whatever journals they may be em-
ployed;. because, without a supposed bias to the party of the
seditious, they could hardly have access to .the Association
meetings, the great scene of their labours. As part of the
contrivance to cheat and alarm the Parliament with a false
notion • of his . power, O'Connell was penning a long
pacific address to the Irish people at the very mo-
ment when the Romanist barristers were rehearsing
the scene which the Repealer reporters were to mag-
nify, in order to if not the reality, the semblance
excite,

at least of that disaffection from which the old in-

cendiary was pretending to dissuade. To pass by all these
paltry frauds, however, let us congratulate our fellow-sub-
jects that the law has been at length honourably vindicated
—that the insolent defiers of the authority of the law have
been exposed in their weakness and their falsehood—and
that, for the first time in her history, Ireland has seen the
"Royal authority asserted by the ordinary constitutional
means. As to the penalties imposed upon the convicted con-
spirators, they are, in all the instances, light compared with
the practice in similar cases, but with respect to Mr. O'Con-
nell ridiculously light, in respect to his crimes ; nevertheless,
the judgments are, in our estimate, heavy enough ; so dis-
proportionately heavy as to six of the parties, compared
with the great offender,. that one could almost wish those
six more lightly punised, if only to mark the difference
between them and their chief. Surely, if the misled son,
the enthusiast Mr. Duffy, poor Mr. Steele, or tile other
three, deserve each nine months of imprisonment, nine
years were too little for the veteran incendiary who
deceived them, and millions beside them, with his pre-
tended knowledge of law, and his unceasing falsehood spoken
and written. It is very true that many considerations justify
a shorter imprisonment of Mr., O'Connell than his crimes
would seem to warrant. The man is old—a year more or,
less, which to a young man seems little, is to an old man an
important section of his life.. Again, he is ruined as a public
man. Could he be let loose to-morrow without creating a
suspicion that he owed his freedom to the fears of the Go-
vernment, he might be let loose under proper recognisances
without the least danger of mischief. In the- third place,
even lie has reason to complain, if not of the cheat of the
Whigs who petted and feted him while pursuing the course
that has consigned him to a dungeon, at least of the cheats
of Fortune, who has deprived him of the protection of his
Whig accomplices and servants. Looking to the whole
matter, we own that we should not wish a day added to his
imprisonment, or a shilling to his fine—and with respect to
the others, we certainly shall not grieve if the Crown find a
pretext for a 1 ttle relaxing their sentence. But in the hands
of the Irish. Attorney-General, a man as gentle in his nature
as lie is energetical and firm, they are perfectly safe.
POST.—This sentence we believe no man, who is not pre-
judiced by party feelings, will consider excessive. With
respect to the prisoners themselves it cannot be denied that
their punishment is a fit retribution for the course they have
so pertinaciously pursued. The effect of the sentence upon
the public mind is, however, the most important view to be
taken of it. It must convince the misguided pi ople of Ire-
land that there is a power in the law stronger than that
which Mr. O'Connell has arrogated to himself during a long
series of years. It must show to the imitators and parasites
of the agitator that the passions of the ignorant are not to be
inflamed, the Constitution threatened, nor the public peace
endangered with impunity. It must give assurance to the
loyal and well -disposed that the Government of the country,
though long suffering to an extent that furnished good ground
for apprehension. has not forgotten that it has its duties as well
as its rights. Before the Court had pronounced its sentence we
abstained from saying a word that could excite any preju-
dice against the prisoners. Now, however, when their fate is
known, we may venture to call attention—as proof of the
animus of the principal conspirator—to his conduct after the
sentence was passed. This old man's reverence for the law
was exhibited in his deliberate assertion to the judges that
justice had not been done to him. Assuredly, if ever a man
had all the advantages which the forms of law can.give, that
man is Mr, O'Connell ; he was found guilty, after a trial of
unusual length, by a jury remarkable for its patient attention
to the evidence ; he was assisted by the highest legal talent;
every technical objection urged on his, behalf was discussed
without let or hindrance ; and he now receives a sentence far
more lenient than it was in the power of the Court to inflict.
Yet he complains of injustice. If he could still mix in society
here, he would find the universal opinion to be, that he has
been too indulgently treated:
ADVERTISER,--The drama which has been so long per-
forming in Dublin has at length reached its close. The end
is appalling. Mr O'Connell was sentenced on Thursday
afternoon to twelve in mtlis' imprisonment, a fine of 2,0001.,
arid to find sureties to the extent of 10,000/. to keep the peace
for seven years ! The scene which took place in the Court of
gucere4 Bench immediately before and subsequent. to the
passing of the frightfully severe sentence on Mr. O'Connell
has never, we believe, had its parallel in any court of law.
In anticipation of 'the sentence which was in reserve for Mr.
O'Connell, the whole of the counsel in a crowded Court rose
and received Min with a loud burst of applause the moment
he presented himself. So unexpected and remarkable a
demonstration of the feelings of the bar, is said to have made,
:is it could not fail to make, a deep impression on Mr. O'Con-
nell. When sentence was pronounced, lie leaned over the
bar, and said, hi. a- most significant and impressive
tone :—" I think it right to remind the Court, that in
consequence of some of the remarks which have been
made, I and all the other traversers have - made solemn
affidavits, in which we deny that we entered into any
vile conspiracy ; and 'with great deference to the.
Court, I am under the painful conviction that justice
has not been done to us." All present seemed to respond to
the truth of the observation, that justice had not been done
to Mr. O'Connell. That feeling 13 not limited to the Courts
of Dublin; it is not confined to Ireland. It pervades the
entire country from one extremity to the other. Twelve
months' imprisonment looks, we hesitate not to say, very like
the result of vindictiveness somewhere. A year's incarcera-
ti'm to a man of Mr. O'Connell's full habit of body, and at
his advanced age, is equal to three times the term in the
case of persons of hardy constitution; who have not passed
the prime of life. But apart from the personal view of the
question as affecting Mr. O'Connell, the country will be
astounded at the amount of sureties required for his after-
wards keeping the peace, 'and at the period for which he is
to be bound over to keep the peace. We have no right, and
certainly we have no-disposition, to arraign the purity with
which justice is administered hi the Courts of Dublin, or
anywhere else ; but it were useless to disguise the fact, that
the universal impression in London is—and that impres-
sion will be universal throughout the kingdom—that a
political purpose is sought to be served by the pecuniary part
of the sentence. The enormous sum of 10,0001., as a secu-
rity that Mr. O'Connell will keep the peace And for the
period of seven years, too ! We question if any civilised
country, in modern times, could furnish an instance of 'an
equally severe sentence being pawed on a political offender.
People will say--'-whether rightly or not is not for us to de-
elgle—that the object, sought to be accomplished by exacting
Opp heavy sureties, afid binding him over to keep the peace
for so protracted a period, is not only to crush the repeal agi-
tation, but to shut Mr. O'Connell's mouth for ever. But we
are afraid to trust ourselves in the expression of all that we
feel on this affair. The whole matter. must be fully discussed
in Parliament, where a latitude of expre
ssion is allowed.
which we journalists dare 'not: employ. IVe. shall be greatly
in error if Sir K. Peel do not, erelong, discover that this ter-
, .
Ininat,i4 ,
of the State prosecutions is the most untoward
Affair that 114 s yet happened to his Ministry. It will net
surprise
,us much shoo, the ovent proye, that in instituting
--^ nrosecutions, lie constructed 4 wall 4040 W 111011: to
---,meat in pieces. In the meantime, if the
'l--s ',reserved, when the appalling Ben-
' -"et- country, the Premier
• e--:t.

tne., ,
dash his Gov,
public peace in Irelanu
tence becomes generally known in
will have Mr. O'Connell, not himself, to thank
TIMES—At last sentence is pronounced on Mr. O'Connell
and his friends, and in substance it is not probably very
much beside what the world expected. If there is any fault
to be found with the judgment, it is with the expediency of
a fine. It is ap4ohment, not of the arch-criminal, but of

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