The Sun.
London, England, 1844-02-06 00:00:00

IRELAND.

rHE STATE TRIALS.
NINETEENTH DAY.
(BY EXPRESS.)

(FROM OUR OWN REPORTERS.)
COURT OF QUEEN'S BENCH.
DUBLIN, MONDAY, FEB. 5.

THE QUEEN V. DANIEL O'CONNELL AND OTHERS.

The knowledge of the fact that Mr. O'CoNNELL
was to address the Court to-day, drew a larger con-
course than usual of all classes to the neighbourhood
of the Courts this morning. At an early hour the
Queen's Bench was thronged in every part, a great
portion of the auditors consisting of fashionably-
dressed ladies and members of the most distinguished
families in this country.
At a few minutes after ten o'clock, Mr. O'Cosr-
NELL, who was not habited in wig and gown
as on the preceding days of the trial, com-
menced his address to the Court and Jury,
by saying that he felt some diffidence in addressing
the jury, not for his own sake, but when he reflected
how important was the cause he had to plead, and
how numerous were his clients. He had seven mil-
lions of clients, the whole Irish people, and he was
afraid that their case might in any respect be
injured by the incompetency of his advocacy.
He was not there to palliate or mitigate anything.
he had ever said. He would reiterate, in the pre-
sence of the Court and jury, every protestation he
had ever made against the union—for that union had
been carried, he repeated, by the most nefarious
agency, and had been designed in fraud and a feeling
of envy—as had often been said by one who had long
ornamented that Bench (Chief Justice Busne)—a
feeling of envy of the growing prosperity of Ire-
land. With respect to this prosecution for
conspiracy, it was the most preposterous
proceeding that had ever yet been instituted. He
had :looked into the, dictionary, and he found the
meaning of the word conspiracy was a private or
secret agreement among various parties to commit
crime. He asked the jury, then, as consisting of men
of, honesty and intelligence, what evidence had been
adduced to them of any such agreement in the pre-
sent case? Had it been proved that there
was any secret agreement between the parties
indicted in the present instance; and even if
had been proved, had it been shown that he was pre-
sent when that agreement had been entered into.
No such thing. At least this might give him the
benefit of an alibi.
The Hon. and Learned Gentleman then alluded to
the Corn-law League, and ridiculed the idea of its
being denominated a conspiracy. Yet the organisation
of the League differed in little from that of the Re-
peal Association. Could a jury be found in England
that would convict the League of a conspiracy, :if it
were possible to suppose that such a charge would be
preferred against that body ? Then there was the Anti-
Slavery Society—would that be termed a conspiracy ?
That body received money both from home and
abroad ; its members held their private and their
public meetings, and yet it was never thought of cal-
ling the body a set of conspirators.
With respect to the constitution of the jury he
stited, that in England no twelve men would be put
as a jury into a box to try men from whom
according to the principles on which they were edu-
cated they differed so widely in opinion. He then
alluded to the peaceable character of the meetings ;
and with respect to the charge of intimidation which
had been brought against them, he said this Go-
vernment, who had all the gentry, the magis-
tracy, and the • clergy of the Established
Church attached to them, would have ascertained
whether the charge was founded in truth or not. But
not one witness had been called to prove that any-
thing like intimidation had been used at those meet-
ings ; and why ? Because no one could conscientiously
swear that intimidation had been used. He pointed
out that eight years ago, when illegal combination
was attempted to be established among the trades
unions of Dublin, he was the person who put a
stop to it. Would he have done so if he was one
who was justly liable to the charge of conspiracy ?
Allusion had been made by the Attorney-General to
the conduct of the men of 1798, and it was sought
to fix upon him the charge to which they were
amenable, that of desiring French sympathy and
French aid. Had he acted as one who had desired
either ? Had he not rejected the proffered assist-
ance of the French party, at the head of which was
M. LEDRU ROLLIN. He flung back with indignation
and contempt the charge which the Attorney-General,
in his opening address, had sought to faster upon him
of speaking disrespectfully of the QUEEN. . Ile denied
it. The charge was false. The Hon. and Learned
Gentleman then proceeded at much length to de-
monstrate that the English Government had, from
the commencement of its connexion with Ireland,
governed this country with the most narrow jealousy,
and he adverted par parenthise, in proof of his position
to the history of the woollen trade of Ireland.
that the transactions of 1782 were intended to be
a final adjustment of the condition of the Irish Par-
liament, which it was then agreed should be estab-
lished as an independent Parliament for ever—that
the greatest prosperity of the country followed from
the establishment of an independent Parliament—that
the union was forced upon the Irish people, against
their consent, and by the most corrupt and
fraudulent means—that the poverty under which
Ireland is now suffering is the result of th
union, and that the only remedy for Ireland's grieve
ances, and the only means of preventing the ultimate
separation of the two countries, was the repeal of the
union. In the course of his observations. In the
course of his observations he quoted AUGUSTIN
THIERRY, Mr. PITT, Primate BOLTON, Chief Justice
BUSHE, and several other writers and speakers, in
support of his positions. He also entered at length
into statistical details to show how prostrated
were the energies of the Irish people,
and how ruinous were the effects of the union upon
th—e manufacturing industry of this country. He
then read in full several of the documents issued by
the Repeal Association, and which had been read in
part and produced in evidence by the Attorney-Ge-
neral. and he contended that those very documents
constituted his best defence. He cited Loots, Lord
GREY, BUSHE, SAURIN, PLUNKETT, Sce., in support of
the doctrines which he had propounded as a Repealer.
In a nation like the British empire, where Parlia-
ment had so often changed the succession to the
Throne, was he to be told that he would not be al-
lowed to discuss a question like the Repeal of the
Union.

There might be error, but there could not be crime
in discussing the question He again reverted to the
present state of Ireland, and compared it to that of
the country in the middle of the last century when
ARTHUR YOUNG visited it.

The people, then, according to that writer, had
each " a belly-full of potatoes" to eat when hungry ;
but now, according to the report of Captain AR-
PENT, 30 per cent. of the town and city population,
and 70 per cent. of the agricultural population were
in a state of the most abject poverty.
'Were, then, those who sought to remedy that dread-
fuls tate of things to be branded as conspirators, and tilos