The Sun.
London, England, 1844-02-07 00:00:00

IRELAND.

Ll FEE STATE TRIALS,
NINETEENTH DAY.

COURT OF QUEEN'S BENCH.
DUBLIN, MONDAY, FEB. 5.

THE QUEEN V. DANIEL O'CONNELL AND OTHERS.

The Court sat at ten o'clock precisely, when Mr. O'Connell, as
one of the traversers, rose to address the jury, and, consequently,
without his gown and wig.

Gentlemen,—l beg your patient attention while I show you, in
as few sentences as I possibly can, and in my own plain prosaic
style, the right 1 have to demand from you a favourable verdict ;
I ask it without disrespect and without flattery—l ask it on the
grourd of common sense and common justice, being thoroughly
convinced that lam plainly entitled to it. I do not feel, that I
should have been warranted to addressing you at all, after the many
speeches which you have already heard, and after the powerful
display of talent that must have delighted as well as instructed
you ; but, Gentlemen, Ido not stand here my own client—l have a
client infinitely of more importance—my client is Ireland—my
clients in this case are the Irish people. I stand here the advocate
of the rights, liberties, and constitutional privileges of that people;
and my only anxiety is, lest their sacred cause, their right to an
independent Legislature, should be in the slighteit degree tarnished
or impeded by anything in which I have been an instrument. I
am conscious of the integrity of my purpose, and of the into
grity of my motives in the working out of the Inestimable ob-
ject I :had in view—the repeal of the union; for I openly as.
sett that I cannot endure the union, because it was founded
upon the greatest injustice, and based on the grossest insult—
from an intolerance of Irish prosperity. These were the mo-
tives that induced the malefactors who perpetrated that iniquity ;
and I have the highest authority—an ornament for years of that
bench—now, although recently, in his honoured grave—for saying,
that the motive for carrying the union was an intolerance of Irish
prosperity. Nor shall I leave it on his word alone—l have other
authority for it, with which I shall trouble you in the course of my
brief address—for I assure you I am as anxious to be as brief as
possible in the observations which I shall address to you.. As to
myself, Gentlemen, I am not here to deny, or to palliate anything I
have done ; on the contrary, I am ready to re-assert in Court all I
have really said—not, of course, taking upon myself the clumsy
mistakes of reporters, and not abiding by the fallibility which neces-
sarily attends' the reporting of speeches, particularly when they are
hurriedly squeezed up for the purposes of the newspaper press.
However, I do not hesitate to say, that there are several harsh
things towards individuals, and clumsy jokes, which 1 would rather
not have said; but the substance of what I did say I avow, and I
am here to vindicate it. You know all my actions, and lam
ready here not only to avow them, but to justify them—for the en-
tire of what I said and what I have done, was said and done in the
performance of a high and sacred duty—an endeavour to procure
the restoration of the Irish Parliament. We all remember when
the Sovereigns of every country in Europe were about being over-
turned—inspired, as those countries were, by ttse infidelity of
France; when princes were banished, when the constitutions of
kingdoms and states were altered—a re-action took place—the re-
volutionary period passed with them all; the political order of
things was everywhere restored ; and, alas I every nation had its
full day of retribution, but Ireland—she alone remained under the
influence of that fatal revolution—and are you, Gentlemen, assem-
bled to prevent justice being done to Ireland, as it has been to all
other countries ? It has been said to me, that I labour under great
disadvantages in addressing you; and you may be sure, if I state
those disadvantages, that I do so without any discontent whatso.
ever. I know, my Lords, what is due to the public, and the perfect
order and decorum which should be observed in a court of justice,
which no one should dare to violate. Therefore, when I speak of
the disadvantages of addressing you, you will not understand me
as appealing for redress to those who cannot give it to me. If
anything which has been done is wrong, this is not the time to
discuss how you have been put into that box—this is not even the
place for it , and I will now assume that the Attorney-General
has done nothing but what the law allowed him to do; because,
if there is a wrong committed, the remedy lies elsewhere, and if
all is right and legal, the proper tribunal will decide it to be so.
Now, Gentlemen, I will address you, as I said, without discourtesy,
but also without flattery, as the tribunal to which I am to pro-
pound my arguments. It is quite certain that there are consider.
able discrepancies of opinion between you and me upon subjects
of the utmost importance. You differ from me on the question of
the repeal of the union, for if you did not not, one of you
would be in that box. You differ from me on a more Important sub.
ject—in religious belief ; and if you did not, you would not be in
that box. These differences are, perhaps, aggravated by the fact,
that lam not only a Catkolic, but that Catholic who, without
boasting, has done most to pull down that Protestant ascendancy,
for which, perhaps, you were the champions, but certainly not the
antagonists; and although, having established that equality against
which some of you contend, and against which all of your opinions
were formed, it does not terrify me from the performance of my
duty, for I care not what evil effects occur to myself, or what pu-
nishment it may bring on me, still I glory in what I have done—l
glory that I have been the successful, and you the beaten part).
But, Gentlemen, nevertheless, I trust in your honour and inte-
grity, and to those alone I appeal. I said there were three points
on which we differed—the repeal of the union, ray maintenance
of the voluntary payment system in every church establishment,
and my former conduct in relation to Catholic emancipation;
but you are here to administer justice and right between the par.
ties, and all I wish to remark is, that I have no despair of
your doing that perfect and full justice, without considering what
may be the religious or political feelings upon one side or the
other. I should have preferred upon your account, and upon
my own, that those objections did not exist. I should have pre-
ferred matters that were otherwise, and that neither you nor I were
harrassed with the thought that by any possibility, by even the
infirmity of human nature, injustice should affect the verdict in
this case; but I will not say more upon that subjects I have done
with it, and I will now pass from it to the consideration of the
ease itself. I first come to the prosecution. Why, it really is themost
curious, the strangest prosecution that ever was instituted. It is not
for one, or two, or ten facts that it is instituted—and remember
that the criminal law of this country is most lauded for its sim.
plicity—but it is the history of nine months you have to go
through, the details of no lets than nine months, a monstrous ac-
cumulation of matter flung before you, such an accumulation, that I
defy the most brilliant imagination that ever yet was to bring all the
facts properly to bear, and arrive at such a result as should be legiti.
mately arrived at. Gentlemen of the Jury, I arraign this prose-
cution upon a clear and simple principle. It is utterly impossible
for you to find out or distinguish from that mighty mass of matter
which was laid before you what really Is the question you have to
try. I will first endeavour to see how much is affirmative its
this prosecution, and how much and what negations it contains.
Its entire strength depends upon the meaning of that cabalistic
word "conspiracy." If, my Lords, I look into the dictionary for
the meaning of that word, I find that it is " a secret agreement
between several to commit a crime," anti that is the rational,
common-sense definition of it. This word, however, in recent
times, has been taken under special protection by the law, and the
definition of it now is, not only a secret agreement between
several to commit crime, but they have taken two loops to their
bow, and the further depiction given of it is to effect, or