The Sun.
London, England, 1844-01-17 00:00:00

11:tt,

LONDON:
WEDNESDAY MORNING, JANUARY 17, 1844.

We have made every arrangement for giving
full and correct reports of the State Trials
which commenced in the Court of Queen's
Bench, Dublin, on Monday, with some accom-
paniments which will be found interesting to the
public, and here subjoin a brief outline of the
first day's proceedings. The public business did
not commence till eleven o'clock, though the
Judges took their seats at ten. The interval was
occupied in hearing the applications from dif-
ferent persons seeking to be exempted from at-
tendance, on the grounds of misdescription on the
summonses, or ill health. From the probable
length to which the trials will extend, and their
unpopularity, much reluctance is said to exist
among the jurors to serve on this cause. The
claims of exemption for misdescription were not
allowed, but several persons were excused on the
production ofaffidavits of total inability to undergo
the labour, or to attend the sittings of the Court.
The Court was crowded to excess, but there was
not so much of that inconvenient pressure as
migl►t have been expected, the arrangements
being exceedingly good. A chair, revolving on
a pivot, had been placed on the table for the wit-
nesses, but it was removed during the prelimi-
nary proceedings; an intimation from the CHIEF
JUSTICE that nothing would be wanted with it
for some time to come causing considerable
lane:liter. In fact, the whole business seemed to
be carried on with a sort of good-humoured feel-
ing among all parties. At the first step of the
proceedings Sir COLMAN O'Louctuurt, on the
part of Mr. O'ComtELL, put in a challenge for
the array of the whole jury panel, stating it to
be illegal and false, on the ground of the omis-
sion of so many names (59) from the list, after it
was passed by the Recorder.
The ATTORNEY-GENERAL having beard of the
challenge, then, for the first time, applied to the
Court for a short interval for consultation ; the
proceedings were suspended for nearly two
hours, when he returned into Court, and put in
a demurrer to the challenge; in support of which
he addressed the Court at great length.
Mr. FITZGIBBON and the SOLICITOR-GENERAL
also addressed the Court ; and, after some fur-

tlier argument, the Court allowed the demurrer.
This closed the proceedings of the day, and the
ATTORNEY-GENEI%AL was to open the case on
Tuesday, at ten.

The result of the trial which has now com-
menced in Dublin, will show whether all the
tricks—from suppression of information re-
quired (by the accused in order to defend them-
selves in an efficient manner, up to the final
suppression of jurors' names, in order to pack
a jury suited to the purposes of persecution—can
enable the Crown lawyers to snatch a verdict.
But of this fact, let them be well assured—that
the conduct of these prosecutions, from their
very beginning, up to the moment of opening
the case before the jury of their concocting, is a
disgrace to all concerned on behalf of the Crown.
It remains to be seen, whether the jury will
be an instrument in the hands of the prosecutors,
for vengeance upon the devoted head of O'CoN-
NELL j or whether, exercising the freedom of
thought, and purity of action which jurors are
called upon, by the most sacred ties, to display
upon such occasions, they will decide according
to the evidence, and to that alone. Evidence,
clear and distinct, not doubtful and uncertain, to
prove that a conspiracy was entered into, with
the illegal intent alleged, and that the acts
done were illegal in themselves, and done in
furtherance of the illegal intent evidence,
establishing beyond contradiction, that O'Cox-
Num. conspired with the other defendants,
and they with him, to set the people
of Ireland agains; the Croy' n,— to create
disaffection among the QUEEN'S subjects,—to
produce contempt of ,the Government of the
country,—to stir up hatred and ill-will,—to make
discontent in the army,—to diminish confidence
In the legal tribunals of the country, and by in-
timidation and physical force to effect changes
in the Constitution : these must all be proved;
the conspiracy, its intent, and the acts done, to
carry out that intent, or the indictment must fall
to the ground. To decide upon the evidence,
fairly and honestly, is the province of the jury;
in their hands the issue is placed ; their conduct
will show them to be either tools of a faction, or
worthy of confidence by honest men.
If meetings, such as the meetings held in Ire-
land, are to be given as proofs of a conspiracy,
it strikes us, as most extraordinary, that conspi-
rators should choose assemblages of so vast a
nature—amounting, according to the indictment,
to 800,000 people in one instance—as fit places to
concoct seditious plans. Held in the open air;
no man, whatever his principles or politics, ex-
cluded; called together by public notices; and
producing no breach of the peace or violation of
the law, save in the imagination of the Law
Officers of Ireland, who now discover that to at-
tend a peaceable meeting, is an overt act of a
riotous and turbulent intention.
If publications of a national kind, glowing with
all the fire and energy of Irish minds, and appeal-
ing to the imagination and feelings, be overt acts
of a conspiracy, what becomes of the poetry of
MOORE, in which more nationality has been
strung together, and more enthusiastic admi-
ration of the "green isle" expressed, than in