The Sun.
London, England, 1844-01-20 00:00:00

Obienins /111 L

LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARY 20, 1844.

The Irish State trials continue, and when they are
likely to terminate, no one can tell. The Attorney-
General concludedhis speech on "Wednesday, and, in the
opinion of all parties, so bald and jejune a statement
was never made to a jury. It was infinitely below
the occasion, consisting merely of extracts from the
different speeches made by the traversers, and a few
dry, common-place observations on them. The most
favourable commentator upon it could only say that
the extracts were ingeniously dove-tailed. There
was a total absence of that indignant declama-
tion which might be naturally expected from
the first officer of the Crown, if he really
believes the object of the traversers was to
dismember the empire and deprive the Crown of its
most valuable prerogatives. From the sweeping
assertions made by him, the counsel for the tra-
versers were in constant expectation of some
startling revelations with respect to the
American and French correspondence, but
nothing of the kind appeared in his statement.
O'Connell is to address the jury as counsel retained
for his son. John,—and every one expects
the greatest effort of his life; and the play-
ful spirit which he sometimes evinces in Court,
seems to shadow forth the glory of a triumph.
Opinion is now divided as to the result, some think-
ing that if there be no further revelations than what
appear in the speech of the Attorney-General,
no jury can convict. The traversers will produce an
accumulative body of the most respectable evidence
as to the peaceable state of the country.
A writ has been served on each of the tra-
versers, requiring them respectively to produce
copies of certain letters enumerated in the do-
cument. The flrst letter mentioned is one pur-
porting to be addressed to D. O'Connell, Esq., signed
F. Kelly, and dated 24th August, 1843. Also one

signed Pierce Graee, addressed to Mr. Ray, and
dated August 9, 1843. The next is one addressed to
Mr. O'Connell, signed by Patrick Donaghue, dated
Sept. 4, 1843 ; one addressed tour. Ray, signed by
Hugh Maguire, dated Aug. 12, 1843; one addressed
to D. O'Connell, Esq., signed by J. Brady,
and dated August 31, 1843 ; also one
addressed to Mr. Ray, signed by Henry
Harpur, dated 26th August, 1843 ; also one ad-
dressed to D. O'Connell, signed J. M. Donan, dated
99th August, 1843 ; also one addressed to Mr. Ray,
signed John Birch and Timothy Bestick, dated 15th
August, 1843. The entire proceedings on Thursday
consisted of the examination of witnesses. Mr. Fre-
derick Bond Hughes, whose testimony went to prove
I the various allegations in the indictment, respect-
ing the proceedings at the meetings, commenc-
ing with that at Mullaghmast, on the Ist of October,
and terminating on the 18th of the same month,
when he left for England. Both on the direct
and cross-examination he admitted that peace,
order, and regularity were always observed,
not only at the various meetings in the Corn
Exchange which he had witnessed, but also at
the great monster meeting at Mullaghmast. He de-
posed to the truth of the belief that tranquillity and
order were preserved at this last vast assemblage by
means of the exertions of the men who called them-
selves " O'Connell's police," and who were stationed
in various places for that purpose on the Rath or
Mound, upon and around which the mighty mul-
titude were collected together. He declared that from
his experience of public meetings that persons to pre-
serve order were necessary, particularly in such vast
throngs es the " monster meetings," and that " O'Con-
nell's police" effectually accomplished that end. In
giving his evidence respecting the meeting of the Rezi
peal Association of the 3d of October, he swore that
Mr. Steele in his speech on that occasion had, when
referring to the monster meeting held at Loughrea, a
short time previously, said, that it surpassed in im-
portance even the meeting at Mullaghmast, where—

-" Behemoth, biggest born of earth,
Upheaved its vastness."
A phrase which, it was very generally stated, Mr.
Steele had never pronounced, but that in writing his
speech subsequently he had introduced it. On the
cross-examination, no allusion to the use of
this language by Mr. Steele on that occa-
sion was made. Laughter was produced
from time to time during the examination
of this witness, who certainly gave his evidence with
great fairness and readiness. He withdrew his allega-
tion respecting the presence of Mr. Barrett at the
Abbey-street meeting on the 12th of October, and
also at the dinner at the Rotunda. The count of the
indictment against Mr. Barrett, therefore, falls to the
ground, as far as those meetings are concerned. Mr.
Ross, the London reporter, was next produced on the
table, to use the Irish phrase, and after a brief exami-
nation of the witness, the Court rose at the usual hour.

The Irish ATTORNEY-GENERAL has finished his ad-
dress to the jury, having in the delivery of that address
occupied two days. The speech of the legal functionary
contained nothing new,—it was a second edition of the
indictment, with notes and comments ; and, to the sur-
prise of everybody, contained no solemn announcement
of dire interest, or awful conspiracies with which all the
world was not previously acquainted, such as he had led
us to expect he would disclose. The evidence in support
of the charge has now commenced, and in a few days we
shall see what can be proved of all the mighty allega-
tions against the prisoners.
Before the jury can convict the traversers, they must
have the facts fully proved to their satisfaction, that an
illegal conspiracy did exist, and that O'CONNELL and
his fellow-conspirators intended by illegal means to com-
pass the ends of that conspiracy. Mere fancy, imagina-
tion, probability, or suspicion, will not suffice ; the facts
must be proved, and fully believed by the jury, before
they can find the traversers guilty. The criminal intent
is the crime with which the accused are charged—criminal
intention is the matter they have to meet and to repel—
intention pre-existent in their minds, and in furtherance of
which the acts were committed. And until we see it
indisputably proved, that DANIEL O'CONNELL conspired
for illegal purposes, we shall not give credence to the
charge. If the man, who achieved emancipation
for millions of his Roman Catholic countrymen, for so
long a period bound by the trammels and restrictions
which religious intolerance had cast around them; if the
man who has earned for himself the proud title of Libe-
rator, a title far beyond that of conqueror; who has in-
cessantly called for justice to his country, and whose
history presents the only instance upon record, the only
object of a national offering yearly made, freely and
willingly tendered, as some recompense for the rank and
fortune that would, and must, have attended his path
through life, if he had pursued only his own good
and directed his talents to his own advantage ;—if such a
man shall be proved to have departed from the rule by
which all his conduct has hitherto been guided, namely,
to avoid riot, conspiracy, or illegal proceedings, and to
use only peaceable and constitutional means, then, and
then only, shall we credit his conviction.

It is the misfortune of the jury that, up to the moment
of their entering the jury-box, every trick that could be
played, every plan that could be resorted to, had been
used, to prevent the procuring of an honest panel, to try
this great cause. Suppression of the names of jurors,
exclusion on account of religion, and every art that cun-
ning or malice could devise, had been put into requisi-
tion. The twelve men who now form the jury, had
against them all the prejudices of all friends to fair deal-
ing, and when sworn to try the matter submitted to them
were naturally looked upon as a packed and concocted
body of jurors.
And so the fact is—they are an improperly selected
jury—they are a concoction of trickery and of fraud-
And yet they may be themselves as honest and as indepen-
dent a set of jurymen as ever tried a cause. They were
no parties to the proceedings which resulted in their
selection ; they had no hand in mislaying sheets of the
jury lists, or in excluding their Roman Catholic brethren;
and they ought, now that the issue of this great trial
is intrusted to them, to be judged by their conduct in the
jury box, not by the proceedings of those who have
Placed them therein. The officials who have got up this pro-
secution, have, from the very outset of the case, laboured—
if not intentionally, at all events, most effectually—to im-
press upon the public mind that conviction was the only
end aimed at ; and that the law was not to try and
decide upon the guilt or innocence of those who were
submitted to its ordeal, but that an indictment must be
found, and the parties charged must he convicted ; that
in truth justice had but one meaning in their minds—
prosecution, with certain punishment. But it does not
follow that the jury will carry out the merciless intents
of the ATTO2tNEY-GENERAL, and it is only owing to the
recklessness and mismanagement of his proceedings in
this trial, that any cause for suspicion or distrust in the
jury could have arisen. The prosecutors have, by their
own conduct, put themselves before a jury with public
and private feeling arrayed against them ; and a con-
viction will be to them no triumph—to the accused no dis-
grace. . _

Governments cannot in these times set at nought the
decencies of justice. Public opinion rules more despoti-
cally, and decides more freely, in all matters between
an Administration and an individual, than between men
placed in the same station of life, whose privileges and
chances are equal. And whenever a Government, even
in former times, sought to stretch the laws beyond their
just letter—to make the law the instrument of vengeance,
and not the wholesome means to restrain crime and
punish guilt, seldom indeed, in the very worst
periods of our history, have juries been found to lend
themselves to the purposes of persecution. Look back to
the trial of llAanv in 1794—a trial commemorated in
every year from that to the present time—and see how a
prosecution very similar to this (save that the offence
which is now called seditious conspiracy was then sought
to be tortured into high treason) broke down under the
.indignant eloquence of an ERSKINE, and the brilliant
language of a GIBBs. Look to the attempted crushing,
in 1817, of HONE, who thrice ran the gauntlet of a
Crown prosecution, and came out of the fiery furnace of
an Attorney-General's wrath, unscathed ? And what
was the result of these prosecutions, and their effect
upon the public mind ? To spread in each case the
principles of liberty beyond their former bounds—
to give additional freedom to speech, to writing,
and thereby to thought and action—to make men
the enemies of persecution, and to show to the
world that English juries in 1794 and in 1817,
two of the worst periods of English modern his-
tory, were neither to be cajoled nor bullied into verdicts
which would rivet chains, such as in all ages, and at all
times, despotism has sought to impose upon the thought,
the feelings, and the actions of men.
The result of this second edition of the attempt of JOHN,
Lord ELDON, in 1794, to put down HARDY and his friends
in England, revised and corrected by Mr. Attorney-Gene-
r3l SMITH, and adapted to the Irish bar, will, it is to be
hoped and prayed, meet in all respects with a reception
such as the first attempt experienced; and may the ver-
dict pronounced—to copy the language of the immortal
ERSIELNE—show that whatever the Irish may have lost

of a control in Parliament, they have yet a sheet-anchor
to hold the Vessel of the State amidst contending storms,
that they have still a sound administration of justice
secured to them, in the independence of die Judges, in the
rights of enlightened juries, and in the integrity of the bar.

Madrid Journals of the 12th instant have been received. In
the Gazette of that day we find the following official notice,
annulling the SALAMANCA contract, addressed by the Minister
of the Interior to the Minister of Finance :

" Her Majesty, having considered the terms of the agreement
made on the '2d instant with Don Jose Salamanca to annul the con-
tract by anticipation of 400,000,000, to be repaid in national pro-
perty, concluded the 30th of August of last year, and conformable
to the advice of the Council of Ministers, has decided that the said
contract is and shall remain annulled."

NAKVAEZ still persists in refusing the rank of Captain-
General. " If," says he, in a letter to the Minister of War,
" the high favour with which it is wished to honour me is
meant as a recompense for any services I have been able to
render the throne and the cause of liberty, they have already
been sufficiently rewarded in the high dignity I already enjoy
in my present employment, and by the numerous and honour-
able decorations I have received."

The Three per Cents. were done at 26 cash, and 26 11.16
at 60 days; the Fives, 1914 at 60 days.

On Thursday the French funds suddenly fell nearly per
cent. On the previous Tuesday the Three per Cents. had
reached 83, while they closed on Thursday at 82f. 25c. There
were various rumours a 3 to the cause, the most probable of
which is, that the Goverment intended to issue another in-
stalment of the loan, and had determined on taking the con-
struction of some of the principal railroads into their own
hands. The discussion on the address continued, but it pos-
sesses very little interest. Dispatches had been received from
General BUGEAUD, dated Algiers, January 4, and inclosing
Reports from Generals TEMPOURE and BEDEAU of various
successful attacks made upon tribes that had shown a disposi-
tion to join ABD-EL.KADER.

A Cabinet Council was summoned yesterday to meet this
afternoon at the Foreign-office, Downing•street. Sir Robert
Peel arrived in town this morning to attend the Council, from
a visit to her Majesty at Windsor Castle. The other Ministers
are all in town.

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE.
(RECEIVED THIS DAY.)
BETTING AT MANCHESTER-FRIDAY.

CHESTER Cur-15 to I agst Sir Robert (taken)-25 to 1
agst Cattonite (taken)-25 to 1 agst Alice Hawthorn (taken)
—27 to 1 agst Hooton (taken)-27 to 1 agst Collini (taken)-
30 to 1 agst Merry Andrew (taken)-35 to 1 agst What
(taken). Betting brisk.

DERBY.—Offeii to take 7 to 1 about Ugly Buck-71 to 1
agst Rattan—and 25 to 1 each agst Running Rein and Lean-
der, bat nothing done since our last report.

COURSING.'

SOUTH LANCASHIRE (SOUTHPORT) MEETING, JAN. 17
AND.lB.—The Scarisbrick Cup, for 16 (all-aged) dogs, was
won by Mr. Clarke's Dangerous; Mr. Slater's So ran up.
The Fleetwood Cup, for 12 puppies, was won by Mr. Robin-
son's Robin Hood ; his Trip the Daisy drawn. The Church-
town Stakes were won by Mr. Slater's Sandy; Mr. King's
Vanish ran up. The Champagne Stakes were won by Mr.
Robinson's Rocket ; Mr. Deakin's Driver ran up. The
Claret Stakes were won by Mr. Hunt's Bran. Mr. Buckley's
Pippin beat 11r. Clarke's Champion in a match for 1001.

MARKET NEWS.-(THIS DAY.)
COVENT—GARDEN.
We had another extensive supply of vegetables this morning,
yet the trade with them was comparatively steady, and in most
instances, the currencies of last week were supported. There
was a very large quantity of fruit on sale, and in consequence
the sale was inactive.