e month of December, the lawyers
discovered that being an alien, and having committed no overt act of
treason within the Queen's dominions, there was no case against him, and
he was consequently discharged. He then went back to America, took an
active part in some Fenian meetings, made a speech at one of them which
was held at Jones's Wood, and when the report of the proceedings
appeared in print, he, with a sense of grim humour, posted a copy
containing his oration to the governor of Mountjoy Prison, Dublin. In
the latter part of 1866, when James Stephens was promising to bring off
immediately the long-threatened insurrection, M'Afferty again crossed
the ocean, and landed in England. There he was mainly instrumental in
planning and organizing that extraordinary movement, the raid on
Chester, which took place on Monday, 11th of February, 1867. It is now
confessed, even by the British authorities themselves, that but for the
timely intimation of the design given by the informer Corridon,
M'Afferty and his party would probably have succeeded in capturing the
old Castle, and seizing the large store of arms therein contained.
Finding their movements anticipated, the Fenian party left Chester as
quietly as they had come, and the next that was heard of M'Afferty was
his arrest, and that of his friend and companion John Flood, on the 23rd
of February, in the harbour of Dublin, after they had got into a small
boat from out of the collier "New Draper," which had just arrived from
Whitehaven. M'Afferty was placed in the dock of Green-street
court-house for trial on Wednesday, May 1st, while the jury were absent
considering their verdict in the case of Burke and Doran. On Monday, May
the 6th, he was declared guilty by the jury. On that day week a Court of
Appeal, consisting of ten of the Irish judges, sat to consider some
legal points raised by Mr. Butt in the course of the trial, the most
important of which was the question whether the prisoner, who had been
in custody since February 23rd, could be held legally responsible for
the events of the Fenian rising which occurred on the night of the 5th
of March. Their lordships gave an almost unanimous judgment against the
prisoner on Saturday, May 18th, and on the Monday following he was
brought up for sentence, on which occasion, in response to the usual
question, he spoke as follows:--

"My lords--I have nothing to say that can, at this advanced stage of
the trial, ward off th