ham prison opened to receive him.

Amongst all the human monsters who filled the ranks of the government
informers in that dark and troubled period, not one appears to merit a
deeper measure of infamy than Captain Warnesford Armstrong, the
entrapper and betrayer of the Sheareses. Having obtained an introduction
to John, he represented himself as a zealous and hard-working member of
the organization, and soon wormed himself completely into the confidence
of his victims. He paid daily visits to the house of the Sheareses in
Baggot-street, chatted with their families, and fondled the children of
Henry Sheares upon his knee. We have it on his own testimony that each
interview with the men whose confidence he was sharing was followed by a
visit to the Castle. We need not go through the sickening details of
this vile story of treachery and fraud. On the 21st of May the Sheareses
were arrested and lodged in prison, and on the 12th of the following
month Armstrong appeared against them in the witness-box. The trial was
continued through the night--Toler, of infamous memory, who had been
created Attorney-General expressly for the occasion, refusing Curran's
request for an adjournment; and it was eight o'clock in the morning of
the 13th when the jury, who had been but seventeen minutes absent,
returned into court with a verdict of guilty against both prisoners.

After a few hours' adjournment the court re-assembled to pass sentence.
It was then that John Sheares, speaking in a firm tone, addressed the
court as follows:--

"My Lords--I wish to offer a few words before sentence is pronounced,
because there is a weight pressing on my heart much greater than that
of the sentence which is to come from the court. There has been, my
lords, a weight pressing on my mind from the first moment I heard the
indictment read upon which I was tried; but that weight has been more
peculiarly pressing upon my heart when I found the accusation in the
indictment enforced and supported upon the trial. That weight would
be left insupportable if it were not for this opportunity of
discharging it; I shall feel it to be insupportable since a verdict
of my country has stamped that evidence as well founded. Do not
think, my lords, that I am about to make a declaration against the
verdict of the jury or the persons concerned with the trial; I am
only about to call to your recollection a part of the charge at which