y. Even if I am
to die, I will have the satisfaction of knowing that I
will not be regarded by all men as an insane person.

TO THE COURT.--"Your honour and gentlemen of the jury,
my reputation, my life, my liberty, are in your hands,
and are at your discretion. I am so confident in your
high sense of duty that I have no anxiety as to the
verdict. My calmness does not arise from the presumption
that you will acquit me. Although you are only half a
jury, only a shred of that proud old British constitution,
I respect you. I can only trust, Judge and gentlemen,
that good and practical results will arise from your
judgment conscientiously rendered. I would call your
attention to one or two points. The first is that the
House of Commons, Senate and Ministry, which make the
laws, do not respect the interests of the North-West. My
second point is that the North-West Council has the defect
of its parent. There are practically no elections, and
it is a sham legislature."

Then, as if wandering from his subject, Riel broke forth
and said:

"I was ready at Batoche; I fired and wounded your soldiers.
Bear in mind, is my crime, committed in self-defence, so
enormous? Oh, Jesus Christ! help me, for they are trying
to tear me into pieces. Jurors, if you support the plea
of insanity, otherwise acquit me all the same. Console
yourselves with the reflection that you will be doing
justice to one who has suffered for fifteen years, to my
family, and to the North-West."

Riel concluded as follows, his language containing a
strange admixture of the words applied to him by the
medical experts, which he ingeniously turned against the
Government:

"Your honours and gentlemen of the jury:--I am taking
the circumstances of my trial as they are. The only thing
to which I would respectfully call your attention before
you retire to deliberate is the irresponsibility of the
Government. It is a fact that the Government possesses
an absolute lack of responsibility, an insanity complicated
with analysis. A monster of irresponsible, insane
government, and its little North-West council, had made
up their minds to answer my petitions by surrounding me,
and by suddenly attempting to jump at me and my people
in the fertile valley of the Saskatchewan. You are
perfectly justified in declaring that having my reason
and sound mind, I acted reasonably and in self-defence,
while the Government, my aggressor, being irresponsible,
and consequently ins