umble Irish youths led into the
Manchester dock in chains! In chains! Yes; iron fetters festering
wrist and ankle! Oh, gentlemen, it was a fearful sight; for no one
can pretend that in the heart of powerful England there could be
danger those poor Irish youths would overcome the authorities and
capture Manchester. For what, then, were those chains put on untried
prisoners? Gentlemen, it was at this point exactly that Irish
sympathy came to the side of those prisoners. It was when we saw them
thus used, and saw that, innocent or guilty, they would be
immolated--sacrificed to glut the passion of the hour--that our
feelings rose high and strong in their behalf. Even in England there
were men--noble-hearted Englishmen, for England is never without such
men--who saw that if tried in the midst of this national frenzy,
those victims would be sacrificed; and accordingly efforts were made
for a postponement of the trial. But the roar of passion carried its
way. Not even till the ordinary assizes would the trial be postponed.
A special commission was sped to do the work while Manchester jurors
were in a white heat of panic, indignation, and fury. Then came the
trial, which was just what might be expected. Witnesses swore ahead
without compunction, and jurors believed them without hesitation.
Five men arraigned together as principals--Allen, Larkin, O'Brien,
Shore, and Maguire--were found guilty, and the judge concerning in
the verdict, were sentenced to death. Five men--not three men,
gentlemen--five men in the one verdict, not five separate verdicts.
Five men by the same evidence and the same jury in the same verdict.
Was that a just verdict? The case of the crown here to-day is that it
was--that it is "sedition" to impeach that verdict. A copy of that
conviction is handed in here as evidence to convict me of sedition
for charging as I do that that was a wrong verdict, a bad verdict, a
rotten and a false verdict. But what is the fact? That her Majesty's
ministers themselves admit and proclaim that it was a wrong verdict,
a false verdict. The very evening those men were sentenced, thirty
newspaper reporters sent up to the Home Secretary a petition
protesting that--the evidence of the witnesses and the verdict of the
jury notwithstanding--there was at least one innocent man thus marked
for execution. The government felt that the