THE IRISH STATE TRIALS.

SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, FEBRUARY 22, 1844.

I not rise last night at the conclusion of the speech of the Attorney-General for Ireland, for two reasons. The first was, that that speech did not terminate until nearly twelve, and I despaired of engaging the attention of the house at so late an hour; in the next place, I was anxious that the right honourable and learned gentleman should afford me an opportunity of looking at the report of the case in which I was engaged fifteen years ago, to which he has thought it judicious to advert. I wished to look at that report for the purpose of vindicating myself from what I regard as a very serious charge. I applied to the right honourable gentleman for the report, and he had the goodness at once to give it to me. This house must have been under the impression that I packed a jury, and that it was exclusively Roman Catholic. The house must have thought, that I exercised the prerogative vested in me by the crown, with the sanction of the law officers, for the purpose of placing in the jury-box twelve men, my own co-religionists, and the co-religionists of the person for whose death the prosecution was instituted. The right honourable gentleman said that he was present on that occasion; I think he will admit the truth of my assertion, that of my conduct in the course of that prosecution the attorney and counsel for the prisoner did not complain, and the regular counsel for the crown did not intimate that any fault was to be found with my conduct. In order to obtain a mixed jury, I was under the necessity, as the prisoner challenged every Catholic, to set aside Protestants, until I could obtain the religious combination which I desired to effect. may be said that I gave the Catholics a majority of one on the jury; but when you recollect that unanimity was required for a conviction, you will at once perceive that a preponderance of one was of no consequence. If the Irish Attorney-General had followed my example in the state prosecutions, and out of the common panel had allowed five Catholics to remain on the jury, we should not have impeached his verdict. The Attorney-General has brought against me a very serious charge-he said that where a man was on his trial for his life, I acted a most cenurable part. His book refutes him. I find in it a report of my speech; and in order to prove that I did not hunt down the defendant with a boodhound sagacity, I hope I shall be forgiven if I read one or two passages, which will show the house the spirit in which the prosecution was conducted. I hope the house will listen to this self-vindication, if not with interest at least with indulgence; and I must say, that I never saw an occasion on which that feeling of the House of Commons was more strongly manifested than it had been last night, in listening to a speech of the right honourable and learned gentleman, distinguished for ability, and, let me add, for moral courage. The following is the Commencement of the speech made by me in the case to which the AttorLey-General reters :-

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"I am counsel in a case which the gentlemen to whom the Attorney General habitually confides the enforcement of the law have permitted me, at the instance of the persons interested in the prosecution, to conduct. I trust that I shall not abuse the licence which has been afforded ine. I feel that I am invested with a triple trust. The first is that which I owe my client, for whom I do not ask for vengeance, but for hat retribution for which the instincts of nature make in the bosom of a parent their strong and almost sacred call. My client is the mother of the boy for whose death the prisoner at the bar stands arraigned. J owe the next duty to Mr. Pearse himself. If I am asked in what particular I am bound to him, I answer that I cannot avoid entertaining for him that sentiment of commiseration which every well-minded man will extend to one who may be really innocent of a crime, the imputation of which is itself a misfortune; and I do assure you (he will permit me, I hope, to extend the assurance to himself), that it is with melancholy that I raise my eyes and see him occupying the place where guilt and misery are accustomed to stand. To him I owe it as an obligation that I should not abuse the advantage of delivering a statement to which his counsel cannot reply. The scriptural injunction inscribed above that seat of justice, admonishes me that I ought not to make any appeal to your passions against a man whose mouth is closed, and to whose counsel the right of speaking, by an equally cruel and fantastic anomaly, is refused by the law. Aperi os tuum, muto" is written there in golden characters, not only to suggest to your lordship the duty of a judicial interposition on behalf of the silent, but also to warn the advocate not to avail himself in any merciless spirit of his forensic prerogative against the man whom the law has stricken dumb. I shall make it superfluous on the part of his counsel to produce evidence in favour of his character he is a man of worth and honour, and until the fatal event for which he stands indicted, has borne a reputation for peculiar kindness of heart."

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After stating the facts I concluded thus:-
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"At the outset of my statement I expressed myself in praise of the defendant, and, as I advance to a conclusion, I pause for an instant to reiterate my panegyric. He has been, I repeat it, up to the time of this incident, a humane and well-conducted man. Let him have the full benefit of this commendation. If it shall appear that under circumstances which constituted a necessity, and in obedience to the instinct of selfpreservation he exclaimed 'fire!' then I am the very first to call on you to acquit him."

This is not the language of a man actuated by the fierce zeal of a relentless prosecutor; I think it far less vehement thar the charges of judges which we occasionally hear in Ireland. At the conclusion of the evidence, I told the judge that I thought that no case for charging the defendant with murder had been made out. I do think that the Attorney-General, in reverting to a trial which took place fifteen years ago, has not acted with ingenuousness, and I am convinced that in the opinion of the house I have freed myself from the imputation that did not exercise the prerogative of the crown with the intent attributed to

me; and if the right honourable gentleman had followed the example which I gave him on that occasion-if, in the constitution of the jury in Dublin, he had taken care that there should be five Roman Catho lics and seven Protestants upon it-nay, if he had allowed even two̟ or one Roman Catholic upon that jury, I think he would have taken not only a more merciful but a more judicious course than that which he did adopt. The jury that sat in Dublin on the late trial was composed of twelve Protestants, and the house has not yet been apprised of some circumstances connected with their selection. Eight of those jurors voted against Mr. O'Connell at the several elections at which that honourable gentleman was candidate for the city of Dublin. I do not mean to say that they had not a most perfect right to do so, or that because they had voted against him they cught of necessity to have been set aside by the crown, or that they were unfit to exercise the duties of jurors in his case; but we have first the fact of every Roman Catholic on the jury list being set aside, and then we have a jury of persons admittedly hostile to him selected. There was a controversy last night respecting Mr. Thompson. A doubt was entertained as to

the fact whether he had seconded a resolution at a corporation meeting. I believe the fact is now beyond all doubt. The resolution was to this effect:"That this meeting will support and maintain, by every means in its power, the Legislative Union between Great Britain and Ireland" There was another gentleman of more marked politics-Mr Faulkner. It will be found in Saunders's News Letter of the 14th o. February, 1840, that at a meeting of Protestants, convened by the Lord Mayor in pursuance of a resolution of the Common Counc, and held in the King's Room at the Mansion House, a Mr. Jones is reported to have said "I call on the meeting by every consideration to stand by their principles, and above all, to maintain the Protestant ascendancy in church and state," and then followed loud and long-continued cheering, with shouts of "no surrender," and "one cheer more." Mr. Faulkner, who was one of the jury, proposed the third resolution, and that resolu tion was this "That this meeting views with deep alarm the bill introduced into parliament which proposes to interfere with the municipal corporations of Ireland, and which transfers the rights of Protestants to the Roman Catholic party in Ireland." And on another occasion, in a speech of his, reported in Suunders's News Letter of the 13th of April, and also in the Evening Mail, Mr. Faulkner called upon the meeting to uphold the Protestant ascendancy in church and state, and gave the charter toast. Some friend asked what was the charter toast? and Mr. Faulkner said, "I mean the glorious and immortal memory of the great and good King William." That gentleman ought to have been struck off. I think the house, when it considers the facts of the case when it looks to the variety of the circumstances conrected with the case, will consider these facts to be material in deter mining whether the jury were legitimately selected? Mr. O'Connell might have begun his speech to the jury in the words of the unfortunate Lewis: "I look for judges, but I behold none but accusers here." I turn to the circumstances connected with the prosecution: the Attorney-Gene

ra' has overlooked many incidents which he ought to have stated and which he ought to have known would not be kept back. You have obtained what you regard as a victory over the leader of the Catholic people. That victory has been obtained by you through the instrumentality of a Protestant jury. If it was fairly won, I am free to acknowledge that it is not unnaturally followed by that ministerial ovation in which the Secretary for the Colonies and the Secretary for the Home Department have not thought it indecorous to indulge; but if that victory has been unfairly won-if, while you adhere to the forms of law, you have violated the principles of justice; if a plot was concocted at the Home Office, and executed in the Queen's Bench; if, by an ostensible acquiescence in monster meetings for nine months, you have decoyed your antagonists into your toils; if foully or fortuitously (and whether fortuitously or foully the result is the same) a considerable fraction of the jury list had been suppressed; if you have tried the Liberator of the Irish Catholics with a jury of exasperated Protestants; if justice is not only suspected, but comes tainted and contaminated from her impure contact with authority-then, not only have you not a just cause for exultation, but your successes are of that sinister kind which are as fatal to the victors as to the vanquished which will tarnish you with an ineffaceable discredit, and will be followed at last by a retribution, slow indeed, but, however tardy, inevitably sure. I have presented a double hypothesis to the house. Let us see to which of the alternatives the facts ought o he applied. I shall be permitted, in the first instance, to refer to an observation made by the Secretary for Ireland in reference to myself. The noble lord said.

He must now advert to something which had fallen from a member of that house out of doors regarding Chief Baron Brady, and Mr. Anthony Blake. It had been observed by Mr. Sheil that an insult had been offered to the Catholics of Ireland because those gentlemen had not been summoned to a meeting of the council. He believed Chief Baron Brady was a Protestant. But let that pass. He took on himself the responsibility of not summoning those gentlemen to the council. He thought that the measure determined on was the deliberate act of government, and he did not, therefore, think it proper to ask the opinion of political opponents."

What I said was this: "A circumstance occurred connected with the proclamation which is not undeserving of note. It has always been the sage in this country (Ireland) to summon every member of the Privy Council. Upon this occasion the Chief Baron, although living in the neighbourhood of Dublin, was not summoned, and Mr. Blake, a Roman Catholic, who lives in Dublin, was not summoned. He was appointed to the office of Chief Remembrancer by a Tory government. He had Deen the intimate friend of Lord Wellesley, a great Conservative statesman. He had never taken any part in any violent proceedings, but he was not summoned upon this occasion, although summoned upon every other, to the Privy Council; while the Recorder of the city of Dublin, by whom the jury list was to be revised, and in whose department an accident of a most untoward kind had happened, was summoned to the

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me; and if the right honourable gentleman had followed the example which I gave him on that occasion-if, in the constitution of the jury in Dublin, he had taken care that there should be five Roman Catho lics and seven Protestants upon it—nay, if he had allowed even two or one Roman Catholic upon that jury, I think he would have taken not only a more merciful but a more judicious course than that which he did adopt. The jury that sat in Dublin on the late trial was composed of twelve Protestants, and the house has not yet been apprised of some circumstances connected with their selection. Eight of those jurors voted against Mr. O'Connell at the several elections at which that honourable gentleman was candidate for the city of Dublin. I do not mean to say that they had not a most perfect right to do so, or that because they had voted against him they cught of necessity to have been set aside by the crown, or that they were unfit to exercise the duties of jurors in his case; but we have first the fact of every Roman Catholic on the jury list being set aside, and then we have a jury of persons admittedly hostile to him selected. There was a controversy last night respecting Mr. Thompson. A doubt was entertained as to the fact whether he had seconded a resolution at a corporation meeting. I believe the fact is now beyond all doubt. The resolution was to this effect: That this meeting will support and maintain, by every means in its power, the Legislative Union between Great Britain and Ireland" There was another gentleman of more marked politics-Mr Faulkner. It will be found in Saunders's News Letter of the 14th 0. February, 1840, that at a meeting of Protestants, convened by the Lord Mayor in pursuance of a resolution of the Common Council, and held in the King's Room at the Mansion House, a Mr. Jones is reported to have said " I call on the meeting by every consideration to stand by their principles, and above all, to maintain the Protestant ascendancy in church and state," and then followed loud and long-continued cheering, with shouts of "no surrender," and "one cheer more." Mr. Faulkner, who was one of the jury, proposed the third resolution, and that resolu tion was this "That this meeting views with deep alarm the bill introduced into parliament which proposes to interfere with the municipal corporations of Ireland, and which transfers the rights of Protestants to the Roman Catholic party in Ireland." And on another occasion, in a speech of his, reported in Saunders's News Letter of the 13th of April, and also in the Evening Mail, Mr. Faulkner called upon the meeting to uphold the Protestant ascendancy in church and state, and gave the charter toast. Some friend asked what was the charter toast? and Mr. Faulkner said, "I mean the glorious and immortal memory of the great and good King William.' That gentleman ought to have been struck off. I think the house, when it considers the facts of the case when it looks to the variety of the circumstances conrected with the case, will consider these facts to be material in deter mixing whether the jury were legitimately selected? Mr. O'Connell might have begun his speech to the jury in the words of the unfortunate Lewis: "I look for judges, but I behold none but accusers here." I turn to the circumstances connected with the prosecution: the Attorney-Gene.