ch Mr. Price said
he would exercise his own discretion.

PRISONER.--I think, my lord, you will allow your memory to go
back to the cross-examination of Mr. Price, and you will find
that when I asked him by what authority he gave the letters he
suppressed into the hands of the Crown to be produced here,
he stated he had no other authority than his own will for so
doing.

CHIEF BARON--You are quite right with respect to the
correspondence.

PRISONER--I say he violated the law of the land in so doing,
and I claim that he had no right to use those letters written
by me in my private capacity to friends in America, asking
for advice and assistance, and the very first letter
that he read was a letter written to a man named Byrne.
That, you may recollect, was put into the hands of the
Attorney-General--kept by him for four months. That was the
first intimation I had of its suppression or of its production
here by the Crown. Now, the letter was addressed to a friend
in New York, asking him to look after my trunk, which had been
taken away without my consent by the captain of the vessel in
which I was arrested. Mr. Price never told me he suppressed
that letter, and I was three months waiting for a reply,
which, of course, I did not receive, as the letter never went.
Mr. Price suppressed another letter yesterday. It was written
to a friend of mine in Washington, in relation to my trial and
conviction, and asking him to present my case to the President
of the United States, detailing the case as it proceeded in
this court. Mr. Price thought proper to suppress that letter,
and I ask that he be compelled to produce it, so that, if your
lordships think fit, it may be read in court.

THE CHIEF BARON--I cannot do that. I cannot have a letter of
that character read in open court.

HALPIN--Am I entitled to get the letter to have it destroyed,
or is Price to have it, to do with it as he pleases?

THE CHIEF BARON--I can make no order in the matter.

HALPIN--Then Price is something like Robinson Crusoe--"Monarch
of all he surveys;" monarch of Kilmainham; and when I ask if
he is to be controlled, I find there is no law to govern him.

THE CHIEF BABON--you have now no property in these letters,
being a convict.

THE PRISONER--I will very soon be told I have no property