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no one. On the day the jury was empanelled, the prisoner and every one else knew what it was to be. It was now his turn to have a word to say for himself, and he spoke, as was his wont, in plain terms, answering thus the question that had been put to him:-- "I have to say that I have been found guilty by a packed jury--by the jury of a partizan sheriff--by a jury not empanelled even according to the law of England. I have been found guilty by a packed jury obtained by a juggle--a jury not empanelled by a sheriff but by a juggler." This was touching the high sheriff on a tender place, and he immediately called out for the protection of the court. Whereupon Baron Lefroy interposed, and did gravely and deliberately, as is the manner of judges, declare that the imputation which had just been made on the character of that excellent official, the high sheriff, was most "unwarranted and unfounded." He adduced, however, no reason in support of that declaration--not a shadow of proof that the conduct of the aforesaid official was fair or honest--but proceeded to say that the jury had found the prisoner guilty on evidence supplied by his own writings, some of which his lordship, with a proper expression of horror on his countenance, proceeded to read from his notes. In one of the prisoner's publications, he said, there appeared the following passage "There is now growing on the soil of Ireland a wealth of grain, and roots, and cattle, far more than enough to sustain in life and comfort all the inhabitants of the island. That wealth must not leave us another year, not until every grain of it is fought for in every stage, from the tying of the sheaf to the loading of the ship; and the effort necessary to that simple act of self-preservation will at one and the same blow prostrate British dominion and landlordism together." In reference to this piece of writing, and many others of a similar nature, his lordship remarked that no effort had been made to show that the prisoner was not responsible for them; it was only contended that they involved no moral guilt. But the law was to be vindicated; and it now became his duty to pronounce the sentence of the court, which was--that the prisoner be transported beyond the seas for a term of fourteen years. The severity of the sentence occasioned general surprise; a general suspiration and low murmur were heard through the court. Then there was stillness as of death, in the
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