lieve Devany's interpretation of Fenianism--tainted traitor though
he be--rather than believe that the kindly instincts of Irishmen, at
home and abroad--their generous impulses--their tender
sensibilities--all their human affections, in a word--could
degenerate into the attributes of the assassin, as stated by that
hog-in-armour, that crime-creating Constable Talbot.

"Taking other ground, my lords, I object to any sentence upon me. I
stand at this bar a declared citizen of the United States of America,
entitled to the protection of such citizenship; and I protest against
the right to pass any sentence in any British court for acts done, or
words spoken, or alleged to be done or spoken, on American soil,
within the shades of the American flag, and under the sanction of
American institutions. I protest against the assumption that would in
this country limit the right of thought, or control the liberty of
speech in an assemblage of American citizens in an American city. The
United States will, doubtless, respect and protect her neutrality
laws and observe the comity of nations, whatever they may mean in
practice, but I protest against the monstrous fiction--the
transparent fraud--that would seek in ninety years after the
evacuation of New York by the British to bring the people of New York
within the vision and venue of a British jury--that in ninety years
after the last British bayonet had glistened in an American sunlight,
after the last keel of the last of the English fleet ploughed its
last furrow in the Hudson or the Delaware--after ninety years of
republican independence--would seek to restore that city of New York
and its institutions to the dominion of the crown and government of
Great Britain. This is the meaning of it, and disguise it as you may,
so will it be interpreted beyond the Atlantic. Not that the people of
America care one jot whether S.J. Meany were hanged, drawn, and
quartered to-morrow, but that there is a great principle involved.
Personally, I am of no consequence; politically, I represent in this
court the adopted citizen of America--for, as the _New York Herald_,
referring to this case, observed, if the acts done in my regard are
justifiable, there is nothing to prevent the extension of the same
justice to any other adopted citizen of the States visiting Great
Britain. It is, therefore, in the