Kevin Izod O'Doherty]

"I acknowledge, as the Solicitor-General has said, that I was
but a weak assailant of the English power. I am not a good
writer, and I am no orator. I had only two weeks' experience in
conducting a newspaper until I was put into jail. But I am
satisfied to direct the attention of my countrymen to everything
I have ever written, and to rest my character on a fair
examination of what I have put forward as my opinions. I shall
say nothing in vindication of my motives but this, that every
fair and honest man, no matter how prejudiced he may be, if he
calmly considers what I have written and said, will be satisfied
that my motives were pure and honourable. I have nothing more to
say."

The Chief Baron, in passing sentence, alluded to the jury's
"recommendation to mercy."

Mr. Martin: "I cannot condescend to accept mercy where I believe I have
been morally right. I want justice, not mercy."

He was then sentenced to ten years' transportation.

On two successive occasions, the jury empanelled by the Government, and
carefully packed to serve their end, refused to convict Mr. O'Doherty.
He was placed on his trial, a third time, on the 30th of October,
prosecuted with the same enduring malignity, and a verdict of guilty,
suspected to be the result of a fraud practised on the jury, was
returned. Mr. Williams, who was joint proprietor of the _Tribune_, and
jointly responsible, was acquitted after a protracted trial on the 3rd
of November, the jury being of opinion that although the articles given
in evidence were felonious, there was no proof to satisfy them that the
proprietors, when publishing them, did so with a felonious intent. This
distinction arose in consequence of the fair and candid construction of
the Felony Act, given by Chief Baron Pigot and Baron Pennefather, on Mr.
O'Doherty's first trial, to the effect that the jury should be satisfied
of the publisher's felonious intent; a construction which the present
judges 'Crampton and Torrens' would not dare to contradict.

Notwithstanding this, just as the words, "Not guilty," were pronounced
by the jury, in Mr. Williams' case, despite the most flagrant and
audacious bullying of the bench, Mr. O'Doherty was called up for
judgment. Among all the martyr-band whom this year consigned to doom,
not one behaved himself with truer or nobler heroism; not one, either,
whose fate commands a deeper sympathy.