side of
the water to give up his information and deliver himself and all
that he knew into the hands of the British government. If his name
was once successfully connected with the word 'spy,' if plausible
proof were adduced that he was a spy for the British government,
these lies, accusations against the triangle, would be as idle as
the wind. His fate would have been regarded as no more than just by
Irishmen devoted to a cause which they believed to have been
betrayed. It was the interest of the reputation of the men who were
attacked on a charge upon which he had collected evidence; it was
the interest of the suppression of the conclusion he had arrived
at; it was the interest of the men who were exposed by the honest
investigation and courageous report; it was the interest of these
men that Dr. Cronin should not be understood to be murdered in this
country, because to be murdered here was to confess the truth of
his charges. If those charges were untrue, if they were without
foundation, if there was anything wanting in the evidence of them,
gentlemen of the jury, there would be no occasion for killing him.
No man was ever killed that way for a mere personal hatred. He must
have the evidence of these men's robberies and wrong-doings to
prove his assertions, and it was in the interest of their
reputation, in order that they might continue to plunder and rob,
and impose themselves upon a sacred cause, that his reputation was
to be attacked and his memory branded as that of a spy killed upon
British soil. The evidence in this case, gentlemen of the jury,
that immediately after the disappearance of Dr. Cronin we had the
assurance from John F. Beggs that he was all right and would turn
up. Then we had Mike Whalen, who testifies that the dispatches
showed he was seen here and there and elsewhere--that he had run
away, that he had gone away--where? Gone off to report to the
British government in London. That was the suggestion. It was not
sufficient. It was not sufficient that he should be killed, that
his life should be stricken out by a foul and cowardly murder
without trial and without warning, behind his back, that his sins
should be visited upon him, but his reputation must be stamped to
death, his standing among Irishmen must be assailed as a man