reporters were right and
the jurors wrong. They pardoned Maguire as an innocent man--that
same Maguire whose legal conviction is here put in as evidence that
he and four others were truly murderers, to sympathise with whom is
to commit sedition--nay, "to glorify the cause of murder." Well,
after that, our minds were easy. We considered it out of the question
any man would be hanged on a verdict thus ruined, blasted, and
abandoned; and believing those men innocent of murder, though guilty
of another most serious legal crime--rescue with violence, and
incidental, though not intentional loss of life--we rejoiced that a
terrible mistake was, as we thought, averted. But now arose in
redoubled fury the savage cry for blood. In vain good men, noble and
humane men, in England tried to save the national honour by breasting
this horrible outburst of passion. They were overborne. Petitioners
for mercy were mobbed and hooted in the streets. We saw all this--we
saw all this; and think you it did not sink into our hearts? Fancy if
you can our feelings when we heard that yet another man out of five
was respited--ah, he was an American, gentlemen--an American, not an
Irishman--but that the three Irishmen, Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien,
were to die--were to be put to death on a verdict and on evidence
that would not hang a dog in England! We refused to the last to
credit it; and thus incredulous, deemed it idle to make any effort to
save their lives. But it was true; it was deadly true. And then,
gentlemen, the doomed three appeared in a new character. Then they
rose into the dignity and heroism of martyrs. The manner in which
they bore themselves through the dreadful ordeal ennobled them for
ever It was then we all learned to love and revere them as patriots
and Christians. Oh, gentlemen, it is only at this point I feel my
difficulty in addressing you whose religious faith is not that which
is mine. For it is only Catholics who can understand the emotions
aroused in Catholic hearts by conduct such as theirs in that dreadful
hour. Catholics alone can understand how the last solemn declarations
of such men, after receiving the last sacraments of the Church, and
about to meet their Great Judge face to face, can outweigh the
reckless evidence of Manchester thieves and pickpockets. Yes; in that
hour they told us they were innocent, but were r