ly
reconciling, but in keeping Ireland quietly subject to the Union. It
is a hard trial of men's patriotism to be debarred from all career of
profitable and honourable distinction in the public service of their
own country. I do not wonder that few Irish lawyers, in presence of
the mighty power of England, dare to sacrifice personal ambition and
interest to what may seem a vain protest against accomplished facts.
I do not wish to attack or offend them--as this court expresses it,
to impute improper motives to them--by thus simply stating the sad
facts which are relevant to my own case in this prosecution, and
explaining that I decline professional assistance, because few
lawyers would be so rash as to adopt my political convictions, and
vindicate my political conduct as their own, and because if any
lawyer were so bold as to offer me his aid on my own terms, I am too
generous to permit him to ruin his professional career for my sake.
Such are the reasons, gentlemen of the jury and my lords, why I am
now going through this trial, not _secundum artum_, but like an
eccentric patient who won't be treated by the doctors but will quack
himself. Perhaps I would be safer if I did not say a word about the
legal character of the charge made against me in this indictment.
There are legal matters as dangerous to handle as any drugs in the
pharmacopoeia. Yet I shall trouble you for a short time longer, while
I endeavour to show that I have not acted in a way unbecoming a good
citizen. The charge against me in this indictment is that I took part
in an illegal procession by the provisions of the statute entitled in
the Party Processions' Act. His lordship enumerated seven conditions,
the violation of some one of which is necessary to render an assembly
illegal at common law. Those seven conditions are--1. That the
persons forming the assembly met to carry out an unlawful purpose. 2.
That the numbers in which the persons met endangered the public
peace. 3. That the assembly caused alarm to the peaceful subjects of
the Queen. 4. That the assembly created disaffection. 5. That the
assembly incited her Majesty's Irish subjects to hate her Majesty's
English subjects--his lordship did not say anything of the case of an
assembly inciting the Queen's English subjects to hate the Queen's
Irish subjects, but no such case is likely to be tried