have dared these utterances. To
save him with whose fortunes your own are to be bound up became at once
my object; and as I knew with what ingenuity and craft his ruin had been
compassed, it required all my efforts to baffle his enemies. The National
press and the National party have made a great cause of this trial, and
determined that tenant-right should be vindicated in the person of this man
Gill.

'I have seen enough of what is intended here to be aware what mischief may
be worked by hard swearing, a violent press, and a jury not insensible to
public opinion--evils, if you like, but evils that are less of our own
growing than the curse ill-government has brought upon us. It has been
decided in certain councils--whose decrees are seldom gainsaid--that an
example shall be made of Captain Gorman O'Shea, and that no effort shall
be spared to make his case a terror and a warning to Irish landowners; how
they attempt by ancient process of law to subvert the concessions we have
wrung from our tyrants.

'A jury to find him guilty will be sworn; and let us see the judge--in
defiance of a verdict given from the jury-box, without a moment's
hesitation or the shadow of dissent--let us see the judge who will dare to
diminish the severity of the sentence. This is the language, these are the
very words of those who have more of the rule of Ireland in their hands
than the haughty gentlemen, honourable and right honourable, who sit at
Whitehall.

'I have heard this opinion too often of late to doubt how much it is a
fixed determination of the party; and until now--until I came here, and
learned what interest his fate could have for me--I offered no opposition
to these reasonings. Since then I have bestirred myself actively. I have
addressed the committee here who have taken charge of the prosecution; I
have written to the editors of the chief newspapers; I have even made a
direct appeal to the leading counsel for the prosecution, and tried to
persuade them that a victory here might cost us more than a defeat, and
that the country at large, who submit with difficulty to the verdict of
absolving juries, will rise with indignation at this evidence of a jury
prepared to exercise a vindictive power, and actually make the law the
agent of reprisal. I have failed in all--utterly failed. Some reproach me
as faint-hearted and craven; some condescend to treat me as merely mistaken
and misguided; and some are bold enough to hint that, thou