But even though the Head Centre was lost, there were enough prisoners in hand to make it necessary to try them by means of a Special Commission. In this case the judges were Baron Fitzgerald and Justice Keogh—both of them men of marked ability and neither likely to act with much leniency towards convicted political prisoners. Their work lasted more than a fortnight in Dublin; then they went to Cork; and then again returned to Dublin, where it was several weeks before the work was over. An example of the mode of trial and of the evidence produced may be found in the case of Thomas Clarke Luby (a man whose father was a Senior Fellow and who was himself a student of Trinity College), which was the first that came before the court. Mr. Luby had been a registered proprietor of The Irish People newspaper, jointly, it appears, with O'Donovan Rossa. Indeed, he was the foremost writer in that paper; to which Stephens, during his entire connection with its personnel, contributed only one sorry article, headed "Isle and Doom." So popular, however, did the journal become amongst the disaffected classes that the older "National" organs had reason to tremble for the security of their existence. Luby was indicted for the crime of treason-felony—a crime newly created by Act of Parliament. According to the Act that creates it, treason-felony may consist of either or all of three offences—compassing or intending to depose the Queen from her Royal authority as Queen of Great Britain and Ireland; intending to levy war against the Queen in order to induce her to change her measures; and conspiring to invite foreigners to invade this realm. It was with these three offences that the prisoner was charged; the Attorney-General for Ireland (Mr. Lawson) prosecuting him and Mr. Butt defending him. The trial seems to have been meant chiefly as an exposure of the nature of the conspiracy and this the evidence certainly effected. Among the documents, perhaps the most important was a letter or commission found in the prisoner's house at the time of his arrest, sealed with black wax and addressed to "Miss Frazer." The police-sergeant who arrested Luby opened this, though he was told it was "a private matter between Mrs. Luby and a lady friend;" and he found it to be the following:—
"I hereby empower Thomas Clarke Luby, John O'Leary, and Charles J. Kickham, a committee of organisation, or executive, with the same supreme control over the home organisation—England, Ireland, and Scotland—that I have exercised myself. I further empower them to appoint a committee of appeal and judgment, the functions of which committee will be made known to every member. Trusting to the patriotism and abilities of the executive, I fully endorse their actions beforehand. I call on every man in our ranks to support and be guided by them in all that concerns the military brotherhood.
"J. Stephens."
Side by side with this document, which, while it incriminated Luby, threw further light upon the proceedings of the Fenians, came the evidence of the two informers, Pierce Nagle and Patrick Power. They were both Fenians; Power at least had taken the Fenian oath, and Nagle "acted as a member of the society, but did not take the oath." Nagle told of meetings of the society, mostly near Clonmel; of intriguing in America, in which he had had a part; of "swearing in" new brethren; and of Luby's complicity with all this. He described the way in which the enumeration of members was managed:—"Papers ruled in squares by means of perpendicular and horizontal lines; the squares did not extend to the top, but there was a blank space on which the name of the captain or B was entered; the squares then showed how the captain, the sergeant or C, and the rank and file or D, were armed, also the strength of the company.... A 'V' signified a man armed with a rifle. If it was an inverted 'V,' it signified a man armed with a gun or pistol. A stroke signified that a man was armed with a pike. Where there was a circle, it signified a man—captain, sergeant, or private—not armed at all." Farther on, Nagle described the mode of enrolling:—"I myself enrolled ten or twelve into the society. The mode of enrolling a member was, in the first instance, to administer the oath, which in substance was, that the party should be a member of the Irish Republic, now virtually established, and should be ready to take up arms at a moment's notice." Again, "Cornelius Dwyer Keane reported to Stephens that there were nearly 500 new men in the neighbourhood of Clonakilty. Stephens said he did not know what he should do with the number of men he had, there were so many of them." Evidence also was given as to the manufacture of arms in Ireland, especially pikes. "Give bearer fifty rods," said a note of the Head Centre; and "rods" was the pleasant alias of the formidable "pikes." Lastly, one more document was read at Luby's trial from the packet addressed to "Miss Frazer." It contained three resolutions, and was signed by the great John O'Mahony himself; the first two being a pledge on the part of the American Fenians to get the Irish Republic recognised by every free Government in the world; and a declaration, "that the national organisation at present existing on Irish soil is almost entirely owing to the devoted patriotism and indomitable perseverance of its Head Centre." What was proved, then, in his trial (for we have given the principal points of the evidence) was the existence of a widespread conspiracy, having its roots in America and having for its object the forcible extinction of British rule in Ireland. Luby, also, was proved to have been a prominent conspirator. He was the first to be found guilty and was sentenced—as were some others after him, though many received less—to the punishment of twenty years' penal servitude.
Perhaps a greater number than usual of distinguished persons died in 1865. The names of Lord Palmerston and Mr. Cobden will occur to every one. Of persons less widely famous, the English army lost one of its patriarchs in Viscount Combermere, and one of its most distinguished officers in General Sir George Brown; science lost Sir William Jackson Hooker; and popular scientific enterprise Sir Joseph Paxton and Sir John Richardson; the Roman Catholics of England lost their Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman; and literature lost its distinguished sons Charles Waterton and Isaac Taylor, and its still more distinguished daughter Mrs. Gaskell. On the afternoon of the 18th of October in this year, the news arrived in London of the death of Lord Palmerston, which had taken place that morning at Brockett Hall, Hertfordshire. Had he lived two days longer, he would have been eighty-one years of age; but for some months the strength of the hale old man had been failing, and for a week it had been pretty well known that the end was near. Lord Palmerston had been for fifty years a personage of such importance in British and even European politics, that his death, however much expected, was deeply felt throughout all classes of English society. All alike regarded it as the end of a political period. What was to follow, some looked on with hope, others with dread, none with indifference. Still his genuine if somewhat cynical patriotism was gratefully remembered. Just six months before his own death, Lord Palmerston rose in Parliament to call attention to "the great loss which the House and the country had sustained in the death of Mr. Cobden." There was something strange and a little jarring in the words of official praise in which the successful veteran spoke of the merits of the simple, unobtrusive, yet greater man that was gone, though he, too, had his limitations. More true, moretouching, were the few sentences in which his friend and brother-worker, Mr. Bright, told of his own sorrow in Cobden's death; and all who read the words the next morning felt a throb of sympathy. "Sir," he said, "I feel I cannot address the House on this occasion, though every expression of sympathy has been most grateful to my heart; but the time which has elapsed since I was present when the manliest and gentlest spirit that ever actuated or tenanted a human form took its flight is so short, that I dare not even attempt to give utterance to the feelings by which I am oppressed. I shall leave it to some calmer moment, when I may have an opportunity of stating to some portion of my countrymen the lesson which I think may be learned from the life and character of my friend. I have only to say now that, after twenty years of the most intimate and the most brotherly friendship with him, I little knew how much I loved him until I found that I had lost him."
RECEPTION OF THE FRENCH FLEET AT PORTSMOUTH. (See p. [380].)