Such, and such like, were the exclamations which greeted the traversers, and their cortège, as they drew up to the front of the Four Courts. Dan O’Connell was in the Lord Mayor’s state carriage, accompanied by that high official; and came up to stand his trial for conspiracy and sedition, in just such a manner as he might be presumed to proceed to take the chair at some popular municipal assembly; and this was just the thing qualified to please those who were on his own side, and mortify the feelings of the party so bitterly opposed to him. There was a bravado in it, and an apparent contempt, not of the law so much as of the existing authorities of the law, which was well qualified to have this double effect.
And now the outer doors of the Court were opened, and the crowd—at least as many as were able to effect an entrance—rushed in. Martin and John Kelly were among those nearest to the door, and, in reward of their long patience, got sufficiently into the body of the Court to be in a position to see, when standing on tiptoe, the noses of three of the four judges, and the wigs of four of the numerous counsel employed. The Court was so filled by those who had a place there by right, or influence enough to assume that they had so, that it was impossible to obtain a more favourable situation. But this of itself was a great deal—quite sufficient to justify Martin in detailing to his Connaught friends every particular of the whole trial. They would probably be able to hear everything; they could positively see three of the judges, and if those two big policemen, with high hats, could by any possibility be got to remove themselves, it was very probable that they would be able to see Sheil’s back, when he stood up.
John soon began to show off his forensic knowledge. He gave a near guess at the names of the four counsel whose heads were visible, merely from the different shades and shapes of their wigs. Then he particularised the inferior angels of that busy Elysium.
“That’s Ford—that’s Gartlan—that’s Peirce Mahony,” he exclaimed, as the different attorneys for the traversers, furiously busy with their huge bags, fidgetted about rapidly, or stood up in their seats, telegraphing others in different parts of the Court.
“There’s old Kemmis,” as they caught a glimpse of the Crown agent; “he’s the boy that doctored the jury list. Fancy, a jury chosen out of all Dublin, and not one Catholic! As if that could be fair!” And then he named the different judges. “Look at that big-headed, pig-faced fellow on the right—that’s Pennefather! He’s the blackest sheep of the lot—and the head of them! He’s a thoroughbred Tory, and as fit to be a judge as I am to be a general. That queer little fellow, with the long chin, he’s Burton—he’s a hundred if he’s a day—he was fifty when he was called, seventy when they benched him, and I’m sure he’s a judge thirty years! But he’s the sharpest chap of the whole twelve, and no end of a boy afther the girls. If you only saw him walking in his robes—I’m sure he’s not three feet high! That next, with the skinny neck, he’s Crampton—he’s one of Father Mathews lads, an out and out teetotaller, and he looks it; he’s a desperate cross fellow, sometimes! The other one, you can’t see, he’s Perrin. There, he’s leaning over—you can just catch the side of his face—he’s Perrin. It’s he’ll acquit the traversers av’ anything does—he’s a fair fellow, is Perrin, and not a red-hot thorough-going Tory like the rest of ’em.”
Here John was obliged to give over the instruction of his brother, being enjoined so to do by one of the heavy-hatted policemen in his front, who enforced his commands for silence, with a backward shove of his wooden truncheon, which came with rather unnecessary violence against the pit of John’s stomach.
The fear of being turned out made him for the nonce refrain from that vengeance of abuse which his education as a Dublin Jackeen well qualified him to inflict. But he put down the man’s face in his retentive memory, and made up his mind to pay him off.
And now the business of the day commenced. After some official delays and arrangements Sheil arose, and began his speech in defence of John O’Connell. It would be out of place here to give either his words or his arguments; besides, they have probably before this been read by all who would care to read them. When he commenced, his voice appeared, to those who were not accustomed to hear him, weak, piping, and most unfit for a popular orator; but this effect was soon lost in the elegance of his language and the energy of his manner; and, before he had been ten minutes on his legs, the disagreeable tone was forgotten, though it was sounding in the eager ears of every one in the Court.
His speech was certainly brilliant, effective, and eloquent; but it satisfied none that heard him, though it pleased all. It was neither a defence of the general conduct and politics of the party, such as O’Connell himself attempted in his own case, nor did it contain a chain of legal arguments to prove that John O’Connell, individually, had not been guilty of conspiracy, such as others of the counsel employed subsequently in favour of their own clients.
Sheil’s speech was one of those numerous anomalies with which this singular trial was crowded; and which, together, showed the great difficulty of coming to a legal decision on a political question, in a criminal court. Of this, the present day gave two specimens, which will not be forgotten; when a Privy Councillor, a member of a former government, whilst defending his client as a barrister, proposed in Court a new form of legislation for Ireland, equally distant from that adopted by Government, and that sought to be established by him whom he was defending; and when the traverser on his trial rejected the defence of his counsel, and declared aloud in Court, that he would not, by his silence, appear to agree in the suggestions then made.