“I pray God long to preserve your lordship.
“J. Ph. Cardinal Fransoni.
“Rome. From the Congregation of the Faith,
“January 3rd, 1848.”
Early in the year the legislature passed stringent laws to suppress crime and outrage in Ireland, and to bring the perpetrators to justice. Proceedings were also taken of various kinds against several of the more prominent promoters of sedition.
On the 15th of May, William Smith O’Brien was tried before Lord Chief Justice Blackburn and a special jury, upon an ex officio information, charging him with having delivered a speech, on the 15th of March, in the parish of St. Thomas, Dublin, for the purpose of exciting contempt and hatred against the queen in Ireland, and inducing the people to rise in rebellion. The traverser pleaded not guilty. There could be no doubt that in point of fact and law he was guilty, for it would be difficult to cull language from a seditious speech more pertinent to the charge than that quoted by the attorney-general from the speech of Mr. O’Brien on the 15th of March. He was ably defended by Mr. Butt, an eloquent queen’s counsel. The jury could not agree, and by the consent of the attorney-general they were discharged. It was not expected that the jury would agree in a verdict; there was a determination among the disaffected that when summoned as jurors they would not give verdicts in charges of this nature. The government were determined to procure convictions, if possible, and the trial of Mr. O’Brien was followed by an indictment of T. E. Meagher. He was also arraigned on an ex officio information for a seditious speech delivered on the same occasion as that which furnished O’Brien with an opportunity for his delinquent oratory. When the jury returned into court they were asked if they had agreed in their verdict; the foreman replied, “We are not, my lord.” Mr. Favel, one of the jurors, remarked, “We are all agreed but one, and he is a Roman Catholic.” The report of this trial produced a very great sensation in England. Men everywhere remarked, “If a single Roman Catholic on a jury prevents the course of justice, a remedy must be found for such a state of things; there must be power accorded to the crown.” It was not generally understood in England that a Roman Catholic had often little reason to hope for justice when high party Protestants composed the jury.
In the Commission Court, before Mr. Baron Lefroy, and Mr. Justice Moore, John Mitchell, proprietor of the United Irishman newspaper, was placed upon his trial. He had been arrested under the act passed in the beginning of the year to meet such cases, entitled, “An act for the better security of the crown and government.” True bills were found by the grand jury against him for felony. To each he handed in a plea praying that the indictment might be quashed, on the ground that one of the members of the jury was also a member of the town-council of the borough of Dublin, and as such disqualified. These pleas were put in merely to gain time, which led the attorneygeneral to enter a nolle prosequi to each, and to file ex officio information against Mr. Mitchell. After various other artifices to obtain delay, the prisoner was compelled to plead, and he pleaded “not guilty.” The terms of the indictment were, that the traverser endeavoured to take away the style, honour, and royal name of our sovereign lady the queen, and to make war against her majesty, her heirs, and successors. The trial was chiefly remarkable for the bold and manly tone of Mr. Holmes, the prisoner’s counsel. Never did an advocate more fearlessly do his duty to his client and his country. The judge charged against the prisoner, and the jury, after three hours and a half’s deliberation, returned with a verdict of guilty. The sentence was transportation for fourteen years. The bearing of the prisoner was manly and dignified throughout. He was known to be a man of strong domestic affections, and of warm friendship, and the sentence was received with intense dissatisfaction throughout Ireland. The violent opinions and proceedings of Mr. Mitchell in his public capacity could not destroy the popular partialities for him as a brave, generous, and amiable man; it was allowed on all hands that the time had arrived for stopping his political career, but it was hoped that a temporary imprisonment would have satisfied the ends of justice. The public sympathy for his amiable wife and his little children was very strong, and it was desired by all classes that at the earliest possible occasion which would give the government an opportunity to exercise clemency, his sentence might be greatly mitigated.
It was allowed on all hands that the government were compelled to prosecute. In the pages of the United Irishman he had uttered the most vehement defiance to the government, and to the lord-lieutenant of Ireland especially. He had invoked a prosecution, and in one furious article in the United Irishman had told the viceregal government that if it did not pack a jury and prosecute him, it was restrained only by cowardice. What the motives of Mr. Mitchell were in thus wishing to be made a victim it is impossible to affirm. Many believed that he wrote in the confidence that no Irish jury, however packed, would find him guilty; others supposed that he calculated upon a packed jury finding a verdict against him, but that he felt sure of a popular revolt for his rescue, and thus desired to precipitate the insurrection. A large class of persons who did not sympathise with his doctrines and efforts, alleged that, foreseeing the utter hopelessness of the cause upon which he had embarked, he desired to bring matters as regarded himself at once to a conclusion, and as he could not withdraw with honour from the course he had espoused, he was anxious to incur the lesser penalty for sedition, than to risk encounter with the queen’s forces as the leader of a bootless insurrection. His sentence was rapidly carried out, the populace making no effort to save him. The leaders found various excuses for not at once rising, and Mitchell was carried ignominiously away, and departed before their eyes, not an arm raised, not a blow struck by those who vehemently cheered him in his career of folly, and promised to follow him to the death.
During and immediately previous to these transactions, the Repeal Association and the Young Irelanders made a great parade, after their own fashion, for their own ostensible objects. The Young Irelanders called a convention of three hundred representatives or delegates from every part of the country; these were, in fact, to be the representatives of the insurrectionary clubs, ostensibly of the people. Smith O’Brien, the last time he appeared in the English House of Commons, had the temerity and absurdity to advise the premier to put himself in communication with this council of three hundred, and be guided in his measures by them. This was after the visit of the honourable member to Paris, to induce the French government to espouse the cause of insurrection in Ireland. His recommendation was received with shouts of derisive laughter, and his treason was chastised by the premier reminding him that he had taken the oath of allegiance, and at the same time was encompassing the dishonour of the queen’s throne.
At a meeting of the Old Irelanders in April, in Conciliation Hall, a Mr. Aikins in the chair, the following business was transacted, which will show the position which that party desired publicly to take both to the Young Irelanders and to the government:—