Maguire was at once liberated; Allen, Larkin, Shore, and O'Brien were still detained in custody. It was universally concluded that, notwithstanding the abandonment by the Crown of the verdict on which they had been sentenced, they, because of their admitted complicity in the rescue, would be held to imprisonment—probably penal servitude—for a term of years. Considerable astonishment was excited, some days subsequently to Maguire's pardon, by a statement that, in the case of the other prisoners included in the verdict, "the law should take its course." No one credited this declaration for an instant, and most persons felt that the Crown officials were indulging in an indecent piece of mockery. Amidst this universal incredulity, however—this disdainful and indignant disbelief—the prisoners' solicitor, Mr. Roberts, vigilant and untiring to the last, took the necessary steps to pray arrest of execution pending decision of the serious law points raised on the trial. Some of the most eminent counsel in England certified solemnly that these points were of the gravest nature, and would, in their opinion, be fully established on argument before the judges; in which event the conviction would be legally quashed, independently of the substantial abandonment of it as false and untenable by the Crown in Maguire's case.
The first idea of the merest possibility—the faintest chance—of the remaining four men being executed on the vitiated verdict, arose when it became known that the judges, or some of them, had informally declared to the government (without waiting to hear any argument on the subject) that the points raised by the prisoners' counsel were not tenable, or were not of force. Mr. Roberts was officially informed that the sentence would infallibly be carried out. By this time barely a few days remained of the interval previous to the date fixed for the execution, and the strangest sensations swayed the public mind in Ireland. Even still, no one would seriously credit that men would be put to death on a verdict notoriously false. Some persons who proposed memorials to the Queen were met on all hands with the answer that it was all "acting" on the part of the government; that, even though it should be at the foot of the scaffold, the men would be reprieved; that the government would not—dare not—take away human life on a verdict already vitiated and abandoned as a perjury or blunder.
The day of doom approached; and now, as it came nearer and nearer, a painful and sickening alternation of incredulity and horror surged through every Irish heart. Meanwhile, the Press of England, on both sides of the Channel, kept up a ceaseless cry for blood. The government were told that to let these men off, innocent or guilty, would be "weakness." They were called upon to be "firm"—that is, to hang first, and reflect afterwards. As the 23rd of November drew near, the opinion began to gain ground, even in England, that things had been too hastily done—that the whole trial bore all the traces of panic—and that, if a few weeks were given for alarm and passion to calm down, not a voice would approve the Manchester verdict. Perceiving this—perceiving that time or opportunity for reflection, or for the subsidence of panic, would almost certainly snatch its prey from vengeance—a deafening yell arose from the raving creatures of blood-hunger, demanding that not a day, not an hour, not a second, should be granted to the condemned.
Still the Irish people would not credit that, far towards the close of the nineteenth century, an act so dreadful durst be done.
During all this time the condemned lay in Salford gaol, tortured by the suspense inevitably created by Maguire's reprieve. Although every effort was made by their friends to keep them from grasping at or indulging in hope, the all-significant fact of that release seemed to imperatively forbid the idea of their being executed on a verdict whose falseness was thus confessed. The moment, however, that the singular conduct of the judges in London defeated the application of Mr. Roberts, they, one and all, resigned themselves to the worst; and while their fellow-countrymen at home were still utterly and scornfully incredulous on the subject, devoted their remaining hours exclusively to spiritual preparation for death upon the scaffold.
It was now that each character "rushed to its index." It was now—within the very shadow of death—in the most awful crisis that can test the soul—that these men rose into the grandeur and sublimity of true heroism. They looked death in the face with serene and cheerful composure. So far from requiring consolation, it was they who strove most earnestly to console the grieving friends they were leaving behind; imploring of them to exhibit resignation to the will of God, and assuring them that, ignominious as was death upon the gallows, and terrible as was the idea of suffering such a fate unjustly, it was "not hard to die" with a clear and tranquil conscience, as they were dying, for the cause of native land.
It may be questioned whether the martyrology of any nation in history can exhibit anything more noble, more edifying—more elevating and inspiring—than the last hours of these doomed Irishmen. Their every thought, their every utterance, was full of tenderness and holiness—full of firmness and cheerful acceptance of God's will. The farewell letters addressed by them to their relatives and friends—from which we take a few—amply illustrate the truth of the foregoing observations. Here is O'Brien's last letter to his brother:—