And now the last was spoken. As true Irishmen and as true patriots they had borne themselves. No trace of flinching did they give for their enemies to gloat over—no sign of weakness which could take from the effect of their deathless words. With bold front and steady mien they stood forward to listen to the fatal decree their judges were ready to pronounce. The judges produced the black caps, with which they had come provided, and then Justice Mellor proceeded to pass sentence. No person, he said, who had witnessed the proceedings could doubt the propriety of the verdict, which, he insisted, was the result of "a full, patient, and impartial investigation." He made no distinction. "I am perfectly convinced," he said, "that all of you had resolved, at any risk, and by any amount of dangerous violence and outrage, to accomplish your object; and that, in fact, Charles Brett was murdered because it was essential to the completion of your common design that he should be." The stereotyped words of exhortation to repentance followed, and then the judge concluded:—
"The sentence is that you, and each of you, be taken hence to the place whence you came, and thence to a place of execution, and that you be there hanged by the neck until you shall be dead, and that your bodies be afterwards buried within the precincts of the prison wherein you were last confined after your respective convictions; and may God, in His infinite mercy, have mercy upon you."
With quiet composure the doomed men heard the words. They warmly shook hands with their counsel, thanked them for their exertions, and then, looking towards the spot where their weeping friends were seated, they turned to leave the dock. "God be with you, Irishmen and Irishwomen!" they cried and, as they disappeared from the court, their final adieu was heard in the same prayer that had swelled upwards to heaven from them before—
"GOD SAVE IRELAND!"
"GOD SAVE IRELAND!"
Scarcely had the Manchester courthouse ceased to echo those voices from the dock, when the glaring falseness of the verdict became the theme of comment amongst even the most thoroughgoing Englishmen who had been present throughout the trial.
Without more ado, down sate some thirty or forty reporters, who, as representatives of the English metropolitan and provincial press, had attended the Commission, and addressed a memorial to the Home Secretary, stating that they had been long accustomed to attend at trials on capital charges; that they had extensive experience of such cases, from personal observation of prisoners in the dock and witnesses on the table; and that they were solemnly convinced, the swearing of the witnesses and the verdict of the jury to the contrary notwithstanding, that the man Maguire had neither hand, act, nor part in the crime for which he had been sentenced to death. The following is the petition referred to:—