Part 5

What was the government to do? Was it to act on the verdict of newspaper reporters who had happened to be present at this trial, and not on the verdict of the jury who had been solemnly sworn in the case? Behind the reporters' verdict lay the huge sustaining power of almost universal conviction, mysteriously felt and owned, though as yet nowhere expressed. Everyone who had calmly and dispassionately weighed the evidence, arrived at conclusions identical with those of the Press jury, and utterly opposed to those of the sworn jury. The ministers themselves--it was a terribly embarassing truth to own--felt that the reporters were as surely right as the jurors were surely wrong. But what were they to do? What a frightful imputation would public admission of that fact cast upon the twelve sworn jurors--upon the two judges? What a damning imputation on their judgment or their impartiality! Was it to be admitted that newspaper reporters could be right in a case so awful, where twelve sworn jurors and two judges were wrong?

And then, look at the consequences. The five men were convicted in the one verdict. There were not five separate verdicts, but one indivisible verdict. If the (jurors') verdict were publicly vitiated--if the government confessed or admitted that verdict to be false--it was not one man, but five men, who were affected by it. To be sure the reporters' jury, in _their_ verdict, did not include Allen, O'Brien, Larkin, and Shore; but was it to be conveyed by implication that omission from the reporters' verdict of acquittal was more fatal to a man than inclusion in the verdict of guilty by a sworn jury? Might not twenty, or thirty, or forty men, quite as intelligent as the reporters, be soon forthcoming to testify as forcibly of Allen, O'Brien, Larkin, and Shore, as the Press-men had testified of Maguire? Was it only _reporters_ whose judgment could set aside the verdict of sworn jurors, endorsed by ermined judges? But, in any event, the five men were convicted by the one verdict. To cut that, loosed all--not necessarily in law, perhaps, but inevitably as regarded public conscience and universal judgment; for there was not in all the records of English jurisprudence a precedent for executing men on a verdict acknowledged to have been one of blunder or perjury. Clearly, if the jurors were to be told by the government that, in a case where life and death hung on the issue, they had been so blinded by excitement, passion, or prejudice, that they declared to be a guilty murderer a man whose innocence was patent even to unofficial lookers-on in court, the moral value of such a verdict was gone--ruined for ever; and to hang _anyone_ on such a verdict--_on that identical verdict, thus blasted and abandoned_--would, it was pointed out, be murder, for all its technical legality; neither more nor less, morally, than cool, deliberate, cold-blooded murder.

Everybody saw this; but everyone in England saw also the awkward difficulty of the case. For, to let Allen, O'Brien, Larkin, and Shore go free of death, in the face of their admitted complicity in the rescue, would baulk the national demand for vengeance. It was necessary that some one should be executed. Here were men who, though they almost certainly had had no hand in causing, even accidentally, the death of Brett, dared to boast of their participation in the affray in the course of which that lamentable event unhappily occurred--that rescue which had so painfully wounded and humiliated English national pride. If these men were saved from execution, owing to any foolish scruples about hanging a possibly--nay, probably--innocent man along with them, a shout of rage would ascend from that virtuous nation amongst whom Charlotte Winsor, the professional infant-murderess, walks a free woman, notwithstanding a jury's verdict of wilful murder and a judge's sentence of death.

So, for a time it seemed that, notwithstanding the verdict of the reporters, the government would act upon the verdict of the jury, and assume it to be correct. No doubt Maguire might be innocent, but it was his misfortune to be included in an indivisible verdict with other men, who, though perhaps as guiltless as he of wilful murder, were surely guilty of riot and rescue, aggravated by the utterance of the most bitter reflections on the British Constitution, which all men know to be the "envy of surrounding nations." If they were not guilty of the crime laid against them on the trial, they were guilty of something else--they had outraged British pride. It was necessary they should die; and as Maguire's verdict was not separate from theirs, he must die too, rather than that they should escape.

But after a while the idea gained ground in England that this would be rather _too_ monstrous a proceeding. Maguire's utter innocence of any participation whatsoever in the rescue was too notorious. The character of the witnesses on whose evidence he was convicted became known: some were thieves, pickpockets, or gaol-birds of some other denomination; others were persons palpably confused by panic, excitement, passion, or prejudice. True, these same witnesses were those who likewise swore against Allen, Larkin, O'Brien and Shore. Indeed, a greater number swore against Maguire than against some of the others. Nevertheless, the overwhelming notoriety of the jury's blunder or perjury, in at least his case, became daily more and more an obstacle to his execution; and eventually, on the 21st of November, it was announced that his conviction had been cancelled, by the only means existing under the perfect laws of Great Britain--namely, a "free _pardon_" for a crime never committed. The prison doors were opened for Maguire; the sworn jurors were plainly told in effect that their blunder or perjury had well-nigh done the murder of at least one innocent man. The judges were in like manner told that shorthand-writers had been more clear-headed or dispassionate to weigh evidence and judge guilt than they. The indivisible verdict had been openly proclaimed worthless.

The news was received with a sense of relief in Ireland, where the wholesale recklessness of the swearing, and the transparent falseness of the verdict had, from the first, created intense indignation and resentment. Everyone knew and saw that, whatever might have been the participation of those men in the rescue of Colonel Kelly, they had not had a fair trial; nay, that their so-called trial was an outrage on all law and justice; that witnesses, jurors and judges, were in the full fierce heat of excitement, panic, and passion--much more ready to swear evidence, to find verdicts, and to pass sentences against innocent men than they themselves were, perhaps, conscious of while labouring under such influences. The public and official recognition of the falseness and injustice of the Manchester verdict was therefore hailed with intense satisfaction.

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:--

New Bailey Prison, Salford,

Nov. 14th, 1867.

My dear brother--I have been intending to write to you for some time, but having seen a letter from a Mr. Moore, addressed to the governor of this prison, and knowing from that that you must be in a disagreeable state of suspense, I may therefore let you know how I am at once. With reference to the trial and all connected with it, it was unfair from beginning to end; and if I should die in consequence it will injure my murderers more than it will injure me. Why should I fear to die, innocent as I am of the charge which a prejudiced jury, assisted by perjured witnesses, found me guilty of? I will do judge and jury the justice of saying they believed me guilty of being--a citizen of the United States, a friend to liberty, a hater of relentless cruelty, and therefore no friend to the British government, as it exists in our beautiful island. I must say, though much I would like to live, that I cannot regret dying in the cause of Liberty and Ireland. It has been made dear to me by the sufferings of its people, by the martyrdom and exile of its best and noblest sons. The priest, the scholar, the soldier, the saint, have suffered and died, proudly, nobly: and why should I shrink from death in a cause made holy and glorious by the numbers of its martyrs and the heroism of its supporters, as well as by its justice? You don't, and never shall, forget that Peter O'Neill Crowley died only a short time since, in this cause.

"Far dearer the grave or the prison, Illum'd by one patriot name, Than the trophies of all who have risen On liberty's ruins to fame."

I should feel ashamed of my manhood if I thought myself capable of doing anything mean to save my life, to get out of here, or for any other selfish purpose. Let no man think a cause is lost because some suffer for it. It is only a proof that those who suffer are in earnest, and should be an incentive to others to be equally so--to do their duty with firmness, justice, and disinterestedness. _I feel confident of the ultimate success of the Irish cause, as I do of my own existence._ God, in His great mercy and goodness, will strengthen the arm of the patriot, and give him wisdom to free his country. Let us hope that He, in His wisdom, is only trying our patience. The greater its sufferings, the more glorious will He make the future of our unfortunate country and its people.

The shriek of the famine-stricken mother and the helpless infant, as well as the centuries of misery, call to heaven for vengeance. God is slow, but just! The blood of Tone, Fitzgerald, Emmett, and others has been shed--how much good has it done the tyrant and the robber? None. Smith O'Brien, McManus, and Mitchel suffered for Ireland, yet not their sufferings, nor those of O'Donovan (Bossa) and his companions, deterred Burke, McAfferty, and their friends from doing their duty. Neither shall the sufferings of my companions, nor mine, hinder my countrymen from taking their part in the inevitable struggle, but rather nerve their arms to strike. I would write on this subject at greater length, but I hope that I have written enough to show you that if a man dies for liberty, his memory lives in the breasts of the good and virtuous. You will also see that there is no necessity for my father, mother, sisters or relations fretting about me. When I leave this world it will be (with God's help) to go to a better, to join the angels and saints of God, and sing His praises for all eternity. I leave a world of suffering for one of eternal joy and happiness. I have been to Holy Communion, and, please God, intend going shortly again. I am sorry we cannot hear Mass; the good priest is not allowed to say it in this prison.

Give my love to my father and mother, to Mary, Ellen, John Phillips, Tim, Catherine, uncles, aunts, and cousins.

Farewell.

From your affectionate brother,

MICHAEL O'BRIEN (_alias_ William Gould).

The following is one of Allen's letters to his relatives, written the day before his execution:--

Salford, New Bailey Prison, Nov. 23rd, 1867.

TO YOU, MY LOVING AND SINCERE DEAR UNCLE AND AUNT HOGAN,

I suppose this is my last letter to you at this side of the grave. Oh, dear uncle and aunt, if you reflect on it, it is nothing. I am dying an honourable death: I am dying _for Ireland_--dying for the land that gave me birth--dying for the Island of Saints--and dying for liberty. Every generation of our countrymen has suffered; and where is the Irish heart could stand by unmoved? I should like to know what trouble, what passion, what mischief could separate the true Irish heart from its own native isle. Dear uncle and aunt, it is sad to be parting you all, at my early age; but we must all die some day or another. A few hours more and I will breathe my last, and on English soil. Oh, that I could be buried in Ireland! What a happiness it would be to all my friends, and to myself--where my countrymen could kneel on my grave. I cannot express what joy it afforded me, when I found Aunt Sarah and you were admitted. Dear uncle, I am sure it was not a very pleasant place I had to receive you and my aunt; but we must put up with all trials until we depart this life. I am sure it will grieve you very much to leave me in such a place, on the evidence of such characters as the witnesses were that swore my life away. But I forgive them, and may God forgive them. I am dying, thank God! an Irishman and a Christian. Give my love to all friends; same from your ever affectionate nephew,

W.P. ALLEN.

Pray for us. Good bye, and remember me. Good bye, and may heaven protect ye, is the last wish of your dying nephew,

W.P. ALLEN.

Larkin was the only one of the condemned four who was married. There were to weep his fall, besides his aged parents, a devoted wife and three little children--all young; and it redounds rather to his honour, that though flinching in nowise, lacking nought in courageous firmness, home ties were painfully strong around his heart. With him it was anguish indeed to part for ever the faithful wife and the little ones who used to nestle in his bosom. Ah! he was never more to feel those little arms twining round his neck--never more to see those infant faces gazing into his own--never more to part the flaxen curls over each unfurrowed brow! Henceforth they would look for his coming and hearken for his footfall in vain! They would call upon him, and be answered only by the convulsive sobs of their widowed mother. And who would now fill his place for them, even as bread-winner? Mayhap, when he lay in the grave, these cherished little ones, for whom he would draw the life-blood from his heart, would feel the hunger-pangs of orphanage in squalid misery and obscurity! But no. If such a thought approached Larkin's heart, it was at once repelled. Assuredly, he had more faith in his countrymen--more faith in the fidelity and generosity of his race--than to believe they would suffer one of those orphans to want loving, helping, guiding hands. As he himself said, he was not, after all, leaving them fatherless; he was bequeathing them to Ireland and to God.

And the Father of the Fatherless, even on the instant, raised up a friend for them--sent an angel missioner of blessed comfort to give poor Larkin, even on the brink of the grave, assurance that no pang of poverty should ever wound those little ones thus awfully bereaved. One day the confessor met the prisoners with beaming face, holding in his hand a letter. It was from the Dowager Marchioness of Queensbury, to the condemned Irishmen in Salford gaol, and ran as follows:--

MY DEAR FRIENDS--

It may be that those few lines may minister some consolation to you on your approaching departure from this world. I send you by the hands of a faithful messenger some help for your wife, or wives, and children, in their approaching irreparable loss, and with the assurance that so long as I live they shall be cared for to the utmost of my power.

Mr. M'Donnell, the bearer of this for me, will bring me their address, and the address of the priest who attends you.

It will also be a comfort for your precious souls, to know that we remember you here at the altar of God. where the daily remembrance of that all-glorious sacrifice on Calvary, for you all, is not neglected.

We have daily Mass for you here; and if it be so that it please the good God to permit you thus to be called to Himself on Saturday morning, the precious body and blood of our Lord and Saviour and our Friend will be presented for you before God, at eight o'clock, on that day--that blood so precious, that cleanses from all sin. May your last words and thoughts be Jesus. Rest on Him, who is faithful, and willing and all-powerful to save. Rest on Him, and on His sacrifice on that Cross for you, instead of you, and hear Him say, "_To-day thou shalt be with me in Paradise_." Yet will we remember your souls constantly at the altar of God, after your departure, as well as those whom you leave in life.

Farewell! and may Jesus Christ, the Saviour of sinners, save us all, and give you His last blessing upon earth, and an eternal continuance of it in heaven.

CAROLINE QUEENSBURY.

This letter enclosed £100. On hearing it read, poor Larkin burst into tears; the other prisoners also were deeply affected. Surely, never was act more noble! Never was woman's sex more exalted--never was woman's mission more beautifully exemplified, than by this glorious act of bravery, tenderness, and generosity.

Two days before the fatal 23rd, the calm resignation which the condemned by this time enjoyed was once more cruelly disturbed, and almost destroyed. Once again the government came to fill their hearts with the torturing hope, if not, indeed, the strong conviction, that after all, even though it should be at the foot of the gallows, they would one and all be reprieved. _Another man of the five included in the vitiated verdict was reprieved_--Shore was to have his sentence commuted.

This second reprieve was the most refined and subtle torture to men who had made up their minds for the worst, and who, by God's strengthening gracs, had already become, as it were, dead to the world. It rendered the execution of the remaining men almost an impossibility. Maguire notoriously was innocent even of complicity in the rescue--the verdict of the sworn jury, concurred in by the "learned judge," to the contrary notwithstanding. But _Shore_ was _avowedly a full participator in the rescue_. He was no more, no less, guilty than Allen, Larkin, O'Brien. In the dock he proudly gloried in the fact. What wonder if the hapless three, as yet unrespited, found the wild hope of life surging irresistibly through heart and brain!