Chapter 8

This closed the case for the crown, and Mr. Crean, counsel for Mr. Lalor, rose to address the jury on behalf of his client. His speech was argumentative, terse, forcible, and eloquent; and seemed to please and astonish not only the auditors but the judges themselves, who evidently had not looked for so much ability and vigour in the young advocate before them. Although the speeches of professional advocates do not come within the scope of this publication, Mr. Crean's vindication of the national colour of Ireland--probably the most telling passage in his address--has an importance which warrants its quotation here:--

Gentlemen, it is attempted in this case to make the traversers amenable under the Party Processions' Act, because those in the procession wore green ribbons. Gentlemen, this is the first time, in the history of Irish State Prosecutions which mark the periods of gloom and peril in this country, that the wearing of a green ribbon has been formally indicted; and I may say it is no good sign of the times that an offence which has been hitherto unknown to the law should now crop up for the first time in this year of grace, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight. Not even in the worst days of Lord Castlereagh's ill-omened regime was such an attempt as this made to degrade the green of Ireland into a party colour, and to make that which has long been regarded as a national emblem the symbol of a faction. Gentlemen, there is no right-minded or right-hearted man--looking back upon the ruinous dissensions and bitter conflicts which have been the curse and bane of this country--who will not reprobate any effort to revive and perpetuate them. There is no well-disposed man in the community who will not condemn and crush those persons--no matter on what side they may stand--who make religion, which should be the fountain and mother of all peace and blessings, the cause of rancour and animosity. We have had, unhappily, gentlemen, too much of this in Ireland. We have been too long the victims of that wayward fate of which the poet wrote, when he said:--

"Whilst our tyrants join in hate, We never joined in love."

But, gentlemen, I will ask of you if you ever before heard, until this time, that the green of Ireland was the peculiar colour of any particular sect, creed, or faction, or that any of the people of this country wore it as the peculiar emblem of their party, and for the purpose of giving annoyance and of offering insult to some other portion of their fellow-countrymen. I must say that I never heard before that Catholic or Protestant, or Quaker or Moravian, laid claim to this colour as a symbol of party. I thought all Irishmen, no matter what altar they bowed before, regarded the green as the national colour of Ireland. If it is illegal to wear the green, all I can say is that the Constabulary are guilty of a constant and continuing breach of the law. The Lord and Lady Lieutenant will probably appear on next Patrick's Day, decorated with large bunches of green shamrock. Many of the highest officials of the government will do the same; and is it to be thought for one moment that they, by wearing this green emblem of Ireland and of Irish nationality, are violating the law of the land. Gentlemen, it is perfectly absurd to think so. I hope this country has not yet so fallen as that it has become a crime to wear the green. I trust we have not yet come to that pass of national degradation, that a jury of Irishmen can be found so forgetful of their country's dignity and of their own as to brand with a mark of infamy a colour which is associated with so many recollections, not of party triumphs, but of national glories--not with any sect, or creed, or party, but with a nation and a race whose children, whether they were the exiled soldiers of a foreign state, or the soldiers of Great Britain--whether at Fontenoy or on the plains of Waterloo, or on the heights of Fredericksburgh, have nobly vindicated the chivalry and fame of Ireland! It is for them that the green has its true meaning. It is to the Irishman in a distant land this emblem is so dear, for it is entwined in his memory, not with any miserable faction, but with the home and the country which gave him birth. I do hope that Irishmen will never be ashamed in this country to wear the green, and I hope an attempt will never again be made in an Irish court of justice to punish Irishmen for wearing that which is a national colour, and of which every man who values his country should feel proud.

When Mr. Crean resumed his seat--which he did amidst strong manifestations of applause--it was past three o'clock in the afternoon. It was not expected that the case would have proceeded so far by that hour, and Mr. Martin and Mr. Sullivan, who intended each to speak in his own behalf, did not expect to rise for that purpose before next day, when it was arranged that Mr. Martin would speak first, and Mr. Sullivan follow him. Now, however, it was necessary some one of them should rise to his defence, and Mr. Martin urged that Mr. Sullivan should begin.

By this time the attendance in court, which, during the Solicitor-General's speech and the crown evidence, thinned down considerably, had once more grown too great for the fair capacity of the building. There was a crush within, and a crowd without. When Mr. Sullivan was seen to rise, after a moment's hurried consultation with Mr. Martin, who sat beside him, there was a buzz, followed by an anxious silence. For a moment the accused paused, almost overcome (as well he might have been) by a sense of the responsibility of this novel and dangerous course. But he quickly addressed himself to the critical task he had undertaken, and spoke as follows:--[Footnote: As Mr. Sullivan delivered this speech without even the ordinary assistance of written notes or memoranda, the report here quoted is that which was published in the newspapers of the time. Some few inaccuracies which he was precluded from correcting then (being a prisoner when this speech was first published), have been corrected for this publication.]

My lords and gentlemen of the jury--I rise to address you under circumstances of embarassment which will, I hope, secure for me a little consideration and indulgence at your hands. I have to ask you at the outset to banish any prejudice that might arise in your minds against a man who adopts the singular course--who undertakes the serious responsibility--of pleading his own defence. Such a proceeding might be thought to be dictated either by disparagement of the ordinary legal advocacy, by some poor idea of personal vanity, or by way of reflection on the tribunal before which the defence is made. My conduct is dictated by neither of these considerations or influences. Last of all men living should I reflect upon the ability, zeal, and fidelity of the Bar of Ireland, represented as it has been in my own behalf within the past two days by a man whose heart and genius are, thank God, still left to the service of our country, and represented, too, as it has been here this day by that gifted young advocate, the echoes of whose eloquence still resound in this court, and place me at disadvantage in immediately following him. And assuredly I design no disrespect to this court; either to tribunal in the abstract, or to the individual judges who preside; from one of whom I heard two days ago delivered in my own case a charge of which I shall say--though followed by a verdict which already consigns me to a prison--that it was, judging it as a whole, the fairest, the clearest, the most just and impartial ever given to my knowledge, in a political case of this kind in Ireland between the subject and the crown. No; I stand here in my own defence to-day, because long since I formed the opinion that, on many grounds, in such a prosecution as this, such a course would be the most fair and most consistent for a man like me. That resolution I was, for the sake of others, induced to depart from on Saturday last, in the first prosecution against me. When it came to be seen that I was the first to be tried out of two journalists prosecuted, it was strongly urged on me that my course, and the result of my trial, might largely affect the case of the other journalist to be tried after, me; and that I ought to waive my individual views and feelings, and have the utmost legal ability brought to bear in behalf of the case of the national press at the first point of conflict. I did so. I was defended by a bar not to be surpassed in the kingdom for ability and earnest zeal; yet the result was what I anticipated. For I knew, as I had held all along, that in a case like this, where law and fact are left to the jury, legal ability is of no avail if the crown comes in with its arbitrary power of moulding the jury. In that case, as in this one, I openly, publicly, and distinctly announced that I for my part would challenge no one, whether with cause or without cause. Yet the crown--in the face of this fact--and in a case where they knew that at least the accused had no like power of peremptory challenge--did not venture to meet me on equal footing; did not venture to abstain from their practice of absolute challenge; in fine, did not dare to trust their case to twelve men "indifferently chosen," as the constitution supposes a jury to be. Now, gentlemen, before I enter further upon this jury question, let me say that with me this is no complaint merely against "the Tories." On this as well as on numerous other subjects, it is well known that it has been my unfortunate lot to arraign both Whigs and Tories. I say further, that I care not a jot whether the twelve men selected or permitted by the crown to try me, or rather to convict me, by twelve of my own co-religionists and political compatriots, or twelve Protestants, Conservatives, Tories, or "Orangemen." Understand me clearly on this. My objection is not to the individuals comprising the jury. You may be all Catholics, or you may be all Protestants, for aught that affects my protest, which is against the mode by which you are selected--selected by the crown--their choice for their own ends--and not "indifferently chosen" between the crown and the accused. You may disappoint, or you may justify the calculations of the crown official, who has picked you out from the panel, by negative or positive choice (I being silent and powerless)--you may or may not be all he supposes--the outrage on the spirit of the constitution is the same. I say, by such a system of picking a jury by the crown, I am not put upon my country. Gentlemen, from the first moment these proceedings were commenced against me, I think it will be admitted that I endeavoured to meet them fairly and squarely, promptly and directly. I have never once turned to the right or to the left, but gone straight to the issue. I have from the outset declared my perfect readiness to meet the charges of the crown. I did not care when or where they tried me. I said I would avail of no technicality--that I would object to no juror--Catholic, Protestant, or Dissenter. All I asked--all I demanded--was to be "put upon my country," in the real, fair, and full sense and spirit of the constitution. All I asked was that the crown would keep its hand off the panel, as I would keep off mine. I had lived fifteen years in this city; and I should have lived in vain, if, amongst the men that knew me in that time, whatever might be their political or religious creed, I feared to have my acts, my conduct, or principles tried. It is the first and most original condition of society that a man shall subordinate his public acts to the welfare of the community, or at least acknowledge the right of those amongst whom his lot is cast, to judge him on such an issue as this. Freely I acknowledge that right. Readily have I responded to the call to submit to the judgment of my country, the question whether, in demonstrating my sorrow and sympathy for misfortune, my admiration for fortitude, my vehement indignation against what I considered to be injustice, I had gone too far and invaded the rights of the community. Gentlemen, I desire in all that I have to say to keep or be kept within what is regular and seemly, and above all to utter nothing wanting in respect for the court; but I do say, and I do protest, that I have not got trial by jury according to the spirit and meaning of the constitution. It is as representatives of the general community, not as representatives of the crown officials, the constitution supposes you to sit in that box. If you do not fairly represent the community, and if you are not empanelled indifferently in that sense, you are no jury in the spirit of the constitution. I care not how the crown practice may be within the technical letter of the law, it violates the intent and meaning of the constitution, and it is not "trial by jury." Let us suppose the scene removed, say, to France. A hundred names are returned on what is called a panel by a state functionary for the trial of a journalist charged with sedition. The accused is powerless to remove any name from the list unless for over-age or non-residence. But the imperial prosecutor has the arbitrary power of ordering as many as he pleases to "stand aside." By this means he puts or allows on the jury only whomsoever he pleases. He can, beforehand, select the twelve, and, by wiping out, if it suits him, the eighty-eight other names, put the twelve of his own choosing into the box. Can this be called trial by jury? Would not it be the same thing, in a more straightforward way, to let the crown-solicitor send out a policeman and collect twelve well-accredited persons of his own mind and opinion? For my own part, I would prefer this plain-dealing, and consider far preferable the more rude but honest hostility of a drum-head court martial (applause in the court). Again I say, understand me well, I am objecting to the principle, the system, the practice, and not to the twelve gentlemen now before me as individuals. Personally, I am confident that being citizens of Dublin, whatever your views or opinions, you are honourable and conscientious men. You may have strong prejudices against me or my principles in public life--very likely you have; but I doubt not that though these may unconsciously tinge your judgment and influence your verdict, you will not consciously violate the obligations of your oath. And I care not whether the crown, in permitting you to be the twelve, ordered three, or thirteen, or thirty others to "stand by"--or whether those thus arbitrarily put aside were Catholics or Protestants, Liberals, Conservatives, or Nationalists--the moment the crown put its finger at all on the panel, in a case where the accused had no equal right, the essential character of the jury was changed, and the spirit of the constitution was outraged. And now, what is the charge against my fellow-traversers and myself? The solicitor-general put it very pithily awhile ago when he said our crime was "glorifying the cause of murder." The story of the crown is a very terrible, a very startling one. It alleges a state of things which could hardly be supposed to exist amongst the Thugs of India. It depicts a population so hideously depraved that thirty thousand of them in one place, and tens of thousands in various other places, arrayed themselves publicly in procession to honour and glorify murder--to sympathise with murderers as murderers. Yes, gentlemen, that is the crown case, or they have no case at all--that the funeral procession in Dublin on the 8th December last was a demonstration of sympathy with murder as murder. For you will have noted that never once in his smart narration of the crown story, did Mr. Harrison allow even the faintest glimmer to appear of any other possible complexion or construction of our conduct. Why, I could have imagined it easy for him not merely to state his own case, but to state ours too, and show where we failed, and where his own side prevailed. I could easily imagine Mr. Harrison stating our view of the matter--and combatting it. But he never once dared to even mention our case. His whole aim was to hide it from you, and to fasten, as best such efforts of his could fasten, in your minds this one miserable refrain--"They glorified the cause of murder and assassination." But this is no new trick. It is the old story of the maligners of our people. They call the Irish a turbulent, riotous, crime-loving, law-hating race. They are for ever pointing to the unhappy fact--for, gentlemen, it is a fact--that between the Irish people and the laws under which they now live there is little or no sympathy, but bitter estrangement and hostility of feeling or of action. Bear with me if I examine this charge, since an understanding of it is necessary in order to judge our conduct on the 8th December last. I am driven upon this extent of defence by the singular conduct of the solicitor-general, who, with a temerity which he will repent, actually opened the page of Irish history, going back upon it just so far as it served his own purpose, and no farther. Ah! fatal hour for my prosecutors when they appealed to history. For assuredly, that is the tribunal that will vindicate the Irish people, and confound those who malign them as sympathisers with assassination and glorifiers of murder--

Solicitor-General--My lord, I must really call upon you--I deny that I ever--

Mr. Justice Fitzgerald--Proceed, Mr. Sullivan.

Mr. Sullivan--My lord, I took down the solicitor-general's words. I quote them accurately as he spoke them, and he cannot get rid of them now. "Glorifiers of the cause of murder" was his designation of my fellow-traversers and myself, and our fifty thousand fellow-mourners in the funeral procession; and before I sit down I will make him rue the utterance. Gentlemen of the jury, if British law be held in "disesteem"--as the crown prosecutors phrase it--here in Ireland, there is an explanation for that fact, other than that supplied by the solicitor-general; namely, the wickedness of seditious persons like myself, and the criminal sympathies of a people ever ready to "glorify the cause of murder." Mournful, most mournful, is the lot of that land where the laws are not respected--nay, revered by the people. No greater curse could befall a country than to have the laws estranged from popular esteem, or in antagonism with the national sentiment. Everything goes wrong under such a state of things. The ivy will cling to the oak, and the tendrils of the vine reach forth towards strong support. But more anxiously and naturally still does the human heart instinctively seek an object of reverence and love, as well as of protection and support, in law, authority, sovereignty. At least, among a virtuous people like ours, there is ever a yearning for those relations which are, and ought to be, as natural between a people and their government as between the children and the parent. I say for myself, and I firmly believe I speak the sentiments of most Irishmen when I say, that so far from experiencing satisfaction, we experience pain in our present relations with the law and governing power; and we long for the day when happier relations may be restored between the laws and the national sentiment in Ireland. We Irish are no race of assassins or "glorifiers of murder." From the most remote ages, in all centuries, it has been told of our people that they were pre-eminently a justice-loving people. Two hundred and fifty years ago the predecessor of the solicitor-general--an English attorney-general--it may be necessary to tell the learned gentleman that his name was Sir John Davis (for historical as well as geographical knowledge[B] seems to be rather scarce amongst the present law officers of the crown), (laughter)--held a very different opinion of them from that put forth to-day by the solicitor-general. Sir John Davis said no people in the world loved equal justice more than the Irish even where the decision was against themselves. That character the Irish have ever borne and bear still. But if you want the explanation of this "disesteem" and hostility for British law, you must trace effect to cause. It will not do to stand by the river side near where it flows into the sea, and wonder why the water continues to run by. Not I--not my fellow-traversers--not my fellow-countrymen--are accountable for the antagonism between law and popular sentiment in this country. Take up the sad story where you will--yesterday, last month, last year, last century--two centuries ago, three centuries, five centuries, six centuries--and what will you find? English law presenting itself to the Irish people in a guise forbidding sympathy or respect, and evoking fear and resentment. Take it at its birth in this country. Shake your minds free of legal theories and legal fictions, and deal with facts. This court where I now stand is the legal and political heir, descendant, and representative of the first law court of the Pale six or seven centuries ago. Within that Pale were a few thousand English settlers, and of them alone did the law take cognizance. The Irish nation--the millions outside the Pale--were known only as "the king's Irish enemie." The law classed them with the wild beasts of nature whom it was lawful to slay. Later on in our history we find the Irish near the Pale sometimes asking to be admitted to the benefits of English law, since they were forbidden to have any of their own; but their petitions were refused. Gentlemen, this was English law as it stood towards the Irish people for centuries; and wonder, if you will, that the Irish people held it in "disesteem:--[Footnote B: On Mr. Sullivan's first trial the solicitor-general, until stopped and corrected by the court, was suggesting to the jury that there was no such place as Knockrochery, and that a Fenian proclamation which had been published in the _Weekly News_ as having been posted at that place, was, in fact, composed in Mr. Sullivan's Office. Mr. Justice Deasy, however, pointedly corrected and reproved this blunder on the part of Mr. Harrison.]