Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

This cannibal informer, this demon, O'Brien, greedy after human gore, has fifteen other victims in reserve, if from your verdict he receives the unhappy man at the bar-fifteen more of your fellowcitizens are now in gaol, depending on the fate of the unfortunate prisoner, and on the same blasted and perjured evidence of O'Brien. Be you then their saviours; let your verdict snatch them from his ravening maw, and interpose between yourselves and endless remorse. The character of the prisoner has been given. Am I not warranted in saying that I am now defending an innocent fellow-subject on the grounds of eternal justice and immutable law? and on that eternal law I do call upon you to acquit my client. I call upon you for your justice! Great is the reward and sweet the recollection in the hour of trial, and in the day of dissolution, when the casualties of life are pressing close upon the heart, or when in the agonies of death you look back to the justifiable and honourable transactions of your life. At the awful foot of eternal justice, I do therefore invite you to acquit my client; and may God of his infinite mercy grant you a more lasting reward than that perishable crown we read of, which the ancients placed on the brow of him who saved in battle the life of a fellow-citizen? In the name of public justice I do implore you to interpose between the perjurer and his intended victim; and if ever you are assailed by the hand of the informer, may you find an all-powerful refuge in the example which, as jurors, you shall set this day to those that might be called to pass upon your lives, that of repelling, at the human tribunal, the intended effects of hireling perjury and premeditated murder. And if it should be the fate of any of you to count the tedious moments of captivity, in sorrow and pain, pining in the damps and gloom of a dungeon, while the wicked one is going about at large, seeking whom he may devour, recollect that there is another more awful tribunal than any upon earth, which we must all approach, and before which the best of us will have occasion to look back to what little good we may have done on this side the grave. In that awful

RETRIBUTIVE JUSTICE.

231

trial-oh! may your verdict this day assure your hopes, and give you strength and consolation, in the presence of an adjudging God. Earnestly do I pray that the author of eternal justice may record the innocent deed you shall have done, and give to you the full benefit of your claims to an eternal reward, a requital in mercy upon your souls."

The fate of O'Brien is almost a necessary sequel to the trial of Finney. Mr. Curran, whom long observation in the exercise of his profession had familiarized to every gradation of atrocity, declared at the time, that, much as he had seen of crime, he had never met with such intense, unmitigated villany, as the conduct and countenance of this ruffian manifested; and he did not hesitate to predict, that some act of guilt would shorten his career. Two years after, O'Brien was tried for murder,* and by a kind of retributive justice, the two counsel who had rescued Finney were appointed to conduct the prosecution.

Mr. Curran's speech in O'Brien's case is not distinguished by much eloquence; but it possesses one quality, infinitely more honourable to him than any display of talent could have been. It is full of moderation, resembling as much the charge of a judge as the statement of a prosecutor, and contains no vindictive allusion to the previous crimes of the prisoner. This the following extract will show:

"The present trial is considered abroad as of some expectation. I am very well aware that when a judicial inquiry becomes the topic of public and general conversation, every conversation is in itself a little trial of the fact. The voice of public fame, the falsest witness that ever was sworn or unsworn, is always ready to bear testimony to the prejudice of an individual. The mind becomes heated, and it can scarcely be expected, even in a jury-box,

An assemblage of persons of the lower orders having taken place in the suburbs of Dublin, for the purpose of recreation, the officers of the police, accompanied by O'Brien, proceeded to disperse them. The multitude fled, and in the pursuit one of them (named Hoey) was murdered by O'Brien.-C.

to find it cool, and reflecting, and uninterested. There are two tribunals to which every man must be amenable; the one a municipal tribunal, the other the great, and general, and despotic tribunal of public reputation. If the jury have any reason to suppose that any man who comes before them has been already tried by public fame, and condemned, I beg to remind them of the solemn duty that justice imposes on them; to turn their eyes away from the recollection that any sentence of that sort of condemnation has been pronounced by the voice of public reputation; and if they think that his character has sunk under such a sentence, I remind the jury, that the infamy of such a condemnation is enough without their taking it into their consideration. It is the duty of the jury to leave the decrees of that court to be executed by its own authority, for they have no right to pass sentence of condemnation upon any man because that ill-judging court may have passed sentence on his character. They ought to recollect, that the evidence given before that court was unsworn, and therefore they are bound to consider the evidence before them naked and simple, as if they had never heard the name of the man they are to try, and the sentence of condemnation that public fame had pronounced upon his character. There is but one point of view in which public character ought to be taken; that is where there is doubt. In such a case general good character ought to have great weight, and go towards the acquittal of the accused; but should it so happen that general bad character should be thrown into the scale, it ought not to have one twentieth part the weight that good character should have.

"The jury, I am satisfied, will deliberately and cautiously weigh the evidence to be produced; they must be perfectly satisfied in their minds of the guilt of the prisoner. They must feel an irresistible and coercive force acting on them, from the weight of the evidence, before, by their verdict, they pronounce that melancholy sentence which would remove a murderer from the face of the earth."

[blocks in formation]

O'Brien was convicted and executed. The populace of most countries are too disposed to regard the death of the greatest criminals with sympathy and regret; but so predominant were the feelings of terror and detestation which O'Brien's character had excited, that his execution was accompanied by shouts of the most unusual and horrid exultation.

Before dismissing the subject of this wretched man, one observation should be made, of which the omission might seem to imply a reproach upon the conduct of the prosecutors in Finney's case. It may occur, that the information of such a person should not have gained a moment's attention, still less have endangered the lives of so many subjects. It is, therefore, only just to add, that the real character of O'Brien was unknown to the officers of the Crown, until it became developed in the progress of the trial. The Attorney-General, who conducted that prosecution, was the late Lord Kilwarden, a man the most reverse of sanguinary, and who, in those violent times, was conspicuous for correcting the sternness of his official duties by the tenderness of his own amiable nature. His expiring sentiments had been the maxim of his life: "Let no man perish but by the just sentence of the law."

CHAPTER X.

Rebellion of 1798-Its causes-Unpopular system of Government-Influence of the French Revolution-Increased intelligence in Ireland-Reform Societies-United Irishmen-Their views and proceedings-Apply for aid to France-Anecdote of Theobald Wolfe Tone-Numbers of the United Irishmen-Condition of the peasantry and conduct of the aristocracy-Measures of the Government-Public alarm-General insurrection.

THE order of this work has now brought us to the year 1798 -the year '98-a sound that is still so full of terrible associations to every Irishman's imagination. During the agitated period which followed the transactions of 1782, Ireland had seen the newly-acquired spirit of her people, inflamed by disappointment, by suffering, and by ignorance, discharging itself in bursts of individual or local turbulence, which were not much felt beyond the particular persons, or the immediate spot. But the hour, of which these were the prophetic signs, and of which so many warning and unheeded voices foretold the approach, at length arrived, bringing with it scenes of civil strife that struck dismay into every fibre of the community, sending thousands to the grave, thousands into exile, and involving many a virtuous and respected family in calamity and shame.

In adverting to the events of this disastrous era, it would be an easy task to recapitulate its horrors, or, according to the once popular method, to rail at the memory of its victims; but it is time for invective and resentment to cease; or, if such a feeling will irresistibly intrude, it is time at least to control and suppress it. Fifty years have now passed over the heads or the graves of the parties to that melancholy conflict, and their children may now see prospects of prosperity opening upon their country, not perhaps of the kind, or to the extent to which in her more ambitious days she looked, but assuredly a more rational description

« AnteriorContinuar »