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married people. Love and anxiety on his
part. On her part a statement of all the diffi-
culties and embarrassments to which, as his
wife, she was subjected in a distant country-
letters addressed to her as his wife, letters from
her to him as her husband--all things clear,
intelligent, and distinct, until, at last, there
is a letter-glided over by Sergeant Arm-
strong, which I call the Christmas-day letter,
and if there is one of you who has a doubt
that there was a secret lawful marriage, I beg
of you to hear what Major Yelverton himself
has written on the subject. "I have every
reason," he says, "to believe that next June
will see you through the scrape."
No one
denies that tallies with the date of the mar-

and searching there is not a solitary fact established against her. But, says the defendant—“You artful woman, you temptress, you enchantress, why did you dare to send anybody round the different hotels to ascertain what could be proved against you?" Who is it puts that question? The defendant. And what is he detected in having done? He cut a lock of hair from the head of a child seven years old, that he thought was like the hair on the head of the woman he had deceived, and that he intended to marry, and not to marry, and that he wants now to unmarry. He gets a piece of a gown he says she wore, and he places before his witnesses what is not the hair of his wife, and a piece of a dress that may not have been the dress of that injured woman, and endeavours to fab-riage. He writes:-" Carrissima mia—I fear ricate evidence to destroy her character as he had destroyed her happiness; and when, by accident, we learned it, for we knew it not, Iaver, until the lady in the box told you the story of the lock of hair, which her counsel heard then for the first time,-we asked how it was discovered, the young woman, Miss Crabbe, was telegraphed for, and now that she has arrived, why are you not to believe her? Sergeant Armstrong talked of murder. What would be your feelings if you had been on the point of sending to the gallows a fellow-being upon the evidence of Bridget Cole and Rose Fagan that the woman who sat in the witness-box was the woman who called on them, a statement falsified before your own eyes? Would you ever enjoy a happy hour?-would you ever fail to deplore the rash act you had done as jurors in being persuaded by rash evidence of identity to take away the life of your innocent fellow-creature? Honour and virtue are as dear to woman as life. Why should you rob her of her honour, all that is left her, upon the rotten testimony that has been concocted against her? Why did we do what we did in this respect? Because we found what was being fabricated against us. That young woman told you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and she has demonstrated that what was sworn by Cole and the other woman is entirely and absolutely false. What, therefore, becomes of that portion of the case? It has vanished. It is gone. What is the remainder of this case on the correspondence? I pray attention to it. The correspondence read by my learned friend (Sergeant Sullivan), who, like a lawyer, commenced where he ought to commence, and gave it from the date of the marriage to the closing awful scene that took place at Leith, is all through, I say, the correspondence of

it is not a reservation of bon bons that has caused my silence this time, but what you wrote in your last letter but one. You say I told you my resolution in case certain events did occur. You were very angry, but it would be my duty, and if I love I must do it. Your resolution is founded on false views. Where is your duty of keeping faith with me? I have never intentionally deceived you, and have done more than I promised at great risk." Was that a voyage up the Rhine, gentlemen? No. I call on you to believe that what he there refers to was the marriage ceremony in the church at Rostrevor. "I told you the event we fear could be avoided, and you certainly cannot doubt that it is equally unwelcome to me as it can be to you; but, if the future proves that I have been deceived by others, that will not absolve you from your faith, the which, if you break with me, you will never from that moment have even one of tolerable content during the rest of your life. If you do feel any love for me you must change that resolution. If I depart this life you may speak; or, if you do, you may leave a legacy of the facts; but whilst we both live you must trust me and I must trust you. When I find my trust misplaced, if you have any affection for me, I do not envy you the future. Your duty lies this way, not that." Gentlemen of the jury, what does that mean? What, I again ask, does it mean? It means this-I, your inexorable master, warn you that you must not disclose our marriage. I care not for the birth of a child. Secrecy is the bond. No matter how you are exposed, no matter how you are degraded, I have made a sacrifice for you, and whatever may be your feelings as a gentlewoman, a wife, and a mother, you must endure the disgrace, or else

you shall never have one happy hour for the rest of your life. What is the argument of his counsel? That from the day he was at Galeta he was her deliberate, skilful, scientific, and unconscionable seducer.

Though, says the defendant (by his argument), I have added hypocrisy, profanity, deception, and blasphemy, I am not bound to pay for the sustenance of this woman. I am not her wedded husband, I stand before you her profligate and unprincipled seducer. I found her young, I found her virtuous, I found her beautiful. What is she now? Innocence defiled, virtue lost, beauty spoiled, and hopes of life fled for ever. Better the hand of death had swept her to an early grave; it would have been consecrated by the tears of maternal affection-gentle tears, recalling happy memories of the past, assuaged and checked by blessed hopes of a bright immortal future. He has blasted her happiness in this life, he has endangered it in the life to come, according to his own argument. Save him from the consequences of that argument, and do not brand him, as his counsel do, as a scientific, deliberate, unprincipled seducer. How stands the question, now that the whole of this great trial is before you-now that you have all these facts-and I cannot dwell at this hour minutely upon each particular circumstance, as I might have done if I had gained you at an earlier hour of the day, in endeavouring to reason it step by step? I ask you to judge of that woman as she has appeared before you; and then say, Do you believe her? Trace her life up from the first hour that she stood within the wall of the convent until the day she sat in that box to tell the story of her multitudinous sorrows. Ask yourselves what fact has been proved against her with any living man save the defendant. Her crime is she loved him too dearly, and too well. Had she possessed millions, she would have flung them at his feet. Had she a throne to bestow, she would have placed him on that throne. She gave him the kingdom of her heart, and made him sovereign of her affections. There he reigned with undisputed sway. Great the gift! Our affections were by an Almighty hand planted in the human heart. They have survived the fall, and repaired the ravages of sin and death. They dignify, exalt, and inspire our existence here below, which, without them, were cold, monotonous, and dull. They unite heart to heart by adamantine links. Nor are their uses limited to this life. We may well believe

that when the mysterious union between soul and body is dissolved, the high affections of our nature, purified, spiritualized, immortalized, may add to the felicity unspeakable reserved for the spirits of the just made perfect through the countless ages of eternity. She gave him her affections-she gave him her love —a woman's love! Who can fathom its depths? Who can measure its intensity? Who can describe its devotion? She told you herself what that love was when she wrote to him, "If you were to be executed as a convict I would stand below the gallows." If he had taken that woman for his wife misery would have endeared him to her, poverty she would have shared, from sickness or misfortune she would never have fled; she would have been his constant companion, his guide, his friend-his polluted mistress, never! Therefore, I now call on you to do justice to that injured woman. You cannot restore her to the husband she adored or the happiness she enjoyed. You cannot give colour to that faded cheek, or lustre to that eye that has been dimmed by many a tear. You cannot relieve the sorrows of her bursting heart, but you may restore her to her place in society. You may, by your verdict, enable her to say, "Rash I have been, indiscreet I may have been through excess of my affection for you, but guilty, never!" You may replace her in the rank which she would never disgraceyou may restore her to that society in which she is qualified to shine, and has ever adorned! To you I commit this great cause. able longer to address you. Would to God I had talents or physical energy to exert either or both longer on the part of this injured, insulted woman. She finds an advocate in you— she finds it in the respected judge on the bench-she finds it in every heart that beats within this court, and in every honest man throughout the country.

I am not

IN DEFENCE OF C. G. DUFFY.' I have told you what constitutes the great crime of conspiracy; it is one of combination, and it is fearfully set forth in books, so often quoted in the history of the state trials of England, where there are terrible examples given of wrong verdicts, by which men were deprived of their liberty, their lives, and by which innocence was struck down. But, on the other hand, there were in those state trials 1 For a notice of Charles Gavan Duffy, see page 1).

great and glorious examples of triumphs over | lished tyranny, swept away the monstrous power, over the crown, and over kings-as in abuses it rears, and established the liberties the case of Hardy on parliamentary reform, under which we live. Free discussion, since and in the case of Horne Tooke, who saved that glorious epoch, has not only preserved public opinion so far from being extinguished but purified our constitution, reformed our in England, and which would have been the laws, reduced our punishments, and extended case had not the jury interfered. In earlier its wholesome influence to every portion of days, in the days of the Second James, the our political system. The spirit of inquiry it seven bishops were charged with a conspiracy creates has revealed the secrets of naturefor asserting the opinion of freedom; but then explained the wonders of creation, teaching a jury also interfered, and those bishops were the knowledge of the stupendous works of acquitted, and acquitted amidst those shouts God. Arts, science, civilization, freedom, pure which proclaimed universal freedom. In religion, are its noble realities. Would you darker periods of history-in the times of undo the labours of science, extinguish literaCromwell, who usurped the monarchy and all ture, stop the efforts of genius, restore ignorunder the sacred name of religion, yet dared ance, bigotry, barbarism,—then put down free not to abolish the forms of public justice, they discussion, and you have accomplished all. so prevailed and subsisted-that when, in the Savage conquerors, in the blindness of their plenitude of his power, he prosecuted for a ignorance, have scattered and destroyed the libel, there were twelve honest men who had intellectual treasures of a great antiquity. the courage not to pronounce the defendant Those who make war on the sacred rights of guilty, thus proving that the unconquerable free discussion, without their ignorance imitate love of liberty still survived in the hearts of their fury. They may check the expression of Englishmen. I will say that the true object some thought which, if uttered, might redeem of this unprecedented prosecution is to stifle the liberties or increase the happiness of man. the discussion of a great public question. The insidious assailants of this great prerogaReviewed in this light, all other considerations tive of intellectual beings, by the cover under sink into insignificance; its importance be- which they advance, conceal the character of comes vast indeed. A nation's rights are in- their assault upon the liberties of the human volved in the issue-a nation's liberties are race. They seem to admit the liberty to disat stake-that won-what preserves the pre- cuss-blame only its extravagance, pronounce cious privileges you possess? The exercise of hollow praises on the value of freedom of the right of political discussion-free, untram-speech, and straightway begin a prosecution melled, bold. The laws which wisdom framed -the institutions struck out by patriotism, learning, or genius-can they preserve the springs of freedom fresh and pure? No; detroy the right of free discussion, and you dry up the sources of freedom. By the same means by which your liberties were won, can they be increased or defended. Do not quarrel with the partial evils free discussion creates, nor seek to contract the enjoyment of the greatest privilege within the narrow limit timid men prescribe. With the passing mischiefs of its extravagance, contrast the prodigious bless-peace-a death-like stillness--by repressing ings it has heaped on man.

to cripple or destroy it. The open despot avows his object is to oppress or enslave-resistance is certain to encounter his tyranny, and perhaps subvert it. Not so the artful assailant of a nation's rights-he declares friendship while he wages war, and professes affection for the thing he hates.

State prosecutions, if you believe them, are ever the fastest friends of freedom. They tell you peace is disturbed, order broken by the excesses of turbulent and seditious demagogues. No doubt there might be a seeming

the feelings and passions of men. So in the Free discussion aroused the human mind fairest portions of Europe this day, there is from the torpor of ages-taught it to think, and peace, and order, and submission, under patershook the thrones of ignorance and darkness. nal despotism, ecclesiastical and civil. That Free discussion gave to Europe the Reforma- peace springs from terror, that submission tion, which I have been taught to believe the from ignorance, that silence from despair. mightiest event in the history of the human Who dares discuss, when with discussion and race-illuminated the world with the radiant by discussion tyranny must perish? Compare light of spiritual truth. May it shine with the stillness of despotism with the healthful steady and increasing splendour! Free dis- animation, the natural warmth, the bold lancussion gave to England the Revolution, abo-guage, the proud bearing, which spring from

De

freedom, and the consciousness of its posses- these are the virtues which qualify jurors to sion. Which will you prefer? Insult not the decide the rights of their fellow-men. dignity of manhood by supposing that con- serted by these, of what avail is the tribunal tentment of the heart can exist under des- of a jury? It is worthless as the human body potism. There may be degrees in its severity, when the living soul has fled. Prove to the and so degrees in the sufferings of its victims. accused, from whom, perchance, you widely Terrible the dangers which lurk beneath the differ in opinion—whose liberties and fortunes calm surface of despotic power. The move- are in your hands-that you are there not to ments of the oppressed will at times disturb persecute, but to save. Believe me, you will not the tyrant's tranquillity, and warn him, that secure the true interests of England by leaning their day of vengeance or of triumph may be too severely on your countrymen. They say to nigh. But in these happy countries the very their English brethren, and with truth-We safety of the state consists in freedom of dis- have been at your side whenever danger was to cussion. Partial evils in all systems of politi- be faced or honour won. The scorching sun of cal governments there must be; but their the east and the pestilence of the west, we have worst effects are obviated when their cause is endured to spread your commerce-to extend sought for, discovered, considered, discussed. your empire-to uphold your glory. The bones Milton has taught a great political truth, in of our countrymen whitened the fields of Porlanguage as instructive as his sublimest verse: tugal, of Spain, of France. Fighting your -"For this is not the liberty which we can battles they fell-in a nobler cause they could hope, that no grievances ever should arise in not. We have helped to gather your imperishthe commonwealth-that let no man in this able laurels. We have helped to win your imworld expect; but when complaints are freely mortal triumphs. Now, in time of peace, we heard, deeply considered, and speedily re- ask you to restore that parliament you planted formed then is the utmost bound of civil here with your laws and language, uprooted liberty obtained that wise men look for." in a dismal period of our history, in the moSuffer the complaints of the Irish people to be ment of our terror, our divisions, our weakfreely heard. You want the power to have ness, it may be our crime. Re-establish the them speedily reformed. Their case to-day commons on the broad foundation of the may be yours to-morrow. Preserve the right people's choice-replace the peerage, the corinof free discussion as you would cling to life. thian pillars of the capitol, secured and adorned Combat error with argument, misrepresenta- with the strength and splendour of the crown tion by fact, falsehood with truth. "For who-and let the monarch of England, as in ages knows not," saith the same great writer, "that truth is strong-next to the Almighty? One needs no policies nor stratagems to make her victorious - these are the shifts error uses against her power."

If this demand for a native parliament rest on a delusion, dispel that delusion by the omnipotence of truth. Why do you lovewhy do other nations honour England? Are you are they dazzled by her naval or military glories, the splendour of her literature, her sublime discoveries in science, her boundless wealth, her almost incredible labours in every work of art and skill? No; you love her-you cling to England because she has been for ages past the seat of free discussion, and therefore, the home of rational freedom, and the hope of oppressed men throughout the world. Under the laws of England it is our happiness to live. They breathe the spirit of liberty and reason. Emulate this day the great virtues of Englishmen their love of fairness their immovable independence, and the sense of justice rooted in their nature

past, rule a brilliant and united empire in solidity, magnificence, and power.

When the privileges of the English parliament were invaded, that people took the field, struck down the ministry, and dragged their sovereign to the block. We shall not imitate English precedent, while we struggle for a parliament. That institution you prize so highly, which fosters your wealth, adds to your prosperity, and guards your freedom, was ours for six hundred years. Restore the blessing and we shall be content. This prosecution is not essential for the maintenance of the authority and prerogative of the crown. Our gracious sovereign needs not state prosecutions to secure her prerogatives or preserve her power. She has the unbought loyalty of a chivalrous and gallant people. The arm of authority she requires not to raise. The glory of her gentle reign will be— she will have ruled, not by the sword, but by the affections; that the true source of her power has been, not in terrors of the law, but in the hearts of her people. Your patience

is exhausted. If I have spoken suitably to the subject, I have spoken as I could have wished; but if, as you may think, deficiently, I have spoken as I could. Do you, from what has been said, and from the better arguments omitted, which may be well suggested by your manly understandings and your honest hearts, give a verdict consistent with justice, yet leaning to liberty-dictated by truth, yet

inclining to the side of the accused men, struggling against the weight, and power, and influence of the crown, and prejudice more overwhelming still-a verdict undesired by any party, but to be applauded by the impartial monitor within your breasts, becoming the high spirit of Irish gentlemen, and the intrepid guardians of the rights and liberties of a free people.

THOMAS D'ARCY M'GEE.

BORN 1825-DIED 1868.

[The history of the majority of the brilliant | An offer of a situation on the Freeman's men who took part in the insurrectionary Journal brought him back to Ireland; but he movement in 1848 is one of failure. Meagher was drowned, Williams died young and in poverty, Mitchel's brief triumph of a few days was the close of a bitter struggle through life against ever-recurring failure. Two of the '48 men, however, are conspicuous exceptions to the darker fate of their companions, for, in other countries, and amid happier surroundings, they attained to the high political position for which their talents fitted them; we mean, M'Gee and Duffy.

Thomas D'Arcy M'Gee was born on April 13, 1825. His ancestors on both the paternal and maternal sides were remarkable for their devotion to the national cause. His father was in the coast-guard service. When he was eight, young M'Gee was removed to Wexford, where he lost his mother—a gifted woman, well versed in Irish literature, and the first inspirer in her son of the sentiments which formed the basis of his character. When but seventeen he went to America, on a visit to an aunt in Providence, Rhode Island. The advent of the anniversary of American independence gave the lad an opportunity of displaying his great oratorical powers. His speech on the then absorbing subject of repeal proved highly successful, and in consequence he was offered employment on the Boston Pilot, which he accepted. Two years after the beginning of this connection he was advanced to the post of editor, an important position for one just nineteen years old. This, however, was not his only triumph; the fame of his speeches crossed the Atlantic, and, attracting the attention of O'Connell, were characterized by him as "the inspired utterances of a young exiled Irish boy in America."

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soon abandoned that journal for the more congenial Nation, which, under the editorship of Gavan Duffy, was at this period preaching those extreme doctrines which gave rise to the Young Ireland school. M'Gee soon became involved in the political movements, and figured as one of the leaders of the revolutionary party, being elected secretary of the Confederation. He was imprisoned for a short time in consequence of a violent speech which he made in county Wicklow.

When the insurrection broke out he was travelling in Scotland, whither he had been sent on a mission to arouse his fellow-countrymen. Although a price was set upon his head, he could not resist the desire to see his wife, to whom he had just been married, and, protected by Dr. Maguire, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Derry, he paid her a visit, afterwards escaping in the disguise of a priest to America. He started in New York a paper called the Nation. His articles therein, being strongly condemnatory of the action of the Roman Catholic priesthood during 1848, brought him into collision with that body. He afterwards went to Boston, where he established the American Celt.

As time went on his views underwent great modification, and he regretted the articles which led him to wield his pen in controversy with Bishop Hughes of the diocese of New York. He changed his place of residence several times, and finally, in 1858, left the United States to settle down in Canada. He had not been long resident in Montreal when he was elected to the Canadian parliament, in the debates of which assembly he soon distinguished himself. In 1862 he was rewarded by

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