Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 1.djvu/312

 Executive, to dispose of him as may seem fitting in the case of one who does not even question its authority, much less offer any opposition to its paramount operation. The time of making this submission is not less extraordinary than is the fact that it has been made. The influence which it must have upon the approaching trials must be very great, and that influence it will be impossible to avoid if, as I believe, the fact itself will be publicly announced to-morrow in the public journals. Mr. Duffy's submission having been but just communicated to me, I have no further time to dwell on it at present."

I would rather have forfeited my life than endure this charge in silence; but all communication with the outside was now strictly prohibited and sedulously guarded against. By the aid of one of my counsel, however, I was able to send a note to the Freeman's Journal, denouncing the falsehood with not unjust indignation. Who was the slanderer? That was what was fiercely demanded. The correspondent of the Daily News was understood to be Mr. John O'Donaghue, a barrister, and one of the conductors of the Freeman known to me for many years. My indignation against him was vehement, and it quickly reached him. Mr. O'Donaghue immediately wrote to me denying that he had any share in the infamy—

"I heard (he wrote) last night for the first time, with surprise and regret, that you attribute to me a recent paragraph in the Daily News, which called forth your justly indignant reply in the Freeman's Journal. I neither wrote, suggested, nor saw that paragraph until it appeared in print, and when I did, condemned it in common with every manly and honourable mind."

At length the agent and the original author of the slander were unveiled. Mr. John Flannedy, editor of the Freeman's Journal, wrote me that he had been inveigled into making this statement by the positive assurance of Richard Barrett, editor of the Pilot, a journal then in articulo mortis', that he had the fact from the High Sheriff:—

"I was leaving the Register office when Mr. Barrett called me behind the counter where Taaffe stands, and in Taaffes'