Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 1.djvu/345

 of God and the malice of the Government, I had escaped conviction.

The 15th of February came at last, and the Attorney-General sent up a new bill of indictment against me! It was the fourth found, and the fifth printed of all sizes, from the length of a Catechism to the length of a Bible. It was no longer a double-barrelled gun but a Colt's revolver—a battery of barrels—which was provided for me. The indictment with which you insisted upon transporting me in January was not found fit to trust to a jury in February, but a brand-new one was fabricated, "mended," as some one observed at the time, "at the cost of the prisoner and by the skill of his counsel."

And now, at last, we stood face to face, and a jury was to judge between us. But what jury? You refused me a copy of:he panel, though it had been given to Mitchel; though it is a right in treason, and usage in felony cases; though in Scotland, in identical prosecutions, it was furnished a fortnight before trial to the prisoners. And I entered the dock, and pleaded " not guilty," ignorant what jurors were arrayed to try me.

But you had driven us to the wall, and we planted our backs against it. When the panel was at last read my counsel challenged the array, and while they were exhibiting its partisan character the panel was printed and in ten minutes distributed over the city. Out of the remnant of the clubs I had formed a more effective police than your detectives. It was a picture to look on the angry front of Hatchell as bundles of the printed panel were carried back to me in the dock from every district in the city with the character of the jurors marked on them by trustworthy men of their own neighbourhood. Just heavens! how ineradicable is the hatred of English dominion in the heart of Ireland. Men who before and after played the flunkey at the Castle, men who kissed the Queen's feet and yours, sent me private information how to embarrass and defeat you.

At length the jury was sworn and the case commenced. I have already described the elements of my defence. Twice