HC Deb 26 February 1875 vol 222 cc964-83
MR. JOHN MARTIN

, in rising to call the attention of the House to the Papers presented to the House on the case of Mr. John Mitchel, and to move for Copy of the List of Jurors, and of the panel selected there-from, and of the Jury who tried John Mitchel, said, he should not ask the House to depart from or to modify in any way the Resolution it came to when the Papers were presented. He thought, however, that the subject referred to in the Papers was one which, if wisely and fairly considered by the House and the people of England, might produce results of the happiest kind for the best interests of Her Majesty's Crown and subjects both in England and Ireland. He knew that he could not enter upon that subject without stirring up burning questions—questions upon which the opinion of England was violently set against that of the people of Ireland. The questions he was about to raise would probably cause extreme impatience in the minds of English Members, because they had the force overwhelmingly on their side. As an Irish Member, however, he thought it his duty to raise those very questions, and to call the attention of the English and Scotch Members of that House to the manner and to the circumstances in which John Mitchel had been made a felon under English rule; and in doing so he trusted to the courtesy of the House for a fair hearing. The first of the Papers presented to the House was a certificate from the Clerk of the Crown in Dublin, to the effect that on the 20th of May, 1848, John Mitchel was tried on a charge of treason-felony—an offence, be it observed, which had been created by Act of Parliament three weeks before—and that on the following day, having been convicted, he was sentenced to be transported beyond the seas for a term of 14 years. In addition to the Papers which had already been laid upon the Table relating to that trial, he (Mr. John Martin) was about to move for the production of some more which, if he had them in his possession, would enable him to set forth and prove, in a somewhat more official style than he could adopt under present circumstances, that the so-called trial was, as he should venture to pronounce at the outset, a disgrace to English rule and the administration of the law in Ireland. He did not expect to carry his Motion; but, in spite of that, he had obtained from perfectly reliable sources information which would enable him to show clearly the character of the trial. At the period in question—1848—the Dublin Jurors' Book contained the names of 4,570 persons, of whom 2,935 were Catholics and 1,685 Protestants. The jury panel contained 150 names of persons summoned by the sheriff to serve on the Commission, but after the arrest of Mitchel, and during the progress of the same Commission, the panel was changed. The names of Catholics were taken out of the list, and for them were substituted the names of Protestants believed to be hostile to the prisoner. At the trial it was admitted by the sub-sheriff that about 100 of the names on the revised panel were supplied by Mr. Wheeler, clerk in the sheriff's office, and a notorious Orange partizan. Mr. Wheeler and Mr. Monahan, clerk in the Attorney General's office, were subpoenaed by the prisoner to give evidence which might have compelled the Court to pronounce that the panel had been constructed contrary to law; but both Wheeler and Monahan failed to appear, and the Court refused an application to postpone the trial until they could be produced. The panel of 150 was constructed so as to contain 122 Protestants and 28 Catholics. On the full jurors' list the Catholics were in a proportion of almost two to one; in the panel selected for the trial of Mitchel they were in a proportion of less than one to four. The panel, moreover, was so constructed, that in the first 80 names there were only those of eight Catholics; and in the first 28 there was only the name of one Catholic—a gentleman who was well known never to attend when summoned as a juror. The remaining 20 Catholics were distributed among the last 70 names on the panel, and it was of course to be expected that the jury would be struck before the first 80 names had been called. It was clear, therefore, that there were ten chances to one against a single Catholic being sworn on the jury, or even being called. The result, however, showed that many of these well-selected and carefully-sifted Protestants did not answer to their names. The Viceroy of that day—Lord Clarendon—was secretly paying a man named Birch, the proprietor of The World newspaper, then published in Dublin, for the publication of articles and placards in which Mitchel and his political associates were described as Jacobins and Communists, whose objects were plunder and massacre. This shameful fact was afterwards proved in the hearing of an action brought by Birch to compel his Excellency the Viceroy to pay the money he had engaged to pay. Notwithstanding these efforts to influence public opinion against the Irish Nationalists, many of the 122 Protestants selected for the panel stayed away, their souls revolting against the abominable duty required of them. This resulted in the fact that 19 Catholics were enabled to answer to their names. But of the 19 Catholics called in consequence of those abstentions, every one was ordered by the representatives of the Crown to stand by. And, as if it were not enough to have secured a jury consisting exclusively of Protestants, unless the Protestants selected were known to be hostile to Mr. Mitchel, even 21 Protestants were ordered to stand by. Of the jurors called, the prisoner had a right to challenge 20, and he challenged the first 20 of the Protestants who answered to their names. With that his share in the selection of the jury which was to try him came to an end. That was the way the jury was struck of 12 good men and true to go through the form of putting Mr. Mitchel on his trial before his country. That was the mode in which Mr. Mitchel was made a felon for speaking and writing the sentiments notoriously held by five-sixths—aye, seven-eighths—of his fellow-countrymen in reference to the particular questions at issue between him and the English Government, if not as to all his political views. Now, he would ask any English Member to put it to himself what he would think if, in this country, a man were to be tried with all the forms of law, and pronounced to be a felon, and sentenced to 14 years transportation for speaking and writing the sentiments of seven-eighths of his countrymen. They might thank God they were living under English rule, and that that rule was not a foreign rule to them. That solemn farce of justice was only a particularly flagrant case of the ordinary political trials in Ireland under English rule before and since. He now wished to refer to the state of Ireland at the time when Mr. Mitchel committed his felony. A great national movement, called "The Repeal Agitation," had been in progress for several years. Its object was to induce the English Government and Parliament to consent to the repeal of the Union Act, which had been passed unconstitutionally and fraudulently. That national movement had the adhesion of the vast majority of the people of Ireland, who felt that the kingdom of Ireland was entitled to its own national Parliament, and that the subjection of Her Majesty's subjects of Ireland to English rule by the operation of the fraudulent and unconstitutional Union Act caused great and unheard-of disaster to themselves. It was for that reason they desired the restoration of Home Rule. In 1845, the potato blight became very destructive, not only in Ireland, but all over Western Europe. But it was only in Ireland, under English rule, that the potato blight resulted in famine. All the countries that had Home Rule were able to bear the loss of potatoes without a single death by starvation. Those countries, as well as Ireland, had great resources independent of the potato crop. Not one of those countries had greater facilities than Ireland in ports, canals, railroads, and macadamized roads for receiving food and distributing it from place to place. And yet, under English rule, the potato blight in Ireland resulted in famine; famine raged for six consecutive years, and the population of Ireland became less by about 2,500,000. Part of that decrease was owing to emigration, but the deaths in Ireland from actual starvation and pestilence directly produced by starvation amounted to 1,029,552. The emigration to America during the six years of famine was 1,180,409, and the deaths among those emigrants within 12 months after they left Ireland were 25 per cent in the year 1847—the most pestilential of the six years. On the average of the six consecutive famine years, the deaths among those emigrants within 12 months after their removal from Ireland were fully 17 per cent; and the emigration of the six years having been 1,180,409, the famine deaths thus amounted among the emigrants to 200,668. This number added to the excess of deaths in Ireland (1,029,552) makes the famine slaughter of the six years to have been 1,230,220. The population of Ireland in 1845, at the commencement of the famine, was about 8,500,000; and thus it appeared that about one out of seven of the Irish population had been slaughtered in six years by famine. A famine lasting for six consecutive years was never before heard of in the world. There was no account of such a famine in ancient or modern history. He thought it was only possible in Ireland and under English rule. In every one of those six years there was produced by the Irish people, and upon the Irish soil, double the amount of food that would have been required for the consumption of all the population. At the time of the famine and since, he could not help remembering the words of the great English dramatist with reference to Scotland under the tyranny of Macbeth, which he believed must truly have represented the state of Ireland. Rosse, speaking on that subject, says— Alas, poor country; Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot Be call'd our mother, but our grave: where nothing, But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile; Where sighs, and groans, and shrieks that rent the air, Are made, not mark'd; where violent sorrow seems A modern ecstacy; the dead man's knell Is there scarce ask'd, for who; and good men's lives Expire before the flowers in their caps, Dying, or ere they sicken. Under circumstances such as these, and believing that the national Irish Parliament and Government of which Ireland had been deprived by the Union of 1800 could not be restored with the consent of England, Mr. Mitchel became an advocate for separation and revolution. He concluded that it was the fixed de-termination of the English Government and nation not to allow a national Parliament and constitutional freedom to exist in Ireland, and that the only hope for Ireland was separation from the English Crown. He thought it better that the Irish people, disarmed and weak as they were, and their country in a state of military occupation by England, should die by fighting than endure famine any longer. He (Mr. John Martin) was in Ireland at the time. He witnessed the famine, and had seen all its miseries. It burnt its marks into his breast, and they could never be totally removed. He thought, as his friend did at the time, that if the vast majority of the Irish people desired separation, they should stand loyally by their nation and take the consequences. He (Mr. John Martin) did not suppose there was any English Member in that House who could find in the British Constitution any such doctrine as that of unconditional allegiance. If Mr. Mitchel was a Separatist now—for that he (Mr. John Martin) could not answer—a Separatist he (Mr. John Martin) was not, neither were the Irish people Separatists. He was sent to the House as one of the 59 Irish Representatives who advocated the cause of Homo Rule. The Irish nation, by its legitimately-appointed Representatives, came there to ask for the restitution of their national Parliament. There would then be between the two countries a happy connection, which would make Her Majesty's subjects in Ireland as firmly attached to her Crown and Government as any of her subjects in England were. The Irish people offered that on the single condition that the English should do them justice and cease to do them wrong. The Home Rule Representatives came to make that national demand, and they confidently expected that the Parliament and people of England would grant it, for circumstances had greatly changed since 1848. Up to 1832 English politics were under the control of the territorial aristocracy. The first Reform Act brought in money-owners and wealthy traders to share with them in the government of the country. Even at the time of the Irish famine, a change in English politics consequent upon the change in the composition of the governing powers was manifest. England still desired to rule, and loved to flatter herself that she was an Empire, though in his (Mr. John Martin's) esteem she was greater and nobler when she was satisfied with being a kingdom. In 1868 a new Reform Bill was passed which took in all the people of England, together with the former ruling classes, to form the governing classes of the country. And although but small change in English politics had up to the present resulted from this, yet, considering that they had household suffrage and vote by Ballot, the English people might at any time interfere potentially—nay, very potentially—in the government of England. It was reasonable to hope that with the feeling of responsibility arising from this change in their political situation the English people would inquire into the relations which Ireland held to England and the results of English rule in Ireland. He thought it reasonable to hope that the conclusions at which the people of England would arrive would be more just, more humane, more respectable for the name of England, and more happy for the people of Ireland. But besides such considerations, England had since 1848 adapted a new principle in her colonial and foreign policy. Years after suppressing a rebellion in Canada, she had seen fit to grant Home Rule to Canada; and yet England did not feel herself at all the worse, because the Canadians were masters in their own land, taxed themselves, spent the proceeds of their taxes, and made their own laws. The interests of the British Empire were not considered to be one whit injured by the Home Rule of Canada. Besides, Home Rule had been also granted to the Australian Colonies, and there was even talk of Home Rule being granted to that colony in which the case of Langalibalele occurred. Again, in the foreign policy of England there had been a very great change, which he would summarize by saying—and he did not wish to offer a discourtesy to any hon. Member—that it resulted from it that this country had taken, as regards Europe and the United States of America, the position of a largo Holland. This was a position very different from that which England occupied some 30 years ago. England now felt that she had no real influence in Europe. She quietly allowed Russia to tear in pieces the treaty which she had obtained by the blood of her soldiers. She yielded in the case of the Alabama Claims. She had indeed made wars recently on the Abyssinians and the Ashantees; but English statesmen well knew that England would never land a regiment for war upon the European Continent again. England had given up the Ionian Islands, and probably at no distant date she would find it her best policy to give up various offensive stations she possessed around the coasts of Europe, such as Heligoland, Gibraltar, and Malta, and, passing over the Isthmus of Suez, Aden. In consequence of the change in the foreign relations of England——

An hon. MEMBER rose to Order, and asked the Speaker whether the hon. Member was in order in making such general remarks?

MR. SPEAKER

ruled that the hon. Member was quite in Order, as he was speaking on the Question that the House do resolve itself into Committee of Supply.

MR. JOHN MARTIN

said, he was simply going to remark that the Colonies had been allowed Home Rule, when it was denied to Ireland. He wished not to keep closely to the immediate subject of the Papers he was about to move for, but to dwell on matters which were of extreme importance to the people of England as well as to the people of his own country, and which, in his judgment, ought to be brought under the notice of English statesmen and of the English public. As a consequence of the changes in the foreign relations of England, it would henceforth be the desire of the English nation to act inoffensively towards all their neighbours, and to have united and contented subjects of the Crown in all Her Majesty's Three Kingdoms. Besides, England had the examples of Hungary and Austria, of Lombardy and Austria, of Belgium and Holland, of Norway and Sweden, to encourage or to warn. But he would not detain the House any longer. The common sense of the English people would before long convince them that Home Rule in Ireland could harm England no more than Home Rule in Canada or in Australia. However that might be, the wishes of the Irish people could now be declared by the legitimately-elected Representatives of Irish national sentiment. The Irish, under these circumstances, would not rebel nor become Separatists, but they never could consent to the deprivation of their national rights and their constitutional and civil freedom. Great would be the day when an English Prime Minister advised Her Majesty to restore the Irish Parliament, and happy would it be for England and for Ireland when that day arrived. The hon. Member concluded by moving for the Papers referred to in his Notice.

Amendment proposed, To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "there be laid before this House, a Copy of the List of Jurors, and of the panel selected there-from, and of the Jury which tried John Mitchel,"—(Mr. John Martin,)

—instead thereof.

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

MR. CHARLES LEWIS

said, that no one who knew the hon. Member could doubt his sincerity and enthusiasm, but he felt it would be a discredit to the House, and especially to the Representatives of Irish constituencies, if the answer to his speech were left to the Treasury Bench, He was an unworthy English Member for a prosperous Irish constituency, and in the name of five-sixths of that constituency, he repudiated the spirit of the speech which they had just heard. Composed as that constituency was of one half Protestants and the other half Roman Catholics, he told the hon. Member it was not necessary for him to appeal to that or the other side of the House to cease hating the sister country. To tell that House, and through the Press to tell the country, that England or the United Kingdom was responsible for the potato blight was to ask them to believe what was simply ridiculous. The hon. Member had appealed to the case of Canada in support of his argument; but he (Mr. Lewis) objected to the spirit in which the appeal was made, and he must altogether repudiate the suggestion that Ireland should be turned into a colony or degraded to Canadian privileges. He had been sent to that House, an independent Member, to take part in the discussion of all suggested improvements, to put Ireland on exactly the same platform as to rights and privileges with Scotland and England. When the hon. Member addressed such suggestions to the House, it was necessary that the Government alone should not be called upon to repudiate them. What was the real basis of the hon. Member's speech? They were told that injustice was perpetrated in the formation of the jury panel, but what was the allegation on which that was based? Why, that six-sevenths of the people of Ireland agreed, not in general politics with John Mitchel, but in his particular section of politics and his mode of developing them—in other words, that John Mitchel being the advocate of revolution, six-sevenths of the people of Ireland agreed with him. If that was so, it would have been a gross dereliction of duty in the Law Officers of the Crown, if they did not take care, by the exercise of the right of challenge, that none of those six-sevenths should sit on the jury who were to try John Mitchel. That was the duty of the Law Officers of the Crown; and the same course had been taken in England in the case of the Chartist trials. He had heard it said there was no such thing as unconditional allegiance; but he maintained that, having regard to the constitutional conduct of Her Majesty, the allegiance due to the gracious Sovereign who then as now sat on the Throne became an allegiance which was unconditional.

MR. SULLIVAN

rose to Order. He appealed to the Speaker, whether the House had, according to its Journals, not sent to the Tower men even for asserting outside that unconditional allegiance was the principle of the Constitution?

MR. SPEAKER

here interposed.

MR. CHARLES LEWIS

begged to withdraw the observation. He would not pursue the argument. He would only add that he believed that neither in the case of John Mitchel, nor any other case tried at that time, was there any oppression or persecution of the prisoner as the hon. Member had suggested.

MR. NEWDEGATE

When this subject was before the House a few evenings ago I voted with the noble Lord the Member for Radnorshire (the Marquess of Hartington), who explained his own vote by moving that a Committee be appointed to inquire into the circumstances under which Mr. Mitchel was returned for the county of Tipperary, and to search for precedents, as an Amendment to the Motion by which the House at once declared Mr. Mitchel's disqualification. I have voted in support of many disabilities, because I believed that these disabilities were necessary safeguards against the intrusion into this Assembly of opinions which the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. John Martin) represents. Such was the judgment of successive Parliaments, which passed these disabilities, and if any speech would justify their renewal, it is the speech which the House has just heard. I cannot believe that the hon. Gentleman who made the Motion desires that this House should supply the Papers contemplated by his Motion, because the whole tenour of his speech was to prove to the House that, according to his opinion and the opinion of those whom he represents, who he says are a majority of the people of Ireland, our consent to the production of these Papers would be construed into an encouragement of that national hatred of Ireland towards England, which the hon. Gentleman has done so much to foment. I wish to state briefly why I voted with the minority on the former occasion. The House had just then had before it another question arising out of the appearance of the hon. Member for Stoke (Mr. Kenealy) to take his seat. I, unfortunately, was not in my place at the time he appeared; but he appeared at the Table of the House, unaccompanied by two Members—without the sponsors, whom he ought to have had according to the ancient rule of the House. I did not hear the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham (Mr. Bright), who appears to have spoken with the good sense he usually manifests on an emergency.

MR. SPEAKER

I have to remind the hon. Member that he is referring to a debate which occurred during the pre-sent Session.

MR. NEWDEGATE

If I have exceeded the rule of debate, Mr. Speaker, I apologize; but I meant to convey that I thought that the House was acting with undue haste on the former occasion, and I was unwilling that we should proceed in a doubtful manner with respect to one, who, however he might afterwards be disqualified by a decision of this House, had a claim to a fair hearing. I thought that if that hearing were refused, it would generate or renew that very spirit of animosity which the hon. Member who has moved for those Papers would encourage. I shall not refer in detail to the allegations contained in that speech. But I will remark that I was a Member of this House during the years of the Irish famine—1846 and 1848—and I declare that the hon. Member for Meath has done that Parliament the grossest injustice, in the imputation that he has east upon us that we did not depart from our usual policy, and strain every nerve to meet the lamentable effects of the providential affliction which befel the people of Ireland. I was a Member of the Protectionist party. We were contending for the maintenance of the Corn Laws, which we thought secured for the country an adequate supply of food, and an evenness of price to the consumers, such as has not prevailed to the same extent since the repeal of the Corn Laws, for the variations of the price of food have been greater since the repeal of the Corn Laws. We were not, in that respect, far wrong. But in order to relieve the famine in Ireland, in order to meet that dire emergency, we consented to the suspension of the Corn Laws—we practically reversed our policy. The Protectionist party made a greater sacrifice to meet the need of Ireland than any other party or section in Parliament, for it was particularly contrary to our policy to sanction the peculiar measures intended for the relief of Ireland; but without any hesitation we unanimously voted for the extraordinary measures that were demanded by the circumstances of the case. Sir, the hon. Member speaks of the blind animosity of England towards Ireland. Why, in the Session of 1846 I voted against a Coercion Bill for Ireland; but in the very next Session, such had been the effect of sentiments like those we have heard tonight, that I was obliged to reverse my vote. There is but one real remedy for the discontent of Ireland; and it is, that the Irish people should become thoroughly acquainted with the history of their own country. Then they will not accept such garbled versions of it as have been presented to this House tonight, but by studying the history of their own country, which for years has been and until very lately a sealed book, they will become assured that England has not felt animosity towards them. When the hon. Member presents as the panacea for Irish discontent, the restoration of the Irish Parliament, let him refer to the history of Ireland, which will satisfy him that discontent prevailed in Ireland almost as much while her Parliament sat at College Green as it has prevailed since then, and must continue to exist until she can view without resentment those measures which the Irish people have themselves rendered necessary for the preservation of the connection between the two countries. Sir, I have been anxious to say those few words in order to show the hon. Member for Meath and this House, that it was from no participation in the opinions which the hon. Member has expressed, that I was induced to vote in the minority in the division out of which originated the Motion on the Paper. I trust Her Majesty's Government will resist that Motion, and for two reasons—first, because I believe that in granting these Papers they would tend to foster in the minds of the Irish people a doubt of the justice of the sentence passed upon Mr. John Mitchel in 1848; and, secondly, because I think it evident from the speech of the hon. Member, that he is using this Motion merely as a means of fomenting Irish discontent.

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PLUNKET)

said, it was his intention to trouble the House with only a few remarks on the subject of the Motion of the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. John Martin), as he should not enter into any of the numerous topics that had been imported at such length into it. He did not think, judging from the manner in which the debate had proceded thus far, that it was one likely to become productive of any substantial advantage; and, in fact, if it were to proceed in the same strain as it had up to that point, there would be no particular reason why it should ever come to an end, since there was no limit of time or space to the subjects which it might be made to include. He, therefore, trusted that the hon. Gentleman who had brought forward the Motion would not consider that it was out of any disrespect to him personally that he did not follow him through the several statements which he had made in the course of his speech. The hon. Member had complained of the feeling entertained towards his countrymen in that House in the days of his youth; but whatever that might have been, he surely could not complain of it now, for the hon. Member had been listened to with wonderful patience, and had had a full opportunity of laying before the House all the views which he deemed it necessary to express. It was unnecessary for him to say that not in any of those views did he sympathize, though he heard with satisfaction that, in the opinion of the hon. Member, the verdict of Tipperary was not shared by the bulk, or by any great portion of the Irish people. As to the Papers for the production of which the hon. Member asked, it was not possible to produce them. They had no means of producing them; but he was bound to add that oven if they had, they should not feel themselves justified in establishing a precedent of that kind. The object of asking for those Papers must be to found on them some inquiry into the proceedings at the trial of John Mitchel 27 years ago, and to prove, if possible, that there were on that occasion malpractices on the part of the prosecution. Nearly everybody in that House, he presumed, was aware that the whole of that subject was brought before the House of Commons in 1848, and that it was then discussed and thoroughly thrashed out. But the truth was, that the propriety of the composition of the jury could not be decided in the House of Commons. It had been tried and decided in the proper way in the Court in Dublin, when tryers were sworn for the purpose of trying the issue as to the proper constitution of the panel. The tryers having been appointed and charged by the presiding Judge, they found against the imputations made at the time, and reproduced that evening. He did not think his hon. Friend was quite serious in urging his Motion for the production of Papers, or that he meant to press it to a division, and therefore he did not deem it necessary to go at length into all those old matters. He held in his hand the report of the trial, and should have referred to some portions of it, if his hon. Friend had made more precise and specific charges; but he would only call the attention of the House to the fact that the Attorney General of that day, who was then accused of various acts of partisanship, was himself a Roman Catholic, and indignantly repudiated the imputations that he had improperly excluded Roman Catholics from the jury. The allegations of partiality in forming the panel were indignantly repudiated by the Attorney General, and the learned Judge who tried the case, Baron Lefroy, declared it as his opinion, in sentencing the prisoner, that there was no shadow of foundation for the imputations which had been cast upon the Law Officers, the sheriff, or other persons. The real answer to all this was, as was stated by the Judge, that neither the prisoner nor his counsel attempted to put forward any substantial defence to the charge made against the former, and the learned Judge expressly said he owed it to the jury to state, that upon the evidence furnished by the prisoner himself, no juror who had the slightest regard for the oath he had taken could by any possibility come to a conclusion different from that to which the jury had come. And to-night the hon. Gentleman had informed them that it was the separation of Ireland from England—revolution and nothing else—that was sought for by John Mitchel. He had, therefore, to say that they could not produce the Papers; that, in fact, as he was informed, no records existed as to some of the matters embraced by the Motion. But further, as he had already intimated, if it were in their power to produce them, he did not think it was a precedent which ought to be established, that years after a case of that kind had been settled, and when the persons to whom the Motion referred had perhaps long been dead and in their graves, the whole subject should be raked up, and encouragement should be given to the revival of questions which could only give rise to useless and mischievous discussions in that House.

MR. SULLIVAN

said, he had risen to Order, when he found the hon. and learned Member for Londonderry (Mr. Lewis) asserting the doctrine of "unconditional allegiance," because every student of constitutional and Parliamentary history must know that this House not only would not allow such a doctrine to be mentioned hero, but had, in the days of the Stuarts, sent men to the Tower for asserting the doctrine. The Solicitor General for Ireland had replied upon what must be allowed to be a painfully exciting topic with a temper and forbearance which did him honour, and it was not his (Mr. Sullivan's) desire that a word should be said in addition to what had been said by the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. John Martin), upon a chapter of Irish history which was sorrowful in the extreme; a chapter of history which every friend both of England and of Ireland might daily pray Heaven might never be repeated. The hon. Member for Meath, however, had not raked up this subject without cause. It was because he had found his friend, the companion of his childhood and of his prison exile, charged with felony at the bar of that House, and that the Papers produced stamped him as an ignominious foe of his country and a gaol-breaker, without a word to make it clear to the House and to the public that there were circumstances behind those Papers relating to Mitchel that would at least distinguish him from the burglar, and the wife murderer, that he determined, as far as was in his power, that the case should be placed in a truer light. It was with that object alone that his hon. Friend had brought forward the Motion, and hon. Members on that side, as well as his hon. Friend himself, were grateful for the patient hearing which had been given him. At first it was intended that the only speech to be delivered in addition to that of the hon. Member for Meath was one from the right hon. and learned Member for Clare (Sir Colman O'Loghlen), now, unfortunately, absent, but who had been counsel for John Mitchel on his trial, and could prove that the jury had been selected as completely and effectually as if the Crown had a right to pick its chosen 12 out of the whole community. He had it from the lips of the right hon. and learned Member himself that, were he present, he would have stated a circumstance which had a bearing on this system of jury manipulation. Peeling ran high at the time, revolution was astride all over Europe, and some of Mitchel's sympathizers out-of-doors resorted to a course—he did not know how it should be described in Parliamentary language—but he might be allowed to call it "squaring a juror." An Orangeman was bought over, and when he was about to get into the box, "Here," said one of the prisoner's friends, "is a man who will split the jury." Mitchel overheard the remark, insisted that the man should be challenged, and would not allow him to go on the jury. That was the act it might be of a felon, but he would say of a high-minded and honourable man. John Mitchel's politics need not be referred to here; he stood apart from the attitude which almost all his countrymen had taken. But John Mitchel was a constituent of the hon. and learned Member for Londonderry, and when his hon. and learned Friend rose to speak in the name of Ulster or Derry, and to tell the House to be of good cheer, because Derry was sound to the core and he was its Representative, he forgot that John Mitchel was a Derry man, and that whenever there was a crop of political felons and traitors in Ireland, it was Protestant Ulster that supplied the leader. John Mitchel was the son of an Ulster Unitarian minister, and John Martin, his comrade, was a stanch Presbyterian of "the Black North." He warned the House, in opposition to the hon. and learned Member for Derry, to beware of Ulstermen.

MR. P. J. SMYTH

said, that when complaints were made that Mr. Mitchel took leave of his jailors without due ceremony, it was obviously right that the House should understand the mode in which he was deprived of his liberty. Mr. Mitchel, in his early public life, was the ally of O'Connell in his legal and constitutional agitation for Repeal of the Union. When the potato failure occurred he took an active part in the deliberations of the Irish Council—a body composed of some of the leading landed proprietors of Ireland, whose object was to suggest to the Government practical measures to avert a terrible calamity. In 1848, believing the Government of the day had abandoned the people to their fate, he did preach the doctrine of rebellion, and thus forced the Executive to bring him to trial. But he (Mr. Smyth) contended that when he was put through the form of a trial, he should have received the reality of a trial, and the evidence adduced by the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. John Martin) proved conclusively that he had no trial according to law, and that, guilty or not guilty, he was unjustly convicted and sentenced to 14 years' transportation. In pursuance of that sentence he was conveyed first to Bermuda, then to the Capo of Good Hope, and finally delivered into the hands of the authorities of the then penal colony of Van Diemen's Land. When he (Mr. Smyth) arrived in that country, in 1853, he found each of his friends—the Irish State prisoners—in the possession of what was termed comparative liberty, within the limits of a particular district assigned him by the Government. By this arrangement the Government was relieved of the necessity of guarding these prisoners, which would have been a work of enormous difficulty, and of the cost of maintaining them, and the parole made each of them, practically, his own jailor. While the ordinary ticket-of-leave holder had the range of the whole island, and might settle in any district where he could best earn his bread, and escape altogether whenever he got the chance, the Irish prisoner was his own jailor, within a limited district, where he was left to maintain himself from his private resources. The conditions of the parole contract were that either party might terminate it at any moment; but that while it endured, the prisoner should have all the freedom of an independent settler within the district, and should not attempt to escape. It was the right—it was the duty of man, a prisoner, to seek liberty, and military annals furnished them with several instances where strict military parole had been evaded. But he knew of no instance where a military prisoner on parole of honour was subject to surveillance. Two instances he would mention illustrative of the spirit in which the parole contract was interpreted by the convict authorities. On one occasion, Mr. Mitchel, his wife, sons, Mr. Martin, and himself (Mr. Smyth), were spending the evening at the house of a gentleman in Bothwell—a magistrate of the island—their host happening to open the parlour door, found an armed constable outside, evidently listening to the conversation within. That constable was there as a detective—a spy on Mr. Mitchel, and this while Mr. Mitchel was, presumably, free on his parole. On another occasion he (Mr. Smyth) was arrested at Spring Bay, opposite Maria Island, in mistake for Mr. Mitchel, the police magistrate of the place and his constables assuming that Mr. Mitchel could only be there for the purpose of escaping, and this while Mr. Mitchel was on his parole not to escape. To break a parole was one thing—to resign it, and to do so openly was quite another; and it were well if public writers in this country—and even some hon. Members of that House—would note the difference. The only evidence before the House—if evidence at all it be—that Mr. Mitchel ever attempted to escape from any place, was contained in the letter of Mr. Davis, assistant police magistrate of Bothwell. It was written immediately after their unwelcome visit to his office, and the poor man was naturally anxious to excuse himself as best he could for having allowed the prisoner to slip through his fingers. Mr. Davis was not now living, and he (Mr. Smyth) passed over the insulting expression in which he closed what he presumed he might call his despatch; but injustice to Mr. Mitchel and to himself, be felt bound to say that his statement that he could not peruse Mr. Mitchel's note to the Governor was untrue. What occurred was precisely this—Mr. Mitchel handed a copy of his note of four lines, open, to Mr. Davis, saying—"This is a copy of a note which I have sent to the Governor, resigning my parole." Mr. Davis read the note, then looked much confused. "The purport of that note," repeated Mr. Mitchel, "is clear. It is a resignation of my parole, and I am free now to escape." He (Mr. Smyth) then said—"Mitchel, you have done your part, "and they turned and left the office, pursued by Mr. Davis, his clerk, and the office constables, shouting lustily. They reached their horses, and rode away furiously, as Mr. Davis said. Had Mr. Davis acted with ordinary energy, Mitchel would have been seized in the office, and a struggle would have ensued, in which the advantage in point of force would have been as two to one in favour of the magistrate. The plan thus executed had the approval of the late Mr. Smith O'Brien—for 20 years a respected and not undistinguished Member of that House—and of all Mr. Mitchel's companions. Throughout the Colony, where all the facts and circumstances connected with the escape were fully known and understood, its perfectly fair and honourable character had never been impugned. On the contrary, it was freely admitted on all sides, by the partisans as well as by the opponents of the Government of Sir William Denison, that Mr. Mitchel had given his magistrate a fair opportunity to arrest him, and that more he was not called upon to do. Three or four days after the occurrence, he (Mr. Smyth) appeared openly in Hobart Town, and no hand was laid upon him—a tacit admission that in the opinion of the Colonial Government the work was cleanly done, and that the blame rested rather on the shoulders of assistant police magistrate Davis, than on that of the person named Smyth. Before his arrival in Van Diemen's Land, Mr. Mitchel had no thought of escaping. The suggestion was his (Mr. Smyth's) the plan was his, the execution was partly his; and as, according to the Colonial Law, all the penalties of the escape attached to him, so before the House and the country he accepted all the moral responsibility of that act.

MR. JOHN MARTIN

said, that he was quite satisfied with the discussion of the subject which he had brought before the House, and he would therefore withdraw his Motion.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question again proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."