and ignoring your jurisdiction to try me at all, I submit, my lord, I have proved that the case against me was fabricated and based on perjury. I stand here now, my lord, a convicted felon, the victim of a slavish, cowardly, perjured, false band of informers. The CHIEF BARON. We can't allow you to indulge in observations of that kind; you must confine yourself to the questions as to why the sentence of the court should not be pronounced on you. The PRISONER. Corydon swore in his informations, my lord, that he knew me to be a State center of the Fenian organization in Massachusetts in the year 1865, and after that he swore on the stand-he heard probably from a certain source that I would comment on his evidence-and he altered it to 1863. In his information he swore that he met me at several Fenian meetings in the year '65, but he never attempted to repeat [Page of report No. 127. that on his direct evidence on the stand. He says that I was a captain in the year '61. That, my lord, I submit I will disprove also; but first allow me to refer your lordships to the peculiar position in which your law places me. I am an American citizen, and as such I owe allegiance to that government, and to none other. I am a soldier in the United States army; my leaning was always for the army; I have fought for America; I belong at present to her national militia, and in case of war to-morrow between these two countries, England and America, my position is in the army. What would be the consequence? Looked at in the light of the present trial, if your general took me in battle, what position would I be placed in? I am found guilty of high treason, and should be shot; and if taken on the high seas I could be strung up on the yard-arm. The American government has given me an engagement, a contract, that, if there was anything wrong in the course she followed by adopting me as a citizen, it was to be settled between the United States and the British government; and instead of settling this matter with me, if there are complaints against or injuries caused by the govern ment of the United States, it should be settled with that government, and not victimize me. The haste you showed in the matter when it was evident that the United States government were determined to settle the matter, and the haste you showed in bringing me to trial here, proves what the object of the Crown was. But although the spirit which will never bend will never be broken, I am almost blind, so as to be scarce able to see your lordship from where I stand, from the effects of the confinement to which not a human being but a wild beast should be subjected; and when your lordship will pass sentence on me, and remove me from the bastile in which I am at present to some other place, it is the greatest favor you can confer on me. Your law, I believe, my lord, claims even the sons of Irishmen, born in other states; but, strange to say, you don't seem disposed to interfere in that matter just now; you even claim the grandsons of Irishmen, for you claim as British subjects Andrew Johnson, our President, Secretary Seward, and Governor Fenton, of New York; and by your law General Washington, General Warren, and Benjamin Franklin lived and died British subjects, and you could hang the whole of them if convicted of high treason. My lord, though a very humble instrument when standing before you at this moment, my case, believe me, assumes a most remarkable and important size, and the present cases would form a great and momentous epoch in the history of these times. There is one point, my lord, to which I want to refer-I mean the manner in which my government has acted. The CHIEF BARON. I can't allow you to engage in a discussion on that matter; we have nothing to do with the conduct of that government; we have only to administer the law of this country. The PRISONER. I will only call your attention to one point. I wrote to the President of the United States, and I received a communication from Secretary Seward. The CHIEF BARON. I cannot allow you to make any statement with regard to any [Page of report No. 128.] communication with the government of the United States. I can't allow you to make any reference to anything done by any government. We have nothing to do with the conduct of any government; we have only to administer the law which we are sworn to administer here. The PRISONER. I was only going to state why the high officials of your governmentThe CHIEF BARON. I cannot allow you to enter into comments on the conduct of any official of any government. We have nothing to do with the conduct of officials even of our government. We are here to dispense justice according to law, and whatever officials of our government, or of the American government, may have done, cannot have the slightest effect on our judgment. It can neither affect us favorably or unfavorably as regards the prisoner, and it can neither affect us favorably or unfavora bly as regards the Crown. We stand indifferent as to both. We have only to administer, for either, or against either, according as it applies, the law of the land. The PRISONER. My lord, I ask no favor in the matter. I am ready for a full measure of sentence. I was going to state, my lord, that while neither your government nor the government of the United States had kept the promises which were made The CHIEF BARON. We cannot allow you to state what was promised by either our government or the government of the United States. I have told you already that we have nothing to do with the conduct of either government. The PRISONER. I will only call your attention to the correspondence that passed between your government and the government of the United States. The CHIEF BARON. That I cannot allow you to do; with it we have nothing to do here. The PRISONER. Then I must conclude, my lord. It is generally very hard to prevent me from saying what I have to say, and I am not aware that any one has succeeded in doing so up to the present, but your lordship has completely flanked me. My lord, I protest against the entire jurisdiction of this court. I have confidence in my government that they will see justice done to me, and that they will establish my right. The proposition of placing me in the position of the United States must stand or fall with the Constitution of the United States. If England is allowed to abuse me as she has done, and if America does not resent England's conduct towards me; if the only allegiance Í ever acknowledged is not to be vindicated, then thirteen millions of the sons of Ireland who have lived in happiness in the United States up to this will have become the slaves of England. The CHIEF BARON. I can't allow you to use your present position for an appeal to the sympathies of any person or party in America. The PRISONER. What can I refer to; will your lordship tell me? me to refer to Irish men; perhaps you will allow me to refer to Women. You will not allow and speak of Irish The CHIEF BARON. My business is to tell you what you can't refer to. You can't [Page of report No. 129.] refer to what may be the conduct or the acts of any government, or the acts of any people, whether in the United States or in this country. With them we have nothing to do. The PRISONER. I must state, in conclusion, repeating that I ignore the whole jurisdiction of this court either to indict, arraign, or convict me, and that the sentence which you will pronounce on me will be received under protest by me. I now, my lord, return your lordship my sincere thanks for your forbearance with me so far, while, at the same time, admitting that you have taken from me a privilege established by precedent, and that has been accorded to every political prisoner tried in this court for years past. Give me now, my lord, the full measure of sentence. I promise you I will live longer than the British constitution. (The prisoners, William Halpin and Augustine E. Costello, then severally addressed the court.) The chief baron then proceeded to pass sentence. He said: John Warren, William Halpin, and Augustine Costello, you have each of you been convicted of treason-felony. That crime consists of the design to depose the sovereign of this realm from her royal authority. The indictment charged each of you several acts as overt acts manifesting that design; and sufficient proof has been given in reference to those overt acts to warrant your conviction. The jury in each case having been directed by the court to consider it, with a view to ascertain whether there was any ground for a reasonable doubt, in each case came to the conclusion, without much doubt, of finding a verdict of guilty. In your addresses to the court you have endeavored, each, to comment upon the evidence on which the verdict was found against him; and we have felt it our duty to stop you in a rediscussion, upon the present occasion, of matters which belonged to a former stage of the proceedings, when the jury had to consider that evidence. You, John Warren and William Halpin, were not defended by counsel; but you certainly, each of you, in the efforts which you made with reference to your defense, brought out most of the points for the consideration of the jury that were material for that defense. I, during the progress of the trials, endeavored, as it was my duty to do, holding the scales of justice evenly between you and the Crown, but dealing with men who were undefended by counsel, to lay before the jury all the matters which, as it appeared to me, I possibly could, in fairness to both parties, urge on your behalf. My learned colleague did the same in the case of the prisoner who was defended by counsel, and who has justly and fairly acknowledged that he had done so. With all the consideration that could be given to the case of each of you in the course of a prolonged investigation, and with all the efforts that could be made to lay before the jury every fact that could be applied in your favor, each of your juries came to the conclusion of finding a verdict of guilty against you. And though, during your addresses, you have made several com[Page of report No. 130.] ments on the evidence, I do not believe there was one of them that was not presented by myself, or by my learned colleague, to the jury by whom you were respectively tried. We have now but one duty to perform. We must act on the verdicts of those juries; and I have the concurrence of my learned colleague for saying that we see no reason to cast the slightest shade of doubt of the propriety of those verdicts, arising from anything that appeared upon the evidence on which they were found. You have each of you addressed us some observations as to your positions as American citizens. At a former period of these trials, I had to remark on the state of the law upon that subject, both in this country and in America. I felt it my duty to bring the attention of two of you, and of the counsel engaged for the third, to what I shall now briefly state again, namely, that, according to the law of this country, he who is born under the allegiance to the British Crown cannot, by any act of his own, or by any act of any foreign country or government, be absolved from that allegiance. But I have also to observe, that some of the greatest legal authorities in America have laid down the same law as affecting not England only but America also. It may be a calamity to persons circumstanced as you were, that in accepting the privileges accorded by the government of another state you have done that which creates a conflict between two duties. You may have acquired all the privileges of American citizens. With these privileges no court in this country does or can interfere. Of whatever privileges you received there we cannot deprive you, if we would; and, for my part, I would not if I could, except so far as they conflict with the duties you owe to the sovereign of this realm. But while you may enjoy those privileges in America, yet when you come to this country, where your allegiance binds you by bonds from which you cannot be freed-here, in this country, you must be amenable to the laws which here prevail. And in America, and in the tribunals there, an American citizen, according to the authority of one of the greatest judges that ever graced the bench in that country, would be similarly dealt with under similar circumstances. The crime of which you have been found guilty would once have been treason in England. It has been mitigated to felony. But by an enactment of the law, which pervades every part of her Majesty's dominions, and under the doom of which you must come when you pass within the precincts of the dominions of the British Crown, by that law it is treason-felony, punishable by penal servitude, to compass the design of deposing the Queen, and to evidence that design by an overt act of the party accused. That is the crime of which you have been found guilty. With respect to you, John Warren and William Halpin, you stand under circumstances varying somewhat in details, but almost identical in substance and in character. On the 5th of March last, it is now established and proven in evidence in these trials, indeed it is a matter of public notoriety, that an insurrectionary movement took place, which amounted to an actual levying of war against the sovereign of this realm. You, William Halpin, came to this country-having been [Page of report No. 131.] previously in America, and having there served in the American army-you came to this country for the purpose of aiding in the organization of that insurrection. You were assisted by others in that project, both in America, before you came here, and here, after you arrived. You, John Warren, came to this country on an expedition to organize a similar insurrection, after the former one had failed, against the Queen's authority. In principle and character, the cases against both of you were the same. I have already, in addressing the grand jury, expressed what has been frequently expressed from this bench, and in other places, astonishment that such a project as this should be entertained by sane men. It is amazing to think that men of your period of life-men of mature age and with full capacity for reflection, with all the experience of war and its results-for each of you appears to have been engaged in that remarkable conflict one of the most remarkable of modern times-between the northern and southern States of America, in which millions were engaged, in which the party resisting the existing authority had numerous armies, accomplished generals, and all the material of modern warfare, and were yet worsted in the conflict-it is astonishing, I say, that notwithstanding all this, you could have entertained such a project as to organize an insurrectionary movement here for the purpose of shaking off the authority of the British Crown. I will not dwell upon the reasons which would show the utter fatuity of such a project, besides those derived from the total absence of all means of warfare, the nearness of this country to England, the presence of the most powerful navy in the world, and of a large and disciplined army within a few hours' distance, furnished with all the appliances of modern warfare. It would be absolutely impossible, if you succeeded for the hour, to maintain your success for a day. But astonishing as such a project was, it pales before the scheme of the Jackmel expedition, with a vessel of 115 or 120 tons burden, freighted with 40 men, and with, no doubt, a considerable number of armsone wooden vessel only-proceeding to make an inroad upon the coast of Sligo, in Ireland. Yet it was as much an invasion-it was as much what is termed by the Americans (who I believe first used the word) a fillibustering expedition, as if it were ten times as powerful, for the design and object were the same. And this was not only after the failure of the insurrectionary design and movement of the 5th of March last, but it was after a variety of trials in this country in which a number of persons were convicted and sentenced to severe penalties-trials which also preceded the transaction of March last. The law, for the violation of which this prosecution was instituted, is a law primarily applied for the protection of the sovereign and the maintenance of her authority, but it is also applied for the protection of the entire community over which the sovereign reigns, against the terrible calamities that would result from an insurrectionary movement of that character. It is not only the conflict that may take place, in which [Page of report No. 132.] one party must be worsted, and in which success would be hopeless; but it is the amount of confusion and disorder which, even if it be suppressed instantaneously, must follow from the attempt, and the sense of insecurity that would ensue these would in themselves constitute great calamities, far greater than mere public alarm. All the affairs of the country become disarranged; capital-that most sensitive of all sensitive things-shrinks from dangers of that kind, and the whole community feels the mischief. On that subject I will not, however, enlarge; I have done so before, and my brethren of the bench have likewise done so. I speak of it now for the purpose of showing that both of you, John Warren and William Halpin, have been engaged in precisely the same projects-the one to organize the insurrection of March last, and the other to organize a subsequent insurrection; that you both are guilty of not only the same offense in point of law, but of similar acts, and being guilty of similar acts, you must abide by the same doom. We have looked anxiously into the proceedings that took place both here and elsewhere with respect to former charges of a similar character, with the view, on the one hand, of awarding punishment adequate to the crime, and, on the other, of not inflicting punishment beyond the necessity of the occasion. We are of opinion, and I believe I speak the opinion of all our colleagues that have dealt with other cases of this kind, that what might by some be termed leniency would not be mercy; it would be cruelty-cruelty to those for whose protection the law is designed, and cruelty to those who may not have yet joined in projects of this character, and who might be tempted by too great leniency and by too light punishments to follow in your examples. In conformity with former sentences pronounced in this court for similar offenses, the sentence we feel we are now bound to award against you will withdraw you for a prolonged period from all that you hold dear in the world. Truly did your brother prisoner say it will be the immuring you in a living tomb. It is impossible for any one who has witnessed these trials not to feel regret, not for the punishment which is to be inflicted, since it is the necessary consequence of the crime, but that you should have merited that punishment by such acts as those that have been proved against you. We lament to see the amount of intelligence, which you certainly exhibited, so misapplied. We, however, can only deal out the punishment which the law imposes. It is our stern and imperative duty not to falter or waver in the administration of the law; and acting under the influence of the obligations which that duty imposes upon us, we feel wo cannot pronounce upon each of you, John Warren and William Halpin, a sentence less severe than that you be kept in penal servitude for a period of 15 years. The prisoner HALPIN. It may be 15 years more, my lord, if you like. I will take 15 years more for Ireland any day. The CHIEF BARON. Augustine Costello, we have looked with great anxiety into your case to find anything which would distinguish it from that of the others whom we have now sentenced. They were leaders in each of the proceedings. One assumed the rank [Page of report No. 133.] of general, the other assumed the rank of colonel. They came here with the intention of acting as leaders. You were in a subordinate capacity. You are a very young man, apparently of an excitable temper, and by that I do not mean in the least to disparage you. We have looked into papers found upon you, or traced to you, which we have had an opportunity of seeing-which, fortunately for you, give considerable insight into your character-into the nature of your mind, the course of your thoughts and affections, and a certain amount of cultivation which your letters and other compositions certainly exhibit. There are indications in those writings which lead us to believe that, however you may be impressed now with the views to which you have given utterance, further reflection will lead you to a better consideration of your position, and of the projects in which you have been engaged. We have, therefore, thought that we were at liberty, in your case, to pronounce a sentence of somewhat less severity. Still it must be a severe one, and it will too well correspond with your own description of your anticipated doom. The sentence of the court is that you be kept in penal servitude for a period of 12 years.. The prisoner WARREN. I would respectfully say, my lord, that I would not take a lease of this kingdom for 374 cents. The prisoners were then removed. No. 2114.] Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, SIR: Your dispatch of the 6th of December, No. 1489, has been received. I approve of the manner in which you have carried out the instructions in my 2087. At the same time, I observe with regret that Lord Stanley has not found it convenient to indicate any practical way of removing the difficulties thus brought to his notice. No. 1502.] LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, SIR: I have to acknowledge the reception from the department of dispatch No. 2106, of the 9th of December. It is with great satisfaction that I learn that the government is disposed to view my course in the case of the prisoner Gould, at Manchester, as founded on reasonably strong grounds. Subsequent events have only contributed to confirm me in my views of the propriety of it. The deplorable consequences of the attempt on the prison at Clerkenwell have contributed much to destroy all further sympathy here with persons capable of devising similar schemes. It would seem as impossible to place them within the category of a "meri torious political movement," alluded to in your dispatch, as it would have been with us to shield the incendiary who attempted to destroy the New York hotels, and still more the assassins of President Lincoln and yourself, under the same plea. Accordingly, these last were all executed by the decree of our tribunals. The united testimony of all Christian ages established a clear line of distinction between open war and clandestine attempts upon individual members of society. The effect of the one may be to bring about ultimate results of value to the world. That of the other is only to shake the foundations of confidence between man and man, so far as to unsettle society without effecting any public good whatever. It may be doubted whether at any time since the discovery of the scheme of Guy Fawkes there has been so much of panic spread among families throughout this community as at this time. The newspapers are filled with alarming reports, and with accounts of the measures of repression contemplated. The consequences may be serious, not so much to the perpetrators of these offenses as to multitudes of the very class which they are supposed to intend to befriend. I think it would now be very unsafe for Irishmen to attempt to hold a meeting for any pur pose in any great town in England. The government felt compelled to prohibit one which was called here for the declared purpose of disavow |