of men.  One of these represented the law, another the gibbet in front of the gaol, and another was supposed to represent the Church militant.

Here the Chief Baron interposed; but the prisoner soon after reverted to the subject, and said that every opportunity was taken in that gaol to wrong and torture the men incarcerated there on political charges.  Every petty breach of discipline was availed of to punish them, by sending them down to work the crank, and reducing their scanty rations.  For the crime of not saluting Mr. Governor Price, they were placed upon a dietary of seven ounces of what was called brown bread and a pint of Anna Liffey, in the twenty-four hours.  Brown, indeed, the article was, but whether it deserved the name of bread, was quite another question.  The turf-mould taken from the Bog of Allen was the nearest resemblance to it that he could think of.  For his own part, he did not mean to complain of his rations—­he could take either rough or smooth as well as most men; but what he would complain of was, the system of petty insults and indignities offered by Mr. Price and his warders to men of finer feelings than their own, and whom they knew to be their superiors.  He concluded his address in the following terms:—­

I ask you if I have not thoroughly and sufficiently explained away the terror, if I may use the term, of these papers, which were taken from walls and other places, to be brought against me here.  I ask you, gentlemen, us reasonable men, if there be a shadow of a case against me?  I ask you if I have been connected by an untainted witness with any act, in America or Ireland, that would warrant you in deciding that I was guilty of the charge with which I stand accused?  Is there one single overt act proved against me; or have I violated any law for the violation of which I can be made amenable in this court?  I ask you if, in these letters which have been brought up against me—­one found in Thomas-street, another in the pocket of a fellow-prisoner—­there is anything that can affect me?  Recollect, gentlemen of the jury, that I speak to you now as men imbued with a spirit of justice.  I speak to you, gentlemen, believing that you are honest, recognising your intelligence, and confident that you will give in a verdict in accordance with the dictates of your conscience.  If you are the jury that the Attorney-General hopes you are, gentlemen of the jury, I am wasting time in speaking to you.  If you are, gentlemen, that jury which the Attorney-General hopes to make the stepping-stone to the bench—­for; gentlemen, I do not accuse the Attorney-General of wishing to prosecute me for the purpose of having me punished; I believe he is above any paltry consideration of that sort—­but, gentlemen, all men are influenced by one motive or another, and the Attorney-General, though he is the first law officer of the Crown in Ireland, is human like ourselves; he is not above all human frailty, but like other men, doubtless, likes office, and