HALPIN—­I am not making any appeal to any man.  Although I was found guilty by a jury of this court I deem my conduct above reproach.  I know how I have been convicted, and will still assert that the first gun fired in anger between this country and America will be a knell of comfort to my ears.

    THE CHIEF BARON—­I will be compelled to remove you from where
    you are now if you proceed with this line of observation.

    HALPIN—­Well, then, if I am not permitted to say that,—­

    CHIEF BARON—­You are not permitted to make any observation
    upon what any government of any country may do.

HALPIN—­I think the reference has not anything to do with any government or any country.  It refers to a fact that will come to pass, and when I shall hear the death-knell of this infamous government.

    The CHIEF BARON—­I will not allow you to proceed.

HALPIN—­Well, I cannot be prevented thinking it.  Now, I will refer to a subject which I may be allowed to speak upon.  You will recollect that I had addressed a letter to Mr. Price, asking him to furnish me, at my own expense, with two of the morning papers—­the Irish Times and Freeman’s Journal.  I believe they are both loyal papers; at least they claim to be loyal, and I have no doubt they are of the admitted character of loyalty registered in the principles of Dublin Castle.  The reason why I wanted these papers was, that I believed that the best reports of the trials since the opening of the Commission, would be found in them.  I said to Mr. Price that it was important that I should see all the evidence given by the informers who were to be produced against me, to enable me to make up my defence.  I was denied, even at my own expense, to be furnished with these papers, and that I complain of as a wanton outrage.  Perhaps Mr. Price was governed by some rule of Kilmainham, for it appears that the rules of Kilmainham are often as far outside the law of the country as I have been said to be by the Attorney-General.  In fact, Mr. Price stated when giving his testimony, that he was not governed by any law or rule, but that he was governed solely and entirely by his own imperial will.

CHIEF BARON—­That I cannot allow to be said without at once setting it right.  Mr. Price said no such thing.  He said that with respect to one particular matter—­namely, the reading of prisoners’ correspondence, he was bound to exercise his own discretion as to what he would send out of the gaol, and what he would hold.  This is the only matter in which Mr. Price said he would exercise his own discretion.

PRISONER.—­I think, my lord, you will allow your memory to go back to the cross-examination of Mr. Price, and you will find that when I asked him by what authority he gave the letters he suppressed into the hands of the Crown to be produced here, he stated he had no other authority than his own will for so doing.

    CHIEF BARON—­You are quite right with respect to the
    correspondence.