In the latter part of 1866, when James Stephens was promising to bring off immediately the long-threatened insurrection, M’Afferty again crossed the ocean, and landed in England.  There he was mainly instrumental in planning and organizing that extraordinary movement, the raid on Chester, which took place on Monday, 11th of February, 1867.  It is now confessed, even by the British authorities themselves, that but for the timely intimation of the design given by the informer Corridon, M’Afferty and his party would probably have succeeded in capturing the old Castle, and seizing the large store of arms therein contained.  Finding their movements anticipated, the Fenian party left Chester as quietly as they had come, and the next that was heard of M’Afferty was his arrest, and that of his friend and companion John Flood, on the 23rd of February, in the harbour of Dublin, after they had got into a small boat from out of the collier “New Draper,” which had just arrived from Whitehaven.  M’Afferty was placed in the dock of Green-street court-house for trial on Wednesday, May 1st, while the jury were absent considering their verdict in the case of Burke and Doran.  On Monday, May the 6th, he was declared guilty by the jury.  On that day week a Court of Appeal, consisting of ten of the Irish judges, sat to consider some legal points raised by Mr. Butt in the course of the trial, the most important of which was the question whether the prisoner, who had been in custody since February 23rd, could be held legally responsible for the events of the Fenian rising which occurred on the night of the 5th of March.  Their lordships gave an almost unanimous judgment against the prisoner on Saturday, May 18th, and on the Monday following he was brought up for sentence, on which occasion, in response to the usual question, he spoke as follows:—­

“My lords—­I have nothing to say that can, at this advanced stage of the trial, ward off that sentence of death, for I might as well hurl my complaint (if I had one) at the orange trees of the sunny south, or the tall pine trees of the bleak north, as now to speak to the question why sentence of death should not be passed upon me according to the law of the land; but I do protest loudly against the injustice of that sentence.  I have been brought to trial upon a charge of high treason against the government of Great Britain, and guilt has been brought home to me upon the evidence of one witness, and that witness a perjured informer.  I deny distinctly that there have been two witnesses to prove the overt act of treason against me.  I deny distinctly that you have brought two independent witnesses to two overt acts.  There is but one witness to prove the overt act of treason against me.  I grant that there has been a cloud of circumstantial evidence to show my connection (if I may please to use that word) with the Irish people in their attempt for Irish independence, and I claim that as an American and as an alien, I have a reason and a right to sympathise