Amongst all the human monsters who filled the ranks of the government informers in that dark and troubled period, not one appears to merit a deeper measure of infamy than Captain Warnesford Armstrong, the entrapper and betrayer of the Sheareses.  Having obtained an introduction to John, he represented himself as a zealous and hard-working member of the organization, and soon wormed himself completely into the confidence of his victims.  He paid daily visits to the house of the Sheareses in Baggot-street, chatted with their families, and fondled the children of Henry Sheares upon his knee.  We have it on his own testimony that each interview with the men whose confidence he was sharing was followed by a visit to the Castle.  We need not go through the sickening details of this vile story of treachery and fraud.  On the 21st of May the Sheareses were arrested and lodged in prison, and on the 12th of the following month Armstrong appeared against them in the witness-box.  The trial was continued through the night—­Toler, of infamous memory, who had been created Attorney-General expressly for the occasion, refusing Curran’s request for an adjournment; and it was eight o’clock in the morning of the 13th when the jury, who had been but seventeen minutes absent, returned into court with a verdict of guilty against both prisoners.

After a few hours’ adjournment the court re-assembled to pass sentence.  It was then that John Sheares, speaking in a firm tone, addressed the court as follows:—­

“My Lords—­I wish to offer a few words before sentence is pronounced, because there is a weight pressing on my heart much greater than that of the sentence which is to come from the court.  There has been, my lords, a weight pressing on my mind from the first moment I heard the indictment read upon which I was tried; but that weight has been more peculiarly pressing upon my heart when I found the accusation in the indictment enforced and supported upon the trial.  That weight would be left insupportable if it were not for this opportunity of discharging it; I shall feel it to be insupportable since a verdict of my country has stamped that evidence as well founded.  Do not think, my lords, that I am about to make a declaration against the verdict of the jury or the persons concerned with the trial; I am only about to call to your recollection a part of the charge at which my soul shudders, and if I had no opportunity of renouncing it before your lordships and this auditory, no courage would be sufficient to support me.  The accusation of which I speak, while I linger here yet a minute, is that of holding out to the people of Ireland a direction to give no quarter to the troops fighting for its defence!  My lords, let me say thus, that if there be any acquaintances in this crowded court—­I do not say my intimate friends, but acquaintances—­who do not know what I say is truth, I shall be reputed the wretch which I am not; I say if any acquaintance