the benefits of English law, since they were forbidden to have any of their own; but their petitions were refused.  Gentlemen, this was English law as it stood towards the Irish people for centuries; and wonder, if you will, that the Irish people held it in “disesteem:—­[Footnote B:  On Mr. Sullivan’s first trial the solicitor-general, until stopped and corrected by the court, was suggesting to the jury that there was no such place as Knockrochery, and that a Fenian proclamation which had been published in the Weekly News as having been posted at that place, was, in fact, composed in Mr. Sullivan’s Office.  Mr. Justice Deasy, however, pointedly corrected and reproved this blunder on the part of Mr. Harrison.]

“The Irish were denied the right of bringing actions in any of the English courts in Ireland for trespasses to their lands, or for assaults or batteries to their persons.  Accordingly, it was answer enough to the action in such a case to say that the plaintiff was an Irishman, unless he could produce a special charter giving him the rights of an Englishman.  If he sought damage against an Englishman for turning him out of his land, for the seduction of his daughter Nora, or for the beating of his wife Devorgil, or for the driving off of his cattle, it was a good defence to say he was a mere Irishman.  And if an Englishman was indicted for manslaughter, if the man slain was an Irishman, he pleaded that the deceased was of the Irish nation, and that it was no felony to kill an Irishman.  For this, however, there was a fine of five marks payable to the king; but mostly they killed us for nothing.  If it happened that the man killed was a servant of an Englishman, he added to the plea of the deceased being an Irishman, that if the master should ever demand damages, he would be ready to satisfy him.”

That was the egg of English law in Ireland.  That was the seed—­that was the plant—­do you wonder if the tree is not now esteemed and loved?  If you poison a stream at its source, will you marvel if down through all its courses the deadly element is present?  Now trace from this, its birth, English law in Ireland—­trace down to this hour—­and examine when or where it ever set itself to a reconciliation with the Irish people.  Observe the plain relevancy of this to my case.  I, and men like me, are held accountable for bringing law into hatred and contempt in Ireland:  and in presenting this charge against me the solicitor-general appealed to history.  I retort the charge on my accusers; and I will trace down to our own day the relations of hostility which English law itself established between itself and the people of Ireland.  Gentlemen, for four hundred years—­down to 1607—­the Irish people had no existence in the eye of the law; or rather much worse, were viewed by it as “the King’s Irish enemie.”  But even within the Pale, how did it recommend itself to popular reverence and affection?  Ah, gentlemen,