evidence, and that it was a calamity for any government,
to have to resort to the evidence of such a man.
I do not wish to say anything disrespectful to
this eourt, but I think I may say that if I stand
here as a convicted felon, the privilege should
be accorded to me that has been accorded to every other
person who stood here before me in a similar position.
There is a portion of the trial to which I particularly
wish to refer. That is, in reference to the
oath which it was stated the pilot was forced
to take on board the vessel. Much importance
was attached to this matter, and therefore I wish
to ask you and others in this court to look and
to inquire if there is any man here who could
suppose that I am scoundrel enough and ignorant
enough to take an ignorant man, put a pistol to
his face, and force him to take an oath I ask you,
in the first place, not to believe that I am such
a scoundrel, and in the second that I am not such
an idiot. If I were at this moment going
to my grave, I could say that I never saw that
man Gallagher till I saw him in Kilmainham prison.
These men, although they have been, day after
day, studying lessons under able masters, contradicted
each other on the trial, and have been perjuring
themselves. Gallagher, in his evidence, swore
that his first and second informations were false,
and that he knew them to be false. It is
contrary to all precedent to convict a man on
the evidence of a witness who admits that he swore
what was false. In America I have seen judges,
hundreds of times, sentencing men who were taken
off the table, put into the dock, and sent to
prison. In this case, this poor, ignorant
man was brought into Kilmainham gaol on the 1st
of July. He knew my name, heard it called several
times, knew of the act of which I was suspected,
and, on the 2nd of August he was taken away.
On the 12th of October he is brought back, and
out of a party of forty or fifty he identifies
only three. If that man came on board the vessel,
he did so in his ordinary capacity as a pilot.
He did his duty, got his pay, and left. His
subsequent evidence was additions. With respect
to the vessel, I submit that there was not a shadow
of evidence to prove that there was any intention
of a hostile landing, and that the evidence as
to the identity of the vessel would not stand
for a moment where either law or justice would
be regarded. Now, as to the Flying Dutchman which
it is said appeared on the coast of Sligo and on the
coast of Dungarvan, in Gallagher’s information
nothing is said about the dimensions of the vessel.
Neither length, breadth, or tonnage is given,
but in making his second information he revised
the first.
The prisoner then proceeded to argue that there was nothing to show that the vessel which had appeared in Sligo harbour was the same with that which had appeared off Dungarvan, except the testimony of the informer, Buckley, of which there was no corroboration. He also denied the truth of Corydon’s evidence, in several particulars, and then went on to say—