On Monday, November 27th, 1865, the state trials commenced before a Special Commission in the Courthouse, Green-street—­the scene of so many a previous grapple between British law and the spirit of Irish patriotism.  Mr. Justice Keogh and Mr. Justice Fitzgerald were the presiding judges.  There was a long list of prisoners to be tried.  James Stephens might have been honoured with the first place amongst them, were it not that two days previously, to the unspeakable horror and surprise of the government and all its friends, he had effected his escape, or rather, we might say, obtained, by the aid of friendly hands, his release from Richmond prison.  In his regretted absence, the crown commenced their proceedings by placing Thomas Clarke Luby in the dock to answer to a charge of treason-felony.

He stood up to the bar, between the jailors that clustered about him, a quiet-faced, pale, and somewhat sad-looking man, apparently of about forty years of age.  A glance around the court-house showed him but few friendly faces—­for, owing to the terrors felt by the judges, the crown prosecutors and other officials of the law, who dreaded the desperate resolves of armed conspirators, few were admitted into the building except policemen, detectives, and servants of the crown in one capacity or another.  In one of the galleries, however, he recognised his wife—­daughter of J. De Jean Fraser, one of the sweetest poets of the ’48 period—­with the wife of his fellow-prisoner, O’Donovan Rossa, and the sister of John O’Leary.  A brief smile of greeting passed between the party, and then all thoughts were concentrated on the stern business of the day.

There was no chance of escape for Thomas Clarke Luby or for his associates.  The crown had a plethora of evidence against them, acquired during the months and years when they appeared to be all but totally ignorant of the existence of the conspiracy.  They had the evidence of the approver, Nagle, who had been an employe of the Irish People office and a confidential agent of James Stephens up to the night of the arrests, but who during the previous eighteen months had been betraying every secret of theirs to the government.  They had the evidence of a whole army of detectives; but more crushing and fatal than all, they had that which was supplied by the immense store of documents captured at the Irish People office and the houses of some of the chief members of the conspiracy.  Of all those papers the most important was one found at the residence of Mr. Luby, in which James Stephens, being at the time about to visit America delegated his powers over the organization in Ireland, England, and Scotland to Thomas Clarke Luby, John O’Leary, and Charles J. Kickham.  This, which was referred to during the trials as the “executive document,” was worded as follows:—­