We need not here go through the sad details of their trials.  Our purpose is to bring before our readers the courage and the constancy of the martyrs to the cause of Irish nationality, and to record the words in which they gave expression to the patriotic sentiments that inspired them.  It is, however, to be recollected that many of the accused at these commissions—­men as earnest, as honest, and as devoted to the cause of their country as any that ever lived—­made no such addresses from the dock as we can include in this volume.  All men are not orators, and it will often occur that one who has been tried for life and liberty in a British court of law, on the evidence of spies and informers, will have much to press upon his mind, and many things more directly relevant to the trial than any profession of political faith would be, to say when called upon to show reason why sentence should not be passed upon him.  The evidence adduced in these cases is usually a compound of truth and falsehood.  Some of the untruths sworn to are simply blunders, resulting from the confused impressions and the defective memory of the witnesses, others are deliberate inventions, made, sworn to, backed up, and persevered in for the purpose of insuring a successful result for the prosecution.  Naturally the first impulse of the accused, when he is allowed to speak for himself, is to refer to these murderous falsehoods; and in the excitement and trouble of those critical moments, it is all that some men can venture to do.  Such criticisms of the prosecution are often valuable to the prisoner from a moral point of view, but rarely have they any influence upon the result of the trial.  All things considered, it must be allowed that they act best who do not forget to speak the words of patriotism, according to the measure of their abilities, before the judge’s fiat has sealed their lips, and the hand of British law has swept them away to the dungeon or the scaffold.

“Guilty” was the verdict returned by the jury against Bryan Dillon and John Lynch.  The evidence against them indeed was strong, but its chief strength lay in the swearing of an approver named Warner, a callous and unscrupulous wretch, from whose mind the idea of conscience seemed to have perished utterly.  If there was any check upon the testimony of this depraved creature, it existed only in some prudential instinct, suggesting to him that even in such cases as these a witness might possibly overdo his work, and perhaps in a caution or two given him in a private and confidential manner by some of the managers of the prosecution.  Warner’s evidence in this case was conclusive to the minds of all who chose to believe it; and therefore it was that those prisoners had not long been occupants of the dock when the question was put to them what they had to say why sentence should not be passed on them.  In reply Bryan Dillon said:—­