have drawn from every fact before my eyes.  In consequence, I was determined to employ all the powers which my individual efforts could move, in order to separate the two countries.  That Ireland was not able of herself to throw off the yoke, I knew; I therefore sought for aid wherever it was to be found.  In honourable poverty I rejected offers which, to a man in my circumstances, might be considered highly advantageous.  I remained faithful to what I thought the cause of my country, and sought in the French Republic an ally to rescue three millions of my countrymen from—­”

   The President here interrupted the prisoner, observing that this
   language was neither relevant to the charge, nor such as ought to be
   delivered in a public court.

   A Member said it seemed calculated only to inflame the minds of a
   certain description of people (the United Irishmen), many of whom
   might be present, and that the court could not suffer it.

The judge advocate said—­“If Mr. Tone meant this paper to be laid before his Excellency in way of extenuation, it must have quite a contrary effect, if the foregoing part was suffered to remain.”  The President wound up by calling on the prisoner to hesitate before proceeding further in the same strain.

Tone then continued—­“I believe there is nothing in what remains for me to say which can give any offence; I mean to express my feelings and gratitude towards the Catholic body, in whose cause I was engaged.”

President—­“That seems to have nothing to say to the charge against you, to which you are only to speak.  If you have anything to offer in defence or extenuation of the charge, the court will hear you, but they beg you will confine yourself to that subject.”

Tone—­“I shall, then, confine myself to some points relative to my connection with the French army.  Attached to no party in the French Republic—­without interest, without money, without intrigue—­the openness and integrity of my views raised me to a high and confidential rank in its armies.  I obtained the confidence of the Executive Directory, the approbation of my generals, and I will venture to add, the esteem and affection of my brave comrades.  When I review these circumstances, I feel a secret and internal consolation which no reverse of fortune, no sentence in the power of this court to inflict, can deprive me of, or weaken in any degree.  Under the flag of the French Republic I originally engaged with a view to save and liberate my own country.  For that purpose I have encountered the chances of war amongst strangers; for that purpose I repeatedly braved the terrors of the ocean, covered, as I knew it to be, with the triumphant fleets of that power which it was my glory and my duty to oppose.  I have sacrificed all my views in life; I have courted poverty; I have left a beloved wife unprotected, and