to administer the criminal law of the country—­each of whom, in fact, in his individuality does so administer it unchallenged and unquestioned.

“A sentence under such circumstances, be it for a long period or a short would be wanting in the element of moral effect—­the effect of example—­which could alone give it value, and which is professedly the aim of all legal punishment.  A sentence under such circumstances would be far from reassuring to the public mind as to the ‘certainties’ of the law, and would fail to commend the approval or win the respect of any man ‘within the realm or without.’  While to the prisoner, to the sufferer in chief, it would only bring the bitter, and certainly not the repentant feeling that he suffered in the wrong—­that he was the victim of an injustice based on an inference which not even the tyrant’s plea of necessity can sustain—­namely, that at a particular time he was at a distance of three thousand miles from the place where he then actually stood in bodily presence, and that at that distance he actually thought the thoughts and acted the acts of men unknown to him even by name.  It will bring to the prisoner, I repeat, the feeling—­the bitter feeling—­that he was condemned on an unindicted charge pressed suddenly into the service, and for a constructive crime which some of the best authorities in the law have declared not to be a crime cognizable in any of your courts.

“Let the crown put forward any supposition they please—­indulge in what special pleadings they will—­sugar over the bitter pill of constructive conspiracy as they can—­to this complexion must come the triangular injustice of this case—­the illegal and unconstitutional kidnapping in England—­the unfair and invalid trial and conviction in Ireland for the alleged offence in another hemisphere and under mother sovereignty.  My lords, I have done.”

* * * * *

CAPTAIN JOHN M’CLURE.

Captain John M’Clure, like Captain M’Afferty, was an American born, but of Irish parentage.  He was born at Dobb’s Ferry, twenty-two miles from New York, on July 17th, 1846, and he was therefore a mere youth when, serving with distinguished gallantry in the Federal ranks, he attained the rank of captain.  He took part in the Fenian rising of the 5th March, and was prominently concerned in the attack and capture of Knockadoon coast-guard station.  He and his companion, Edward Kelly, were captured by a military party at Kilclooney Wood, on March 31st, after a smart skirmish, in which their compatriot the heroic and saintly Peter Crowley lost his life.  His trial took place before the Special Commission at Cork, on May 22nd and 23rd, 1807.  The following are the spirited and eloquent terms in which he addressed the court previous to sentence being pronounced on him:—­