will say, with all respect, that I feel the utmost indifference to it.  I do so for this reason—­I am now in that position that I must rely entirely upon the goodness of God, and I feel confident that He will so dispose events that I will not remain a prisoner so long as your lordship may be pleased to decree.  The jury having now found me guilty, it only remains for your lordship to give effect to their verdict.  The eloquence, the ability, the clear reasoning, and the really splendid arguments of my counsel failed, as I knew they would, to affect the jury.  I feel, therefore, that with my poor talents it would be utterly vain and useless for me to attempt to stay the sentence which it now becomes your lordship’s duty to pronounce.  I believe, my lord, from what I have seen of your lordship, and what I have heard of you, it will be to you a painful duty to inflict that sentence upon me.  To one clinging so much to the world and its joys—­to its fond ties and pleasant associations, as I naturally do, retirement into banishment is seldom—­very seldom—­welcome.  Of that, however, I do not complain.  But to any man whose heart glows with the warmest impulses and the most intense love of freedom; strongly attached to kind friends, affectionate parents, loving brother and sisters, and a devotedly fond and loving wife, the contemplation of a long period of imprisonment must appear most terrible and appalling.  To me, however, viewing it from a purely personal point of view, and considering the cause for which I am about to suffer, far from being dismayed—­far from its discouraging me—­it proves to me rather a source of joy and comfort.  True, it is a position not to be sought—­not to be looked for—­it is one which, for many, very many reasons there is no occasion for me now to explain, maybe thought to involve disgrace or discredit.  But, so far from viewing it in that light, I do not shrink from it, but accept it readily, feeling proud and glad that it affords me an opportunity of proving the sincerity of those soul-elevating principles of freedom which a good old patriotic father instilled into my mind from my earliest years, and which I still entertain with a strong love, whose fervour and intensity are second only to the sacred homage which we owe to God.  If, having lost that freedom, I am to be deprived of all those blessings—­those glad and joyous years I should have spent amongst loving friends—­I shall not complain, I shall not murmur, but with calm resignation and cheerful expectation, I shall joyfully submit to God’s blessed will, feeling confident that He will open the strongly locked and barred doors of British prisons.  Till that glad time arrives, it is consolation and reward enough for me to know that I have the fervent prayers, the sympathy and loving blessings of Ireland’s truly noble and generous people, and far easier, more soothing and more comforting to me will it be to go back to my cheerless cell, than it would be to live in slavish ease and luxury—­a