On the 19th of September he was put on his trial in the court-house, Green-street, charged with high treason.  He entered on no defence, beyond making a few remarks in the course of the proceedings with a view to the moral and political justification of his conduct.  The jury, without leaving their box, returned a verdict of guilty against him; after which, having been asked in due form why sentence of death should not be pronounced upon him, he delivered this memorable speech, every line of which is known and dear to the hearts of the Irish race:—­

“MY LORDS—­I am asked what have I to say why sentence of death should not be pronounced on me, according to law.  I have nothing to say that can alter your predetermination, nor that it will become me to say, with any view to the mitigation of that sentence which you are to pronounce, and I must abide by.  But I have that to say which interests me more than life, and which you have laboured to destroy.  I have much to say why my reputation should be rescued from the load of false accusation and calumny which has been cast upon it, I do not imagine that, seated where you are, your mind can be so free from prejudice as to receive the least impression from what I am going to utter.  I have no hopes that I can anchor my character in the breast of a court constituted and trammelled as this is.  I only wish, and that is the utmost that I expect, that your lordships may suffer it to float down your memories untainted by the foul breath of prejudice, until it finds some more hospitable harbour to shelter it from the storms by which it is buffetted.  Was I only to suffer death, after being adjudged guilty by your tribunal, I should bow in silence, and meet the fate that awaits me without a murmur; but the sentence of the law which delivers my body to the executioner will, through the ministry of the law, labour in its own vindication, to consign my character to obloquy; for there must be guilt somewhere, whether in the sentence of the court, or in the catastrophe, time must determine.  A man in my situation has not only to encounter the difficulties of fortune, and the force of power over minds which it has corrupted or subjugated, but the difficulties of established prejudice.  The man dies, but his memory lives.  That mine may not perish, that it may live in the respect of my countrymen, I seize upon this opportunity to vindicate myself from some of the charges alleged against me.  When my spirit shall be wafted to a more friendly port—­when my shade shall have joined the bands of those martyred heroes who have shed their blood on the scaffold and in the field in the defence of their country and of virtue, this is my hope—­I wish that my memory and name may animate those who survive me, while I look down with complacency on the destruction of that perfidious government which upholds its domination by blasphemy of the Most High—­which displays its power over man, as over the beasts of the forest—­which sets man upon his brother,