“I have shown what the law is made of in Ireland.  I have shown that
   her Majesty’s government sustains itself in Ireland by packed juries,
   by partizan judges, by perjured sheriffs.”

Baron Lefroy interposed.  The court could not sit there to hear the prisoner arraign the jurors, the sheriffs, the courts, and the tenure by which Englands holds this country.  Again the prisoner spoke:—­

“I have acted all through this business, from the first, under a strong sense of duty.  I do not repent anything that I have done, and I believe that the course which I have opened is only commenced.  The Roman who saw his hand burning to ashes before the tyrant, promised that three hundred should follow out his enterprise.  Can I not promise for one, for two, for three, aye for hundreds?”

As he uttered these words, Mr. Mitchel looked proudly into the faces of the friends near him, and around the court.  His words and his glance were immediately responded to by an outburst of passionate voices from all parts of the building, exclaiming—­“For me! for me! promise for me, Mitchel! and for me!” And then came a clapping of hands and a stamping of feet, that sounded loud and sharp as a discharge of musketry, followed by a shout like a peal of thunder.  John Martin, Thomas Francis Meagher, and Devin Reilly, with other gentlemen who stood close by the dock, reached over it to grasp the hand of the new made felon.  The aspect of affairs looked alarming for a moment.  The policemen laid violent hands on the persons near them and pulled them about.  Mr. Meagher and Mr. Doheny were taken into custody.  Baron Lefroy, in a high state of excitement, cried out—­“Officer! remove Mr. Mitchel!” and then, with his brother judges, retired hurriedly from the bench.  The turnkeys who stood in the dock with Mr. Mitchel motioned to him that he was to move; he took a step or two down the little stairs under the flooring of the court-house, and his friends saw him no more.

He was led through the passages that communicated with the adjoining prison, and ushered into a dark and narrow cell, in which, however, his detention was of but a few hours’ duration:  At four o’clock in the evening of that day—­May 27th, 1848—­the prison van, escorted by a large force of mounted police and dragoons, with drawn sabres, drove up to the prison gate.  It was opened, and forth walked John Mitchel—­in fetters.  A heavy chain was attached to his right leg by a shackle at the ankle; the other end was to have been attached to the left leg, but as the jailors had not time to effect the connexion when the order came for the removal of the prisoner, they bade him take it in his hand, and it was in this plight, with a festoon of iron from his hand to his foot, he passed from the prison into the street—­repeating mayhap to his own heart, the words uttered by Wolfe Tone in circumstances not dissimilar:—­“For the cause which I have embraced, I feel prouder to wear these chains,