“My lords, it is not my intention to enter into any vindication of my conduct, however much I might have desired to avail myself of this opportunity of so doing.  I am perfectly satisfied with the consciousness that I have performed my duty to my country—­that I have done only that which, in my opinion, it was the duty of every Irishman to have done; and I am now prepared to abide the consequences of having performed my duty to my native land.  Proceed with your sentence.”

A deep murmur, followed by a burst of applause filled the court as the noble patriot ceased speaking.  Stepping back a pace, and folding his arms on his breast, O’Brien looked fixedly at the judge, and awaited the sentence of the court.  Amidst the deepest sensation, Chief Justice Blackburne proceeded to discharge his task.  O’Brien was sentenced to be hanged, beheaded, and quartered.  “During the delivery of the sentence,” says a writer of the period, “the most profound agitation pervaded in the court; as it drew towards the close, the excitement became more marked and intense; but when the last barbarous provisions of the sentence were pronounced, the public feeling could only manifest itself by stifled sobs and broken murmurs of sympathy for the heroic man, who, alone, was unmoved during this awful scene, whose lips alone did not quiver, whose hand alone did not tremble, but whose heart beat with the calm pulsation of conscious guiltlessness and unsullied honour.”

Nine months later (July 29th, 1849), the brig “Swift” sailed from Kingstown harbour, bearing O’Brien, Meagher, M’Manus, and O’Donoghue into exile.  In the month of November the vessel reached Hobart Town, where “tickets of leave” were offered to those gentlemen on condition of their residing each one within a certain district marked out for him, and giving their parole to make no attempt at escape while in possession of the ticket.  Messrs. Meagher, M’Manus, and O’Donoghue accepted these terms; Mr. O’Brien refused them, and was consequently sent to an island off the coast called Maria Island, where he was placed in strict custody and treated with great severity.  The news of the indignities and the sufferings to which he was subjected, outraged the feelings of the Irish people in the neighbouring country, and ere long his sympathisers in Tasmania laid a plan for his escape.  They hired a vessel to lie off the coast on a particular day, and send a boat on shore to take off the prisoner, who had been informed of the plot, and had arranged to be in waiting for his deliverers.  This design would unquestionably have succeeded but for the treachery of the captain of the ship, who, before sailing to the appointed spot, had given the government information of the intended escape and the manner of it.  What occurred on the arrival of the vessel we shall relate in the words of Mr. Mitchel, who tells the story in his “Jail Journal” as he heard it from Mr. O’Brien himself: