At length disastrous intelligence arrived; T. D. Reilly had returned to town disguised as a groom in charge of horses, and was about to fly to America as from a cause altogether lost. A few days later we learned that Doheny and MacManus were in the Galtee Mountains attempting to rally their followers there; that Meagher and Dillon were in Tipperary or Waterford, vainly striving to raise the country, and that Smith O'Brien had made an unsuccessful stand at Ballangarry. A little later he was arrested at Thurles, and all was over.
At that time I thought I had suffered the sorest calamity that fortune could inflict, but a worse remained behind. Authentic news came to us from without that many of the ignorant populace in Dublin whispered that Smith O'Brien had deliberately betrayed them to make a real insurrection impossible. The police were probably responsible for this invention; but Old Ireland prejudice welcomed it, and it was for a time successful. For the first and last time in my life I flung myself down in despair, and declared that such an insensate multitude could not be saved.
Immediately after O'Brien's arrest the trial of the prisoners in Newgate commenced. We were brought into court together, and I was first put forward to plead, when a junior counsel rushed breathlessly into court with instructions from the Castle for the Attorney-General. I was ordered to be put back, and my counsel, after a pause of bewilderment, learned that Lord Clarendon had determined to send me to trial for high treason with O'Brien and his associates, and I was sent back to Newgate. Mr. O'Doherty's trial immediately proceeded. An article in his own handwriting was the most dangerous fact in the case,[1] but no one would help the Crown to prove it. Mr. Butt insisted that it had not been brought home to the prisoner's knowledge, which was necessary to create the offence charged in the indictment, and his contention, strengthened by the youth and frankness
- ↑ The article most relied on was an offence against common sense rather than against "Our Lady the Queen." It was a weak and incoherent echo of the United Irishman. The writer disregarded a union of Repealers; he objected to any negotiations with the imbeciles and traitors of Burgh quay, and had no confidence in the proposed Irish League; the people were long and fully prepared for a struggle, and Meagher was invited to put himself at the head of the clubs and begin.—"Four Years of Irish History."
