CHAPTER IX
STRUGGLE WITH LORD CLARENDON FOR LIFE AND LIBERTY
Malice of the Government Press—Letters of an Irish Priest—Official notice to the Attorney-General and to the Sheriff against jury-packing—The Brothers Moran—"Creed of the Nation" suppressed—Determined to baffle and defeat the State prosecution—Policy of my counsel—Trenchant address to the Lord-Lieutenant against jury-packing—His reply dissected by the Irish Priest—Letter to Richard Sheil—Letter to T. B. Macaulay—Martin Burke and Mrs. Martin Burke—John Martin's opinion of my defence—My refusal to sanction Father Mathew's Defence Fund—The Irishman started as a pseudo-Nation—Tranquillity in Newgate—Letter from John O'Hagan to John Dillon on the condition and prospects of Ireland in 1849—Isaac Butt's design to enter Parliament—Meet Lalor for the first time—His policy—His release from prison—Subsequent letter from him—Letter from William Fagan on the intentions of Lord Clarendon.
I was the last of the State prisoners; the others had been snatched away one after another like the companions of Ulysses, and my turn was at hand. The situation was aggravated by the policy of the Government officials and the Government Press. I was greatly moved by the brutality of the Solicitor-General at Clonmel, and the official Press assailed me every week, and many times in the week, misrepresenting my character and policy with deliberate malice. A single paragraph from a letter of "The Irish Priest"[1] will help the reader to understand what I had to endure. Speaking of the Evening Post, the organ of the Irish Government, he said:—
"Three times a week these foul and fetid jaws were opened to vomit forth such abominable slanders as modest men could sometimes hardly read without a blush, and timid men with-
- ↑ The Irish Priest was Dr. Murray, a Professor of Theology at Maynooth. I had known him since my residence in Belfast. He did not always approve of the policy of the Nation, but he never failed to be a loyal and steadfast personal friend. He was a powerful and accomplished writer, and a man of matchless civic courage.
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