friendly letter, and I might reasonably conclude that subsequent events had scarcely permitted me to vanish out of his memory. The panel contained this agreeable array of my peers and neighbours indifferently chosen:—
"The jeweller of the Lord- Lieutenant, the hairdresser of the Lord- Lieutenant, his Excellency's shoemaker, the chandler to the Chief Secretary, the bootmaker to the Commander of the Forces, the engineer to the Drainage Commissioners, the cutler, grocer, and purveyor to the Castle; the saddler and seedsman of a former Lord-Lieutenant, three Government contractors, a compositor in the College Printing Office, two vicars choral of St. Patrick's Cathedral, the auctioneer to the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, and the Consul of King Ernest of Hanover."
This model panel, which contained but twenty Catholics, who, by their position on it, were likely to be called upon before a jury was sworn, contained nevertheless eleven Englishmen or Scotchmen, and one Frenchman; and, though there were four thousand qualified persons from whom to select, it contained thirty jurors either challenged by the prisoner or set aside by the Crown on recent State trials.
There are critics, I make no doubt, who will consider these inquiries into the religion of jurors petty and sectarian; for is not a juror sworn to do his duty, whatever may be his creed? Quite so, but if the Stuarts had tried the seven bishops in Middlesex by a jury on which no Church of England Protestant was allowed to sit, or Balfour of Burleigh in Midlothian by a jury to which no Presbyterian was admitted, is it not reasonably probable that English history would have something to say on the subject?
These exposures made it discreditable and dangerous to array another jury on which there was no Catholic. A Catholic must be found, but the officials in the Sheriff's Office were confident they could find one who would do their work as submissively as an alderman of Skinner's Alley. Their choice fell on Martin Burke, the proprietor of an hotel frequented by the gentry, and a man long accustomed to consult their wishes. He was a Catholic by birth and practice, but he was what was called a prudent man—one who had never taken any part in Catholic agitation. I have described else-
