CHIEF BARON--You are not permitted to make any observation
upon what any government of any country may do.
HALPIN--I think the reference has not anything to do with any
government or any country. It refers to a fact that will
come to pass, and when I shall hear the death-knell of this
infamous government.
The CHIEF BARON--I will not allow you to proceed.
HALPIN--Well, I cannot be prevented thinking it. Now, I will
refer to a subject which I may be allowed to speak upon. You
will recollect that I had addressed a letter to Mr. Price,
asking him to furnish me, at my own expense, with two of the
morning papers--the _Irish Times_ and _Freeman's Journal_. I
believe they are both loyal papers; at least they claim to be
loyal, and I have no doubt they are of the admitted character
of loyalty registered in the principles of Dublin Castle. The
reason why I wanted these papers was, that I believed that
the best reports of the trials since the opening of the
Commission, would be found in them. I said to Mr. Price that
it was important that I should see all the evidence given by
the informers who were to be produced against me, to enable me
to make up my defence. I was denied, even at my own expense,
to be furnished with these papers, and that I complain of as
a wanton outrage. Perhaps Mr. Price was governed by some rule
of Kilmainham, for it appears that the rules of Kilmainham
are often as far outside the law of the country as I have been
said to be by the Attorney-General. In fact, Mr. Price stated
when giving his testimony, that he was not governed by any law
or rule, but that he was governed solely and entirely by his
own imperial will.
CHIEF BARON--That I cannot allow to be said without at once
setting it right. Mr. Price said no such thing. He said that
with respect to one particular matter--namely, the reading of
prisoners' correspondence, he was bound to exercise his own
discretion as to what he would send out of the gaol, and what
he would hold. This is the only matter in which Mr. Price said
he would exercise his own discretion.
PRISONER.--I think, my lord, you will allow your memory to go
back to the cross-examination of Mr. Price, and you will find
that when I asked him by what authority he gave the letters he
suppressed into the hands of the Crown to be produced here,
he stated he had no other authority than his own will for so
doing.
CHIEF BARON--You are quite right with respect to the
correspondence.
PRISONER--I say he violated the law of the land in so doing,
and I claim that he had no right to use those letters written
by me in my private capacity to friends in America, asking
for advice and assistance, and the very first letter
that he read was a letter written to a man named Byrne.
That, you may recollect, was put into the hands of the
Attorney-General--kept by him for four months. That was the
first intimation I had of its suppression or of its production
here by the Crown. Now, the letter was addressed to a friend
in New York, asking him to look after my trunk, which had been
taken away without my consent by the captain of the vessel in
which I was arrested. Mr. Price never told me he suppressed
that letter, and I was three months waiting for a reply,
which, of course, I did not receive, as the letter never went.
Mr. Price suppressed another letter yesterday. It was written
to a friend of mine in Washington, in relation to my trial and
conviction, and asking him to present my case to the President
of the United States, detailing the case as it proceeded in
this court. Mr. Price thought proper to suppress that letter,
and I ask that he be compelled to produce it, so that, if your
lordships think fit, it may be read in court.
THE CHIEF BARON--I cannot do that. I cannot have a letter of
that character read in open court.
HALPIN--Am I entitled to get the letter to have it destroyed,
or is Price to have it, to do with it as he pleases?
THE CHIEF BARON--I can make no order in the matter.
HALPIN--Then Price is something like Robinson Crusoe--"Monarch
of all he surveys;" monarch of Kilmainham; and when I ask if
he is to be controlled, I find there is no law to govern him.
THE CHIEF BABON--you have now no property in these letters,
being a convict.
THE PRISONER--I will very soon be told I have no property in
myself. I claim to have been arrested on the high seas, and
there was then no case against me, and the Crown had to wait
four months to pick up papers and get men from Stepaside, and
arrange plans between Mr. Price and his warders to fill up any
gap that might be wanted. I was arrested out of the _habeas
corpus_ jurisdiction, without authority, and detained four
months in gaol until the Crown could trump up a case against
me. Have I not a right to complain that I should be consigned
to a dungeon for life in consequence of a trumped-up case? I
am satisfied that your lordships have stated the case as it
stands, but I am not satisfied that I have been convicted
under any law. I have been four months in durance vile, and
vile durance it has been. The preachers tell us that hell is a
very bad place, and the devil a very bad boy, but he could not
hold a candle to old Price.
THE CHIEF BARON--You are trespassing very much upon a very
large indulgence. I must adopt a more decisive course if you
persevere.
HALPIN (laughing)--Well, my lord, I will say no more about the
old gorilla. The Crown officers have laid much stress upon
the fact that I have travelled under different names, and
therefore I was guilty of a great crime. I have precedent for
it when I read in the papers that some continental monarchs
travel under an assumed name, and I hear that the Prince of
Wales does so also when he thinks proper to go the London
brothels.
At this point the Court cut short his address, and Chief Baron Pigot
proceeded to pass sentence on the three prisoners.
* * * * *