Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs, Accompanying the Annual Message of the President to the Second Session of the Fortieth Congress
Mr. Adams to Mr. Seward
Sir: I Have to acknowledge the reception this morning of despatch No. 2074, of the 15th instant, from the department, on the cases of Colonel Nagle and Captain Warren.
Although I have instructed Mr. West to transmit to you from Dublin the published reports of the trial, I venture, for farther security, to send herewith a copy of the Dublin Evening Mail, containing a report of the charge of the lord chief baron to the jury at the opening
I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.
This day.–Commission of oyer and terminer.
The commission of oyer and terminer for the county and city of Dublin was opened this morning, before the lord mayor, the lord chief baron, and Mr. Justice Morris.
The Fenian prisoners, thirty-one in number, were conveyed from Kilmainham jail in two prison vans, under escort of a detachment of the metropolitan cavalry police and a troop of the 12th lancers. No demonstration took place along the route.
The court-house, Green street, was much crowded, but no inconvenience arose, in consequence of the excellent police arrangements made by Mr. Superintendent Hawe.
The attorney general, the solicitor general, Mr. Longfield, Q. C, Mr. James Murphy, Q. C, and Mr. Robert H. Owenes, Q. C, instructed by Mr. Anderson, Crown solicitor, appeared to prosecute in Fenian cases.
Messrs. Heron, Q. C, Dowse, Q. C, and Constantine Molloy, instructed by Mr. John Lawless, were of counsel for the prisoners General Nagle and Colonel Warren, whose defence it is stated will be conducted at the expense of the American government.
Mr. Scallan, solicitor, attended on behalf of the Dungarvan prisoners.
Their lordships took their seats on the bench at a quarter past eleven o’clock.
The crier having made the usual proclamation, Mr. Smart, deputy clerk of the Crown, called over the grand panel, when the following gentlemen were sworn on the respective grand juries:
City: William Graham, (foreman,) William Longfield, Andrew W. Ferguson, Robert Long, John De Burgh Morris, John Judkin Butler, Bernard Cannon, James Malins, Samuel W. Tyndall, Thomas French Williamson, Edward O’Conner, Caleb Palmer, Thomas Ord, George Morrow, Edward Leachman, Patrick Langan Nicholas Tallon, John McMahon, Charles Hely, William McGuire, Joseph R. Kirk, William McDowell, and Andrew Joseph Nowlan.
County: Alexander Terrier, (foreman,) Edward Walpole, Ashley La Touche, John Richardson, John Chambers, Henry Peile, John Malins, David Alexander, Frank Barrington, Hugh Browne, Robert Close, Trevor Hamilton, Richard Salter, William Reynolds, Daniel Sullivan, George O’Neil, John Fry, Joseph Johnstone, Charles D. Ingham, James Gillker, Charles Goodwin, James Whyte, and George Lynch.
The lord chief baron, addressing the city grand jury, enumerated the various items of the calendar, and observed that they were all offences of an ordinary character, and such as might be expected to occur from time to time in a large population like that of the city of Dublin. There was only one exception, and that was a case in which a person was charged with what was called Fenianism. With the particulars of that case he was unacquainted, but as he would have to address some observations to the county grand jury, he would request their attention to them. Having given the usual instructions as to the duty of a grand jury in respect to the finding of bills, the lord chief baron turned to the county grand jury and said that the ordinary offences appearing on the calendar were not more numerous than might be expected. There were, however, several cases of what was called treason-felony, an offence created by a statute passed in the year 1848, for the purpose of mitigating the law of high treason in certain cases, and reducing it from a capital offence to a felony punishable by transportation or imprisonment. Shortly after the passing of that act of Parliament, on one of the first occasions on which it became necessary to resort to a court of justice for the vindication of the law, it fell to his lot to make an exposition of the statute to a grand jury sitting in that box. Unfortunately, since then, and within the first two years, the enactment had been the subject of exposition from the bench, and in several instances from the bench he now occupied. The law was so defined, in terms so free from all ambiguity, that at this moment, and after the experience that had been had in courts of justice since he had so addressed the grand jury, he did not think it necessary to refer to the former state of the law, or to the general scope of the amending statute. By the third section of the treason-felony statute, it was provided that if any person whatever, after the passing of the act, should, within the United Kingdom or without, compass, imagine, invent, devise, or intend to deprive or depose our most gracious Queen from the style, title, dignity, or royal name of the imperial Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, or of any other of the dominions owing obeisance to her Majesty, or should compass, imagine, invent, devise, or intend to levy war against her Majesty by force or constraint to compel her to change her counsels, or overawe both or either house of Parliament, or to move or stir any foreigner or stranger by force to invade the United Kingdom or any other of her Majesiy’s dominions, and such compassing, imagination, device or intention should express, utter, or declare by publishing any printing or writing, or by opened and advised speaking, or by any overt act or deed, every such person so offending shall be guilty of treason-felony, and shall be liable to be transported for the term of his natural life, or for any period not less than seven years, or be imprisoned for a period not more than two years. The punishment of transportation having been superseded by penal servitude, the penalty, instead of seven years’ transportation, was now five years’ penal servitude. They would observe that the offence was the com- [Page 163] passing, imagining, devising, or intending to deprive or depose the Queen from the Crown of Great Britain and Ireland, and this was the portion of the statute which became material for their consideration. The compassing, imagination, device or intention was to be proved by one of three things: by publishing any printing or writing; by open or advised speaking—but this no longer existed, for the act in respect of it expired in two years; or by the doing of overt or open acts. Two things were required: in the first place the party must compass or design the object stated by the legislature to deprive or depose the Queen from the style, dignity, honor, and royal name of the imperial Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; and secondly, it was essential that the compass and design should be expressed by an overt act or deed. It was essential for the protection of the whole people, for the maintenance of good order and good government, and the security of life and property, that the monarch should be safe in the possession of his royal authority, and therefore the compassing or devising anything that affected his royal authority, either under the law of treason, by affecting his life or person, or under this statute, by affecting his power, was an offence punishable by severe penalties. But while the law was for the protection of the monarch and the people, it was essential, in order that no man should be unjustly convicted, that certain requirements of that law should be complied with. Accordingly it was enacted that the compassing, design, and so forth, should be proved by some overt act on the part of the person accused. Now, the overt or open acts by which he might declare the purpose of his mind were as various as the contrivances of mankind to reach the objects they might have in view. They were not and could not be defined by the law a priori, and could only be stated when judges and juries came to consider them. As their good sense would suggest, if a man conspired with another to effect a certain object, nothing could be plainer than that the object for which he conspired was the object which he designed. In this instance it was charged that the conspiracy which these men entered into had, for its design, the deprivation or deposition of the Queen, and in order to establish this proposition it was alleged that they combined together to establish an Irish republic. As an Irish republic and the Queen’s government in Ireland could not coexist, it was plain that any person who conspired to establish a republic intended to depose the Queen, and if this was proved it was an overt act of treason going to sustain the indictment which would be submitted to the grand jury. Again, a variety of means might be made the subject of planning and conspiring to effect these objects. If there were a confederacy existing in America; if there were a confederacy existing in Ireland; if these confederacies be for one and the same object; and if, in fact, they constituted one and the same confederacy, comprising various persons, more or less numerous, some of them in America, some of them in Ireland, some of them in England, and some on the high seas, all engaged in the one common design of effecting the establishment of a republic in Ireland, each of them, by the fact of membership in the confederacy, did an act which testified a design to do that which was the object of the confederacy. But mankind could not do these things without taking means for their accomplishment; and if it formed a portion of the means devised and planned for the carrying out of the object of the confederacy to import arms into Ireland for the purpose of being used in the establishment of a republic, to come in more or less numbers to Ireland for the attainment of that object, to induce others to associate with them for the purpose of making war and invading this country with the view of raising an insurrection, to put arms into the hands of people here, to meet in council or in public assembly for the purpose of enlarging their own numbers or increasing the energy of their associates, or encouraging them by precept or example, acts of that kind would be overt acts or deeds indicating a design or purpose to depose the Queen. There were several overt acts charged in the indictment, and it would be for the grand jury to say whether or not they prima facie amounted to proof of the existence of the design alluded to in the act of Parliament. Having referred to the law bearing on the liability of every member of a conspiracy for the acts of his co-conspirators, his lordship instructed the grand jury as to the proof they should require of the alleged overt acts, and told them that where the offence charged was one so grievous as that of an attempt to overthrow the established government of the country, they were in point of law to give the cases not alone a careful but such a charitable consideration as was consistent with common sense. It was impossible to consider such charges brought before a court of justice without some feelings of amazement that such designs could be entertained by reasoning men, still more that they should be charged to-day against men of education, still more that they should be charged against men of military habits and military knowledge. This country was united to England, one of the most powerful states in the world. England had at its disposal a vast navy and a large army. It was a nation thoroughly organized with magistracy, with police, with troops, with commanders, with a steam navy calculated to convey, in the course of a few hours, almost any amount of troops across the small channel that divides the two islands. In Ireland itself there existed a population, he believed—and he was sure they who knew what was passing around them did so too—the enormous majority of which were perfectly free from all sympathy with the confederacy. There was hardly an interest that could exist in a civilized community, the interest of property or life, that was not arrayed against the designs of the conspirators. They in every town in Ireland were engaged, and largely engaged in trade, and upon them the agricultural population almost depended for its existence, for they all know that the largest portion of the transactions [Page 164] of the country took place between the inhabitants of the towns and those of the country districts. The interests of the agricultural population were consequently bound up with those of the trading classes, for whom a state of tranquility was a matter of essential importance. Nay, more. In the complicated society in which we exist credit is absolutely essential in carrying on the ordinary transactions of life, and in view of an insurrectionary movement having for its object the levelling of the government of the country, and calculated to diffuse confusion and disorder, credit shrank and disappeared. The Fenian conspiracy has imperilled the existence of order in the country, and induced confusion, which must have a most baneful effect upon trade and commerce. The experience of the past had proved how entirely free from all participation in schemes of this kind were the great mass of the inhabitants of Ireland. The country itself, from circumstances which could not be referred to from that bench, was divided in opinion, and therefore to obtain united co-operation for such a design as this was one of those wild dreams which sane men could scarcely entertain.
Again, it was well known that the island was not fortified, and consequently was not ten-able by an invading force for any time. When it was alleged that persons should organize a scheme of this kind without a navy, without an army, without arms, without artillery, and without any settled organization or unanimity among the people themselves, and intend to sever the connection between England and Ireland, and throw off the authority of the Crown of Great Britain, and do this in the face of the whole force, military and naval and social, that England would bring against them, constituted another illustration of the old adage, “Truth is more wonderful than fiction.”
In making these observations to them, which he did in the same spirit in which similar observations had been urged by those in whom all classes should have confidence, the grand jury would understand him as telling them that they were in no way to be considered as affecting the interests of the persons charged here, and whose cases they would now proceed to inquire into. After some further observations the grand jury retired to consider the bills submitted to them.
FINDING OF TRUE BILLS.
The grand jury found true bills for treason-felony against the following prisoners: John Warren, William Nagle, Octave Fariola, Augustine Costello, William Halpin, Patrick Nugent, John Fitzimmons, Frederick Fitzgibbon, and John Cade, the alleged Fenian prisoners.
Octave Fariola having been placed at the bar, Mr. Lawless handed in an affidavit to the court, which was sworn “to by the prisoner, upon which to ground an application for a postponement of the trial.
The attorney general stated that more than two months ago the prisoner had been informed that the application could not be complied with on the part of the Crown.
Mr. Lawless said that he had been away out of the country, and that the prisoner had no means of communicating with him until his return.
The chief baron suggested that the matter should stand until Monday. In the mean time the attorney general could consider what course he would adopt.
The suggestion of his lordship was complied with.
The attorney general then proposed that William Halpin should be put forward.
This was accordingly done.
The chief baron asked if the prisoner was represented by counsel.
It not appearing that he was, the chief baron suggested that some prisoner who was represented should be put forward.
The attorney general said he wanted to see what course the prisoner would take.
The chief baron thought it would be better to let the prisoner stand back until Monday.
The attorney general said he would ask his lordship to tell the prisoner to be ready for his trial on that day.
The Prisoner. I am ready now; any time at all.
Mr. Heron. I understand that the prisoners for whom I am concerned will not be arraigned until Monday.
The chief baron said that it was proposed to arraign them now. If any question arose on the arraignment, he would let it stand until Monday, when Mr. Justice Keogh, whose term it was at commission, would be in attendance.
Mr. Heron was of opinion that a question would arise. He would, therefore, ask that the prisoners for whom he and Mr. Dowse were concerned should not be arraigned until that day.
The Attorney General. That does not apply to the prisoner at the bar.
The chief baron thought that, as the prisoner was inops consilii, the same rule ought to apply.
The attorney general said he had better state in court that he proposed to try the prisoner on Monday morning.
The prisoner asked for a copy of the indictment, and was informed by the attorney general that he would be furnished with it forthwith. He was then removed.
The trial of some minor cases was afterwards proceeded with.