Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches - Volume 4 by Thomas Badington Macaulay (e ink ebook reader txt) 📕

gentleman, the Recorder of Dublin, who of course puts the number as low as he conscientiously can, admits twenty-four. But some gentlemen maintain that this irregularity, though doubtless blamable, cannot have had any effect on the event of the trial. What, they ask, are twenty or twenty-seven names in seven hundred and twenty? Why, Sir, a very simple arithmetical calculation will show that the irregularity was of grave importance. Of the seven hundred and twenty, forty-eight were to be selected by lot, and then reduced by alternate striking to twelve. The forty-eighth part of seven hundred and twenty is fifteen. If, therefore, there had been fifteen more Roman Catholics in the jury-list, it would have been an even chance that there would have been one Roman Catholic more among the forty-eight. If there had been twenty-seven more Roman Catholics in the list, it would have been almost an even chance that there would have been two Roman Catholics more among the forty-eight. Is it impossible, is it improbable that, but for this trick or this blunder,-I will not now inquire which,-the result of the trial might have been different? For, remember the power which the law gives to a single juror. He can, if his mind is fully made up, prevent a conviction. I heard murmurs when I used the word trick. Am I not justified in feeling a doubt which it is quite evident that Mr Justice Perrin feels? He is reported to have said,-and I take the report of newspapers favourable to the Government,-he is reported to have said that there had been great carelessness, great neglect of duty, that there were circumstances which raised grave suspicion, and that he was not prepared to say that the irregularity was accidental. The noble lord the Secretary for the Colonies has admonished us to pay respect to the judges. I am sure that I pay the greatest respect to everything that falls from Mr Justice Perrin. He must know much better than I, much better than any Englishman, what artifices are likely to be employed by Irish functionaries for the purpose of packing a jury; and he tells us that he is not satisfied that this irregularity was the effect of mere inadvertence. But, says the right honourable Baronet, the Secretary for the Home Department, "I am not responsible for this irregularity." Most true: and nobody holds the right honourable Baronet responsible for it. But he goes on to say, "I lament this irregularity most sincerely: for I believe that it has raised a prejudice against the administration of justice." Exactly so. That is just what I say. I say that a prejudice has been created against the administration of justice. I say that a taint of suspicion has been thrown on the verdict which you have obtained. And I ask whether it is right and decent in you to avail yourselves of a verdict on which such a taint has been thrown? The only wise, the only honourable course open to you was to say, "A mistake has been committed: that mistake has given us an unfair advantage; and of that advantage we will not make use." Unhappily, the time when you might have taken this course, and might thus to a great extent have repaired your former errors, has been suffered to elapse.

Well, you had forty-eight names taken by lot from this mutilated jury-list: and then came the striking. You struck out all the Roman Catholic names: and you give us your reasons for striking out these names, reasons which I do not think it worth while to examine. The real question which you should have considered was this: Can a great issue between two hostile religions,-for such the issue was,-be tried in a manner above all suspicion by a jury composed exclusively of men of one of those religions? I know that in striking out the Roman Catholics you did nothing that was not according to technical rules. But my great charge against you is that you have looked on this whole case in a technical point of view, that you have been attorneys when you should have been statesmen. The letter of the law was doubtless with you; but not the noble spirit of the law. The jury de medietate linguae is of immemorial antiquity among us. Suppose that a Dutch sailor at Wapping is accused of stabbing an Englishman in a brawl. The fate of the culprit is decided by a mixed body, by six Englishmen and six Dutchmen. Such were the securities which the wisdom and justice of our ancestors gave to aliens. You are ready enough to call Mr O'Connell an alien when it serves your purposes to do so. You are ready enough to inflict on the Irish Roman Catholic all the evils of alienage. But the one privilege, the one advantage of alienage, you deny him. In a case which of all cases most require a jury de medietate, in a case which sprang out of the mutual hostility of races and sects, you pack a jury all of one race and all of one sect. Why, if you were determined to go on with this unhappy prosecution, not have a common jury? There was no difficulty in having such a jury; and among the jurors might have been some respectable Roman Catholics who were not members of the Repeal Association. A verdict of Not Guilty from such a jury would have done you infinitely less harm than the verdict of Guilty which you have succeeded in obtaining. Yes, you have obtained a verdict of Guilty; but you have obtained that verdict from twelve men brought together by illegal means, and selected in such a manner that their decision can inspire no confidence. You have obtained that verdict by the help of a Chief Justice of whose charge I can hardly trust myself to speak. To do him right, however, I will say that his charge was not, as it has been called, unprecedented; for it bears a very close resemblance to some charges which may be found in the state trials of the reign of Charles the Second. However, with this jury-list, with this jury, with this judge, you have a verdict. And what have you gained by it? Have you pacified Ireland? No doubt there is just at the present moment an apparent tranquillity; but it is a tranquillity more alarming than turbulence. The Irish will be quiet till you begin to put the sentence of imprisonment into execution, because, feeling the deepest interest in the fate of their persecuted Tribune, they will do nothing that can be prejudicial to him. But will they be quiet when the door of a gaol has been closed on him? Is it possible to believe that an agitator, whom they adored while his agitation was a source of profit to him, will lose his hold on their affections by being a martyr in what they consider as their cause? If I, who am strongly attached to the Union, who believe that the Repeal of the Union would be fatal to the empire, and who think Mr O'Connell's conduct highly reprehensible, cannot conscientiously say that he has had a fair trial, if the prosecutors themselves are forced to own that things have happened which have excited a prejudice against the verdict and the judgment, what must be the feelings of the people of Ireland, who believe not merely that he is guiltless, but that he is the best friend that they ever had? He will no longer be able to harangue them: but his wrongs will stir their blood more than his eloquence ever did; nor will he in confinement be able to exercise that influence which has so often restrained them, even in their most excited mood, from proceeding to acts of violence.

Turn where we will, the prospect is gloomy; and that which of all things most disturbs me is this, that your experience, sharp as it has been, does not seem to have made you wiser. All that I have been able to collect from your declarations leads me to apprehend that, while you continue to hold power, the future will be of a piece with the past. As to your executive administration, you hold out no hope that it will be other than it has been. If we look back, your only remedies for the disorders of Ireland have been an impolitic state prosecution, an unfair state trial, barracks and soldiers. If we look forward, you promise us no remedies but an unjust sentence, the harsh execution of that sentence, more barracks and more soldiers.

You do indeed try to hold out hopes of one or two legislative reforms beneficial to Ireland; but these hopes, I am afraid, will prove delusive. You hint that you have prepared a Registration bill, of which the effect will be to extend the elective franchise. What the provisions of that bill may be we do not know. But this we know, that the matter is one about which it is utterly impossible for you to do anything that shall be at once honourable to yourselves and useful to the country. Before we see your plan, we can say with perfect confidence that it must either destroy the last remnant of the representative system in Ireland, or the last remnant of your own character for consistency.

About the much agitated question of land tenure you acknowledge that you have at present nothing to propose. We are to have a report, but you cannot tell us when.

The Irish Church, as at present constituted and endowed, you are fully determined to uphold. On some future occasion, I hope to be able to explain at large my views on that subject. To-night I have exhausted my own strength, and I have exhausted also, I am afraid, the kind indulgence of the House. I will therefore only advert very briefly to some things which have been said about the Church in the course of the present debate.

Several gentlemen opposite have spoken of the religious discord which is the curse of Ireland in language which does them honour; and I am only sorry that we are not to have their votes as well as their speeches. But from the Treasury bench we have heard nothing but this, that the Established Church is there, and that there it must and shall remain. As to the speech of the noble lord the Secretary for the Colonies, really when we hear such a pitiable defence of a great institution from a man of such eminent abilities, what inference can we draw but that the institution is altogether indefensible? The noble lord tells us that the Roman Catholics, in 1757, when they were asking to be relieved from the penal laws, and in 1792, when they were asking to be relieved from civil disabilities, professed to be quite willing that the Established Church should retain its endowments. What is it to us, Sir, whether they did or not? If you can prove this Church to be a good institution, of course it ought to be maintained. But do you mean to say that a bad institution ought to be maintained because some people who have been many years in their graves said that they did not complain of it? What if the Roman Catholics of the present generation hold a different language on this subject from the Roman Catholics of