under the circumstances, threw down his brief and indignantly quitted
the desecrated justice hall. Fearing the consequences of leaving the
prisoners utterly undefended, Mr. Cottingham, the junior counsel for
the defence, refrained from following Mr. Jones's example, but he,
too, protested loudly, boldly, and indignantly against the cowardly
outrage, worthy of the worst days of the French monarchy, which
his clients were being subjected to. The whole investigation was in
keeping with the spirit evinced by the bench. The witnesses seemed
to come for the special purpose of swearing point-blank against the
hapless men in the dock, no matter at what cost to truth, and to take
a fiendish pleasure in assisting in securing their condemnation. One
of the witnesses was sure "the whole lot of them wanted to murder
everyone who had any property;" another assured his interrogator in
the dock that "he would go to see him hanged;" and a third had no
hesitation in acknowledging the attractions which the reward offered
by the government possessed for his mind. Men and women, young and
old, all seemed to be possessed of but the one idea--to secure as
much of the blood-money as possible, and to do their best to bring the
hated Irish to the gallows. Of course, an investigation, under these
circumstances, could have but one ending, and no one was surprised
to learn, at its conclusion, that the whole of the resolute body
of stern-faced men, who, manacled and suffering, confronted their
malignant accusers, had been committed to stand their trial in hot
haste, for the crime of "wilful murder."

Of the men thus dealt with there are four with whose fate this
narrative is closely connected, and whose names are destined to be
long remembered in Ireland. They have won for themselves, by their
courage, constancy, and patriotism, a fame that will never die; and
through all future time they will rank beside the dauntless spirits