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The Dock and the Scaffold by Unknown
page 35 of 121 (28%)
from a paper he held in his hand.] The right of man is
freedom. The great God has endowed him with affections that
he may use, not smother them, and a world that may be enjoyed.
Once a man is satisfied he is doing right, and attempts to do
anything with that conviction, he must be willing to face all
the consequences. Ireland, with its beautiful scenery, its
delightful climate, its rich and productive lands, is capable
of supporting more than treble its population in ease and
comfort. Yet no man, except a paid official of the British
government, can say there is a shadow of liberty, that there
is a spark of glad life amongst its plundered and persecuted
inhabitants. It is to be hoped that its imbecile and
tyrannical rulers will be for ever driven from her soil,
amidst the execration of the world. How beautifully the
aristocrats of England moralise on the despotism of the
rulers of Italy and Dahomey--in the case of Naples with what
indignation did they speak of the ruin of families by the
detention of its head or some loved member in a prison. Who
have not heard their condemnations of the tyranny that would
compel honourable and good men to spend their useful lives in
hopeless banishment."

The taunt went home to the hearts of his accusers, and, writhing under
the lash thus boldly applied, Judge Blackburne hastened, to intervene.
Unable to stay, on _legal grounds_, the torrent of scathing invective
by which O'Brien was driving the blood from the cheeks of his British
listeners, the judge resorted to a device which Mr. Justice Keogh
had practised very adroitly, and with much success, at various of the
State trials in Ireland. He appealed to the prisoner, "entirely for
his own sake," to cease his remarks. "The only possible effect of your
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