were arrested and lodged in prison, and on the 12th of the following
month Armstrong appeared against them in the witness-box. The trial was
continued through the night--Toler, of infamous memory, who had been
created Attorney-General expressly for the occasion, refusing Curran's
request for an adjournment; and it was eight o'clock in the morning of
the 13th when the jury, who had been but seventeen minutes absent,
returned into court with a verdict of guilty against both prisoners.

After a few hours' adjournment the court re-assembled to pass sentence.
It was then that John Sheares, speaking in a firm tone, addressed the
court as follows:--

"My Lords--I wish to offer a few words before sentence is pronounced,
because there is a weight pressing on my heart much greater than that
of the sentence which is to come from the court. There has been, my
lords, a weight pressing on my mind from the first moment I heard the
indictment read upon which I was tried; but that weight has been more
peculiarly pressing upon my heart when I found the accusation in the
indictment enforced and supported upon the trial. That weight would
be left insupportable if it were not for this opportunity of
discharging it; I shall feel it to be insupportable since a verdict
of my country has stamped that evidence as well founded. Do not
think, my lords, that I am about to make a declaration against the
verdict of the jury or the persons concerned with the trial; I am
only about to call to your recollection a part of the charge at which
my soul shudders, and if I had no opportunity of renouncing it before
your lordships and this auditory, no courage would be sufficient to
support me. The accusation of which I speak, while I linger here yet
a minute, is that of holding out to the people of Ireland a direction
to give no quarter to the troops fighting for its defence! My lords,