lord, I knew I was setting my life on that cast, but I knew that in
either event the victory should be with me, and it is with me.
Neither the jury, nor the judges, nor any other man in this court
presumes to imagine that it is a criminal who stands in this dock."

Here there were murmurs of applause, which caused the criers to call out
for "Silence!" and the police to look fiercely on the people around
them. Mr. Mitchel resumed:--

"I have shown what the law is made of in Ireland. I have shown that
her Majesty's government sustains itself in Ireland by packed juries,
by partizan judges, by perjured sheriffs."

Baron Lefroy interposed. The court could not sit there to hear the
prisoner arraign the jurors, the sheriffs, the courts, and the tenure by
which Englands holds this country. Again the prisoner spoke:--

"I have acted all through this business, from the first, under a
strong sense of duty. I do not repent anything that I have done, and
I believe that the course which I have opened is only commenced. The
Roman who saw his hand burning to ashes before the tyrant, promised
that three hundred should follow out his enterprise. Can I not
promise for one, for two, for three, aye for hundreds?"

As he uttered these words, Mr. Mitchel looked proudly into the faces of
the friends near him, and around the court. His words and his glance
were immediately responded to by an outburst of passionate voices from
all parts of the building, exclaiming--"For me! for me! promise for me,
Mitchel! and for me!" And then came a clapping of hands and a stamping
of feet, that sounded loud and sharp as a discharge of musketry,