Ruled by Erle, J.

In the early part of 1848 Terence M.Manus, Lawrence Reynolds, commonly called Dr. Reynolds, and other Irish Confederates residing in Liverpool, began to organize the Irish in Liverpool in clubs for the purpose of assisting the agitation in Ireland, and endeavoured to secure the co-operation of the English Chartists. Numerous meetings were held at which inflammatory speeches were delivered urging the people to arm and resist the Government. Dr. Reynolds opened a shop in Liverpool for the sale of pikes and guns, and measures were taken to send arms to Ireland to be used in an insurrection there, and, also, to arm the Irish and Chartists in Liverpool. On July 22nd a man was arrested in Liverpool carrying a sack of pikes, which he stated were to be sent to Waterford, and other arrests followed. M Manus left Liverpool on July 25th to take part in Smith O'Brien's rising, for which he was afterwards convicted of high treason(a). At the Liverpool Summer Assizes the grand jury found a true bill for seditious conspiracy against M'Manus, Reynolds, and fourteen others. Reynolds escaped to America. At the ensuing Winter Assizes O'Donnell, Cuddy. Somers, Hopper, Edward Murphy, James O'Brien, Boshell, Smyth, and Delamere were tried before Erle, J., December 11, 1848.

Counsel for the Crown: The Attorney General (Sir John Jervis), (b) Knowles, Q.C., Welshy, Crompton, (c) and Paget.

(a) See below, App. A. p.1087.
(b) Afterwards Chief Justice of C.P.
(c) Afterwards a Justice of Q.B.

Counsel for the prisoners: Segar for Delamere; Edward James for Boshell; Dearsly for Smyth; G. F. Pollock and Simon for O'Donnell, Cuddy, Somers, Hopper, and Murphy; Atkinson for O'Brien. Paget opened the indictment.

INDICTMENT.

January, A.D. 1848, and on divers other days That heretofore, to wit, on the 1st day of and times before the taking of this inquisition, Terence Bellew M'Manus, late of the borough of Liverpool in the county of Lancaster, gentleman, Lawrence Reynolds, late of Liverpool aforesaid, gentleman, Patrick Murphy, late of Liverpool aforesaid, gentleman, Francis O'Donnell late of Liverpool aforesaid, gentleman, Poter Herbert Delamere, late of Liverpool aforesaid, gentleman, Joseph Cuddy, late of Liverpool aforesaid, labourer, Matthew Somers, late of Liverpool aforesaid, labourer, Robert Hopper, late of Liverpool aforesaid, labourer, Edward Murphy, late of Liverpool aforesaid, labourer, labourer, Martin Boshell, late of Liverpool James Laffin, late of Liverpool aforesaid, aforesaid, labourer, Thomas O'Brien, late of Liverpool aforesaid, labourer, George Smyth, late of Liverpool aforesaid, labourer, Patrick O'Hanlon, late of Liverpool aforesaid, labourer, James O'Brien, late of Liverpool aforesaid, labourer, and James Campbell, late of Liverpool, aforesaid, labourer, together with divers other evil-disposed persons to the jurors aforesaid unknown, with force and arms, did conspire, combine, confederate, and agree together to procure and to send and transmit to that part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland called Ireland divers large quantities of arms and offensive weapons to be, and that the sane might be, there, to wit, in Ireland aforesaid, used and employed by divers other evil

till the commencement of this year, when upon the breaking out of the French Revolution, not only the Chartists were encouraged to resort to violence and force, but the Irish Confederates, as they were called, formed a league with the Chartists for the purpose of wresting from the Government by violence that which they mutually desired, the Chartists for the purpose of obtaining the Charter by the assistance of the Confederates, and the Irish to obtain, as they supposed, the Repeal of the Union by the help of the Chartists.

About the month of February, what was a dangerous organization up to that time, became formidable from acts of violence and risings which took place in various parts of the country. At that time various clubs were formed in Liverpool, district clubs, which were called the Mitchel Club, the Emmet Club, &c., and those clubs were all acting under one central authority, and governed by a committee of which the defendants or most of them were the principal active members; and their avowed object, as you will find from the speeches of the defendants, was to arm the people of Liverpool, to assist the Irish if need be with arms, to create a diversion by a general rising, and, by compelling the Government to keep troops in this country, to prevent their having the means of suppressing the insurrection in the sister island. And, further, you will find the expression of a determination that, if the Government proceeded against what they called the martyrs to freedom in Ireland, those persons would see with their last dying breath the heavens illuminated with the blazing warehouses of Manchester and Liverpool.

The Attorney-General referred to the discovery of the Minute Book of the Association, lengthy extracts from which would be given in evidence, showing the part taken by several of the defendants in the Association, by presiding or being present at its meetings, writing out the minutes, siguing them, &c.; and read lengthy extracts from the Minute Book, as proved below. On April 2nd Dr. Murphy said civil war was approaching, and, in God's name, let the people be prepared. M'Manus said that England was in a state of siege, and Englishmen did not know at what point they would be attacked.] I am sorry to say it has been proved in courts of justice that the organization was so perfect that it was almost impossible to detect by what means simul taneous risings throughout the whole kingdom were made. Mr. M'Manus was right in saying that at this time England was in a state of siege. On April 5th a sub

committee was appointed for organizing the town into districts. Their object was to have small divisions unter the immediate command of captains and superintendents, who, without previous communication or public notice, could assemble the men under their command at the various divisions of the town so as to paralyse the energies of the police and military forces; and if they had proceeded to carry into effect what appears to have been their object, if they had fired the warehouses in various parts of Liverpool, no one can tell what would have been the destruction of life and property and where the mischief would have stopped. At the subsequent meetings there were constant allusions to arming. On May 16th M'Manus said they were determined not to allow their champion, Mitchel, to be trampled on. recollect the offence of which Mitchel was convicted, and the doctrines he broached. His notion was to invoke the God of battles and the barricades, and to strew the streets of Dublin with spikes, and to throw vitriol upon the soldiers. No one can read this book without seeing that the parties were dividing Liverpool into districts, forming clubs, arming them, arranging committees to carry on illegal correspondence, in truth doing everything to endanger the safety of this town, nay of the constitution itself, if they had not been checked.

You

For my

"I have been asked where you can get the Dr. Reynolds, he will be able to procure for you arms spoken of. I believe, if any of you call on a good pike. (Uproarious cheering.) part, I am not accustomed to the musket, and prefer a pike, but those who prefer a rifle may also have them from him, fully proof, on terms almost unreasonably low. The gentleman will give you his address before he leaves the meeting; and he can supply you, I believe, with 6,000 of them. No man deprecates the shedding of blood more than I do, or the burning of a warehouse, but this I say" (A voice cried, "There are reporters here.") "I am aware of it. I wish them to note this, that it may be carried on the wings of the press to the bedcerned, and to the Government itself, that there chambers, if necessary, of the gentlemen conis an organization in Liverpool, that there is an organization in Manchester, that there is an organization at the foot of the very throne itself. And I tell the merchants of Liverpool that, as I think I saw Warsaw in flames, to take care that the spark of ignition may not reach

the very town and spot on which we are now standing. And at the same time I tell them that, before the news is four days in Liverpool of an attempted massacre of my countrymenI care not, mind you, gentlemen, if there were

200,000 British bayonets here, 100,000 special constables, I care not in spite of them all-despite all their efforts, in despite of as much more, the martyrs dying on the scaffold or on the plain would have the consolation, in giving their last throe, of looking up to heaven and seeing the skies reddened with the blaze of the Babylons of England.

"This I wish the press to take down. If they drive the people of Liverpool to it, Chartists and Repealers, if they drive them to do it, on their heads be the crime, and not on those of the men forced to it for satisfaction."

And then he is followed again by Dr. Reynolds to point out where those muskets should be bought. Dr. Reynolds says

I

"When I give in my adhesion to a course, will never give it up till death or success. There shall never be a Chartist meeting in Liverpool at which I shall not make my appear ance before you. I hate those slow, lazy theorists of liberty who will read pamphlets by the fireside, but when the day of danger and discussion comes will be away from the glorious field of battle, and will leave you without a head to guide or an arm to assist you."

How prophetic of his own conduct! He is skulking in America somewhere from the pursuit of justice.

I

"And if I see there is use for better professions than that I belong to, I intend to give it up. Gentlemen, I know of no physic that can give strength to a person who wants food. And the people of England want food much more than what I can give them. It is my intention to set up in the ironmongering business in your town. It is my intention to deal largely in the articles of muskets and bayonets, and of pikes. And very probably the next week's papers will tell you where you can get good guns, warranted not to burst, and pikes of the best description, at the most reasonable prices. can inform you now pretty accurately what they can be got for. A good gun and bayonet, warranted good, for 12s. 6d.; a good pike-head can be got for 2s. More information I shall give you at another time, but recollect what I sell you them for. I do not call upon you to become rebels, I do not call upon you to make use of them, but the law allows you to have them; and why should you not have them, when the law allows you to have them? I tell you thisI care not whether my position be one of danger or not. I care not whether my weapons be legal or illegal. No cause ever yet succeeded in which men were not prepared to lend themselves to the scaffold if need be. And I should go on, if I thought that the first year I commenced I should be taken to the scaffold for doing it. Remember, O mortal men before me, that you must die, one time or the other, and I would rather die leaving a glorious name behind

me, of which neither country nor family should be ashamed, than linger out a miserable existence and die the victim of a miserable old age.”

There is a meeting held on the 25th of

April in Queen's Square, at which Smyth, one of the defendants, was in the chair. Reynolds said that the Gagging Bill having passed, as he called it, he must sing small, but

"he thought there was no harm, but a great deal of good, to be obtained in having the people armed, the more particularly as all the people of Ireland were Repealers, and three-fourths of the people of England were Chartists. He had addressed 35,000 Chartists and Repealers at the North Shore on Good Friday, and when their hands had been held up in support of the reso. lutions, the forest of hands was so great that even the very waters of the Mersey seemed to stand still and feel amazed."

This wretched trash provokes a smile when it is read here before you men of reason, but you must remember the audience to which it was addressed.

Again on the 11th of June a meeting took place at the North Shore, Liverpool. This is spoken to by one of the reporters who was there professionally. Dr. Reynolds delivered a most inflammatory address. I will not read the whole of it, -but only a single passage. He said

"There is no use in having a man's tongue with you, he may prate as much as he likes; or there is no use in having a man's heart if his hand is not with you to grasp a pike or a musket."

He then says

"What kind of a Government have we? Tyrants."

And then he proceeds to abuse the police. "Who struts biggest and boldest in Liverpool? It is not the man of high rank, but it is the law-perjured scoundrel policeman." Then he goes on and says

"If a party is brought up, his wife may cry and weep, but the perjured policeman is believed. I believe you will have no fight at all for it. The English people, you are aware, went into India, seized on the possessions of the inhabitants, and destroyed their villages, but I have the glorious news for you that liberty is as immortal under the burning sun of India as it is elsewhere, and that the gallant inhabitants of Lahore have rebelled, as they ought to do, and massacred the English soldiery. What will be the consequence? The English Government must send a dozen regiments over to India. Where can they get them ? They cannot spare them from England, because the Chartists are too strong here; they cannot spare them from Ireland, because with all the soldiery and police there they cannot keep down the Repealers. They must either give up India or Ireland, and they will be so long doubting between the two that they will be like the fool who fell between the two stools and lost both. Yes, the Indians have killed the English