Robert Holmes

“ What right has England—what right has any country—to build and peril its greatness upon the slavery, degradation, and wretchedness of another? Strip the case of the disguise with which ambition, and crime, and the love of power have invested it, and the sophistry of conquerors, and princes, and courtiers, and lawyers has cast around it—what, then, is it? ”

“ What would be said of the English Parliament should it delegate its authority to make laws for England or to change anything at present existing, and make an absolute state? She would have just the same right to do so as the Irish Parliament had to destroy itself: and I say it boldly and broadly, as a man, that the Act of Union is only binding as a thing of expediency. Men will often submit to a certain order of things rather than run the risk of subverting, by force of arms, the state of things as established. No man, upon slender grounds, should endeavour to subvert the order of things ”

“ I am not accusing the Attorney- General of a blunder in drawing the indictment, for he has followed the Act, but we must have Acts of Parliament that we can understand; and I defy any man to understand what it is to deprive her Majesty of the style, honour, and royal name of the Imperial Crown of the United Kingdom. ”

“ A strong man, because he is strong, insults his brother man, because his brother man is weak—the slave struggles to be free, and the enslaver kills him because he struggles. That is British Conquest, and dominion in Ireland—that is British legislation in Ireland. I speak not merely for my client ”

“ From past times let us turn to the present time, and what do we see? An Attorney-General, an able lawyer, under a special commission, a most successful prosecutor. Death has followed his footsteps, and it is asked, ought not the assassin to suffer for his crime? ”

“ Is there the slightest evidence here as to what measures or councils these publications purported to change? Are you, gentlemen as a jury, to grope in the dark? Are these publications calculated to force the Queen to alter her measures with France, or America, or any other country on the face of the earth? What the measures are the prisoner wants to change, I cannot understand. What have been the measures of this session of Parliament for the improvement of Ireland? The Poor-law. That is the only measure I know of, and has Mr. Mitchel endeavoured to change it? Not in the least ”

“ Mitchel and others is condemned by the wealthy. There are men—and they are chiefly to be found in what are called the better ranks of society— excellent men—religious men—moral men—kind men—but if all mankind were like them we would have no such thing as liberty in the world. ”