"
This was touching the high sheriff on a tender place, and he immediately
called out for the protection of the court. Whereupon Baron Lefroy
interposed, and did gravely and deliberately, as is the manner of
judges, declare that the imputation which had just been made on the
character of that excellent official, the high sheriff, was most
"unwarranted and unfounded." He adduced, however, no reason in support
of that declaration--not a shadow of proof that the conduct of the
aforesaid official was fair or honest--but proceeded to say that the
jury had found the prisoner guilty on evidence supplied by his own
writings, some of which his lordship, with a proper expression of horror
on his countenance, proceeded to read from his notes. In one of the
prisoner's publications, he said, there appeared the following passage
"There is now growing on the soil of Ireland a wealth of grain, and
roots, and cattle, far more than enough to sustain in life and comfort
all the inhabitants of the island. That wealth must not leave us another
year, not until every grain of it is fought for in every stage, from the
tying of the sheaf to the loading of the ship; and the effort necessary
to that simple act of self-preservation will at one and the same blow
prostrate British dominion and landlordism together.
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