It
will bring to the prisoner, I repeat, the feeling--the bitter
feeling--that he was condemned on an unindicted charge pressed
suddenly into the service, and for a constructive crime which some of
the best authorities in the law have declared not to be a crime
cognizable in any of your courts.
"Let the crown put forward any supposition they please--indulge in
what special pleadings they will--sugar over the bitter pill of
constructive conspiracy as they can--to this complexion must come the
triangular injustice of this case--the illegal and unconstitutional
kidnapping in England--the unfair and invalid trial and conviction in
Ireland for the alleged offence in another hemisphere and under
mother sovereignty. My lords, I have done."
* * * * *
CAPTAIN JOHN M'CLURE.
Captain John M'Clure, like Captain M'Afferty, was an American born, but
of Irish parentage. He was born at Dobb's Ferry, twenty-two miles from
New York, on July 17th, 1846, and he was therefore a mere youth when,
serving with distinguished gallantry in the Federal ranks, he attained
the rank of captain. He took part in the Fenian rising of the 5th March,
and was prominently concerned in the attack and capture of Knockadoon
coast-guard station.
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