Let me read for you two passages from Doctor Leland’s “History of Ireland.” I choose a remote period, to avoid shocking your prejudices by the recital of the more modern crimes of the faction to which most of you belong. Attend to this passage, gentlemen. “Anno 1574.--A solemn peace and concord was made between the Earl of Essex and Felim O’Nial. However, at a feast, wherein the Earl entertained that chieftain, and at the end of their good cheer, O’Nial, with his wife, were seized; their friends, who attended, were put to the sword before their faces. Felim, together with his wife and brother, were conveyed to Dublin, where they were _cut up in quarters_.” How would you have this fact described? In what ladylike terms is the future historian to mention this savage and brutal massacre? Yet Essex was an English nobleman--a predecessor of his Grace; he was accomplished, gallant, and gay; the envied paramour of the virgin queen; and, if he afterwards fell on the scaffold, one of the race of the ancient Irish may be permitted to indulge the fond superstition that would avenge the royal blood of the O’Nial and of his consort on their perfidious English murderer. But my soul fills with bitterness, and I will read of no more Irish murders. I turn, however, to another page, and I will introduce to your notice another predecessor of his Grace the Duke of Richmond. It is Grey, who, after the recall of Essex, commanded the English forces in Munster. The fort of Smerwick, in Kerry, surrendered to Grey at discretion. It contained some Irish troops, and more than 700 Spaniards. The historian shall tell you the rest:-- “That mercy for which they sued was rigidly denied them. Wingfield was commissioned to disarm them, and when this service was performed, an English company was sent into the fort. “The Irish rebels found they were reserved for execution by martial law. “The Italian general and some officers were made prisoners of war: but the garrison _was butchered in cold blood_; nor is it without pain that we find a service so horrid and detestable committed to Sir Walter Raleigh.” “The garrison was butchered in cold blood,” says the historian. Furnish us, Mr. Attorney-General, with gentle accents and sweet words to speak of this savage atrocity; or will you indict the author? Alas! he is dead, full of years and respect--as faithful an historian as the prejudices of his day would allow, and a beneficed clergyman of your church. Gentlemen of the jury, what is the mild language of this paper compared with the indignant language of history? Raleigh--the ill-starred Raleigh--fell a victim to a tyrant master, a corrupt or overawed jury, and a virulent Attorney-General; he was baited at the bar with language more scurrilous and more foul than that you heard yesterday poured upon my client. Yet, what atonement to civilization could his death afford for the horrors I have mentioned?