Abhor the sword--stigmatize the sword? No, my Lord, for, in the passes of the Tyrol, it cut to pieces the banner of the Bavarian, and, through those cragged passes, struck a path to fame for the present insurrectionist of Inspruck! Abhor the sword--stigmatize the sword? No, my Lord; for at its blow, a giant nation started from the waters of the Atlantic, and by its redeeming magic, and in the quivering of its crimson light, the crippled Colony sprang into the attitude of a proud Republic--prosperous, limitless, and invincible! Abhor the sword--stigmatize the sword? No, my Lord; for it swept the Dutch marauders out of the fine old towns of Belgium--scourged them back to their own phlegmatic swamps--and knocked their flag and scepter, their laws and bayonets into the sluggish waters of the Scheldt. My Lord, I learned that it was the right of a nation to govern herself--not in this hall, but upon the ramparts of Antwerp. This, the first article of a nation's creed, I learned upon those ramparts, where freedom was justly estimated, and the possession of the precious gift was purchased by the effusion of generous blood. My Lord, I honor the Belgians, I admire the Belgians, I love the Belgians for their enthusiasm, their courage, their success; and I, for one, will not stigmatize, for I do not abhor the means by which they obtained a citizen king, a chamber of deputies. T. F. Meagher. XV. ON BEING FOUND GUILTY OF TREASON. A jury of my countrymen have found me guilty of the crime for which I stood indicted. For this I entertain not the slightest feeling of resentment towards them. Influenced, as they must have been, by the charge of the lord chief justice, they could have found no other verdict. What of that charge? Any strong observations on it I feel sincerely would ill befit the solemnity of this scene; but I would earnestly beseech of you, my Lord,--you who preside on that bench,--when the passions and prejudices of this hour have passed away, to appeal to your own conscience, and to ask of it, was your charge as it ought to have been, impartial and indifferent between the subject and the crown? My Lords, you may deem this language unbecoming in me, and perhaps it will seal my fate. But I am here to speak the truth, whatever it may cost; I am here to regret nothing I have ever done--to retract nothing I have ever said. I am here to crave, with no lying lip the life I consecrate to the liberty of my country. Far from it, even here--here, where the thief the libertine, the murderer, have left their footprints in the dust; here on this spot, where the shadows of death surround me, and from which I see my early grave in an appointed soil opened to receive me--even here, encircled by these terrors, the hope which has beckoned me to the perilous sea upon which I have been wrecked still consoles, animates, enraptures me.