The first idea of the merest possibility--the faintest chance--of the remaining four men being executed on the vitiated verdict, arose when it became known that the judges, or some of them, had informally declared to the government (without waiting to hear any argument on the subject) that the points raised by the prisoners' counsel were not tenable, or were not of force. Mr. Roberts was officially informed that the sentence would infallibly be carried out. By this time barely a few days remained of the interval previous to the date fixed for the execution, and the strangest sensations swayed the public mind in Ireland. Even still, no one would seriously credit that men would be put to death on a verdict notoriously false. Some persons who proposed memorials to the Queen were met on all hands with the answer that it was all "acting" on the part of the government; that, even though it should be at the foot of the scaffold, the men would be reprieved; that the government would not--_dare not_--take away human life on a verdict already vitiated and abandoned as a perjury or blunder. The day of doom approached; and now, as it came nearer and nearer, a painful and sickening alternation of incredulity and horror surged through every Irish heart. Meanwhile, the Press of England, on both sides of the Channel, kept up a ceaseless cry for blood. The government were told that to let these men off, innocent or guilty, would be "weakness." They were called upon to be "firm"--that is, to hang first, and reflect afterwards. As the 23rd of November drew near, the opinion began to gain ground, even in England, that things had been too hastily done--that the whole trial bore all the traces of panic--and that, if a few weeks were given for alarm and passion to calm down, not a voice would approve the Manchester verdict. Perceiving this--perceiving that time or opportunity for reflection, or for the subsidence of panic, would almost certainly snatch its prey from vengeance--a deafening yell arose from the raving creatures of blood-hunger, demanding that not a day, not an hour, not a second, should be granted to the condemned. Still the Irish people would not credit that, far towards the close of the nineteenth century, an act so dreadful durst be done.