I ask you if I have not thoroughly and sufficiently explained away the terror, if I may use the term, of these papers, which were taken from walls and other places, to be brought against me here. I ask you, gentlemen, us reasonable men, if there be a shadow of a case against me? I ask you if I have been connected by an untainted witness with any act, in America or Ireland, that would warrant you in deciding that I was guilty of the charge with which I stand accused? Is there one single overt act proved against me; or have I violated any law for the violation of which I can be made amenable in this court? I ask you if, in these letters which have been brought up against me--one found in Thomas-street, another in the pocket of a fellow-prisoner--there is anything that can affect me? Recollect, gentlemen of the jury, that I speak to you now as men imbued with a spirit of justice. I speak to you, gentlemen, believing that you are honest, recognising your intelligence, and confident that you will give in a verdict in accordance with the dictates of your conscience. If you are the jury that the Attorney-General hopes you are, gentlemen of the jury, I am wasting time in speaking to you. If you are, gentlemen, that jury which the Attorney-General hopes to make the stepping-stone to the bench--for; gentlemen, I do not accuse the Attorney-General of wishing to prosecute me for the purpose of having me punished; I believe he is above any paltry consideration of that sort--but, gentlemen, all men are influenced by one motive or another, and the Attorney-General, though he is the first law officer of the Crown in Ireland, is human like ourselves; he is not above all human frailty, but like other men, doubtless, likes office, and likes the emolument which office brings. But, gentlemen of the jury, it will be your fault if you make your shoulders the stepping-stone for the Attorney-General to spring upon the bench. I say these words to you in sober, solemn earnestness. You are now trying a man who has lived all his life-time in a country where freedom is venerated and adored. You may believe, gentlemen, that you have the speech of freedom here; but I claim, gentlemen, that the real spirit of freedom has fled these shores many a century ago--has sped across the Atlantic, and perched upon American soil; and, gentlemen, it ought to be your wish and desire--as I am sure it is, for I am unwilling to believe that you are the men the Attorney-General deems you to be--to do me justice, and to prove that Dublin juries do not on all occasions bring in a verdict at the dictation of the Crown. Gentlemen, the principle of freedom is at stake. Every man that is born into this world has a right to freedom, unless he forfeits that right by his own misdemeanour.