_January 14th, 1844._--Everybody is full of the trial of O'Connell in Dublin--this unhappy trial, which has been one continual course of blunders and mismanagement from first to last. There is now an immense uproar about the jury list, and, as if fate had determined that the worst appearance should be given to the whole proceeding, Shaw the Recorder is implicated in a manner which can easily be made to look very suspicious. The Sheriff sent a list of some seventy-eight names to the Recorder; instead of remaining in Dublin, as he ought to have done, he must needs come to England to visit Lord Talbot. He went over for one day to Drayton, and it happened that on the same day he received the Sheriff's list; he returned it, but by some mistake did not return two slips, as they are called, containing sixty and odd names. The list, therefore, from which the jury was taken was an imperfect list, and they will say, and all the Irish will believe, that the mutilation was a concerted affair between Peel and Shaw. They also affirm that the excluded were mostly Catholics, which is, I believe, the reverse of the truth. This was an accident, but it was an awkward blunder to add to the long list of those already committed. Then the striking off all the Catholics from the jury is inveighed against here as an act of madness, there as of intolerable injustice and insult. It does appear to me an enormous blunder, and none of the excuses made for it seems even plausible. The Government ought to look far beyond the event of this trial. It would be a thousand times better to have O'Connell acquitted by a mixed jury than convicted by one all Protestant. I do not know whether such an acquittal would not be on the whole the best result; if he should be convicted, the whole process would be considered as a monstrous outrage against justice, and Government will be terribly puzzled to know how to deal with him. His conviction would produce the worst possible effect in Ireland, and render the exasperation and hatred of the people more bitter and unappeasable. If he is acquitted by a Protestant jury the triumph of the Catholics will be much greater, their resentment not less, and in England his acquittal by a jury formed of both persuasions would only be attributed to the determination of the Catholics not to convict him; supposing that a strong case is really made out, and Ministers should appear to be justified in requiring any fresh powers they thought necessary, they would find it difficult to ask for any if he was acquitted by a Protestant jury--in short, it is an inextricable _mess_, and how they will get out of it, God only knows. They have missed the great opportunity that was afforded them of giving a convincing proof to the Irish people that they wish O'Connell to have a fair trial. If they had begun by doing this, and then exhibited to the world a good case, they might have felt easy enough as to the result. If the Catholic jurors had cast their mantles over him,