Having detailed these few personal recollections, which I hope may not be considered too discursive, I have to approach the incidents of 1848, when the "Young Ireland" or "Confederate" movement occurred. It is not my intention to laud or censure those engaged in its furtherance or its repression, my only object being to state such facts as came under my personal observations, or of which I had official cognizance, leaving to the reader to derive amusement from some circumstances and useful information from others. I think it was on the 21st day of March that the crown-solicitor preferred charges of sedition against Smith O'Brien and Meagher, and required me to make them amenable. When the informations were sworn, I asked him if he had any objection to an intimation from me to the accused, that such proceedings had been instituted, in order that they might appear and give bail to stand their trial without subjecting them to the indignity of arrest. To this course Mr. Kemmis at once acceded; and I called on Smith O'Brien at his lodgings in Westland Row that evening, and found Meagher and several other persons along with him. When I stated the object of my visit, one of the company exclaimed, "Give no promise or undertaking to appear. Accept no courtesy from your prosecutors, but let the Government incur the odium of arresting you." Both of them, however, declined to follow such advice, and assured me that they would attend at the Head Office, at noon, on the next day. They thanked me for the inclination I had exhibited to save them, as much as possible, from personal annoyance; and as I was leaving, O'Brien laughingly exclaimed, "Your urbanity, Mr. Porter, shall not be forgotten; and when the government of Ireland comes into our hands; your official position shall not be disturbed." At the appointed time they gave the required bail, and I returned the informations for trial. They were indicted for sedition, and, unfortunately for themselves, were acquitted. I say "unfortunately," because if they had then been convicted, and imprisoned for three or four months, they would have been unable to engage in the proceedings which eventuated in their conviction for high treason, at Clonmel, in the following September. I think it worth remarking, that when they had utterly failed in their insurrectionary designs, and had been banished to a distant region, I occasionally heard great culpability and folly imputed to them; but in reference to their conduct, the most severe censures were uttered by the lips of him who had urged them to reject the slight courtesy and the forbearance of arrest, to which I have alluded above.