From Speeches From The Dock or Protests of Irish Patriotism, Part I, by A.M. Sullivan, published in 1868.
Dublin, 26th May, 1848
I have to say that I have been found guilty by a packed jury – by the jury of a partisan sheriff – by a jury not empanelled even according to the law of England. I have been found guilty by a packed jury obtained by a juggle – a jury not empanelled by a sheriff but by a juggler.
The law has now done its part, and the Queen of England, her crown and government in Ireland are now secure, pursuant to act of parliament. I have done my part also. Three months ago I promised Lord Clarendon, and his government in this country, that I would provoke him into his courts of justice, as places of this kind are called, and that I would force him publicly and notoriously to pack a jury against me to convict me, or else that I would walk a free man out of this court, and provoke him to a contest in another field. My lord, I knew I was setting my life on that cast, but I knew that in either event the victory should be with me, and it is with me. Neither the jury, nor the judges, nor any other man in this court presumes to imagine that it is a criminal who stands in this dock.
I have shown what the law is made of in Ireland. I have shown that her Majesty’s government sustains itself in Ireland by packed juries, by partisan judges, by perjured sheriffs.
I have acted all through this business, from the first, under a strong sense of duty. I do not repent anything that I have done, and I believe that the course which I have opened is only commenced. The Roman who saw his hand burning to ashes before the tyrant, promised that three hundred should follow out his enterprise. Can I not promise for one, for two, for three, aye for hundreds?