With regard to
another matter, my learned counsel has, no doubt for the best,
expressed some opinions on these matters and the misgovernment
to which my country has been subjected. I am firmly convinced
there is prejudice in the minds of the people, and it has been
increased and excited by the newspapers, or by some of them,
and to a certain extent has influenced the minds of the jury
to convict the men standing in this dock, on a charge of
which--a learned gentleman remarked a few nights since--they
would be acquitted if they had been charged with murdering
an old woman for the sake of the money in her pocket, but a
political offence of this kind they could not. Now, sir, with
regard to the opinions I hold on national matters--with regard
to those men who have been released from that van, in which,
unfortunately, life was lost, I am of opinion that certainly
to some extent there was an excess. Perhaps it was unthought,
but if those men had been in other countries, occupying other
positions--if Jefferson Davis had been released in a northern
city, there would have been a cry of applause throughout all
England. If Garibaldi, who I saw before I was shut out from
the world had been arrested, was released, or something of
that kind had taken place, they would have applauded the
bravery of the act.
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