But I have a word to say, which no advocate, however anxious, can utter for me.

I have this to say, my lords, that whatever part I may have taken through any struggle for my country's independence--whatever part I may have acted in that short career--I stand before your lordships now with a free heart, and with a light conscience, ready to abide the issue of your sentences.

And now, my lords, perhaps this is the fittest time that I might put one sentiment on record, and it is this: Standing as I do between this dock and the scaffold; it may be now, or to-morrow, or it may be never; but whatever the result may be, I have this sentiment to put on record.

That in any part I have taken, I have not been actuated by animosity to Englishmen.

For I have spent some of the happiest and most prosperous days of my life in England; and in no part of my career have I been actuated by enmity to Englishmen, however much I may have felt the injustice of English rule on this island.