It is no common skill which can protect innocence from shame, or rescue guilt from punishment. Nothing less than an intimate knowledge of the feelings of the jury, and the habits and characteristics of the witnesses, can enable an advocate to throw himself into the confidence of a jury composed of the most incongruous elements, and to confuse, baffle, or detect the witnesses. There is no power so strong as that of good cross-examination; and I never knew any man possess that power in a more eminent degree than O'Connell. The difficulty is to avoid asking too many questions. Sometimes a single query will weaken evidence, while a word more may make the witness confirm it. Some witnesses require to be pressed, before they bring out the truth--others, if too much pressed, will turn at bay, and fatally corroborate every thing to which they already have sworn. It is no common skill which, intuitively as it were, enables the advocate to perceive when he may go to the end of his tether,--when he _must_ restrain. The fault of a young barrister is that _he asks too many questions_. It is a curious fact, that, from the first moment he was called to the bar, O'Connell distinguished himself by his cross-examinations. If he was eminent in a criminal trial, he was no less so in civil cases. Here he brought all his legal learning to bear upon the case, and here, too, he had the additional aid of that eloquence which usually drew a jury with him.
John O'Connell gives an anecdote which illustrates his father's success in the defence of his prisoners. It had fallen to his lot, at the Assizes in Cork, to be retained for a man on a trial for an aggravated case of highway robbery. By an able cross-examination, O'Connell was enabled to procure the man's acquittal. The following year, at the Assizes for the same town, he found himself again retained for the same individual, then on trial for a burglary, committed with great violence, very little short of a deliberate attempt to murder. On this occasion, the result of Mr. O'Connell's efforts rose a disagreement of the jury; and, therefore, no verdict. The Government witnesses having been entirely discredited during the cross-examination, the case was pursued no farther, and the prisoner was discharged. Again, the succeeding year, he was found in the criminal dock; this time on a charge of piracy! He had run away with a collier brig, and having found means for disposing of a portion of her cargo, and afterwards of supplying himself with some arms, he had actually commenced cruising on his own account, levying contributions from such vessels as he chanced to fall in with. Having "caught a tartar," whilst engaged in this profitable occupation, he was brought into Cove, and thence sent up to Cork to stand his trial for "piracy on the high seas." Again Mr. O'Connell saved him, by demurring to the jurisdiction of the Court--the offence having been committed within the jurisdiction of the Admiralty, and, therefore, cognizable only before an Admiralty Court. When the fellow saw his successful counsel facing the dock, he stretched over to speak to him, and, raising his eyes and hands most piously and fervently to heaven, he cried out--"Oh, Mr. O'Connell, may the Lord spare you--_to me_!"