"Well, then, my lord," said O'Connell, after a little expostulation, "as you refuse permitting me to defend my client, I leave his fate in your hands;" and he flung his brief from him, adding, as he turned away, "the blood of that man, my lord, will be on your head, if he is condemned." O'Connell then left the Court. In half-an-hour afterwards, as he was walking on the flagway outside, the attorney for the defence ran out to him without his hat. "Well," said O'Connell, "he is found guilty?" "No, sir," answered the solicitor, "he has been acquitted." O'Connell is said to have smiled meaningly on the occasion, as if he had anticipated the effect of the _ruse_; for it was a _ruse_ he had recourse to, in order to save the unfortunate culprit's life. He knew that flinging the onus on a young and a raw judge could be the only chance for his client. The judge did take up the case O'Connell had ostensibly, in a pet, abandoned. The witnesses were successively cross-examined by the judge himself. He conceived a prejudice in favor of the accused. He, perhaps, had a natural timidity of incurring the responsibility thrown on him by O'Connell. He charged the jury in the prisoner's favor, and the consequence was, the unexpected acquittal of the prisoner. "_I knew_," said O'Connell afterwards, "the only chance was to throw the responsibility on the judge."
O'Connell could be seen to greatest advantage in an Irish court of justice. There he displayed every quality of the lawyer and the advocate. He showed perfect mastery of his profession, and he exhibited his own great and innate qualities. Who that ever beheld him on the Munster circuit, when he was in the height of his fame, but must have admired his prodigious versatility of formidable powers. His pathos was often admirable--his humor flowed without effort or art. What jokes he uttered!--what sarcasms! How well he worked his case, never throwing away a chance, never relaxing his untiring energies. How he disposed of a pugnacious attorney may be gathered from the following:--
"For a round volley of abusive epithets nobody could surpass him. One of his droll comic sentences was often worth a speech of an hour in putting down an opponent, or in gaining supporters to his side. At _Nisi Prius_, he turned his mingled talent for abuse and drollery to great effect. He covered a witness with ridicule, or made a cause so ludicrous, that the real grounds of complaint became invested with absurdity.