The following is a brief, impartial report of the treatment to which my brother 
exiles (twenty-four in number) and I were subjected during our incarceration in 
that pit of horrors, that living tomb which is called Portland Prison. 

Above all it is my duty to pay a tribute of respect and justice to the memory of 
my friend John Lynch who was sentenced by an extraordinary tribunal in 
December 1865 and died at Woking Prison in April 1866. 

Whatever may be the cause to which the jury has attributed his death, I 
confirm, and am able to furnish proof, that his death was accelerated by the cruelty 
of the prison warders. 

To be imprisoned in the heart of winter in a cold cell for twenty-three hours 
out of twenty-four, insufficiently clad, sleeping on a hard board with a log of wood 
as a pillow and two worn blankets weighing barely ten lbs. as one’s only protection 
against the excessive cold, deprived through an inexpressibly fine stroke of cruelty 
of even covering our frozen limbs with our clothes which we were forced to put 
outside our cell door, given unhealthy, meagre nourishment, having no exercise 
apart from a daily walk lasting three-quarters of an hour in a cage about 20 ft. 
long by 6 ft. wide designed for the worst type of criminals: such privation and 
suffering would break even an iron constitution. So it is not surprising that a 
person as delicate as Lynch should succumb to it almost immediately. 

On arrival at the prison Lynch asked for permission to keep his flannels on. His 
request was rudely refused. “If you refuse I shall be dead in three months,” he 
replied on that occasion. Ah, little did I suspect that his words would come true. I 
could not imagine that Ireland was to lose one of her most devoted, ardent and 
noble sons so soon, and that I myself was to lose a tried and tested friend. 


438 Appendices 


At the beginning of March I noticed that my friend was looking very ill and one 
day | took advantage of the jailer’s brief absence to ask him about his health. He 
replied that he was dying, that he had consulted the doctor several times, but that 
the Jatter had not paid the slightest attention to his complaints. His cough was so 
violent that although my cell was a Jong distance from his, I could hear it day and 
night resounding along the empty corridors. One jailer even told me, “Number 7’s 
time will soon be up—he should have been in hospital a month ago. Pve often seen 
ordinary prisoners there looking a hundred umes healthier than him.” 

One day in April I looked out of my cell and saw a skeleton-like figure 
dragging itself along with difficulty and leaning on the bars for support, with a 
deathly pale face, glazed eyes and hollow cheeks. It was Lynch. I could not beheve 
it was him unul he looked at me, smiled and pointed to the ground as if to say: 
“Tm finished.” 

This was the last tine | saw Lynch. 

This statement of Casey’s corroborates Rossa’s testimony about 
Lynch. And it should not be forgotten that Rossa wrote his letter 
in an English prison whilst Casey was writing in an Australian 
penal colony, making any communication between the two of them 
quite impossible. However, the government has just stated that 
Rossa’s assertions are lies. Bruce, Pollock and Knox even declare 
“that Lynch was given flannels before he asked for them”. 

On the other hand Mr. Casey insists as firmly as Mr. Bruce 
denies it that Lynch complained that “even when he was incapable 
of walking and was forced to remain in the terrible solitude of his 
cell his request was refused”. 

But as Mr. Laurier said in his beautiful speech: 


“Let us leave aside human tesumony and turn to the testimony that does not lie, 
the testimony that does not deceive, the silent testimony. 5°! 

The fact remains that Lynch entered Pentonville blooming with 
life, full of hope and, three months later, this young man was a 
corpse. 

Unul Messrs. Gladstone, Bruce and his cohort of police can 
prove that Lynch is not dead, they are wasting their time in vain 
oaths. 


 Report of the Commissioners on the Treatment of the Treason-Felony Convicts in the 
English Convict Prisons, London, 1867.— Ed. 


439 


Vill