from the bottom of my heart. May God forgive them." O'Brien claimed that all of the evidence given against him was false, and that as an American citizen he ought not to be facing trial in a UK court. He then went on at length to condemn the British government, the "imbecile and tyrannical rulers" of Ireland, until he was interrupted by the judge, who appealed to him to cease his remarks: "The only effect of your observations must be to tell against you with those who have to consider the sentence. I advise you to say nothing more of that sort. I do so entirely for your own sake." O'Meagher Condon's address to the court was considered by The Times to have "excelled all the other convicts in his zeal for the Fenian cause". He admitted to having organised the attack on the police van in his role as leader of the north-west section of the movement, but claimed that he "never threw a stone or fired a pistol; I was never at the place [where the attack took place] ... it is all totally false". He went on to say that "had I committed anything against the Crown of England, I would have scorned myself had I attempted to deny it". Towards the end of his speech he shouted, "God save Ireland!", a cry taken up by his companions in the dock. Allen, Larkin, O'Brien, Maguire and O'Meagher Condon were sentenced to death by hanging—the only punishment English law at that time allowed for murder—again crying "God save Ireland" from the dock after sentence was pronounced. In Thomas Maguire's case the witnesses who had identified the prisoners and had testified that Maguire was in the forefront of the attack had their evidence shown to be transparently false. This resulted in over 30 English reporters sending an appeal to the Home Secretary to have him pardoned. With such widespread doubts about the conviction of Maguire the government yielded to the pressure to grant him a pardon. This led many to believe that the other four would not be hanged since they had been convicted on the evidence of the same witnesses who, according to Liz Curtis, had "blatantly perjured themselves in the case of Maguire". While eminent lawyers tried through procedural means to halt the executions, leading figures such as John Bright, Charles Bradlaugh and John Stuart Mill appealed