4 MAY 1867, Page 2

" General " Burke and Patrick Doran, two leading Fenians,

were on Thursday found guilty of high treason and sentenced to death, a sentence which, as they were no more guilty than their comrades, will, we trust, be commuted. They are rebels, not buccaneers, like the men who invaded Canada. The chief evidence against them, moreover, was that of two approvers, " General Massey," and J. C. Corydon, a Liverpool clerk. The former was a colonel in the Southern Army, was one of the leaders who ar- ranged the insurrection, and deposed that the plan was to raise a guerrilla war. He was one of the governing Council, and was fully trusted. He was arrested on his way to Limerick to seize a rail- way junction, swooned, and resolved to turn informer to save him- self. The latter was an informer almost from the first, and for money, being regularly paid both by Government and the Fenians, who trusted him completely. He it was that gave information to the Liverpool authorities about the Chester business. We suppose it is necessary for the national interest to employ scoundrels of this kind, but if they could be used, and then comfortably hung, the world would feel the cleaner, and probably be none the leas safe.