From the Dublin Morning Register, 4 December 1833, originally published in the Liverpool Journal, this interesting disquisition on the cross-examination skills of Irish barrister and politician Daniel O’Connell:

“Of late years Mr O’Connell has been so exclusively before the public as a legislator, that he has been forgotten as a barrister. Yet, in the opinion of many (among whom are those who have known him long and well,) it is in the latter character that the peculiar idiosyncrasy of the man is fully developed, and his very rare and peculiar talents are fully displayed…

 There is no power so strong as that of good cross-examination, and I never know 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 everything 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.  It is a curious fact, that, from the first moment he as called to the bar, O’Connell distinguished himself by his cross-examinations.  If he is eminent in a criminal trial, he is not less so in a civil one.  Here he brings all his legal learning to bear upon the case, and here to he has the additional aid of that eloquence which usually draws a jury with him.

One of O’Connell’s earliest displays of acuteness was at Tralee, in the year 1799, shortly after he had been called to the bar.  In an intricate case, where he was junior counsel (having got the brief more as a family compliment than from any other cause) the question in dispute was as to the validity of a will. The witnesses were examined and gave ample confirmation that the deed had been legally executed.  One of them was an old servant, possessed of a strong passion for speaking.  It fell to O’Connell to cross-examine him, and the young barrister allowed him to speak on, in the hope that he might say too much.  Nor was this hope disappointed.  The witness had already sworn that he saw the deceased sign the will. ‘Yes,’ continued he, with all the garrulousness of old age, ‘I saw him sign it, and surely there was life in him at the time.’ 

The expression, frequently repeated, led O’Connell to conjecture it had a peculiar meaning.  Fixing his eye upon the old man, he said ‘You have taken as solemn oath before God and man to speak the truth, and the whole truth, the eye of God is upon you; the eyes of your neighbours are fixed upon you also.  Answer, man, by the virtue of that sacred and solemn oath which has passed your lips, was the testator alive when he signed the will?’

The witness was struck with the solemn manner in which he was addressed, his colour changed – his lips quivered – his limbs trembled, and faltered out the reply ‘there was life in him.’ The question was repeated in a more impressive manner, and the result was that O’Connell half compelled, half cajoled him to admit that, after life was extinct, a pen had been put into the testator’s hand – that one of the party had guided it to sign his name – while, as a salve for the consciences of all concerned, a living fly was put into the dead man’s mouth, to qualify the witnesses to bear testimony that ‘there was life in him’ when he signed the will…”