sentence was passed; as it may well be supposed, that no use was made of the former reprobated witnesses on this occasion. But truth obliges me to answer, with reluctance and shame that use was made of them, and a principal use too, in the trial and conviction of these devoted men. The managers, however, for the crown, as they impudently called themselves, being afraid, or ashamed, to trust the success of their sanguinary purposes to the now enfeebled, because generally exploded, testimony of these miscreants, looked out for certain props, under the name of approvers, to strengthen and support their tottering evidence. These they soon found in the persons of Herbert and Bier, two prisoners, accused like the rest of the murder of Bridge; and who, though absolutely strangers to it (as they themselves had often sworn in the jail), were nevertheless in equal danger of being hanged for it, if they did not purchase their pardon by becoming approvers of the former false witnesses. Herbert was so conscious of his innocence in respect to Bridge's murder, that he had come to the assizes of Clonmel, in order to give evidence in favor of the priest Sheehy; but his arrival and business being soon made known, effectual measures were taken to prevent his giving such evidence. Ac cordingly bills of high treason were found against him, upon the information of one of these reprobate witnesses, and a party of light horse sent to take him prisoner. Bier, upon his removal afterwards to Newgate in Dublin, declared, in a dangerous fit of sickness, to the ordinary of that prison, with evident marks of sincere repentance, that for any thing he knew to the contrary, the before-mentioned Edmund Sheehy, James Buxton, and James Farrel, were entirely innocent of the fact for which they had suffered death; and that nothing in this world, but the preservation of his own life, which he saw was in the most imminent danger, should have tempted him to that it was on the 28th of that month; but says, conjecturally, that he was inclined to think that it was earlier than the 28th, the prisoner wa brought in guilty. Thus positive and particular proof, produced by Mr. Prendergast, with the circumstances or the day and the hour, attested upon oath by two other witnesses, whose veracity seems not to have been questioned, was over-ruled and set aside, by the vague and indeterminate surmise of Mr. Tenison. See Ershaw's Gentleman's and London Magazine For April, and June, 1766.

be guilty of the complicated crimes of perjury and murder, as he then confessed he was, when he swore away the lives of those innocent men.”

On Saturday morning, May 3d, 1766, the convicts were hanged and quartered at Clogheen. Their behavior at the place of execution was chearful, but devout; and modest, though resolute. It was impossible for any one in their circumstances, to counterfeit that resignation, serenity, and pleasing hope, which appeared strikingly in all their countenances and gestures. Conscious of their innocence, they seemed to hasten to receive the reward prepared in the next life, for those who suffer patiently in this. For, not content to forgive, they prayed for and blessed their prosecutors, judges, and juries, as likewise all those who were otherwise instrumental in procuring their deaths. After they were tied up, and just before they were turned off, each of them, in his turn, read a paper aloud, without tremor, hesitation, or other visible emotion, wherein they solemnly protested, as dying christians, who were quickly to appear before the judgment-seat of God, "that they had no share either by act, counsel, or knowledge in the murder of Bridge; that they never heard an oath of allegiance to any foreign prince proposed or administered amongst them; that they never heard, that any scheme of rebellion, high treason, or a massacre, was intended, offered, or even thought of, by any of them; that they never knew of any commissions, or French or Spanish officers being sent, or of any money being paid to these rioters. After this, they severally declared, in the same solemn manner, that certain gentlemen, whose names they then mentioned, had tampered with them at different times, pressing them to make, what they called useful discoveries, by giving in examinations against numbers of Roman catholics of fortune in that province (some of whom they particularly named) as actually concerned in a conspiracy,

"I was three times in Ireland (says an English commoner) from the year 1760 to the year 1767, where I had sufficient means of information, concerning the inhuman proceedings (among which were many cruel murders, besides an infinity of outrages and oppressions, unknown before in a civilized age) which prevailed during that period, in consequence of a pretended conspiracy among Roman catholics against the king's governs ment." Lett. Eng. Commoner, &c. ubi supra.

and intended massacre, which were never once thought of. But above all, that they urged them to swear, that the priest, Nicholas Sheehy, died with a lie in his mouth; without doing which, they said, no other discovery would avail them. Upon these conditions, they promised and undertook to procure their pardons, acquainting them at the same time, that they should certainly be hanged, if they did not comply with them." Thus did those virtuous men, prefer even death to a life of guilt, remorse, and shame, the just punishment in this world of their tempters, as well as the wretches seduced by them.

CHAP. XVII.

Reflections on the foregoing subjects

YET some persons there were, who, in order to save the characters of these their friends, from the horrible imputation of suborning others to commit perjury and murder, strenu ously endeavored, and with some success, to have it believed, that credit ought to be given to the testimony of those approv. ers, in preference to the solemn and unanimous declarations of these dying men. But let us advert a moment to the miserable weakness of the credulity. Those approvers were imprisoned on a charge of murder, and struck with the fear of an ignominious death; being certain, at the same time, that their par don was to be obtained only by the testimony they gave, how. ever false. On the other hand, the dying prisoners beforementioned, had often rejected the like offers of pardon, and solemnly denied their being guilty of the crimes for which they suffered, in the very article of death; conscious that they were instantly to account for such denial, before an all-seeing Judge. Now when we consider this material difference in the circumstances of the testimonies of the accusers, and the ac cused, who can forbear concluding, that the oaths of the for mer were wilful perjuries, prompted by the hopes of a pardon, of which the shedding of innocent blood was to be the only purchase; and that the solemn declarations of the latter, were noble and successful efforts of truth, conscience, and honor, against the strongest temptations to the contrary, that the love.

of life, and the tenderest endearments and connexions of this world, could have thrown in their way."

Such, during the space of three or four years, was the fear ful and pitiable state of the Roman catholics of Munster, and so general did the panic at length become, so many of the low. er sort were already hanged, in jail, or on the informers lists, that the greatest part of the rest fled through fear; so that the land lay untilled, for want of hands to cultivate it, and a famine was with reason apprehended. As for the better sort, who had something to lose (and who, for that reason, were the persons chiefly aimed at by the managers of the prosecution), they were at the utmost loss how to dispose of themselves. If they left the country, their absence construed into a proof of their guilt if they remained in it, they were in imminent danger of having their lives sworn away by informers and approv ers; for the suborning and corrupting of witnesses on that occasion, was frequent and barefaced, to a degree almost beyond belief. The very stews were raked, and the jails rummaged in search of evidence; and the most notoriously profligate in both were selected and tampered with, to give in formations of the private transactions and designs of reputable men, with whom they never had any dealing, intercourse, or acquaintance; nay, to whose very persons they were often found to be strangers, when confronted at their trial.

In short, so exactly did these prosecutions in Ireland resemble, in every particular, those which were formerly set on foot in England, for that villainous fiction of Oates's plot, that the former seem to have been planned aud carried on intirely on the model of the latter; and the same just observation that hath been made on the English sanguinary proceedings, is perfectly applicable to those which I have now, in part, related, viz. "that for the credit of the nation, it were indeed better to bury them in eternal oblivion, but that it is necessary to perpetuate the remembrance of them, as well to maintain the truth of history, as to warn, if possible, our posterity and all man. kind, never again to fall into so shameful and so barbarous a delusion."

CHAP. XVIII.

Some prospect of mitigating the rigor of the popery laws.

ALL this while, the chapels of the Roman catholics were suffered to be open, and the exercise of their religion was actually connived at; although the religion was, at the same time, accused, in the spirit of the framers and advocates of the popery laws, of prompting its professors to these pretended acts of rebellion; which proves to a demonstration that these laws, notwithstanding their pompous title, were primarily intended, rather to deprive these people of their property and substance, than of the free exercise of their religion; since having long since taken from them almost all that was real of the former, they have left them unmolested with regard to the latter.*

By this connivance, however, the defenders of these laws pretend, that the objection from the breach of the articles of Limerick is removed; as these articles promised nothing more than that the Roman catholics should not be disturbed in the exercise of their religion. But (besides there is a wide difference between a meer connivance and a privilege, the former being purely negative, or a non-hinderance, depending solely on the will or caprice of the persons conniving; the latter, an actual and positive power of doing what is not otherwise prohibited, which power or privilege was the thing stipulated by

"But it seems (says Mr. Young) to be the meaning, wish and intent of the discovery laws, that none of them (the Irish catholics) should ever be rich. It is the principle of that system, that wealthy subjects would be Buisances; and therefore every means is taken to reduce, and keep them to a state of poverty. If this is not the intention of these laws, they are the most abominable heap of self-contradictions that ever were issued in the world. They are framed in such a manner that no catholic shall have the inducement to become rich.........Take the laws and their execution into one view, and this state of the case is so true, that they actually do not seem to be so much levelled at the religion, as at the property that is found in it.........The domineering aristocracy of five hundred thousand protestants, feel the sweets of having two millions of slaves: they have pot the least objection to the tenets of that religion which keeps them by the law of the land in subjection; but property and slavery are too incompatible to live together: hence the special care taken that no such thing should arise among them."-Young's Tour in Irel, vol. ii. p. 48,