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upon the spot into the real causes and circumstances of these riots, who reported, "that the authors of those riots consisted "indiscriminately of persons of different persuasions, and that no marks of disaffection to his majesty's person or government "appeared in any of these people:"* which report was confirmed by the judges of the Munster circuit, and by the dying protestations of the first five of the unhappy men, who were executed at Waterford, in 1762, for having been present at the burning of a cabin, upon the information of an approver, who was the very person, that had set fire to it with his own hand. Fortunately for the country, Sir Richard Aston,† lord chief justice of the Common Pleas, was sent down upon a special commission to try great numbers of these rioters; and so well satisfied with the impartiality of his conduct were the inhabitants of those parts, that upon his return from Clonmel, where they were tried, he had the satisfaction of seeing the road lined on both sides with men, women, and children, thanking him for the unbiassed discharge of his duty, and supplicating Heaven to bless him as their protector, guardian, and deliverer.

rection; disavowed by every body; and the impotence of those engaged to do any thing effectual drives them into wanton and malignant acts of cruelty on individuals. Hopeless of redress, they are provoked to acts of desperation. The rebellion in England did not remove the evil; it was not however altogether fruitless; a commission was appointed to enquire into the cause of it, and from a proclamation thereupon issued, it appears, that government became possessed of the true state of the case. It is so remarkably apposite to the present state of the South of Ireland, that I cannot forbear citing an extract or two from it. It sets forth "that the king, and the rest of the privy "council were put in remembrance by divers pitiful complaints of the poor "subjects, as well as by other wise and discreet men, that of late, by enclosing "arable ground, many had been driven to extreme poverty, and compelled to "leave the places where they were born, and seek their livings in other coun"tries; insomuch, as in times past, where ten, twenty, yea in some places two "hundred people have been inhabiting, there is nothing now but sheep and "bullocks. All that land which was heretofore tilled and occupied by so "many men, is now gotten, by the insatiable greediness of men, into one or "two men's hands; and scarcely dwelt upon by one poor shepherd, so that "the realm is thereby brought into marvellous desolation, &c." The case of Ireland is now like that of England then. Some would insinuate that Popery is at the bottom of what they call this dark affair; and to give their opinion an air of probability, they tell you, that the first rising of these deluded people was in the very year that Thurot made a landing in the north of Ireland, and that Conflans was to have attempted the like in the south, But I can find no evidence that the French king employed any agents, at this time, to practise on the discontents of the rabble of Munster.

⚫ Vide Dublin Gazette, and also The Enquiry into the Causes of the Outrages committed by the Levellers per totum.

↑ A more uncorrupt, firm, and humane judge never graced the Bench. The extraordinary exultation of the Irish on this occasion, is a strong though melancholy proof, that the chaste impartiality and independence, from which that learned and revered judge never departed, had hitherto been a novelty to the Irish people. He has received the most honourable test of his uprightness in the blame cast at him by the author of The Memoirs of the different Rebellions in Ireland, p. 34.

The execution of scores of these unfortunate objects of misery and desperation would not answer the views of those, (and too many there shamefully were) who from their own private ends connived at and fomented these tumults. They sought a victim of more renown; and selected Nicholas Sheehy, the parish priest of Clogheen in the county of Tipperary, a district then particularly infested by the White Boys, as a fit object for their wicked, though ultimately ineffectual, purpose of implicating the Catholic religion, the Pope, the French, and the Pretender in the tumultuary outrages of these wretched despera does. They had him proclaimed upon false informations; and a reward of 300% was set upon his head. He, conscious of his innocence, immediately upon hearing of the proclamation, of fered to Mr. Secretary Waite to spare government the reward offered, and surrender himself instantly to take his trial out of hand; not indeed in Clonmel, where he feared the malice and power of his enemies would (as they afterwards proved) be too prevalent for justice, but in the court of King's Bench in Dublin. His proposal having been accepted, he was accordingly brought up to Dublin, and tried there for rebellion, of which, however, after a severe scrutiny of fourteen hours, he was honourably acquitted; no evidence having appeared against him but a blackguard boy, a common prostitute, and an impeached thief, all brought out of Clonmel jail, and bribed for the purpose of witnessing against him.

His enemies, who had failed in their first attempt, were predetermined upon his destruction at all events. One Bridge, an informer against some of those who had been executed for these riots, was said to have been murdered by their associates, in revenge, although his body could never be found,* and a considerable reward was offered for discovering and convicting the murderer. Sheehy, immediately after his acquittal in Dublin for rebellion, was indicted by his pursuers for this murder, and notwithstanding the promise given him by those in office on surrendering himself, he was transmitted to Clonmel, to be tried there for this new crime, and upon the sole evidence of the same infamous witnesses, whose testimony had been so justly reprobated in Dublin, was there condemned to be hanged and quartered for that murder.

The night before his execution, which was but the second after his sentence, he wrote a letter to Major Sirr, wherein he declared his innocence of the crime, for which he was next day to suffer death; and on the morning of that day, just before he

It was positively sworn, by two unexceptionable witnesses, that he privately left the kingdom some short time before he was said to have been murdered. See notes of the trial taken by one of the jury in Exshaw's Magazine for June 1766.

was brought forth to execution, he, in presence of the sub-sheriff and a clergyman who attended him, again declared his innocence of the murder; solemnly protesting at the same time, as he was a dying man, just going to appear before the most awful of tribunals, that he never had engaged any of the rioters in the service of the French king, by tendering them oaths, or otherwise; that he never had distributed money among them on that account, nor had ever received money from France or any other foreign court, either directly or indirectly, for any such purpose; that he never knew of any French or foreign officers being among these rioters; or of any Roman Catholics of property or note being concerned with them. At the place of execution he solemnly averred the same things, adding, that he never heard an oath of allegiance to any foreign prince proposed or administered in his life-time; nor ever knew any thing of the murder of Bridge, until he heard it publicly talked of: nor did he know that there ever was any such design on foot. The prompt sur render of Mr. Sheehy when he commanded the readiest means of escape, his accquittal before a Dublin jury of the rebellion charged in the proclamation, and his being afterwards found guilty of the murder of Bridge upon the evidence of those very suborned wretches, whose testimonies had been rejected on his former trial in the King's Bench, and were afterwards also rejected on the trial of a Mr. Keating for another pretended murder at Kilkenny, when coupled with other circumstances of atrocious violence, intimidation, and injustice attending the trial of Sheehy, known to and testified by hundreds of eye witnesses, many of whom are still living, leave no doubt upon the mind of every unbiassed man, that Mr. Sheehy was the devoted victim of the rankest malice and perjury.*

On the day of this man's trial, a party of horse surrounded the court, admitting and excluding whomsoever they thought proper, while others of them with a certain knight at their head, scampered the streets in a formidable manner, forcing into inns and private lodgings in the town, challenging and questioning all new comers, menacing his friends, and questioning his enemies. During the trial, Mr. Keating, a person of known property and credit in that country, having given the clearest and fullest evidence, that, during the whole night of the supposed murder of Bridge, the prisoner, Nicholas Sheehy, had lain in his house, that he could not have left it in the night time without his knowledge, and consequently that he could not have been present at the murder; the Reverend Mr. H. an active manager in these trials, stood up, and after looking on a paper that he held in his hand, informed the court, that he had Mr. Keating's name on his list, as one of those that were concerned in the killing a corporal and serjeant in a former rescue of some of these levellers: upon which he was immediately hurried away to Kilkenny jail, where he lay for some time loaded with irons in a dark and loathsome dungeon. By this proceeding, not only his evidence was rendered useless to Sheehy, but also that of many others was prevented, who came on purpose to testify the same thing, but instantly withdrew themselves, for fear of meeting with the same treatment. Mr. Keating was afterwards tried for this pretended murder at the assizes of Kilkenny, but was honourably acquitted; too late, however, to

.

In vain from the beginning of these iusurrections did a certain party attempt to fix the body of Roman Catholics with the treason and disloyalty attending them. The plain truth is, that these oppressed wretches being too ignorant to know the law, and too poor to bear the expence of it, betook themselves to violence as to their only resource. Fatal experience teaches us that mobs seldom rise, till they have suffered some grievance; and seldomer disperse till they have occasioned great mischief. The very occasion, which such risings afford to private, and secret, and generally unwarrantable engagements with each other, is one of the most pernicious evils, that can befal society. Linked by common ties, they acquire gregarian firmness, but seldom coalesce upon a specific ground of grievance. Yet whilst these White Boys continued to exist, they were generally consistent in the nature of their complaints; of which however the loudest and most lasting were against the extortions of the tithe proctors; the landlords and graziers, in order to divert the irritation of this wretched and oppressed peasantry from themselves, did not scruple to cherish, or at least connive at their resistance to the ever unpopular demands of the clergy. This suffering and misguided people bound themselves to each other by an oath.* be of any service to Mr. Sheehy, who had been hanged and quartered some time before Mr. Keating's acquittal. The very same evidence, which was looked upon at Clonmel as good and sufficient to condemn Mr. Sheehy, having been afterwards rejected at Kilkenny, as prevaricating and contradictory, when offered against Mr. Keating. James Prendergast, Esq. a Protestant of the established church, a witness for Mr. Edward Sheehy, deposed, that on the day and hour on which the murder of Bridge was sworn to have been committed, viz. about or between the hours of ten and eleven o'clock on the night of the 28th of October, 1764, Edmund Sheehy, the prisoner, was with him and others in a distant part of the country; that they and their wives had on the aforesaid 28th of October, dined at the house of Mr. Tenison, near Ardsinan, in the county of Tipperary, where they continued till after supper; that it was about eleven o'clock when he and the prisoner left the house of Mr. Tenison, and rode a considerable way together on their return to their respective homes; that the prisoner had his wife behind him, that when he (Mr. Prendergast) got home, he looked at the clock, and found it was the hour of twelve exactly. This testimony was confirmed by several corroborating circumstances, sworn to by two other witnesses, against whom no exception seems to have been taken and yet because Mr. Tenison, although he confessed in his deposition, that the prisoner had dined with him in October 1764, and does not expressly deny, 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 was brought in guilty. This positive and particular proof, produced by Mr. Prendergast, with the circumstances of the day and the hour, attested upon oath by two other witnesses, whose veracity seems not to have been questioned, was overruled and set aside, by the vague and indeterminate surmise of Mr. Tenison. See Exshaw's Gentleman's, and London Magazine, for April and June, 1766.

:

Of which the following is said to have been the form, and which the most wilful traducer of the Irish cannot distort into any engagement to the Pope, French, or Pretender:

"I do hereby solemnly and sincerely swear, that I will not make known any secret now given me, or that hereafter may be given me, to any one in

The public mind was much agitated by these proceedings, and many undue means were used to exaggerate the evil, and convert it into a Popish plot to overturn the government, to massacre the Protestants, and to favour our enemies in their dreaded invasion. Acts of popular outrage are committed generally by the lower order of the people; and as that order principally consists in this kingdom of Roman Catholics, it was in some respect a natural consequence to attribute the misdemeanours of the Southern insurgents, indiscriminately, to persons of that persuasion. The House of Commons therefore appointed a committee "to enquire into the causes and progress of (what was termed) the Popish insurrection in the province of Munster."

*On the 23d of January, 1762, Mr. Hamilton, secretary to Lord Halifax, communicated to the House of Commons the message from the lord lieutenent, by which he informed them, that he had it in command from his majesty, that after the most conciliatory efforts which his majesty's moderation could dictate, or his royal dignity permit, affairs had been brought to an unhappy, though on his side inevitable, rupture with the court of Spain: that in consequence his majesty had directed an immediate augmentation of five battalions to the establishment, which would render some further supplies unavoidably necessary beyond those which they had already so liberally granted. And although in this address to parliament there be an exclusive and particular application to his majesty's Protestant subjects of Ireland, it was not as before had been the usual style of the castle, to call upon them to make head against, to resist, or punish the common enemy; but as none but Protestants were members of the house which he was then addressing, and none but they could affect the revenue, his majesty having in all exigencies the most full and firm reliance on the experienced affection and loyalty of his faithful Protestant subjects of Ireland, entertained no doubt that they would concur with their usual cheerfulness and unanimity in raising the additional supplies. The commons immediately resolved on an address of thanks to the lord lieutenant, "the world, except a sworn person belonging to the society called White Boys, " or otherwise....Sive Ultagh's Children.

"Furthermore I swear, that I will be ready at an hour's warning, if possible, "being properly summoned by any of the officers, serjeants, or corporals belonging to my company.

"Furthermore I swear, that I will not wrong any of the company I belong "to, of the value of one shilling; nor suffer it to be done by others, without "acquainting them thereof.

"Futhermore I swear, I will not make known, in any shape whatever, to any "person that does not belong to us, the name or names of any of our fraternity, but particularly the names of our respective officers.

"Lastly I swear, that I will not drink of any liquor whatsoever, whilst on "duty, without the consent of one or other of the officers, serjeants, or corporals; and that we will be loyal to one another as far as in our power lies." 8 Journ. Com. p. 136.