witness upon the said trial.* And this deponent saith, that Mary Hutchinson, and other material witnesses, who attended to give evidence upon the said trial, in favour of the said Sir Edward William Crosbie, were refused admittance in the like manner. And this deponent saith, that he is, and always was, a protestant of the church of Ireland, as by law established, and saith, he never was concerned in the said rebellion, or in any act in favour thereof; and was always a true and faithful subject to the present established government. And this deponent saith, that this affidavit is made at the special instance and request of the said lady Crosbie.

GEORGE LUCAS.

Sworn before me this 25th day of

December 1800..

Signed JONH CARLETON.

"This fact was communicated to colonel Mahon, immediately after the trial, by lady Crosbie herself; who waited on him as commanding officer, and told him, that whatever was the determination of the court, she must solemnly protest against its being put into execution. Upon which he said, pray, madam, what grounds have you for such delay? Her answer was, upon strong grounds indeed; for that the principal witnesses in Sir Edward's favour were prevented from coming into court to give such strong evidence in his favour, as must, if received, have powerfully operated in her husband's vindication. "Good God, Madam, are you certain of what you say?" "I am, sir, and can prove it on the oaths of those prevented." Ignorance, therefore, of this important fact formed no excuse for the execution of the dreadful sentence.

The following is an extract of a letter to Mrs. Boissier, from the Rev. Robert Robinson, who has, with the love of his parishioners, and the esteem of the gentry all around, attended the cure of Tullow, these thirty years past, dated Tullow, Jan. 30, 1799.

"YOUR letter found me in a large and gay company, and the revulsion it occasioned had such an effect on me, as I shall not attempt to describe, but which no friend of Sir Edward Crosbie need be ashamed to avow; and that I was such is my boast and my pride, notwithstanding the rash and fatal sentence which deprived him of life. No difference of opinion could ever loosen the bonds of amity between him and me, or cool our affection; and as to party spirit, although I profess myself as loyal a subject as any in his Majesty's dominions, and sincerely abhor the rebellion, which has of late distracted this unhappy country, yet I should be sorry to consider myself as a partizan. I knew Sir Edward's political sentiments well, and do solemnly declare, that he never, to my recollection, uttered a word of treasonable tendency; and with me he was ever unreserved. Would to God he had been less so to others! I will tell you the two grand points on which he was most warm. One was that he thought this kingdom governed by Great Britain rather as a colony than a federal state. The other was that his noble heart spurned

at the hauteur and oppression of the great and rich toward the poor and lowly: On these topics he always expressed himself with ardour, and often in the presence of those who felt themselves galled; and this attached to him the character of disaffected and republican. But I will give you a strong proof that he was not so: the morning that he fought young Burton, (of which no doubt you heard), I was saying to him, that I much feared the duel would be imputed to politics, as I knew he had the name of being a republican. His reply was, "if such be the character they give me, is is most undeserved; and I call upon you as my friend, if I fall, to clear my memory from so ungrounded a charge, as I am a steady friend to the constitution of king, lords, and commons, with a parliamentary reform, striking off the rotten boroughs." These sentiments uttered on such an occasion, by a man, whom, in a long course of most intimate acquaintance, I never knew guilty of the minutest falsehood, must be admitted as the genuine effusions of his heart; and that he didso express himself to me, I declare on the word of a christian clergyman. Was he then a republican? No. His own declaration a little before he suffered, and which I read in his own handwriting, clears him from the imputation of being a member of any treasonable society."

REV. SIR,

NUMBER VIII.

As you have publicly professed a wish to be informed of any involuntary errors entained in your history, when speculative opinions supply the place of fact, and are so prevalent, hearsey evidence, whether oral, manuscript, or printed, is to be received with the greatest caution, and the great superiority of occular information to any other, induces me, from my personal knowledge of facts, to send you, along with my own opinion, auxiliary documents that cannot fail to convince you that the introduction of my name into your history is not such as I am entitled to, and I hope your professions of liberality and candour may be realized in doing justice to my present communication.-According to the plan contained in Mr. Byrne's circular letter, two persons deputed from each catholic congregation in the county of Wexford assembled at Enniscorthy, on the 29th of July 1792, where they elected delegates to represent the county in the general committee of the catholics of Ireland. I attended this meeting as a voter from the congregation I belonged to, and had the honour of being elected one of the delegates for the county of Wexford, so that the intermediate step of baronials (which you mention in

your history) had but a speculative existence, invented I do naturally suppose for the purpose of assimilating the catholic committee with the system of united Irishmen, a circumstance totally devoid of truth, as no kind of communication existed between them. In order that the meeting of the general committee should be publicly attended, proposals were made to hire the Rotunda and other public places which could not be obtained. Such disappointment was the more conspicuous, as such refusal was not signified to many other applications of the same kind, so that no other place but the Taylor'shall, in Back-lane, could be obtained, which precluded the possibility of being able to admit any but the delegates, as it was scarcely sufficient to contain them, and thus was the committee frustrated in having their assembly publicly attended. The first meeting of this general committee took place in December 1792, for seven days only; which you mention to be many weeks; and the second and final meeting was for eight days, from the 16th of April 1795, to the 25th only, meeting on Saturday the 20th, being in the court of king's bench, where all the delegates attended to take the oaths of allegiance prescribed in the late act of parliament, and this meeting ended in dissolution. The collections made by the catholics of Ireland to defray the necessary expénces attendant on the pursuit of their eman