The Express.
London, England, 1848-01-06 00:00:00

SPECIAL COMMISSION.

COUNTY OF LIMERICK.

(FROM Ova SPECIAL IMPORTER.)

LIMERICK, TUESDAY, JAM. 4.
This day, at half-past ten, the Special Commission
for this county wee opened, vith the usual formalities, in pre-
sence of the presiding Judges, the Right Hon. Francis
Blackburn, Chief Justice of the Queen's 'leech, and the
Right Hon. D. R. Pigot, Chief Baron of the Exchequer.
The Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, Mr. George
Bennett, Q.O , and the Hon. Mr. Plunkett. Q C., conduct
the cases for the Crown. Mr. O'Hea is retained for the de-
fence of prisoners in nearly every case.
Proclamation having been made. and the Special Com-
mission fur Limerick, Clare, and Tipperary read, the Grand
Jug was called and sworn.
r John Croker, Sir Vere de Vere, Bart., W. Smith O'Brien,
M.P., Wm. Monsell, M.P.. The O'Grady, The Knight of
Olin, Joseph Gubbins, Carideo C. Coote, Robert Maxwell,
James D. Lyons, Thomas H. Royce, Michael Furnell, Bol-
ton Waller, Wm. H. Barringenn, Wet. Cox, John Roe,
Wm. Howley, J. S. Brown, Christepher Delmage, Carrel
Huh, Heffernan Cusidine, Eyre Massy, and Roger K.
Shea.
Tee Lard Chief-Justice charged the grand jury as follows :
Gentlemen, you are apprised, by her Majesty's Special Com-
mission, that you are now c died upon to perform your part in
the administration of the criminal law of this country.
Your duties, at all times of importance, mug be regarded
with peculiar interest and with deep anxiety when, at a
crisis of great public dare. r, her Majesty has called upon
her subjects to asset in vindicating the violated laws of the
land, and to be themselves the in:truments of restoring to
the country the blessines of order And tranquility. That
we are in such • crisis there is, unfortunately, no
reason to doubt. The Legislature, by an act of Par-
liament, which has just recently received the Royal
assent and become the law of Ireland, confirms it; anti
her Majesty's Government, on further consideration—on
mature consideration of the actual state of things—has
issued this Special Commission, in order that justice may be
speedily administered, the urgency of the case not admitting
of delay to the ordinary period. All these concur in justi-
fying the opinion that danger to a considerable extent pre-
vails, and unfortunately nll receive but too lull a confirma-
tion from the calendar which I hold in my hand, and which
contains • frightful detail of every crime and of every atro-
city by which our nature can be disgraced. But, besides
evincing general insubordination, and the prevalence of
crime to this frightful il,gree, it is perfectly plain, from the
nature of these crimes amt the circumstances attending their
perpetration, that there prevails in this county an ex-
tensive combination for purposes which are endeavoured
to be perpetrated and achii viol by the suoimission of every'
crime in violation of tl.c law of God and man: and it
is sot too much to say that, unless the progress of this
dreadful calamity he arrested, and 'greedily arrested, the
very bonds of the social system will be dissolved altogether.
Gentlemen, it does further appear that • principal object of
these combinations—A these illegal ronfederacies is the dis-
traction of the rights of landlords. Fluud, violence, intimi-
dation—all are recurred to—and even murder itself perpe-
trated, in order to prevent or to frustrate the landlord in the
execution of his legal rights and duties. And I hesitate not
to say, that if these deigns attempted to be effected by such
means shall be accomplished. the necessary practical effect
will be that the occupiers of the Isn't roust become essen-
tially its proprietors. But we shall take a very limited
view of this frightful calamity if we consider these
outrages as exclusively confined to interference with
the rights or the remedies of landed proprietors ; in truth,
the spirit of lawlessness and wickedness once let hope, knows
no bounds, and acknoo ledges no distinctions. The persons
and property of individu ils are indiscriminately are tiled and
plundered, and if these practices be not arrested, it is impos-
seae to say that there will exist in this country either the
dominion cf the law, or safety for pereon or property. Gen-
tlemen, according to my means of inoormation, it does
appear to me that the actual perpetrators of these outrages
aro comparatively limited in number; and I believe their
'spirit is as dastardly u their numbers are limited ; and that
it requires but a steady administration of the law, and •
decided opposition by whose who value the safety of person
and property, shortly and effectually to extinguish this evil;
but we should form a very imperfect idea of the actual state of
the country if we look merely to the number of those who are
the actual disturber of the public peace. Unfortunately, I
do believe that they are ahetti el by persons who hope to pro-
fit by their crimes; and I do believe, also, that a much larger
proportion of the population connive at their crimes, either
to the hope of benefiting in the common plunder, or from an
actual apprehension and t. rror were they to give the law the I
assistance which it is their duty and interest to afford, and
that they thus contribute—actively contribute—to a state of
things which must end in their own subjugation to the
tyranny which covers the country, and which will eventually
involve all in the common misery end destruction. Bu',
gentlemen, there is anothe r class of toreoes who, though
neither stimulating nor conniving at these practices. appear
to me not, at such a crisis,to have remembered their bounden
duty. lam afraid that • state of thing'', such as uow wit-
nessed, is a decisive proof of apathy :aid indifference on
the part of a large class of the Queen's subjects, from
whom support to the laws might fairly he expected. Persons
of this description are too apt to complain that the law and
the government do not afford all the assistance that it is the
duty and in the power of the law and eoverumf et to give.
But it should be recoil, cted that, without the cooperation
and assistance of her Majesty's subjects which it is their
duty to afford the law must remain a dead letter, unexecuted,
and unable to afford the protection wh ch all expect. In
return for such protection, every man in his own sphere, and
to the utmost extent of his influence, ought to assist in
vindicating the law and in protecting the public peace.
Gentlemen, as I have adverted to what may be termed,
and fairly termed, the prier ipal object of these illegal
confederacies, I may be allowed here to observe that
perhaps at no period—certainly at no period, looking
at land as the means of affording sustenance to a large
portion of our population, does there appear to be less
reason on that aecount for interfering with the rights
or remedies of landlords, because you are all aware that
the principle that every individual has a right to be sup
ported by the land, is not only now acknowledged as
an abstract principle, but it has been embodied in act of
parliament in full operation, by which the most stringent
measures are provided for making provision for the poor
under all circumstances. and that at the cost, and expense of
that very class of persons against whom and against whose
rights there is this general opposition. In regarding and
considering whether the calamities under which this country
has by the providence of God laboured, and considering how
far that may in any way be • cause of these dreadful out-
rages, lam bound here to say, that the patience—the grati-
tude—the enduring fortitude with which that calamity has
been submitted to, and borne by the large portion of our
population—by the destitute poor—has been generally
spoken of as in the highest degree exemplary, and I
do not find on the calendar before me, nor have I. after
the experience of the last two circuits, been able to
find a single case in which the destitution and dis-
tress arising from this visitation of God have in the slightest
degree produced these illegal confederacies, or stimulated
these disgraceful outrages. Gentlemen, the deplorable state
of things which obliges us to assemble here has been ascribed
to various causes of a social and political character. With
the investigation of these causes, and with the reasonable-
ness of these opinions we have nothing now to do. We have no
power to investigate—we have no authoritg to redress. The
only redress which this court can administer is redress to the
peaceful, the loyal, and the industrious, by putting an end
to a system by which they are held in thraldom—by which
their properties are rendered insecure, and their per-
sons liable to be assailed. But there is another rea-
son why I do not advert to these causes. We are here
to administer a law which does not admit of any cause, or
any fact giver: as excuse or justification for the commission
of crime. The law cannot tolerate its own siolation.
Wrongs there may be—injuries and sufferings there may be,
all affording just grounds of complaint ; but it is perfectly
plain, that, however these sufferings may be aggravated,
they never can be alleviated or redressed by a violation of
the law of the land. They, if there be any such, who disse-
minate opinions or who give advice by opposition to these
simple truths, incur, in my mind, a most serious responsibi-
lity ; and in my opinion, that responsibility is not the lea—
ner the danger of such advice less pernicious, when crime is
sought to be extenuated—when the criminal is held up as an
object aggrieved and injured, to the cammiaaeration of the
public, than if the violation of the law in express terms were
inculcated and advised. Having called attention to the
actual state of the country it seems to me necessary, in refer-
thee to your duties, both as grand jurors and as magistrates
in the ordinary discharge of your duties, to call your atten-
tion in detail to the provisions of the law, with some of which
you are probably well acquainted, and others which, perhaps,
have not been presented to lour consideration ; or if they
have been, are not attended to to the extent which their am-
rortance deserves. I shall, for this purpose, call your atten-
tion first to that code of laws called by the name of White-
boy Acts—a code of laws peculiar, as you all know, to
Ireland—a code of laws which is inoperative except when
the country is disturbed and in the state contemplated by the
legislature when it enacted these acts. In reference to the I
present state of the country, I lament to say that it ap-
pears to be exactly that which is described in the act
of parliament passed so long ago as the year 1776.
[His lordship here read the recital of the act of 1776, de-
scribing the state of terrorism and crime that existed at that
period; the appearance of the peasantry in arms, and the
general spread of assassination, robbery, &c., and then pro-
ceedede Unfortunately all these practices appear to pre-
vail at the present moment, and to a most alarming extent.
The first provision of the act to which I have referred and to
which I shall call your attention, is that which relates to
the possession of arms, and it enacts that if persons armed
in the manner described shall appear by day or by night, or
rise, or assemble, to the terror of her Majesty's subjects,
every person so offending shall be adjudged guilty of a mis-
demeanour, and the court is authorised to punish such per-
sons by fine and imprisonment, and oblige them to give secu-
rity to keep the peace. You observe that this statute makes
the appearing in arms to the terror of the queen's subjects a
very serious misdemeanour. But, gentlemen, I must now
call your attention, connected with that, to the provisions of the
late act of parliament to which I have before adverted, and now
yen will find that the lord-lieutenant having, by his procla-
mation, declared the county Limerick to be subject to the
provisions of this act, no person, unless the excepted persons
stated in the act of parliament, or persons licensed, can
either have or carry arms, even though they may have them
without doing offence or creating any terror to her Majesty's
subjects. The mere possession of arms is an offence, unless
the party be qualified to carry them by being exempted in
the act itself, or be licensed by the personsappointed by the
lord-lieutenant. Up to a particular period, ernes may be
carried or kept is the house, but after that period, even
within the habitation no arms can be kept without the viola-
tion of the law, and a very serious penalty—that of two
years' imprisonment is provided for such violation. Se that
you see the preeent act, in conjunction with the Whiteboy