The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1825-01-07 00:00:00

Waimea*. The wend trameser wassJobn Monaghan ; he w
not an attorney ; he was, however, all but an attorney ; he was the
confidential ernissery of blegulte„ and was the very soul of the pre-
sent aeIIITIVIICV. Bennet and the other male traverse's had been
niameiled errant" of the Noble Marquis; they had eaten his bread,
god betted of repaying him with gratitude, they had been only
ready and active to betray his interests, and " bear false witness
against him." Mts. Anne Connell. the other traverser, was of the
lowest are most degraded clue of female society—a wretch, who
did not shrink from the revolting degradation of assuming shame
and infamy to herself, for the purpose of accomplishing bee wicked
purposes. Her own confession, as cootained in her depositions in
The defensive allegations made before the Consistoriel Court, would
be sufficient to 'wiles= and to convict her. You, Inentlernen, are
im doubt surprised how the Marquis of Westmeath could come
into contact and collision with such persons as three; it would be,
therefore, necessary to explain the circumstances that led to the
kernation of the present conspiracy, and the causes out of which it
grew. In the year 1812, the lllarquts of Westmeath (then Lord
. Ravine) was married* Lady Emily Cecil, daughter of the late
and sister of the present Oterquis of Salisbury. This union had
received the approbationeof both the illustrious house"' of Cecil and
act Nugent, and rarely had a union been formed with fairer
• prorpects, sad under happier auspices. She was a lady then gay,
young, and beautiful—full of life and spirit ; and he was then at a
I cried of life, and in a rank, which rendered him in every respect
suitable partner far such a lady. His attachment for her
was as deep and sincere as it was permanent ; aiid if wealth.
honour, power, and lolleenee, could contribute to render the
marriage mate happy, they had every reason to ealettlate on
continued and uninterrupted mutual happiness. For lee years
they did lire happily together, during which period they were in
noseeseion of domestic enjoyment, interrupted only by occasional
diffeeenete which he might term slight breezes, that may be Laid
to vary without' disturbing the general serenity of domestic life.
For a cortelderable time he was on the Centir.ent with his Lady. '
They also lived in the society of the Marchioness of Salisbury, in
Lehdon, and at the country seat of her family in England. In
1814, the Earl of Belville inherited the_estates and titles of his
tither. The fruits of the marriage were two children—the one Lady
Ruse Cecil; born in 1817, and the other a son, an only son, who,
to the uncxtinguishable grief iris parents, was swept away to an
untimely grave.. I am unwilling to allude to the unhappy differ-
ences which I admit to have existed—they were, however, perhaps
not attributable to the faults of either of the parties, but to a diver-
sity of tastes, tibiae in the fashionable phrase, might be called ea
cessive sensibility of temperament, but which we would more Val.
pry cull irritable temper. The co, sequences were. lam satiation,
equally unpleasant to both. Lord Westmeath was an Irish Noble.
man : he loved his country, he delighted in country sports, and he
wished to en ioy them at his country residence. Lady Westmeath
had been differently educated : she had been in the gayest circles of
society in London, of which she was the idol and the ornament,
and it is not to be wondered at if she preferred the eplentli i glories
ToT Sr. James's to the seclusion of a remote residence in Ireland.
The Marquis of Westmeath was an easy and forgiving man, but,
lake most men, he bad a wish to be master of his own twine, and
was an advocate for the .eanyire law. On the other hand, his Lady
ens a descendant of the celebrated Cecil, the favourite of the
• Virgin Queen, and It was not to be wondered at if she entertained
a partiality for what was called petticoat government. (Laughter.)
Amongst other feelings she entertained was a strong feelieg t.f jos.
lousy. This was rather a foible than a fault ; but it inclined her
• to attend to the representations of the busy and ill.natured persons
who surrounded her—those half-listeners and half-inventors who
fasten upon families t., and strive to breed dissension in them
by idle tales and false stories. By such persons was Lady
esimeatli -surrounded ; they exaggerated the gallantries tif he
hod any )of her Noble Lord. It was painful to allude to those
demesne differences. Suffice it to say, that towards the end of the
year 11317 they became violent Indeed, and thus a union was inter-
, tamed, which had commenced under retch happy auspices. About
the year mu it was suggested to her, for he knew it could not be
her men idea, tnediandon the father of her children and the hus-
band of her choice. Accordingly she left his residence suddenly,
without Illesturaletlee, and against his consent, taking with her
both her children. In a moment of fondneess or of weakness,
herd AVesttneath had executed a deed, by which he made over a
part of his property to her Ladyship, which she conceived to give
her au exclusive turisdiction over their children. This fact of being
reflected independent of her lewd, prompted her the more readily
te take this step, by which she threw (41'11 subjection to her hus-
bend ; and this conduct of hers, I am instructed to inferm you,
eras discountenanced and disapproved of be her mother and all the
. members of her family. Lord Westmeath was naturally anxious
to recover his children, particularly his son, who he expected
scull one day be the inheritor of his titles and estates. In order
to effect this purpose, the restitution of his children, he was ae.
vised to have recourse to the law for redress ; and accordingly writs
of Heber Corpus were resorted to without number—suits,
both in law and equity,were inatinited without number ; arbitrations
and adjustments were entered upon, but they were invariably
broken off by the influence and intervention of the unshaven' by
horn Lady Westmeath was surrounded. In the source of Wigs.
tem which was here opened, a field presented itself for the exer-
cise of those talents of Mr. Bernard Maguire, for which, in the
earlier part of his statement. he gave him ample credit. He was
Lere quite at home—as much so as a salamander in Ins own native
element of fire. Lord Westmeath was advised to institute the only
mode of redress open to him, which was. a suit in the Consistorial
Court. The Civil Law does not provide relief for the abandon.
mon of a husband by his wife. The case is one belonging to the
jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Court, which obliged a woman
ehe forgets her duty to her husband to Main to him. Ace
onrdingly, about the commencement of the year 1821, a suit
was instituted by the Noble Marquis for the restitution of conjugal '
rights, the effect of which would be to compel her to return home,
and to place herself under the protection of her husband.
I n a suit of this kind, two species of defence can alone be
Fe: up: firstly, the cruelty of the husband; and secondly, the
Erse..' nt the commission of adultery by him during the
venni coverture. And here it was worthy of remark, that
tee plea of adultery had, in the first instance, never entered
her bead .Some defence was, however, necessary to be made, and a
defensive allegation was accordingly fileti,in whichsas a justification
to: leaving him, cruelty, on his part, was put forward. Now it was
not • very easy thing to define what cruelty was, or rather it was
definable by each person's respective notion of it. This lady, lie
had no doubt, was convinced that it was a cruelty to confine a per-
son, who had been accustomed to the society in which she was wont
to move, to the retirement of a secluded part of Ireland. In the lan-
guage of a lady, it would be an indiscreet exercise of authority to
oblige her to live where her husband pleased ; bt.t the Jury, as
husbands, would feel that they had a right to control their
e :yea in these points ; so determine whom they. should, and wheat
incy should not visit; whom they should receive and whom they
elineld exclude from their society. This the lady might think cruel;
but when the questior: came before the Judges, with long robes tied
flowing wigs, this cruelty was found merely to be a proper CUT-
case of authority. If the charge had rested on this plea alone, Lady
Westmeath would have been restored to the society and protection
of her husband ; but those under whose influence she was were not
eaticied here ; a new effort was to be made—it require! a masterly
'trokr—and who wet to achieve it? No less a person than Benign!
ileguire. Here was a dignos rindicc rodeo, and Bernard
I-iagoire was the guardian angel to step in and extend his protee-
tien to the Marchioness of ll'estmeath. lie was ready with bold
end eeeperate advice : the charge of adultery wcs to be sustained,
and he was to provide facts, &tee, witnesses, and all. If they bad
been prepared with this ease of adultery in the first instance. a ould
they not have brought it forward, without allowing the interval of a
year to elapse after the failure of the first charge, before they pro-
duced it ? A person, too, was found to depose to the adultery, in
Arum Connell. who was taken from the stews of Dublin, and who
seas reedy to falsely testify to her own shame and dishonour for the
purptaa cf sustaining this charge. She was ready to swear that so
early as 1815 she had had adulterous intercourse with the
Noble Lord; that she Itad criminal intercourse with him
at his own house in the country, and at the Leinster Hotel in
Dublin. This low, degraded, miserable creature went so far as to
oily, that he had made a settlement of lee a year upon her; that
he had two children by her, who wets born at the Lying-in Hoe-
; and that she was to have 101. • year additional for every
child she bore him. These children, she said, were a boy and a
gel—the one named Henry and the other Frances. A more
erourellees story—a more Use invention, had never been faliti.
vetted. Let this woman be edged of by the coninulictiotis and im-
probabilities which abotend in her depositions in the Ecclesiastical
Court. The defect of her examinations there was, that the wittiest
have written, and not oral testimony, as in our public Courts of
Justice. She deposed there, that at was a servant in the Leinster
Hotel. It woeld be proved that she never had been asertant there.
Wm further swore, that she used to open the door of his Lordship's
house in the country t that he used to give her tea in the evening ;
that she used to steal up to his bed-room ; but that in the morning
lrc tired to give her spirits to maks her intoxicated, in order teat
she might not know the wen she got out. As to her going in ey
the door, and opening it from the outside, it would appear that
that ciedd not be dove. Sn far front being a servant at Elridge's
Hotel, she never had been in it. Tile Noble Lord himself would ap.
pear, and swear that he had not, to his belief, ever seen this Anne
neinnell—this infamous abandoned woman. The war in which
this plot had been detected was, that a man, named nlicbael
Corcoran, by trade a tailor (who, although he was VaalleClCli Vith
it at the commencement, yet had virtue enough not to prose-
cote it to its final completion), made the disclosure which
mainly sustained the present prosecution. He had been appointed
in find out this woman, and to arrange her ieformatitne lie was
entrueted to take pesseseion of the supposed deed, making pro
vision for the children ethic!' it was alleged she had by Lord 'West-
tonsils, but no such article was to be found, nor were there any
such children in taistence. By this means also, by community.
thine, principally anonymous ones, he was unable to become ac.
(painted with the whole of the circumstances of this eofispiracy.
It would he further exnoscil by u witness of the Dime a Mar.
gsre• Shields, who shruld he produced, and whom an attempt had
been made to bribe. Large sums of money had been offered, which
she had had the virtue to decline. 'l'o this testimony was to be
added the publicly-avowed declarations of slaguire and3lonaghan,
teat they were hostile to herd Wastmeeth. Maguire went so far
as to threaten pot to leave him worth • shilling of money, or an
sad ref ground. I anticipate a ground of defence will be set up
for :Bayne. different from that vet up by the other traverser"'—that
i: will be endeeveured to establish his innocence on the ground of
hie Laing • professional man, and the; he was entitled to believe that
these agents he employed were incapable of perjuring theinstiree.
Awattorney certainly had an arduous duty, to discharge to his
olittat ; but no attorney bad a right, or was justified in bringing
forward a ease which he knew could only be sustained by take
sweatitigeand by depositions which he himself knew to be false.
Idiom genttlerien, are of opinion that Maguire was not aware
mat convinced that the whole was a fabrication, diva the ithoie

ii\b.