The Sun.
London, England, 1833-02-28 00:00:00

Minister (as he, Mr. Stanley, had been informed by a gentle-
man who himself had since been obliged to leave the country
from fear of sharing a similar fate) had, a short time previous
to his murder, received a letter, ordering him to dismiss a see.
vant lad of his, and adding, that although no harm was
wished to be done him or his family, yet if he refused to
dismiss the lad in question death would be his doom.--
(Hear.) Though the murdered body lay in the road, no one
would assist to carry it to the house, and when the distracted
widow went on her knees to beseech this assistance from the
bystanders, she was answered with mockery and insult.--
(Hear, hear.) Throughout the night illuminations and bon-
fires were kept up on the hills around, for that a parson was
killed.—(Hear, hear.) Nay, so far was this dreadful scene
carried, that the door of the widow's house was repeatedly
knocked at with runaway knocks through- the night ; thus
adding insult to murder, and the sacred claims of affliction
were unattended to.—(Hear, hear, hear.) After this, talk
to him of this being a drunken fit of rage.—(Tremendous
cheering.) This a crime to be palliated !to be lightly passed
over—(Cheering)—for an Hon, and Learned Member—(Hear,
hear)—had even endeavoured, not to defend it—he had not
dared to do that—but to palliate it as the result of intoxication.
—(Hear, hear.) The next letter he had was from the county
of Wexford ; but before proceeding with this, he had to per.
form a debt justly due to that county, in praise of the general
good order and tranquillity preserved in it—a result greatly
owing to the influence and exertion of the Hon. Member be.
hind him (Mr. Carew, we believe) ; but in Wexfcrd it was
stated that several outrages had taken place, one of which was
where the house of Edward Maddox had been set fire to, and
when he and others of his family, to the number of five, rushed
out to save themselves from the flames, they were barbarously
shot to death by the incendiaries.—(Hear, hear.) The wife of
Maddox, in her dying moments, dec,lared that one of the prin.
cipal assailants was a man who had been in possession of Mad-
dox's farm before Maddox occupied it. He would not go
through the dreadful catalogue of murders brought before them
by his Noble Friend ; but would only add, that among all these
atrocious crimes, not one of the perpetrators had been brought
to justice.—(Hear, hear.) The Hon. Member for Kilkenny had
told them, that there had been no convictions in that county.
Nor did he (Mr. Stanley) see how there could be, when persons
were intimidated from giving the evidence which would pro.
duce those convictions.—(Hear, hear.) At the late Assizes for
Kilkenny there had not been a single case; but this did not
prove an absence of crime. His Hon. Friend had stated the in.
crease of crime in Leinster in the last four years; this increase
was not mere robberies, which might be the result of distress,
but of burglaries, breaking into houses of but one description,
in search of arms, arms, arms !—(Hear, hear)—as the means
of committing further outrages. He would take one county,
and take it at random, in order to show that an extensive sys.
tern of outrage prevailed over the whole. He would take the
county of Kildare,and quote the monthly report for January last ;
he would not select the outrages of peculiar atrocity, hut would
take the whole list, and read it through, to show that he dealt
fairly with the subject. Ihe return stated the nature of the
offence, the time it was committed, and every particular of
every day of the month. —(The Itight Hon. Gentleman accord.
ingly read a daily report of the crimes committed in the county
of Kildare of this description.) He read this catalogue of the
outrages in Kildare to show the character of those outrages,
and that they were not dictated by a desire to rob—that rob-.
bery was not the object of those who committed them ;
but that throughout the country there existed an organized
system of intimidation and violence; that the offences were of
an insurrectionary character ; that they continued to rage up
to this moment; and that the power of the law was not suffi-
cient to put a stop to them. The lion. Gentleman opposite
had stated, with something like exultation, that he was not
able to produce any cases of intimidation of jurors. He ad.
mitted that the cases of intimidating jurors were few, at least
that the cases were not numerous in which jurors were actually
attacked; but it was in evidence, that many men who were
likely to be summoned as jurors were filled with apprehension
and alarm, lest any part they might take in a trial should sub-
ject them to violence and outrage. But if the cases of openly
intimidating jurors were not many, the cases of witnesses and
prosecutors who had been intimidated were many. He held
in his hand a paper containing a long list of such cases, which
would show that witnesses and prosecutors were intimidated,
and that the impediments thrown in the way of adminis.
tering justice were very numerous. Many men refused to
attend as witnesses, and he mentioned this to show the
necessity of that House assenting to some measure which
would give these parties protection.—(Hear, hear.) When
it was said that jurors were not exposed to violence,
the case of Kilkenny should be excepted, at which the
Honourable and Learned Gentleman would admit intimida-
tion had been used.—(Hear, hear) He had a letter in Isis
hand, which stated that intimidatiOn did exist. A great
number of farmers and substantial yeomen had declared that
they had come to a determination not to attend as jurors. The
farmers, it was said, had been bribed by the Whitefeet not to
attend. He had also a letter from a gentleman who had been
on the trial at Carrickshock, who had been obliged to quit his
residence for giving an honest and conscientious be.
cause that did not accord with the vies, or the popular party.
That gentleman had been subsequently compelled to leave
the country, where he employed a great number of persons,
merely because he had conscientiously discharged his duty as
a juror. He had other similar statements, all showing that
gentlemen who did their duty as jurors were placed in most
unpleasant circumstances, and were either obliged to leave
the country, or were compelled to remain under the sur.
veillance and protection of the civil power. An opposite
case, however, was that of a gentleman who was known
to have given such a verdict as the people desired,
and a large body of men assembled, cut down his cern, and
performed other services for him. They extended their
protection even to his relatives, one of whom had a civil suit
in the Court at Waterford, and they so intimidated the wit.
nesses, warning them that they were not to dare to give evi.
dence against the relation of this patriotic gentleman, who had
stood by the brave boys of Carrickshock, that the trial could
not go on. Here, then, justice was defeated ; and no decision
could be given on the case, because the witnesses, under this
system of intimidation, had abstained from coming forward.
Another case was that of a gentleman of the name of Allen,
who stated that his life would be in perpetual danger if he were
to give what he thought was an honest verdict. He gave his
reason for this belief. lie swore an affidavit that his life and
property would not be safe; and on that affidavit he was ex-
cused from serving. He believed that this was the same gentle.
man whom he had lately seen described as an opulent miller of
the name of Allen, whose house had been attacked by an armed
party, and repeatedly fired into. Mr. Allen kept them
off by his arms, but they sent several shots into the bed.
room, and even into the bedstead of his children.—(Hear,
hear.) That there might be no mistake in this matter, the
party left a notice in a neighbouring cottage, swearing the
inhabitant to deliver it; and in that notice they declared
that the attack was made on account of the heroes of Car.
rickshock and their trial. Allen made his affidavit, and
was excused from attending as a juror.—(Hear.) He swore,
too (as we understood the Right Hon. Gentleman, for he read
his document with great rapidity), that he had seen himself, on
numerous occasions, opposed to large bodies of men, because
he had paid his tithes.—(Hear, hear.) Did the Hon. and
Learned Gentleman suppose, from the hatred expressed against
tithes, that he could under that conceal the enormities that
were practised, and raise in the House a feeling that opposi.
tion to tithes was the cause of all these outrages?—(Hear.',
Again, the jurors were absent from Clonmel. At Kilkenny,
too, the jurors did not answer; and, though they were called,
or fined 101. and 201., they did not answer ; and it was not till
they were summoned under the penalty of a fine of 501. that a
Jurycould be empannelled,and before that could be accomplished,
it was necessary to go a long way down the Jury list. A gentle.
man who wrote a letter on the 20th of Jan., 1833, stated that the
people in his neighbourhood declared that they would not attend
as Jurors, let the fine imposed for absence be what it might. It
was the boast of the prisoners that the Jury would not dare to
find them guilty. This was the case in Kilkenny; the same facts
were equally true of other counties ; and was he then to be told
that there was no intimidation—no violence—no obstacles in
the way of the execution of the law ? Persons would not
attend to give evidence, and persons who did attend as wit-
nesses, jurors, and who appeared as prosecutors, were com
pelted to leave their dwellings. This case was strengthened
by the statement of the witnesses examined before the Com-
mittee, which sat the last Session to inquire into the
state of the Queen's County. It would be seen by that, that
the members, both of the Grand and Petty Juries, were com-
pelled to carry fire-arms for their own protection, or they
dared not show themselves in the county. It was proved, by
most respectable witnesses, that twelve or fourteen persons had
been compelled to leave their homes on account of the perse-
cution of these armed bands. The Right Hon. Gentleman
next referred to the case of Mr. Hardell, a juror, who received
a notice that his life would be sacrificed for his conduct at the
Munster Sessions of January, 1832.. In Louth, too, the houses
of witnesses and jurors had been attacked. There was in the
returns obtained by the Committee which sat last year to in-
quire into the state of the Queen's County, an account of
twenty.six families who had been obliged to leave that county
in consequence of the persecutions of the Whitefeet. In the
same returns there was an account of twenty-two other fami.
lies which were obliged to have a constabulary guard lest their
houses should be attacked. In King's County the house of a
man was burnt down who gave information of an offence In
the county of Waterford that case had occurred which he had
already referred to, of the witnesses being prevented from ap.
peering in a civil suit: so that throughout several counties,
and throughout the last year, witnesses had been subjected to
intimidation. lie did not wish to detain the House so long,
and certainly should not detain it longer than was necessary to
make out his case—(Hear, hear)—to show not only that great
outrages had been committed, but that those who committed
them were acting on a combined system, placing the law tin-
der their feet and he wished to satisfy the intelligence of that
House that these gross outrages required a strong power to
meet them and put them tia-soi, and that a measure like that
the Government asked for was necessary to secure protection
for the lives and properties of the well.disposed people of Ire.
land. That view was strengthened by the opinion of the gen.
tlemen who sat last year in the Committee to inquire into the
state of the Queen's County, which was composed of gentlemen
of the most liberal opinions, and which, after referring to
these outrages, expressed in the strongest manner the ne-
cessity of having something stronger than the existing law to
give protection to the lives and property of the people. The
Committee say—
. In adverting to the late mischievous Associations in the
Queen's County, under the name of Whiteleet, and the frequent
recurrence of similar Associations in other parts of Ireland, the
Committee, although impressed with the strongest disinclination
to recommend any new law which should in any degree be a de.
parture from the established constitutional rule of law, when
they see by experience so much crime has been committed, and
so much injury sustained, from time to time, (rein these Mao-