Star.
London, England, 1816-07-05 00:00:00

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- several 'persons (many 'of them from considerable'
distances) assetnbled on that day and tbe,evening
preceding,' upon the different roads by which it was
possible for bfr. Baker to return from Cashel, and
were stetiotraltNina.ootall, detachments in different
houses andlilietintioaeOklment, for the purpose of
intercepting him ; that :dr. Baker was watched the
ficle day by persons apaointed for the purpose;
that his departuze from Cashel was communicated
by sigitals, and th it when the shots were fired which
-deprived kiwi of his dire, a shout of triumph was
raised by a number of people who bad assembled in
the neighbourhood, evidently to witness this barbarous
murder.
~ On the 2d of December I issued a Proclamation
in Council; offering 4 reward of 45000 for the disco-
• very of the person by whom the murder was com-
mitted. I shortly afterwards received an address,
signed by 76 Magistrates of the county of Tipperary,
assembled at a Special Sessions of the Peace on the
]writ of December, expressing the strongest acknow.
lodgments for the prompt administration of the
povrers confided to the Executive Government. and
assuring vie, that notwithstanding the recent murder
of Mr. Baker, and the manifest intention rf those
concerned in it to intimidate die Magistrates kom
the execution of their duty, they were determined to
co-operate with the Government in endeavouring to ,
maintain tranquillity, and not to relax theirexertions
from the apprehension of personal danger: They
concluded by praying, that a superintending Magis-
trate and police establishment might be placed in
the barony in which the murder of Mr. Baker had
been perpetrated.
I gave immediate effect to the wishes of the Ma-
gistrates thus conveyed ; and a Chief Magistrate of
Police, with 50 constables, was placed in the barony
of Clanwilliam. On the 28th of December a warrant
'was issued for a Special Commission to be held in the
county of Tipperary.
In order that I might not interrupt a connected
• account of the measures which I was compelled to
adopt in the counties of Tipperary and Limerick, I
omitted to state, that in the month of November, a
Memorial; signed by several Magistrates of die
. • rng's County, assembled at Clare on the 22d of
November, was laid before me, representing that va-
rious acts of violence, viz.. the robbery of arms, the
infliction of torture, the assembling in arms by sight,
and the administration of unlawful oaths, were com-
mitted in a small district of that county (4), and
praying that it might be declared in a state of distur-
bance under the Insurrectiun Act.
I had previously received a Memotial from a nu-
merous meeting of the Magistrates of Westmeadi,•
assembled at' (guide on the 2d November, stating,
that the character of the disturbances which had so
long prevailed in that county remained the same;
that they were of opinion, that the ordinary powers
entrusted to the Magistracy were totally inadequate
to ensure security to the inhabitants ; and unani.
mously praying. that the provisions of the Insurrec-
tion Act might be, put its turce iu two baronies of that
county (5) without delay.
1-laving had convincing proofs, that in the districts
pointed out by the Magistrates of the King's County
and Wesunentli (And which are contiguous districts)
a very turbulent disposition had lung prevailed, many
instances having occurred (some of which are enu-
merated in a fol trier part of this dispatch) in allich
illegal. oaths had been adcniuistered, in which houses
had been plundered of arms,.and witnesses and others
susaected of aidilig the administration of justice, had
htenooluideted or most cruelly treated ; and having
long witnessed the unceasing bet ineffectual ezertiols
on the part of many of the Magistrates in the must
- disoirbed parts of those counties, I determined to
accede to their application, and with ate advice of
the Privy Council, subjected the contiguous districts
* of the two counties to the operation of the Insurrec-
.
lion Act, by a Proclamation, which bears date the
2:1111. November.

..

•

In the course of the present year. the Insurrection
Act has not been enforced in any new instance. lis
the month of March, in consequence of a Memorial
from 27 Magistrates of the county of Louth, a Special
Magistrate, with 50 constables, was appointed, for
the purpose of assisting them to maintain the peace
in four baronies (6) of that county.
Various acts of outrage were committed in these
baronies about this period. IA the' course of one
week, eleven houses in the neighbourhood of Dun-
dalk were plundered of arms. The house and offices
of a farmer. who had prosecuted some persons by
whom he had been robbed and nearly murdered,
Were wilfully set on ate and consumed. -A party of
• earned persons, reported to be not less than 200 in
number, attacked the house of another individual,
and entered it, after meeting with considerable resis-
tance : after wounding very severely the owner and
two calla inhabitants of the house, they compelled
him to deliver his arms, and to 'take an oath that he
would give up his tam.
In the month of April, in the present year, a simi-
lar police establishment was also appointed in ,three
baronies (7) of the covany of Clare, on a representa-
' titan received from 20 Magistrates of that county.
For a considerable time past, certain districts in that '
county had been in an unsettled state ; but in the ,
cdUrse.of the preceding year I had been informed by ,
the Magistrates, that the examples made under the'
Insurrection Act in the counties of Tipperary and
Limerick had produced a very beneficial effect in the.,
county ,1 Clare. In the months, however. of Fe-
bruary and March of the inesent year, offences -of
the same general character with those which I have
before described were very frequently committed.—
Nightly meetings of large numbers of the lower or-
ders took place: in one district, in the course of the
month of March, several houses were wilfully burned,
and threatening notices were posted up, directed
against the letting of lands to others than the old
, p,oprietorsrand ;against the paytnent of rents, wept
under certain prescribed regulations.
I have enumerated all the several instances in
which I have; with the advice of the Privy Council,
enforced the provisions of either of those Acts of the
Legislature which passed in the Session of 1814.
lc will appear, from the detail into which I have en-
tered, that the Insurrection Act has been enforced in
the county of Linitrick, the county of. the city of
(I) The barony of Kilcourry, and the parishes of Darrow,
Itahlut, Lentanaban, Clonmaeno:se, and Wherry.
(5) Clonlunan and Moycashel.
(6) Upper and Lower Drunfalk, Ardee, and Loath.
(7) Ciouderhat, Mucha% and Moyarts.

-
Linteriek, •
aavinakaatvotra• of the count
peraty, two Ant nountr of Wit
and imelliorict Lines county : and
certain districts eanatiesi Tipperary,
and Clare, special Magistrates anti Constables have
been pladed, having the prdinatfpowers given to
Civil °dicers, and the•iipenCes consequent on their
appointment being levied from they district, within
which they set.
I shall now state to your Lordship the general re-
sult of the Measures which have been thus adopted
for the preservation of the public peace, in aid of the
ordinary operation of the law; and it gives me great.
satisfaction to be enabled to-assure you, that tran-
quillity has been completely restored in some of the
districts which were the seat of disturbance ; and that
in three of those districts in which the Insuriection
Act was enforced in the course of last year, itlas, in
consequence of the improved state of Ahem, been
withdrawn since the commencement of the present

of Tip•

.year.
In the month of February last, I received from the
Magistrates of the King's, County a Memorial, ex-
pressing their acknowledgments for the additional
powers which had been given to them tinder the In.
surrection Act, and for the judicious distribution of
the military force ; stating the good effect to the
peace of the county which had resulted from those
measures, and giving their opinion that the addi-
tional powers entrusted to them might be safely
' withdrawn.
From the Magistrates of the city of Limerick, as-
sembled at an extraordinary Sessions of the Peace on
the 15th day of April last, a Memotial was trans-
mitted, stating their opinion that the circnmstances
which induced them to apply for the provisions of the
54th of the King to be put in force in the county of
the city of Limerick no longer existed:
I have also received a Mitesorial from the Magi-
strates of the County of Wesiaseath, assembled at a
special Session of the Peace heist list month, expiess-
ing the deep sense which they eatertain.of the benefit
which their county has experienced from the measures
which had been adopted ; attributing the tranquillity
they now enjoy to the successful operations of the
provisions of the Insurrection Act; and adding their.
wish, that the powers with which it invested them
might be withdrawu, and the ordinary coarse of law
restored. .
I gave immediate effect to their several applica-
tions, and the Proclamations enforcing the insurrec-
tion Act in certain districts of the county of West-
meath, King's county, and the county of the city of
Limerick, have been severally revoked by she Privy
Council. The only counties, therefore, in which that
Act now remains in operation are the counties of
I Tipperary and Limerick.
I have annexed to this dispatch a Report of the
proceedings of the Special Commission held for the
County and City of Limerick in the month of No.
vember 1815, and in the County of Tipperary in the
month of February 1816 ; and a return of persons
tried at the Special Session under the Insurrection
Act, for offences against the provisions of that Act.
I have added also a statement of the proceedings, at
the several Assizes in the years 1813, 1314, and
1815. and Lent Assizes of the year 1816, so tar as
relates to committals and convictions for criminal
acts connected with the disturbance of the public
peace in the following counties : Westmeath, Tip-
perary, Limerick, King's County, Queen's County.
Longford, Louth, Clare, Roscommon, and WA.
terrord. _ _ _

There may appear to your Lordship a great diapa-
rity in some cases between the number of committals
and the number of convictions; and persons ac-
quainted with the internal state of this country may
inter that committals too frequently take place
out sufficient evidence of guilt against the parties ap-
prehended. No such conclusions, however, (I mean
so far as relates to the general practice ot cite Ma-
gistracy to commit suspected persons on slight and in-
sufficient ground), ought to be drawn.
The frequent instances which have come to my
knowledge, wherein prosecutors and wttnesses have
been intimidated by the menaces of the friends of the
parties deposed against ; the experience I have had
of the danger to which they, and even their relations
are exposed ; of the necessity which in almost every
case occurs, that they should quit the place of their
birth and residence; of the odium which universally
attaches to the name of an informer; compel me to
consider the disproportion . between the number of
committals and convictions in many districts, rather
as a proof of the disordered state of society, and of
the impediments in the way of the administration of
justice, than as a proof of undue precipitancy on the
part of the Magistracy, in committing on the suspi-
cion of criminality. I may be allowed here to add,
' that the danger attendant en the giving information
Of evidence was so notorious, and so much impeded
the conviction of the guilty at no remote period, that
the Legislature found it necessary, with the view of
deterring from the murder of witnesses, and of pre-
venting the impunity of the parties against whom
those witnesses had deposed, to enact, that if any
person having given information upon oath of any
offence against the laws should be murdered, or for-
cibly carried away before the trial of the person de-
posed against, such information on oath should be
admitted as evidence on the trial.

It has been necessary in the disturbed counties (in
most instances of persons having given information
on oath, or intending to give evidence upon trial)
on account of the serious danger to which such per-
sons are exposed, to remove them to places of secu-
rity previous to the trials, and ultimately to provide
for their removal from their usual abodes. In many
cases the witnesses for the Crown have. at their own
request, been kept a considerable period previously
to the trial in the gaol of the county, as affording
them the best means of protection; in other cases
they have been protected in barracks, 'or brought to
Dublin, where however, occasionally, they have not
been safe from the hostility of the friends of the par-
ties apprehended.
I have not thought it necessary to mention the nu-
merons applications which have been, and, continue
to be made. for military assistance is aid of the civil
power. by Magistrates and others. I never recona=
mend the Commander of the Forces •to accede to
those applications, without the strongest evidence tal
their necessity ; and in almost every case, the mai.
tory Othcer in command of the District from which
the requisition proceeds, is dieircted to enquire perso-
nally into the pounds on whkh it is made. I ought