The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1835-11-17 00:00:00

THE SPANISH MERCENARIES

We noticed some time since in a Cork police report, the de-
sertion of several privates of the 6Jth Rifles, and their captain,
after a desperate resistance on the part of the ragamuffins whom
they intended to join on board the Royal Tar steamer, the
vessel in which they had embarked for Spain and glory.
On Friday last, Patrick Sweeny, Timothy Donovan, Thomas
Murphy, Edward Ward, Patrick Ryan, James Reardon, and
Michael Davoran, recruits in the Spanish service, were tried at
the Cork city sessions, on a charge of riotously assaulting
Lieutenant Townsend and seven men of the 60th Rifles, who
had proceeded to the Royal Tar at Cove, to search for the de-
serters found on board that ship. Another man named Donne-
gan, was also charged with assaulting William P. White, Esq.,
Harbout Master.
The jury found a verdict of guilty against Ward, Sweetly,
Davoran, Reardon and Donovan, and acquitted Murphy and
Ryan.
The Deputy Recordex, in passing sentence, addressed the
prisoners at length, remarking strongly on the brutality they
evinced on the occasien, when, but for the providence of the
Almighty, Adjutant Townsend and his small party might have
fallen victims to their ferocity. They were further guilty of a
very serious offence—that of rescuing the deserters from the
custody of their officer, and for which, under circumstances,
they and others—either for sedticing them from the service and
allegiance of his majesty, or concealing them in their flight, might
under a penal statute, have forfeited their lives. The prisoners;
with &number of other recruits who were on board, seemed de-
termined to shed the blood of Mr. Townsend and his party,
who were in the performance of a legal duty—a duty which
they were bound to execute; and they (the prisoners) acted in
that outrageous manuer, heedless of the commands of their
officers, but for whose strenuous interference they might have
been placed at the bar on a charge of murder, for which they would
. in all probability have suffered the extreme penalty of the law,
His Worship concluded, by sentencing them to 12 months' im-
prisonment, with labour on the tread-mill.
The address and appearance of Murphy impressed the Court
very much in his favour, and his acquittal afforded very general
satisfaction. As soon as he was liberated, he inquired for Col.
Ellis, expressed his gratitude for the interest manifested for
him by the Colonel end the other officers of the Rifles, and said
he .should never forget their kindness. The Colonel and his
brother officers, iu return, declared their gratification at the
issue of the trial, and their conviction not only that Murphy
had had nothing whatever to do with the assault, but that he had
to the
.utmost exerted himself for its prevention.
Murphy, we understand, was "designed for a very different
mode of life from that which lie is now pursuing, and we have
heard that to a gentleman who expressed his regret that so line
a young fellow should have embarked in so " forlorn a hope"
as the Spanish expedition, he replied, " What could I do ?—I
was intended for the church, but my father died before my edu-
cation was completed. Mv prospects were blighted. 1 had
nothing else to turn to, and 1 was glad of the opportunity of
embarking as a cadet."