The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-10-10 00:00:00

O'CONNELL AS AN AUTHOR

It is known to most of our readers that O'Connell has
written a work which he has called "Memoirs of Ireland."
This work, the Standard, having questioned the authenti-
city of a massacre said to have been perpetrated on a body
of defenceless Irish at Mullaghmast, was challenged to
read, and our contemporary has complied with the request,
and the result is the discovery of one of the most auda-
cious efforts to delude a credulous people, by downright
invention, that ever before happened. With regard to
this place of Mullaghmast, for example, what do we find ?
Here is the extract from Mr. O'Connell's " Memoirs" :
" The next instance I shall mention, occurred in the year
1577. It is thus introduced by Morrisson the historian
(folio edition, p. 3) :
" After the 19th year of Queen Elizabeth, videlicit anno
" 1577, the Lords of Connaught and 0' Rooke," says
Morrison, " made a composition for their lands with
" Sir Nicholas Malby, governor of that province ;
" wherein they were content to yield the Queen so
" large a rent and such services both of labourers to
" work upon occasion of fortifying, and of horse and
" foot to serve upon occasion of war, that their minds
" seemed not yet to be alienated from their wonted
" awe, and reverence t o the Crown of England. Yet,
" in the same year, a horrible MASSACRE was, corn-
" milted by the English. at Mulloghmast on some
" hundreds of the most peaceable of the Irish yen-
" try, invited thither on the public faith and under
" the protection of government."
Reader, will you believe it—even of Dan O'Connell—
that of the sentence printed in italics, (and these italics
are Mr. O'Connell's,) there is not one syllable in Morri-
son ? From " the Lords of Connaught, &c." in the
second line, down to the words " Crown of England," in
the tenth line, the extract is a literal transcript from the
historian, but there the record stops, so far as the matter
of Mullaghmast is concerned. The five concluding lines
of the memoir are therefore an infamous forgery. Of the
alleged massacre, contemporary writers make no more
mention than Morrison, but Mr. O'Connell has got hold
of some legendary account of a massacre said to have hap-
pened at that place. In referring to his questionable
authority, however, he finds it necessary for his base pur-
pose to resort to mutilation. His authority says the sup-
posed victims were hemmed in between " three and four
lines of English and Irish horse and foot." His " Me-
moirs" give it thus :
" The English published a proclamation, inviting all
" the well-affected Irish to an interview on the Rath-
" more, at Mulloghmaston, engaging at the same
" time for their security, and that no evil was in-
" tended. In consequence of this engagement, the
" well-affected came to Rathmore aforesaid ; and
" soon after they were assembled, they found them-
" selves surrounded by three or four lines of English
" horse and foot completely accoutred, by whom they
" were ungenerously attacked and cut to pieces ; and
" not a single man escaped."
The word " Irish" is here omitted. The reason is obvi-
ous. Mr. O'Connell's vile motive is to impress on the
minds of his deluded victims a belief that " the Saxon" is,
and always has been, their oppressor. It would not do,
therefore, to tell the Irish that if there was any butchery
at all (which is more than doubtful) it was perpetrated in
part at least, by their own countrymen. Thus, you see,
reader, that to carry out his detestable purposes, Mr.
O'Connell first rakes up a fable in which Mulloghmast is
made to figure as the theatre of some awful tragedy, in
which, of course, the poor Irish were the helpless victims,
and the fell Saxon their oppressors, and then selects this
spot as the scene of his next clap-trap gathering.

WALES

STATE OF SOUTH WALES

On Saturday week two of the ringleaders in the attacks
on private property were captured near Llanelly. The
circumstances leading to their apprehension were as fol-
low. A few nights previously an attack was made upon
the Gwenwyth Iron Works at Pont-y-Beren by a num-
ber of men ; they surrounded the house between 1 and 2
o'clock in the morning, and having fired several shots,
commenced battering at the door, demanding to have the
managing clerk, Mr. Slocombe, brought out to them.
His wife in the most heroic manner presented herself at
an upstairs window, and demanded who they were, and
what they wanted with her husband ? The answer of the
leader was, " I am Rebecca, and we demand to see him
instantly. The wife, however, firmly refused, stating
that her husband was not there. Finding that they could
not gain admission, they said Mr. Newman (the proprie-
tor of the works, in whose house Mr. Slocombe resides)
has behaved well, and we will not hurt him ; but if Mr.
Slocombe is not out of the country within a week, we will
make him a head shorter; they then fired some more
shots, and made off. It appears that several persons who
were present at this outrage had been forced from their
houses to join them, and consequently information was
given to the magistrates that the ringleaders were two
men of notoriously bad character, named John Jones,
alias John Uyseborfawr, a man of about 30 years of age,
who hasibeen a prize-fighter, and David Davis, alias Daily
Cantwr, or David the Singer, and through the vigilance
of the police these men were soon taken, and conveyed to
Carmarthen for examination.

On Thursday night week the house of a poor woman
who had given them some offence, which was situated at
Penhrw-common, near Cross-hands, was attacked by a
party in disguise and razed to the ground.
A royal proclamation was published in Tuesday's
Gazette, offering a reward of five hundred pounds " to
any person or persons who shall discover and apprehend,
or cause to be discovered and apprehended, the authors,
abettors, and perpetrators of any incendiary fires or of
any outrage upon the person or any of our subjects, by
which life shall ha,.e been sacrificed, so that they or any
of them shall be duly convicted thereof, and every person
who shall be so convicted, and shall receive our most gra-
cious pardon for the said offence in case the person mak-
ing such discovery as aforesaid shall be liable to be prose-
cuted for the same, except he be the actual perpetrator of
such outrage or of such incendiary fire as aforesaid." And
a further reward of fifty pounds is offered to " any person
or persons who shall discover and apprehend, or cause to
be discovered and apprehended, the authors, abettors, and
perpetrators of any such outrages, other than those last
above-mentioned, so that they or any of them may be duly
convicted thereof."

On Friday week, about midnight, Rebecca's sister,
Charlotte, and about 150 followers visited the Turnpike
Gate, Cwrodwr. The old woman who collected the
tolls, in consequence of the threats of these miscre-
ants removed the furniture from her house, during which
time the Rebeccaites chopped up the gates and posts for
firewood which they placed inside the house and set fire
to. The party then set off to the village of Llansadwrn
and surrounded the house of the Rev. J. Jones the vicar,
whose family was disturbed from their peaceful slumbers
by the firing of a volley of guns and demand for Mr.
Jones' appearance. When Mr. Jones came forward, she
gave him the alternative of removing his furniture out of
the vicarage within ten minutes, that the house might be
set on fire, or that he should pledge his word that he
would not take into his possession a few fields which he
had purchased some months since, and which adjoined
the vicarage, as it was contrary to Becca's law that he, as
a clergyman, should hold any lands—either the barn or
the church—but not both was the peremptory fiat of Queen
Becca, and backed as her viceregent was, by some hun-
dreds of well armed attendants, ready to perform her
commands, Mr. Jones was compelled, as a matter of per-
sonal safety, and not w'shing to have his house burnt over
the heads of himself, his wife and family, to comply with
Becca's demands, and to engage that the tenant who had
occupied the fields, should be allowed to retain possession
of the same at a reduced rent, the amount of which was
then stipulated. After having extorted these terms from
the worthy Vicar's just fears, the party left the place.
Two other gates in Carmarthenshire, and one in Brecon-
shire, were also destroyed last week. A farm house and
buildings near Cilycwnr, in Carmarthenshire, were level-
led with the ground on Saturday week, in order, it is said,
to prevent a tenant from taking possession of the same.
A meeting of freeholders, farmers, and others, was held
on Tuesday last, on Pen Crugybalog, near Newcastle-
Emlyn, for the purpose of adopting an address to her
Majesty, expressive of their loyalty—their regret at the
recent outrages which have taken place in this country,
and their determination to repress them, and praying her
Majesty to adopt such measures as she might deem fit, to
relieve them from their local grievances. About three
thousand persons assembled, and the meeting altogether
was of the most orderly and satisfactory character.
All the side gates in the Breconshire Turnpike Trust,
and some of the gates on the regular mail-roads were dis-
continued on Michaelmas day at twelve o'clock at noon.
' 'Becca last week nabbed a bum-bailiff in the exercise
_
of his craft upon the chairs and tables of a poor farmer at
Fosgrech, and committed him bound hand and foot to
the parish pound till the next morning. He was then
released on paying 4d., the fee on impounding a quadru-
ped. The Carmarthen Journal says, that the law officer
is now a strenuous advocate against " Cruelty to Animals"
and " Solitary Imprisonment'"

At the recommendation of Lord Dynevor, the Lord
Lieutenant of the county of Carmarthen, the names of
twenty gentlemen have been added to the commission of
the peace by the Lord Chancellor.