Our Assizes ended yesterday, and contrary to
all expectation, there was more business of a real and
serious nature, than we recollect for many years. Nor could
we have imagined, that where the Calendar, as we said in our
last, was so very light as to contain the names of only
eighteen prisoners— Ten of the number should have been
capitally convicted, and sentenced to an ignominious death!
The trials of these unfortunate persons,
have been taken down in detail, by our Reporter; we have
commenced their publication this day, and shall continue
them in our next; for we deem it a duty which we owe our
country, to hold out to society, the moral lesson which
these trials must afford; and we should hope, that the awful
example which the fate of so many of our wretched and guilty
countrymen holds forth, may operate as an antidote to
thousands, and call them from their evil pursuits, to seek
the paths of rectitude and peace.
It is, indeed, happy for our country that
this knot of robbers has been discovered, and brought to
justice; besides the injury which has been done, from time
to time, to individuals, the character of the entire
neighbourhood has suffered; and many of the crimes committed
by such men as these, have been attributed to others, and
represented as arising from far different motives. Yet while
we rejoice in the detection of the midnight robber, and
incendiary, we deplore that necessity which consigns them to
an untimely grave; — and if there were any other medium, by
which the ends of justice might be attained, we should feel
more liberty, at this moment, in commenting upon the
turpitude of those crimes which have induced the present
observations: but we must, at all events, and however
unpleasant to our feelings, continue the melancholy subject,
til we bring it to its proper conclusion; and it is our
ardent wish, that we may never again, in our native country
— nor in any other — have to record such "a tale of woe!"
Five of the unfortunate persons, whom we
have been writing of, were tried, and found guilty on
Monday; the other five on Tuesday; at the conclusion of the
second day's trial, the Chief Barron while charging the jury
– in which he recapitulated the entire of the evidence —
took occasion to pay a high, and well deserved compliment,
to the Rev.Mr.Doyle, Parish Priest of Clonegal, for the
admirable line of conduct which he had observed, in bringing
about the means by which the offenders, through his advice,
had been delivered into the hands of justice. Such a
character is an honor, and a blessing, to the country in
which he holds and exercises his sacred function; and we
present him as a pattern, worthy of imitation! — Were the
Clergy, of every class and denomination to perform their
duty, as this GENTLEMAN does, we should have less occasion
to deplore that state of moral and physical degradation, to
which this ill fated island is now a prey; and from which it
can never be rescued, except through the instrumentality of
faithful Pastors, who will feed their flocks, and not make
merchandize of men's souls and bodies!— We did not intend to
dilate thus; but the state of our unhappy fellow creatures,
our brethren and countrymen, has drawn us a little beyond
our regular limits: — to return, however: when the jury gave
in their dreadful verdict Guilty! The Chief Baron ordered
five unhappy beings (from the youth of some of them, we
cannot call them men) who were convicted on Monday, viz. —
Andrew and Armstrong Anderson, Nicholas and
Thomas Troy, and Christopher Dooley, to be put to the bar,
together with Michael, Timothy, and Hue Finegan, William
Nowlan, and William Walsh.—
The appearance of such a group, in this
hitherto peaceable County, and under such circumstances,
made an impression that will not be readily effaced from the
recollection of the greatest number of persons we ever saw
at any one time in our County Court-House.
His Lordship said, when he first entered the
peaceable County of Carlow, he did not expect to encounter
such an awful scene, as now presented to his view. There
were only eighteen prisoners for trial on the calendar — and
yet the awful duty devolved upon him of passing the dreadful
sentence of death upon ten! It was melancholy to reflect,
that neither youth nor age could protect them.—
Some he thought too old to have been found
in so degrading and distressing a situation, while if the
parents of the others had done their duty, and paid proper
attention to their children, some of them ought now be under
chastisement in school, instead of standing forward to await
the penalty of the law. Year after year, examples have been
made that ought to strike terror to the hearts of such
offenders, and prevent the commission of such crimes. It was
a mistaken view, if they supposed that the law would not
sooner or later catch those offending against it, and bring
down upon them its just vengeance.
The prisoners, Nicholas and Thomas Troy, and
Christopher Dooley, were convicted of attacking and firing
into a dwelling-house, and for threatening to sacrifice the
life of Timothy Byrne, the proprietor, if he did not quit a
farm recently taken. This was a dreadful denunciation, to
come from three young persons—instigated to the commission
of the crime, (his Lordship had no doubt), by other agents.
Instead of being violators of the public peace, it should
have been their first and paramount duty to protect those
laws from which they derived so much benefit, and not
pollute them as they have done.
Andrew and Armstrong Anderson, were
convicted of a robbery on the highway. The man whom they
robbed was, on his way to market, disarmed, and the means of
his existence taken from him. If the honest and industrious
were obliged to give up their property to such as were
determined not to earn a livelihood for themselves— if such
practices, said his Lordship, were allowed to escape with
impunity, there would be no security in the County.
Michael Finegan, continued his Lordship, is,
according to his own account, the aged father of nine
children — and has led such a life, as to put it out of his
power to produce a single man to give him an honest
character — he has acknowledged that he has promoted the
destruction of his own children — and yet implores mercy for
them! — but that mercy, now sought for his son, ought to
have come from the father — he ought to have inculcated in
him moral truths, and taught him to discharge that duty in
society, which would not only insure a respect for the laws
— but impress him with a love and fear of his God: — but
having neglected his own offspring, he cannot now expect
mercy from others. His Lordship earnestly entreated the
prisoners to turn to the Almighty God — to attend their
Clergyman — to implore God to open their hearts, and to lay
their sins before him. It was his duty to instruct them,
that they had no hope here — that they should look only to
the future — as this world would shortly close upon them for
ever! His Lordship then (greatly affected — and with tears
in his eyes), pronounced in the most feeling manner, the
awful sentence of the law. He told the prisoners, when they
severally implored a long day, that sufficient time for
preparation would be afforded them, provided they made a
good use of it. — Here closed the first scene of this awful
tragedy!
SENTENCE.