Juggling Judges. Inefficiency of the Police.

CHAPTER III

Lord Clonmel and the Fiats. - Richard Daly. - Persecution of Magee.

• A Strong Bar. - Caldbeck, Duigenan, and Egan. - The Volunteers to the Rescue. - Hamilton Rowan. - Artist Arrested for Caricaturing “the Sham.” - A neat Stroke of Vengeance. - More Squibs. - Ladies Clonmel and Barrington. - The Gambling Hell. - Inefficiency of the Police. - Magisterial Delinquencies Exposed. - Watchmen and Watches. - Mr Gonne’s Chronometer. - Juggling Judges. - Outrages in the Face of Bay. - Ladies unable to Walk the Streets.

Magee continued in his efforts to take down the Sham Squire’s pride and swagger. Squib after squib exploded.

“There lives a** **Squire near Stephen’s Green,

Crockledum he, crockledum ho,

And in Newgate once was seen,

Bolted down quite low.

And though be now is a Just-Ass,

There was a day when he heard mass,

Being converted by a lass,

There to cross and go.

On stocking-making he can jaw,

Clockety heel, tippety toe

Now an attorney is at law,

Six and eightpence, ho !”

(Until 1793 Catholics were excluded from the magisterial bench) (Dublin Evening Post. No. 1896)

These squibs Mr Higgins regarded as so many infernal machines,” and he resolved to show his own power, and to be revenged at the same time. Lord Chief-Justice Clonmel was known to entertain a strong prejudice against the press, especially such newspapers as adversely criticised the administration. In the authorised report of the parliamentary debates on April 8, 1784, his views on the subject are forcibly but curtly conveyed, viz.- “The Prime Sergeant expressed his thorough detestation of newspapers and public assassins of character.” (Irish Parl. Debates, vol. iii., p. 155

We have already seen that Lord Clonmel, long after his elevation to the bench and peerage, maintained friendly relations with Higgins, in memory o£ auld langsyne. “His lordship’s house,” observes a correspondent, “stood on the west side of Harcourt Street, near the corner of Montague Street. He possessed also very extensive pleasure-grounds on the east side of Harcourt Street, stretching behind the entire south side of Stephen’s Green. A subterraneous passage under (MS. Letter of Dr. T---, 20th August, 1859) Harcourt Street opened communication with those grounds, which joined the garden at the rear of Francis Higgins’s mansion in Stephen’s Green; and there is a tradition to the effect that some of the chief’s inquisitive neighbours often used to see him making his way through the pleasure-grounds for the purpose of conferring with the Sham Squire.” (Tradition communicated by M--- S---, Esq.)

Higgins is said to have directed Lord Clonmel’s attention to Magee’s lampoons, in many of which the chief himself figured subordinately. His lordship expressed indignation at liberties so unwarrantable, and seems to have encouraged the Sham Squire to follow up a plan f legal retribution, which the active brain of Higgins had been for some time concocting.

In the various onslaughts which Magee made upon the Sham Squire, some passing prods were bestowed on Richard Daly, the lessee of Crow Street theatre, on Charles Brennan, a writer for the Freeman’*s Journal, *as well as on a certain member of the female sex, whose name we omit in consideration to her now respectable relatives. With all these parties Higgins was believed to be on terms of close intimacy. In June 1789, four fiats, marked with the exorbitant sum of £7,800, were issued against Magee by Lord Clonmel ill the King’s Bench, at the suit of Francis Higgins and the three other persons to whom we have alluded. The Evening Post of June 30, 1789, announces that “Magee lies on the couch of sickness in the midst of a dungeon’s gloom,” and publishes a long appeal from Magee to Lord Clonmel, which closes thus:-

“I again demand at your hands, John Scott, Baron Earlsfort, (Mr Scott* *was created Baron Earlsfort in 1784, a Viscount in 1789, and Earl of Clonmel in 1793.) a trial by peers, by my fellows, free and independent Irishmen. Thou hast dragged a citizen by thy officers thrice through the streets of this capital as a felon. Thou hast confined before trial, and hast deprived a free subject of his franchise, that franchise for which his fathers bled on the walls of Derry, the banks of the Boyne, and the plains of Aughrim.

“John Scott, Baron Earlsfort, I again demand from thee, thou delegate of my Sovereign Lord the King, a trial by jury.”

On July 3, 1789, the trial of John Magee, at the suit of Francis Higgins, was heard before Chief-Justice Clonmel. The Sham Squire; notwithstanding his reliance on the partiality of the judge and jury, found it advisable to retain a powerful bar, which included the Prime Sergeant, Mr Caldbeck, (Caldbeck seems to have been as small as Tom Moore, and a great wit. His great grandson, Mr Wm. F. Caldbeck, has given us the following traditional anecdote of him -” But you little vagabond,” said the opposite counsel one day, “if you don’t be cautious I’ll put you in my pocket.” “Whenever you, do,” retorted Caldbeck K.C., “you’ll have more law in your pocket than ever you had in your head.”); John Toler, afterwards Lord Norbury (For a notice of Lord Norbury, see Appendix); Sergeant Duquerry, (a forensic orator of great power, “died at the top first,” like Swift, Plunket, Magee, Scott, Moore, and many a stately oak. For several years before his death, Duquerry groped in otter idiocy.) Recorder Burston (Beresford Bursion will be* *remembered as the early friend of Moore. See Memoirs of Moore, vol. i., p. 79), Dr Pat Duigenan, (originally a Catholic of low degree, having “conformed” and continued year after year to oppose the Catholic claims, with a virulence and violence now almost incredible, was appointed by the Archbishops of Armagh and Dublin, to preside as their judge in the Ecclesiastical Courts. He was twice married, and each time to a Catholic. He died in 1816.) John, nicknamed ” Bully” Egan, (John Egan’s proficiency in vulgar wit and rough invective is traditionally notorious. If a somewhat unregulated indulgence in this tendency obtained for him many enemies in early life, he had the satisfaction of finally making all Ireland his debtor, by his truly independent conduct at the period of the Union. Trampling down the metaphorical sophistries of the Government spokesman, “he galloped,” writes Sir Jonah Barrington, “like a dray-horse, over all his opponents, plunging and kicking, and overthrowing all before him.” Tempting proposals were made to him if he would support the Union. He was offered to be made Baron of the Exchequer, with £3,500 a year; but Egan, although far from being rich, spurned the venial offer, and died soon after in comparative want. - Egan was fond of bathing at the Blackrock. One morning, having violently flung his enormous carcass into the water, he came into collision with some other person who was performing a similar lave. meat. “Sir,” screamed a mouth out of the water, “I presume you are not aware against whom you have so rudely jostled.” “I didn’t care if you were Old Nick,” replied Egan, floundering about like a great sea monster. “You are a bear, sir,” continued the mouth, “and I am the Archbishop of Dublin.” “Well,” retorted Egan, not in the least abashed, “in order to prevent the recurrence of such accidents, I would simply recommend you to get your mitre painted on your back.”) George J. Browne, (Higgins’s collaborateur,) with Messrs Ponsonby, Curran, Johnson, and the Hon. S. Butler. That the last three persons should have accepted briefs in the case, seems singular, considering their democratic bias. Curran’s name is the history of his life; Mr Johnson’s is nearly forgotten ; but we may remind the reader that although a judge, he libelled the Hardwicke administration, was tried for the offence, retired from the bench, and shortly before his death published a treasonable pamphlet. (See Addenda) The Hon. Simon Butler became in 1792 a leading member of -the Society of United Irishmen, was fined £500, and condemned to a protracted imprisonment in **Newgate.

No good report of the trial, Higgins v. Magee, is accessible. We endeavoured to give the Sham Squire the benefit of his own report, but the file of the Freeman for 1789 does not exist even in the office of that journal. A very impartial account may be found in the *Cork Evening Post *of the day, from which we gather that Higgins proved the infamous gambling house in Crane Lane to belong to a Miss J. Darley. This evidence, however, did not alter Magee’s opinion, and he continued to insist that the Sham Squire was a secret participator in its spoils.

Poor Magee had not much chance against a bar so powerful and a judge so hostile Strictly speaking, he had no counsel retained; but we find that “for the traverser there appeared as *amici curiae, *Mr Lysaght, and Mr A. Browne of Trinity College.” The latter gentleman, member for the University of Dublin, and subsequently Prime Sergeant of Ireland, made a very able statement on the law of fiats. As a lawyer, Browne was far superior to Lord Clonmel, whose indecently rapid promotion was owing solely to his parliamentary services.

In the following session of Parliament, Mr Browne, in conjunction with Mr., afterwards Chancellor, Ponsonby, brought forward a masterly exposure of the unconstitutional conduct adopted by Lord Clonmel at the instance of Francis Higgins. This exposure with its salutary results will be noticed at the fitting period; but meanwhile we will introduce here a few of the salient points in Mr Browne’s able statement on the law of fiats.

He expressed his amazement that a nation so astute in guarding through her statute book every avenue to oppression, should have passed unnoticed and left unguarded this broad road to tyranny. He was amazed how it could suffer a plaintiff to require bail to the amount of perhaps £20,000, where very probably the damages afterwards found by a jury, if any, might not be 20 pence. Having shown that fiats, in Lord Clonmel’s acceptation of the term, were utterly unknown to the common law, he added, ” I am not sure whether, if Francis Higgins abused his adversary’s counsel for two years together, they would be able to swear to twopenny worth of damages; and therefore, when any man swears so positively, either he is particularly vulnerable, and more liable to damage than other men, or he is a bold swearer, and the judge ought not to listen to him.”

Mr Browne cited Blackstone, Baines, Gilbert, and a vast array of high legal authorities, to show the unconstitutional act of Lord Clonmel, in issuing fiats against Magee to the amount of £7,800. It appears that even in the case of assault and battery, moderate fiats had been refused by the bench. Having, with great erudition discharged an important argument to show that special bail in this and similar actions was not requirable, Mr Browne proceeded to prove that, even allowing it to be requirable, the present amount could not be justified by reason or precedent. The bail could only with propriety amount to such a sum as would be sufficient to insure an appearance. To imagine that Mr Magee would abscond and abandon his only means of earning a livelihood, was simply ridiculous.

Mr Browne censured the manner in which Lord Clonmel prejudiced the case

• “telling the jury before the trial began what the damages were, which in the opinion of the judge they ought to give,” - and Mr Browne adduced high legal authorities in proof of the error committed by Lord Clonmel.

He then contrasted some of the few cases on record in which fiats were issued, with the cause then under discussion. Sir William Drake, a member of Parliament, was charged with being a traitor. The words against him were of the most scandalous nature. His life and property were at stake: he brought his action, and on application special bail from defendant was refused.

Another case was that of the Duke of Schomberg, a peer high in favour with his king and country. He was accused by a miscreant named Murray with having cheated the sovereign and the army. Can any words be conceived more shocking when applied to such a man? Chief-Justice Holt, as great a friend to the revolution and to the liberties of the country as ever sat on a judicial bench, felt the same indignation, but he could not prejudice the cause. He was ready to punish the man if convicted, but he did not consider him convicted beforehand. He ordered Murray to find bail-two sureties in £25* *each, and the man in £100. In the last generation, £50 for a duke - in the present, £7,800 for an adventurer and a player. (Browne’s Arguments in the King’s Bench on the Subject of Admitting John Magee to Common Bail. Dublin, Gilbert, 1790.)

At the close of the prosecution against Magee, at the suit of Francis Higgins, it was made the subject of bitter complaint by the prisoner that he had been refused the privilege of challenging his jurors, and the benefit of the *Habeas Corpus *Act.

The Lord Chief-Justice having summed up and charged, the jury retired, but returned in half an hour to ask the bench whether they might not find the traverser guilty of printing and publishing, without holding him responsible for the libel. His lordship replied that the jury had nothing to do with the law in this case, and that it was only the fact of publishing they had to consider. The jury then desired a copy of the record, but the request was refused. Having retired a second time, the jury at length brought in their verdict, “Guilty of printing and publishing.” Lord Earlsfort declined to accept the verdict.

One of the jurors replied that the difficulty they found in giving a different verdict was, that they could not reconcile it to their consciences to find a man guilty under a criminal charge, who had not been permitted to confront his accusers or his jurors, or to listen to the accusations against him, that he might be prepared for his defence. Therefore, as the jury had only seen the accusations on one side, without the defence of the accused, they could not feel themselves warranted in pronouncing a man guilty under a charge of criminal intentions.

Lord Earlsfort replied that the very reason why they ought not to hesitate, was the one they used in support of their scruples, namely, “the traverser’s making no defence to the charge against him.” He desired that the jury might again retire. A juror said that they had already given the matter full consideration, but the Chief-Justice interrupted him, and the jury were ordered to return to their room.

Mr Browne, M. P., addressed a few words to the bench, but was stopped short by his lordship, who declared that he had already given the matter full consideration, and had made up his mind. The jury having again deliberated, returned with a verdict of guilty. (Dublin Evening Post, No. 1784)

This prosecution did not muzzle Magee. In the very number of his journal which contains a report of the trial reference is made to “the marquis, who, with that condescending goodness that agitates his heart when he can be of any use to Mr F. Higgins, his familiar friend, and he who in former days contributed not less to the festivity of his board, than generously catered for his pleasure,” &c. And in *Magee’s Evening Packet, *Shamado is again reminded of the awkward fact “that he has been at a public trial, convicted of crimes which the cordial squeeze of his friend Jack Ketch alone can expiate.” (Magee’s Evening Packet, No. 621.)

The trial of Daly *versus *Magee soon followed. Dr Pat. Duigenan, “Bully” Egan, with Messrs Duquerry, Smith, Burston, Butler, Brown, Fleming, Ball, Curran, and Green, were retained for the prosecution.

Mr Kennedy, treasurer to the Theatre Royal, Crow Street, was examined as a witness for Mr Daly. We extract a few passages:-

“Were you ever witness to any riots in the theatre? Very often. The people used to cry out from the gallery, ‘A clap for Magee, the man of Ireland - a groan for the Sham! a groan for the Dasher [Daly] - out with the lights, out with the lights !’ I have frequently, at the risk of my life, attempted to stop those riots.”

It further appeared that men used sometimes to come into the galleries with bludgeons and pistols. Mr Dawson, a person whom Mr Daly was in the habit of sending to London, with a view to the engagement of actors, was next examined. It transpired that Daly, in consequence of his unpopularity, found a difficulty in obtaining performers.

“Is Mr Higgins proprietor of any paper? *A. *I do not know. Q. Is he proprietor of the *Freeman’s Journal ? *A. I have heard so. Q. Is there not a very particular intimacy between Mr Daly and Mr Higgins? *A. *Have I a right, my lord, to answer that question? *

Court* - No, I must object to that question. I think it wrong to endeavour to involve this case in any party or prejudice, &c. *

Counsel for the Defendant* - Do you believe yourself that there was any particular intimacy between Mr Daly and Mr Higgins? Sir, I know of no particular intimacy any more than between you and the many gentlemen who are round you.

“Court - You have answered very properly and clearly.

“Q. There is a friendship between them? *A. *The same sort of friendship which subsists between man and man.” (Trial of John Magee for libel on H, Daly. Dublin, 1790, pp, 30, 31).

There certainly was no stint of hard words between the rival editors. Magee insinuated that Ryder, the former lessee, had been tricked out of the patent by a manoeuvre of the Sham Squire’s, and that Higgins and Day conjointly held the licence. [*Dublin Evening Post, *No. 1794] But of any deliberate act of dishonesty, Daly was, we believer incapable, although lax enough in other respects.

George Ponsonby conducted the defence. He ridiculed Daly’s claims to damages; and added, that for the torrent of abuse which had been thrown out against Magee in the *Freeman *no redress was sought Mr Higgins had ridiculed Astley with impunity in the *Freeman s Journal; *and for pursuing the same course towards Daly, £5,000 damages were claimed against Magee.

Damages were laid at £5,000; but the jury considered that £200, with 6d. costs, was ample compensation for the wounded feelings of Mr Daly.

The *Evening Post *steadily declared that the uproar in the galleries of Crow Street Theatre was due rather to Higgins and Daly than to Magee. In July 1759, we are told that two men, named Valentine and Thomas Higgins, wool-scribblers, were “very active in several public-houses in and about the Liberty, endeavouring to persuade working people to accept tickets for the theatre, with express directions to raise plaudits for Daly and Higgins, and to groan Magee.” [Dublin Evening Post, No. 1787-1788]

A few evenings after, an immense troop of “Liberty Boys” in the Higgins interest proceeded to Crow Street Theatre, marshalled by a limb of the law named Lindsay. [Dublin Evening Post. No. 1785]

“The general order is, knock down every man who groans for the Sham Squire or the Dasher; and you have the guards at your back to take every man into custody who resists you. On Tuesday night this party, highly whiskyfied, forced their way to the front row of the gallery, struck and insulted several of the audience there, and wounded the delicacy of the rest of the house by riotous vociferation and obscenity. Last night several people were knocked down by them; and some of the very persons who were seduced from the Liberty to the theatre, on their refusal to join in the purpose, were given into the custody of constables for disrespectful language to the said Lindsay, and others were pursued as far as Anglesea Street for the same cause.” [Dublin Evening Post. No. 1788.]

On Magee’s trial, the prosecuting counsel produced the manuscript of an attack upon the Sham Squire in Magee’s handwriting. Magee was at first somewhat surprised at the unexpected production of his autograph, but soon discovered by what means these papers got out of his hands. Brennan, [*Dublin Evening Post, *No. 1794.] who had been a writer for the *Post *until 1788, when he joined the *Freeman, *conveyed to the Sham Squire several of Magee’s private papers, to which, when retained in the office of the *Post, *at a salary of £100 a year, he had easy access. [Brennan figures in the book of “Secret Service Money Expenditure” as a recipient though not to a large extent.]

Brennan certainly swore to Magee’s handwriting on the trial. On the evening that the *Post *advanced the above statement, “Brennan came to Magee’s house concealed in a sedan-chair, and armed with a large oak bludgeon; and after rapping at the door, and being answered by a maid-servant, he inquired for Mr Magee with the design of assassinating him, had he been in the way; but being told he was not at home, Brennan rushed into the shop, and with the bludgeon broke open and utterly demolished several locked glass-cases, together with the sashwork and glass of these interior glazed doors, as well as the windows facing the street. Brennan, in making his escape, was observed by a man named M’Namara, who attempted to seize him; but Brennan knocked him down by three blows of the bludgeon, and then kicked him unmercifully.” [Dublin Evening Post, No. 1796.]

Brennan was committed to Newgate by Alderman Carleton; but next day was set at liberty on the bail of two of Daly’s officials. [Dublin Evening Post, No. 1726.] This rather intemperate gentleman, however, had not been an hour at large when he proceeded to Magee’s house in College Green, armed with a sword, but happily failed to find the object of his search. [Dublin Evening Post, No. 1726.]

A word about the “Liberty boys,” who, as Magee records, came forward as the paid partisans of Higgins, opens another suggestive glimpse of the state of society in Dublin at the period of which we write. Between these men and the butchers of Ormond Market, both noted for turbulent prowess, a feud long subsisted. On this stronghold the Liberty boys frequently made descents; a formidable battle raged, often for days, during which time the bridges across the Liffey, from Essex Bridge to “Bloody Bridge,” were taken and retaken. Upwards of a thousand men were usually engaged; business was paralysed; traffic suspended; every shop closed; the executive looked on inert; Lord Mayor Emerson was appealed to, but with a nervous shrug declined to interfere. The butchers, armed with huge knives and cleavers, did awful havoc; the quays were strewed with the maimed and mangled. But the professional slaughterers were not always victorious. On one of the many occasions when these battles raged, the butchers, who displayed a banner inscribed, “Guild of the B. V. Mary,” were repulsed by the Liberty boys near Francis Street, and driven down Michael’s Hill with loss. The Liberty boys drank to the dregs their bloody cup of victory. Exasperated by the *“houghing,” *with which the butchers had disabled for life many of their opponents, the Liberty boys rushed into the stalls and slaughter-houses, captured the butchers, hooked them up by the chin in lieu of their meat, and then left the unfortunate men wriggling “alone in their glory.”

The Liberty boys were mostly weavers, the representatives of French artisans who, after the massacre of St Bartholomew, emigrated to Ireland. The late Mr Brophy, state dentist in Dublin, to whom the students of local history are indebted for many curious traditional data, told us that in the lifetime of his mother a French patois was spoken in the Liberty quite as much as English. [Dublin in these days possessed a Huguenot church and burial ground. A curious manuscript memoir, in the autograph of one of the Huguenot ministers, may be seen in a closet attached to Marsh’s Library, Dublin. Among the influential French who emigrated to Ireland on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes may be mentioned Le Poer Trenche, (ancestor of Lord Clancarty,) the La Touches, Saurins, Vignolless, La Bartes, Du Bedats, Montmorencys, Perrins, De Blaquires, &c.] The author of “Ireland Sixty Years Ago” furnishes stirring details of the encounters to which we refer; but he failed to suggest, as we have ventured to do, the origin of the feud.

“No army, however mighty,” said the first Napoleon, addressing St Cyr, ” could resist the songs of Paris.” The Ormond boys, impelled by a similar policy, followed up their knife stabs with not less pointed lines. In one song the following elegant distich occurred:-

“And we won’t leave a weaver alive on the Coombe,

But we’ll rip up his tripe bag and burn his loom.

Ri rigidi di do dee.”

One of the last battles between the ” Liberty” and Ormond boys took place on May 11, 1790

Meanwhile it became every day more apparent that the Sham Squire was a dangerous man to touch. On July 23, we learn that Mr James Wright, of Mary’s Abbey, was arrested for publishing a caricature likeness of Justice Higgjns, [Dublin Evening Post. No. 1792.] A copy of this very rare print, representing the Sham Squire standing under a gallows, is now in the possession of Jaspar Joly, Esq., LL.D., who has kindly given the use of it for the illustration of this edition. Underneath is written “Belphegor, or the Devil turned Esquire,” with the following citation from the Psalms: “Yet do I remember the time past: I muse upon my works, yea, I exercise myself in the works of wickedness.” Nailed to the gibbet is an open copy of the “Infernal Journal,” containing articles headed “A Panegyric on the Marquis of Misery”

• “Prize Swearing” - “Dr Dove” - *“A Defence of Informers,” *(a prophetic hit) - “Sangrado” - “Theatre Royal: Ways and Means; to conclude with the Marker’s Ghost” [Magee accused Daly of having murdered a billiard marker, of which anon.] - “Bludgeoneer’s Pocket Companion”-” Marquis de la Fiat.” - “New Books: Houltoniana, or mode of Rearing Carrier Pigeons” [In those days a good deal of lottery stock-jobbing took place through the agency of carrier pigeons. A poem in blank verse, for which Magee was, prosecuted by Daly, recites, among other irksome hits-

“The priests, the cabalistic numbers cry,

The doctor ties them round a pigeon’s neck,

… . who flies,

And on Francisco’s portal plumes his wings.”

• See Sheridan’s Argument, Daly V, Magee.]

The appearance of Higgins, as presented in this print, is blotched, bloated, and repulsive, not unsuggestive of the portraits of Jemmy O’Brien. A cable knotted into a pendent bow, appears beneath his chin. Surmounting the picture, as it also did the bench where Higgins sometimes administered the justice he had outraged, is “Fiat justitia.”

With a sort of barbed harpoon Magee goaded “the Sham” and his friends. In addition to the Post, he attacked him in** **Magee’s Weekly Packet

lavendersham.gif (43250 bytes)The number for Saturday, October 17, 1789, contains another caricature likeness of the Sham Squire, in a woodcut, entitled “The Sham in Lavender.” He is made to say, “I’m no Sham - I’m a Protestant Justice - I’ll Newgate the Dog.” At his feet his colleague, George Joseph Browne, is recognised in the shape of a cur dog. Behind him stands Mrs Lewellyn in the short petticoats, high-heeled shoes, large hat, and voluminous ringlets of the day. Under her feet is a letter, addressed “Mrs Lewellyn, Cell, Newgate - Free - Carhampton;” while Lord Chief-Justice Clonmel, presiding, fraternally accosts Higgins as Frank, and confesses, with an oath, that they were undone! - sentiments which we now find the Chief-Justice was recording at the same moment in his private Diary.

Verses, painfully personal, accompanied the picture, but conceived in a more legitimate vein of sarcasm was another piece:-

“In a poem, I think, called ‘The Author,’ you’ll find

Two lines, my dear Sham, which occurr’d to my mind,*

*When the *Packet *I saw, and your worship saw there,

And your worship so like to yourself did appear;

They were written by Churchill, and though they displease,

You must own they are apt, and the lines, Sham, are these;

‘Grown old in villainy, and dead to grace,

Hell in his heart, and Tyburn in his face.’ ”

[Magee’s Evening Packet, Oct. 17, 1789.]

At a meeting of the Dublin Volunteers on July 10, 1759, it was resolved:- “That, as citizens and men, armed in defence of our liberties and properties, we cannot remain unconcerned spectators of any breach of that constitution which is the glory of the empire. That the violation of the fundamental laws of these kingdoms occasioned the melancholy catastrophe of 1648; that the violation of these laws brought on the glorious revolution of 1688; that we look upon the trial by jury, with all the privileges annexed to it, to be a most essential part of those laws; that we highly approve of the firm conduct of our worthy fellow-citizen, on a late transaction, in support of those gifts.”

Archibald Hamilton Rowan, then a highly influential personage, addressed a public letter to Magee, saying:- “It is with regret I have beheld you deprived of the inalienable rights of every British subject on your late trial. I have no doubt but that such arbitrary conduct as marked the judge who presided on that day, will be severely punished, and that you, sir, will not be so wanting to your fellow-subjects as not to bring it before the proper tribunal. This being the cause of every man, it ought to be supported from die common purse, and not be an injury to your private circumstances. If any subscription for that purpose should be accepted by you, I request you will set down my name for twenty-five guinseas.”

It is a notable instance of Magee’s independence of character, that he declined to accept one farthing of the public subscription which had just been inaugurated, with such promise of success, in his honour. This spirited determination was the more remarkable, as his pecuniary losses, in consequence of the oppressive treatment to which he was subjected, proved most severe, as we shall presently see.

In Mr Sheridan’s arguments, before the judges of the King’s Bench, to admit John Magee to common bail for lampooning the Sham Squire’s colleague, it is stated

“Magee has made an affidavit in which he swears that a writ issued in last Trinity Term to the sheriffs, marked for £,4000, under authority of a fiat granted by the Lord Chief-Justice, and founded on an affidavit; that upon such writ he was arrested in June last; that in consequence of a number of vexatious suits and prosecutions against him, and from the reiterated abuse he has received in the *Freeman’s Journal, *he is extremely injured in his credit, insomuch that though he has used every effort in his power, he cannot now procure one bail in this cause for the amount of the sum marked at the foot of said writ or of any larger amount than £500, and saith he verily believes that the plaintiff had not suffered damage in this cause to any amount whatever”

[This scarce pamphlet was printed and published in London - a circumstance illustrative of the wide sensation which Lord Clonmel’s arbitrary conduct excited. Mr Sheridan having brought forward a host of high law authorities to show the illegality of holding to special bail a man charged with defamation, proceeded to exhibit the ludicrous weakness of the affidavit upon which Lord Clonmel issued a fiat for £4,000. Daly’s claims against Magee for damages were based upon a mock heroic poem in which Daly was supposed to figure under the title of Roscius, and Higgins under that of Francisco. Daly having recited this absurd poem in his affidavit, added that he had children, “among whom are four growing up daughters, who in their future prospects may receive considerable injury;” and Daly wound up by swearing that he had suffered damages to the amount of £4,000 by - the injuries which his family, or himself might hereafter suffer!]

These denunciations would doubtless have been stronger were it possible for the patriot mind of John Magee to have taken a prophetic view of the events of ‘98, and witnessed; like Asmodeus, certain dark doings which the vulgar eye failed to penetrate.

The subterranean passage and the winding path through Lord Clonmel’s pleasure ground facilitated the intercourse between him and Shamado, which, as we gather from tradition and contemporary statement, was briskly kept up Higgins’s journal was the organ of Lord Clonmel’s party, and in a letter addressed to the latter, published in Magee’s Evening Packet [No. 621.],* *we are told:-

“It is made no secret, my lord, that these ingenious sophistications and learned commentaries which appeared in the Higgins journal, in that decent business, had the honour of your lordship’s inspection and correction in MS., - before they were committed to the press.”

The visits of the influential and proverbially-convivial chief must have been hailed with no ordinary pleasure and welcome. Sir Jonah Barrington, who lived next door to him in Harcourt Street, writes - “His skill was unrivalled, and his success proverbial. He was full of anecdotes, though not the most refined; these in private society he not only told, but acted; and when he perceived that he had made a very good exhibition he immediately withdrew, that he might leave the most lively impression of his pleasantry behind him. His boldness was his first introduction his policy his ultimate preferment. Courageous, vulgar, humorous, artificial, he knew the world well, and he profited by that knowledge. He cultivated the powerful; he bullied the timid; he fought the brave; he flattered the vain; he duped the credulous; and he amused the convivial. He frequently, in his prosperity, acknowledged favours he had received when he was obscure, and *occasionally *requited them. Half-liked, half-reprobated, he was too high to be despised, and too low to be respected. His language was coarse, and his principles arbitrary; but his passions were his slaves, and his cunning was his instrument. In public and in private he was the same character; and, though a most fortunate man and a successful courtier, he had scarcely a sincere friend or a *disinterested *adherent.”

It may amuse those familiar with the locality mentioned above, to tell an anecdote of the projecting bow-window, long since built up, which overhangs the side of Sir Jonah’s former residence, No. 14 Harcourt Street, corner of Montague Street. Lord Clonmel occupied the house at the opposite corner, and Lady Clonmel affected to be much annoyed at this window overlooking their house and movements Here Lady Barrington, arrayed in imposing silks and satins, would daily take up position, and placidly commence her survey. Sir Jonah was remonstrated with, but he declined to close the obnoxious window.

Lady Clonmel then took the difficulty in hand, and, with the stinging sarcasm peculiarly her own, said, “Lady Barrington is so accustomed to look out of a shop window for the display of her silks and satins, that I suppose she cannot afford to dispense with this.”

The large bow-window was immediately built up, and has not since been re-opened. Lady Barrington was the daughter of Mr Grogan, a silk-mercer of Dublin. Lady Clonmel was a Miss Lawless, related to the Cloncurry family, who rose to opulence as woollen drapers in High Street. The Lawlesses, who held their heads high, more than once got a Roland for an Oliver. The first Lord Cloncurry having gone to see the pantomime of Don Quixote, laughed immoderately at the scene where Sancho is tossed in the blanket. On the following morning the Sham Squire’s journal contained the following epigram:-

“Cloncurry, Cloncurry!

Why in such a hurry

To laugh at the comical squire?

For though he’s toss’d high,

Yet you cannot deny

That blankets have toss’d yourself higher” *

“Arcades ambo* - brothers both,” was applicable, in more than one sense, to the Chief-Justice and the Sham Squire. “I** **sat beside Higgins at a Lord Mayor’s banquet, in 1796,’ observed the late John Patten; “now, 60 years after, I remember how strongly his qualities as a humorist impressed me.”

Mr Higgins plumed himself on being a little Curran, and cultivated intimacies with kindred humorists, amongst whom we are surprised to find Father Arthur O’Leary, one of the persons named advantageously by Higgins in his will. [Last will of Francis Higgins, preserved in the Prerogative Court, Dublin.] O’Leary was one of those memorable Monks of the Screw who used to set in a roar Curran’s table at “the Priory.” [ A few of O’Leary’s jokes have been preserved. “I wish you were St Peter,” said Curran. “Why?” responded the Friar “Because you could let me into heaven.” “It would be better that I had the key of the other place,” replied O’Leary, “for then I could let you out.” For illustrations of O’Leary’s humour see Recollections of John O’Keeffe, vol. i., p. 245; Reminiscences of Michael Kelly, vol. i., p.301; Barrington’s Personal Sketches, vol. ii., pp. 131-137; and the Memoirs of O’Leary, by Rev. Dr England.]

“The Sham,” who loved to ape the manners of those above him, also called his country seat at Kilmacud, “the Priory” [Statement of T— F—, Esq., J.P., formerly of the Priory, Kilmacud. In 1859 the house was pulled down.] and we believe it was to him that Dick Hetherington, [Richard Hetherington will be remembered as the correspondent of Curran. - (See Memoirs of Curran, passim.)] in accepting an invitation to dinner, wrote:-

“Though to my ankles I’ll be in the mud,

I hope to be with you at Kilmacud.”

Communicated by the late M. Brett, Esq.

Though in open defiance of the laws, the gambling hell in Crane Lane was still suffered to exist, under the very shadow of the castle, and within three minutes’ walk of the Board of Police. Whether Higgins was really a secret partner in its profits, as confidently alleged, we shall not now discuss, although contemporary record and tradition both favour the allegation.

Mr Francis Higgins was certainly no novice in the art and mystery of the gambling table. A scarce publication, printed in 1799, from the pen of Henry MacDougall, M.A., and entitled, “Sketches of Irish Political Characters,” mentions “the Sham’s admission to the profession of attorney, in which his practice is too notorious to require statement;” and adds, “His next step to wealth was in the establishment of a hazard table, which soon attracted a number of sharps, scamps, and flashmen; and they as soon at- tracted the attention of the Sham, ever on the watch to promote his own interest. The sharp was useful to cheat the unwary of their money, and keep it in circulation at his table. The scamp plundered on the road, visited the *Corner House, *and if taken up by the officers of justice, he seldom failed, for acquaintance’ sake, to employ the owner in his capacity of solicitor. The flashman introduced Higgins to the convenient matron, whom he seldom failed to lay under contribution - the price of protecting her in her profession.”

We further learn that the city magistrates were all afraid to interfere with Mr Higgins and his delinquencies, lest a slanderous paragraph or lampoon from the arsenal of his press should: overtake them.

Ten years previous to the publication of the fore-going, the vigilant moralist, Magee, laboured to arouse the magistracy to a sense of their duty. “For 15 years,” we are told, “there has existed, under the eye of the magistracy, in the very centre of the metropolis, at the *corner of Crane Lane, in *Essex Street, a notorious school of nocturnal study in the doctrine of chances; a school which affords to men of the town an ample source of ways and means in the pluckings of those unfledged greenhorns who can be inveigled into the trap; which furnishes to the deluded apprentice a ready mart for the acquisition of experience, and the disposal of any loose cash that can be purloined from his master’s till; which affords to the working artisan a weekly asylum for the reception of that stipend which honest industry should allot to the purchase of food for a wife and children; and which affords to the spendthrift shopkeeper a ready transfer office to make over the property of his creditors to the plunder of knaves and sharpers.” [*Dublin Evening Post, *No. 1782.]

Two months after we find addressed to the authorities a further appeal, occupying several columns, and to the same effect. [Dublin Evening Post, No. 1801.]

But the Board of Police was, in fact, eminently imbecile. Among a long series of resolutions adopted in August 1789, by the gifted men who formed the Whig Club, we find: “The present extravagant, ineffectual, and unconstitutional police of the city of Dublin has been adopted, continued, and patronised by the influence of the present ministers of Ireland. All proceedings in Parliament to remove the grievance, or censure the abuse, have been resisted and defeated by the same influence. The expediency of combating by corruption a constitutional majority in Parliament has been publicly avowed, and the principle so avowed has been carried into execution.”

At last a committee was granted to inquire into the police, whose extravagance and inefficiency had now rendered them notoriously contemptible. They had long wallowed in indolent luxuriousness on the public money. Among their items of expense were: “For two inkstands for the police, £5, 5s. 6d.; three penkuives, £2, 2s. 3d.; gilt-edged paper, £100; ‘Chambers’s Dictionary,’ £11, 7s. 6d.” Among their books was “Beccaria on Crime” with a commentary from Voltaire. [Grattan’s Memoirs, vol. iii, p.456.]

A curious chapter might be written on the shortcomings of the Dublin police and magistracy, not only during the last, but even throughout a portion of the present century. If not too digressive, a glance at those shortcomings may amuse the reader.

During the existence of the Volunteers,” observes the late Counsellor Walsh, a conservative writer of much accuracy, “gentlemen of that body for a time arranged among themselves to traverse the streets at night, to protect the peaceably-disposed inhabitants, and men of the first rank in the kingdom thus voluntarily discharged the duties of watchmen. But the occupation assorted badly with the fiery spirits on whom it devolved, and the streets were soon again abandoned to their so-called legitimate guardians. In the day-time the streets were always wholly unprotected. The first appointment even of a permanent night-watch was in 1723, when an act was passed under which the different parishes were required to appoint ‘honest men and good Protestants’ to be night watches.

The utter inefficiency of the system must have been felt; and various improvements were from time to time attempted in it, every four or five years producing a new police act - with how little success every one can judge who remembers the tattered somnambulists who represented the ‘good Protestant watchmen’ a few years ago. Several attempts had also been made to establish an efficient civic magistracy, but with such small benefit that, until a comparatively recent period, the large portion of the magisterial duties within the city were performed by county magistrates, who had no legal authority whatever to act in them.

An office was kept in the neighbourhood of Thomas Street by two gentlemen in the commission for the county, who made a yearly income by the fees; and the order to fire on the mob who murdered Lord Kilwarden, so late as 1S03, was given by Mr Bell, a magistrate of the county and not the city of Dublin. Another well-known member of the bench was Mr Drury, who halted in his gait, and was called the ‘lame justice.”’

On the occasion mentioned by Mr Walsh, Drury retired for safety to the garret of his house in the Coombe, from whence, as Curran remarked, “he played with considerable effect on the rioters with a large double-barrelled telescope.”

It is to be regretted, however, that irregularity and imbecility are not the worst charges to be brought against the justices of Dublin, even so late as fifty years ago. Frank Thorpe Porter, Esq., late police magistrate of Dublin, has preserved official tradition of some of his more fallible predecessors. Mr* *Gonne having lost a valuable watch, was urged by a private hint to remain at the outer door of the police office, and when the magistrate came out, to ask him the hour. The “justice” took out a watch, and answered the question. Its appearance at once elicited from Gonne the longest oath ever heard before a justice. ” By ----” he exclaimed, “that watch is mine!”

Gonne obtained his watch,” adds Mr Porter, “and was with great difficulty prevented from bringing the transaction under the notice of the Government. The system by which the worthy justice managed occasionally to possess himself of a valuable watch, or some other costly article, consisted in having two or three drawers wherein to keep the property found with highwaymen or thieves. If the prosecutor identified the delinquent, he was then shown the right drawer; but if he could not swear to the depredator’s person, the wrong drawer was opened. The magistrate to whom this narrative refers was dismissed in a short time for attempting to embezzle fifty pounds.” [Some notice of the embezzlements accomplished by Baron Power and Sir Jonah Barrington, both judges on the Irish bench, will be found in our Appendix]

Before the establishment of the petty sessions system in Ireland, magistrates in the safe seclusion of their closets were often betrayed into grossly disreputable acts. A parliamentary inquiry, in 1823, into the conduct of Sheriff Thorpe, exposed, in passing, much magisterial delinquency.

Mr Beecher said, “It was no uncommon thing, when a friend had incurred a penalty, to remit the fine, and to levy a penalty strictly against another merely because he was an object of dislike.” Major Warburton proved that a female had been sent to America by a magistrate without any legal proceeding whatever. Major Wilcox established the fact that some justices of the peace were engaged in illicit distillation, and that they took presents and bribes, and bail when other magistrates refused; that they took cross-examinations where informations had been already taken by other magistrates. ” They issued warrants against the complaining party in the first instance, at the suggestion of the party complained against.” It further appeared that some magistrates took fees in money, and not unfrequently rendered official services in consideration of having their turf drawn home, or their potatoes planted.

The. Rev. M. Collins, afterwards Bishop of Cloyne, proved that magistrates corruptly received presents of corn, cattle, potatoes, and even money. Mr O’Driscoll alleged that there were several magistrates trading on their office they “sell justice, and administer it favourably to the party who pays them best.” “It is a convenient thing,” said O’Connell, “for a man to have the commission of the peace, for he can make those he dislikes fear him, and he can favour his friends.” In Mr Daunt’s “Conversations of O’Connell,” the details are given of a certain justice who threatened to flog and hang the sons of a widow to whom his worship owed £2,000, unless she pledged herself to cancel the bond! [For full details, see vol. ii., p.181. In one of O’Connell’s public letters, he made touching reference to the fact, that he had known peasant girls sometimes driven to surrender what ought to be dearer than life, as part of an unholy compact with magistrates who had threatened the life or liberty of a father or brother!]

With magistrates like these, and with powerless police such as we have described, it is no wonder that a walk in the streets of Dublin should have been encompassed with peril. Stephen’s Green, the residence of the Sham Squire, was especially infested with footpads, who robbed in a manner peculiar to themselves.

“So late as 1812,” says the author of ” Ireland Sixty Years Ago,” “there were only 26 small oil lamps to light the immense square of Stephen’s Green, which were therefore 170 feet from one another. The footpads congregated in a dark entry, on the shady side of the street, if the moon shone; if not, the dim and dismal light of the lamps was little obstruction. A cord was provided with a loop at the end of it. The loop was laid on the pavement, and the thieves watched the approach of a passenger. If he put his foot in the loop it was immediately chucked. The man fell prostrate, and was dragged rapidly up the entry to some cellar or waste yard, where he was robbed and sometimes murdered. The stun received by the fall usually prevented the victim from ever recognising the robbers. We knew a gentleman who had been thus robbed, and when he recovered found himself in an alley at the end of a lane off Bride Street, nearly naked, and severely contused and lacerated by being dragged over the rough pavement.”[ Almost equally daring outrages on the liberty of the subject were nightly practised, with connivance of the law, by “crimp sergeants,” who by brutal force, and sometimes by fraud, secured the unwary for foreign enlistment. Attractive women were employed to seduce persons into conversation preparatory to the crimp sergeant’s seizing them in the king’s name. Startling details of these outrages, which were often marked by bloodshed, will be found in the Dublin newspapers of 1793 and 1794, *passm. *See also the *Irish Masonic Magazine *for 1794, pp. 94,190, 284, 383, 432, 570.]

When men fared thus, it may readily be supposed that ladies could not venture out alone. “It is deemed a reproach,” says an author, writing in 1775, “for a gentlewoman to be seen walking in the streets. I was advised by my bankers to lodge in Capel Street, near Essex Bridge, being in less danger of being robbed, two chairmen [Sedan-bearers, familiarly styled “Christian Ponies.” There is a well-known story in Ireland of a Connaughtman, who, when entering a sedan chair, found that the bottom had, by some accident, fallen out of it, but, nevertheless, he made no demur, and walked to his destination in the chair. On getting out he remarked to the men who assumed to convey him, “Only for the honour of the thing I might as well have walked.”] not being deemed sufficient protection.”[Philosophical Survey, p. 46.]

Twenty years later found no improvement. The Anthologia Hibernica” for December 1794, p.476, furnishes new proofs of the inefficiency of the police. Robbery and bloodshed “within a few yards of the guard-house in Fleet Street” is described.

It does not always follow that idleness is the mother of mischiet for we find that combination among the workmen of Dublin also attained a formidable pitch at this time. The *Dublin Chronicle *of January 28, 1792, records:-

“On the several mornings of the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th inst., a number of armed persons, journeymen tailors, assembled in a riotous manner about the house of Mr Millea, floss Lane; Mr Leet, Merchant’s. Quay; Mr Walsh, Castle Street; Mr Ward, Cope Street; and the houses of several other master tailors, and cut, maimed, and abused several journeymen tailors who were peaceably going to their respective places of employment; one of said men, named Michael Hanlon, was killed on the spot, in Cope Street; two have had their hands cut off; several others have been cut and bruised in such a manner as to be now lying dangerously ill; and some journeymen are missing, who, it is reported, have been murdered and thrown into the river.”

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