Magee's Vengeance on Lord Clonmel. More Turpitude.

CHAPTER IV

Magee’s Vengeance on Lord Clonmel. - Hely Hutchinson. - Lord Clare. - The Gods of Crow Street. - Renewed Effort to Muzzle Magee. - Lettres de Cachet in Ireland. - Seizures. - George Ponsonby and Arthur Browne. - Lord Clonmel crushed. - His Dying Confession. - Extracts from his Unpublished Diary. - Deserted by the Sham Squire. - Origin of his Wealth. - More Turpitude.

The spirit of John Magee was* *indomitable. An interval of liberty between his conviction and sentence from Lord Clonmel was now at his disposal, and he certainly employed it in a singular way. Profoundly indifferent to all personal consequences, he most imprudently resolved to spend a considerable sum of money in wreaking his vengeance on Lord Clonmel. This eccentric scheme he sought to carry out in an indirect and, as he felt assured, a perfectly legal manner. Having found himself owner of £14,000, Magee settled £10,000 upon his family, and with a chuckle declared that the balance it was his intention, “with the blessing of God, to spend upon Lord Clonmel.” [Personal Recollections of Lord Cloncurry, 1849, 5. 58.]

The unpopular chief of the King’s Bench resided in a handsome villa near the Black Rock, now known as Temple Hill, but then styled Neptune. [“Neptune, the elegant seat of Lord Clonmel.” - Seward’s *Topographica Hibernia, *Dub. 1795.] On the splendid parterres and pleasure-grounds which luxuriantly environed it, Lord Clonmel had spent several thousand pounds; while in the direction of the improvements many an anxious and a precious hour had been consumed. The wild and uncultivated district of Dunleary without, only served to make the contrast more striking.

But alas! this exquisite oasis the vindictive proprietor of the *Post *resolved to lay waste. As an important preliminary step he purchased from Lady Osborne a large tract of ground immediately adjoining Lord Clonmel’s villa, and forthwith dubbed it Fiat Hall. [*Dublin Evening Post, *No. 1798.] Magee speedily announced, but with some mental reservation, that in honour of the birth-day of the Prince of Wales he would give, at Dunleary, a grand *Bra Pleasura, *to which he solicited the company of all his friends, private and political, known and unknown, washed and unwashed. Various field sports, with plenty of Silvester Costigan’s whisky, were promised as an inducement.

“At one o’clock” to quote the original advertisement, “the ball will be kicked on Fiat Hill. Dinner on the tented field at three o’clock. Table d’holte for ladies and gentlemen. Cudgel-playing at five, with cool umpires to prevent ill temper and preserve good humour.” [Ibid.]

The late Lord Cloncurry’s robust memory has furnished us with the following graphic sketch of the singular scene which took place upon this occasion. “I recollect attending,” writes his lordship, “and the fete certainly was a strange one. Several thousand people, including the entire disposable mob of Dublin of both sexes, assembled as the guests at an early hour, and proceeded to enjoy themselves in tents and booths erected for the occasion. A variety of sports was arranged for their amusement, such as climbing poles for prizes, running races in sacks, grinning through horse-collars, and so forth, until at length, when the crowd had attained its maximum density towards the afternoon, the grand scene of the day was produced. A number of active pigs, with their tails shaved and soaped, were let loose, and it was announced that each pig was to become the property of any one who could catch and hold it by the slippery member. A scene impossible to describe immediately took place: the pigs, frightened and hemmed in by the crowd in all other directions, rushed through the hedge which then separated the grounds of Temple Hill from the open fields; forthwith all their pursuers followed in a body, and, continuing their chase over the shrubberies and parterres, soon revenged John Magee upon the noble owner.”

Another pen, more powerful but not more accurate than Lord Cloncurry’s, tells us that “Lord Clonmel retreated like a harpooned leviathan - the barb was in his back, and Magee held the cordage. He made the life of his enemy a burden to him. Wherever he went, he was lampooned by a ballad-singer, or laughed at by the populace. Nor was Magee’s arsenal composed exclusively of paper ammunition. He rented a field bordering his lordship’s highly-improved and decorated demesne. He advertised, month after month, that on such a day he would exhibit in this field a *grand Olympic pig hunt; *that the people, out of gratitude for their patronage of his newspaper, should be gratuitous spectators of this revived *classical *amusement; and that he was determined to make so amazing a provision of whisky and porter, that if any man want home thirsty, it should be his own fault. The plan completely succeeded. Hundreds and thousands assembled; every man did justice to his entertainer’s hospitality; and his lordship’s magnificent demesne, uprooted and desolate, next day exhibited nothing but the ruins of *the Olympic pig hunt.” *[Curran and his Contemporaries, by Charles Phillips, p.87.] So far Mr Phillips. [Sir Jonah Barrington describes the scene to much the same effect, with this addition, that Magee introduced “asses dressed up with wigs and scarlet robe; and dancing dogs in gowns and wigs as barristers.”]

The Court of King’s Bench had not yet opened for term, and Lord Clonmel was tranquilly rusticating at Temple Hill. Pallid with consternation, he rang an alarm-bell, and ordered his post-chaise, with four of the fleetest horses in his stable, to the door. The chief-justice bounded into the chariot with an energy almost incompatible with his years; the postilions plied their whips; the chaise rattled amid clouds of dust down Fiat Hill; the mob, with deafening yells, followed close behind. Lord Clonmel, almost speechless with terror, repaired to the castle, sought the viceroy, swore “by the Eternal” [A favourite exclamation of Lord Clonmel’s. *Vide *Rowan’s Autobiography, p.208.] that all the country south of Dublin was in a state of insurrection; implored his Excellency to summon the Privy Council, and to apply at once for extraordinary powers, including the suspension of the *Hapeas Corpus *Act. t

The appeal of the chief-justice prevailed; and on September 3, 1789, we find Magee dragged from his home by a strong body of the weak and inefficient police of Dublin and consigned to Newgate. [Reminiscence communicated by the late Rev. Dr O’Hanlon.] He was previously, however, brought before Sir Samuel Bradstreet, Recorder of Dublin, on the charge of having announced that “there would be thirty thousand men at Dunleary.” The judge required personal bail to the amount of £5,000, and two sureties in £2,500 each, for five years, [Dublin Evening Post, No. 1809.] a demand not so easy for a printer in a moment to meet. Such mandates as these, amounting in some instances to perpetual imprisonment, soon brought but too fatally the administration of justice into contempt.

No unnecessary harshness seems to have been shown by Magee during his incarceration. Unlike the case of Lord Cloncurry, he was permitted the use of pen, ink, and paper - a concession as acceptable to him as it was creditable to the Government. He constantly wrote letters for the *Post *signed with his name, and bearing the somewhat inflammatory date of “Newgate, 22d October, 50th day of my confinement,” - varied, of course, according as time progressed; and he was not diffident in adversely criticising the policy of the viceroy, as well as some leading members of the Privy Council, including Lord Clonmel. “The man who vilifies established authority,” says Junius, “is sure to find an audience.” Magee was no exception to the rule. He became an intensely popular favourite; and the galleries of Crow Street theatre used nightly to resound with “A cheer for Magee, the man for Ireland!” and “A groan for the Sham!” [Trial of Magee for Libel on R. Daly, p. 30.]

Magee’s letters made frequent references to the sufferings to which the Government had subjected him. Thus, in No. 1789, he tells us, “I have been four times fiated, and dragged through the streets like a felon - three times into dungeons!” But having, on October 29, received a notification from Government declaratory of its willingness to accept the sum of £4,000 as bail “to keep the peace for five years towards Lord Clonmel,” Magee bade adieu to prison, and, accompanied by Hamilton Rowan, attended the court and gave the required surety. “Mr Magee, on being discharged, walked to his own house in College Green, greeted by the loud congratulations of the people.” [Dublin Evening Post, No. 1833.]

Poor Magee’s spell of liberty seems to have been or lamentably short duration, if the evidence of his own organ can be accepted as conclusive. The sweets of liberty were once more exchanged for the bitters of “durance vile.” In the *Dublin Evening Post *of November 12, 1789, we read - “Magee was brought up from the Lock-up House, where he had been confined since Tuesday last upon fiats granted by Lord Clonmel, at the suit of Messrs Higgins, Daly, Brennan, and Miss ---, to the amount of £7,800. Mr Magee moved for a new trial in the matter of the alleged libel against Higgins. But the chief-justice refused the motion, and informed the sheriff that Magee was now a convict, and should be conducted to Newgate forthwith.” [Dublin Evening Post, No. 1839.] The struggle was characterised as one of might against right. In October 1789, the attorney-general is said to have admitted in open court that the prosecution of Magee was “a *Government business.” *[Ibid., No. 1834.]

Irresistible arguments having been, on Nov. 19, heard in arrest of judgment on Magee, the chief-justice adjourned the sentence to next term, and admitted him to bail on the comparatively moderate recognisance of £500. Magee was therefore discharged; but it would almost seem as if the law authorities, with Lord Clonmel at their head, had been only playing off some malign practical joke upon him, for we read that no sooner had Magee “reached High Street after receiving his discharge, than he was taken into custody by the sheriffs on different fiats amounting to £7,800!” [Ibid., No. 1844.]

The very name of fiats had now become almost as terrible as *lettres de cachet; *but in the Irish Parliament of 1790 they received their death-blow, and Lord Clonmel himself may be said to have perished in their debris.

Of this unconstitutional agent Magee remarked:- If the amount of the sum for which bail must be found is to be measured and ascertained only by the conscience of the *affidavit-man, *then indeed any profligate character may lodge in Newgate the Duke of Leinster or Mr Conolly, for sums which even they would not find it possible to procure bail.” On January 28, 1790, Magee was once more committed to prison.

The inequitable practice of the court allowing the plaintiff three terms before requiring him to try his action, afforded Higgins and Daly the power of keeping their opponent in prison for 19 months in default of bail. Magee, meanwhile, behaved with much eccentricity. Having sent his compliments to Lord Clonmel, with an assurance that his health was much improved since “he had got his heels out of Newgate,” the chief-justice ordered an inquiry to be immediately instituted as to the means by which he had effected his escape; but it was found that he merely alluded to the custom he had adopted of sitting with his feet cased in scarlet slippers protruded through the window of his cell.

He also contrived to injure Lord Clonmel severely by bribing persons to turn a large body of scalding water upon the judge while in a public bath. [Gilbert’s History of Dublin, vol. iii., p. 31.] The chief-justice was a bad subject for a trick of this sort. “My size is so much increased,” he writes in his private diary, “that I have broken two carriage springs.” [Unpublished Diary of Lord Clonmel] Magee accused Daly of having killed a billiard-marker, avowed his intention of having him hanged for the murder; and, from what he styled his “Fiat Dungeon,” sent the patentee’s wife a picture of Higgins, begging she would oblige him by affixing in her cabinet “the portrait of the most infernal villain yet unhanged, except the murderer of the honest marker.” [Gilbert, vol. iii., p. 31.]

Owing largely to the unflagging denunciations of Magee, the Police Board, in September 1789, attempted some vigorous reform, and at last nocturnal gambling-houses were menaced with extinction. Magee, even in the gloom of his dungeon, exulted over the threatened downfall. The “Gambler’s Soliloquy” went on to say:-

“Yes! this is a fatal, dreadful revolution I

A change repugnant to the dear delights

Of night-enveloped guilt, of midnight fraud,

And rapine long secure; of dexterous art

To plunge unthinking innocence in woe,

And riot in the spoils of beggar’d youth!

Sad revolution! Hence come lethargy,

Come inactivity, and worse than all,

Come simple honesty! The dice no more

Shall sound their melody, nor perj’ry’s list

Swell at the nod of dark collusive practice

Gaols lie unpeopled, and rest gibbets bare,

And Newgate’s front board take a holiday!

Crane Lane, thou spot to Pandemonium dear,

Where many a swarthy son of Chrisar’s race

My galligaskin lined,” &c.

[Dublin Evening Post, No. 1813.]

Alderman Carleton made four seizures. “And yet,” said the *Post, *“as fast as their implements are seized, their tables demolished, and their gangs dispersed, the very next night new arrangements and new operations are on foot. Who but the protected proprietor of this infamous den - who but a ruffian who can preserve his plunder in security, and set law and gospel at defiance, would dare at such audacious perseverance ?” [Ibid.]

One of the banquets given about this time by the Sham Squire was specially immortalised by the popular poet Ned Lysaght, but we have not been able to find a printed copy. The song was, however, traditionally preserved by the late Chief-Justice Doherty, Chief-Justice Bushe, and Sir Philip Crampton, all of whom were wont to swell its merry chorus. The lines began by describing “the Sham’s feast in Stephen’s Green,” and the guests who were present,-

“Including, as we’ve all heard tell,

Carhampton, Flood, and Lord Clonmel;

With Haly-gaily, Langford Rowley,

Dash-at-him - Fiat-him-

Galloping dreary Dunn.”

The chief merit of the lines lay in preserving almost verbatim the original gibberish chorus of the well-known song in O’Keefe’s opera, “The Castle of Andalusia.” “Haly-gaily” alludes to Hely Hutchinson, provost of Trinity College, Dublin, of whose ambitious disposition Lord Townshend remarked, “that if his Majesty gave him the whole kingdoms of England and Ireland, he would beg the Isle of Man for a cabbage garden.” Having obtained a peerage for his wife, he became ancestor of the Lords Donoughmore. The Right Hon. Langford Rowley, M.P. for Heath, was an equally influential personage. “Dash-at-him-fiat-him,” alludes to Daly, who killed the marker by a dash of a billiard ball, and imprisoned Magee on a *fiat. *“Galloping dreary Dunn,” refers, we believe, to George Dunn, the governor of Kilmainham gaol.

Meanwhile Mr Higgins’s ready pen continued to rage with fury against all whose views did not exactly chime with those held by his employers. A contemporary journal says;- “Squire Higgins, whose protected system of virulent and unremitting slander crows in triumph over the community, does not scruple to avow his indifference to anything which prosecution can do, guarded as he is by the intimate friendship and implicit confidence of the Bench. He openly avows his disregard of Mr Grattan’s prosecution for a libel now pending against him, and says that he shall be supported by the Castle.” [Dublin Evening Post, No. 1825.] Mr Higgins having libelled a respectable official in the revenue, legal proceedings were instituted; but one of the Government lawyers refused, in December 1788, to move, although fee’d in the cause.

Poor Magee’s cup of bitterness was at last filled to the brim, by a proceeding which is best described in his own letter to Lord Chancellor Clare. There is a singular mixture of tragedy and farce in the energetic efforts which were now openly made to extinguish him:-

NEWGATE, Oct. 1,

” My Lord, - I have now been confined in this prison of the felon, housebreaker, and murderer, 29 days - 21 of which time mostly to my bed. Judge, on my rising yesterday to be served with a notice to appear to-morrow at the House of Lords, on a charge of lunacy, and that by some interested persons, who, without even the shadow of relationship, have secured my property, and that to a very great amount, and refused by these very people even ten guineas to procure common necessaries in a prison. Bail I cannot produce; my character as a trader is blasted; my property as a citizen embezzled; my intellects as a man suspected by a false and slanderous charge of insanity; every engine employed by a designing, needy, and desperate junto, for the absolute deprivation of my property; total destruction of all that those who respect themselves prize more even than life. My Lord, I claim the interposition of your authority as the first in law power

• I supplicate your humanity as a man, a parent, a husband, that I may be permitted to confront my accusers at the House of Lords on to-morrow.”

To justify the charge of lunacy against John Magee, it was alleged, among other pretexts, that he had established boat-races and foot-ball matches - at Dunleary, and presided over them “in a round hat and feathers.” [There is an anecdote of Magee traditionally preserved in the office of the *Evening Post, *illustrative of his unawed demeanour in the presence of Lord Clonmel, by whose domineering manner even the Bar were often overborne. Magee stood up in court, and addressed a few observations to the Bench in justification of his hostility to Francis Higgins. But having styled him the “Sham Squire,” Lord Clonmel interrupted Magee, declaring that he would allow no nicknames to be used in that court. “Very well John Scott,” replied the editor of the Post, resuming his seat.]

We cull a few passages from the newspaper report:- *

“The Chancellor - *‘Mr Magee, have you anything to say?’

“As to what, my lord?”

“‘You have heard the matters with which you are charged. I am called upon to issue a commission to try whether you are insane or not. If you are found insane, I am then to appoint a guardian of your person and a guardian of your property, and you will become a ward of the Court of Chancery. Have you an attorney?’

“‘No, my lord. Some time ago I sent for Mr Kenny as my solicitor. He came to me, and found me sick in bed. I opened my case to him, and he promised to call upon me next day; but the first intimation I had of Mr Kenny afterwards was, that he was preparing briefs against me for this prosecution. Does your lordship choose that I should call witnesses? My own physician is here.’

“‘Has he made an affidavit?’

“‘He has, my lord.’

“The chancellor declared that there was not the shadow of ground for issuing a commission. Supposing all the charges true, they only amounted to acts of extravagance and indiscretion.. If he was to grant a commission of lunacy against every man who did an extravagant, an unwise, or even a bad thing, he was afraid he should have a great many wards. He had observed Mr Magee during the whole time he had been in court, and he saw nothing insane about him. He must therefore refuse the application.”

Magee’s triumph began to dawn from this day. In the Journals of the Irish House of Commons (vol. xiii., pp. 179 80) we find it “ordered that the proper officer do lay before the House an attested copy of the affidavit filed in the Queen’s Bench, on which the chief-justice ordered that a writ should issue, at the suit of Francis Higgins and others, against John Magee for £7,800.” On March 3, 1790, the entire case was brought before Parliament by George Ponsonby, afterwards Lord Chancellor of Ireland. He showed that the practice of issuing fiats under such circumstances was unconstitutional, and a direct violation of the Bill of Rights; and he reminded the House, that while Warren Hastings, who was accused of plundering India, murdering its inhabitants, and rendering the Government corrupt and odious, was only held to £10,000 bail, an Irish printer, on a mere individual affirmation, was held to bail for £7,800. Mr Ponsonby ridiculed the idea of Higgins swearing that he “had been injured in his unspotted, unblemished reputation” by the lampoons of John Magee.

George Ponsonby was ably supported by Arthur Browne: [For a notice of Arthur Browne, member for the University of Dublin, see Review of the irish Douse of Commons, by Falkland - i.e., John Robert Scott, D. D. p. 30; vide also Sketches of Irish Political Characters, p. 211] “Till of very late years the evil was moderate; but since a certain learned judge came upon the bench it has grown to an enormous height. Sir, under the auspices of that judge these doctrines have been advanced, that any man may at his pleasure, with perfect impunity, deprive any other of his liberty by an affidavit swearing that he believes he has suffered damage, without showing when or how - that his fancy, or his perjury, is to be the guide of the judge’s discretion, and the bail is to be accommodated to the ideal wrongs, to the fancied injuries, to the angry passions, or the wanton prevarication of a wicked or enraged prosecutor. What is the consequence? No man, however free from debt or unconscious of crime, shall walk in security in the public streets. He is liable to arrest for any amount; and if he seeks to punish the accuser he finds no spot on which to lay his hand. How can he indict the accuser for perjury? He only swore a general affirmative that he had been damaged. Who can prove a general negative that he had not? He only swore to the belief of damage. Who can arraign his capricious fancy, or convict it of perjury? If he had sworn to a particular instance - that his arm had been broken, that he had lost the setting of a house or the customers of his shop - I might prove the falsehood of the assertion by evidence. But upon a general charge nothing remains but submission and a prison.

“This power has been particularly directed against printers. Whoever presumed to print or publish without the leave or not under the direction of Francis Higgins, was in great danger of a fiat: numbers of printers have been run down by flats whom the public never heard of. John Magee was more sturdy, and therefore his sufferings made more noise. Four fiats were issued against him in June 1789, to the amount of £7,800; he was kept in prison from June to the end of November, before the question whether this bail should be reduced was decided. Mr Higgins had now, by the practice of the courts, (which gives a plaintiff three terms before he need try his action,) power to keep Magee in prison till November next, so that he may lie in prison 19 months for want of bail before the action be tried; perhaps afterwards have a verdict in his favour, or only 8d. damages be given against him. Each of the bail must swear himself worth twice the sum for which he was security *i.e., *£30,000, and more in this case. What gentleman could find such bail? It amounted to perpetual imprisonment. We may talk of independence, but liberty is no more - the security of our boasted emancipation is a name, for we have nothing to secure.

“See what an instrument this doctrine might be in the hands of private malice or public oppression. Suppose a man willing to wreak his vengeance upon his foe, and for that purpose recommending himself to the favour of the Bench. Suppose a bad man in possession of the ear of a judge, his old friend and companion, perhaps instilling his poison into it, and willing to make it the conduit through which to wreak his vengeance on his foe; suppose him to recommend himself by every willing and base act to a wicked judge - and such may be conceived. *Suppose him the minion of that judge, requiring a little mutual favour for his multiplied services, and asking the debasement of the Bench as the price of former aid in the elevation of that judge … *Suppose the slanderous assassin, seeking for a fiat against a far less criminal than himself, and fixing the sum which he thinks sufficient to throw his neighbour into eternal bondage; is it not possible that his friendly judge may listen to his argument in memory of old festivity, and grant him a fiat, even to his heart’s content, although by so doing, your courts of law, instead of being the sacred fountains of justice, should become the channels of malevolence? If the wretched victims of this assumed power do not find redress here, they know not where to fly for refuge; on this House depends the fate of all who are or may be subject to this tyranny. If they do not find redress here, they must be lost; but they will be lost in the wreck of the national character. What an instrument might such a power be in the hands of a bad government! what an instrument may it be against the liberty of the press! How easily may any printer who presumes to open his mouth against the administration be run down by it! We have called upon the administration to correct this evil, and have met with a refusal. It absurdly espouses a subject with which it has no concern, and which it cannot defend!”

“The proposed vote of censure on the chief-justice was rejected through the Government influence in the House of Commons, which referred the fiats and affidavits in the case to a grand committee of the courts of justice, before which Mr Ponsonby discussed the question at great length, and proposed a resolution, that the issuing of writs by the order of a judge, to hold defendants to bail in large sums of money in actions of slander, where no actual and specific damage is sworn to in the affidavits upon which such writs were issued, was, as the same had been practised of late, illegal, and subversive of the liberty of the subject.” “This motion,” records Mr Gilbert, “was got rid of by the Attorney-General moving that the chairman of the committee should leave the chair, which was carried on a division. The result of these proceedings tended to increase the unpopularity of the administration of the time, as the public had taken up with much interest the case of Magee, who had been sanguine of obtaining relief from Parliament.” [Gilbert’s History of Dublin, vol. iii., p. 33.]

Nevertheless, the practice of issuing fiats was, as we are assured by Charles Phillips, soon after restricted to a defined and definite sum. Intense was the humiliation of Lord Clonmel; his heart withered from that day. Magee exposed his errors, denied his merits, magnified his mistakes, ridiculed his pretensions, and continually edging, without overstepping the boundary of libel, poured upon the chief, from the battery of the press, a perpetual broadside of sarcasm and invective.

“Save us from our friends; we know our enemies, is an old and trite adage. Groaning beneath the weight of Magee’s hostility, Lord Clonmel pursued the uneven tenor of his way; but when at length the startling fact became evident that even the fidelity of Higgins had begun to fail, the chief felt inclined to ejaculate, *Et tu, Brute! *Mr Curran, in his “Bar Sketches,” relates on the authority of Bushe a story which shows that in 1794 Lord Clonmel complained of having been lampooned by the *Freeman’s Journal. *So much for the instability of human friendship

The chief-justice became at last singularly sensitive to criticism. Rowan’s “Autobiography” records a strange dialogue between the chief and a bookseller named Byrne, into whose shop he swaggered on seeing Rowan’s trial advertised. One sentence will convey an idea of the colloquy, as well as* *of the times in which such language could be hazarded by a judge. “Take care, sir, what you do; I give you this caution; for if there are any reflections on the judges of the land, by the eternal G— I will lay you by the heels.”

Lord Clonmel’s health and spirits gradually broke down, and accounts of his death were daily circulated. On one of these occasions, when he was really very ill, a friend said to Curran, “Well, they say Clonmel is going to die at last. Do you believe it?” “I believe,” said Curran, “he is scoundrel enough to live or die, *just as it suits his own convenience! *Shortly before the death of Lord Clonmel, Mr Lawless, afterwards Lord Cloncurry, had an interview with him, when the chief exclaimed, “My dear Val, I have been a fortunate man through life; I am a chief-justice and an earl; but were I to begin the world again, I would rather be a chimney-sweeper, than connected with the Irish Government.” [Personal Recollections of Lord Cloncurry.]

The “Diary of John Scott, Lord Clonmel,” not hitherto consulted by those who have treated of that remarkable man, has been privately printed by his family. It shows, while recording many weaknesses, that he was a person of rare shrewdness and political foresight. A few excerpts from this generally-inaccessible volume will interest the reader:-

The result of Lord ClonmeVs experience of the ambitious and designing men with whom he had cultivated intimacies was not satisfactory. *

Politics. - “*Never, if you can, connect yourself with a very ambitious man: his friendship, or rather connexion, is as ruinous as his hatred: he has no real friendship; and his pride makes him hate those to whom he is obliged; and his intimacy leads him to dupe every creature, his Creator if he could. *Vide *the Life of Frederick the Great of Prussia, Provost Hutchinson, the Marquis of Buckingham; John Foster, speaker; Agar, Archbishop of Cashel,” &c. (P. 146.)

“Lord! what plagues have false friends proved to me. The idea of *friendship, *and the very word, should be expunged from the heart and mind of a politician. Look at Lord Pery.” (P.211.)

Last month I became a viscount; and from want of circumspection in trying a cause against a printer, (Magee,) I have been grossly abused for several months. I have endeavoured to make that abuse useful towards my earldom.” … (Sept. 20, 1789, 348.)

On October 19, 1789, he says, that unless he adopts the discipline of Pery and others, “I am actually disgraced, despised, and undone as a public man. Let me begin to be diligent to-day. No other learning but law and parliamentary reading can be useful to me: let these be my study.” (P.349.)

On January 21, 1790, he writes:-” Let me, therefore, from this moment, adopt a war discipline, arid resolve *seriously *to set about learning my profession, and *acting *my part *superlatively *throughout.” (P.331.)

Among his good resolutions recorded on the 10th of February were, “To establish a complete reform from snuff, sleep, swearing, sloth, gross eating, malt liquor, and indolence.”

The Diary finds him constantly engaged in a battle with his own weaknesses, which unhappily in the end generally win the victory. At p.362, towards the close of the book, we read:- ” By neglect of yourself you are now a helpless, ignorant, unpopular, accused individual; forsaken by Government, persecuted by Parliament, hated by the Bar, unaided by the Bench, betrayed and deserted by your oldest friends. Reform, and all will be well. Guard against treachery in others and passions in yourself.” At p.441, we learn:- ” My three puisne judges are actually combined against me; and that ungrateful monster, Lord Carleton, has made a foolish quarrel with me.”

Few men possessed a more accurate perception of what was right to be done; and his *beau-ideal *of a perfect chief-justice is a model of judicial excellence which a Mansfield or a Bushe might read with profit: but poor Lord Clonmel signally failed to realise it. Day after day, as we have said, finds this most extraordinary man toiling in vain to correct his besetting weaknesses. Sir Jonah Barrington’s description of Lord Clonmel perpetually telling and acting extravagantly comic stories is corroborated by the chief’s own Diary. “I have made,” he writes, “many enemies by the treachery of men and women who have taken advantage of my levity [It cannot be said of Lord Clonmel as of Jerry Keller, an Irish barrister, that some men have risen by their gravity while he sank by his levity.] and unguardedness in mimicry, and saying sharp things of and to others; and have injured myself by idleness, eating, drinking, and sleeping too much. *From this day, then, *let me assume *a stately, grave, dignified *deportment and demeanour. No buffoonery, no mimicry, no ridicule.” This is one of the closing entries in the very remarkable Diary of John Scott, Lord Chief-Justice Clonmel. As a constitutional judge he holds no place. In opposition to the highest legal authorities of England, he held that one witness was quite sufficient to convict in case of treason.

Among the many searchingly critical notices of Lord Clonmel, contributed by Grattan, Barrington, Rowan, Cloncurry, Cox, Magee, and others, no allusion has been made to the circumstances in which his wealth mainly originated. We are informed by a very respectablo soliditor, Mr H---, that, in looking over one of Lord Clonmel’s rentals, he was struck by the following note, written by his lordship’s agent, in reference to the property Boolnaduff:- ” Lord Clonmel, when Mr Scott, held this in trust for a Roman Catholic, who, owing to the operation of the Popery laws, was incapacitated from keeping it in his own hands. When reminded of the trust, Mr Scott refused to acknowledge it, and thus the property fell into the Clonmel family,” [In Walker’s *Hibernian Magazine *for July 1797, we read, p. 97:-” Edward Byrne of Mullinahack, Esq., to Miss Roe, stepdaughter to the Earl of Clonmel, and niece to Lord Viscount Llandaff.” Hereby hangs a tale. Miss Roe was understood to have a large fortune, and when Mr Byrne applied to Lord Clonmel for it, his lordship shuffled, saying, “Miss Roe is a lapsed Papist, and I avail myself of the laws which I administer to withhold the money.” Mr Byrne filed a bill, in which he recited the evasive reply of Lord Clonmel. The chief-justice never answered the bill and treated Mr Byrne’s remonstrances with contempt. These facts transpire in the legal documents held by Mr H---. Too often the treachery manifested by the rich in positions of trust, at the calamitous period in question, contrasted curiously with the tried fidelity observed by some needy persons in a similar capacity. Moore, in his Memoirs of Captain Rock, mentions the case of a poor Protestant barber, though his own property did not exceed a few pounds in value, actually held in fee the estates of most of the Catholic gentry of the county. He adds, that this estimable man was never known to betray his trust.]

But we must not lose sight of the Sham Squire. We now find him accused of “purloining a document from the office of the King’s Bench, and committing erasures and alterations thereon, for the purpose of securing the conviction of a defendant, and depriving him of the benefit of a fair plea against judgment.”

This,” adds the *Post, “is *of a piece with the notorious theft committed on the grand jury bag in the town-clerk’s office, a few weeks since, of the bills against the markers and other vagabonds of the Crane Lane gambling-house. If such felonious audacities are suffered to escape with impunity, the dignity, the law, the equity of the Bench, and the lives and properties of the honest part of the community are no longer safe against the daring acts of cunning and villainy.” [Dublin Evening Post, No. 1843.] Mr. Higgins denied the charge; but the subject, notwithstanding, was brought before Parliament on March 5, 1790, when Arthur Browne stated, that in “the suit, Higgins against Magee, it had appeared to the perfect conviction of every man in court that two erasures and certain alterations had been made in the record; that a circumstance so momentous had astonished and alarmed all present, the court especially, who had promised to make a solemn investigation of it, and ‘probe it to the bottom.’ He had since heard from some friends, that it would not be proper to commence an inquiry until the suit, in which this record was involved, should be finally determined: no such objection had been offered by the court at the time of discovering the forgery; nay, the court, on the instant, had certainly commenced an inquiry, though he never heard they had carried it further.

“This dark and wicked transaction did, at the time of its being discovered, greatly alarm the Bar; and in consequence a numerous and most respectable meeting of barristers took place, at which meeting he attended, and there did promise, that if the Court of King’s Bench did not follow up the inquiry with effect, he would bring it before Parliament: it certainly was the business of the Court of King’s Bench to have taken it up; but they not having done so, he was resolved to keep his promise, and never lose sight of it till Parliament should decide upon it.

“The inquiry was, whether the public records of the highest court of criminal judicature, by which the life and property of any man in the realm might be affected, were kept with that sacred care that no man could have access to alter or erase them? And whether the officers of that court were so honest and so pure that they would not allow of any corrupt access ?” [Irish Parl. Debates, vol. x., p. 382.]

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