of seeing him, not casually or for a few moments at a parting interview, but constant.y and without intermission. This was a situation, the overpowering painfulness of which was enough to drive a man mad. The coffin of his friend was in his sight when he left his cell. Nay, he even saw the preparations making for his execution the night before the appointed day. Early the following morning, a request was made by Bond to Neilson; the compliance with which it is possible to conceive, but not to express the feelings it must have occasioned.

"Neilson was requested by Bond to proceed to the press-room, and to ascertain, by his own examination, the strength of the rope which was prepared for carrying his sentence into effect. This extraordinary commission was occasioned by some misapprehension of Bond's, that, being a man of large and robust frame, the breaking of the rope might be the occasion of protracted suffering. When he returned to the cell, Bond asked him if every thing was right, and Neilson could only answer, "Yes, Bond.'

"It was only at three o'clock in the afternoon that a shout, raised by the people in front of the jail, who had assembled to witness the execution, prepared the prisoners for the announcement, on the part of the sheriffs, that Mr. Bond was respited during pleasure."

The unaccountable success with which Reynolds, after the betrayal of his confederates, still managed to elude the suspicion of those whom he had so treacherously denounced, must ever be a matter of surprise -and when the discovery was made, that deep feelings of vengeance and indignation should be excited in the bosoms of his victims, may be readily imagined. The wonder is, that in the fierce spirit of the times, and in a country, too, where the informer is generally considered as a criminal without the pale of mercy-that the life of this degraded man did not pay the penalty of his treachery. It is said that his assassination was contemplated,* and that plans were proposed to take

*"It is a very strange circumstance, that, notwithstanding Reynolds, long prevlously to the arrests, had been shunned by several of the more discreet and wary of the United Irishmen, who had some knowledge of his private character and conduct in pecuniary affairs, he was still trusted by the most influential of their leaders; nay, even after the arrests at Bond's, when they were warned against him, he continued to be received by them as a person still faithful to their cause.

"Some days subsequently to the arrests at Bond's, there had been a meeting of the provincial committee at the Brazen Head hotel, in a lane off Bridge-street. This meeting was attended, amongst others, by a gentleman then residing in New Row, in the entire confidence of the directory, and from my own knowledge of his character, I should say there was no man more entitled to it, on whose authority the facts are stated which will be found in the following account :

"One Michael Reynolds, of Naas, who was said to be a distant relative to Mr. T. Reynolds, and who had been particularly active in the society, and useful to it, attended this meeting. This young man addressed the meeting at some length; he said that circumstances had lately transpired in the country, and steps, with regard to individuals, had been taken by government, which made it evident that a traitor was in their camp, who must belong to one of the country committees, and one who held a high rank in their society; that traitor, he said, was Thomas Rey

him off. But he escaped the impending danger-held an official situation for many years under the British government-lived in luxury and ease on the wages of his infamy-and, while some of his victims were in the grave, and others in penury and exile, he died in the bosom of his family, leaving wealth and a blasted reputation as their inheritance. "Considering that the time was come when he should retire from the turmoil of public life, he fixed his abode in Paris, and died in that city, the 18th of August, 1836. His remains were brought to England and were buried in one of the vaults of the village church of Wilton, in Yorkshire."

It was not fated that Bond should quit with life his prison, and his sudden death in Newgate, on the night of the 6th of September, was attributed by the surgeon-general, after a post mortem examination, to the true cause, while the most absurd rumours were circulated by the disaffected-some affirming that he had been strangled in his cell, others declaring that he had been murdered in a dark passage, by a blow given him from behind, by one of the under-keepers of the prison. For what cause he should be assassinated was never attempted to be explained, for he had already a free pardon signed and sealed in the office at the castle. That violent exercise, a heavy supper, and afterwards a deep carouse, should, to a plethoric and overgrown personage like Bond, prove fatal, is easily conceivable. Apoplexy, and not violence, was the immediate cause of his death,* and by the visitation of God and not of man, Bond was removed from existence.

nolds, of Kilkea Castle, and if he were allowed to proceed in his career, they and their friends would soon be the victims of his treachery. In a tone and manner which left an indelible impression on the minds of his hearers, and which the person I allude to was wont to speak of as having produced an extraordinary effect, he asked if the society were to be permitted to be destroyed, or if Reynolds were to be allowed to live; in short, he demanded of the meeting their sanction for his removal, and undertook that it should be promptly effected.

"The proposal was unanimously and very properly rejected by the meeting. Michael Reynolds was a young man of great muscular strength and activity, of a short stature and dark complexion, and somewhat celebrated in the country for his horsemanship."-Lives of the United Irishmen.

* "On the 6th of September, Bond had been playing a good deal at ball. That evening, Gregg, the jailer, by the desire of Bond and Neilson, brought in some supper and a jug of punch. Samuel Neilson went to bed, leaving Bond and Gregg together. They were not then quarrelling: there was no one present but themselves. The following morning, at break of day, Neilson heard some cries of the female prisoners in the opposite ward; he ran out, and found Bond's body lying in the doorway, half his body in, half out, dressed as he had been when he last saw him.' It was the custom when a prisoner died in jail, to insinuate that he had been secretly made away with. Lord Edward Fitzgerald's wound was said to have been intentionally turned into gangrene, and Oliver Bond assassinated by a blow from a brass skillet! If an intimate friead (Russell) of the unhappy nobleman may be credited, Lord Edward died of natural disease;† and Sweetman, in his diary, observes, September 5th.-Oliver Bond died; said to be at four in the morning

"It may, perhaps, be interesting to state, that the death of Lord Edward did not seem to proceed from his wounds, but from an inflammation and water on b iungs."-Russell's Letter.

"In a New York paper, called the Irish Citizen,' of the 25th of January, 1843, published by B. P. Binns, the brother of the prisoner who was tried at Maidstone with Arthur O'Connor, an article, pro fessing to be written by one who had a good deal of knowledge of the events occurring at that period, states that Bond 'was killed by a plow of a copper kettle (a singular implement for an assassin to select!) on the back of the head inflicted by one of the turnkeys, in a dark passage leading to his cell.' Nothing certain, however, is known of this mysterious business."

Inquest sat at three, p.m.; verdict, Nothing on the body seemed to indicate that he died of other than a natural death, probably of apoplexy.'

66

That the cause of Bond's death could admit of any mystification is a marveland that a heavy and plethoric man, under the excitement attendant upon a long uncertainty regarding life and death, ball-playing in sultry weather, and supping and carousing pottle-deep" afterwards-that he should be found dead in the morning, I fancy will not now-a-days be considered a medical wonder. The facts are, Lord Edward died of fever, arising from wounds and mental irritation—Bond of apoplexy, produced by anxiety and intemperance.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

SEVERITIES OF THE EXECUTIVE-THE WExford leADERS-ANECDOTE-HARVEY AND GROGAN-EXECUTIONERS-EXCESSES IN THE NORTH.

DURING the short time that the insurrection was raging in the soath, terrible examples of hurried justice were daily witnessed in the metropolis and elsewhere. In the capital, the lamp irons or the scaffolding on the bridges, were turned into a temporary gallows-and corporal punishment resorted to, and even torturous measures used, sometimes from vague suspicion, at others from private enmity alone. That infernal invention, the pitched-cap, was employed in common with the triangles; and it has been asserted, without contradiction, that many wretched sufferers were, from the cruelties they endured, deprived of reason, and, in some cases, driven to end their agonies by self-destruction. These instances were not a few.

"In the centre of the capital, the heart-rending exhibition was presented of a human being, rushing from the infernal depôt of torture and death, his person besmeared with a burning preparation of turpentine and pitch, plunging, in his distraction, into the Liffey, and terminating at once his sufferings and his life.

"A melancholy transaction occurred in the town of Drogheda. The unhappy victim was a young man of delicate frame; he had been sentenced to five hundred lashes, and received a portion with firmness, but dreading lest bedily suffering might subdue the fortitude of his mind, be requested that the remainder should be suspended, and his information taken. Being liberated from the triangles, he directed his executioners to a certain garden, where he informed them arms were concealed. In their absence he deliberately cut his throat. They were not discovered, for no arms were there.

"About the same period, and in the same populous town, the unfortunate Bergan was tortured to death. He was an honest, upright citizen, and a man of unimpeachable moral character. He was seized or by those vampires, and in the most public street stripped of his clothes, placed in a horizontal position on a cart, and torn with the cat-o'-nine

*"It is said that the North Cork regiment were the inventors-but they cer tainly were the introducers of pitch-cap torture into the county of Wexford Any person having his hair cut short, and therefore called a Croppy' (by which the soldiery designated a United Irishman), on being pointed out by some loyal neighbour, was immediately seized and brought into a guard-house, where caps, either of coarse linen or strong brown paper, besmeared inside with pitch, were always kept ready for service. The unfortunate victim had one of these well heated, compressed on his head, and when judged of a proper degree of coolness, so that it could not be easily pulled off, the sufferer was turned out, amidst the horrid accla mations of the merciless torturers."—Lives of the United Irishmen.

tails, long after the vital spark was extinct. The alleged pretence for the perpetration of this horrid outrage was, that a small gold ring had been discovered on his finger bearing a national device the shamrock of his unfortunate country."*

The indiscriminating punishment, accompanied with all the obsolete barbarism attendant upon treason, inflicted on the Wexford leaders without exception, has been heavily condemned-and it has been contended, that to several individuals mercy should have been extended. It is a difficult question to decide. Much in favour of the sufferers might be adduced-while the circumstances of the times, the rank of the criminals, and the character of their offendings, were such as to close the door of mercy, and exact a rigid retribution. I question whether any of the influential gentlemen found unhappily among the Wexford leaders, had joined the standard of rebellion advisedly-and there is no doubt that the cruelties they witnessed, and found themselves unequal to restrain, dispelled the idle delusion which had tempted them to take arms against the government.

That Harvey, Keough, Colclough, and Grogan, were radically in fected with republican principles cannot be questioned; but like hun. dreds of theoric politicians of that day, it is more than probable that their treasonable intents would have been confined to the dinner-table, and not displayed upon the field. In Ireland in those days, and indeed, even in the present, the withdrawal of the ladies was the signal for political discussions to commence-and with every cooper of wine, according to the party colour of the company, kingdoms were revolutionized, or rebellions were suppressed.

A symposium of this description, which was held in the spring of '98 at Bargay Castle, gives a sketchy picture of the tone and temper of the times. Men jested at the table, unconscious that the sword

*Lives of the United Irishmen.

"In those times, all the business of the country societies was conducted in public-houses, and men entered into solemn engagements, involving consequences of awful moment to their country and to themselves, in the midst of scenes ill calculated for cool deliberation. This, it may be said, was only amongst the lower orders of the United Irishmen, like those belonging to the Muddlers' Club,' of Belfast. But the upper orders, though they might not congregate in Shebeen' houses, and way-side inns, also had their houses of entertainment in the metropolis, their taverns on a larger scale-their 'Eagle,' in Exchequer-street, their 'Struggler's Tavern,' in Cook-street; and their business was done after the cloth was removed," and the port wine was laid on the table. It was at such times and at such convivial meetings the introduction of candidates for admission was discussed, their qualifications were talked over, and the test eventually administered and taken in a room adjoining that in which the revels of a convivial party and the machinations of conspirators went on simultaneously.

"The candidate for admission into the society, after it became a secret one in 1794, was sworn either by individuals, or in the presence of several members, in a separate room from that in which the meeting was held. A paper, consisting of eight pages of printed matter, called the Constitution, was placed in his right hand, and the nature of it was explained to him: that part of it called the Test' was read to him, and repeated by him. The oath was administered either on the Scriptures or a prayer-book; and while it was administering to him, he held the constitution, together with the book, on his right breast. The constitution contained