! 384 MURDER BY THE YEOMANRY. Ch. 38. Nor was he strong enough to deny to the Judkin 1799 Murder in Fitzgeralds the protection which they demanded against the outraged laws. He was frequently baffled even in his efforts to keep the administration of martial law within the limits of common sense and humanity. One example may be mentioned, not because it was one of peculiar atrocity, for there were many similar cases, but as shewing what Irishmen of high station, and consequently of some education and knowledge of the world, were capable of in those times. A part of the Mount Kennedy corps of yeomanry were, on an autumn night in the year 1798, patrolling the village of Delbary, in the county of Wicklow. Two or three of the party led by Whollaghan, one of their number, entered the cottage of a labouring man named Dogherty, and demanded if there were any bloody rebels there? The only inmates of the cabin were Dogherty's wife, and a sick lad, her son, who was eating his supper. Whollaghan asked if the boy was Dogherty's son; and, being told that he was-"Then, you dog," said Whollaghan, you are to die here." "I hope not," answered the poor lad. And he prayed, if there 66 nonsensical clamour about my lenity. On my arrival in this country, I put a stop to the burning of houses and murder of the inhabitants by the yeomen, or any other person who delighted in that amusement; to the flogging for the purpose of extorting confession, and to the free quarters, which comprehended universal rape and robbery throughout the country.' Lord Cornwallis to General Ross, April, 1799.-Cornwallis Correspondence, vol. iii. PP. 74-89. TRIAL OF WHOLLAGHAN. was any charge against him, to be taken before Mr. Latouche, a magistrate in the neighbourhood, of known humanity and justice. The fellow replied that he cared nothing for Latouche, and raised his gun. The mother entreated him, for the love of God, to take her life instead of her child's. Whollaghan, with a volley of abuse, pulled the trigger twice, but the piece missed fire. A comrade then handed him another gun; and the woman rushed at the muzzle to shield her son. In the struggle the piece went off, and the ball broke young Dogherty's arm. When the boy fell, the assassins left the cabin; but Whollaghan returned, and seeing the lad supported by his mother, cried out, "Is not the dog dead yet ?" "O yes, sir," said the poor woman, "he is dead enough." "For fear he is not," said Whollaghan, "let him take this." And with deliberate aim, he fired a fourth time, and Dogherty dropped dead out of his mother's arms. Whollaghan was tried for murder, not by the civil tribunal, as he should have been, but by Court Martial. The facts were not disputed; but the defence was that the poor boy had been a rebel, and that the prisoner was a humane and loyal subject. That the Doghertys were rebels is probable enough; as, indeed, it was hardly possible that a Catholic peasant should have been anything else. But no legal evidence of the fact was tendered; and the hearsay which was admitted was about as credible as the oaths of the Orangemen who came to give 385 Ch. 38. 1799 386 1799 WHOLLAGHAN'S ACQUITTAL. Ch. 38. Whollaghan a character for humanity. But the real defence was, that the prisoner and his companions had been sent out with general orders from their officer to shoot anybody they pleased. The court seemed to have been of opinion that such orders were neither unusual nor unreasonable; and it is difficult to collect, from their finding, that they thought the prisoner had been guilty even of an error in judgment. They found, They found, "that the Court Martial Cornwallis. prisoner did shoot and kill Thomas Dogherty, a rebel; but do acquit him of any malicious or wilful intention of murder." Now this crime was perpetrated, not in the dissolved by wilds of Connaught, but in the metropolitan district. The trial took place in Dublin; and the president of the court was the Earl of Enniskillen, one of the chiefs of the Irish nobility. When the proceedings of the court were submitted to Lord Cornwallis, he immediately signified his entire disapproval of the acquittal of a man, who, by the clearest evidence, appeared to have been guilty of a cruel and deliberate murder. He directed the Court Martial to be immediately dissolved; that Whollaghan should be dismissed from the yeomanry; and that this order should be read to the president and members of the Court Martial in open court." A similar case to Whollaghan's, and one, if possible, still more flagrant, so far as the conduct of the Court Martial was concerned, was that of a z Cornwallis Correspondence, pp. 419, 420, 421. PLOWDEN'S History, Part ii. p.810. MURDER BY A PARTY OF MILITIA. lieutenant and a party of militia, who were tried for another act of deliberate murder. The court, sympathising with the act, and, willing to shield the perpetrators, came to a conclusion, which mingled absurdity and baseness in a manner that no other country or faction could have equalled. They acquitted the officer who gave the order, and convicted the men who had committed the homicide in obedience to the order. "But," they added, "it appearing that the deceased had belonged to a yeomanry corps which had been disbanded, and that he had not joined any other, the Court are of opinion, that at the time the crime was committed, the prisoners did not think they were doing an improper act, in putting a person they thought a rebel to death; and from their former good conduct, the Court submit to his excellency, whether they are not fit objects for mercy, and to be sent to serve in a regiment abroad for life." Lord Cornwallis, of course, disallowed the sentence altogether as regarded the men, who were clearly entitled to their acquittal; but as regarded the lieutenant, he took the opinion of the law officers, whether a finding so manifestly perverse, must be considered final. The acquitted murderer, however, could not be tried again; and all that Cornwallis could do, to repair the iniquity of this officer's accomplices on the Court Martial, was, to procure his dismissal from the service." The trials were numerous, in which the Court a Cornwallis Correspondence, vol. iii. p. 421. 387 Ch. 38. 1799 388 Ch. 38. 1799 CLAMOUR AGAINST LORD CORNWALLIS. endeavoured to adapt the evidence to their foregone conclusions, by rejecting legal, and admitting illegal, proof-thus showing a determination, at all hazards, to avoid giving a just and honest decision. Yet, for interposing whenever he could, to protect the lives of the people committed to his charge from assassination and perjury, the King's Vicegerent was assailed with calumny and insult, by a faction never before thwarted, or even checked, in its cruel insolence and tyranny. Croppy Corny,' and 'Rebel,' were the epithets in which the vulgar herd of partizans railed against the Lord Lieutenant. The Orangemen made common cause with Lord Enniskillen, in the disgrace which had so justly befallen him, for the affair of Whollaghan. Even in England, where the state of the sister island was as little known as the state of a sugar island in the Caribbean Sea, or a remote province of the continent of Asia, there was a prevalent opinion, in which the ministers themselves shared, that the Lord-lieutenant was too lenient; that he favoured the sanguinary rebels, and dis b b Dr. Duigenan, the organ and champion of the Orange party, had the audacity to write to Lord Castlereagh, in these terms :— In truth, my Lord, I must plainly tell you that the unaccountable conduct of the present Lord Lieutenant, which has rendered him not only an object of disgust but of abhorrence to every loyal man I have conversed with since my return from England, has induced many persons to oppose a union, who, if uninfluenced by resentment against the Marquis Cornwallis, would have given no opposition, if they did not support the measure.' Dec. 20th, 1798.-Cornwallis Correspondence, vol. iii. p. 89. |