knew the feelings of the district to regard it as a common accident, which it would have been their duty and their pleasure to have aided in suppressing and relieving. Until all sounds of life, therefore, were extinct within the burning house, the authors of the deed looked on undisturbed. When all was over, they skulked away, each to his own home.
The winds of autumn and the storms of winter had swept the ashes of Wild-Goose Lodge over the fields which Lynch had cultivated, ere any one of the actors in this atrocious crime was brought to justice. But the presence of some of the less guilty of them having been discovered, and brought home beyond a doubt, these, in order to save themselves, made a revelation of all they knew and had seen. Anticipating this, the ringleaders fled to various parts of the country; but the arm of the offended law overtook them. Devann was found in the situation of a labourer in the dockyards of Dublin, and others were taken at different times and places. Eleven were executed; and to mark the atrocity of their crime, their bodies were hung in chains at Louth and other spots in the neighbourhood of Wild-Goose Lodge. Devann was executed within the roofless walls of the house in which his victims were immolated, and his body was afterwards suspended beside those of his associates.
The date of his trial was the 19th of July 1817, and he was executed immediately afterwards.
JEREMIAH BRANDRETH, WILLIAM TURNER, AND ISAAC LUDLAM.
EXECUTED FOR HIGH TREASON.
IN an introductory paragraph to our account of the Spafields’ riot we took occasion to mention the most prominent causes of public discontent; and though these had partially disappeared in 1817, still the impulse given to disaffection continued to operate for a considerable time, being protracted by the injudicious resort of Government to the system of spies and informers, who no doubt fanned that flame of disloyalty which had nearly caused a traitorous explosion in the county of Derby, more formidable and appalling than that for which Brandreth and his ill-fated companions suffered.
The agent for Government in the northern districts was a wretch named Oliver, and it is imagined by some that the miserable individuals whose names head this article were his victims.
The scene of this outbreak was Pentridge, Southwingfield, and Wingfield Park, in Derbyshire, a neighbourhood hitherto peaceable, and in which few would have looked for an insurrection of this kind.
Jeremiah Brandreth, better known by the name of the “Nottingham Captain,” was one of those original characters for which nature had done much, and education nothing. Of his parents or early habits we know nothing; for on these subjects he maintained a studied silence, and all that was ascertained in reference to his life previously to his execution was that he had been in the army, and that he had a wife and three children, for whose support he was occasionally compelled to apply to the parish-officers for relief. His age was about twenty-six, and he is described as having presented a most striking appearance, from the exceedingly bold and resolute expression of his face.
Turner and Ludlam were both men of good character up to the time of their becoming parties to the transactions which cost them their lives. The latter had a wife and twelve children, and, being a regular attendant at a Methodist meeting-house, in the absence of the preacher conducted the prayers of the people.