‘A pistol was now presented at him by a third to take summary vengeance; but a comrade snapped it from his hands, asking if there was not murder enough already.
‘“What mercy did himself or his murdherers show to those every way their betthers?”
‘“Well, let them pay for that on the gallows, but let us be no murdherers; let us give him up to the law.”
‘He was, accordingly, hauled out to the front of the house, where, perceiving Mr. Ellison, he exclaimed,
‘“Ellison, will you allow me to be handled thus by such rabble?”
‘Mr. Ellison’s response to this saved him from further molestation for a time, and exertions were then made to withdraw the pillagers from the wholesale plundering they were practising within. One fellow had girded his loins with linen almost as fine as Holland—so fine that he made some hundred yards fit round his body without being much observable. Another, among other valuables, made himself master of the duellist’s diamond-buttoned coat; while a third contrived to appropriate to himself all the jewels, valued at a very high amount. In short, so entire were the spoliation and destruction that, before sunset, not a single pane of glass was left in the windows.
‘The remainder of those implicated in the murders were speedily apprehended, except Craig, who escaped for the time, but was taken soon after near Dublin.
‘We must now pause to sustain our character as an accurate chronicler to relate an act as unprecedented, as lawless, and as terrible as the most terrible of Fitzgerald’s own. He was alone, on the night of his capture, in the room assigned to him in the gaol. It was not a felon’s apartment, but was guarded on the outside by two armed soldiers, lest he should make any desperate attempt to escape. It was some hours after nightfall that Clarke, the then sub-sheriff, removed one of those sentinels to another portion of the prison, where he stated he required his presence. They had scarcely disappeared, when the remaining soldier, McBeth (according to his own account), was knocked down, and his musket taken from him, while the door was burst open, and a number of men, all armed with pistols, sword-canes, and the sentinel’s musket, commenced a furious and deadly attack on Fitzgerald, who, though totally unarmed, made a most extraordinary defence. Several shots were discharged rapidly at him, one of which lodged in his thigh, while another broke a ring on the finger of one of his hands, which he put up to change the direction of the ball.
He was then secured by John Gallagher, one of the assailants, and a powerful man, and, whilst struggling in his grip, thrust at with blades and bayonets, one of the former of which broke in the fleshy part of his arm. The latter, too, in forcing out two of his teeth, had its point broken, and was thereby prevented from passing through his throat. After having freed himself, by great exertions, from Gallagher’s grasp, he was next assaulted with musket-stock, pistol-butts, and the candlestick, which had been seized by one of the assailants, who gave the candle to a boy to hold. By one of the blows inflicted by these weapons he was prostrated under the table, and, while lying there, defending himself with unimpaired powers against other deadly-aimed blows, he exclaimed,
‘Cowardly rascals, you may now desist; you have done for me, which was, of course, your object.’