Captain Armstrong! Captain Warneford Armstrong! We know now, with that name ringing in our ears, that darker than the tragedy of Lord Edward, lying wounded to death in his prison cell at Newgate, is the tragedy that is being enacted before our eyes in this pleasant hospitable house. In this handsome dining-room, around the gleaming mahogany with its genial burden of fruit and wine, there sit—the informer, Captain John Warneford Armstrong, and his victims, Henry and John Sheares! And presently, if we have the courage to face it, and will follow the three men in their passage to the ladies in the drawing-room, we shall see an even more harrowing spectacle. For in that charming eighteenth-century room, all full of May sweetness from the tall open windows, all full of lovely ladies and beautiful children in their picturesque eighteenth-century costume, we shall presently see the traitor gather the two little children of Henry Sheares upon his knee, while their mother tunes her harp, and sings in her glorious voice, some exquisite, moving strain for his delectation.[[28]] It is the picture which the genius of Curran has made immortal: “I am disposed to believe, shocking as it is,” he cried, while he turned to the Jury, in the dim light of the ghastly midnight court where the Sheareses stood, two months later, on trial for their lives, “that this witness had the heart, when he was surrounded by the little progeny of my client—when he was sitting in the mansion in which he was hospitably entertained—when he saw the old mother, supported by the piety of her son, and the children basking in the parental fondness of the father—that he saw the scene, and smiled at it—contemplated the havoc he was to make, consigning them to the storms of a miserable world, without having an anchorage in the kindness of a father. Can such horror exist, and not waken the rooted vengeance of an eternal God?”

[28]. The incident of Mrs. Henry Sheares singing to her harp for the entertainment of Armstrong was related to Madden by Miss Maria Steele, the friend of John Sheares. In Curran’s “Life,” written by his son, it is stated on the authority of a gentleman who had dined with the Sheareses, on the day in question that “he observed Armstrong, who was one of the guests, taking his entertainer’s little children upon his knee, and as it was then thought, affectionately caressing them.” Armstrong denied to Madden the truth of these statements, but his denials were not considered convincing.

The poor old lady, on whom the diabolical treachery of the guest of that Sunday dinner-party was to bring such suffering that the whole annals of “’Ninety-Eight” have nothing to surpass it, had already tasted in a fuller measure, than is the lot of common women, the joys and the sorrows of life. The near kinswoman of the distinguished lawyer, Sergeant Bettesworth, and a relation of the Earl of Shannon, she had been married, while still very young, to a wealthy Cork banker, Mr. Henry Sheares, son of Henry Sheares, Esq., M.P., of Goldenbush. At Goldenbush, by the pleasant Bandon river, the young couple resided for some time, and here a number of their children were born. But at a later date the family lived at Glasheen, about a mile and a half from Cork, and their abundant means allowed them to keep up another establishment in the city—a house which has been identified by Dr. Madden as situated at the corner of Moore Street and Nile Street.

The young wife was highly accomplished, and it is rare to find a couple so perfectly matched, as were she and her husband, in every noble quality of heart and mind. She entered into his philanthropic schemes with the greatest zeal. Out of the abundance with which God had blessed them it was their joy to help all those in need. One of the spectacles which moved their compassion most keenly was that of decent poor people who, having fallen into debt, were by the barbarous law of the time, liable to be hauled off to prison for it, and to be herded with criminals, by whom they were too frequently contaminated. To help these unfortunates, whose only crime was poverty, Mr. Sheares instituted “the Society for the Relief of Persons Confined for Small Debts,” and in about nine months the secretary, Rev. Dr. Pigott, was able to report that “more than seventy poor wretches have been relieved by this institution from the depths of misery, and all the horrors of loathsome confinement—by which, at the same time, above 240 children (besides wives and other poor dependent relations) have had those restored to them from whose labour they derive their bread, and the community has been enriched by the replacing of many useful and industrious members.”

We have already spoken of the culture which marked the merchant princes of Cork in the eighteenth century. Even in their cultured ranks Mr. Henry Sheares stood prominently forth. He was a clever writer, and his contributions over the pen-name “Agricola,” to the Cork periodicals of his day were keenly appreciated by their readers. It was held by some of them that “no moralist—not even Mr. Addison—excelled him in the composition” of the little moral essay, which was his favourite vehicle of instruction. Two of his essays, one “On Forgiveness,” the other “On Man in Society, and at His Final Separation from it,” are reproduced by Madden; and they show, beneath the somewhat stilted and formal style which was so much to the taste of their day—and so little to that of ours—a depth of religion, feeling, a noble philosophy of life which can never be out of date. He was the founder of a Club, somewhat in “the Spectator” style, “where popular and literary subjects were debated, and his speeches at this Club were long remembered by his friends as pleasing memorials of great historical knowledge, a fine taste and graceful elocution.” He sat as member of Parliament for the borough of Clonakilty—which was in the patronage of his wife’s kinsman, the Earl of Shannon—in the Irish House of Commons from 1761 to 1767; and the Parliamentary Debates for these years show that he took an active part in the proceedings of the House.

Mr. Sheares died in 1776, leaving his widow and family in very comfortable circumstances. Nine children are mentioned in his will: Henry, Robert Bettesworth, Richard, John, and Christopher Humphrey; Letitia, Mary, Jane Anne Bettesworth, and Julia. Of these it was their mother’s tragic fate to survive all but the youngest, Julia.

The greatest pains had been taken with their education, and for their settlement. Of the four daughters, all were married except Julia: one to Mr. Gubbins, of Limerick, another to Mr. Henry Westropp, another to Dr. Payne of Upton. “The sons,” writes one who knew the family, “had the best masters to attend them in their father’s house, under their father’s eye; he narrowly inspected what company they kept, and at a proper age they were sent to the University, where, being young men of good natural parts, they acquired a considerable degree of reputation.”

The high hopes that had been built on these boys were overturned, in the case of three of them, by very early deaths. One day Robert and John were out bathing together, when John got into difficulties, in saving him poor Robert was drowned. A little later, Christopher, who had chosen the army for his profession, went out to the West Indies, on John’s advice. A few months later there came to his loving mother in Ireland the news of his death by yellow fever. Richard, who had entered the navy, perished on the Thunderer, which went down, with all hands, off the West Indies, in the great hurricane of October, 1779.

The eldest son, Henry, who inherited his father’s real and personal property, estimated at about £1,200 a year, was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and first chose the army for his profession. In 1782, when he was scarcely twenty years of age, he eloped with Miss Swete, of Cork, whose father, Alderman Swete, was considered one of the wealthiest men in the City. Young Councillor Fitzgibbon (afterwards Lord Clare) had been among Miss Swete’s suitors, and it is said that he never forgave the man whom she preferred to him—and that thoughts of this early rivalry in love were at the bottom of the implacable hostility which drove Henry Sheares to his doom. Shortly after the marriage, Alderman Swete became bankrupt, and his daughter’s fortune having vanished with the rest of his assets, Henry Sheares was obliged to give up the army and take up the study of law. He was called to the Bar in 1790, his brother John, thirteen years younger than he (born 1766) having been called the preceding year. The brothers began practice together, taking up their residence in Dublin—at first in a house on Ormond Quay, and from 1796 in Baggot Street (now 128).