[16]. The Prime Sergeant of the Irish bar was then Lord Sligo’s brother—a huge, fat, dull fellow; but the great lawyer of the family. Prime Sergeant Brown was considered as an oracle by the whole county of Mayo: yet there could scarcely be found man less calculated to tell fortunes. The watch-dog was named after him.
“I was at this time much attached to the family; and debating in my own mind how best to conduct myself toward my friends, I determined not to tell George Robert my opinion, as it would be in effect to declare that Lord Altamont wanted courage to defend his own honour. I therefore resolved on seeking some more plausible ground of quarrel, which soon presented itself; for at the summer assizes of Mayo, holden at Castlebar, Charles Lionel Fitzgerald prosecuted his elder brother George Robert for false imprisonment and savage conduct toward their father, upon whom George Robert had fastened a chain and dray!
“The affair came on before Lord Carleton, and I volunteered in the only cause I ever pleaded.[[17]]
[17]. Mr. Richard Martin had been called to the Irish bar, as the eldest sons of the most respectable families of Ireland then were, not, as might be supposed, to practise for others, but with a supposition that they would thereby be better enabled to defend their own territories from judgments, mortgagees, custodiums, &c. &c., and to “stave off” vulgar demands, which if too speedily conceded, might beget very serious inconveniences.
“An affidavit was produced, stating that the father was not confined. I observed, ‘that Robert Fitzgerald had long notice of this cause coming on; and that the best answer would be the attendance of the father when he was called as one of the magistrates in the commission for the county of Mayo.’
“Remesius Lennon, a battered old counsellor, on the other side, observed that the father was one of the worst men living, and that it would be unjust to censure any son for confining such a public nuisance.