[470] Ibid. p. 462.
[471] Plowden's Historic Review, ii. 537.
[472] Berwick to Grattan. See Life of Grattan, vol. v.
[473] 'Trials, if they must so be called, were carried on without number, under martial law. It often happened that three officers composed the court, and that, of the three, two were under age, and the third an officer of the yeomanry or militia, who had sworn, in his Orange lodge, eternal hatred to the people over whom he was thus constituted a judge. Floggings, picketings, death, were the usual sentences, and these were sometimes commuted into banishment, serving in the fleet, or transference to a foreign service. Many were sold at so much per head to the Prussians. Other less legal, but not more horrible, outrages were daily committed by the different corps under the command of Government. The subsequent Indemnity Acts deprived of redress the victims of this widespread cruelty.'—Lord Holland's Memoirs of the Whig Party.
[474] This despatch is dated merely 'Tuesday, 25th'; but a second on the same subject bears 'April 27, 1798.' (MSS. Dublin Castle.)
[475] In 1810, Sir William Stamer, who seized John Keogh's papers in 1803, gave a masquerade. McNally went as Æsop, but scorned to wear a mask. Huband, whom he often reports, went as Pan; Dogherty, afterwards Chief Justice, as Jeremy Diddler; Wolfe, afterwards Chief Baron, as a hair-dresser; Sir Jonah Barrington as a friar; and 'Doctor Turner' (no doubt Samuel, LL.D.), as Punch. For a full account, see Hibernian Magazine for 1810, p. [125].
[476] Lecky's History of England, vii. 142.
[477] The Metropolis (Dublin, 1806), p. [43], second edition.
[478] McNally always describes himself, in his secret letters, as 'my friend.'