[687] The full text of the correspondence I have published elsewhere. The letters of Reynolds are full of bad spelling.
[688] Cornwallis, ii. 375.
[689] Life of Thomas Reynolds, by his Son, i. 103.
[690] Frank Thorpe Porter, police magistrate, to W. J. F., May 30, 1860.
[691] Life of Thomas Reynolds, by his Son, ii. 445.
CHAPTER XXI
ARMSTRONG AND THE SHEARESES—GENERAL LAWLESS
Armstrong was another man who, unlike Turner and Magan, boldly betrayed, and by baring his name to popular odium, bared his breast to its penalties. He lived to old age in a district specially burrowed by agrarian crime; but, though often taunted with his treachery, never suffered a pin-scratch at the hands of the people.
Before Armstrong comes on the scene it is well to give some account of the men he so cruelly betrayed.[692] This becomes the more imperative, inasmuch as unpublished letters of Sheares, containing important explanations, were placed in my hands for historic use by the late Mr. Justice Hayes.