Todd Jones has been at Dr. Callanan's, Clonakilty, the last eight months: H.,[380] by order of Government, arrested him for high treason, as also the Doctor and his son.... These measures have been attended with alarm; but I think we are at present quite safe; and a strong fleet at Beerhaven relieves me from all apprehension of an enemy.
The entire of the Yeomanry of this kingdom is now on the permanent establishment. Our corps is strong, and without vanity a good one. I have applied for an addition of infantry: with this augmentation, I shall feel very little apprehension for any attack made upon us without the aid of foreign force.
It appears from this letter, dated August, 1803, that Jones had been then eight months at Clonakilty in the county Cork: therefore his arrival would have been in December 1802—the very date of the payment of 500l. to Magan by direction of Mr. Orpen, high sheriff for the county. Meanwhile the locality in which Jones pitched his camp became, from some cause, decidedly heated. A letter in the London 'Courier,' dated 'Cork, August 21,' after recording the arrest of Todd Jones, Donovan, and Dr. Callanan, states, 'The peasantry in the neighbourhood of Ross, near Clonakilty, go armed to their chapels, and mount a regular guard over their arms while they perform their devotions.'
We have seen that Magan—traditionally described as an unsociable person, possessing few friends—maintained most intimate relations with James Dickson of Kilmainham, in whose house Jones was also a constant guest. About the same time as the arrest of Jones in Cork, the 'Courier' of August 30, 1803, announces in its Dublin news: 'Yesterday Mr. James Dickson, of Kilmainham, was arrested at his house by Messrs. Atkinson[381] and Carleton, chief peace-officers, and his papers searched. The superintendent magistrate had him conveyed to the Castle, where he underwent examination, and was afterwards committed to Kilmainham Gaol.'[382]
Todd Jones, writing at the time, warmly details the circumstances of his arrest (the italics are his own):—
My person has been assaulted in my bed at daybreak, in the respectable mansion of a venerable friend, Doctor Callanan, near Clonakilty, and I have been conveyed, very strongly guarded by Troops, to an ignominious common Gaol: in reaching which, at the moderate distance of twenty-two miles, I have been wantonly exhibited, like an already convicted Felon, for two long summer days, the first and second of August, in Orange Triumph, to the gaze of a very crowded Bandon rabble; and thence paraded, with like ostentation, through all the streets of Cork, as if in progress to Execution.—My venerable friend and hospitable entertainer, Doctor Calanan, a Physician of the age of seventy, with his only son, on my account, have been dragged from the same mansion to Prison, after a similar triumphant exposure of two days, to gazing multitudes, in the short distance of twenty-two miles: a Man eminent for a long professional life, dedicated to the Poor, and to the Peasants, whose tears kept pace with his progress.
He then goes on to request that all concerned in his detainer, including the Sheriff of Cork, may be summoned to the Bar of Parliament. An account of his shattered health is sent to the Secretary of State—'It is my liberty which I pray for—a trial—liberation—or death! I have been a close prisoner for eleven weeks, without even having been shown my indictment, or been told the names of my accusers.'[383]
These complaints were made in October, 1803, but entirely failed to obtain redress. His petition to the king, dated 1808, resumes the story: 'Within this prison I continued confined from 23rd July, 1803, until the latter end of October 1805, when I was unconditionally discharged by the High Sheriff of the County of Cork—untried—unbailed—unexamined and unredressed.'[384]