be brought to pass the saying, "Death is swallowed up in Victory."

"O Death, where is thy sting?-O Grave, where is thy victory ?"

He then addressed all who stood near, as well his friends as the military, officers and privates, who crowded round him, and loudly and ardently declared his innocence, the falsehood of the prosecutor, and also of a newspaper publication, stating that he had acknowledged the justice of his sentence, and confessed his guilt. To guide against future calumnies, when he should be no longer in this world to contradict them, he had procured a few printed copies of a just and true déclaration, the original of which, in his own writing, he had deposited in the hands of the Rev. John Savage, the clergyman who had attended him in gaol, during that period when he found it necessary to prepare himself for eternity. He then distributed a considerable number of the printed papers, remonstrating calmly with those who seemed eager to snatch away too many, and observing, that by dividing them equally, there would be enough to satisfy the curiosity of all. He then shook hands with his friends, took leave of the two clergymen who attended him, and mounted the scaffold with a firm step; and after the executioner had put the rope about his neck, and when he awaited only the last fatal movement, he gave a preconcerted signal with his handkerchief; and here, for the first time, he discovered some appearance of indignation, exclaiming, "I am no traitor-I am persecuted for a persecuted country. Great Jehovah, receive my soul.-I die in the true faith, of a presbyterian."

WILLIAM ORR'S LETTER TO HIS WIFE.

"My dear Wife,

"Carrickfergus, Saturday Morning.

"I now think proper to mention the grounds of my present encouragement, under the apprehension of shortly appearing before my merciful God and Redeemer-My entire innocence of the crime I am charged with-Secondly, a wellfounded hope of meeting a merciful God-Thirdly, a firm confidence that that God will be a husband to you and a father to your little children, whom I do recommend to his divine care and protection. And my last request is, that you will train them up in the knowledge of that religion which is the ground of my present comfort, and the foundation of that happiness, which, I trust, I shall enjoy on that day when we must all appear before the Great Judge-Farewell my dear wife, farewell.

"WILLIAM ORR."

THE TRIAL

OF PETER FINERTY FOR A LIBEL.

AT a court of oyer and terminer, and general gaol delivery, held for the county of the city of Dublin, before Mr. Justice Downes, on the 22d of December, 1797, Peter Finerty was brought to the bar, and tried on an indictment (drawn in the usual form) charging him with being the printer and publisher of the following false, scandalous, and libellous letter, addressed to Earl Camden:

I address your excellency on a subject as awful and interes, ng, as any that hath engaged the feelings of this suffering country. The oppression of an individual leads to the oppression of every member in the state, as his death, however specially palliated by forms, may lead to the death of the constitution. Your lordship already anticipates me; and your conscience has told you, that I allude to the circumstance of Mr. Orr, whose case every man has now made his own, by discovering the principle on which Mr. Pitt sent you to execute his orders in Ireland.

The death of Mr. Orr the nation has pronounced one of the most sanguinary and savage acts that has disgraced the laws. In perjury, did you not hear, my lord, the verdict

was given ?-perjury accompanied with terror, as terror has. marked every step of your government. Vengeance and desolation were to fall on those who would not plunge themselves in blood. These were not strong enough; against the express law of the land, not only was drink introduced to the jury, but drunkenness itself, beastly and criminal drunkenness, was employed to procure the murder of a better man than any that now surrounds you. But, well may juries think themselves justified in their drunken verdicts, if debauched and drunken judges,* swilling spirits on the seat of justice itself, shall set the country so excellent an example.

Repentance, which is a slow virtue, hastened, however, to declare the innocence of the victim. The mischief which perjury had done, truth now stepped forward to repair; neither was she too late, had humanity formed any part of your councils. Stung with remorse, on the return of reason, part of his jury solemnly and soberly made oath, that their verdict had been given under the unhappy influence of drink and intimidation; and in the most serious affidavit that ever was made, by acknowledging their crime, endeavoured to atone to God, and to their country, for the sin into which they had been seduced.

The informer, too, a man, it must be owned, not much famed for veracity, but stung with the like remorse, deposed that all he had formerly sworn was malicious and untrue, and that from compunction alone he was induced to make a full disclosure of his great and enormous guilt. In this confession the wicked man had no temptation to perjury; he was` not to be paid for that; he had not in view, like another Judas, the "thirty pieces of silver;" if he was to receive a reward, he knew he must not look for it in this world.

Those testimonies were followed by the solemn declarations of the dying man himself; and the approach of death is not a moment when men are given to deceive both themselves and the world. Good and religious men are not apt,

* Alluding to

1

by perjury on their death-beds, to close the gates of Heaven against themselves, like those who have no hope. But if these solemn declarations deserve no regard, then is there no truth in justice; and though the innocence of the accused had even remained doubtful, it was your duty, my lord, and you had no exemption from that duty, to have interposed your arm, and saved him from the death that perjury, drunkenness, and bribery, had prepared for him.

Let not the nation be told that you are a passive instrument in the hands of others-if passive you be, then is your office a shadow indeed-if an active instrument, as you ought to be, you did not perform the duty which the laws required of you-you did not exercise the prerogative of mercy-that mercy which the constitution had intrusted to you for the safety of the subject, by guarding him from the oppression of wicked men. Innocent it appears he was; his blood has been shed; and the precedent indeed is awful.

Had Frazier and Ross been found guilty of the murder committed on a harmless and industrious peasant-lay your hand to your heart, my lord, and answer without advisers, would you not have pardoned those ruffians? After the proof you have given of your mercy, I must suppose your clemency unbounded. Have no Orangemen,* convicted on the purest evidence, been at any time pardoned? Is not their oath of blood connived at? Was not that oath manufactured at the command of power, and does not power itself discipline those brigands? But suppose the evidence

* The Orangemen are a set of people who formed themselves into armed bodies in opposition to the United Men; these were composed of men of all persuasions, who professed to unite for the general freedom of Ireland. [See Mr. Rowan's trial.] The former are mostly of the established church, many of them placemen, retainers, or expectants of court favours; they avow a devoted attachment to what is called the protestant ascendancy, and the English system of governing the country; they mount the Orange cockade; and are much more inveterate against their unfortunate countrymen than the English or Scottish soldiery.