Right, Captain Rock, Captain Starlight, Captain Dreadnought, Lady Clare; under which appellations (like Jacques Bonhomme, adopted by the French peasantry) the Irish Whiteboys are considered to be impersonated*. The following are some examples of these notices, many of which contain an expression of the feeling, that the individual is brought under the operation of a general law, and that his disobedience will be punished as an example to others :

"Mr. Luke, you are to take notice to resign your holding that you have lately possessed, and to do as usual, or if not, by the contents of this, I will finish your existence. Dated this 29th day of December."

"James Redmond, you are hereby to take notice, that the proceedings you are going to take against your neighbours are directly opposite to the regulations and laws of Mr. John M'Robinson, Captain Killproctor Routmaster, who intends that all lands out of lease shall remain three years on the head landlord's hands, or be given to the former tenant. These are, therefore, to let you know, that if you do not stop your career, shall undergo the scene of being consumed to ashes, with all your family, as an example of future punishment to you and all others concerned."-H. L., 1824. p. 102.

you

"Take Notice,

From this day forward, that no man will be allowed to work in any boat without having regular wages, 10s. per week. Any person or persons daring to violate this notice, will be visited by night by those people under the denomination of Whitefeet,

* Some of the letters and incentives to revolt circulated by the insurgents in Wat Tyler's rebellion were signed by Jack Milner, Jack Carter, Jack Trueman, which, Lingard observes, were probably feigned names. Vol. iv. p. 239, note. Swing, the name adopted by the poor-law incendiaries in the south of England a few years ago, is a fictitious name of the same kind.

or Terry Alts. Any man putting us to the necessity of paying him a visit will be sorry: therefore any man who has not the above wages, let him not to attempt to leave Athy. "I remain your humble servant,

County of Kildare, to wit.

"Terry Alt*."

Take notice, That we will no longer bear the oppression of paying double rent to farmers for land, and the gentlemen so favourable to the poor. Therefore all farmers will be obliged to return their under-tenants to the head landlord, at the same rates and acre for which they hold the land themselves. And we trust the gentlemen will not allow them any longer to tyrannize over the poor of this impoverished nation. Any farmer demanding rent from his under-tenants, or any under-tenants paying rent to the farmers, either party so violating this notice shall be used with the utmost severity imaginable, and We their cause forsake in every measure.

"So I remain your most humble servant,

"A son to that poor old woman called,

Terry's Mother †.”

"Remarke the concequence Thomas Wardren dant pay the tithe far if you do you may prepare your coffin you may be assured that you will loose your life either at hame or abraad.

“Take notice, John Kelly, you are hereby required to quit and depart out of the townland of Killmokulla, where you now

* H. C., 1832, Appendix, p. 10.

H. C., 1832, Appendix, p. 9. This notice was in print, and was posted in different parts of the county of Kildare.

First Commons Report on Tithes in Ireland, p. 227.

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reside, on the pain of death, at the expiration of eight days from this date; observe, unless you comply, that neither interest, police, or any other sect, shall or will be able to protect you from the punishment I will inflict; that is to say, imme

diate death.

"Signed at Consideration Hall, in the

county of Heaven,

"The Honourable Lady Clare *.

"Dated this 6th day of December, 1831."

"Denis Flynn, this is to let you know, if you do not give peasable possession in this house on the fourth day of March next, you will put me to the trouble of coming a long jorney † to execute the desine according to the custom of the contry. Otherwise pay regular and lawful rent for the said house as may be agreed upon, if not, mark the consequence, for I swear vehemently, if you do not comply with this advice, that I shall and will use the severest means that ever was used with any

man.

"I am your friend,

"Captain Starlight, &c. &c."

"John Ronyn, Take Warnen by this to quit, Not to loose your time improoving, for as shure as you do, death will be your doome. doome. Let me see that you quit before the first day of January next, or else if you dont, Captain Rock and his men will visit you."

[At the foot of this notice is a rude drawing of a gun pointed at a man, and a ball issuing from it.]

*First Commons Report on Tithes in Ireland, p. 212.

This alludes to the practice of sending for persons from a distance to commit a crime.

This is a very ludicrous instance of an attempt to imitate the prolix style of legal instruments.

"March the 23rd, 1834.

"Mr. Nail, take notice. If you dont banish your baker, mark the consequence. And if you give me the trouble of noticing you any more, you and he may quit the town. now do as you choose.

So

Captain Fear not *"

If a person who receives a notice of this kind disobeys the order contained in it, the executors of the Whiteboy law then proceed to take measures for striking him. In many cases, however, this preliminary form of notice is dispensed with, and the Whiteboy regulations are presumed to be known, and therefore held to be binding, without any special command.

It may, moreover, be observed that the Whiteboys have very retentive memories; that their odia in longum recondita, their ancient spites, are sometimes felt when their victims had for years lived in a false security. There seems to be no statute of limitation against Whiteboy vengeance; no prescription seems to give a title where the party has taken land in contravention of the Whiteboy rules; and people are sometimes almost unable to find a motive for the punishment inflicted on them, so completely had the ground of complaint passed from their minds.

In order to increase the difficulty of detection, the parties who actually commit the crime are often sent for from a distance of five, ten, or twenty miles;

* For the three last notices, which were stuck up in Roscrea, or its neighbourhood, the author is indebted to the chief constable of police in that town.

and the persons interested in the transaction take no direct part in it.

"In Cork (says Mr. Blacker, speaking of 1823), there seemed to be a regular system of communication among those different bodies of persons, and an arrangement appeared after to have been made, that when outrages were going to be committed, one body of men should send a detachment to achieve the object to a distant part of the county, where, being strangers, detection should not be so easy*."

Mr. Price, speaking of a Whiteboy outrage committed in Ossory†, says of the persons concerned in it,

66

They were brought from a distance, and had no possible personal interest with the transaction; they did not live in the neighbourhood; they had not taken any quarter-ground‡; they came to do the job for Wall; the persons who attacked the house never saw Mara, and could have no interest in cheapening the quarter-ground or injuring Mara. . . They were Whitefeet, sent for, and I suppose bound by an oath to go a certain distance on being summoned by a brother§."

66

By what means (the Rev. Mr. O'Connor is asked) do they carry forward this system of interfering and regulating what they conceive to be their own interest as to land, wages and other matters ?—I do not know of any other way (he answers) than that persons near the place do not appear in

* H. C., 1824, p. 47.

See the particulars of it above, p. 150-2.

Quarter-ground is the same as what is called conacre in other parts of Ireland. It is so named from being let in quarters of an acre. Conacre is a corruption of corn-acre ; land having, it would seem, been formerly let in Ireland for corn, as it is now let for potatoes. A system exactly similar to the Irish conacre prevails in the southern and southwestern counties of England. See the Poor-Law Report, pp. 181, 183, 189, 8vo. ed. It also prevails in France, according to M. Chateauvieux, there cited.

§ H. C., 1832, Nos. 6682-3. As to the obligation to go a distance to a brother, see the Whitefoot's oath, above, p. 166-7.