to his house, he would be hunted through the country like a mad dog; every hand would be raised against him. A man who takes land over another's head may be spared; but a man who has given evidence to convict a Whiteboy may (in the language of the threatening notices) "make ready his coffin*." Some instances of the murder of witnesses for the crown are mentioned in the following statements:

Major Warburton.

"Have you found any difficulty, generally, in obtaining information ?-Very great indeed, latterly in particular; the system of terror was so very strong. In the two instances I have mentioned, the person who first gave me the information, and who was assassinated, from having got drunk, and having dropped expressions which induced them to believe he had given information; that, and the individual who was shot, have made it very difficult to get information since."-H. L., 1824, p. 89.

Major Willcocks.

"Did you ever hear a phrase, as connected with prisons, the Croppy's hole ?-Frequently.

"Will you explain to the Committee what is meant by the phrase, Croppy's hole?—I have known, and I have seen it; persons that were executed under the sentence of the law were brought into a certain part of the prison and interred there.

"In those cases, were the rights of sepulture allowed ?— None, that I saw.

*The hatred and dread of informers which prevailed among the upper classes of Rome during the empire was not less strong than that which now prevails among the lower classes in Ireland, and it arose from the same cause, viz., that they were considered as the agents of oppression and tyranny. "Sic delatores (says Tacitus) genus hominum publico exitio repertum et pœnis quidem nunquam satis coercitum, per præmia eliciebantur."-Ann. iv., 30. The sycophants of Athens are a parallel Informers have always been obnoxious in proportion as laws have been oppressive.

case.

"In those cases was quick-lime thrown over the bodies?— In some I believe there was.

"Was this done in the presence of any of the prisoners?— Yes, I think it was; there were some of the prisoners about the gaol who assisted in the performance of it.

“ You have known this occur more frequently than once ?— I have known it to occur in Limerick, in Tipperary, and in Westmeath.

"Will you explain what the object of this mode of sepulture was?-To prevent the friends of the persons executed from assembling at wakes, and entering into further conspiracies at those wakes; I think that was the great object.

"You state, that the object was to prevent the friends having a wake upon the body; have you known any evil consequences result from wakes upon the bodies of criminals?—A good deal; I think conspiracies have been formed there to commit outrage upon the prosecutors and persons engaged in bringing those persons to justice.

"You spoke of its having in part for its object, to prevent conspiracies against the prosecutors; has it often fallen within your observation, that witnesses and prosecutors were afterwards murdered?-Very often.

"Do you consider that as a common or an uncommon occurrence, in those disturbed districts ?—Very common, to murder them, and spirit them away, and keep them out of the hands of the law officers.

"Witnesses murdered, for having given true evidence or false evidence in court?-I have known courts of justice to act upon their evidence afterwards, by reading it upon trials." -II. C., 1824, p. 106.

"My lords (says the Attorney-General in one of the Maryborough trials), the immediate cause of the attempt upon Magee's life was this, that he had dared to take, or rather that he had dared to occupy with his uncle, a house and farm, of which a Dr. Carter had been the tenant, and which he had been obliged by threats of violence to abandon: why? because Dr. Carter at the last assizes was produced as a witness for the

crown, to prove the dying declarations of a man who had been murdered; and Magee was to forfeit his life because he dared to inhabit the house and farm from which Dr. Carter had been expelled*.”

An attempt to kill an informer among the Irish at Wigan, although his offence had no Whiteboy complexion, is mentioned by Mr. Lord, a magistrate of the borough, in his evidence taken for the Irish Poor Commission.

"A young Irishman, about October last, gave information to the magistrates that two Irishmen who had recently come here, and followed the trade of selling oysters, had committed a rape and robbery in Ireland, and had fled from justice. They were apprehended and detained more than a week, but, in consequence of a delay in receiving an answer from Ireland, they were liberated; the day they were liberated the warrant came from Ireland for their apprehension. Several attempts were made by the Irish to murder the young man who gave this information and his brother; the attempts were made openly by several persons, and he was once struck on the head so severely that he was nearly killed. I believe they have both since left the town."

They will even go so far as to destroy one of their colleagues, when he has been wounded and is likely to fall into the hands of the police, and thus be induced to give information.

Major Warburton.

"In one particular instance, about two years since, or rather more, there was a plan laid in the city of Limerick to take away the arms of a yeomanry corps, in the neighbourhood of Six-mile-bridge; the Rosscastle corps.

* Maryborough Special Commission, p. 50.

† Appendix to the Report on the Irish Poor in Great Britain, p. 87-8. That the Thrashers murdered informers is stated in a passage cited above, p. 41.

"What do you mean by taking their arms?-Carrying off their arms, which were lodged in the store of the captain; about 60 men came out from the city of Limerick that night, who were joined afterwards by people in the neighbourhood of Crattoe, and then all proceeded to rob those arms.

"And what date was that?-I think it was two years ago, before the Insurrection Act was applied to that barony.

"In point of fact, did they possess themselves of all the arms of that yeomanry corps ?-No; from having that information, as I had in the other instance, I was out at night, and met them.

"Describe what passed?—I had placed an advanced guard in the neighbourhood, and I gave them directions to fall back on me when they found the men coming; but they were equal tacticians, and they had an advanced guard, and the two advanced guards had a rencontre; the consequence was, I was not able to come up with the main body, and from the firing which took place the party dispersed, in a very dark night; one individual was shot, and one so badly wounded they were obliged to carry him for two or three days in succession, from place to place, and he was so tortured by this, that he sent to me to give himself up. I sent a surgeon to have him taken care of; the house was burnt the night after, and in dragging him out the man was killed.

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Do you mean that they burnt the house intending to consume him in it?-The matter was involved in mystery; the very night after I sent a surgeon to him, and it was known that he had sent a proposition to me to give himself up, the house was burnt, the person in attendance upon him dragged him out of the fire, and the man died in the dragging him out."H. C., 1824, pp. 138-9.

In the above case, although Major Warburton abstains from assenting to the obvious explanation suggested by the Committee, it seems clear that the house was set on fire in order to kill the wounded man in it, who was unable to move.

So great indeed is the danger to which witnesses for the crown are exposed in Ireland, and so great the probability of their being murdered, if not put in a place of safety, that it has been found necessary to provide, by a special enactment, that the depositions of murdered persons may be read in evidence *.

As giving evidence in Whiteboy cases is equivalent to a sentence of death, there is no means of inducing persons to come forward as witnesses, except by offering them protection, and reimbursing them for the sacrifice which they make. It is therefore the established practice, in cases of this kind, for the witnesses, when their depositions have been taken, to be sent up to Dublin, or lodged in a gaol, or in some place of security, until the trial take place; and then for the government to furnish them with the means of removing elsewhere, that is, in general, of emigrating to America. At the best, therefore, giving evidence against a Whiteboy entails the banishment of the witness; a sacrifice which many people would be very

* The 50 Geo. III. c. 102 s. 55, having recited that "whereas it has happened that persons who have given information against persons accused of crimes in Ireland have been murdered before the trial of persons accused, in order to prevent their giving evidence, and to effect the acquittal of the accused," proceeds to enact, that "if any person who shall give information on oath against any person for any offence against the laws shall, before the trial of such person, be murdered, or violently put to death, or so maimed or forcibly carried away and secreted as not to be able to give evidence on the trial of such person, the information so taken on oath shall be admitted in all evidence on the trial of such person." grand juries by 56 Geo. III. c. 87, s. 3. a clause enabling grand juries in Ireland to present such a sum as they shall think just and reasonable to be paid to the personal representative of any witness who shall be murdered before trial, or to himself if maimed. s. 6.

courts of justice in Ireland as This provision was extended to The former act likewise contains

They commonly receive sums varying from 207. to 50%.