At the same Assizes Maurice Cavanagh and two men named Poer and Boland, were indicted for robbery with violence. Cavanagh gave evidence against his accomplices and was acquitted. In sentencing Poer and Boland to be hanged, Keating said the worst of the three had escaped; and he drew a vivid picture of the condition of those who had put the labour of their whole lives into cattle and lost all in a night. There was, he said, nothing so barbarous this side of the Cape of Good Hope. Cavanagh swore that his parish priest had ordered him to have a skean, that similar orders had been given in other parishes, and that companies were thus everywhere collected armed with skeans or half-pikes. A letter dated March 2, addressed by Tyrconnel to the judges, was read in court. The Chief Justice having returned to Dublin, the Grand Jury gave in their answer to Lynch. The Lord Lieutenant complained of a falling revenue, and demanded a voluntary aid to be raised by the sheriffs, but they said in writing that the country was poor through the daily ruin of the English, and they could hardly live, much less subscribe. In discharging them the judge said their paper was a reflection and scandal to their country, and would be very ill taken by Government. He ordered it to be torn out of the minute-book, lest it should be used in evidence against them, and this was accordingly done.[176] [Sidenote: Case of Sir Thomas Southwell, March 1689.] Cork and Bandon, Mallow and Castlemartyr, being in Jacobite hands, about a hundred of the Munster gentry who were determined not to submit, prepared to join Lord Kingston at Sligo. Sir Thomas Southwell of Castlematras, near Rathkeale, was the leader of this expedition. Avoiding Limerick, they crossed the Shannon at O'Brien's Bridge and made their way through Clare with slight opposition. At last they were captured in a narrow pass by James Power, sheriff of Galway, at the head of a strong force. It seems clear that the conditions were not faithfully kept, but the prisoners were all taken unharmed to Loughrea and thence to Galway. They were tried before Martin, one of the new judges, who went to court preceded by a piper instead of a trumpeter. The facts could not be denied, and the whole party were sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, and even ordered to prepare for immediate death, but there were several reprieves, and all were suffered to live until William's arrival altered the situation. Southwell himself made friends with Kenneth, Lord Seaforth, who was allowed to carry him off after several months' captivity. James granted him a pardon, though Nagle said he was then precluded by the Act of Attainder from doing so. As Southwell was by that time safe in Scotland, the validity of King James's clemency remained undecided.[177] [Sidenote: William's attempt to gain Tyrconnel.]