Mr. Lecky says that McNally often betrayed to the Crown the line of defence contemplated by his clients, and other information which he could only have received in professional confidence, and the Government archives contain several of his briefs annotated in his own hand. Mr. Lecky finds that he was also able, in a manner not less base, to furnish the Government with early and most authentic evidence about conspiracies which were forming in France. James Tandy[450] ... was his intimate friend; McNally, by his means, saw nearly every letter that arrived from Napper Tandy, and some of those which came from Rowan and Reynolds. The substance of these letters was regularly transmitted to the Government, and they sometimes contained information of much value. Besides this, as a lawyer in considerable practice, constantly going on circuit, and acquainted with the leaders of sedition, McNally had excellent opportunities of knowing the state of the country, and was able to give very valuable warnings about the prevailing dispositions.[451] Among the earlier victims to the severe legislation of that time was Laurence Conner, a poor schoolmaster of Naas, charged with Defenderism, whose case has been invested with interest by Sir Jonah Barrington, Dr. Madden, and others. A moving speech from the dock failed to avert his doom, and his head, for years after, grinned from a stake at the top of the gaol. McNally, who had defended him, stated in his secret report to Pelham that a provision had been offered for Conner's family if he would make discoveries; but his reply was, 'He who feeds the young ravens in the valley will provide for them!'[452] It is strange that McNally should report to his employers this chivalrous speech, which places in marked contrast his own frailty and disgraceful fall. But corrupt as his heart had now become, he could not help admiring magnanimity wherever he met it. The man who sought to make Conner inform was, doubtless, McNally himself, at the instance of Crown Solicitor Pollock, who, as the 'Cornwallis Papers' record (iii. 120), 'managed Mac.' This is the man whose name Earl Russell erased from Moore's Diary of February 27, 1835, leaving merely the initials 'L. McN.,' because some doubts of his honesty had been expressed postprandially by Plunket, a man more clear-sighted, it appears, than Charles Phillips. Succeeding chapters will show Plunket associated with McNally during the State trials of '98. Lord Holland amused with my saying how much I used to look up to this L---- McN---- [writes Moore], on account of some songs in a successful opera which he wrote, 'Robin Hood.' 'Charming Clorinda' was one of the songs I used to envy him being the author of. 'Your profession should have taught you principles of honour,' McNally writes in the piece which first roused the muse of Moore. With such fine sentiments it must have caused him a struggle to betray. All will rejoice that he who sang