[457] Mr. Lecky thinks that, had not McNally become a spy, he might have risen to the judgment seat. This, with the testimony of Phillips and Staunton before us, is doubtful: but I am bound to say that many contemporary Irish judges were bad lawyers, who owed their promotion solely to political claims. Higgins does not seem to have known that McNally was also a spy. He often reports him to Cooke: 'Counsellor McNally told me this night at Parisoll's, that Government had offered a sinecure employment, which he rejected. I offered to hold him 100 guineas that his services were never sought for, which completely put him down.'--Francis Higgins to Cooke, November 18, 1797. MSS. Dublin Castle. [458] _Sketches of Irish Political Characters_, 1799. [459] _Personal Memoirs._ [460] This passage has been culled by Mr. Lecky. [461] Sermon on Concealment of Sin. [462] J. W. to Cooke, June 5, 1798. [463] Lecky, vii. 142, 401. [464] All these men, Keogh alone excepted, though never brought to trial, underwent a prolonged term of imprisonment. Keogh was the highly influential leader of the Catholics, and the Crown, probably, wished to make an exception in his favour. [465] Lecky, vii. 55. [466] _Ibid._ p. 337. [467] See O'Connor's letter (_United Irishmen_, ii. 234), saying that in 1797 he expressed abhorrence of the Union _Star_, which had urged assassination; whereupon Cox, its editor, instantly discontinued it. Then, as regards Macnevin and Lord Edward, they are described by Reinhard as 'of the moderate party.' See the _Castlereagh Papers_, i. 283. [468] Lecky, p. 423. [469] _Ibid._ p. 331. [470] _Ibid._ p. 462. [471] Plowden's _Historic Review_, ii. 537. [472] Berwick to Grattan. See _Life of Grattan_, vol. v. [473] 'Trials, if they must so be called, were carried on without number, under martial law. It often happened that three officers composed the court, and that, of the three, two were under age, and the third an officer of the yeomanry or militia, who had sworn, in his Orange lodge, eternal hatred to the people over whom he was thus constituted a judge. Floggings, picketings, death, were the usual sentences, and these were sometimes commuted into banishment, serving in the fleet, or transference to a foreign service. Many were sold at so much per head to the Prussians. Other less legal, but not more horrible, outrages were daily committed by the different corps under the command of Government. The subsequent Indemnity Acts deprived of redress the victims of this widespread cruelty.'--Lord Holland's _Memoirs of the Whig Party_. [474] This despatch is dated merely 'Tuesday, 25th'; but a second on the same subject bears 'April 27, 1798.' (MSS. Dublin Castle.)