Dear Sir,--Accept my best thanks for the friendly readiness with which you consented to present my letter, which I hope has been received. I am now to trouble you on a subject more immediately relating to my unfortunate situation. I have apply'd as is usual in those cases to my different Friends to come forward on my tryal, and to give me a character such as they think I deserve, and to put it in a manner most likely to produce a beneficial effect. From my knowledge of the goodness of your heart, from a sympathy which I am sure you feel for a fond husband and an affectionate father, from the regard which I am sure you have for Mrs. Sheares, I feel a hope that in this instance you will gladly embrace this opportunity of saving us both. You know that on these occasions a general character is not admissable so that it must apply to the political character. And so far to the domestic as will go to establish the political. Taking it this way may I hope that you can say that you know me to be a man of domestic habits, fondly attached to my wife and children, so as to make it highly improbable that I would suffer my political conduct to endanger their happiness; that you consider me a man of liberal but not violent principles; that I go no farther in them than the first characters of opposition in the English and Irish Parliament have done, namely being an advocate for a reform in Parliament and a renovation of the ancient purity of our constitution; that I am not a friend to violent systems, and that I am not an advocate for Revolution. This is what, from your knowledge of me, I trust you can say without going farther than will justify you to yourself. And for this friendly service I shall seize with pleasure every opportunity of showing how much I shall feel myself obliged to you for it. As it is usual and necessary for the use of counsel to have the witnesses' names which they are to prove arranged in the brief, I have given directions to my agent to wait on you for that purpose whenever it may be convenient to you, as also to go through the form of giving you a summons. Your very much obliged and grateful Friend, HENRY SHEARES. Kilmainham Gaol: July 10, 1798. The superscription of this letter has been removed--probably by the recipient--and it seems very likely that he left his friend in the lurch, and did not come forward for his defence. The prosecuting counsel of those days loved to taunt such witnesses with a participation in the views held by the accused; they were browbeaten and bullied, and often left the court wincing under some dark innuendo, dropped with jibing leer.