WILLIAM ORR'S LETTER TO HIS WIFE.

"My dear Wife,

"Carrickfergus, Saturday Morning.

"I now think proper to mention the grounds of my present encouragement, under the apprehension of shortly appearing before my merciful God and Redeemer-My entire innocence of the crime I am charged with-Secondly, a wellfounded hope of meeting a merciful God-Thirdly, a firm confidence that that God will be a husband to you and a father to your little children, whom I do recommend to his divine care and protection. And my last request is, that you will train them up in the knowledge of that religion which is the ground of my present comfort, and the foundation of that happiness, which, I trust, I shall enjoy on that day when we must all appear before the Great Judge-Farewell my dear wife, farewell,

"WILLIAM ORR."

THE TRIAL

OF PETER FINERTY FOR A LIBEL.

AT a court of oyer and terminer, and general gaol delivery, held for the county of the city of Dublin, before Mr. Justice Downes, on the 22d of December, 1797, Peter Finerty was brought to the bar, and tried on an indictment (drawn in the usual form) charging him with being the printer and publisher of the following false, scandalous, and libellous letter, addressed to Earl Camden :

The Press, Thursday, 26th Oct. 1797.

TO HIS EXCELLENCY THE LORD LIEUTENANT.

My Lord,

I address your excellency on a subject as awful and interesting, as any that hath engaged the feelings of this suffering country. The oppression of an individual leads to the oppression of every member in the state, as his death, however specially palliated by forms, may lead to the death of the constitution. Your lordship already anticipates me; and your conscience has told you, that I allude to the circumstance of Mr. Orr, whose case every man has now made his own, by discovering the principle on which Mr. Pitt sent you to execute his orders in Ireland.

The death of Mr. Orr the nation has pronounced one of the most sanguinary and savage acts that has disgraced the laws. In perjury, did you not hear, my lord, the verdict

was given?-perjury accompanied with terror, as terror has marked every step of your government. Vengeance and desolation were to fall on those who would not plunge themselves in blood. These were not strong enough; against the express law of the land, not only was drink introduced to the jury, but drunkenness itself, beastly and criminal drunkenness, was employed to procure the murder of a better man than any that now surrounds you. But, well may juries think themselves justified in their drunken verdicts, if debauched and drunken judges, swilling spirits on the seat of justice itself, shall set the country so excellent an example.

Repentance, which is a slow virtue, hastened, however, to declare the innocence of the victim. The mischief which perjury had done, truth now stepped forward to repair; neither was she too late, had humanity formed any part of your councils. Stung with remorse, on the return of reason, part of his jury solemnly and soberly made oath, that their verdict had been given under the unhappy influence of drink and intimidation; and in the most serious affidavit that ever was made, by acknowledging their crime, endeavoured to atone to God, and to their country, for the sin into which they had been se duced.

The informer, too, a man, it must be owned, not much famed for veracity, but stung with the like remorse, deposed that all he had formerly sworn was malicious and untrue, and that from compunction alone he was induced to make a full disclosure of his great and enormous guilt. In this confession the wicked man had no temptation to perjury; he was not to be paid for that; he had not in view, like another Judas, the "thirty pieces of silver;" if he was to receive a reward, he knew he must not look for it in this world.

Those testimonies were followed by the solemn declarations of the dying man himself; and the approach of death is not a moment when men are given to deceive both themselves and the world. Good and religious men are not apt,

Alluding to

by perjury on their death-beds, to close the gates of Heaven against themselves, like those who have no hope. But if these solemn declarations deserve no regard, then is there no truth in justice; and though the innocence of the accused had even remained doubtful, it was your duty, my lord, and you had no exemption from that duty, to have interposed your arm, and saved him from the death that perjury, drunkenness, and bribery, had prepared for him.

Let not the nation be told that you are a passive instrument in the hands of others--if passive you be, then is your office a shadow indeed-if an active instrument, as you ought to be, you did not perform the duty which the laws required of you-you did not exercise the prerogative of mercy-that mercy which the constitution had intrusted to you for the safety of the subject, by guarding him from the oppression of wicked men. Innocent it appears he was ; his blood has been shed; and the precedent indeed is awful.

Had Frazier and Ross been found guilty of the murder committed on a harmless and industrious peasant-lay your hand to your heart, my lord, and answer without advisers, would you not have pardoned those ruffians? After the proof you have given of your mercy, I must suppose your. clemency unbounded. Have no Orangemen,* convicted on the purest evidence, been at any time pardoned? Is not their oath of blood connived at? Was not that oath manufactured at the command of power, and does not power itself discipline those brigands? But suppose the evidence

*The Orangemen are a set of people who formed themselves into armed bodies in opposition to the United Men; these were composed of men of all persuasions, who professed to unite for the general freedom of Ireland. [See Mr. Rowan's trial.] The former are mostly of the established church, many of them placemen, retainers, or expectants of court favours; they avow a devoted attachment to what is called the protestant ascendancy, and the English system of governing the country; they mount the Orange cockade; and are much more inveterate against their unfortunate countrymen than the English or Scottish soldiery.

of Wheatly had been true, what was the offence of Mr. Orr? Not that he had taken an oath of blood and extermination-for then he had not suffered-but that he had taken an oath of charity and of union, of humanity and of peace. He has suffered; shall we then be told that your government will conciliate public opinion, or that the people will not continue to look for a better?

Was the unhappy man respited but to torture him, to insult both justice and the nation, to carry the persecution into the bosom of his wife and children? Is this the prerogative of mercy? What would your father have said unto you, had he lived to witness this falling off-" Son, (he would have said,) I am a father; I have a daughter; I have known misfortune -the world has pitied me, and I am not ungrateful."

Let us explore the causes of this sanguinary destruction of the people. Is it that you are determined to revenge the regret expressed by them at the recall of your predecessor; and well knowing they will not shed tears at the departure of his successor, that you are resolved to make them weep during your stay? Yes, my lord, I repeat during your stay, for it may not be necessary that a royal yacht, manned and decorated for the purpose, should waft you from the shores of an angered and insulted country.

Another cause-Is it to be wondered that a successor of Lord Fitzwilliam should sign the death-warrant of Mr. Orr? Mr. Pitt had learned that a merciful lord lieutenant was unsuited to a government of violence. It was no compliment to the native clemency of a Camden, that he sent you into Ireland; and what has been our portion under the change, but massacre and rape, military murders, desolation and ter'ror!

Had you spared Mr. Orr, you thought, perhaps, the numerous families of those whom your administration had devoted, might accuse you of partiality; and thus to prove your consistency, you are content to be suspected of wanting the only quality this country wishes you to exercise.