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MISCELLANIES. 



Judge Fletcher's Charge, 



Delivered to the Grand Jury at the 

 County of Wexford, at the Sum- 

 mer Assizes, 1814. 



Gentlemen of the Grand Jury ; 

 TT is with sincere pleasure I con- 



gratulate you upon the ap- 

 pearance of the state of your 

 county ; I say appearance, because 

 I have no means whatever of 

 knowing any thing upon the sub- 

 ject, except from the calendar now 

 before me. In that calendar I 

 find very few numbers indeed, 

 two, or three, or four crimes, of 

 general occurrence in the country ; 

 one homicide, which appears to 

 have been committed certainly 

 with circumstances of atrocity ; 

 but, as far as I can collect from the 

 examinations, originating in pri- 

 vate malice and individual re- 

 venge; and not connected with 

 any of those disturbances of which 

 we have heard so much, in dif- 

 ferent parts of the kingdom. 



Gentlemen, it is matter of 

 great congratulation, that after a 

 period of thirty years, (at the com- 

 mencement of which I first knew 

 the county of Wexford), I have 

 reason to say, it is precisely in the 

 situation in which it was then. 

 Vol.. LVI. 



except as to an increase of wealth 

 and population, and an improve- 

 ment in agriculture, which has 

 ameliorated its condition and mul- 

 tiplied its resources. The county 

 of Wexford was then amoral cu- 

 riosity. When other parts of the 

 country were lawless and dis- 

 turbed, this county had a peasantry 

 industrious in their habits, social 

 in their disposition, satisfied with 

 their state, and amenable to the 

 laws, cultivating their farms with 

 an assiduity which insured a com- 

 petency. Their conduct was 

 peaceful; their apparel whole; 

 their morals improved ; their lives 

 spent in the frequent interchange 

 of mutual good offices. It was a 

 state of things which I reflect 

 upon with pleasure. Each suc- 

 ceeding circuit showed me w'ld 

 heaths and uncultivated tracts, 

 brought under the dominion of 

 the plough, and producing corn for 

 the sustenance of man. As it was 

 then, so it continued for many 

 years ; until those unhappy dis- 

 turbances, which burst out in this 

 county with such a sudden and un- 

 expected explosion. I knew what 

 the state of things was then, ancj 

 how that explosion was produced. 

 Professionally 1 knew it, because I 

 enjoyed peculiar advantages of 

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