416 AK^NUAL REGISTER, I8l6f. 



special session under the insur- 

 rection act, for offences against 

 the provisions of that act. I have 

 added also a statement of the pro- 

 ceedings at the se\ eral assizes in 

 the years 1813, 1814, and 181.5, 

 and Lent assizes of the year 1816, 

 so far as relates to committals and 

 convictions for cximinal acts con- 

 nected with the disturbance of the 

 public peace in tlie following coun- 

 ties ; AVestmeath, Tipperary, Li- 

 merick, King's covmty. Queen's 

 county, Longford, Louth, Clare, 

 Roscommon and Waterford. 



There may appear to your 

 Lordship a great disparity in some 

 cases betwesn the number of 

 committals and the number of 

 convictions ; and persons unac- 

 quainted with the internal state of 

 this country may infer that com- 

 mittals too frequently take place 

 ■without sufficient evidence of guilt 

 against the parties apprehended. 

 No such conclusions, however (I 

 mean so far as relates to the gene- 

 ral practice of the magistracy to 

 commit suspected persons on 

 slight and insufficient ground) 

 ought to be drawn. The fiequent 

 instances which have come to my 

 Jinowledge, wherein [)rosecutors 

 iu;d witnesses have been intimida- 

 ted by the menaces of (he friends 

 of the parties deposed against ; 

 the experience 1 have had of the 

 danger to wliich they, and even 

 their relations, are exposed ; of 

 the necessity which in almost 

 £very case occurs, that they should 

 (juitthe place of their birth and 

 residence ; of the odium which 

 universally attachi;s to the name 

 of an informer ; compel me to 

 consider the disjiroportion be- 

 tween the number of committals 

 ^i\d com-igtion^ ^ jpany dieUicts^ 



rather as a proof of the disordered 

 state of society, and of the impe- 

 diments in the way of the admi- 

 nistration of justice, than as a 

 ])roof of undue precipitancy on 

 the part of the magistracy, in com- 

 mitting on the suspicion of crimi- 

 nality. I may be allowed here to 

 add, that the danger attendant on 

 the giving of information or evi- 

 dence was so notorious, and so 

 much impeded the conviction of 

 the guilty at no remote period, 

 that tlie Legislature found it neces- 

 sary, with the view of deterring 

 from the murder of witnesses, 

 and of preventing the imjmnity of 

 the i)arties against whom those 

 witnesses had deposed, to enact, 

 that if any person having given 

 information upon oath of any of- 

 fence against the laws should be 

 muiilered, or forcibly carried 

 away before the trial of the per- 

 son dc})osed against, such infor- 

 mation on oath should be admit- 

 ted as evidence on tlie trial. 



It has been necessary in the 

 disturbed counties (in most in- 

 stances of persons having given 

 information on oath, or intending 

 to give evidence iqion trial) on 

 account of the serious danger to 

 which such persons are exposed, 

 to remove them to places of secu- 

 rity prcsious to the trials, and ul- 

 timately to pro\ ide for their re- 

 moval from their usual abodes. 

 In many cases the witnesses for 

 the crown ha\ e, at their own re- 

 quest, been kept a consider;ible 

 period, previously to the trial, in 

 the gaol of the county, as afford- 

 ing them the best means of pro- 

 tection ; in other cases they have 

 been protected in barracks, or 

 brought to Publjn, where how- 

 evei'; occasjoiiallyj they have not 



