APPENDIX. No. I.-REMARKABLE TRIALS AND LAW PROCEEDINGS. TRIALS UNDER THE SPECIAL COMMISSION AT LIMERICK. Limerick, December 16, 1820. THIS day, at two o'clock, the Honourable Baron M'Clelland and the Honourable Justice Moore arrived in this city, from Dublin. They were met near Bird-Hill, county Tipperary, by the city High Sheriffs, accompanied by their bailiffs, Mr Drought's police, and a party of cavalry; and by the county High Sheriff and his bailiffs, and a detachment of Major Wilcock's police, from whence they were accompanied to their lodgings in George's Street. December 17. This morning, at eleven o'clock, both the Judges entered the County Court, after which the Lord Lieutenant's direction to hold a commission for the trial of such persons as were in custody for offences recently committed against the public peace, was read, and the Grand Jury were sworn in. The learned Baron M'Clelland addressed the Grand Jury, in a luminous and constitutional charge. He took a review of the dangerous and wicked associations which disgraced the county, and cited several acts, framed for the suppression of Whiteboyism. The first of those acts was passed in the year 1776, when it was enacted, "That any number of persons associating together, under any particular disguise, with fire-arms, &c amounted to a high misdemeanour, subjecting them to imprisonment and corporal punishment, under the discretion of the Courtbut that when such a party should proceed to any operative acts of violence, each and every one in such an unlawful assembly, was subject to the high penal punishment of death. "Also, threatening letters, denunciations, placards, of an insurrectionary spirit, against loyal and peaceable subjects, was capitally penal. "The slightest trespass, after sun-set, by any such party, though in other occasions but a trespass, yet in this case of a Whiteboy system, is capital. "Any one giving countenance or protection to any person or persons associated for any illegal purpose, are considered conspirators, and are equally guilty." By another act passed in the 27th of his late Majesty, denominated the Riot Act, "threatening magistrates in the performance of their duty, and which were too common and well known in this county, was capital in the eye of the law." His Lordship then referred to other sections, enabling the magistrates to call upon any of his Majesty's subjects to aid and assist in putting down all tumultuary proceedings, and that in case of any one refusing, said refusal was indictable. He then referred to the prudence of arresting any person or persons who may be in the secret of the insurgents; that the magistrates were bound to swear such person or persons; and, in case of refusal, to commit them to prison. All suspicious characters who may be roving, and strangers in the country, and likely to diffuse the wicked spirit now afloat, should give bail, and, in case of refusal, ought to be committed until the ensuing assizes. His Lordship then implored the Grand Jury to co-operate with the police magistrates; to concert together by baronial meetings, and advise upon the most judicious means of arresting the progress of disaffection; to stay all other avocations, except that of promoting the peace of the county, in order that a deluded peasantry might be restored to habits of loyalty, peace, and industry, and rescued from designing, factious demagogues, holding out popular subjects to ensnare the unwary and he sincerely trusted, that the effect of this Special Commission would be salutary in restoring the peace of the county. MURDER OF MRS TORRANCE. Limerick, December 17. John M'Namara and Thomas Molony were then placed at the bar. The prisoners were arraigned for the wilful murder of Mrs Susanna Torrance, on the 10th of June, in the second year of the present reign, at a place called Mondella, in the county of Limerick. The indictment charged Thomas Molony with being an accomplice, aiding and assisting in said murder. The Solicitor-General then rose, and addressed the Jury as follows:"Gentlemen of the Jury-The two prisoners now at the bar stand charged with the wilful murder of the late Mrs Susanna Torrance, and it is my duty to lay before you a detail of the evidence to be adduced, which is of a circumstantial character.—This I shall endeavour to do with the strictest impartiality. It is usually the case that the counsel for the Crown gives his observations to the Jury as far as they may be supposed to have a general bearing upon the case in which he may be engaged; and perhaps it may be thought that I should account for this extraordinary visitation of public justice. Gentlemen, I shall make but few observations; sorry am I to say that in this county they are necessary. You are aware, gentlemen, of the necessity now, in the middle of winter, of holding a Special Commission in this county. Three times, in the course of twelve years, has a desperate confederacy outraged and violated the laws of the country; it is now fifty years since the Whiteboy Act has been enacted; that time might serve as a faithful history of later days, and the state of the country is still such, that you are once more assembled upon a Special Commission. The common people have once more confederated against 7 ed in the morning. When they came to this gap, a man jumped suddenly from the other side, and handed a letter to Mr Torrance; when Mr Torrance began to open this letter, the man took a stone from his breast, and the laws and the public institutions. Your property is in danger; and if you resist the plunder of your property, you are threatened with torture and with murder-the law must put them down, or they will put the law down. People are obliged to live as if in gar-flung it at him; another man then leaprison-the Judges are compelled to travel with military escorts. Gentlemen, this is a state of things not to be endured. With a resident gentry, I do not, gentlemen, despair of the public safety-I do not fear your being unable to put down this formidable, although contemptible, insurrection; but, gentlemen, before I proceed to the particular circumstances of the present case, allow me to make this one observation, and that is, that nothing connected with the present disturbed state of the country may be brought unfairly against the prisoners, but you may contrast the mild and just laws of the country with those dreadful acts of violence and insubordination which have so frequently disgraced this county. "Gentlemen, Mrs Susanna Torrance was the wife of Mr Torrance, a native of another county, but who resided in the liberties of this city. In the month of March last, his house was attacked by an armed banditti he resisted them, and, assisted by Mrs Torrance, succeeded in beating them off; he did not give up his arms; it is supposed that many of them were wounded on that occasion; and Mr Torrance, conceiving that it would be dangerous to remain there, removed to the town of Adare, a little beyond which he took a farm. He used to return at night, gentlemen, to the town of Adare, under the protection of a military escort. On Sunday, the 10th of June, he was returning from his farm, in company with Mrs Torrance; they came by a public path which led through some fields, and had to come by a stone gap which they had pass ed over the wall, and struck him with a stick. In this conflict Mr Torrance was unarmed; they both fell, and Mrs Torrance tore the fellow from off her husband's body. Mr Torrance was stunned-he lost his senses for some time, but when he came to his recollection, he saw his wife engaged at some distance with the man who leaped over the wall with the stick. I mention no names now, gentlemen; it will be for you to draw your conclusions from the evidence. When Mr Torrance saw his wife engaged with this man, he perceived a stick in her hand, but does not know how she came by it-whether from the extraordinary courage with which she was animated that induced her to take it from him, or whether she found it on the ground. Mr Torrance then engaged with that man, and they both came to the ground-many blows were given, and many wounds received; the man was more than once senseless, and Mr Torrance was so also. Mr Torrance repeatedly struck this man with a stick on the shins, until he at last broke the stick. Mr Torrance then looked round, and saw the other man in conflict with his wife. He who had been in conflict with Mrs Torrance said to the other man," Tom, come away;" he appeared to be wiping something which he held in his hand. Mr Torrance got up with difficulty, and the wretched lady in a few minutes ran towards her husband; she was scarcely able to speak, and her bosom was bloody; some cattle were drawing near them in the field where they were, and Mr Torrance lifted her over the wall into the adjoining field, where, in a short time, she expired. Mr Torrance had received fifteen stabs; he was wounded in the shoulders, the arm, and the loins, and he received one wound in the throat, through which his breath came; he walked in that state towards the town of Adare, to endeavour to get some assistance for Mrs Torrance, who he did not think was then dead; he went to the house of a Mr Switzer, where, after mentioning the circumstances, he fell down exhausted; Switzer went to the place described by Mr Torrance, and found Mrs Torrance lying there dead and at full length. I shall now come to the circumstances under which the prisoners were apprehended. As a murder, there have been few worse, -two armed men rushing on two of their fellow-creatures, one of them a woman-we involuntarily shrink with horror when we find an Irishman stained with a woman's blood. But, gentlemen, this murder was but the execution of a sentence pronounced against them by this lawless banditti, for their daring to resist them; but whether you look on it as assassination or insurrection, I trust you will exercise a cool and dispassionate judgment, and give your verdict according to the evidence that shall be adduced before you. If the evidence be satisfactory, I see a class of gentlemen in that jurybox, whom, I am sure, it would be unnecessary to warn against being influenced by fear, or by the more unworthy and ignominious motive of wishing to gain popularity with this lawless banditti." The learned Counsel then recapitulated those points which were after terwards proved by the witnesses :— Mr John Torrance was then examined by Mr Serjeant Joy. Witness having been sworn, deposed as follows:Witness lived in March last at Cunnigar; his house was attacked by a great many persons armed; they broke his windows; he resisted them; they |