=Source.=—R. Barry O’Brien’s _Life and Letters of Thomas Drummond_,
p. 273. (London: 1889.)
A.—_The Tipperary Magistrates to the Lord Lieutenant. Cashel,
April 7, 1838._
We, the undersigned magistrates of the County of Tipperary, this day
assembled at Cashel, at a very short notice, beg leave respectfully
to state to your Excellency, that it is with feelings of the deepest
horror we communicate to your Excellency the dreadful and atrocious
attack made by some villains upon the lives of Samuel Cooper, Esq.,
J.P., Austin Cooper, Esq., and Francis Wayland, Esq., on the 5th day of
April.
It appears that these gentlemen were proceeding to the fair of
Tipperary on that day, the two Mr. Coopers in a gig, and Mr. Wayland on
horseback, when they were fired upon by four men. Mr. Samuel Cooper and
Mr. Wayland returned the fire, but it is horrifying to relate that Mr.
Austin Cooper was shot dead by a ball passing through his head, and Mr.
Wayland was severely wounded in the hip....
We, the undersigned, declare that in that district neither life nor
property is safe. We therefore respectfully trust that your Excellency
will put in force the strongest powers which the laws of the land
permit in those districts.
We consider it our duty to state to your Excellency that we believe the
result of the late assizes for this county has proved how terrible is
the state of intimidation which exists, or seems to exist, among the
juries of this county....
We beg leave respectfully to hope that Her Majesty’s Government will
bring in a Bill to Parliament for the purpose of inflicting a heavier
penalty than that now in force on persons for having unregistered arms
or ammunition in their possession.
B.—_Drummond to the Tipperary Magistrates. Dublin Castle, May 22,
1838._
My lord,—In the communication of the 18th of April, which I had the
honour to make to your Lordship by command of the Lord Lieutenant, your
Lordship was informed that His Excellency considered it necessary to
institute an immediate and careful inquiry....
His Excellency deemed it his duty to direct, among other inquiries,
letters to be addressed to the several stipendiary magistrates of the
county, calling upon them to state whether any and what instances
of injury to the persons or property of jurors had come under their
observation, which could be distinctly attributed to the verdicts given
by such jurors. In the answers received from all these gentlemen, they
uniformly declare that not a single instance of the kind has ever
occurred to their knowledge....
His Excellency has also obtained a return of the several juries at
the last assizes of Tipperary, and he finds that the great majority
of jurors resided in towns, chiefly in Clonmel, and therefore were
not likely to be influenced by apprehensions of danger to person or
property; and further, on examining the list, it has been found that,
of the hundred jurors who constituted the juries in the several cases
of homicide, fifty-two served both on convicting and acquitting juries,
thirty on convicting juries only, and eighteen only on acquitting
juries.
His Excellency also felt it his duty to refer the statement of the
memorialists to the judge who presided at the last assizes, and His
Excellency has received a reply from that learned person, of which the
following is an extract:
“It did not appear to me that there existed any grounds, either of
facts or inference, for apprehending that the juries were intimidated;
on the contrary, I considered they discharged their duties free from
any bias arising from personal apprehension, or any other cause; and
with regard to their verdicts, they uniformly received and acted
upon the legal character of the crime as laid down by the Court, at
the same time exercising their own judgments, as in their exclusive
province, upon the credit to which they considered the witnesses were
entitled....”
The Government has been at all times ready to afford the utmost aid
in its power to suppress disturbance and crime, and its efforts
have been successful, so far as regards open violations of the law.
Faction fights and riots at fairs, which were generally of a very
ferocious character and the fruitful source of much subsequent crime,
have been to a very great degree suppressed, though heretofore most
commonly suffered to pass unchecked and unpunished; but there are
certain classes of crime, originating in other causes, which are
much more difficult of repression. The utmost exertion of vigilance
and precaution cannot always effectually guard against them, and it
becomes of importance to consider the causes which have led to a state
of society so much to be deplored, with a view to ascertain whether
any corrective means are in the immediate power of the Government or
the Legislature. When the character of the great majority of serious
outrages occurring in many parts of Ireland, though unhappily most
frequent in Tipperary, is considered, it is impossible to doubt that
the causes from which they mainly spring are connected with the tenure
and occupation of land. But His Excellency feels that it would be
quite beyond the limits, and not consistent with the character of a
communication of this nature, either to enter into an examination of
the lamentably destitute condition of a cottier tenantry, possessing
no adequate means of continuous support, or to advert in detail to the
objects for which the formation of such a class was originally either
permitted or directly encouraged. If from political changes or the
improvements in modern husbandry these objects are not any longer to be
attained by the continuance of such a state of things, His Excellency
conceives that it may become matter of serious question whether the
proprietors of the soil are not in many instances attempting too
rapidly to retrace their steps when he finds the fact to be, from
returns furnished by the Clerk of the Peace for Tipperary, that the
number of ejectments in 1837 is not less than double the number in
1833. The deficiency of a demand for labour, and the want, as yet, of
any legal provision against utter destitution, leave this humble class,
when ejected, without any certain provision against actual starvation.
Hence the wholesale expulsion of cottier tenants is unfortunately
found with the great body of the people to enlist the strongest
feelings—those of self-preservation—on the side even of guilt, in
vindication of what they falsely assume to be their rights; and hence a
sympathy for persons charged with crimes supposed to have arisen from
those causes, is still found a lamentable exception to that increased
general respect for the laws which has of late years been remarked with
satisfaction by those concerned in the administration of justice.
Property has its duties as well as its rights. To the neglect of those
duties in times past is mainly to be ascribed that diseased state of
society in which such crimes take their rise; and it is not in the
enactment or enforcement of statutes of extraordinary severity, but
chiefly in the better and more faithful performance of those duties,
and the more enlightened and humane exercise of those rights, that a
permanent remedy for such disorders is to be sought....