WILLIAM AND MALtY.

157

industry of a long life, and to wake a beggar. It was however cnAp.to small purpose that Keating attempted, in the midst of that ■fearful anarchy, to uphold the supremacy of the law. Priestsand military chiefs appeared on the bench for the purpose ofoverawing the judge and countenancing the robbers. Oneruffian escaped because no prosecutor dared to appear. Anotherdeclared that he had armed himself in conformity to the ordersof his spiritual guide, and to the example of many persons ofhigher station than himself, whom he saw at that moment inCourt. Two only of the Merry Boys, as they were called,were convicted: the worst criminals escaped; and the ChiefJustice indignantly told the jurymen that the guilt of the publicruin lay at their door.*

When such disorder prevailed in Wicklow, it is easy toimagine what must have been the state of districts morebarbarous and more remote from the seat of government.Keating appears to have been the only magistrate whostrenuously exerted himself to put the law in force. IndeedNugent, the Chief Justice of the highest criminal court of therealm, declared on the bench at Cork that, without violenceand spoliation, the intentions of the Government could notbe carried into effect, and that robbery must at that conjuncturebe tolerated as a necessary evil.**

The destruction of property which took place within a fewweeks w r ould be incredible, if it were not attested by witnessesunconnected with each other and attached to very differentinterests. There is a close, and sometimes almost a verbal,agreement between the descriptions given by Protestants, who,during that reign of terror, escaped, at the hazard of their lives,to England, and the descriptions given by the envoys, commis-saries, and captains of Lewis. All agreed in declaring that it

* Sco the proceedings in the State Trials.

** King, iii. 10.