- i-- - * -‘.rwoM'n m i! rlj ’ Vtiitl WHAT WERE THE CAUSES OF THE PAR TRY EVICTIONS? A LETTER TO ANTHONY LEFROY, ESQ., MEMBER FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN. f BY THE REV. W. C. PLUNKET, Chaplain to the Lord Bishop of Tuam. / D •> PRINTED BY GEORG E DROUGHT, f 6, BACHELOR’S-WALK. juw* ,» *"" J&am I II >ltu £7 333 A LETTER, ETC. The Palace, Tuam, May 24, 1861. Dear Mr. Lefroy, In compliance with your request, as conveyed to Lord Plunket, I shall endeavour to furnish you with the infor¬ mation respecting the Partry Evictions which you require. With such a view, I shall, in the first place, call your atten¬ tion to a letter in reference to this subject, which was addressed to Lord Cowley (as her Majesty’s Ambassador at Paris) by Lord Plunket himself, and which appeared in Galignani s Mes¬ senger of March 23, 1861. The letter is as follows :— “The Palace, Tuam, March 11, 1861. “ Mr Lord, “ A notice has, I am informed, appeared in some of the Paris newspapers, to which I feel it right to call the attention of your Lordship, as the representative of this country in Paris. “ From the terms of the announcement to which I refer, it would appear that the Bishop of Orleans proposes to preach a sermon in the church of St. Roch, in the course of which he is to charge me with having evicted from my estate in the west of Ireland, a number of Roman Catholic tenants, in con¬ sequence of a refusal upon their parts to send their children to a Protestant school. This alleged act of persecution the preacher, it is stated, intends to make the occasion for speaking ‘ some home-truths to Protestant England.’* * In an evasive reply which appeared in one of the Paris newspapers, shortly after the publication of Lord Plunket’s letter to Lord Cowley, the Bishop of Orleans apparently disavows any intention upon his part of impugning either Lord Plunket or Protestant England. His motives, he asserts, were those of the purest charity ; and he somewhat sneeringly professes astonishment at Lord Pluuket having anticipated an intention upon his part of which he himself had no knowledge. All that can be said in answer is, that the credit or the blame of this foreknowledge 4 “ Under these circumstances, I feel that I am bound, in justice to others, as well as to myself, to furnish your Lordship with accurate information in reference to this unjust and unfounded allegation. “The facts of the case are simply these:—During the past year I have been compelled to evict from my estate twelve persons with their families. Some of these were tenants who had been directly or indirectly concerned in serious violations of the law of the land. Some were tenants who had acted in persevering and litigious opposition to the rules of the estate. Others were not tenants, but had located themselves upon the property without per¬ mission. To have retained such persons upon my estate, after the continued and systematic provocation to which I had been subjected, would have only encouraged a spirit of general insubordination and lawlessness; and there¬ fore, in justice to myself, to my peaceably-disposed tenants, and to my neigh¬ bours, I felt reluctantly compelled to remove these tenants from my property. Such were my only reasons for evicting them ; and to state that I evicted them, or that I ever evicted any tenants, for refusing to send their children to a Protestant school, is to assert that which is absolutely untrue. “ I am aware that a number of most specious misrepresentations have been industriously circulated in reference to this matter. Your Lordship will be, doubtless, surprised to hear, that even falsified reports of the very evidence which I have*given upon oath in open court have been furnished to the press, and words which I have never uttered have been published, and quoted as mine, with a view to convict me of prevarication and falsehood. “ In answer to all such statements, I shall merely call your Lordship’s attention to the two following prominent facts, which are open to inves¬ tigation :— “ My first observation refers to those tenants who have been evicted during the past year, for the reasons already mentioned. With regard to these families I may state, as a fact, that at the time when they were served with a notice to quit, there was not, as it happens, amongst them all, with, per¬ haps, one exception, a child of an age suitable for attendance at school. The eviction of these tenants could not, therefore, have had any reference to the education of their children. In fact, they were not, except, possibly, in one instance, even so much as spoken to on the subject. rests, not with Lord Plunket, but with the friends and apparently authoritative mouth¬ piece of the Bishop of Orleans himself. Whether their motives were equally charitable, the following extract from the Weekly Register of February 2, 1861, may serve to prove:— “ The Universel announces that a sermon, followed by a collection, on behalf of the victims of Lord Plunket’s persecution at Partry, is to be preached in Paris, at the church of St. Roch, by the far-famed Bishop of Orleans, Mgr. Dupanloup. The collection is to be made by the near relation of the Emperor, the Duchess of Hamilton, Madame La Mare- chale de MacMahon, the Duchess of Fitzjames, the Prince of Wittgensten, and 1 the elite of the Catholic aristocracy of Europe.’ The Universel adds, that it is understood to be the intention of the illustrious Prelate to ‘ speak some home-truths to Protestant Eng¬ land.’ Is there no chance that the English Government will do something to wash from our national reputation the stigma of the outrages of the unhappy and besotted man whom the whole civilised world is thus combining to denounce? Be this as it may, the martyrdom of the poor Catholics of Partry, as we said long ago, has not been in vain. It has raised up a spirit throughout Europe—we trust throughout the Catholic world— which will tell with great force both against the long persecution in Ireland, of which it is merely the latest instance, and against the odious and alien Church which lies at the root of it. The immediate abolition of that detestable institution is the one practical measure to which all these events should excite us .” The latter sentence too plainly shows the motives which lie at the root of this mon¬ strous system of vilification to which Lord Plunket, because a bishop of the Established Church, has been subjected. 5 “ My other observations refer to those Roman Catholics who, at the pre¬ sent moment, form the large majority of my tenantry. Many of these tenants have had, and still have, children in their families of an age suitable for attendance at these schools. They have been, moreover, asked to send these children, and they have refused ; or, having sent their children for a time, have subsequently withdrawn them. Yet these tenants remain in un¬ disturbed possession of their farms. “ These facts, as it seems to me, require no comment. “In conclusion, I must take this opportunity of referring, in self-defence, to an act of mine, for which I have been, in some quarters, severely, but, I think, very unjustly blamed. I allude to the fact, that these evictions took place during so inclement a month as that of November. Rut wbat are the facts of the case ? “ Eight months before that time, after much wanton and litigious oppo¬ sition on the part of these tenants, I became legally empowered to evict them at once; and was, indeed, advised by many persons so to do. I, however, permitted them to remain upon their farms, free of rent, until November, for the special purpose, as they were then informed, of giving them time to gather in their crops, and to make the necessary preparations for procuring dwellings elsewhere. It was in consequence of this postponement that the eviction of these tenants took place in November, rather than in the previous months of summer or spring ; and it is, I think, scarcely just to construe into an act of undue harshness that which in reality resulted from a directly opposite motive. “ I have now acquainted your Lordship with the more prominent facts of this much-misrepresented case, and shall feel much obliged by your making use of them for the contradiction of any of the false reports to which I have referred, should they happen to come under your Lordship’s personal notice. “ I beg to add, that as circumstances may render it necessary that these particulars should become more generally known, I think it right to inform your Lordship that I shall, in such a case, allow this letter to be inserted in the public press. “ I have the honour to remain, “ Your Lordship’s faithful Servant, “ Plukket. “To the Right Hon. Earl Cowley, &c. &c.” The facts contained in the above letter require, as Lord Plunket remarks, no comment. In order, however, to put you in full possession of all the circumstances of this case, I shall enter into a few particulars to which Lord Plunket, in the limits of a letter, could only allude in general terms. And, in the first place, I will state the causes which led respectively to evic¬ tion in each of the instances to which the above letter refers. List of Tenants evicted by Lord Plunket , in November , 1800, with the causes of eviction specified :— 1. Martin Lolly . This family has been evicted for the fol¬ lowing reasons :—One of Lally’s sons, Tom Pally, stands at 6 present charged with having been concerned in the murder of* a poor man of the name of Harrison, who had been employed by Lord Plunket as ploughman. Lally is at present out on bail. The grounds upon which he was arrested are as follows:— Close to the spot where the murder was committed was found the piece of paper which had been used in loading the gun. On it was written the name of' Thomas Lally ; and in a box at the head of his bed was found the sheet of paper from which it had been torn ; and also in the same room, a gun recently discharged. There was, therefore, no doubt that the gun was loaded in Mar¬ tin Lally’s house. It could not, however, be proved that Lally’s son actually fired the shot; and he is, therefore, “on bail,” and will be tried in case any further evidence should be disclosed. The Rev. Mr. Lavelle is his bailsman. Another of Lally’s sons was tried, convicted, and imprisoned for having been engaged in a brutal assault upon tw r o unoffending men, one of whom scarcely escaped with his life. It was while this poor man w r as lying apparently at the point of death, that the Rev. Mr. Lavelle published a letter in a local paper, in which he describes the assault made upon him and his companion in the following language:—“ At length they met with a well-merited retribution, and paid with some of their worthless blood a little of the penalty to which their outrageous conduct but too fully entitled them.” The land of the farm which was in possession of this family was also “burned” (as it is called by farmers), without the landlord’s permission. To do so is an express violation of the law of the land ; and Lord Plunket had inserted in the rules of the estate, which were circulated in a printed form among all the tenantry, a special clause prohibiting the practice. Martin Lally, however, together with several other tenants, deliberately and perseveringly, notwithstanding repeated warnings, ignored this rule, and set their landlord at defiance. When proceedings were instituted against him for having so done, he took defence against Lord Plunket, thereby putting him to great expense, and vexatiously summoned him to appear as a witness in his de¬ fence. Moreover, when a surveyor was sent to measure the amount of land which had been burnt, he was violently threat¬ ened by Lally’s sons, and his chain thrown over a neighbouring ditch. r 2. Edward Joyce .—This man was tried at the Summer As¬ sizes of last year for perjury. Eleven jurors, some of them Homan Catholics, gave it as their opinion that he was guilty of having attempted to swear away the life of an innocent man, whom he accused of having been the murderer of Harrison, Lord Plunket’s ploughman. One of the jury, however, having refused to agree, he was not convicted, and the trial came on again this year. The jury again disagreed, and he is now out on bail. Upon the occasion of both these trials, Mr. Lavelle engaged counsel to defend him, and is now his bailsman. I need hardly say, that in this part of the country, when a priest thus identifies himself with a prisoner, the jury are not likely to convict him. This man also “ burned” his land in defiance of the rules of the estate and the law of the land, in the manner already described. When summoned before the magistrates for so doing, he sub- pcened Lord Plunket in the same manner as the Lallys did, to appear as a witness in his behalf. Knowing, as he must have done, that Lord Plunket could give no evidence in his favour, he can have had no object in such a step but to annoy and insult his landlord. I may here mention, that this vexatious process of summoning Lord Plunket, and in some instances his daughters, to appear as witnesses, in cases where their evidence could be of no service to the parties by whom they were subpoened, was, on more than one occasion, resorted to by the tenants during the two years w T hich preceded the evictions of November last. It was finally adopted by the Kev. Mr. Lavelle himself, at the Ballinrobe Quarter Sessions of last December, upon which occasion he was severely rebuked by the Assistant Barrister, Sir Colman O’Loughlin, a Roman Catholic gentleman, who remarked, “ That it was a very wrong, a very wanton proceeding on the part of the Rev. Mr. Lavelle, to bring Lord Plunket there at all—to bring him over such a distance, when he was not a necessary witness, which was clear, according to the questions asked.” 3. John Boyle .—This tenant also “ burned” his land in de¬ fiance of the rules of the estate and the laws of the land, and when brought before the magistrate, likewise summoned Lord Plunket to appear as a witness in the manner already described. His son was caught herding fifteen head of cattle on Lord 8 Plunket’s grass, and was engaged with the priest, and others, in the forcible removal of the stones of a house belonging to Lord Plunket’s sister. The following evidence in reference to this latter proceeding, as given by the sergeant of police who was present upon the occasion, will give you some idea of the spirit of utter lawlessness and insubordination which existed at the time. The extract is taken from a report of the libel-case, Lavelle v. Bole, published by the Catholic Publishing Company, and which has been ex¬ clusively circulated by the Rev. Mr. Lavelle himself:—- ** Sergeant John Wade examined by Mr. Whiteside, Q.C.—I am in the constabulary, and am stationed at Cappaduff; Father Lavelle was priest there ; about the 8th of June, John Charteris called on me ; he was in the employment of Miss Plunket; from what he told me I patrolled the way to Partry; on the way I saw persons and carts going to a house ; there were about fifteen carts and thirty persons ; I saw Mr. Lavelle at the house, it was being thrown down ; he was with the tall monk; John Charteris told them not to meddle with the house; I saw Mr. Lavelle go between Charteris and the house, and put his hand to his breast; he said the house was his, that he had bought it; Charteris said he could not buy it from any one but Miss Plunket, that it was her property, and that as far as he could go he would not allow it to be thrown down ; the workmen then rushed in between Charteris and the house, and said, ‘ The bloody Jumper, we’ll let him see that we will throw it downthey then commenced to throw it down and take the stones away in the direction of the monastery; Mr. Lavelle was present at all this ; he was speaking, but I was standing at a distance, and could not hear all he said; I heard him say the police were so many * goslinshe said, ‘ We will shortly have the French.’ ” In the same report I find the following statement on the part of the Rev. Mr. Lavelle himself, in reference to this outrageous proceeding:— “ I never asked Miss Plunket's leave to take down the walls of the house ; I did not ask any one acting for her ; I knew she was in the country; I showed the people who were there the example of pulling down the walls by taking down a stone myself, and I called oil them to do it, notwithstanding Chrystall's op¬ position ; I was summoned to the sessions in Ballinrobe for it; when I was told I would be summoned, I ceased taking away the stones ; the case was dismissed, because the question of title came in; the merits of the case were not gone into.” 4. James Henaghan _This man was tried at the Castlebar Spring Assizes of 1860, for an assault, and pleaded guilty. He had, in any case, no claim to the farm upon which he was living, having been placed there, contrary to the rules of the estate, as a sub-tenant by his father-in-law, Michael Whelan. 9 5. Patrick Murray .—This man’s son was engaged with Martin Tally’s son in the brutal assault already referred to, and having been tried and found guilty, was imprisoned for that crime. 6. Patrick Lally. ^ All these tenants “burned” their 7. Mary Lally . l land, and vexatiously summoned 8. Thomas Lally . L Lord Plunket as a witness, in the 9. Michael Henaghan manner already described. 10. Michael Cavanagh .—This man’s son-in-law, who was the virtual owner and manager of the farm, took a leading part in ah- assault, and as he would not consent quietly to leave his father-in-law’s house^Lord Plunket hadj^ojiyict both. Michael Cavanagh himself bas, however, Uaan promised a holding else¬ where. ^ /L>*- A This was the man in reference to whom Mr. Lavelle wrote a letter, which appeared in The Times newspaper. In this letter he says that this man was evicted merely because he had his daughter living with him. He then describes the old man and his wife as being at the point of death, and states that he is about to administer the last sacraments “ to the poor old couple.” During this very week, when he speaks of them as having been thus confined to bed, Mrs. Cavanagh was seen carrying a load of straw to a friend’s house, where, notwithstanding her alleged destitution, she had a horse of her own at the time. •v These persons were not tenants, 11. Sally Lally . f having merely located themselves, 12. Margaret Duffy. ( without permission, upon the property ' as “ squatters.” Such were the individual offences of the evicted tenants. Under ordinary circumstances, the threat of eviction might, in some of these cases, have been relaxed. What, however, ren¬ dered it so absolutely necessary that these tenants should be removed from the estate was, the growing spirit of insubordina¬ tion which was exhibiting itself in the whole district. It is hard for strangers, especially Englishmen, fully to understand the utter state of lawlessness which was gradually setting in during the two years preceding these evictions. 10 Lord Plunket’s attempts to improve the property were openly thwarted. He sent to demand possession of certain farms for the purpose of striping the land, and thereby bettering the con¬ dition of the tenants. His Agent, at the instigation of the priest, who was present a£ the interview, was refused possession, and a delay of more than a year w^as thus occasioned in the carrying out of his contemplated improvements. His land was syste¬ matically trespassed upon. His young trees w T ere torn up and destroyed. His bogs w r ere used by any one w r ho chose. The sedge upon the mountain was cut without his permission, large mobs, with the priest at their head, paraded the roads, and out¬ rages and assaults upon the Protestants of the districts were of constant occurrence. In the midst of these scenes of violence, the Protestants began to feel that they had but little security or chance of redress—in fact, it required some degree of courage to seek for it at the hands of the law; for whenever any of these cases of outrage, trespass, or assault were brought before the magistrates at the neighbouring courthouse of Ballinrobe, the priest almost always took the part of the tenant against the landlord, provided him with counsel, paid his fine, and, if neces¬ sary, became his bailsman, while those who attempted to attend as witnesses on behalf of Lord Plunket or his tenants, were hooted and assailed by ferocious mobs, and at times scarcely escaped with their lives. At last a quiet and harmless man, on his return at night to his wife and children, was murdered in cold blood by some cruel assassin, and at the inquisition of the magistrates, the district of Partry, in the month of February, 1860, w'as proclaimed. Such was the spirit of “ general insubordination and lawless¬ ness ” to which Lord Plunket alludes in his letter, and which compelled him to adopt the stringent measures for which, by those who know nothing of the emergency, he has been so un¬ justly blamed. That which, however, more than anything else, precluded the possibility of his adopting a more lenient course, w r as the defiant and dictatorial attitude maintained by the Priest of the district. In February, 1859, he concludes a letter of fearful denunciation with the following words :— “ You may draw the sword in aggression against the * poorbut the * poor ’ are determined to a man to meet you. Let the ‘ notice to quit,’ and 11 the ‘ ejectment process,’ and the * sheriff,’ and the * crowbar’—let all come— here shall we remain to meet them, with the same stern courage as did the Ghebers their Moslem foe in a less holy cause ; and when all this is done, the beginning has not yet arrived.”— Castlebar Telegraph, Feb. 24, 1859. In July, 1859, he addresses a letter to ‘‘the friends of reli¬ gious liberty,” in which he makes use of similar threats :— “ I leave my case in your hands. Yours be the decision. As for us, if martyrdom is to come—welcome. Our fathers bled before us for the Faith. Though degenerate sons, we too can oiler the small sacrifice of our life-blood for what it cost the blood of a Redeemer to establish—the untarnished faith of our martyred sires. But— ‘ Shall we die tamely—die alone ?’ Here we stand, rooted to soil fertilised by the sweat of our fathers. Let sheriff, and brigade, and all come, led on by mitred landlord, and then—and then-.” In the September immediately preceding the evictions, he delivers a lecture in Liverpool, in which he states, referring to the “anticipated evictions in Partry Parish,” that “if Lord Plunket did strike the blow then, or attempted it, it would be the darkest day for the landlords of Ireland that had ever oc¬ curred.” And in October, 1860, he addresses a letter to the Right Hon. E. Cardwell, in which the following passage occurs :— “ Lord Plunket says he will evict a number of tenants next November* He will call on you as before for troops of dragoons to accomplish the ruin o* hundreds of his fellow-men, to ‘ carry out the law.’ The houses are levelled* blood may be shed. That of the Priest may be the first, and it were well it should. What then? Is Lord Plunket a happier or a better man, when all this is done ? Plow long will he survive to enjoy his bloody triumph ? Are the few days of life left to him more secure for having spilled the blood of a priest and of his flock ? Will those who are dear to him walk abroad with a clearer conscience and a firmer tread? Or from the ruins of levelled houses and the blood of their recent inmates, will there arise no avenging hand ?” It can easily be understood that the result of such conduct and language was to lead the tenants to believe that they might act as they liked, and that their Priest would in any case stand between them and their landlord, and intimidate him into sub¬ mission. And consequently, I need hardly say, that whatever steps Lord Plunket might, under other circumstances, have been inclined to take, it would, after such priestly threats, have been 1 12 an act of gross injustice to the peaceably-disposed inhabitants of the district, as well as to surrounding landlords, to have shown a weak and wavering policy. Leniency at such a time would only have been construed into cowardice, and an example would have been furnished to others of what a lawless tenantry, backed by a threatening priest, might extort from the fears of a timid land¬ lord. Such, therefore, were the causes which compelled Lord Plun- ket to resort to eviction. That, in carrying out his resolve, he did not employ any undue harshness, the concluding paragraph of his letter to Lord Cowley sufficiently proves. In March he was legally empowered to evict them at once; and, after so much provocation, few landlords, I believe, would have acted otherwise. Lord Plunket, however, gave them six months to prepare for their departure, and to gather in their crops—thus enabling every man to leave the estate with a year and a-half’s rent in his pocket. Such are the evictions referred to in Lord Plunket’s letter. I must, however, now pass on to notice two evictions which have taken place during the last month, and which, of course, have been greedily seized upon by Lord Plunket’s enemies, as likely to supply them with a profitable grievance. As the cir¬ cumstances connected with these evictions are somewhat pecu¬ liar, and tend to expose the nature of this eviction-agitation, I must dwell upon them at some length. The first case is that of— 1. Matt. LaTly .—This is a peculiar case, and one which it would be hard indeed to torture into a grievance. It appears that Mr. Lavelle purchased from one of Lord Plunket’s tenants his interest in a farm, in order that he (Mr. L.) might give it to one of his own friends. The following is Lord Plunket’s own evidence in reference to this proceeding at the Ballinrobe Quar¬ ter Sessions of December last:—“He (Mr. Lavelle) purchased the holding in question from Scahill (the former tenant), without my consent, or the consent of any one for me; and not only that, but he handed it over to one—certainly one of the very worst characters in the locality.” And yet, when Lord Plunket evicts this man—whom he never gave permission to become a tenant_ and who is “ one of the worst characters in the locality ”_having been several times in the dock for inoculating the inhabitants of 13 the district with small-pox—the Morning News (Saturday, April 27, 1861) speaks of it as an “arbitrary proceeding.” Before I leave this case, I must say a few words in reference to the course pursued by Lord Plunket’s enemies in this matter. I do so, because I think I have seldom heard of anything more grossly discreditable than the whole proceeding. Mr. Lavelle having, in this arbitrary manner, placed his friend, Matthew Lally, upon one of Lord Plunket’s farms, Lord Plunket pursues the only course by which to get rid of the in¬ truder, and brings an ejectment against him, or rather against Mr. Lavelle, whose name had to be inserted in the ejectment, as the original purchaser of the farm. Mr. Lavelle then, for no conceivable purpose save to annoy Lord Plunket, or to expose him to insult, summons him as a witness in his behalf—an act which the Judge (a Homan Catholic) justly calls “ an extremely wanton proceeding.” But this is not all. An attempt is made, on the part of Mr. Lavelle’s counsel, to browbeat and expose to ridicule Lord Plunket, his own witness. This, however, fails; and Lord Plunket gives his evidence in so clear and satisfactory a manner, as to vindicate himself in the eyes of all present from the calumnies which had been brought against him. Even the mob in the court, who came probably to hoot, seem to be satis¬ fied, and maintain the utmost decorum. And yet, notwithstand¬ ing all this, about a week afterwards there appears in the Morn¬ ing News, from a correspondent, a report of the trial, in which the whole proceedings are so misrepresented, as to exhibit Lord Plunket in the most odious light—as having been guilty of such heartlessness, equivocation, and falsehood, as to have caused the utmost indignation in those who had heard his evidence ; and this report, having been copied into some of the leading English papers, becomes the foundation of the most bitter attacks, not only from Boman Catholic, but from Protestant journals. It was in reference to this fabricated report, that Lord Plunket felt it necessary to address the following letter to the Editor of the Star and Dial :— “ Sir,— ** My attention has been drawn to a paragraph, which has been copied into your paper of the 4th inst., from the columns of the Dublin Morning News, and which professes to be a true report of evidence given by me on oath at the Ballinrobe Quarter Sessions, of Friday, the 28th of 14 December, 1860, before Sir Colman O’Loghlen, the Chairman of the County of Mayo. “ As that report is a grossly unfair and distorted account of the examina¬ tion which then took place, containing questions on the part of the examining counsel which were never asked—answers upon my part which were never given—and expressions of feeling upon the part of those present which were never exhibited—and as this false report has been made the basis of several violent articles, upon the part of the English press, calculated to injure my character as a landlord and a Christian, I request that you will, as an act of justice, insert in your next publication this letter, together with the accom¬ panying true report of the above-mentioned examination, which appeared in the Mayo Constitution of the 1st inst.., furnished to that paper by its own shorthand reporter (the only one present in court at the time), and the literal accuracy of which that reporter is prepared to substantiate on oath. “ I also request that you will append to this report the judgment delivered in this case by Sir Colman O’Loghlen—an upright Roman Catholic gentle¬ man—and which was omitted in the report furnished by the correspondent of the Morning News. “ I should not have deemed it necessary to notice this fresh attempt to injure my character before the public, were it not that similarly distorted and mutilated reports of what had been done and said in open court have been already more than once referred to for the purpose of misrepresenting my motives and conduct. I think it, therefore, right, once for all, to give the readers of such reports an opportunity of testing the credibility of what may appear to them such reliable sources of information. “ I remain, Sir, Your obedient servant, “ Plunket. “The Palace, Tuam, Jan. 17.” In confirmation of the above statement, as to the false report contained in the Morning News , I may as well subjoin the fol¬ lowing letters, which Lord Plunket received from two of the Magistrates who had sat upon the bench upon the day when he was examined. The first is from Col. Knox, the High Sheriff of the County Mayo :— “ Ballinrobe, 22nd January, 1861. “My dear Lord Plunket,— “ I was present in court at Ballinrobe when you were examined, and I have no hesitation in saying that the report published in the Mayo Constitution is correct, and that you are justified in describing that of the Morning News as you have done. “ If, as I understand from your letter, you intend to publish the corrected account of the evidence, I should suggest whether it would not be well to add Sir C. O’Loghlen’s judgment, as delivered at Westport, to show his opinion of the proceedings on both sides. “ My dear Lord Plunket, “ Yours very sincerely, “ Charles Knox. “ The Lord Plunket.” 35 The second letter is from Courtney Kenny, Esq., J.P., who also sat upon the bench at the time :— “ Ballinrobe, January 2‘2, 1861. “My Lord,— "I have received your letter of the 19th inst., asking my opinion as to the correctness of the report which appeared in the Mayo Constitution and the Morning News, of the proceedings which took place at the Ballin¬ robe Quarter Sessions, when your Lordship was examined as a witness in the ejectment case against Priest Lavelle and others. Having attended on the Ballinrobe bench, at all the cases connected with your Lordship’s property at Partry, including the attempt on the life of the Rev. Mr. Townsend, and the murder of your Scotch steward, I was particularly attentive when you were being examined, and I feel no hesitation in stating that I considered the report which appeared in the Mayo Constitution a true and correct account of the evidence before the Barrister. “ I afterwards saw, in the Morning News and other papers, the report to which your Lordship alludes, and I was struck by the very erroneous and one-sided version which it gave of the whole proceeding. Many gross mis¬ representations occur in the report of your Lordship's evidence, as well as in the questions put to you by the examining solicitor ; and repeated allusions are made to “fearful sensation,” &c., having been manifested in the court, for which there was no foundation whatever, as the people present conducted themselves throughout the trial with the utmost propriety. In short, the report, from beginning to end, is calculated to give an utterly false impres¬ sion of the proceedings which took place, and I am very glad you have taken the trouble to contradict such audacious garbled statements. “ I have the honour to remain, “ Faithfully yours, “Courtney Kenny.” I shall make no further comments upon this matter, but shall proceed at once to the second case of eviction which has occurred in Partry, since the November evictions of last year. 2. John Prendergast _This case of eviction Mr. Lavelle has just described in the Morning News of Thursday, May 2, 1861, as “ a fresh cause of eviction on the part of the Right Rev. Lord Bishop Plunket, surpassing in 4 hideousness * anything of the kind on the part of his Lordship during the last six years.” AVhat, then, are the facts of this case ? I would draw your particular attention to them, for they show plainly, I think, the results to which these appeals, ad misericordiam, in behalf of the evicted, must in the end lead. Eviction will soon be sought for as a desirable investment. The tenant will only have to compel his landlord to resort to eviction, and he will become at once a martyr, entitled not only to commiseration but remuneration. 16 It is now about two years ago since Lord Plunket resolved to remove Prendergast and his family from the estate, in conse¬ quence of the part which his son had taken in the illegal pro¬ ceeding of removing the stones of Miss Plunket’s house, already referred to in the case of a former tenant. At another time such an offence might have been passed over ; but when, as has been already remarked, a growing spirit of insubordination was begin¬ ning to exhibit itself, Lord Plunket thought it right to make an example of those who, in so glaring an instance as this, thought right to set their landlord at defiance. Prendergast, therefore, was included among those whom Lord Plunket resolved to evict. In common with the others he took defence, put Lord Plunket to great expense, and vexatiously summoned him and his daughters to appear as witnesses at Cas¬ tlebar. When upon that occasion the tenants yielded an uncon¬ ditional submission, Prendergast and twelve other tenants were given notice that they would be evicted in November. They were thus, as I have already shown, given six months to prepare for their departure, and yet when November came, instead of yielding peaceable possession, they compelled Lord Plunket to resort to forcible eviction. It was upon this occasion that, just as Prendergast was about to be evicted, he was permitted by Lord Plunket, at the request of a friend, to remain upon the estate, on the condition that when a farm should be provided for him upon another part of the property, he should leave his present holding. To this arrangement he then agreed gladly and gratefully. Since that time, however, it would seem that other influences have been brought to bear upon him. Whether it was that he was promised a better farm, or whether it was that he saw those who had been evicted provided for comfortably elsewhere— whatever may have been the reason, when the time for moving to the new holding arrived, he refused sturdily to go—he asserted “ that he would not accept the best farm on Lord Plunket’s property”—that the Sheriff must come and put him out by force—in fact, he seemed to say, “ I will be evicted, and nobody shall help meand, finally, when the Sheriff did come, he mal¬ treated him outrageously in the execution of his duty. And yet the case of this man, who was thus offered a good farm by Lord Plunket, and who chose to be evicted rather than accept it, is 17 now held up as a case of harrowing misery. Policemen are represented as weeping at the sight of his eviction ; his landlord, Lord Plunket, is held up to execration; and, finally, it is im¬ plied that unless funds are received for the purpose of providing for this destitute man, 44 he and his family will be only additional items in the pauper computation of our unhappy country/’ And if this be the case, which, I would ask, is the most to blame—the landlord who offered him a farm, and who was refused, or the person, whoever he may be, who induced him to refuse that offer ? In the letter which has appeared from Mr. Lavelle in reference to this subject, it was stated that Prendergast was taken by sur¬ prise when required to leave his present holding, and the fact that he was offered a holding elsewhere is entirely ignored. Hearing that such a misrepresentation was in circulation, Lord Plunket wrote to Mr. Henry, who, within the last few months, has become the agent of the Towrmakeady Estate, and received in return the following answer : — “ Toghermore, Tuam, 7th May, 1861. “ Dear Lord Plunket,— “ The circumstances connected with the eviction of John Prendergast are as follows :—Immediately on being appointed Agent to your Lordship s Mayo Estate, and before I had ever been upon the pro¬ perty, or had any acquaintance with the tenantry, I was furnished with a list of the vacant holdings, with suggestions as to whom they were to be let. “ It was proposed to give John Prendergast a farm on Gortnacullen, the tovvnland I was then striping. I accordingly sent several times to Prender¬ gast, and offered him a holding on Gortnacullen, but he would not take it. lie was told over and over again that he could not be left where he was. I offered him the fee I should give the Sheriff, if he would leave the land without bringing him out to execute the decree. His answer was, that he would not leave till the Sheriff came and forced him out. As Spring was approaching, and I could not, in justice to the tenants on Gortnacullen, delay any longer the arrangement of the land, so as to enable them to proceed with their Spring work, I sent the Surveyor (a perfect stranger in that country) to Prendergast, to ascertain from him what his objection was to the holding offered to him. His answer was, that he would not take the best holding on your Lordship’s estate. That Prendergast was taken by surprise by the Sheriff coming to execute the decree, or that he had the slightest grounds for supposing he would be left in his present holding, is simply untrue. Whether the acceptance of the farm in Gortnacullen, or the quiet surrender of his original holding, would have disentitled him to com¬ miseration from the public, or some material consideration from Mr. Lavelle, is another question. As to Lally, he had abandoned his house, and it must have been for the purpose of producing commiseration that he refused to B 18 give up till the Sheriff came. He also was offered the fee usually given to the Sheriff if he would surrender quietly. “ I remain, my Lord, “Very truly yours, “ Robert Henry.” I have now given you in detail the several causes which led to the twelve evictions which took place in November, and the two evictions which have since occurred. A short summary will show you how fully Lord Plunket’s letter to Lord Cowley is corroborated by what I have said :— Tenants evicted in November , I860. 1. Martin Lally. The father “burned” his land, con-' trary to law and the rules of the estate. One son returned by coroner’s jury as accessory to the mur¬ der of Lord Plunket’s ploughman ; a second con¬ victed of “ brutal assault.” 2. Edward Joyce. Tried for perjury. Eleven jurors for his conviction. ) 3. James Henaghan. Charged with “ assault,” and pleaded guilty. 4. Patrick Murray. The son convicted and imprisoned for “ brutal assault.” 5. Michael Cavanagh. His son-in-law, engaged in riotous assault. The father-in-law offered holding elsewhere^ “ Tenants who had been directly or indirectly con¬ cerned in serious violations of the law of the land.” —Lord Plunket's Letter. 6. John Boyle. “ Burned” his land, took defence, and' vexatiously summoned Lord Plunket to appear as witness. 7. Patrick Lally. Do. 8. Mary Lally. Do. 9. Thomas Lally. Do. 10. Michael Henaghan. Do. “ Tenants who had acted in per¬ severing and liti- [ gious opposition to the rules of the estate.” — Lord Plunket's Letter. 11. Sally Lally. Squatter. 12. Margaret Duffy. Do. r “ Others were not tenants, but had located them¬ selves upon the property without permission.”— Lord Plunket's .Letter. Tenants evicted since November , 1860. 13. Martin Lally _Located upon the property by the Priest, without any permission from the landlord. Had been several times in the dock for inoculating with the small¬ pox. 19 14. John Prendergast _His son had assisted the Priest in the illegal removal of the stones of a house belonging to Miss Plunket. The father offered a good farm by Lord Plunket; but chose rather to be evicted from the estate. In connexion with the foregoing list, I would draw your atten¬ tion to the fact, that in two of t he cases in which the blame was attributable rather to some member of the family than to the ) tenant himself—I mean the case of (5) Michael Cavanagh, and (14) J ohn Prenderg ast—farms were offered t o the ten ants, and refused . Mr. Lavelle has attempted to picture these cases in heartrending terms —Cavanagh is evicted, because he has “his daughter living with him Prendergast , because his son “ lent i the Priest his cart.” Now, if a turbulent son-in-law takes up his abode in a tenant’s house, and will not quit it ; or, if a son will take part in illegal and outrageous acts—the landlord cannot be blamed who, as the only method of removing such characters from his estate, is obliged to evict the whole family. But if, when so doing, he offers a holding elsewhere to the father or father-in-law, and if that offer is sturdily refused, and t he tenants choose to be turn ed o_ff the property—then it is somewhat hard to sympathise with th e man wh o has thus mad e eviction his choice. He, doubtless, has been well-advised in such a step ; and if he suffers, it is his adviser, and not his landlord, that he must thank, and that the public ought to blame. Having now detailed in full the real circumstances which com¬ pelled Lord Plunket to resort to eviction in the above-mentioned cases, I shall conclude this letter by commenting as briefly as pos¬ sible upon some of those “ specious misrepresentations ” which Lord Plunket, in his letter to Lord Cowley, refers to as having been so “industriously circulated in reference to this matter.” It has been again and again asserted by certain parties, who profess to base their assertion upon indubitable facts and docu¬ ments, that Lord Plunket has evicted these tenants because of a refusal on their parts to send their children to a Scriptural school. Upon the other hand, Lord Plunket states in his letter, after enumerating the real causes which made eviction necessary —“ Such were my only reasons for evicting them (the tenants 20 evicted in November last) ; and to say that I evicted them, or that I ever evicted any tenants, for refusing to send their chil¬ dren to a Protestant school, is to assert that which is absolutely untrue.” As Lord Plunket cannot be mistaken as to his own motives, the only resource left to his assailants, after such a de¬ claration on his part, is to accuse him of deliberate falsehood. Such a charge has been therefore brought, and has been defended by a number of alleged facts and specious arguments. These facts and arguments I shall now proceed to examine. However undeserving of notice in themselves, they have been welcomed by persons who have found it their interest to convert them into a party-cry, and have thus been plausibly forced upon the notice of strangers, who have not the opportunity of testing their accuracy. I shall, therefore, put before you, as briefly but as fairly as I can, the statements and the counterstatements which have been made in reference to this matter, and then leave it to you, or any person who may read this letter, to decide whether Lord Plunket has indeed been guilty of this deliberate duplicity; or whether, on the other hand, he has been made—for purposes best known to his assailants—the object of an untiring, crafty, and malignant persecution. So far as I can ascertain, the grounds upon which Lord Plun¬ ket has been accused of wilful deceit in this matter are twofold. First, he is accused of having contradicted himself; secondly, of having been contradicted by the testimony of others. In the first place, then, it has been asserted that Lord Plunket, or those authorized by him, have again and again contradicted themselves, by assigning contrary reasons for the evictions which have taken place during the last year. The manner in which it is attempted to support this charge is so very characteristic, that I feel it right to notice it. Four different proceedings, upon Lord Plunket’s part, are craftily confounded together, and spoken of as the one act of eviction ; and then the separate reasons assigned for each of these four proceedings are assumed to have had reference to that one act; and having been shown to be contradictory, Lord Plunket is, of course, at once convicted of equivocation and falsehood. As this method of calumniating a fellow-man is a good sample of its kind, I do not think it will be time lost if I expose its craf- 21 tiness; and in order to do so, I must ask you to bear with me while I review, as briefly as possible, the four separate proceed¬ ings, upon Lord Plunket’s part, to which I have already referred. I shall then quote in detail the charge of self-contradiction which has been brought against him, and leave it to you and others to decide as to its worth. 1. Demand of Possession , November , 1860. In November, 1858, Lord Plunket’s agent “ demanded pos¬ session” from certain of his tenants dwelling in the townland of Gortnacullen. These tenants were at the time crowded together in one village, and their several plots of land were inextricably mingled together in the surrounding district—some of them neces¬ sarily at a most inconvenient distance from the houses of those to whom they belonged. Lord Plunket’s object was to do that Avhich, though not generally desired by the tenants themselves at the time, is admitted by all parties as tending to their ultimate benefit—namely, to stripe the land into distinct holdings, and to place each tenant’s house upon his respective farm. In making this change, he intended to remove two of the tenants to another part of the estate, and to place others in their stead; but it was not his intention to evict any single tenant from the property. His object was chiefly and solely the striping of their land. When, however, the Agent demanded possession for this pur¬ pose, the Priest of the parish, the Rev. Mr. Lavelle, most un¬ warrantably interfered, and used his influence with the tenants to such an extent, that they refused to give the required pos¬ session.* * Mr. Lavelle states that he did so from a belief, that possession was de¬ manded for purposes of eviction, in consequence of these tenants having refused so send their children to Lord Plunket’s school. It is very possible that, at this time, Mr. Lavelle may have laboured under such an impression. He may have heard and given credit to the false reports of previous evictions, out of which his predecessor, the Rev. Mr. Ward, had made such excellent capital. The tenants themselves being, as I have said, averse to the pro¬ posed division of their land, may have thought it well to misrepresent, as a threat of eviction, the anxiety expressed by the Bishop’s daughters for the education of the children at the Scriptural Schools. Mr. Lavelle may, there¬ fore, at this time, have laboured under the delusion, that possession was demanded for purposes of eviction. He himself knows best. But whether 22 The result of this refusal was, that Lord Plunket’s efforts for the improvement of his estate were arrested for at least a year ; indeed, so great has been the delay and difficulty consequent upon this proceeding, that it is only within the last few months that the townland of Gortnacullen has been finally partitioned or “ striped.” Coincident with this refusal to give possession to the land¬ lord’s Agent, a general spirit of insubordination began to show itself among the tenantry ; and it soon became very evident that the people were beginning to regard their priest as their guide and master, not only in spiritual matters, when he had a right to advise, but also in temporal matters, when he had no right to interfere. Under these circumstances, Lord Plunket felt it necessary to take some step for the purpose of meeting the emergency, and finally resolved to adopt a course which several landlords, under similar circumstances, have thought it wise to follow. 2. Issue of the rule respecting a general ary. “ Lally’s wife was not pulled by the hair of her head, nor did the police assist in Lally'a removal, or fling him on the earth, or pre-s him with their knees while on the ground: as their duty was confined to preventing Lally forcing an entiance into his house after his eviction. “ Your obedient Servant, “ George Acton.” 44 Lord Plunket to act as he did. No. The act of eviction was, in this case, a painful but unavoidable necessity, resulting from a state of lawlessness and insecurity which an Englishman can scarcely understand. “ If the turbulent ones are not removed,” the more peaceable tenants used to say—“ if Lord Plunket does not show himself firm, we may as well pack up and be off from this.” And was Lord Plunket, under these circumstances, merely because he was a bishop, to take no steps for the preser¬ vation of order and the protection of the innocent ? Was not his position rather the very reason for his not neglecting his duty at such a crisis ? Doubtless. the law, were it all-powerful, might have been looked to, to check and quiet this scene of disorder. But those who know the difficulty of detecting or convicting crime in Ireland, will understand how much easier it is to suffer from the turbulence of the unruly, than to bring them under the restraints of the law ; and in the meantime is the landlord, who knows the offenders, and the evils resulting from their conduct and example, to keep them upon his estate ? Doubtless, as in all such cases, there are some innocent members of a family who must suffer for the crime of the offending one ; but what is to be done in such a case ? This is the difficulty which those who are not actually themselves subjected to such exigencies, ought, in fairness, to bear in mind, before they hastily condemn a fellow-man ; and this is what the writer of the article in The Times ought to have remembered before he held up Lord Plunket to such unmerited censure. As to the apparent hardship of these evictions having taken place in November, I need say nothing, as Lord Plunket himself, in his letter, satisfactorily shows that in this respect he has been most unjustly blamed for that which was, in reality, the result of an act of leniency upon his part. Perhaps you will think that I have dwelt at too great a length upon tnis aspect of the case ; but I have done so, because I think that the view of the question which I have endeavoured to meet is one, possibly, very general among those in England who have only perhaps heard of this matter in the columns of The Times , and have probably, in consequence, judged of it from the stric¬ tures which have there appeared. As to those who have taken up this matter as partisans, I have 45 very little hope that any explanations will have much weight with them. In speaking of this class of persons, I do not desire, by any means, to include the great majority of our Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen. I was very glad, indeed, to see in the Morning News of February 21, 1861, an admission made by the Rev. Mr. Lavelle (I should think in a hasty and unguarded moment), to the effect, that the Freeman!s Journal , the organ of the more respectable and intelligent Roman Catholics of this country, had refused to insert his last letters even as advertise¬ ments,* nor have they, since that time, found admission into that paper. When, therefore, I speak of partisans, I mean those who do not shrink from hurting the character of a fellow-man, if it advance their party, or furnish them with the means of keeping up the flame of religious or political agitation. To these parties, the opportunities afforded by the Partry evictions is too precious to be lost. In one man they find combined the three objects of their enmity—the Established Church , of which he is a dignitary ; the race of Saxon landlords , of which, unfortunately, he has been compelled to be a prominent member ; the cause of Irish Church Missions to Roman Catholics, which he has thought it his duty to aid by his sanction and co-operation, and which, in his diocese, has been peculiarly successful. All these objects of their dislike they find concentrated in one man—even Lord Plunket. It is not, therefore, astonishing that this section—and I am happy to say it is but a section, and a small one—should join in exclaiming, “ Away with such a fellow from the earth !” or rather, let him remain, and let us make as much agitation and party gain out of him as we can. You may think this strong language; but I believe it to be more than deserved by those who have joined in the system of malicious persecution of which I have been speaking. We must only hope that Lord Plunket may yet live down * “ The fact is, the Freeman's Journal, a paper once owned and edited by Mr. Lavelle, my uncle, has declined inserting a single line of my four letters to your Lordship—nay, I offered to put the two last in as advertisements , and even as such they were refused insertion.”—Letter entitled a “ Chapter on Double-Dealing,” addressed to their Lordships, the [Roman Catholic] Arch¬ bishops and Bishops of Ireland. 46 these slanders, and that in spite of all attempts at agitation, his property may not again be revisited by lawlessness or crime, or the necessity arise for my writing to you again for the purpose of giving you information as to the causes of the evictions of Partry. Believe me, dear Mr. Lefroy, Yours very sincerely, WILLIAM C. PLUNKET.