pecting a priest of that name, and realizing that suspicion, so far as the transportation of that clergyman sufficed to effect that object. The Sheares were represented as cowards in their deaths, as well as traitors; as having offered to make disclosures, dishonourable even to traitors, to save their lives. -Every lie that is likely to pass current with the public, must have a certain alloy of truth to give the colour of what it simulates, to its baseness.

With respect to John Sheares, the imputation is without the slightest foundation. In regard to the offer to make disclosures, which, it is insinuated, would compromise their associates, the superstructure falsehood is raised upon a speck of truth. An offer had been made by Henry (in his letter to Sir Jonah Barrington,) "to lie under any terms," if the government would remit his sentence. All the other state prisoners who entered into a compact with government, likewise agreed to make disclosures; they too, lay "under terms" which procured their liberation; but they betrayed none of their associates neither did Henry Sheares propose to betray his, and as for his brother, he made no proposal at all. Henry Sheares, indeed, little expected the fate which awaited him; he had not the least idea there was any thing in the evidence which could convict him. The verdict of guilty fell like a thunderbolt upon him. The thought of being torn from his dear wife and children, of leaving them fatherless, friendless and penniless, overwhelmed his feelings. He was greatly moved at the moment of conviction, and at that of execution, he was un

manned. In the opinion of Lord Clare, he was " a coward" it was cowardice, with that implacable person, for the doomed man to shudder at the prospect of an ignominious end, and the consequences of an attainder, at leaving a beloved wife in penury, and six helpless children without bread. He was not, indeed, a man of his brother's frame of mind. His proper sphere was the family circle, in which his chief delights were centred. His nature did not fit him for the strife of parties, to lead other men, "to ride upon the storm and direct the whirlwind" of revolution.

The bearing of John Sheares, from the time of his apprehension to the termination of his sufferings, was that of a man whose mind was made up to his fate, and prepared to meet it. There was no foolhardy bravado in his deportment, no unbecoming levity or obduracy of feeling, manifested or affected by him. He spoke of his approaching fate to the officials of the prison, with calmness and resignation; and that coolness of determination and firmness of purpose, of which his features were indicative, were manifested in his conduct to the last, and on the most terrible of all occasions.

If the reader ascribes this demeanour to a hardened disposition, he need only peruse his letters to his family, and contrast the fervid feelings of attachment to his "dear, dear, mother," to "his beloved Julia," to his "darling Sally,"-of anxiety about his "poor dear Harry," of anguish of mind, bordering on distraction, when his hopes for that brother's safety is gone, with the calm and unshaken mien with

which he met his fate. Those who were about him were no admirers of his political principles; but some of them, still surviving, admit that his bearing was that of a man who seemed worthy of a better fate.

Mr. Buchanan, the British consul at New York, informed me that he was present at the trial and execution of the brothers. Mr. Buchanan belonged to the Dublin Loyal Cavalry corps, and was then on duty in Green-street; and it is unnecessary to say the sympathies of the military gentlemen of that corps were not much on the side of the Sheares. But Buchanan was not insensible to the sufferings of his fellow-creatures, even while duty compelled him to assist in his military capacity, at the frightful scenes which marked the course of judicial vengeance in those times. On one occasion, Buchanan had the humanity to afford an asylum in his house to a man of the name of Dennison, who claimed his protection. The man's life was in jeopardy; and he was indebted to Buchanan for it. Toler became acquainted with the circumstance, and he pressed Buchanan to give him up to justice. But he refused to do so: to use the words of this worthy man to me, in relating the circumstances, "I said, 'I would keep him on the Arab principle;' and I did not break faith with the fellow. I had saved many before, and served others of them since." He had obtained leave for Sampson to visit Ireland; but it was given with some conditions which Sampson thought invidious, and he therefore did not avail himself of it; a former application had been made for him and refused.

At the trial, when John Sheares addressed the court on behalf of his brother, Mr. Buchanan was present. "His voice," he says, " was firm-his words. were pronounced with great clearness and distinctness-his language was eloquent and most pathetic." The impression it made on Mr. Buchanan's mind, was conveyed to me in these terms, "As long as I live, I never shall forget it!" He had been informed by Mr. T. Colley Grattan, that the brothers had been to his father's house the preceding evening, and their motions, previous to their apprehension, must have been watched, for Mr. Grattan's house was searched by the military, as he supposed, in consequence of their visit to it.

I have already adverted to Lord Carleton, the chief justice of the common pleas, who presided at the trial of the Sheares, being the townsman and one of the most intimate friends of their father. A very erroneous impression had gone abroad, at the period of their trial-that his lordship had been left the guardian of his friend's children, and this belief prevails to the present day. *

In the course of the many enquiries which it was necessary for me to make, respecting the subjects of this memoir, I have been frequently perplexed and surprised, at the many instances which came to my notice, of persons confounding their impressions of circumstances from the relation of others, with their actual knowledge of facts, of which they were personally cognizant themselves. These statements, indeed, required very close, and even laborious investigation. It was necessary to test them by every kind of documentary evidence that could be depended on, and was attainable. I can conscientiously state, I have spared no trouble to get information on these matters that could be relied on.

The error with regard to Lord Carleton, there is reason to believe, had much to do with the death of that excellent nobleman Lord Kilwarden, in 1803. The survivors of those who took a part in that conspiracy, attribute the murderous attack, in the first instance, to the diabolical malice of a ruffian, in the ranks of the insurgents, whose brother had been capitally convicted before Lord Kilwarden. When his lordship's carriage was stopped in Thomas-street, on that fatal evening, on being surrounded by the insurgents, he was recognized by the individual I have alluded to; the general impression was, that the equipage was that of the commander-in-chief. The name of the latter, it is said, reached his lordship's ears, and he thought, his own name (and well might he have thought so!) was one which the people had a right to respect for he cried out to his assailants, "Kilwarden, the chief justice!" At that moment he received the first pike-wound, from the hand of the ruffian who had recognized him. But the words "chief justice," were those only which were caught by the multitude, and they believed that the person who had fallen into their power, was Lord Carleton, the chief justice of the common pleas. The latter was particularly obnoxious to the people, on account of his supposed relation to the Sheares; and, notwithstanding his obligations to their father, as the supposed guardian of his children, having presided at their trial. This was, and still is, the opinion of persons yet living, who witnessed Lord Kilwarden's death, and all the injuries he received subsequent to the first wound, inflicted by the person who had recognized him, they