O'Connor's abettors, kept his hold, till the officers made their way through the press, and secured him.

Mr. Fergusson, a barrister, and one of O'Connor's personal friends, was accused of having joined in the attempt to favour his escape, and was tried for this offence along with Lord Thanet, at the Court of King's Bench, in May of the following year; both were found guilty. Lord Thanet was sentenced to pay 1000l. fine, and to be imprisoned in the Tower for a year. Mr. Fergusson to pay 500l., and to be imprisoned for a year in the King's Bench Prison.

The trial was a long one, and excited the greatest interest, both Lord Thanet and Mr. Fergusson having many political and personal friends, who came forward on the occasion. The evidence was, as might be expected, full of difficulty and contradiction; for among other causes of confusion at the Maidstone trials, it appeared that darkness was just coming on, at the time the jury gave in their verdict, and the lights being only partly lit, the view, of what really took place, was very indistinct. So alarmed and bewildered was one of the inferior law officers of the Court, that he leaped on the table, and catching up a sabre which lay there (it had been taken from O'Connor at Margate, and was placed on the table as connected with the evidence), began to flourish it over his head, and to make sweeping cuts in all directions, to the great alarm of the barristers, and even of the judges themselves, till some one caught his arm and wrested it from his grasp.

It may he well to give a short narrative of the

events which led to the trials at Maidstone in the first instance.

Mr. O'Connor, the manager or editor of a violent political paper (the 'Press') in Dublin, Allen, Leary, Binns, and O'Coigley, having been entrusted by the United Irishmen with a mission to the French Directory in March, 1798, were arrested by two Bow-street runners at Margate, where they had offered a fisherman 150/, and 300/. in the event of the French detaining the vessel, to convey them to a French port.

It seems that, in order to evade any search at the London Custom-house, they had left London by a hoy plying to Whitstable, where they hired a cart for their luggage, walked across to Margate, and put up at the King's Head inn, where Allen called himself Colonel Morris, and the others passed for his domestics; but a suspicion arose, from the unusual manner and proceedings of the strangers, and Fugion and Revett, two Bow-street runners, who had been some time on O'Connor's track, having obtained the assistance of four Dragoons from Canterbury, arrested them and secured their baggage. O'Coigley having heedlessly thrown his great coat over a chair while at breakfast, the sharp eye of the Bowstreet runner caught sight of a paper protruding from the pocket, which proved to be an Address from the Secret Committee in Ireland to the French Directory.

Among their baggage were swords and pistols, and two uniforms (one of which fitted O'Connor), with 1000/. in gold; a dagger was also found on O'Coigley. An escort was procured from the troops quartered at Canter

bury, and the travellers were all brought to London, and lodged in the Tower in separate prisons, with sentries posted at their doors.

On May 21st they were tried at Maidstone by Judge Buller, when O'Coigley was found guilty, but the others acquitted. O'Coigley was sentenced to be hanged as a traitor at Pennenden Heath, on June 8th. He behaved at his execution, with much resolution and coolness. Taking an orange and a knife from his pocket, he asked a gentleman to cut it for him, observing that he supposed they would not trust him with a knife, lest he should kill himself, but "I would not," he said "be so base as to deprive myself of the honour of dying in this manner." He was attended by a Catholic priest, and read aloud some prayers in Latin from a Catholic Prayer Book with much earnestness and solemnity.

It is remarkable that he was guarded from the prison to the Heath by 200 Maidstone Volunteers, which by recent discussions in Parliament would have appeared an illegal employment of that force. After hanging thirteen minutes he was cut down, and his head having been severed from his body with a large knife by a surgeon's mate, was held up by the executioner with the usual words, "This is the head of a traitor."

It is impossible, on perusal of the proceedings, to entertain a doubt that O'Coigley was an emissary from the Irish rebels to the French Directory, but it is not easy to discover why the jury found him alone guilty of high treason. It was proved that the other four who accompanied him, intended also to embark for France;

the quantity and weight of their baggage, and the arms they carried, showed plainly that they had no thought of stopping at Margate, and for what purpose did they make so liberal an offer to the fisherman, if their object had not been to cross the Channel? As to the Commission to the French Directory being actually in the pocket of O'Coigley, it is impossible to doubt that the party were not all cognizant of its existence, and actually on their way to Paris as a treasonable Deputation to the French Government.

THE CATO STREET CONSPIRATORS.

(MARCH, 1820.)

MONG the last State prisoners confined in the Tower were some of the desperate men, who had engaged in what is commonly known as the Cato Street Conspiracy. The leader was one Thistlewood, who had been in Paris at the time of Robespierre, and had probably there imbibed those revolutionary opinions which eventually led him to the gallows. He had served a short time as an officer of the militia, and afterwards in the army. After quitting the service he had made himself notorious in Watson's attempt at a riot in London, in the year 1818 (on which occasion he was brought to trial at the same time as Watson, but obtained an acquittal. On his release he sent a challenge to the Home Secretary, Lord Sidmouth, who placed the case in the hands of a magistrate, and he underwent a short imprisonment in consequence). On his release in 1819, he did not take part in the ordinary mobs and riots of that year, but, entertaining more determined views, he contrived to collect around him thirty or forty discontented followers, from the class of workmen and London idlers; and by his influence and popular