of the law which is due to your cruel life and flagitious crimes.  Were you a man without education, nurtured in ignorance, and the slave of its debasing consequences, some shade of compassion might be felt for you on that account.  But you cannot plead this; you cannot plead poverty, or that necessity which urges many a political adventurer to come out as a tyrant and oppressor upon his fellow-subjects, under the shield of the law, and in the corrupt expectation of reward or promotion.  You were not only independent in your own circumstances, but you possessed great wealth; and why you should shape yourself such an awful course of crime can only be attributed to a heart naturally fond of persecution and blood.  I cannot, any more than the learned Attorney-General, suffer the privileges of rank, wealth, or position to sway me from the firm dictates of justice.  You imagined that the law would connive at you—­and it did so too long, but, believe me, the sooner or later it will abandon the individual that has been provoking it, and, like a tiger when goaded beyond patience, will turn and tear its victim to pieces.  It remains for me now to pronounce the awful sentence of the law upon you; but before I do so, let me entreat you to turn your heart to that Being who will never refuse mercy to a repentant sinner; and I press this upon you the more because you need not entertain the slightest expectation of finding it in this world.  In order, therefore, that you may collect and compose your mind for the great event that is before you, I will allow you four days, in order that you may make a Christian use of your time, and prepare your spirit for a greater tribunal than this.  The sentence of the Court is that, on the fifth day after this, you be, etc., etc., etc.; and may God have mercy on your soul!”

At first there was a dead silence in the Court, and a portion of the audience was taken completely by surprise on hearing both the verdict’ and the sentence.  At length a deep, condensed murmur, which arose by degrees into a yell of execration, burst forth from his friends, whilst, on the other hand, a peal of cheers and acclamations rang so loudly through the court that they completely drowned the indignant vociferations of the others.  In the meantime silence was restored, and it was found that the convict had been removed during the confusion to one of the condemned cells.  What now were his friends to do?  Was it possible to take any steps by which he might yet be saved from such a disgraceful death?  Pressed as they were for time, they came to the conclusion that the only chance existing in his favor was for a deputation of as many of the leading Protestants of the county, as could be prevailed upon to join in the measure, to proceed to Dublin without delay.  Immediately, therefore, after the trial, a meeting of the baronet’s friends was held in the head inn of Sligo, where the matter was earnestly discussed.  Whitecraft had been a man of private and solitary enjoyments—­in social and domestic life, as cold, selfish, inhospitable, and repulsive as he was cruel and unscrupulous in his public career.