That said Connor O’Donovan, having seduced the affections of a young woman named Una O’Brien, daughter of a man called Michael O’Brien, otherwise Bodagh Buie, or the Yellow Churl, demanded her in marriage from her father and family, who unanimously rejected his pretensions.  Upon which, instigated by the example and practice of the dark combination of which he was so distinguished a leader, he persuaded memorialist, partly by entreaties, but principally by awful and mysterious threats, to join him in the commission of this most atrocious crime.  That, from the moment he had been forced into the participation of such an act, his conscience could not permit him to rest night or day; and he consequently came forward boldly and fearlessly, and did what he considered his duty to God and his country.

That, in consequence of this conscientious act, O’Donovan, the Ribbon ringleader, was capitally convicted; but through the interest of some leading gentlemen of the parish, who were ignorant of his habits and connections, the sentence was, by the mercy of government, commuted to transportation for life.

That, upon his banishment from the country, the girl whose affections he had seduced, became deranged for some time; but, after her recovery, expressed, on many occasions, the most bitter determinations to revenge upon petitioner the banishment of her lover; and that the principal evidence upon which petitioner was convicted, was hers * and that of a girl named Bridget Kulty, formerly a servant in his father’s house, and known to have been his paramour.

     * This was a falsehood, inasmuch as Una, having been
     concealed in another room, could give, and did give, no
     evidence that any way affected his life.

That this girl, Bridget Nulty, was taken into O’Brien’s family at the suggestion of his daughter Una; and that, from motives of personal hatred, she and Bridget Nulty, aided by another female servant of O’Brien’s named Kitty Lowry, formed the conspiracy of which petitioner is unhappily the victim.

It then proceeded to detail how the conspiracy of Una O’Brien and the two females she had taken in as accomplices, was carried into effect; all of which was done with singular tact and ingenuity; every circumstance being made to bear a character and design diametrically opposed to truth.  It concluded by stating that great exultation had been manifested by the Ribbonmen of that parish, who, on the night of petitioner’s conviction, lit bonfires in several parts of the neighborhood, fired shots, sounded horns, and displayed other symptoms of great rejoicing; and hoped his excellency would, therefore, interpose his high prerogative, and prevent petitioner from falling a sacrifice to a conspiracy on one hand, and the resentment of a traitorous confederacy on the other; and all this only for having conscientiously and firmly served the government of the country.