This piece of legislation, repugnant in itself to the dictates of reason
and justice, was intended as no idle threat; a victim was looked for to
suffer under its provisions, and William Orr, the champion of the
northern Presbyterian patriots, was doomed to serve the emergency.

He was arraigned, tried, and convicted at Carrickfergus on a charge of
having administered the United Irishman's oath to a soldier named
Wheatly. The whole history of the operations of the British law courts
in Ireland contains nothing more infamous than the record of that trial.
We now know, as a matter of fact, that the man who tendered the oath to
Wheatly was William M'Keever, a well-known member of the society, who
subsequently made his escape to America. But this was not a case, such
as sometimes happens, of circumstantial evidence pointing to a wrong
conclusion. The only evidence against Orr was the unsupported testimony
of the soldier Wheatly; and after hearing Curran's defence of the
prisoner there could be no possible doubt of his innocence. But Orr was
a doomed man--the government had decreed his death before hand; and in
this case, as in every other, the bloodthirsty agents of the crown did
not look in vain for Irishmen to co-operate with them in their infamy.

At six o'clock in the evening the jury retired to consider their
verdict. The scene that followed in the jury room is described in the
sworn affidavits of some of its participators. The jury were supplied
with supper by the crown officials; a liberal supply of intoxicating
beverages, wines, brandy, &c., being included in the refreshments. In
their sober state several of the jury-men--amongst them Alexander
Thompson, of Cushendall, the foreman--had refused to agree to a verdict
of guilty. It was otherwise, however, when the decanters had been
emptied, and when threats of violence were added to the bewildering
effects of the potations in which they indulged. Thompson was threatened