theme of Jacobite pamphleteers, and was the subject of a serious
parliamentary inquiry at Westminster. Six musketeers were found
butchered only a few miles from Dublin. The inhabitants of the
village where the crime had been committed, men, women, and
children, were driven like sheep into the Castle, where the Privy
Council was sitting. The heart of one of the assassins, named
Gafney, failed him. He consented to be a witness, was examined by
the Board, acknowledged his guilt, and named some of his
accomplices. He was then removed in custody; but a priest
obtained access to him during a few minutes. What passed during
those few minutes appeared when he was a second time brought
before the Council. He had the effrontery to deny that he had
owned any thing or accused any body. His hearers, several of whom
had taken down his confession in writing, were enraged at his
impudence. The Lords justices broke out; "You are a rogue; You
are a villain; You shall be hanged; Where is the Provost Marshal?"
The Provost Marshal came. "Take that man," said Coningsby,
pointing to Gafney; "take that man, and hang him." There was no
gallows ready; but the carriage of a gun served the purpose; and
the prisoner was instantly tied up without a trial, without even
a written order for the execution; and this though the courts of
law were sitting at the distance of only a few hundred yards. The
English House of Commons, some years later, after a long
discussion, resolved, without a division, that the order for the
execution of Gafney was arbitrary and illegal, but that
Coningsby's fault was so much extenuated by the circumstances in
which he was placed that it was not a proper subject for
impeachment.73

It was not only by the implacable hostility of the Irish that the