•^7^ OF THE LATE DISTURBANCES THERE.
n There may appear to your Lordship a great disparity in some cases between the number of committals and the number of convictions; and persons unac-quainled with the internal state of this country, may infer that committals too frequently take place without sufficient evidence of guilt against the parties apprehended.
No such conclusions, however, (I mean so far as relates to the general practice of the Magistracy to commit suspected persons on slight ancl insufficient ground,) ought to be drawn.
The frequent instances which have come to my knowledge, wherein prosecutors and witnesses have been iwtimi-dated by the menaces of the friends of the parties deposed against; the experience I have had of the danger lo which they, and even their relations, are exposed ; of the necessity which'in almost every case occurs, that they should quit the'place of their birth and residence; of the odium which univei sally attaches to the name of an informer; compel me to consider the disproportion 'between the number of committals and convictions in many districts, rather as a proof of the disordered stale of society, and of the impediments in the way'of the administration of justice, than as a proof of undue precipitancy on the part of the Magistracy, in committing on the suspicion of criminality.
1 may be allowed here to add, that the danger attendant on the giving of information or evidence was so notorious, and so"much impeded the conviction of the guilty at no remote period, that the Legislature found it necessary, with the view of dcterrin" from the murder of witnesses, and of preventing the impunity ol the parties against whom those witnesses had deposed, to enact, That if any person having <nven information upon oath of any offence against the Laws, should be murdered, or forcibly carried away before the trial of the person deposed a<ninst such'information on oath should be admitted as evidence on the trial.
It has been necessary in the disturbed Counties (in most instances of persons having given information on oath, or intending to give evidence upon trial) on account of the serious danger to which such persons are exposed, to remove them to places of security previous to the trials, and ultimately to provide for their removal from their usual -abodes.
In many cases the witnesses for the Crown have at their own request, been kept a considerable period previously to their'al'ln the gaol of the County, as affording them the best means ot protection • in other cases they have been protected in barracks, or brought to Dublin, where however, occasionally, they have not been safe from the hostility
.
of the friends of the parties apprehended.
'I have not thought it necessary to mention the numerous applications which have been and continue to be made, for military assistance in aid of the civil '-Bower by Magistrates and others.
I never recommend the Commander of the Forces to accede to those applications, without the strongest evidence of their necessity; and in almost every case, the military officer in command of "the district from w hich the requisition proceeds,^ directed to inquire personally Into the -rounds on which it is made.
I ought not, however, to omit to mention fhafa very considerable military force » employed m giving assistance re officers of revenue in the suppression of Illicit Distillation, which prevails to a extent in several of the northern and western Counties of his kingdom -to a &'^"\ , .J,
f the House of Commons, made in the month qf time cmploved on this service, which I have annexed to this Dispatch and A^», Xh wSTve full information, with respect to the number of men employed, the deTachSs into which they are divided, and the stations at which they are p ace .
^ ^ ^ ^,^ ^^ and regard,
My Lord, Your Lordship's most obedient humble Servant,
*
(Signed) WHITWORTH.
'
The Viscount Sidmoutb, &c &c.
&c
