It is impossible to say with what feelings the main party encircling the house at a little distance beheld the consummation of the purposes of the night. The majority of them certainly felt horror, while others, in whose mind a blind hatred of Lynch was predominant, felt mingled sensations of horror and exultation; and the conjoined feelings expended themselves in cries, that were re-echoed by the groans of the victims. The terrified peasantry of the neighbourhood who had not joined the associated throng, started from their pillows, and gazed towards the ascending flames of Wild-Goose Lodge with fear and shrinking; for they too well
[Illustration: _Burglars attempting to roast Mr. Porter._
knew the feelings of the district to regard it as a common accident, which it would have been their duty and their pleasure to have aided in suppressing and relieving. Until all sounds of life, therefore, were extinct within the burning house, the authors of the deed looked on undisturbed. When all was over, they skulked away, each to his own home.
The winds of autumn and the storms of winter had swept the ashes of Wild-Goose Lodge over the fields which Lynch had cultivated, ere any one of the actors in this atrocious crime was brought to justice. But the presence of some of the less guilty of them having been discovered, and brought home beyond a doubt, these, in order to save themselves, made a revelation of all they knew and had seen. Anticipating this, the ringleaders fled to various parts of the country; but the arm of the offended law overtook them. Devann was found in the situation of a labourer in the dockyards of Dublin, and others were taken at different times and places. Eleven were executed; and to mark the atrocity of their crime, their bodies were hung in chains at Louth and other spots in the neighbourhood of Wild-Goose Lodge. Devann was executed within the roofless walls of the house in which his victims were immolated, and his body was afterwards suspended beside those of his associates.
The date of his trial was the 19th of July 1817, and he was executed immediately afterwards.
JEREMIAH BRANDRETH, WILLIAM TURNER, AND ISAAC LUDLAM.
IN an introductory paragraph to our account of the Spafields' riot we took occasion to mention the most prominent causes of public discontent; and though these had partially disappeared in 1817, still the impulse given to disaffection continued to operate for a considerable time, being protracted by the injudicious resort of Government to the system of spies and informers, who no doubt fanned that flame of disloyalty which had nearly caused a traitorous explosion in the county of Derby, more formidable and appalling than that for which Brandreth and his ill-fated companions suffered.
