avour, and
in some degree calmed their feelings. The excitement was past. Mr.
Shirley had not been there, and the people at last quietly dispersed.

'In the evening I was conveyed in a covered carriage to
Carrickmacross, blackened with bruises, stiff and sore, and scarcely
able to stand--musing over the strange transactions which had happened
that day--and wrapped in a countryman's frieze coat which had been
borrowed to cover _my nakedness_.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Realities of Irish Life, chap. v.]

When the reader recovers his breath after this. I will ask him to turn
to the history of this transaction--bad enough in itself--and see
what fancy and art can do in dressing up a skeleton so that it becomes
'beautiful for ever.' Mr. Trench himself shall be the historian,
writing to the authorities when the occurrences were all fresh in his
mind. The narrative was handed in to the Devon commissioners as his
_sworn evidence_:

'_William Steuart Trench, esq., agent._

'Have there been any agrarian outrages, and in what have they
originated?--There have been none, except _during a late short period
of peculiar local excitement_.

'Will you state the particulars of that excitement, and what then
occurred?--I think my best mode of doing so will be by handing in
the copy of a letter which I addressed to a local magistrate for
the information of government.--[_The witness read the following
letter_:--]

'Dear Sir--In reply to your communication, enclosing a letter from Mr.
Lucas, requesting that I should give a statement of the particulars
which occurred to me in Carrickmacross, on Monday last, I beg leave to
lay before you the facts, as follows:--

'Mr. Shirley has recently appointed me to the agency over his Monaghan
estate. We both arrived here on Thursday, the 30th of March, and on
the following morning we went together into the office; and having
remained there about an hour, we were much surprised, on our return,
to find an immense mass of people outside the door, who immediately
presented a petition to Mr. Shirley, requesting a reduction of rent.

'Mr. Shirley declined giving an immediate answer to such an unexpected
request; but having read the petition, he told them he would give an
answer to it on the Monday following. By Saturday, however, he had
arrived at a full conclusion upon the point, and, anxious to avoid any
unpleasant altercation with his tenants, he thought it advisable to
let his determination be known