cy and the government--but all in vain. The
disturbances continued; and at last to such a height had they risen, that
the country was put under martial law; and even this was ultimately found
perfectly insufficient to repel what now daily threatened to become an
open rebellion rather than mere agrarian disturbance. It was at this
precise moment, when all resources seemed to be fast exhausting
themselves, that certain information reached the Castle, of the most
important nature. The individual who obtained and transmitted it, had
perilled his life in so doing--but the result was a great one--no less
than the capital conviction and execution of seven of the most
influential amongst the disaffected peasantry. Confidence was at once
shaken in the secrecy of their associates; distrust and suspicion
followed. Many of the boldest sunk beneath the fear of betrayal, and
themselves, became evidence for the crown; and in five months, a county
shaken with midnight meetings, and blazing with insurrectionary fires,
became almost the most tranquil in its province. It may well be
believed, that he who rendered this important service on this trying
emergency, could not be passed over, and the name of J. Larkins soon
after appeared in the Gazette as one of his Majesty's justices of the
peace for the county; pretty much in the same spirit in which a country
gentleman converts the greatest poacher in his neighbourhood by making
him, his gamekeeper.

In person he was a large and powerfully built man, considerably above six
feet in height, and possessing great activity, combined with powers of
enduring fatigue almost incredible. With an eye like a hawk, and a heart
that never knew fear, he was the person, of all others, calculated to
strike terror into the minds of the country people. The reckless daring
with which he threw himself into danger--the almost impetuous quickness
with which he followed up a scent, whenever information reached him of an
important character--had their full effect upon a people who, long
accustomed to the slowness and the uncertainty of the law were almost
paralyzed at beholding detection and punishment follow on crime, as
certainly as the thunder-crash follows the lightning.

His great instrument for this purpose was the obtaining information from
sworn members of the secret societies, and whose names never appeared in
the course of a trial or a prosecution, until the measure of their
iniquity was complete