e hand; and in
this case, as in every other, the bloodthirsty agents of the crown did
not look in vain for Irishmen to co-operate with them in their infamy.

At six o'clock in the evening the jury retired to consider their
verdict. The scene that followed in the jury room is described in the
sworn affidavits of some of its participators. The jury were supplied
with supper by the crown officials; a liberal supply of intoxicating
beverages, wines, brandy, &c., being included in the refreshments. In
their sober state several of the jury-men--amongst them Alexander
Thompson, of Cushendall, the foreman--had refused to agree to a verdict
of guilty. It was otherwise, however, when the decanters had been
emptied, and when threats of violence were added to the bewildering
effects of the potations in which they indulged. Thompson was threatened
by his more unscrupulous companions with being wrecked, beaten, and "not
left with sixpence in the world," and similar means were used against
the few who refused with him to return a verdict of guilty. At six in
the morning, the jury, not a man of whom by this time was sober,
returned into court with a verdict of guilty, recommending the prisoner
at the same time in the strongest manner to mercy. Next day Orr was
placed at the bar, and sentenced to death by Lord Yelverton, who, it is
recorded, at the conclusion of his address burst into tears. A motion
was made, by Curran in arrest of judgment, chiefly on the grounds of the
drunkenness of the jury but the judges refused to entertain the
objection. The following is the speech delivered by William Orr after
the verdict of the jury had been announced:--

"My friends and fellow-countrymen--In the thirty-first year of my
life I have been sentenced to die upon the gallows, and this sentence
has been in pursuance of a verdict of twelve men, who should have
been indifferently and impartially chosen. How far they have been so,
I leave to that country from which they have been chosen to
determine; and how far they have discharged their duty, I leave to
their God and to themselves. They have, in pronouncing their verdict,
thought proper to recommend me as an object of humane mercy. In
return, I pray to God, if they have erred, to have mercy upon them.
The judge who condemned me humanely shed tears in uttering my
sentence. But whether he did wisely in so highly commending the
wretched informer, who swore away my l