[Willy Reilly by William Carleton]@TWC D-Link book
Willy Reilly

CHAPTER XXIV
10/25

From henceforth the prisoner at the bar marked Mr.
Reilly for vengeance, for destruction, for death.

At this time he was in the full exercise of irresponsible authority; he could burn, hang, shoot, without being called to account; and as it will appear before you, gentlemen, this consciousness of impunity stimulated him to the perpetration of such outrages as, in civil life, and in a country free from civil war, are unparalleled in the annals of crime and cruelty.
"But, gentlemen, what did this man do?
this man, so anxious to preserve the peace of the country; this man, the terror of the surrounding districts; what did he do, I ask?
Why, he took the most notorious robber of: his day, the fierce and guilty Rapparee--he took him into his councils, in order that he might enable him to trace the object of his vengeance, Reilly, in the first place, and to lead him to the hiding-places of such unfortunate Catholic priests as had taken refuge in the caves and fastnesses of the mountains.

Instead of punishing this notorious malefactor, he took him into his own house, made him, as he was proud to call them, one of his priest-hounds, and induced him to believe that he had procured him a pardon from Government.

Reilly's name he had, by his foul misrepresentations, got into the _Hue-and-Cry_, and subsequently had him gazetted as an outlaw; and all this upon his own irresponsible authority.

I mention nothing, gentlemen, in connection with this trial which we are not in a capacity to prove.
"Having forced Reilly into a variety of disguises, and hunted him like a mad dog through the country; having searched every: lurking-place in which he thought he might I find him, he at length resolved on the only course of vengeance he could pursue.


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