Memoirs · of · William · Sampson

THE first occurrence in bridewell which gave me pleasure was a notice of trial, served upon me in due form.

I thought my enemies now committed past retreat, and I vainly anticipated the triumph I should have in their confrontation and confusion. I feared neither corrupt judges, packed juries, hired witnesses, treacherous advocates, nor terror-struck friends.

I was all-sufficient for myself against such hosts. I had not need of defence, but had much of accusation to bring forth.

I had committed no murders nor treasons. I had burned no houses, nor tortured no free men. I asked no absolution in acts of parliament, passed in one session, to indemnify the crimes of the preceding one.

I had legally and loyally defended the acknowledged rights of my countrymen. I had opposed myself with honest firmness to the crimes of arson, treason, murder, and torture; and rather than my countrywomen should be deflowered, I was ready, as it was my duty, to defend them with my life.

I had done more: for when the boiling indignation of the people pointed to self-preservation, through individual retaliation, I had spent sleepless nights to save the lives of those who, after so many years of vengeance, seem still to hunt for mine.

But think not, my friend, that I should ever condescend to make a merit of this to those despicable men. The principal of my actions was too pure to be in any connected with their degraded persons.

 

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I cannot help mentioning, before I go further, the extraordinary appearance of Mr. Cooke's office in the Castle.

It was full of those arms which had been at different times and in various parts of the country, wrestled from the hands of the unfortunate peasants. They were chiefly pikes of a most rude workmanship, and forms the most grotesque: green crooked sticks cut out of the hedges with long spikes, nails, knives, or scythe blades fastened on the end of them, very emblematical of the poverty and desperation of these unhappy warriors; and shewing, in a strong light, the wonderful effects of despair, and the courage it inspires.

Never did human eyes behold so curious an armory as this secretary's office.

On the 7th of May, I was taken with a long procession of prisoners (all strangers to me) to bridewell, where I was doomed to suffer what honest men must ever expect when in the power of those whose crimes they have opposed.

In bridewell I was locked up in dismal solitude for many months.

I was, upon landing in Dublin, taken to the apartments of Mr. Coke, as it was told me, to be examined. I was locked up some hours, but the gentlemen did not think proper to examine me; and he judged well. Perhaps, upon examining himself, he thought it best not to examine me. 

From hence I was sent under a guard to the Castle tavern, where night and day two sentinels were placed in my room. From these sentinels I learned to what atrocious length the brutal licentiousness of the military had been encouraged.

A young man of the North Cork militia, whom I had, by civilities, drawn into conversation, frankly regretted the free quarters in Kildare, where he said, that amongst other advantages, they had their will of the men's wives and daughters.

I asked him if his officers permitted that?

And he answered by a story of one who had ordered a farmer, during the time of the free quarters, to bring him his daughter in four and twenty hours, under pain of having his house burned. The young girl had been removed to a neighboring parish. The father would not be the instrument of his daughter's pollution. And this young solder assured me he had been one who, by his officer's command, had burned the house of the father.

And this was called loyalty to the king and British constitutions; and now this crime, with a million of others, is indemnified by law. Whilst I, who would rather die than countenance such atrocity, am, without enquiry, dungeoned, proclaimed, pursued, and exiled.

And still, great as my wrongs are, they are but as shadows of those of thousands of my countrymen.

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It is scarcely worth while to mention the vexations I experienced in Carlisle; they are so eclipsed by the horrors which were to follow.

The gaoler, Mr. Wilson, was by profession a butcher. The moment I saw his face, I recollected having been present in the court of king's bench, sharing my attendance as a student, when he was sentenced to two years imprisonment for having kidnapped an old man, and married him by force to a woman, his accomplice.

This sentence he had strictly undergone, and so far that fault was expiated; and he was now for his services at elections for members of parliament, under the special protection of Lord Lonsdale named gaoler of the country prison.

Such was the man who celebrated his clemency in accepting of payment for not putting me in irons; and who, when I was with difficulty allowed a bed to repose myself upon, insisted upon sharing it with me.

One messenger came from London, another from Dublin; and, so averse was the spirit of the people of that country to such proceedings, that the messenger's quarters were surrounded by guards. Patrols went round the city, and I could scarcely prevent my rescue.

Such was the beginning of that persecution you have desired me to relate so circumstantially.

To avoid such scenes, disgraceful to the name of man, and acted in the name of the king and British constitution, on the day abovementioned (the 16th of April, 1798) I embarked in a collier ship for Whitehaven, and was on the following morning arrested on my landing, pursuant to general orders issued to the officers of that port.

From hence I was sent to the county gaol of Carlisle, merely because I refused to tell my name; and my servant, John Russel, of whom I shall have too much reason to speak hereafter, was detained a prisoner in the workhouse at Whitehaven.

Though I never did, nor never shall fear my enemies, I did not think it wise to brave them at this moment, seeing they had the power of putting me in gaol, from whence they law had no power to set me free; and I therefore passed by the name of Williams, being nearly my name by baptism.

Many attempts were made upon my servant to disclose my name but he refused; and the newspapers of the place were mean enough to publish that he had betrayed me. Happily torture had not then (nor has yet been) introduced into England: that may be referred for the future and those means which have succeeded to overturn the ancient constitutions of Ireland (bribery, corruption, division, torture, religion, and military executions) may much sooner than many think be employed to clear away the ruins of British liberty. And the Irish may, in their turn, be led over to England to repay the benefits they have received.

Whilst in Carlisle, I obtained leave from the magistrates and gaolers to write to the duke of Portland, then secretary of state, requesting earnestly to be sent to trial, if any one had been impudent enough to charge me with any crime. Or, if that justice was not granted, then I might rather remain where I was, than to be again forced amidst the horrors which raged in my own country.

But neither the one nor the other of these requests were listened to, and I was sent back again to Dublin, with my servant, where we landed on the 5th of May.

.... Being from home when the house I inhabited was beset, my first care was to retire to a place of safety, from whence I wrote a letter to the lord lieutenant, earl Cambden, which was put into his hand by general Croshie; and another to the attorney-general, Mr. Wolfe, which was delivered by the honorable John Leeson. In each of these letters I offered to surrender instantly, on the promise of receiving a trial. 

No answer being given, I remained in Dublin until the 16th of April, when the terror became so atrocious that humanity could no longer endure it.

In every quarter of the metropolis, the shrieks and groans of the tortured were to be heard, and that, through all hours of the day and night. Men were taken at random without process or accusation, and tortured the pleasure of the lowest dregs of the community. Bloody theatres were opened by these self-constituted inquisitors, and new and unheard of machines were invented for their diabolical purposes.
 
Unhappily in every country, history is but the record of black crimes; but if ever this history comes to be fairly written, whatever has yet been held up to the execration of mankind, will fade before it. For it had not happened before, in any country or in any age, to inflict torture and to offer bribe at the same moment.

In this bloody, reign, the coward and the traitor were sure of wealth and power; the brave and loyal to suffer death or torture. The very mansion of the viceroy was people with salaried denouncers, kept in secret and led out only for purposes of death.

Some of these, struck with remorse, have since published their own crimes, and some have been hanged by their employers. (See Appendix, No. 1) – Men were hung up until their tongues started from their mouths, and let down to receive fresh offers of bribe to betray their neighbor of discover against themselves. If they neither knew or would discover any thing, these intervals of relaxation were followed by new and more poignant inflictions. And when that courage, which is the noble attribute of my unhappy countrymen, spurned in the midst of agony at the tempter and the bribe; the nearest and the tenderest relatives were often brought to witness these horrors; that out of their feelings might be extorted some denunciation, true or false, which the virtue of the sufferer had withheld.

CONTINUED....

But the event from which my present persecution flows, in an uninterrupted series, was an attempt to make me a prisoner on the 12th , of March, of the same year; a day famous for the arrest of many men distinguished, at that time by their qualities, but more so by their sufferings since.

This was considered by my enemies a good occasion to repair the blunders of the former day; and I was, without the slightest pretext, included in the list of common proscription.

It was probably hoped, that in the seizure of my papers, something might be found to justify so violent a measure; but no such ground appearing, more scandalous means were resorted to; and an officer of the Cavan militia, Mr. Colclough, was found so unworthy of his profession, as to be the instrument of that scandal, and to propagate that he had found a commission naming me a French general. And a noble lord (Glentworth) did not scruple to proclaim the same falsehood to the young gentlemen of the college corps of yeomanry on their parade.

Such was the full commencement of that abomination, of which you must have patience to listen to the detail.

CONTINUED ...

AT length, my friend, I take up my pen to comply with your desire, and to give you the history of my extraordinary persecution. From it you may form a judgment of that system of government which drove the unhappy people of Ireland to revolt. But to judge rightly, you should also be aware, that of many thousand such cases, mine is one of the most mild.</p>

Before any open violence was attempted against me, I had been often distantly threatened, indirectly insulted.And particularly on the 12^th, of February 1798, I was charged with high treason by the Alderman of Dublin.

This charge of high treason was upon the following ground: The printer of the paper call the PRESS, Mr. Stockdale, was imprisoned under an arbitrary sentence for breach of privilege in not answering to interrogatories tending to convict him before a parliamentary committee. And while he was lying in gaol, his house was beset by a large military force; and his afflicted wife was thrown into an agony of terror.

This scene was in my neighborhood. I was the counsel of the husband, and whilst at dinner received a request from Mrs. Stockdale to go and confer with the high sheriff on her behalf, and to depreciate the vengeance that was threatened. I found the home crouded with military, who threatened to demolish it, as other printers houses had been demolished. The types and printing implements were destroyed, and the unfortunate woman thrown into an agony of terror. After interceding with the sheriff, he conducted me to the door.

Mrs. Stockdale's sister having picked up a parcel of ball cartridges, deposited by the sheriff himself, or by his consent, on a former occasion, for the purposes of defence against a mob, became fearful that they might be made a pretext for a massacre, took advantage of the door being opened for me, to carry them away. They broke through her apron, and scattered upon the flaggs. The whole sergeant's guard crying out, that they had found the croppie's pills, pursued me at full speed.

I turned short to meet them, and by that means checked their fury. I was immediately surrounded by near twenty bayonets presented to my body, each soldier encouraging his comrade to run me through. I assumed an air of confidence and security beyond what I felt, and appealed to the sergeant, who, after some rough parley, led me back a prisoner to his officers within. He, the lady, the sergeant, and some others, underwent an examination, and at two in the morning, I was told by alderman Carleton, that there was a charge against me amounting to high treason; but that if I would be upon honor to present myself to him on the following day, he would enlarge me, I went the next morning, accompanied by Mr. Montgomery, Mr. Hill Wilson, and the honorable John Leeson, to demand some explanation; the alderman was denied, and there the matter finished as it began, in buffoonery.

I learned afterward, that the investment and occupation of Mr. Stockdale's house, was to prevent an intended publication in the "PRESS," against lord Clave, from circulating. That side of the news-paper, however, which contained it, had already been printed, and the soldiers who made prize of the impression, circulated it rapidly at a great advanced price.

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Some of the most respectable citizens of America have acknowledged to the author that they had been deceived respecting Ireland, and were desirous of knowing the state of things. And this was a principal motive for giving to the public his Memoirs, which, from certain principles of moderation, he had so long suppressed.

The author has, with no less frankness avowed that the unremitting and reiterated calumnies levelled against the American reputation had not been without effect upon his mind, until it was his fortune to be corrected by the happiest experiment: till in that country, where, it was written¹, that the men were sorded, the women withered, the institutions vicious, and religion unknown, he found exalted hospitality, the charms of female society elegant and attractive, institutions which on the other side the Atlantic pass for wild and visionary theories, reduced to practice, and unexampled prosperity growing beneath their shade; till he found religion unsullied by political craft or violation dominion, inculcated with purity, and exercised in charity; till he found in the benignity of the BENCH, a long lost profession, and in the liberality of the BAR, friends worthy of his esteem.

To such a people he addresses himself with confidence!

The faint sketch his Memoirs present of the calamities of his country may serve at least to awake attention to a subject too little known for the common interest of humanity.

The rest will follow; and the time may yet come, when the genius of Columbia, exulting in her young flight, and soaring on her eagle-wing, in quest of subjects equal to her swelling conceptions, may find them in the courage, the constancy, and undeserved calamities of slandered Ireland.

Till then, let it be kept in mind, that same writers and runners, hired to traduce Irishmen in America, are those who traduce America in Europe, with this only difference: that in all their clumsy sarcasms, the spirit of the jest is to call the American YANKEE, and the Irishman PADDY.

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1See Moore, Weld, Parkinson, Davis, The Stranger, and all the rest.   

To the American People

The author, without apology, submits his Memoirs to that nation where truth can be uttered without alloy.

To the idolaters of English power, some of whom have motives too strong for truth to shake, he is aware that his work will not be pleasing.

But he knows that the genius of America is not that of persecution!

And that although for ten years past, terror and corruption have been able to silence the vindicators of the Irish cause, yet it needs but to be known to find favor with the just and generous of every country.

The printing presses of Ireland have been lawlessly demolished, and all who dare write or speak the truth, have been hunted to destruction; whilst scouts and hirelings, paid from the Irish treasury, have been maintained in the remotest regions of the earth, to slander Ireland; yet all this has not been sufficient to reconcile the minds of thinking people to the idea of a nation of rebels, or a kingdom out of a king's peace.

Fore if a government be so manifestly against a people, and a people so manifestly against a government: if a kingdom must be put out of the king's peace, in order that a faction may monopolize royal power, it may be fairly asked, on which side is rebellion?

And the answer arises spontaneously in the breast of a free American.

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There need come no more with toys from Birmingham.

There is one Langstaff here, that has done them mischief!  He gives himself out for gouty and sits writing in an elbow-chair. When the fit leaves him he announces it in the newspapers, and appoints an hour for his visits; all doors are thrown open, and scouts sent out to watch for him. He runs about in a yellow coattee; and in the course of the morning will have kissed the hand of every pretty lady in town.

It provokes me to see a little fellow lie in a lady's work-basket, and make laughing sport of grave men. And it makes me feel more mortified at my own growing corpulence, lest my bulk should be no recommendation in the eyes of the fair, whose favor is the chief object of my wishes; I shall therefore, before the evil grows worse, go immediately to press, be squeezed into the genteeliest form I can, and then pay my respects to the ladies, and to your lordship. Meantime

        I have the honor to be,
        With all due gratitude for past favors,
            My Lord,
        Your Lordship's much obliged,
            And very devoted humble servant,
                WILLIAM SAMPSON.

It is true, my lord, that the same arts are not yet so advanced in this country as in those farther gone in corruption and luxury.

Yet it is mortifying to see the progress the young and fair ones are daily making in those delicate acquirements which give lustre to virtue and embellish good sense. Those arts which have now the charm to novelty and the grace of infancy, cannot fail to improve in a soil where living beauty triumphs, where the great scenes of majestic nature invite, and where history points the eye of the poet, the painter and the sculptor, to the virtues of WASHINGTON and the plains of Saratoga and York-Town.

But one who passes for having good sense avowed to me some time ago that he would rather see a well-clad and active population than the finest antique groupes of naked fawns and satyrs, with a Lazeroni populace.

And a thing that has raised great wonder in me is this: that some of these fair-haired Dryads of the woods have manners more polished than the shining beauties of your splendid court! Where they got it, or how they came by it I know not; but on the chaste stem of native purity they have engrafted the richest fruits of foreign cultivation.

And as the ladies in all civilized nations will, covertly or openly, have the sway, I think these dangerous persons ought to be well watched; and I am not indisposed, my lord, to keep an eye upon them, provided I may be encouraged by your lordship's approbation. I shall not then regret the situation in which it has pleased the wisdom of his majesty's councils to have placed me, and I shall labor to the end of my life to make a suitable return.

 

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The very smoaking of these ladies would be a great point gained; for they have arrived at an insolent pitch of beauty.

And it will be in vain that we should deter the connoisseurs and virtuosi of our dominions from coming over here, by holding out that there are no statues nor pictures, if we suffer them to preserve such exquisite model of flesh and blood from which goddesses, nymphs and graces may be imitated.

A few refined souls will prefer cheeks of brass and eye-balls of stone, to the dimple of nature and sparkling glances of the laughter-loving eye.

But the mass of mankind will be ever vulgar. For them canvas will be too flat and marble too hard, and flesh and blood will carry off the prize!

(continued...)

The matter is briefly this: The men smoak tobacco.

The ladies will not be smoaked. They say they do not marry nor come into the world to be smoaked with tobacco.

The men say they did not marry nor come into the world to be scolded, and that they will be masters in their own houses.   

(continued...)

There exists, my lord, in this nation a latent spark which requires only to be fanned.

If this be done with address, we shall have a civil war lighted up in the country, which will not be easily extinguished; for the contest will be between the two sexes.

If we once can get them into separate camps, and keep the war afoot for sixty years, there is an end of the American people!

That Chesapeake business has burst the bubble, and shews that many of those we counted upon here are Americans in their hearts, and will not do any serious mischief to their own country.

 

Their wranglings, I fear, are like those of our own whig and tory, and will profit us nothing.

But there is yet a means left. And if your lordship will send me a hundred thousand pounds by the Windsor Castle, I shall lose not an instant to set about it.

It will, I hope, be no objection to my project that it is a new one; the more so, as the old ones have not succeeded very well. I should glory, my lord, to be the author of a species of civil war and discord yet unattempted, and thereby recommend myself to the honorable consideration of his majesty's ministers.

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It is time the country was taken out of their hands!

They are committing daily waste upon the woods, and disfiguring the face of nature with villages, turnpikes and canals.

They are about stopping up two miles and a half of sea, which they call the Narrows.

Though I endeavor to persuade them of the advantage of a free passage for his majesty's ships of war up to this city, and put before their eyes the example of COPENHAGEN.