The Virginia Gazette

A letter from a Gentleman in Ireland, to his friend in London, relative to the last assizes at Clonmel.

There was a very dangerous ugly trial at our last assizes. A Popish priest was found guilty and executed for the murder of a boy, that would have appeared as an evidence against him for those risings, that for some time have engrossed the attention of the publick. These reports were at first directly denied, but are now found to be true, and if not early prevented, would have been sensibly felt; for it is now past contradiction that a rebellion, and a massacre of the Protestants, was to have been the conclusion of those nightly meetings and revellings, which they concealed under the specious name of self-preservation, as they pretended there was so much ground untilled that they had not sufficient to subsist on. But, thank God, the scheme is now found out; and there are many men of property, who it is believed will suffer. It clearly appeared, upon the trial of the priest, that there had been French officers in the kingdom, and that they distributed money to favour those disturbances, which they were in hopes soon of effecting; and, as proper emissary for their hellish purpose, this priest was pitched on as a man endowed by nature with those mischievous qualities that were necessary to put their projects in execution.