TEi\r
After the battle of Ballinamuck, he was identified and sent to Dublin for trial, de- spite Humbert's efforts to secure for him the same honourable treatment as the French-born officers. He was tried by court martial at the Eoyal Barracks, Dublin, and made an able and manly defence, but was sentenced to death, and executed at Arbour Hill on 24th September (1798). Mr. Madden says : " Neither the inti- mation of his fate, nor the near approach of it, produced on him any diminution of courage. With firm step and unchanged countenance he walked from the Prevot to the place of execution, and conversed with an ucaflfected ease while the dreadful apparatus was preparing." He died in his French uniform. His remains, with those of many other executed persons, were thrown into what was known as
- ' the Croppy's Hole," at Arbour-hill.
[His nephew, Bartholomew Teeling, a barrister, who died in 1844, was the author of a Narrative of the Irish Rebellion of 1 798, which passed through more than one edition. 330
Temple, Sir John, was born in Ire- land in the year 1600, and was edu- cated at Trinity College, Dublin, of which his father was a fellow, and afterwards Provost. He was knighted in 1628, and in 1640 was appointed Master of the Eolls and a Privy-Councillor. Upon the break- ing out of the war in October 1641, he was most active in issuing proclamations and putting Dublin in a proper state of defence. In 1643 te was imprisoned for a few months, with Sir W. Parsons, Sir A. Loftus, and Sir E. Meredyth, for oppos- ing the cessation of arms which the Earl of Ormond was commanded by the King to agree to. Eegarded as a sufferer for the cause of the Commonwealth, he was provided with a seat in the English Parliamer^t, and received its special thanks for the services he had rendered at the commencement of hostilities. Sir John is worthy of notice principally on account of his History of the Irish Rebellion of 1 64 1, together with the Barbarous Cruelties and Bloody Massacres that ensued there- upon, first published in 1646. The work went through many editions, and is the source whence numerous historians, in- cluding Mr. Froude, have drawn their evidence that the Irish Catholics, in 1641 and following years, perpetrated frightful atrocities, and massacred in cold blood from 100,000 to 300,000 Protestant set- tlers. Temple's own words are that : " Since the rebeUion first broke out, unto • . September 15, 1643, which was not full two years after, above 300,000 British 520
TEM
and Protestants were cruelly murthured in cold blood, destroyed some other way, or expelled out of their habitations." Shortly after the breaking out of hostili- ties in 1 64 1, two commissions were issued to enquire among the thousands of panic- stricken Protestants who crowded into Dublin, into the perpetration of atrocities by the Irish. The original manuscript depositions of the witnesses examined on oath are preserved in Trinity College. A large proportion of them are not signed by the deponents, and where they are signed it is generally with a mark. Sir John Temple says in his preface : And that I might in some measure compass my design herein, and give satisfaction even to the most curious inquisitors after truth, I did with great care and diligence turn over the very originals or authentical copies of the voluminous examinations remaining with the publick Eegister, and taken upon oath, by virtue of two several commissions issued out under the great seal of this kingdom, to examine the losses of the British, the cruelties and horrid murders committed by the Irish in the destruction of them. I have perused the publick despatches, acts, and relations, as likewise the private letters and particular discourses sent by the chief gentlemen out of several parts of the king- dom, to present unto the Lords- Justices and Council the sad condition of their affaii's. And having been made acquainted with all the most secret passages and councils of the state, I have, as far as I could without breach of trust, and as the duty of a Privy Councellour would admit, communicated so much of them as I con- ceived necessary and proper for publick information. And . . I may confi- dently avow that I have been so curious in gathering up my materials, and so careful in putting them together, as very few pas- sages will be found here inserted which have not either fallen within the compass of my own knowledge, or that I have not received from those who were chiefly intrusted in matters of action abroad ; or that came not to my hands attested under the oaths of credible witnesses, or clearly asserted in the voluntary con- fessions of the rebels themselves." We may, therefore, reasonably suppose that the eighty witnesses whose names and de- positions he gives, are selected as those likely to tell most strongly against the Irish. (The edition here referred to is that of 1724, printed in Dublin.) A careful collation of the evidence of these eighty deponents shows that but fourteen of them testify to what they saw themselves. (The evidence of the others is entirely hearsay.)
