'In the evening I was conveyed in a covered carriage to
Carrickmacross, blackened with bruises, stiff and sore, and scarcely
able to stand--musing over the strange transactions which had happened
that day--and wrapped in a countryman's frieze coat which had been
borrowed to cover _my nakedness_.'[1]

[Footnote 1: Realities of Irish Life, chap. v.]

When the reader recovers his breath after this. I will ask him to turn
to the history of this transaction--bad enough in itself--and see
what fancy and art can do in dressing up a skeleton so that it becomes
'beautiful for ever.' Mr. Trench himself shall be the historian,
writing to the authorities when the occurrences were all fresh in his
mind. The narrative was handed in to the Devon commissioners as his
_sworn evidence_:

'_William Steuart Trench, esq., agent._

'Have there been any agrarian outrages, and in what have they
originated?--There have been none, except _during a late short period
of peculiar local excitement_.

'Will you state the particulars of that excitement, and what then
occurred?--I think my best mode of doing so will be by handing in
the copy of a letter which I addressed to a local magistrate for
the information of government.--[_The witness read the following
letter_:--]

'Dear Sir--In reply to your communication, enclosing a letter from Mr.