April 18th, 1798: The affairs of the feuding O'Connor family of Connorville, Cork, fascinate the public and Dublin Castle. On the 12th, bills of indictment for high treason are found at Maidstone (England) against former MP Arthur O'Connor, Father James Coigley, Benjamin Binns and two Irish travelling companions.
In Ireland, to the great surprise of many, Arthur's highly-eccentric brother, Roger, proprietor of the recently-suppressed republican paper The Harp of Erin, is acquitted of treason in Cork city. No one will prosecute him on charges of cajoling a paroled French prisoner of war to "carry dispatches to the Directory" in Paris.
The "private opinion" of the assize judges is that the inveterate O'Connor also "interfered in the prosecutions" in Cork and "tampered with the witnesses and suborned away evidence".
Securing convictions appears straightforward in King's County where, according to Saunders's Newsletter on the 13th, five men are convicted at Philipstown assizes of "defenderism". It seems that "one of them, who set off from Dublin on Saturday, and who was taken on his way, was tried and convicted the following day, and was . . to be hanged".
"A gentleman, an attorney from this city, who had been employed as agent to the United Irishmen tried in Philipstown, together with an assistant clerk, we hear, were, on their return from thence, arrested by a military force, and confined in the barracks of Philipstown."
Down assizes are also considered successful and Downshire's agent, Thomas Lane, informs him on the 14th of the imposition of four capital sentences.
Matters have not gone well for Antrim loyalists, however, as yeomen William Mays, John Crossey and George Hull are convicted at Carrickfergus of robbing Edward McConkey of money and goods. This is a comparatively rare attempt to stem criminal opportunism by crown forces. George Mays reveals that "the reason of the robbery being committed was because McConkey was a bad man, and an United Irishman", while Henry McKinchey admits that "many Catholic houses had been ransacked".
The coverage of Irish affairs in the Sun, an English newspaper, is criticised by Col Richard Maxwell, of the Cavan militia, in the House of Commons on 16th. Maxwell quotes a 10-day-old issue he believes libels the Irish militia in stating that "the Rebellion in Ireland was going on, and it was rumoured some of the militia regiments had joined the rebels, which was likely enough to be true".
While upholding the integrity of the militia, the Commons is reluctant to move an address to the king urging him to direct the Attorney-General of England to prosecute the editor of the Sun for libel.
Maj Gen Sir Charles Asgill writes from Kilkenny on the 17th to warn of difficulties expected to follow the expiration of the Queen's County arms proclamation. In the first instance, the scheme has been an utter failure as no weapons have been recovered and, furthermore, "almost all the principal gentlemen have left the county since the assizes".
This somewhat craven exodus has destabilised the county and gravely undermines the rationale of sentencing 20 men at Maryborough (Portlaoise) It is represented to Asgill by some of those who remain that the introduction of free quarters would only injure the industrious farmers given that the most dangerous United Irishmen had "no property" and belonged to the "the lowest orders of the people".