Keating appears to have been the only magistrate who strenuously exerted himself to put the law in force.

Indeed Nugent, the Chief justice of the highest criminal court of the realm, declared on the bench at Cork that, without violence and spoliation, the intentions of the Government could not be carried into effect, and that robbery must at that conjuncture be tolerated as a necessary evil, [152] The destruction of property which took place within a few weeks would be incredible, if it were not attested by witnesses unconnected with each other and attached to very different interests.

There is a close, and sometimes almost a verbal, agreement between the description given by Protestants, who, during that reign of terror, escaped, at the hazard of their lives, to England, and the descriptions given by the envoys, commissaries, and captains of Lewis.

All agreed in declaring that it would take many years to repair the waste which had been wrought in a few weeks by the armed peasantry, [153] Some of the Saxon aristocracy had mansions richly furnished, and sideboards gorgeous with silver bowls and chargers.

All this wealth disappeared.