were convicted and sentenced to transporta tion for fourteen years. See, also, the con temporaneous cases of Watt (23 St. Tr. 1167) and Downie (24 ib. i). Meanwhile treason trials were rife in Ire land. The trials of the Drogheda Defenders in 1794, of William Jackson, in 1795 (25 St. Tr. 783), of Weldon, the Dublin Defenders,
oner named Leary was acquitted under pre cisely similar evidence. In Finney's case Curran so completely discredited the testi mony of the notorious informer Jemmy O'Brien that the jury acquitted the prisoner. In the case of O'Coigly (26 St. Tr. 1191) there can be no doubt that the law of treason was violently strained to meet the require-
KOHKRT EMMET.
in 1795 (26 St. Tr. 225), and of Patrick Finney, in 1798 (26 St. Tr. 1019), in all of which Curran defended, led up to the actual hostilities of 1798. The government was enabled to obtain a conviction in Jack son's case, as in the trials of 1/98, through the rule which allowed one witness to con vict of treason in Ireland. Although Wel don was convicted and hanged, another pris-
ments of a particular case. O'Coigly was charged with having in his possession a treasonable paper with the intention and purpose of communicating it to the French government. This charge was not sustained by >any legal and sufficient evidence. O'Coigly was one of the last victims of the odious doctrine of constructive treason. In England, Stone (25 St. Tr. 1155) was acquit
