When the soldiers surrounded him, Jeremiah Grant lay upon a pallet of straw within a cavern. Five of his men were with him. As the military and yeomanry advanced into Killoughram Wood, the band offered resistance, wounding five soldiers before they were subdued. The men were disarmed and taken into custody. Grant was committed to Wexford gaol under the assumed name of Cooney. In Pelham’s relation, it was not the capture itself that brought his career to an end, but the discovery of the true name he had concealed.
Camden Pelham published this robber’s life in The Chronicles of Crime, a retrospective compilation issued in 1887. Describing Grant as an Irish “freebooter,” he recounts his exploits with the ironical detachment and social judgments characteristic of his day. The text is neither an official trial record nor a deposition roll. Its praise of the outlaw’s courtliness and the anecdotes ascribed to the local populace must be regarded as the compiler’s own. Yet several stages in the narrative are dated and precise: a previous escape from Maryborough gaol, a burglary committed at the house of Thomas Cambie in March 1816, an arrest in County Wexford under the alias of Cooney, and a trial at Maryborough.
Pelham places Grant’s origins in Queen’s County, as the son of an impoverished peasant. He asserts that at nineteen the youth took to the road, robbing travellers, and that by twenty-one his fellow thieves had elected him captain of a gang. The volume furnishes neither dates for these early ventures nor the names of his victims. It presents Grant’s open-handedness as the foundation of his renown: a portion of the spoil was purportedly distributed among the poor, whilst local farmers paid an annual tribute to secure their dwellings against nocturnal visits from his band. Pelham depicts this protection as an accepted custom, though he adduces neither compact nor direct testimony to support it.
The account of his first detention turns upon an entirely different company. At Maryborough, Pelham relates, gentlemen and ladies of fashion flocked to view the captive in his cell. The compiler surmises that this intrusive curiosity wounded Grant’s pride. One night, the prisoner severed the iron bars of his window and fled. Quitting the Slieve Bloom Mountains with the remnant of his band, he sought refuge in Killoughram Wood, near Enniscorthy, in County Wexford.
In this new quarter, he went by the name of Cooney. Pelham records that he frequented the neighbouring towns under this guise, preserving his retreat undisturbed for a season. In March 1816, he returned into Queen’s County. His mark was the dwelling of Thomas Cambie, whence he carried off coin and plate of substantial value, according to the narrative. Mrs Cambie was at home. She served him supper and wine; when the captain attempted to draw a cork with his teeth, she fetched him a corkscrew. The chronicle dwells upon this singular courtesy, without making clear whether the mistress of the house knew the character of her guest.
Upon departing, Grant likewise seized Mr Cambie’s horse and light carriage to convey the plunder back to the woods. This circumstance links the burglary directly to his sanctuary: the crime was not followed by a disorderly flight into the unknown, but by a deliberate journey to Killoughram, where the band had established its quarters. The gang’s depredations alarmed the surrounding district of Wexford, where, according to Pelham, burglaries were then of rare occurrence. An information disclosed their hiding-place. Archibald Jacob led forth a detachment of soldiers from Enniscorthy and invested the wood.
The cavern lay within the thickest of the cover. There the troops discovered Grant and five comrades stretched upon the straw. Pelham relates that the party defended themselves with desperation, five soldiers being wounded before the outlaws yielded. Within the retreat, the military found housebreaking implements and fire-arms. This scene explains why the apprehension did not turn solely upon the recovery of Cambie’s horse or stolen goods: the cavern contained, by this account, the means to execute further incursions.
Grant was conveyed to Wexford gaol under the name of Cooney. Pelham observes that the evidence assembled against him in that county was questionable, and an acquittal was apprehended. Then it came to light that he was none other than the notorious Captain Grant. The keeper of Maryborough gaol forthwith claimed his former charge, and the prisoner was escorted back to his earlier place of confinement. This identification altered the entire course of his custody: the man arraigned under an assumed name was returned to the jurisdiction where the identity associated with his years of brigandage was already established.
This removal occurred in the very nick of time, according to Pelham. The compiler reports that a plot had been laid to break Grant out of Wexford gaol on the very evening of his departure. He provides no details regarding the contrivance, the confederates, or how the authorities came to discover it. One must therefore accept the narrative’s bare assertion: Wexford gaol was to have been the scene of another enterprise, which the prisoner’s abrupt departure thwarted before it could be attempted. Following his earlier flight from Maryborough, this second escape was never brought to fruition.
Grant was put upon his trial at Maryborough on 16 August 1816. He was found guilty of the burglary at Mr Cambie’s house. Pelham provides no particulars of the testimony concerning the money, the plate, the horse, or the carriage; nor does he allow us to trace other potential counts arising from the arms found or the soldiers wounded in the wood. The verdict he records relates strictly to the burglary committed against Cambie. It must not be construed as a general condemnation of the wider career that Pelham sketches before turning to that residence.
Being called upon before sentence was passed, Grant prayed the court for a respite. He declared that he neither hoped to escape death nor sued for pardon, but sought leisure to arrange restitution for those who had suffered through his misdeeds. He added that certain persons who had visited him in his confinement had wrought a change in his disposition. This is the sole spiritual turn presented in the narrative, taking the form of an appeal addressed to the bench after conviction. The record does not show what restitution, if any, was ever made.
The sentence of death was pronounced. Pelham states that the execution was deferred until 29 August, on which day Grant met his end with a “fortitude” and piety attributed to him by the author. The chapter does not restate the year; yet its proximity to the trial of 16 August 1816 places the execution within the same month and the same judicial sequence. The former fugitive had altered his name, his county, and his prison. In the end, the verdict turned upon Cambie’s burglary; the chronicle itself closes upon a promise of reparation whose fulfilment remains unrecorded.