The Damnation Of John Donellan (2011) - Plot & Excerpts
The accused was brought the few yards from the gaol into one of the two imposing courtrooms that still stand today: octagonal rooms that had been completed just thirteen years before, in 1758.1 One of Donellan’s friends from London, William Walsh, accompanied him into the court and proceeded to advise him on court procedure. Not that Donellan would have welcomed it. Walsh, who had begun life as a valet to Philip Stanhope, the illegitimate son of Lord Chesterfield, and finished it as a commissioner in the Custom House, was described by the publisher Henry Colburn in 1828 as ‘a ready-made joke’. However, Colburn went on to comment: ‘Walsh had been well acquainted with Donellan and attended him with great kindness from the gaol to the Court House.’ Once in the court, however, Walsh’s kindness wore thin; he pointed out the jurors, the lawyers and the crowds, and finished with the judge, adding jauntily, ‘The judge will put on a black cap and sentence you to be hanged.’ The story of Walsh’s cheerful tactlessness was to be told in his dining club for years afterwards.
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