BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 177
Butler and Oliver Bond were summoned before the House of Lords, on account
of “a paper issued by the United Irishmen.” They at once avowed
the publication, but asserted that it contained nothing either illegal or unconstitutional.
They were ordered to withdraw, however, when the House voted
the paper a “ scandalous libel” on their privileges j and a motion by the Earl
of Westmeath was agreed to, that the parties should be fined each in 3500,
and imprisoned for six months. Mr. Butler and Mr. Bond were then called to
the bar-the Chancellor pronounced the sentence of the House, and they were
immediately conducted to Newgate.
On the expiry of his term of imprisonment, Mr. Butler accompanied his
friend Hamilton Rowan to Scotland, as already described; and for some time
continued to aid in directing the proceedings of the body with which he had
become associated. Compelled at length to consult his safety in fight, he fled
to Wales, where, according to Musgrave-whose statements must be taken with
caution-he ‘( died in great poverty.”
In the Annual Register for 1797 his death, which occurred on the 19th
May, is thus recorded :-“In his fortieth year, the Hon. Simon Butler, third
son of Edmund, the late Lord Viscount Mountgarret, of the. kingdom of
Ireland, brother of the late, and uncle of the present Earl of Kilkenny. In
1794 he married Eliza, second daugheer of Edward Lynch of Hampstead, near
Dublin, Esq., by whom he has left one only child, named Edward Lynch
Butler, an infant about nine months old. His remains were deposited in the
vaults belonging to St. James’s Church.”
No. CCXXXI.
CITIZEN M. C. BROWNE.
ALMOSnTot hing more is known of this individual than what is communicated
by the inscription on the Print. He was an enthusiastic admirer of the French
Republic; and it was at his suggestion that many of the most obnoxious
republican phrases were adopted by the Reformers of Scotland in 1793. In the
evidence of Filliam Canulge-on the trial of Thomas Hardy, of the London
Corresponding Society, in 1794-BROWNE is thus mentioned in allusion to the
Sheffield Association :-“ The Society chose Mathew Campbell Browne, as
delegate to the Scotch Convention at Edinburgh j upon which occasion he waa
sent to him with a supply of cash, ten pounds of which he received from Sheffield,
and ten pounds from Leeds. He knew not how the money was raised,
but had received it from Mr. Yateg who had since quitted Sheffield.”
VOL IL 2A