CODE, Henry Brereton. The Insurrection of the Twenty-Third July, 1803 [THE UNFORTUNATE ROBERT EMMET MANUSCRIPT NOTES ON THE LAST WORDS OF LORD KILWARDEN POSSIBLY BY EMMET’S DEFENCE COUNSEL]

Dublin: Printed by Graisberry and Campbell, 10 Back Lane, [1803]. First edition. pp. xiii, 110. Modern brown buckram, titled in gilt. Ex lib with neat stamp. Interesting manuscript notes on front fly leaf on the last words of Lord Kilwarden in a neat contemporary hand. A very good copy.
COPAC locates 5 copies only.
Preface signed: H.B.C., the NLI states it is Henry Brereton Code. Plowden in his History of Ireland Dublin, 1811, says of this work: “Mr Marsden (an Under Secretary at Dublin Castle) procured a report of all those trials to be published in a very garbled manner, with a preface, introduction and conclusion, which bespeak the tendency of the politician.”
Apart from the several printed reports relating specifically to Robert Emmet’s trial, this is the only contemporary publication that claimed to provide an account of the 1803 Rising in Dublin. The author gave summary reports on all the treason trials that had been conducted in Dublin that autumn, together with a commentary that was entirely hostile to the rebels and supportive of the military response and government policy. This is hardly surprising given that the author, H.B. Code [or Cody] was in effect a government spy and a Castle hack who had earlier in 1803 gained editorial control of the formerly liberal Dublin Evening Post.
Code (?1770-1838) had a colourful past, having been a seminarian, a city hosier, an enthusiast for Thomas Paine and possibly a United Irishman, but who had gradually insinuated himself into official favour, thanks in particular to the patronage of the Thomas O’Beirne, a former convert like Code and by then the Church of Ireland bishop of Meath. Code wrote in a fluent style and allowed himself here some grudging admiration for Emmet. The initial MS note on the fly-leaf implies that at least some of material in his essay was not previously known: “This was sent me this morning. It may be worth looking into as perhaps containing some particulars which have not yet reached Mr B. Nov. 26 1803. A.K.” It is possible that ‘Mr B.’ was Emmet’s defence counsel, Peter Burrowes, and that this copy was sent by a friend of the defence. However, Emmet had been executed two months preciously, so what the importance of any new information may have been is not clear. An intriguing and very scarce memento of the 1803 Rising.

[L4 10B]