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Life
1764-1836; b. Jan. 17, Londonderry; ed TCD and Lincoln’s Inn, bar; m. Grace Clarke, 1790; contrib. Northern Star, and The Press, for which he wrote as ‘Fortescue’; arrested on suspicion of writing pamphlet by Edward Cooke, banished, practised law succesfully in America, and published Memoirs and legal writings; some poems collected in Madden’s Literary Remains of the United Irishmen, pp.122, 177, & 179; also in Watty Cox’s Irish Magazine (1811); also Memoirs (1807) [var. 1806]; anonymously issued a satire, A Faithful Report of the Trial of Hurdy-Gurdy at the Bar of the Court of King’s Bench (Belfast 1794; rep. Dublin 1794); worked at bar as civil rights lawyer, New York; published Memoirs (1806); d. New York; his dg. married William Tone, only surviving son of Wolfe Tone. PI ODNB
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Works
Kenneth Robinson, ed., Memoirs of William Sampson, with a Brief Review of Irish History [1807] (Belfast: Athol Books 2007), 292pp.
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Commentary
Mary Helen Thuente, ‘William Sampson, From Patriotism to Revolution’, in ACIS/CAIS Papers, at QUB 1995 [unpublished to date], quotes Memoirs, ‘the history of the universe contains nothing more atrocious than the persecution of the Irish by the English’; ‘no motive but that of compassion for my country’; ‘[in such circumstances of tyranny] to be passive is to be criminal’; Thuente notes that he was a major contributor to the Northern Star, prob. writing the anon. ‘Lion of Old England’ satire, which went into two Belfast edns., as well as the Trial of Hurdy Gurdy, a title that reflects the government’s fear of political ballads; two songs [sic] in Madden’s Literary Remains of the United Irishmen attributed to him, one being a ‘Dialogue between Croppy and Orangeman’ in which the former asserts against the latter, ‘Revenge is for me’; also ‘Death Before Dishonour [for] Irish Soldiers’; formed with others the Committee [for the investigation of] Enormities against the Rights of the Irish People’. Biography by Walter Walsh in progress.
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References
Dictionary of National Biography: when the proprietors of the Press were indicted for libel, on account of the mock review of a pretended epic, ‘The Lion of Old England’, Sampson acted for the defence with J. P. Curran (1794). Also defended William Orr with Curran. Known to have views against violence; ‘Advice to the Rich’, pamphlet (1796), predicted Union; signed a petition for right to bears arms as Volunteers, with Dobbs, Flood and George Ponsonby, 1797; arrested on abortive charge of treason, and held without trial till 1799; gave information to save life of his friend Oliver Bond; while in Oporto, his agreed place of exile, arrested on suspicion of writing Arguments for and against a Union considered, in fact by Ed. Cooke; after banishment, spent 1800 to 1805 in France; legal adviser to Joseph Bonaparte in America; Wolfe Tone’s son entered his office; Memoirs is written in the form of letters, partly in France, partly in America. Curran godfather to his son.
Belfast Public Library holds Memoirs (1832); Trial of Rev. William Jackson for High Treason (1795).
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Notes
Portrait, William Sampson unknown, pencil; see Anne Crookshank, Irish Portraits Exhibition (Ulster Museum 1965).
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