Jerilderie Letter Jerilderie Letter

one he was sitting on. he had just got to the logs and put his head up to take aim when I shot him that instant or he would have shot me as I took him to be Strachan the man who said he would not ask me to stand he would shoot me first like a dog. But it happened to be Lonigan the man who in company with Sergeant Whelan Fitzpatrick & King the Bootmaker and Constable O'Day that tried to put a pair of hand-cuffs on me in Benalla but could not & had to allow McInnis the miller to put them on, previous to Fitzpatrick swearing he was shot, I was fined two pounds for hitting Fitzpatrick & two pounds for not allowing five curs like Sergeant Whelan O'Day Fitzpatrick King & Lonigan who caught me by the privates and would have sent me to Kingdom come only I was not ready & he is the man that blowed before he left Violet Town if Ned Kelly was to be shot he was the man would shoot him and no doubt he would shoot me even if I threw up my arms & laid down as he knew four of them could not arrest me single-handed not to talk of the rest of my mates, also either me or him would have to die, this he knew well therefore he had a right to keep out of my road, Fitzpatrick is the only one I hit out of the five in Benalla; this shows my feeling towards him as he said we were good friends & even swore it but he was the biggest enemy I had in the country with the exception of Lonigan & he can be thankful I was not there when he took a revolver & threatened to shoot my mother in her own house it is not fire three shots and miss him at a yard & a half I don't think I would use a revolver to shoot a man like him when I was within a yard & a half of him or attempt to fire into a house where my mother brothers & sisters was & according to Fitzpatricks statement all around him a man that is such a bad shot as to miss a man three times at a yard & a half would never attempt to fire into a house among a house full of women and children while I had a pairs of arms & bunch of fives on the end of them that never failed to peg out anything they came in contact with and Fitzpatrick knew the weight of one of them only too well, as it run against him once in Benalla, and cost me two pound odd as he is very subject to fainting. As soon as I shot Lonigan he jumped up and staggered some distance from the logs with his hands raised & then fell he surrendered but too late I asked McIntyre who was in the tent he replied no