Finlay was sentenced to three months' imprisonment, without the option of a fine, and the publication of the 'Northern Whig' was suspended from August 1826 until May 1827.
From the first Finlay advocated the emancipation of the Roman Catholics, and it was in the columns of the 'Northern Whig' that William Sharman Crawford propounded his celebrated views on tenant-right.
Some comments in the 'Northern Whig' on the conduct of Lord Hertford's agent led to another prosecution for libel in 1830, which, however, was abandoned when it transpired that Daniel O'Connell had volunteered for the defence.
To the extension of the suffrage, the disestablishment of the Irish church, and the reform of the land laws Finlay through his paper gave a steady and zealous support ; but, though a personal friend of O'Connell, he opposed the movement for the repeal of the union and the later developments of Irish disaffection, such as the Young Irelandism of Mitchell and the agitation which resulted in the abortive insurrection of Smith O'Brien.
He died on 10 September 1857, bequeathing his paper to his younger son, Francis Dalzell Finlay,[2] by whom it was conducted until 1874, when it was transferred to a limited company.