ties of the day-for Father Clinch of Enniscorthy was killed while retreating after the action.* * "He was a man of huge stature, with a scymitar and broad cross-belts, mounted on a large white horse, with long pistols, and made such a conspicuous figure on the hill during the action, and the day preceding it, as attracted the notice of our troops, particularly as he seemed to be constantly employed in reconnoitring them. The Earl of Roden having singled him out among the fugitives, overtook him after a mile's pursuit, and received his fire, which his Lordship returned, and wounded him in the neck. He then discharged his second pistol at Lord Roden, on which an officer of the regiment rode up and shot him. He wore his vestments under his clothes; had near forty pounds in his pocket, a gold watch, and a remarkable snuffbox; all which, it is presumed, he had acquired by plunder. He had been as active in the cabinet as the field, having constantly sat at the committee at Enniscorthy, and, mounted on his charger and fully accoutred, he daily visited the camp.". Musgrave. CHAPTER XIV. OCCUPATION OF WEXFORD BY THE REBELS ATROCITIES COMMITTED IN THAT TOWN-ANECDOTES. THE darkest epoch of the revolutionary war has now devolved upon us to be described, and the events which marked the Wexford insurrection, from the time that the town was evacuated by the royalists, and the hill over Enniscorthy occupied as a rebel camp, remain to be narrated. Would to God that blood-stained chapter in Irish history could be discredited or omitted altogether! Colonel Maxwell's retreat from Wexford, after the unfortunate defeat of the Meath detachment at the Three Rocks, has already been detailed-and the royalists had scarcely commenced their march to Duncannon, until the town was occupied by a division of the rebel army, commanded by a farmer, called Edward Roche, who had acted as permanent serjeant in a corps of yeoman cavalry. The advance of the rebel column to a place destined to become the scene of unparalleled barbarities was at the same time desecrated by a foul parade of false religion,* rendered contemptible by a ludicrous display of unexampled cowardice, and succeeded by cruelties, which almost exceed belief. "When the rebels came to a place called the Spring," says Musgrave, "within two hundred yards of the town, they knelt down, crossed themselves, and prayed for some time. A person in the van of their army, when advanced to the middle of the town, having by chance fired a shot, the rear, who were outside, fled with precipitation. As the rebels passed through the streets, they uttered the most dreadful yells-and for three days after their arrival, continued to plunder, every one gratifying his revenge against those to whom he bore any enmity." A committee of seven was next appointed to form a general board of direction-and to smooth away the disgrace of his deposition from a chief command, Bagenal Harvey was elected president. The town was divided into districts-and the government of the whole conferred on Captain Keough—a man who had risen from the ranks, and probably intoxicated with past good-fortune, now aimed at and obtained a brief and fatal distinction. "It has been remarked, that none of the rebels were so blood thirsty as those who were most regular attendants at the Popish ordinances; and the drunken and careless sort were observed to have the greatest share of good-nature. It is a certain truth, that these savages never had so many Masses, nor ever prayed so much, as during their month of usurpation, especially on their battle days; then all the old men, women, and children, betook themselves to their Ave Marias, &c., and when parties of two or three hundred would go round the country burning the houses of Protestants, they generally fell on their knees as soon as they set them on fire."Gordon. The plunder of the houses of such Protestants as had escaped, and the incarceration of those who unfortunately either could not effect a retreat, or clung with desperate determination to property they could not find sufficient resolution to abandon, next occupied the insur gents. While the rabble were engaged in collecting numbers of ill-fated Protestants for future slaughter, the leaders went through the mockery of establishing a provisional government-and in imitation of the French Jacobins, a grand national committee, a council of elders, and a council of five hundred, were to be organized forthwith-while the dwelling-house of a wealthy merchant was put into requisition as a senate-house, wherein the different estates were to legislate for the young republic. If it were necessary to prove the fallacy, that any possibility exists of retaining influence over a sanguinary and superstitious mob, by any means but acting on their ignorance, or pandering to the worst passions of brutal dispositions, the rebel occupation of Wexford would afford an ample evidence-and the president of the council, and the governor of the town, in their own sad stories, tell, that the baser the matériel of the mob, the briefer is the authority of those who undertake the direction of its movements. Harvey was in birth and feeling a gentleman. He weakly accepted a dangerous distinction-and short as the duration of the Wexford emeute was, in its first outbreak he lost his popularity-and in a few days more, the commonest of the rabble leaders superseded him in authority, and exercised a power to which he too late found himself unequal to pretend. There is no doubt that the delusion of this illjudging gentleman was hastily dispelled*-and a letter,† addressed to * Mr. Harvey, in his defence on his trial, said "That he became a member of the Irish Union three years before; that he imagined the only object was to reform the constitution; but that he did not till recently discover that the popish priests were deeply concerned in it, and that the extermination of Protestants was their main design. That having opposed their sanguinary views, he was deposed, and the command was given to that infamous villain Father Roche. That he was then carried to the Three-rock camp as a prisoner, where he remained a few days, and was so far at liberty as to be allowed to walk about; but so closely watched, that, with every wish to make his escape, he found it impossible, till the evening the rebels fled in every direction on the approach of the king's troops." T "Dear Sir, "I received your letter, but what to do for you I know not; I from my heart wish to protect all property; I can scarce protect myself; and indeed my situation is much to be pitied, and distressing to myself. I took my present situation in hopes of doing good, and preventing mischief; my trust is in Providence; I acted always an honest, disinterested part, and, had my advice been taken by those in power, the present mischief would never have arisen. If I can retire to a private station again, I will immediately. Mr. Tottenham's refusing to speak to the gentleman I sent into Ross, who was madly shot by the soldiers, was very unfortunate; it has set the people mad with rage, and there is no restraining them. The person I sent in had private instructions to propose a reconciliation, but God knows where this business will end; but end how it will, the good men of both parties will be inevitably ruined. "I am, with respect, yours, "B. B. HARVEY." a friend who requested his protection, gives a melancholy picture of the sandy foundation on which a rabble popularity is raised. From a communication forwarded to Lord Kingsborough,* immediately before his execution, and statements made by him in his defence, it is certain, that, had circumstances permitted it, Harvey would have thrown himself upon the mercy of the government, and abandoned a party, where his influence was second to a shoe-black's. Every day during the rebel occupation of the town and adjacent encampments, fresh victims continued to be brought in by the savage pikemen. In Wexford, a small sloop, the town jail, and subsequently the market-house, were filled with unhappy sufferers. The jail at last became so overcrowded, that the committee of public safety, dreading that putrid food and sultry weather would occasion a pestilence among the wretched captives, determined that fifty should be removed, and committed from the prison to the market-house. This exchange was contemplated by the sufferers with the deepest alarm, and many entreated, crowded as the prison was, that they might be suffered to remain in it. An anxious yearning after life actuated the unhappy prisoners in urging their petition. Although the jail had become dangerous and loathsome, still it had one advantage in the captives' eyes. The building was strong-and more likely therefore, to afford protection from a murderous banditti, who could scarcely be restrained from bursting the doors, and consigning to a general massacre all the unfortunates contained within the walls. Nor were those confined within the prison-ship more favoured than the other sufferers, although their belonging to a superior order of society, would naturally render them more susceptible to the privations they endured, and the cruelties inflicted on them. Were it possible to have added any thing to the infamous barbarity which attended on their captivity, it would be the fact that some were gentlemen far advanced in years, and others delicate females who had been nursed in the lap of luxury. During their lengthened confinement, constant insult, with threats of instant death, were vented on them by the druken savages who formed their guard-while female ears were outraged by blasphemous oaths, and more disgusting obscenity. Such was the intensity of the misery which they underwent, that one lady absolutely became insane, and attempting to commit suicide, was with difficulty saved from drowning. In this infernal state of bondage, these unfortunates were retained for sixteen days. Confined in the hold of a wretched smack, "covered with an iron grating and no bed but a light covering of dirty straw laid upon the ballast, *"My Lord, "I take the liberty of requesting your Lordship will let me have an opportunity of seeing your lordship before you leave Wexford. You cannot but recollect how repeatedly I wished to speak to your lordship alone; that I was always prevented by fear; and whenever I met you and was allowed to speak to you, I was ever ready to accede to proposals of restoring order and government. "I am with submission, "Your lordship's most obedient, which consisted of stones. Six rebel guards were placed over them. Their breakfast consisted of a small barley loaf, which was almost black, and half a pint of milk: their dinner of coarse boiled beef, with some potatoes, let down in the dirty bucket of the ship, without a knife or fork-for they were deprived of them as soon as they were committed. Their drink was bad beer or whiskey-and two days in the week, their only food was potatoes and rancid butter, let down in the ship's bucket."* A reign of terror had commenced-the rabble power had become predominant and all persons of superior rank, or a different faith, were denounced† by wretches who associated crime with religion, and slaughtered in the name of God. The lowest ruffians had become leaders of the mob-and several monsters, who desecrated the holy orders intrusted to them, encouraged the barbarities of their besotted followers, and pandered to their superstition. Among these wretches, Murphy, of Bannow, and Roche, of Paulpearsey, were conspicuous. The latter, like Murphy, killed at Arklow, was also a bullet-catcherand while he occasionally distributed to his flock balls which had been caught in action-he promised an immunity from danger to the faithful. "He would give them," he said, "gospels to hang about their necks, which would make the person who wore it proof against all the power of heretical artillery; but that notwithstanding their extra *MS. by a Lady. + PROCLAMATION OF THE People of the County of Wexford. "WHEREAS, it stands manifestly notorious that James Boyd, Hawtry White, Hunter Gowan, and Archibald Hamilton Jacob, late magistrates of this county, have committed the most horrid acts of cruelty, violence, and oppression, against our peaceable and well-affected countrymen: now WE the people, associated and united for the purpose of procuring our just rights, and being determined to protect the persons and properties of those of all religious persuasions who have not oppressed us, and who are willing with heart and hand to join our glorious cause, as well as to shew our marked disapprobation and horror of the crimes of the above delinquents, do call on our countrymen at large, to use every exertion in their power to apprehend the bodies of the aforesaid James Boyd, &c. &c. &c. and to secure and convey them to the gaol of Wexford, to be brought before the Tribunal of the People. "Done at Wexford, this 9th day of June, 1798. "No gun, pistol, sword, or any other offensive weapon, can hurt or otherwise injure the person who has this paper in his possession; and it is earnestly recommended to all women with child to carry it, as it will be found an infallible preservation against the fatality of child-bed. "No. 7601. "ROCHE." One of those gospels was taken from off the neck of John Hay, a rebel chief, who was executed at Wexford, a few days after it was retaken by the king's army-they were generally sewed to a brown-coloured tape. |