her to return home, and procure documents to ascertain her loss. When she did forward her memorial, no second claim would be allowed-and many who had lost but little gained tenfold what they lost."*

That gratitude for past kindness was not extinguished in the peasant's breast, the following anecdote will instance.

"Soon after the first outbreak of the Wexford rebellion, a valuable and favourite mare, the property of Mrs. De Rienzy, of Clobemon Hall, was carried away from the field in which she was grazing, by a party of rebels from the county Carlow. The robbery being mentioned to a man named Keogh, who was much attached to the family, although a notorious rebel, he declared that he would recover the mare, and punish the party who had taken her; a promise which he faithfully fulfilled. Having traced the mare to the rebel camp at Old Leighlin, a mountain ridge upwards of twenty miles distant, and finding her in possession of one of the chiefs, he shot the man dead, and afterwards rode home the mare, which was found grazing quietly in her paddock the next morning, to the great surprise of the family. To give Keogh full credit for this exploit, it must be recollected, that the rebel army had been at this time driven from the counties of Kilkenny and Carlow, and that the intervening roads were occupied by yeomanry and troops of the line. By taking a circuitous route, Keogh managed to escape the danger, and cleverly achieved his object. It is only right to add, that in consideration of this act, he was afterwards pardoned at the intercession of the family.

"Shortly after the incident referred to, several houses in the neighbourhood were attacked by large bodies of rebels, who plundered and burned them, and in some instances put all the inmates to death. A large party, however, of the tenants and followers of the De Rienzy family acted as a guard to the house of Clobemon Hall, and would not suffer any injury to be done to it; and although the hall was for a considerable period in their actual possession, the only loss sustained was the abstraction of a few bottles of wine from the cellar, and the green cloth stripped from a billiard-table, which one of the party converted into a rebel uniform.Ӡ

* Communicated by a lady.

By the bye, a ludicrous story is told of one of the rebel party, when plundering a cellar, having by mistake drunk part of a bottle of red marking-ink, which he spat out; but his comrade immediately finished the remainder, observing that "it must be good stuff, or the Quality would not drink it."-Communicated by - Esq.

CHAPTER XV.

LORD CORNWALLIS APPOINTED VICEROY-RECOVERY OF THE TOWN OF WEX FORD-TRIALS AND EXECUTIONS OF THE REBEL LEADERS.

WHILE these transactions were occurring in Wexford and the adjacent districts, a change in the executive of the kingdom took place. Lord Camden was recalled, and Lord Cornwallis assumed the reins of government, "with a plenitude of power exceeding that of his predecessor, by the supremacy of military command having been superadded to the civil government of the country."" The fortunate appointment of this nobleman to the Irish lieutenancy was made at a moment when a powerful interposition between the military and the people had become imperative, as the licentiousness of the soldiery had overcome every means hitherto used for its restriction, and instead of bringing terror to the guilty, goaded them by indiscriminating severities to the commission of fresh crimes, and through the recklessness of desperation, forced numbers to band with the insurgents, who would otherwise have continued passive, and unoffending.

In conformity to the spirit of his instructions, and indeed with the secret dictates of a benevolent disposition, the new viceroy applied himself to remedy abuses, and by conciliatory measures, reclaim the disaffected, and induce them to return to their allegiance. In pursuance of this judicious system of government, military executions were interdicted, and the sentences of courts-martial suspended, until the minutes of the evidence had been submitted to the law officers and been revised. These humane proceedings were forerunners to the pro

* "That a viceroy of military talents, of political knowledge and activity, had not been sent sooner to this kingdom, where a widely-extended insurrection had been so long known to have been planned, seems to argue a defect of wisdom, or at least of precaution, in the British cabinet. Probably the members of that cabinet were little aware of the dangerous force of the Irish peasantry, when armed and brought into action. But if Newtownbarry, Ross, and Arklow had fallen into the hands of the Wexfordian insurgents; if these insurgents had not committed massacres and devastations; if they had not given their warfare the complexion of bigotry and religious murder; if they had not procrastinated; and if troops from France with arms and ammunition had landed to their assistance the British ministry might have had lamentable cause of repentance for their neglect of Ireland! As if to make atonement for past inattention, a man the most fit of all the class of nobility was at length appointed to this most important office-the Marquis Cornwallis; who had eminently displayed the talents of a general and statesman, not less when inevitably conquered in America, than when victorious in the East. The earlier appointment of such a viceroy might have prevented rebellion, and consequently the loss of thousands of lives and of immense property to the kingdom. His activity and wisdom, in the discharge of his high function, soon exhibited a new phenomenon in a country where the viceroyalty had been generally a sinecure, and the viceroy a pageant of state."-Gordon.

M

clamation of an act of amnesty-but to connect the narrative of the insurrectionary warfare, it will be necessary to detail the final scenes which closed the history of the Wexford outbreak.

After Keugh's offer of surrendering the town, under promise of protection, had been rejected by General Lake, who certainly would not have been warranted in entering into any negotiation with men in arms, a second attempt at accommodation was made under the sanction of Lord Kingsborough.* Two envoys were accordingly despatched with fresh proposals to be submitted to General Moore, but the messengers were intercepted outside the town, Ensign Harman, of the North Cork, brutally killed, and his companion driven back into Wexford. The ruffian who committed this wanton murder was called Whelan,—and, to end every hope of accommodation, he attempted to assassinate Lord Kingsborough, who had been the medium of communication hitherto kept up between the royalist commanders and the rebel chiefs. Every consideration of personal security pointed to the total suppression of outrage, as the only means by which the heavy vengeance of a victorious army could be averted; and Whelan would have been executed by the rebel leaders, had they not dreaded the fury of his savage followers. Nor was it without sufficient reason that the turbulent villain was allowed to murder with impunity an envoy despatched by themselves" so radically had the infernal spirit of rebellion extinguished all sense of duty in the misguided wretches in this temporary frenzy, that it became a service of as much danger to dehort them from their wicked purposes, as to hoist an orange cockade, or to threaten to flog, strangle, or picquet them."+

Meanwhile, the final scene of the tragic occurrences promised to equal, and perhaps exceed, the terrible events which had preceded it. There is little doubt that a general and unsparing massacre of the Protestants had been resolved upon-and although, assisted by an alarm that their camp was being attacked, the Catholic bishop and clergy had induced the greater number of the insurgents to quit the town, still the most ferocious wretches remained, and seemed deter

*"Lord Kingsborough was considered by the rebel chiefs as a valuable hostage ; and, perhaps, if they had fully availed themselves of this advantage, some terms might have been obtained in their favour, though of the lives of hostages in general, no account seems to have been made by the commanders of his Majesty's troops. The deluded multitude would probably have committed a tremendous massacre ou the 21st of June-the day of General Moore's march towards Wexford-if they had not been persuaded by their devoted leaders that conditions of surrendry would be obtained. For this purpose Lord Kingsborough, who on the occasion entered into certain engagements in favour of the rebels, was liberated, and sent to General Moore. How far his lordship endeavoured to fulfil these engagements, which probably was quite beyond his power, I am not authorized to say.'

+Plowden's Historical Review.

"Governor Keugh came into the street, and cried aloud, "Gentlemen, fly to the camp at the mountain of Forth; you have nothing else for it: Go there and defend yourselves.' Some of them, as they were retreating (but particularly young M Gauley, of Oulart, who was afterwards hanged) cried out, 'Let us set fire to the town!' but they had not time to do so, for in a few minutes there was not a rebel in it."-Taylor's History.

mined to conclude a period of anarchy and terrorism by a scene of indiscriminating slaughter.

"During this confusion which their flight occasioned, the bloody Thomas Dixon, mounted on a very fine horse which he had taken from Mr. Cadwallader Edwards, rode through the streets, with a broadsword drawn, and upbraided the rebels for their timidity and their dilatoriness. If you had followed my advice,' he said, in putting all the heretics to death three or four days ago, it would not have come to this pass.' Mrs. Dixon, who accompanied him on horseback, with a sword and case of pistols, clapped the rebels on the back and encouraged them, by saying, 'We must conquer: I know we must conquer:' and she exclaimed repeatedly, 'My Saviour tells me we must conquer!'

"They repaired to the bridge to stop the retreat of the rebels, but in vain, though Mrs. Dixon drew a pistol and swore vehemently that she would shoot any one who would refuse to return with her to put the remainder of the heretics to death. They endeavoured to raise the portcullis of the bridge, to prevent retreat, but were unable to do so.”*

It has been said, and I believe with justice, that the butcheries on Wexford bridge were perpetrated by a small section of the insurgents, kept by that sanguinary monster in a state of constant drunkenness, and ever ready to execute his ruthless orders. Every means were used by the ruffian to play upon the credulity, and excite the worst passions of his followers and his fiendish inventions to irritate a brutal mob appear almost incredible. "Orange furniture being found by the wife of this man in the drawing-room of Mr. Le Hunte, four miles from Wexford, particularly two fire-screens with emblematical figures, Dixon informed the mob that this room had been the meetingplace of orangemen, and that the figures denoted the manner in which the Roman Catholics were to be put to death by these conspirators; that they were to be first deprived of their sight, and then burned alive, without the exception even of children; and particularly, that the seamen of this communion were to be roasted to death on red-hot anchors."+

The approach of Moore's brigade, however, freed Wexford from the presence of the banditti who infested it to the last moment, and averted the intended massacre. Captain Boyd, the member for the town, and commandant of a corps of mounted yeomen, having ascertained that the great body of the rebels had returned, asked and obtained permission from General Moore to enter Wexford, and announce that the army was on its march to occupy the place. Attended only by a dozen mounted yeomen, Captain Boyd galloped down the streets, proclaiming to the inhabitants their deliverance. At five in the evening, Moore's brigade arrived at the heights commanding Wexford, and bivouaced on the

*Taylor's History.

+"The rage for retaliation, which operated as strongly from the representation of false as of true facts, the barbarous Dixon inflamed by whiskey and supported by the most inhuman exhortations."-Plowden's Historical Review.

Windmill-hill, while a wing of the Queen's regiment marched into the place and took military possession.

That the excesses committed by the soldiery, upon a town previously devoted to plunder and destruction, fell infinitely short of what might have been expected, is an undoubted fact. That a few lives were lost is not to be denied and while Plowden asserts "that all the wounded men in the hospital were put to the sword, and some of the straggling inhabitants lost their lives," another writer, himself present in the town, eulogizes the conduct of the troops, and describes their entrance into Wexford as having been orderly and inoffensive.*

A bloody episode in the Wexford history occurred at Gorey, on the day when the former town was recovered by the royalists.

"On the departure of General Needham from the latter town to Vinegar-hill, on the 20th of June, he had sent an express to Captain Holmes, of the Durham regiment, who commanded in Arklow, ordering him to despatch immediately to Gorey, that part of the Gorey cavalry who remained in Arklow, and informing him that on their arrival at their place of destination, they should find an officer to command them and a large force with which they were to unite. By the same express, the Gorey infantry were ordered to remain in Arklow; but these, and the refugee inhabitants of the place, hearing of a large force to protect their town, were so impatient to revisit their homes, that they followed the cavalry contrary to orders. This body of cavalry, amounting only to seventeen in number, found, on their arrival in Gorey, to their astonishment, not an officer or soldier. They, however, had the courage or temerity to scour the country in search of rebels, with the assistance of some others who had joined them, and killed about fifty men whom they found in their houses, or straggling homewards from the rebel camps."†

This act of severity on the part of the royalists, provoked insurgent retaliation-and the rebel column, under Peny, then in full retreat towards the mountains of Wicklow, determined to avenge the death of their late associates. On the 22nd, they marched rapidly on Goreythe little garrison taking a position outside the town to oppose the entrance of the insurgents. From the smallness of their force, the

* "Captain Boyd cautioned the prisoners not to come out till the arrival of the army, lest they might be taken for rebels (not having military clothes), and put to death; and shortly after the Queen's royals arrived. Description fails in attempting to set forth the emotions which arose in the breasts of the poor Protestants who had been doomed to destruction. The entrance of the army was peculiarly striking; for instead of rushing in with all the violence of enraged men, as might be expected, they marched along in such solemnity and silent grandeur, that not a whisper was to be heard through the ranks. Many wept with joy to see their deliverers, who soon opened the jail doors, and set the prisoners free.' Thus the town of Wexford was recovered on the 21st of June, 1798, after being in possession of the rebels twentythree days. Had the army arrived a day sooner, they would have saved ninety-seven Protestants, who were cruelly butchered on the bridge. Indeed the shocking acts of barbarity practised during this period would make as many pictures of inhumanity as are to be found in the history of the martyrs."-Taylor's History.

† Gordon.