arms on the assurance of being protected; they were murdered in the open street-and their wives, one of whom had been confined only a day or two before, had the horrible assurance that, with the shots they heard, the existence of their beloved partners had terminated. A number of other victims were immolated by these blood-thirsty savages-and, until relieved by Colonel Longfield, on the morning of the 28th, Rathangan was a constant scene of atrocity, in which even woman forgot her sex, and barbarously participated.* The murders at Rathangan, while they exasperated the royalists to acts of desperate retaliation, operated against the perpetrators in another and an unexpected way. The few Protestants in Leinster, and the South, his heart, fell a sacrifice to the fanaticism of those savages to whom he had been unremittingly a kind and generous benefactor. "As his house was a short distance from the town, Mrs. Spenser, who was led to it in the midst of these monsters, had the anguish to see the mangled corpse of her husband lying at his door."-Musgrave. In alluding to the barbarities perpetrated at Rathangan, my gallant friend, Colonel who, some years after the suppression of the rebellion, was employed professionally in this part of the country, gives the following interesting anecdote connected with the murder of Mr. Spenser ::- "On the preceding day I halted in Rathangan, and was shewn, in the churchyard, the tomb of Mr. Spenser, who was so brutally murdered at his own hall-door. I could not help remarking, that there was no allusion on the tomb to the mode of his death, and was informed that it arose from the fear of giving offence!! "One of the principal actors in that tragedy was a ruffian named Doorley. Three years after the rebellion he was in the jail of Longford-and as it was part of the duty of the captain of the day to visit the prison, it afforded me and other officers an opportunity of conversing with him, which he seemed rather to like, and a more reckless ruffian can hardly be imagined. He was a gaunt, spare, squalid-looking creature, evidently formed for great activity, but worn down by long and various efforts to escape the law. In fact, he had been hunted down like a wolf; and acknowledged to seven murders, not that he called them by that name. In fact, he seemed to make a merit of putting an end to what he termed an Orangeman, real or fancied. He was hanged soon after I last visited him."-MS. Journal of a Field Officer. *The barbarous treatment of Michael Shenstone, a Protestant, deserves to be circumstantially related. He was led into the street with the other unfortunate Protestants, and received eighteen stabs of pikes. "A woman of the name of Farrel, who was infamously active in this sanguinary business, informed them that they did not know how to kill Orangemen, on which a ruffian stepped forward, and trampled on the dead and dying. He then put a pistol close to Shenstone's head, and the ball entering near the ear, came out under the eye, having fractured the cheek-bone in a most shocking manner. In some hours after, he was put into a cart with the bodies of seventeen Protestants who had been murdered, and was conveyed to the churchyard to be interred; but some alarm preventing it, he remained among the dead that night. Next morning, at the intercession of some of the rebels, his body was delivered to his wife, by whose care, and with proper medical assistance, he recovered, and regained the use of his limbs. These facts were related to me by a gentleman who saw Shenstone soon after; and they have been verified by his affidavit, sworn before Oliver Nelson, a magistrate, and by Mr. Bayly, curate of Rathangan, and by Mr. Pym, his landlord." I have appended this extract from Musgrave, not so much from the singular deliverance from death which it records, but to affirm that, in the wildest hours of excitement and excess, woman rarely forgot her gentlest attributes, gentleness and pity for the wretched. Many a royalist has been succoured in his hour of danger by some fair Romanist-and females have sheltered the hunted rebel, and in the very house of him, who, at the moment, was bent on the destruction of the denounced one. who had mixed themselves with the conspiracy, suddenly became alarmed-for the war had now assumed a religious, rather than a revolutionary complexion. Suspicion once aroused, finds abundant causes to confirm it and while some Protestants quietly seceded from their fellow-traitors, not a few sought favour with the Government by a secret betrayal of their guilty companions." In the course of this history nothing will be more apparent, than the incompetency, military and diplomatic, of many of the functionaries to whom extensive powers were confided. One while, unnecessary severity was employed-and at another, mistaken lenity marred every advantage which stringent measures might have effected. In military conduct, the royalist commanders were too often found deficient and, almost in every instance, either to imprudence or imbecility, the insurgents were alone indebted for moments of doubtful and evanescent success. The affair at Old Kilcullen, was about one of the worst military offences committed by an incompetent commander. Yeomanry officers always behaved with boldness, and frequently displayed both tact and talent when left to their own resources while many from whose high military rank and standing something like ability might have been looked for, proved the truism of the adage, "that as the cowl does not make the monk," neither does an aiguilette constitute a general. Learning that some three hundred well-appointed rebels had assembled at Old Kilcullen, and that they had entrenched themselves in the church-yard, General Dundas proceeded to dislodge them. His force consisted only of forty dragoons, and some twenty Suffolk militiamen. The rebel position was on a height-one side protected by a high wall-the other secured by a double fence-a hedge with a dike in front. Would it be credited, that an English general could be mad enough to assail three hundred men thus posted, with forty dragoons? Musgrave thus narrates the transaction, and his account has been considered by those engaged to be perfectly correct : "General Dundas ordered the Romneys and the 9th dragoons to charge the rebels, though it was up-hill, though the ground was broken, and many of the rebels were in a road close to the church-yard, in which not more than six of the cavalry could advance in front. "They however charged with great spirit, though their destruction was considered by all the spectators to be the certain and inevitable * "I shall mention here an incident which throws light on the spirit of the conspiracy and rebellion, and the secret designs of the great body of the rebels.-One Dennis, an apothecary and a Protestant, was the county delegate, and the chief conductor of the plot in the King's county, which was to have exploded in a few days; but the wanton massacre of Protestants at Prosperous and Rathangan having convinced him that their extirpation was the main object of the Romanists, though they had, with singular dissimulation, concealed it from him who was their leader, he repaired to Tullamore to General Dunn, who commanded that district, threw himself on the mercy of Government, exposed the whole plot, and betrayed the names of the captains, who were immediately arrested. He said to the General, ‘I see, Sir, that it will soon be my own fate.' "—Musgrave. consequence of it; for what could cavalry do, thus broken and divided, against a firm phalanx of rebels, armed with long pikes? Nevertheless, they made three charges, but were repulsed in each; and at every repulse the general urged them to renew the attack. "It was with the utmost difficulty that Captain Cooks and Captain Erskine could prevail upon their men to renew the charge, after the first defeat. In the last charge, Captain Cooks, to inspire his men with courage by his example, advanced some yards before them; when his horse having received many wounds, fell upon his knees; and while in that situation, the body of that brave officer was perforated with pikes; and he, Captain Erskine, and twenty-two privates, were killed on the spot, and ten so badly wounded, that most of them died soon after." Shamefully discomfited, Dundas fell back on the village of Kilcullen bridge, and occupied a pass in every respect defensible. So thought the successful peasants who had garrisoned the church-yard, and deforced an English general. They prudently declined any attempt to force the bridge-forded the Liffey at Castlemartin-and took up a position between Naas and Kilcullen; thus cutting off General Dundas's communication with the capital. Nothing remained for the royalist commander but to drive them from these grounds, and open his road to Naas. He advanced accordingly, found them in line three deep, and with his cavalry in hand, boldly attacked the position with half a company of the gallant Suffolks. Small as the party was, three rounds broke the rebels. The cavalry charged-and the same body, which had so recently inflicted a severe repulse, were scattered like a flock of sheep, leaving the ground covered with their dead and wounded. After a brief but bloody pursuit, Dundas marched on Naas, to concentrate his troops and assist in covering the capital. |