CHAP. VIII.] ral Lake insisted upon the unconditional surrender of the place, and in his answer to the proposal of the 21st, informed the inhabitants that no terms could be granted to rebels in arms against their sovereign.* On the evacuation of the town by the main body of rebels, part of them, under Messrs. Fitzgerald, Perry, and Edward Roche, passed over the bridge to the eastern side of the river Slaney, and the rest, under Father Philip Roche, in an opposite direction into the barony of Forth. About five o'clock in the afternoon of this day, Captain Boyd, anxious to rescue his amia family, was among the prisoners in Wexford, galloped into the town with only eight yeomen of his troop, and happily found it abandoned by the rebel force. Soon afterwards, other small detachments of the army followed, and the surviving prisoners, to the number of about one hundred and forty, were all set at liberty, to their inexpressible joy. General Moore, whose firmness and humanity were above all praise, on consulting with Lord Kingsborough, thought it most advisable not to let his troops into the town, which it had been determined to annihilate design, and choosing a moment of extreme agitation for its accomplishment, he contrived on the 20th of June to set on foot a The prisoners, being great massacre. brought from the prison, were led to slaughter in successive divisions, surrounded by a guard of inhuman butchers; and preceded to the place of execution by a black flag, marked with a white cross, where they were put to death by various means, but principally by four men at once, who standing two before and two behind each victim, thrust their pikes into his body, and elevating him from the ground, held him writhing in the air till all signs of life were ex-ble consort, who, with all the rest of his tinguished. Some of the prisoners were slaughtered at the jail, and others at the market-house, but the great butchery was on the bridge-a magnificent wooden fabric, ill adapted for such a hideous exhibition. This horrible spectacle was, it is said, regarded by a multitude of wretches assembled on the occasion, the greater part women, as a gratifying sight, and the congregated multitudes rent the air with shouts of exultation on each fresh arrival of victims at the fatal spot! The slaughter, which had commenced at two o'clock in the afternoon, continued till ninety-seven men had been deliberately massacred, and till the news arrived, at seven o'clock at night, that the post of Vinegar-hill had been carried by the king's troops. Father Curran, having in vain supplicated the assassins to desist, commanded them to pray before they proceeded further in this work of death; and when he had thus brought them to their knees, he ordered them to cry, "O God! show to us the same mercy that we show to Lord Kingsthese surviving prisoners!" borough, colonel of the North Cork regiment of militia, who had been taken prisoner in the harbour of Wexford at the breaking out of the rebellion, and detained ever since, narrowly escaped from swelling the number of the victims, through the strenuous and humane endeavours of Dr. Caulfield, the Romish bishop. The only charge urged by Dixon and his bloody associates against the objects of their diabolical fury, was, that they were Orangemen, and the proof of their guilt rested upon the evidence of two wretches of the names of Jackson and O'Conner, who were themselves confined in the jail at Wexford, and became informers to save their own lives. * PROPOSAL TO SURRENDER. "That Captain M'Manus shall proceed from Wexford towards Oulart, accompanied by Mr. Edward Hay, appointed by the inhabitants of all religious persuasions, to inform the officer commanding the king's troops, that they are ready to deliver up the town of Wexford, without opposi. tion, to lay down their arms, and return to their allegiance, provided that their persons and properties are guaranteed by the commanding officer; to induce the people of the country at large and that they will use every influence in their to return to their allegiance; and these terms, it is hoped, that Captain M'Manus will be able to procure. power (Signed by order of the inhabitants of Wexford,) MATTHEW KEUGH. Wexford, June 21st, 1798. ANSWER. "Lieutenant-general Lake cannot attend to any terms proposed by rebels in arms against their sovereign: while they continue so, he must use the force intrusted to him with the utmost energy for their destruction. To the deluded multitude he their leaders, surrendering their arms, and returnpromises pardon, on their delivering into his hands ing with sincerity to their allegiance. (Signed) Enniscorthy, June 22d, 1798. G. LAKE." This reply was not anticipated, for the Rev Philip Roche, in full confidence that the offer on return to their allegiance, would be acceded to, The Wexford insurgents, in the hope that the part of the rebels to lay down their arms, and their offer of surrender would be acceded to and that protection would be afforded both to himby General Lake, and conscious that it was self and to his followers, left his forces at Sleimpossible to oppose any effectual resist-dagh, on the 22d, to proceed to Wexford: and so ance to the overwhelming force brought against them, liberated Lord Kingsborough, and on the 21st surrendered the town into his hands. Contrary to their hopes, Gene vanced, undisguised, within the lines of the king's little apprehensive was he of danger, that he adforces; but no sooner was the rebel chief recog nised, than he was dragged from his horse, and in stantly conveyed to the prison at Windmill-hills. attendant atrocities. On the 25th, the united forces from Gorey, and those under Garret Byrne, appeared at Hacketstown at five o'clock in the morning, and after a long engagement with the garrison at that place, which continued for many hours with various success, they were at length repulsed, with the loss of two hundred men, among whom was Mi previous to the negotiation, and in conse-Tullow, was hanged the same day. After quence of this circumstance, of which the the body of this sanguinary priest was army was perfectly aware, it required the burned, his head, with indiscreet zeal, was utmost precaution to prevent its being plun- placed on the market-house-a savage and dered, sacked, and destroyed, with all the horrid custom, tending little to intimidate, but admirably calculated to render a disafWhile the loyalists of Wexford were re-fected people more savage and ferocious, by joicing in their deliverance, a most tragic making them familiar with barbarity, and scene was acting in Gorey. On the 20th of accustoming them to the violation of the June, a party of the Gorey cavalry, about rite of sepulture. seventeen in number, on their return home to that place, in resentment for the injury the town had suffered, killed about fifty men, whom they found in their houses, or straggling home from the rebel army. On the 22d, a body of about five hundred rebels retreating from Wexford, and directing their march to the mountains of Wicklow, on hearing of this slaughter, and being in-chael Reynolds, the chief who had led the formed of the weakness of the party by whom it was perpetrated, determined on vengeance. With this view, they marched towards Gorey, where a smart skirmish took place, which terminated in favour of the rebels, who, in pursuing the military, overtook a number of refugees flying from the place, and slaughtered thirty-seven of them upon the road, exclusive of some others who were dreadfully wounded, but afterwards recovered. On this sanguinary day, which is yet remembered in Gorey, under the designation of Bloody Friday, no women or children were injured, because, as the rebels, who affected to act on a sys-time that he rendered their fury ineffectual. tem of retaliation, said, no women or children had, on the 20th, been hurt by the adverse party. In the mean time, the body of rebels which had retreated from Vinegar-hill, and penetrated into the county of Kilkenny, by the Scullagh gap, which separates the counties of Carlow and Wexford, burned the village of Killedmond, and proceeded to Goresbridge, under the command of Father John Murphy, of Ballavogue. Having advanced in column, they were opposed by Lieutenant Dixon, who was posted there with a party, composed chiefly of dragoons; but he was at length obliged to retreat, as they had brought a swivel, and several pieces of cannon, to bear on his post, which he in vain endeavoured to maintain against so overwhelming a disparity of force. But their success was of short duration, for they were pursued by General Dunn and Sir Charles Asgill, and totally defeated on the 26th of June, at Kilcomney-hill, with a loss of from two to three hundred slain, and ten light pieces of cannon taken, with seven hundred horses, and all the rest of their plunder. Murphy, the commander-in-chief, who fled from the field of battle, was taken soon afterwards, and being conducted to the head-quarters of General Sir James Duff, at rebels to Naas, on the first morning of the rebellion, and who thus, like the great majority of the insurgent chiefs, paid the forfeit of his life as the price of his military elevation. A body of insurgents, who assembled soon afterwards at Whiteheaps, in the county of Wexford, was dispersed by General Needham, assisted by General Duff and the Marquis of Huntley, the latter of whom acquired great credit, during his residence in Ireland, by uniting humanity with courage, and compassionating the failings of a deluded multitude, at the same The spirit of rebellion in the south, which had assumed in its progress much of the appearance of a war of religion,* was now happily approaching to its termination; and in the north, this revolutionary contest never exhibited a very formidable shape, for the disaffected Protestants in that quarter, shocked at the enormities perpetrated, and the intolerance displayed, and scandalized by the pretended miracles wrought by the blood-stained priests, Roche and Murphy, determined to resist the seduction. They indeed found means to keep possession of Antrim for a few days, though, on being attacked with cannon and musketry, on the 7th of June, they were driven out of the town, with the loss of about two hundred slain, but not till Lord O'Neill, who commanded a regiment of Irish militia, had been mortally wounded. They were also repulsed in an ill-concerted attack on Carrickfergus; and at Ballynahinch, where they had determined to make *"Of ten protestant clergymen," says Mr. Gordon," who fell into the hands of the insurgents, in the county of Wexford, five were put to death without mercy or hesitation; namely, Robert Barland, and Thomas Trocke, all men of regular cor rows, Francis Turner, Samuel Haydon, John Peniduct and inoffensive disposition." a stand with six thousand men, under Munroe, the northern chief, they received a total overthrow. On the subsiding of this minor rebellion in Ulster, another local rising took place in Munster, much inferior in vigour, and much more easily suppressed than that in the north. The principal action, and indeed the only one of which government thought fit to make a report to the public, took place in the county of Cork, on the 19th of June, near the village of Ballynascarty. At this place, a division of two hundred and twenty men, of the West Meath militia, provided with two six-pounders, and commanded by Sir Hugh O'Reilly, were attacked on their march from Cloghnakilty to Bandon, by a body of about three or four hundred rebels in ambush, principally armed with pikes. After a smart engagement, during which the rebels were joined by two reinforcements, and the West Meath militia by about one hundred men of the Caithness legion, the assailants dispersed, with a loss of from fifty to one hundred men, while the loyalists lost only a sergeant and one private.* After a predatory warfare, carried on between the 26th of June and the 10th of July, in the counties of Carlow and Wicklow, in which several vigorous, but ineffectual efforts were made, to reanimate an expiring cause, the insurgent chiefs, Fitzgerald and Byrne, surrendered to Generals Dundas and Moore; and this sanguinary insurrection, which broke out on the 23d of May, and raged with intense fury till the 22d of the following month, threatening, in its alarming progress, the existence of government itself, was, on the 12th of July finally extinguished. CHAPTER IX. CONSEQUENCES OF THE IRISH Rebellion: Trial and Execution of several of the rebel Chiefs-The Marquis Cornwallis called to the Vice-regal Office in Ireland; adopts an enlightened and humane System of Policy-The principal Conspirators obtain the royal Clemency, on condition of making certain Disclosures to Government-The Object of the Rebellion, as explained by its InstigatorsIreland still scourged by Bands of Marauders, "The Babes in the Wood"--Military Excesses-Esti mate of the Loss sustained by the Country from the Rebellion-General Humbert invades Ireland, obtains a Victory at Castlebar, but is subsequently obliged to surrender himself and his Forces prisoners of war to the Marquis Cornwallis-Description of the Battle of Killala, by an Eyewitness -Napper Tandy, attended by General Rey, lands from a French Brig on the small Island of Rutland, and after an ineffectual Attempt to excite the People to rise in Arms, re-embarks for FranceA French Fleet equipped for the Invasion of Ireland-Defeated by Sir J. B. Warren-The closing Scenes of the Insurrection. county committee of Wicklow. Oliver Bond, a merchant in extensive business, and one of the principal conspirators, at whose house the Leinster delegates had been arrested on the 12th of March, was arraigned for high-treason on the 23d of July, and his trial continued till seven o'clock on the morning of the 24th, when he was convicted. THE capital of Ireland having escaped the horrors of that insurrection, which, in its first revolutionary burst, approached to the precincts of her jurisdiction, now became the theatre of public justice: and the first person brought to trial was a rebel chief, of the name of Bacon, a citizen of Dublin, in an extensive line of business, and of the Protestant persuasion; this unfortunate man was apprehended on the 2d These trials in the metropolis were all of June, disguised as a female, and pro- decided by jury; but in Wexford, and ceeding in a chaise to the country, to join other parts of the country, the government the insurgents. Being found guilty of high-resorted to the more summary tribunals of treason, he was executed on the 14th, on the same scaffold with Lieutenant Esmond, a Roman Catholic, convicted of leading the rebel forces, in the attack on Prosperous. Henry and John Sheares, the sons of a banker at Cork, and both of them members of the bar, were tried in Dublin on the 12th of July, condemned on the clearest evidence, and executed in the front of Newgate. The trial of John M'Cann, secretary to the provincial committee of Leinster, followed on the 17th, and he suffered with Michael William Byrne, delegate for the VOL. I. 2 L 23 court-martial. On the 25th of June, Matthew Keugh, the rebel governor of Wexford; the Rev. Philip Roche, the general; and seven others, having been previously tried and convicted by a court-martial, were all brought to the bridge at Wexford, and executed. Among the persons who suffered for high-treason on the same bridge, were Beauchamp Bagnel Harvey, John Henry Colclough, and Cornelius Grogan. Gro * See the Duke of Portland's Official Communication, dated June 26, 1798. gan died possessed of an estate of eight | the capital of the country, and at the expirathousand a year, and had so far miscon- tion of a few days, Earl Camden took his ceived the state of affairs, as to imagine his departure in a very splendid style for Engproperty more secure under the protection land. On the 3d of the following month, of the United Irishmen, than of the existing a proclamation from the new viceroy ap government-miserable delusion! It is peared in the Dublin Gazette, authorizing generally supposed, that in taking a part in his majesty's generals to afford protection the rebel cause, he acted under constraint, to such insurgents, as, having been simply and Mr. Harvey, in taking his final fare- guilty of rebellion, should surrender their well of Mr. Grogan, on the morning of their arms, abjure all unlawful engagements, and execution, said, in the presence of an offi- take the oath of allegiance. The necessity cer, and several of the guards—“Ah! poor of this act of clemency was perfectly obviGrogan, you die an innocent man." On ous to all who understood the Irish characthe evacuation of Wexford by the rebels, ter, and who considered what numbers had Mr. Colclough, who, up to the period of the been seduced into the fatal conspiracy by rebellion, was a man of the first considera- artifice, and forced into the rebel ranks by tion in the country, had taken his amiable an unfortunate combination of adverse cir wife and only child to one of the Saltee cumstances.* To give the full sanction of islands, and sought concealment in a cave, law to this measure of consummate 'wiswhere he was in hopes to have remained dom, a message was delivered from his extill the tempest had subsided. Mr. Harvey, cellency to the Irish parliament, on the acquainted with the place of his friend's re- 17th of July, on which was grounded an treat, repaired thither also for security, but act of amnesty to all who, not being leadon the 23d they were brought, by the vigi- ers, had not committed manslaughter, exlance of Dr. Waddy, a yeoman, from their cept in the heat of battle, and who should cave to the jail at Wexford; and, in these comply with the conditions of the procladismal times, short indeed was the passage mation. from the prison to the grave. Among the leaders of the rebellion executed at the time of its suppression were John Hay, the rebel general, who was found concealed in his own shrubbery, on the 22d of June, by General Dundas's troops, and executed the day following; Kelley, the chief of Kill-ann, who penetrated into the town of New Ross; and Father John Redmond, of Clough. Besides the persons already enumerated, a great number of others paid the forfeit of their lives to the injured laws of their country, and in the town of Wexford alone, not fewer than sixty-five persons were executed for the crimes of rebellion and murder.* a This act was followed by a treaty between the government and the chiefs of the United Irishmen, negotiated by Counsellor Dobbs, a member of the house of commons, bearing date the 29th of July, and expressed in the following terms: 66 three prisons of Newgate, Kilmainham, and BrideThat the undersigned state prisoners, in the well, engage to give every information in their power of the whole of the internal transactions of the United Irishmen; and that each of the prisoners shall give detailed information of every transmen and foreign states; but that the prisoners are action that has passed between the United Irishnot, by naming or describing, to implicate any person whatever; and that they are ready to emigrate to such country as shall be agreed on between them and government, and to give security not to return to this country without the permission of government, and not to pass into an enemy's coun try;-if, on so doing, they are to be freed from prosecution; and also Mr. Oliver Bond (then under sentence of death) be permitted to take the benefit of this proposal. The state prisoners also hope that the benefit of this proposal may be extended to such persons in custody as may choose to benefit by it."" A mode of proceeding against imputed rebels more summary still than that of trial by court-martial, was practised, from the commencement of the rebellion, by soldiers, yeomen, and supplementaries, who frequently executed, without the formality of trial, such as they judged worthy of death. This practice augmented for a time the number of the rebels, and would, on their dispersion, have in a great measure depo- In consequence of the proclaimed ampulated the country, if it had not been re-nesty, some of the rebel chiefs who had strained by the enlightened and humane policy of government, on the appointment of the Marquis Cornwallis, in the place of Earl Camden, to the lord-lieutenancy of Ireland. hitherto remained in arms, among whom was Aylmer, surrendered their persons. Six principals of the conspiracy, particularly Arthur O'Connor, Thomas Addis Emmett, Dr. M'Nevin, and Samuel Neilson, gave details on oath, in their examinations * Mr. Baines is in error, when he supposes that artifice was frequently used to induce persons to join in the rebellion.-W. G. son.* Assassinations and robberies, on secta rian and political grounds, would probably have ceased on the granting of protections, if some desperate marauders, reinforced by a number of deserters from several regiments of Irish militia, had not remained in arms in the mountains of Wicklow, and the dwarf woods of Killaughrim, near Enniscorthy. Banditti of this kind continued for many months to infest those parts of the country, and so great was the terror produced by their depredations in the vicinity of their lurking places, that those Protestants families who had remained in the country, and braved the storms of the rebellion, now found themselves compelled to take refuge in towns. But after a little time, the woods being scoured by the army, were cleared of their predatory inhabitants, who had ludicrously styled themselves The Babes in the Wood. before the secret committees of the two | plexy, put an end to his sufferings in pri houses of parliament; from which, it appeared, that the rebellion originated in a system, formed, not with a view of obtaining either Catholic emancipation, or any reform compatible with the existence of the constitution, but for the purpose of subverting the government, separating Ireland from Great Britain, and forming a democratic republic:* that the means resorted to for the attainment of these designs, was a secret systematic combination, fitted to attract the multitude, and artfully linked and connected together, with a view of forming the mass of the lower ranks into a revolutionary force, acting in concert, and moving as one body, at the impulse, and under the direction of their leaders:† that, for the further accomplishment of their object, the leaders of the conspiracy entered into a negotiation in 1796, and finally concluded an alliance with the French directory, in the summer of the same year, by which it was stipulated, that an adequate force should be sent for the invasion of Ireland, as subsidiary to the preparations that were making for a general insurrection : that in pursuance of this design, measures were adopted by the chiefs of the conspiracy, for giving to their societies a military form; and that for arming their adherents, they had recourse to the fabrication of pikes. That from the vigorous and summary expedients resorted to by government, and the consequent exertions of the military, the leaders found themselves reduced to the alternative of immediate insurrection, or of being deprived of the means on which they relied for effecting their purpose; and that to this cause was to be attributed the premature breaking out of the rebellion, and probably its ultimate failure also. From some cause, not satisfactorily explained, the principal prisoners were not liberated, but sent to Fort George, in the north of Scotland, where they continued in confinement till the conclusion of the war, when they were permitted to enjoy their liberty, on condition that they should withdraw from his majesty's dominions. Oliver Bond would in all probability have been one of the number thus reserved for long captivity; had not death, by a stroke of apo See the Evidence of Dr. M'Nevin before the House of Lords, in Ireland, August 17th, 1798. + See Report of the Committee of Secrecy, presented to the House of Commons, in Ireland. See Mr. Arthur O'Connor's Evidence before the House of Lords, in Ireland. The party in the Wicklow mountains, whose range was much more extensive, and whose haunts were more difficult of access, continued, under two chiefs of the names of Holt and Hacket, to annoy the country for a longer time, and in a more formidable degree, till a principle of retaliation was resorted to by the yeomen, which necessity itself could scarcely justify, and at which humanity shudders. As the massacres of the banditti were found to proceed upon a principle of religious hatred, it was determined, that whenever any Protestants were murdered by these wretches, that a still greater number of Roman Catholics should be put to death by the yeomen, in the same neighbourhood. Thus, at Castletown, four miles from Gorey, where four Protestants were massacred in the night by Hacket, seven Romanists were slain in revenge; and at Augrim, in the county of Wicklow, ten miles from the same town, twenty-seven of the latter were killed in consequence of the murders committed by the former.† The devastation and plundering sustained by the country, were not the work of the List of the persons sent to Fort George- Wm. James M Nevin, Robert Hunter, Arthur O'Connor, George Cumming, Thomas Addis Emmett Joseph Cuthbert, John Chambers, William Dowdall, Steele Dixon. + Gordon's History of the Rebellion, second edi See Mr. Samuel Neilson's Evidence before the tion, p. 238. House of Lords, in Ireland. See Evidence of T. A. Emmett, Esq. before the House of Lords, in Ireland. Now a resident of New York. The distinguished dentist of Philadelphia W. G. |