Nor were the penalties attendant on concealing rebels less stringent. Colonel Durham, commandant at Belfast, during the absence of General Nugent, thus denounces that offence:--

“And shall it be found hereafter that the said traitor has been concealed by any person or persons, or by the knowledge or connivance of any person or persons of this town and its neighbourhood, or that they or any of them have known the place of his concealment, and shall not have given notice thereof to the commandant of this town, such person's house so offending shall be burnt, and the owner thereof, hanged."

Now, however men may expose themselves in hazardous-undertakings, when success is very doubtful, property at times, carries with it considerations superior to penal consequences to the person. With all the dearest relations of life, home is intimately blended-and the most reckless will hesitate before he risks making his hearth desolate, and his house a burning ruin. On the Northerns the lesson was not lost, and the immediate pacification of the country resulted. Indeed, further resistance would have been sheer folly-"every breeze wafted over fresh troops from England-every tide bore new-raised levies from her shores-regiment followed regiment in succession, until. Ireland presented the appearance of one vast encampment. Commerce, manufactures, and husbandry were suspended, while the country seemed to have exchanged a rural for a military population."

There is an episode connected with the rebel defeat at Ballynahinch, which, as it has been wedded to verse, and chronicled in prose, it would be ungallant to pass over unrecorded. We may observe, however, en passant, that for a young lady, a battle-field is a very romantic, but a drawing-room a safer locality by far..

We will give Charles Teeling's version of this love affair :

"Amongst those who perished on this occasion was a young and interesting female, whose fate has been so feelingly recorded in the poetic strains of our distinguished countrywoman, Miss Balfour. Many were the romantic occurrences of a similar nature at this unfortunate period, but none, perhaps, are more deserving of our sympathy than the interesting subject of the present incident. The men of Ards were distinguished for their courage and discipline, and their division bore a full share in the disasters of the day. In this division were two young men remarkable for their early attachment and continued friendship. They were amongst the first to take up arms, and from that moment had never been separated. They fought side by side, cheering, defending, and encouraging each other, as if the success of the field solely depended on their exertions. Monro had assigned on the 12th a separate command to each, but they entreated to be permitted to conquer or perish together. One had an only sister; she was the pride of a widowed mother, the loved and admired of their village, where to this hour the perfection of female beauty is described as it approximates in resemblance to the fair Elizabeth Grey. She had seen her brother and his friend march to the field; she had bidden

the one adieu with the fond affection of a sister, but a feeling more tender watched for the safety of the other. Every hour's absence rendered separation more painful-every moment created additional suspense. She resolved to follow her brother-her lover to the field. The fatal morn of the 13th had not yet dawned when she reached Ednevady heights. The troops of the union were in motion. The enthusiasm of love supported her through the perils of the fight, but borne down in the retreat, she fell in the indiscriminate slaughter, while her brother and her lover perished by her side."

CHAPTER XXI.

PARTIAL OUTBREAK IN MUNSTER-STATE OF THE WESTERN PROVINCESLANDING OF THE FRENCH IN KILLALLA BAY.

THE pacification of the North was followed by the suppression of the smouldering embers of rebellion in Leinster, which, like expiring fires, scintillated occasionally before they were finally extinguished. Connaught, either from imperfect organization, or a better affection in its population to the government, had remained quiet; and in the South no outbreak occurred, except a trifling demonstration, whose flame was quenched as speedily as it had been kindled.

On the subsiding of this outbreak in the north-eastern quarter of Ireland, another local rebellion, much inferior in vigour, and very easily suppressed, commenced in the opposite south-western quarter, in the county of Cork-accompanied with the same kind of violent acts as elsewhere in the South, and exhibiting nothing extraordinary or peculiar, it requires little notice. The principal action, and the only one which government has thought proper to communicate to the public, took place near the village of Ballynascarty, where, on the 19th of June, two hundred and twenty men of the Westmeath regiment of militia, with two six-pounders, under the command of their lieutenant-colonel, Sir Hugh O'Reilly, were attacked on their march from Cloghnakilty to Bandon, by a body of between three and four hundred men, armed almost all with pikes. This was only a part of the rebel force, here placed in ambush in a very advantageous position. The attack was made from a height on the left of the column so unexpectedly and rapidly, that the troops had scarcely time to form; but the assailants were quickly repulsed with some loss, and fell back upon the high grounds. Here, had the soldiers pursued them, from which they were with great difficulty restrained, they would probably have been surrounded and slaughtered, like the North-Cork detachment at Oulart. While the officers were endeavouring to form the men again, a body of rebels endeavoured to seize the cannon, and another body made its appearance on the high grounds in the rear; but, at the moment, a hundred men of the Caithness legion, under the command of Major Innes, who, on their march to Cloghnakilty, had heard the report of the guns, came to their assistance, and, by a brisk fire, put the assailants to flight on one side, after which those who were on the heights behind retired on receiving a few discharges of the artillery. The loss of the rebels in this action may perhaps have amounted to between fifty and a hundred men; that of the royal troops, by the commander's account, only to a serjeant and a private.*

With the exception of clan feuds, and occasionally some agrarian outrages, the west of Ireland was generally considered tranquil, and

* Gordon.

until the end of '97, the United Irish system had made very little progress in Connaught. In the general report of their organization to the provincial committee assembled at Dungannon in the autumn of that year, it was stated that the system was gradually progressive then in Mayo and Sligo, and that many of the Northerns who had emigrated from Ulster in the spring of '98, to escape, as they pretended, the persecutions they were exposed to for conscience' sake by the Orange party in the North, had given a fresh stimulus to the disaffection of the Western peasantry, which hitherto, like a half-ignited fire, seemed uncertain whether it would tardily kindle into life, or become extinct altogether.

These Northern emigrants were hospitably received. With their fellow Romanists, the story of religious persecution was sufficient to secure a welcome-and with the Protestant landholders, their superior intelligence and industrious habits formed a striking contrast to the ignorance and idleness of the Connaught peasantry, and their advent was considered, from acquirements and example, as likely to be attended by local improvement and the establishment of a linen manufacture. In consequence of these favourable opinions, several hundred families were permitted to become settlers on the Western coast, and for a time their general conduct was orderly and industrious.

But before long suspicion arose that their emigration from the North was not altogether occasioned by the religious rancour of the Protestants, and that they had, in a great degree, provoked it. It was discovered that they speculated in politics-obtained newspapers -and in secret meetings discussed their contents. They also promulgated a number of strange and alarming prophecies, which they pretended had been delivered by ancient Irish bards, foretelling wars and calamities which were about to take place immediately, and declaring that the most terrible cruelties would be inflicted by the Protestants on the Romanists, until the rivers would run blood, and the unburied dead should occasion a general pestilence.

The credulity of the lower Irish is proverbial. No rumour, however monstrous, will be refused credence, and the wildest creations of a distempered mind will be received as the outbreakings of inspi

ration.

On an excitable and superstitious peasantry, these prophecies had, therefore, due effect—and considering Protestants to be deadly enemies, they banded together for mutual protection-they bound themselves by solemn ties to overturn the constitution, and extirpate those who held any doctrines save those of the Church of Rome; and so secretly was the conspiracy hatched, that many thousands were thus united before a discovery of these treasonable proceedings was effected. Emissaries were engaged to propagate their seditious doctrines-money levied to defend the conspirators on trial, and maintain the families of those who were obliged to abscond from the country-and, in short, every preliminary means was used to assist their brethren elsewhere, and take an efficient part in the general insurrection, which it was known was on the eve of bursting out.

As the conspiracy in Connaught was almost entirely confined to the Roman Catholics, the bond of union there was cemented by a religious tie which could not be employed but very cautiously in Leinster or the North, from so many Protestants being members of the confederacy. This was the institution of a mystic order, professedly religious, called "The Carmelites," but secretly devised for the better and more extensive spread of treason.

"They provided funds for the support of the wives and children of those men who were severed from their country and the sweets of domestic life; powerful exertions were made to recover some from banishment, and to procure others the protection of more friendly

states.

"These exertions were not always unsuccessful, nor could they escape the observation of a vigilant government, and consequently its censure. Another subject of disquiet to men in power was the difficulty they sometimes encountered in procuring convictions for political offences. The spy and informer were guarded with the most watchful attention. Their informations were considered secret as the inquisitorial tribunal, and yet these informations were often communicated to confidential individuals; which enabled the committee intrusted with the prisoners' defence to defeat the informer's treachery, and rescue the intended victim from the snare of death." "*

Its directors were chiefly mendicant friars, a low and degraded order of the Catholic Church. As the advantages of belonging to the Carmelite Society were great, and the price of obtaining admission into a body whose members were insured eternal beatitude was a trifle, numbers of the dark-minded peasants joined this ridiculous association.

"At their initiation they received a square piece of brown cloth, with the letters IHS inscribed on it, meaning Jesus Hominum Salvator, which was hung round the neck with a string, and lying on the shoulder next to the skin, was, from its situation, called a scapular. The price of it on initiation was, to the poorer class, one shilling; to those who could afford it, higher in proportion to their ability. This distinguishing badge of the order having received the priest's benediction, was supposed to contain the virtue of preserving the disciple, not only from outward dangers and injuries, but also from the attacks of the ghostly enemy. They ascribed to these scapulars the power of protecting a house in which one of them happened to be from being consumed by fire, or of extinguishing one on fire, if thrown into the flames, while the sacred extinguisher would remain perfectly safe from the power of the fire, like the three Hebrews in the Babylonian furnace.

"The ignorance and credulity of the popish multitude were imposed on by the following device: the cloth of which these scapulars was originally made, being composed of the Asbestos, possesses a quality to resist fire; and on receiving the priest's benediction, they were com

* Teeling.