See Madden's United Irishmen , i. 282-284, and also a paper in the Record Office, dated Feb. 26, 1798
Life of Thomas Reynolds , by his son, i. 197
Compare Tone's Life , i. 126, 127; Madden, iii 48, 335
Report of the Secret Committee of the House of Lords , p 12
This was stated both by McNally (Sept. 27, 1797) and by Turner.
See the passage in his examination, McNevin's Pieces of Irish History , pp. 216, 217.
See a curious conversation of Grattan in his Life, iv. 360, 361 . Grattan acutely added: ‘England should take care She transports a great deal of hostile spirit to that quarter.’
Leland, History of Ireland , ii. 291, 292.
O'Connor's Monopoly the Cause of all Evil , iii. 541, 542.
McNevin, pp. 190, 195.
See Report of the Secret Committee , Appendix, pp. cvii, cx, cxv, exxi, cxxii.
Castlereagh Correspondence , i. 165-168.
See Report of the Secret Committee .
J. W., March 9, 1798. McNally had informed the Government as early as Jan. 11 that the invasion was to take place in April, that O'Connor bad left Ireland, to the great satisfaction of his colleagnes, and that his destination was France.
Report of the Secret Committee , Appendix No. xiv.
J. W., June 21, 1797.
Ibid. Sept. 27, Oct. 2, 1797.
J. Richardson to the Marquis of Downshire, Nov. 19, 1797 (R.O.).
Camden to Portland, Jan. 8, 1798.
See Camden to Portland, Feb. 8, 1798 (most secret), and the reply of Portland.
Camden to Portland, March 1; Portland to Camden, March 7, 1798.
Thus Cooke wrote to Lord Auckland on March 19: ‘I fear we cannot convict legally our prisoners, though we have evidence upon evidence; but they must be punished, or the country is gone. Attainder if ever is justifiable.’ Four days later Clare wrote to the same correspondent: ‘Unless we can summon resolution to take a very decided step and to attaint the conspirators by Act of Parliament, I have no hope of bringing them to justice. It is not possible to prevail with men who give secret information to come forward in a court of justice; and if these villams escape with a temporary imprisonment only, there will be no possibility of living in Ireland.’ ( Auckland Correspondence , ni. 393, 394) Camden bad written to Portland on the 11th that the head committee must be arrested, even if it were found impossible to seize their papers.
This rests on the authority of Reynolds's son ( Life of Reynolds , i. 187, 188), who states that the list was to have been produced at the trial of Cummins, from whom Reynolds received it, had not the confession of the United Irishmen induced the Government to desist from further prosecutions. It does not appear to have been ever stated by Reynolds in court.
Camden to Portland, May 11, 1798. Ten days later Lord Clare wrote to Auckland: ‘A man who had given us private information, on the express condition of never being desired to come forward publicly, was betrayed by some of his subalterns in the county of Kildare, and arrested in consequence by General Dundas, who commands in that district, without communication with Government, and sent up to Dublin in custody. In this dilemma the gentleman's scruples have vanished, and he will, I think, enable us to bring many of the leading traitors to justice, and at their head Lord Edward Fitzgerald.’ ( Auckland Correspondence , iii. 421.)
Plowden, ii. 676. Camden to Portland, March 30, 1798. Report of the Secret Committee , Appendix, pp. ccxcv, ccxcvi. Castlereagh Corre-Spondence , i. 168, 169.
J. W., Jan. 3, 1798.
Information endorsed ‘C., March 10, 1798.’ This was, I believe, Reynolds.
Anonymous letter, dated Stephen's Green, April 22, and endorsed ‘Mag’ This was from Magan. Another informer, who professed to be on intimate terms with the leaders of the conspiracy, and to have access to all their plans, resolutions, and correspondence, corroborates the statement in the text that the apparent tran-quillity of the North was only due to the perfection of its organisation. ‘It was in the North,’ he continued, ‘that the spirit of rebellion took its birth. It is in the North it is fostered. It is there that it is brought to maturity. It is there, in fine, lie the hopes, the spring, the wealth, the force of the United Irishmen’ (Letter endorsed ‘V. secret, March 27.’)
F. H., May 15, 1798.
Masgrave.
Memoirs of Miles Byrne , i. 31.
‘The gentlemen seem averse to assist the military in the manner in which Sir Ralph means to dispose of them, viz. by living at free quarters upon the disaffected inhabitants.’ (Camden to Portland, April 23, 1798.)
Charles Coote (Montrath) to Cooke, April 15, 1798.
Holt's Memoirs , i. 20.
Leadbeater Papers , i. 225, 226.
Saunders's Newsletter , May 25, 1798.
Col. Campbell, May 14 (I.S.P.O.).
Moore's Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald , ii. 100, 103.
See the graphic description in the Leadbeater Papers , i. 226, 227; Hay's Hist. of the Rebellion in Wexford , p. 64.
See e.g Holt's Memoirs , i 32
See Gordon's Rebellion , pp. 57-59. Gordon notices that after the rebellion, short hair became the fashion among men of all opinions.
Leadbeater Papers .
An old magistrate near Bray, in the county of Wicklow, wrote in April to the Government remonstrating against a project of sending troops to Newtown Mount Kennedy. ‘We have never had here,’ he said, ‘the smallest appearance of disturbance, nor are we likely to have the least…. I deprecate-dragooning such people. It is a bad system except in open rebellion. Those already enemies to Government it exasperates. Of those who are wavering and timid it makes decided enemies, and it tends to disaffect the loyal. Where is the man whose blood will not boil with revenge who sees the petticoat of his wife or sister cut off her back by the sabre of the dragoon merely for the crime of being green, a colour certainly with them innocent of disaffection?’ (Mr. Edwards, Old Court.) Compare Gordon's Rebellion , p. 59.
History of the Whig Party , i. 114.
Dunfermline's Life of Abercromby , pp. 122, 123
Leadbeater Papers , i. 223, 224.
Gordon's Hist. of the Rebellion , pp. 88, 89.
Teeling's Narrative , pp. 133, 134. Madden has collected much evidence about the practice of torture, i. 292–333. In a letter to Lord Castlereagh, General Dunne stated that he had ascertained that a man had been whipped to death by a magistrate in the King's County, and by another man who acted under his orders. (B. Gen Dunne (Tullamore) to Lord Castlereagh, Aug. 2, 1798, I.S.P.O.)
See Madden's United Irishmen , 1. 308, 309 He is said also to have shot some United Irishmen in a manner hardly distinguishable from naked murder. The epitaph written for him is well known:
See Howell's State Trials , xxvii. 765, 766, 768, 787
Sir J. Carden to Lord Rossmore (Templemore), May 5, 1798.
Howell's State Trials , xxvil. 762–764, 768. The reporter says the gravity of the court was a little discomposed by this method of obtaining confessions. Beresford, in one of his letters to Auckland, says: ‘So far as I can see, no man has withstood the fear of any corporal punishment, and certain I am, that without much outrage hundreds would peach.’ ( Auckland Correspondence , iii. 412.)
Howell, p. 785.
Compare the two accounts in Howell, xxvii. 761, 769-771.
Browne, the member for Dublin University.
39 Geo. III. c. 50.
Report of the Secret Committee , pp 20,26. So, too, in the examination McNevin, Castlereagh said, ‘You acknowledge the union [of United rishmen] would have become stronger but for the means taken to make it explode’ (McNevin's Pieces of Irish of History , p 203.)
Holt's Memoirs , i. 17, 18.
Auckland Correspondence , iii. 392, 393.
J. W., April 27, 1798.
Ibid May 21, 1798.
Ibid. Undated, but no doubt a little later than the letter last cited.
Ibid.
F. H., May 15, 1798. Higgins says that the rumour that the Government designed to re-enact the penal code, was sent by the Dublin conspirators widely through the country, especially to the priests.
J. W., May 21.
See the letters of May (I.S.P.O.) and several notices in Faulkner's Journal for that month.
Auckland Correspondence , iii. 422.
Plowden, ii 679, 680.
Moore's Life of Lord E. Fitzgerald , ii. 58 (3rd edition).
The first mention of him in the I.S.P.O. is, I think, in a letter of Higgins, Nov. 24, 1797. On Jan. 5, 1798, Higgins says he had not seen Magan since, but will ‘fix him to meet you at dinner at 6 p.m. to-morrow, and shall in the course of this day or in the morning give you a hint of his terms.’ The addresses of these letters are not given, but they were probably written either to Cooke or Pollock.
F. H, Feb. 6. 1798
‘I suppose M. will call on you. He was with me this day, and seemed as if I had received a second 100 l. for him. For God's sake send it, and don't let me appear in so awkward a situation.’ (F. H., March 15.) When the part played by this informer became important, his name was never given in full. He was spoken of simply as M., and an important letter is endorsed ‘Mag.,’ but the handwriting of letters written by him is clearly the same as that of one or two later letters signed Francis Magan, and the correspondence generally took place through Higgins.
‘This night there is to be a meeting at Lawless's I shall learn tomorrow the nature of it. I would wish to put you in possession of something M knows of, that you may ask and interrogate him about them ( sic ), and let him agree to come to a fixed point of information. I know it is (or will be from his late election) in his power.’ (F. H., March 28.)
Anonymous letter to Cooke endorsed ‘Mag,’ Stephen's Green, April 22, 1798. On the arrest of Lord Edward and Neilson near the borders of the county Kildare, see Madden, ii 406, 408; Moore's Life of Lord E. Fitzgerald , ii. 80. Neilson's name is often spelt ‘Nelson’ in the correspondence of the time.
F. H., May 1, 1798.
Madden, ii. 411.
The letter goes on: ‘The strange story Neilson told of receiving a message to wait on you by Hyde, and the answer he returned, induces M. to believe Neilson communicates with you, or that he dare not have sent any such kind of message, If so, M. says Neilson is playing a double game, for not only in every club and society or company he is vociferous in the abuse of Government—how they broke word and faith with him, as they do with every person who should unhappily place confidence in them.’
F. H., May 15.
Madden has traced Lord Edward's movements during his concealment with great care and minuteness. He has made, however, one important mistake. He says (ii. 406) that on May 17, Fitzgerald had taken up his abode at Murphy's It is clear from the statement of Murphy (p. 412) that he had not.
information May 17. Endorsed ‘Sproule’ This seems to have no connection with Higgins and Magan.
An interesting account of this trial was sent by Bishop Percy to his wife (May 18). See, too, Barrington's Personal Sketches , i. 195-201. The circumstances of the death of Col. Fitzgerald are related at full in the Annual Register , 1797, pp. 55, 56.
It appears from a later letter that Magan not only furnished this information, but also played a great part in the decision. After the death of Lord Edward, Higgins wrote: ‘When I waited on you early in the last month and told you of the intention of the rebels to rise on the 14th ult., you could scarcely be brought to credit such. However, it turned out a most happy circumstance that Lord Edward was then with M, who found means to prevail on him to postpone his bloody purpose in the city Else on the day of Eail Kingston's trial you would have had a shocking scene of blood and havoc in the city. I should not have used the word prevail, because Lord Edward's purpose was put to a vote and carried by M's negative only.’ (F. H., June 30, 1798) In another letter, probably referring to this, Higgins takes much credit to himself ‘Sure I am if I had not prevailed upon the person to come forward and act in the manner he did when the first attack was intended at the H. of C., the nobility and Government as well as the city of Dublin would have been involved in a scene of blood’ (F. H, June 24.) He recurs to the same subject July 12, 1798.
Higgins goes on in his broken, ungrammatical style: ‘Neilson and others have so prejudiced his mind against any promise made by Government, and of their breaking faith with those who serve their cause, after the service is rendered, that my utmost exertions have been directed to keep M. steady, who says the 300 l. promised should have been given at once; but only giving two—and such a long interval between, as made him conceive Neilson's assertion true—and that he then was, and would still be further neglected However, I have given him leave to draw upon me, and fully satisfied him of the honourable intentions of Government where service was actually performed, and of your kind attention if he would go forward among the meetings, commumcate what is transacting, and if found necessary point out the spot where they may be seized, &c. This he has at length agreed to do…. I also mentioned your kind promise of obtaining 1,000 l. for him (without the mention of his name or enrolment of it in any book) on having the business done, which he pointed out before the issuing of the proclamation. He therefore puts himself on your honour not to admit of any person to come and search his house (which, I ventured to promise, you would have observed), but to place watches after dusk, this night near the end of Watling Street or two houses up in that street from Usher's Island, another towards the Queen's bridge, and a third in Island Street, the rear of the stables near Watling Street, and which leads up towards Thomas Street and Dirty Lane, and at one of these places they will find Lord Edward disguised. He wears a wig and may have been otherwise metamorphosed, attended by one or two, but followed by several armed banditti with new daggers. He intends to give battle if not suddenly seized. Lady Egality complains dreadfully about Lord Castlereagh ordering a short passport. She will have letters sewed or quilted in her clothes, and goes to Hamburgh. I shall send you particulars.’ (F. H., May 18, 1798.)
This is stated by Mr. Fitzpatrick on the authority of a member of the Moore family in Thomas Street, with whom Lord Edward stayed. (See Sham Squire , pp. 110-114.) According to the earlier biographers of Fitzgerald he was going to Moira House, where his wife was, and which was in the immediate neighbourhood of Magan's house.
See Murphy's narrative in Madden's United Irishmen , ii 414, 415; Moore's Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald , ii. 85-87.
Madden has printed the account of Murphy, who was in the room during the earlier part of the arrest, and he has also reprinted from the Castlereagh Correspondence the account given by the son of Ryan, who received it from his father. They agree remarkably, and I have followed them in the text. In the Life of Reynolds (ii. 230-236) there is another account which the biographer says his father received from Sirr and Swan, and which was published in the lifetime of the former. It differs in several small particulars from the narratives of Murphy and Ryan. Neither in the account by Reynolds nor in that given by Moore in his Life of Lord E. Fitzgerald is any mention made of Swan's having quitted the room. The widow of Ryan, afterwards writing to the Irish Government about a pension, said: ‘My poor husband often told me that had he not determined to take Lord Edward at all events, whether he forfeited his life or not, he was certain he would have escaped through the window, which had a communication with the other houses, as he was left above fifteen minutes without assistance’ (July 14, 1798, I.S.P O.) The last sentence is no doubt an enormous exaggeration, but in such moments seconds appear like minutes. In another letter Mrs. Ryan says her husband was left alone with Fitzgerald ten minutes after he was wounded. (July 29, 1798.) Camden's account gives the impression of Swan having had the more prominent part in the arrest (Camden to Portland, May 20, 1798), and Beresford and Cooke both represent Ryan as having only come in towards the end of the scuffle, and just before the arrival of the soldiers. Auckland Correspondence , iii. 414, 418. See, too, Faulkner's Journal , May 22, 1798.
Moore's Life of Lord E Fitzgerald , ii. 86 Beresford said that Sirr went to Murphy's house ‘to search for pikes, upon a vague idea that Lord E. Fitzgerald had been there or in the next house.’ ( Auckland Correspondence , iii. 414.) In the account in Reynolds's biography it is stated that on the day before the arrest Cooke informed Major Sirr that if he would go on the following day between five and six in the evening to the house of Murphy in Thomas Street he would find Fitzgerald there. (Reynolds's Life , ii. 229.) I believe, however, this account to be inaccurate. There is nothing in the information of Higgins about Murphy's house. The expectation was that Fitzgerald would be arrested in the street on the night of the 18th, and it was with this object that Sirr acted. Murphy said that he was told that one of Lord Edward's bodyguard gave some information, and there were various other rumours. Compare Madden, ii. 424; Fitzpatrick's Sham Squire , pp. 122, 123.
Madden, iv. 52, 57-70.
Ibid. ii. 408, 440: iv. 58. Neilson was again arrested on account of this plot. Higgins wrote: ‘Your supposed quondam communicator, Neilson, had an interview with a military committee on Friday last and a further one on Tuesday—by a military committee I mean a number of militia men and soldiers united in the infernal cause of murder—who received directions from Neilson how to act…. Surely you could get much information from this infamous renegade villain, who, I believe, has promised you information (as every good subject ought) how to meet the plans and counteract the designs of rebels; but he has gone from one quarter of the country to the other, and to the most remote … inculcating rebellion…. Neilson, therefore, can develop almost every plan.’ (F. H., May 25, 1798.) It is probable that Neilson, in communicating with the Government, only did so to betray them. In February Higgins wrote: ‘Neilson made communications to Bond (and through him to all the leaders of the infernal conspiracy) of your visiting him, and of the various questions you asked…. It was resolved at their meeting that if their cause succeeded, Neilson should be the first object of reward;’ and in a later letter: ‘If Neilson is not bringing you information he is a most dangerous person to remain here. He has dined, supped &c. among the entire of the party.’ (F. H., Feb. 21, March 15, 1798.) It appears certain that if the United Irish leaders had not afterwards made a compact with the Government, Neilson would have been tried, and the Government had much hope of convicting him.
Mr. Fitzpatrick, who has thrown more light than any other writer upon the career of Magan, has discovered one very curious fact. Magan's father had borrowed 1,000 l. from a gentleman named Fetherston, for which the latter held a joint bond from father and son. The elder Magan died insolvent, and the creditor gave up all expectation of repayment. Some years later, when the original creditor was dead, Francis Magan appeared unsolicited at the house of his son and paid the debt. Mr Fetherston was extremely surprised, as he had made no demand for the payment, and as he knew that Magan was at this time a poor man and entirely without practice at the bar. It would be curious to know whether the transaction took place shortly after the arrest of Lord Edward. See Mr. Fitzpatrick's Sham Squire , p. 130.
F. H. May 20 Compare, too, his letter, June 30 On June 5, Higgins writes. ‘I cannot do anything with M. until you are pleased to settle, though I advanced him money’ On the 8th he writes: ‘I cannot get from M. a single sentence of who assumes a Directory. I have so frequently put him off about the payment of the 1,000 l. that he thinks I am humbugging him. I do entreat, dear sir, as I stand pledged in this business (however badly I am used myself), you will not longer delay having it settled for M’ On the 18th of the same month he writes: ‘You were so kind as to say that you would immediately obtain what was promised to M.’ On June 20 the sum was paid to Higgins, and appears in the list of secret-service money: ‘F. H, discovery of L. E F., 1,000 l. See Madden, i 371. Magan had some later communications with the Government directly, or through Higgins. He especially exerted his influence to have the soldiers removed from the house of a lady where they appear to have been living at free quarters, and he wrote about a sum of 500 l. which Cooke had promised him.
Moore's Life of Lord E. Fitzgerald , ii. 132. Lord Clare afterwards said ‘For some days he seemed to recover, until having taken a sudden turn he died very unexpectedly of water on his chest.’ (Debate on Sept. 3) See Faulkner's Journal , Sept. 4, 1798.
I am indebted to the kindness of Lady Bunbury for my knowledge of Miss Napier's very interesting unpublished narrative. Sir W. Napier in a letter to Dr. Madden (ii. 454, 455) described, though with less simplicity, the part played by Camden and Clare in this matter.
Lord Castlereagh in an interesting letter of Wickham (June 4, 1798, Record Office) describes the last days of Lord Edward's life. See, too, Camden to Portland, June 4; a letter of Elliot to Pelham in thePelham MSS, and a letter of Beresford to Auckland ( Auckland Correspondence , iii 442, 443). Lady Louisa Conolly related the particulars of her interview with her dying nephew in a letter to Mr. Ogilvie, which is printed in Moore's Life of Lord Edward Fitzqerald , ii. 135-139. Lord Clare alluded to this scene with much good feeling in a speech in the House of Lords, Sept. 3. Miss Napier writes that, returning home after the death of Lord Edward, Lady Louisa Conolly related to her the circumstances of the last interview as she had stated them in her letter to Mr. Ogilvie, ‘adding that nothing could exceed Lord Clare's kindness, that he had allowed nobody to remain in the room but himself; had walked away from the bed on which the poor sufferer lay so as not to hear anything that passed between them, and in short had shown her the tenderness of a brother rather than a friend, and with all his apparent sternness of manner had cried like a woman when he saw him dying.’ She adds ‘As I was the sole witness of this melancholy transaction, and that it is not generally known how entirely it was owing to Lord Clare's better feeling that this last interview between my poor cousin and his aunt and brother was permitted, I have felt that it is but justice to his memory to record it.’ (Account of the death of Lord E. Fitzgerald written by Miss Emily Napier.) A letter from Lady Louisa Conolly to Lord Camden (June 8) (also in the possession of Lady Bunbury), mentions that Lord Edward was buried at eleven at night in St. Werburgh's Church. A single carriage and an escort of twelve yeomen attended his remains.
Toler in his speech for the prosecution said that Byrne spoke of the Sheares as men of talent, who were engaged in their country's cause, and who were satisfied that Armstrong could contribute to their assistance. But this is not borne out by Armstrong's published evidence. See the trial in Howell's Stats Trials , vol. xxvii.
It is not clear from Armstrong's sworn evidence that Col. L'Estrange was consulted until after the first interview of Armstrong with the Sheares, though from that time Armstrong undoubtedly acted under his direction and with his full approbation. The statement in the text, however, is based upon that of the Attorney-General (Howell's State Trials , xxvii. 298), and it is confirmed by Armstrong's statement to Madden: ‘I put myself under the direction of my colonel and my friend I acted by their advice, and if I have done anything wrong, they are more culpable than I.’ ( United Irishmen , iv. 374.)
The facts relating to the Sheares will be found in their trial in Howell's State Trials , vol. xxvii, and in Madden's United Irishmen . Madden, on this as on all other matters connected with the United Irishmen, writes as a most furious partisan, but he has had the honesty to print some letters of Armstrong, and notes of a conversation with him, giving the other side of the question.
See Howell's State Trials , xxvii. 50. This evidence has been very grossly misrepresented in a modern history.
‘A proceeding then took place which never had an equal in Ireland. It was supposed that there was a Secretary of State's warrant to detain O'Connor, and the moment judgment of death was pronounced upon Quigly, the dock was beset and several voices were heard calling out, “The other prisoners are discharged!“ “Discharge Mr. O'Connor!” In an instant he leaped from the dock. The crowd was immense, the noise prodigious, the officers of the court calling out to stop him. “Seize O'Connor!” “Stop O'Connor!” “Let O'Connor out!” &c. &c. Swords were drawn, constables’ staves, sticks, bludgeons, knocking-downs, &c. The judges frightened to death almost. In short, it is scarcely possible for you to conceive such a scene. O'Connor, however, was brought back, restored to his place in the dock, and immediatelyafter committed to gaol’ (J. Pollock, May 23, 1798.)
May 23. A few days later he wrote to Cooke. ‘I lament most exceedingly that the hopes I had raised as to the success of the trials should have been so soon disappointed. I am persuaded, feeble as the instrument may appear, that unfortunate letter of Arthur Young's saved the lives of all the prisoners who escaped, and it was a miracle that it did not prove the salvation of Coigly.’ (Cooke to Wickham, private, May 26, 1798. R O.) See, for Young's letter, Gurney's report of the trial, pp. 47, 48. Lord Clare's comment on this is very characteristic, and, I think, very scandalous ‘I could never see any wisdom or good policy in prancing upon Candour in the face of rebels, and I can't but wish that your Attorney-General as well as ours was less fond of mounting this jaded pony. What business had he to set aside some of his best jurymen because Mr. Young chose to write a foolish rhapsody to one of them?’ ( Auckland Correspondence , iii. 438, 439.)
J. Pollock, May 23, 1798.
J. W., Feb. 5. 1797. Higgins had been watching O'Coigly shortly before the arrest. (F.H., Jan. 12, 1798.)
Camden to Portland, May 24; Lord Gosford to General Lake, May 24, 1798; Gordon's Hist, of the Rebellion , pp. 74, 75; Musgrave's Rebellions in Ireland (2nd ed.), pp. 233, 234.
Musgrave has printed a deposition of one of those who escaped from Prosperous. (Appendix xv. Deposition of Thomas Davis.) See, too, Gordon's Hist. of the Rebellion , pp. 72-74.
See a long and interesting letter of Richard Griffith to Pelham (June 4, 1798) in the Pelham MSS.
Gordon, pp. 71, 72; Plowden, ii. 688-695; Faulkner's Journal , May 26, 27, 1798.
F. H., May 24, 1798. He gave a similar warning on June 5.
In addition to the Government correspondence and the ordinary histories of the rebellion, I have made use of Saunders's Newsletter and Faulkner's Journal , and of the letters of Bishop Percy.
Saunders's Newsletter , June 13.
Barrington's Personal Sketches , iii 395.
Saunders's Newsletter , June 11. ‘The order,’ McNally wrote, ‘that barristers in uniform only should move during the present term at the bar cannot have a good effect. What does it do but furnish a disguise? Will a change of colour produce a change of principles? Besides, there are several who, from personal infirmities, could not assume a military dress without becoming objects of laughter. It would be well perhaps if some of the judges would institute a corps of invalids McNally might lead blind Moore to battle. But is it just to deprive men of bread because nature or misfortune has crippled their hmbs or impaired their constitutions?’ (J. W., June 12, 1798.)
Camden to Portland, May 25, 1798.
Saunders's Newsletter , April 25, 1798.
Letter of Bishop Percy (British Museum). May 24, 1798. Percy, who was living much among the members of the Irish Government, adds his own opinion: ‘In a month's time, all will be perfectly composed, I doubt not, through the whole country; in the metropolis and its environs as well as in the North. But for some days past we have had great commotions and disturbances here.’
Cooke to Wickham (private), May 26, 1798. The italics are mine.
Saunders's Newsletter , Jan. 26, April 5, May 4 and 8, 1798.
Compare Gordon, p. 80; Maxwell, p. 67; Musgrave; Crookshank's Hist. of Methodism in Ireland , pp. 133, 134; and the accounts and despatches in Saunders's Newsletter , June 6 and 8, 1798.
Lord Portarlington to Sir J. Parnell, May 25; Major Leatham to Gen Sir C. Asgill, May 26, 1798 (I.S.P.O.).
Crookshank's Hist. of Methodism, in Ireland , ii. 134.
Compare Gordon, Plowden, and Musgrave, and an account by a field officer, who was with the Carlow garrison, printed in Maxwell's Hist. of the Irish Rebellion , p. 73. Mrs. Leadbeater says: ‘An attack in the night had been made on Carlow, which was repulsed with slaughter, amounting almost to massacre. A row of cabins, in which numbers of the defeated insurgents had taken shelter, were set on fire, and the inmates burned to death. No quarter was given, no mercy shown; and most of those who had escaped, burning with disappointment, rage, and revenge, joined the Wexford party.’ ( Leadbeater Papers , i. 237.)
See an interesting pamphlet, published by his family ab Bath in 1801, called, Accurate and Impartial Narration of the Apprehension, Trial, and Execution of Sir Edward Crosbie, Bart . The minutes of the courtmartial, which the family long tried in vain to see, will be found in the Irish State Paper Office. Mrs. Lead-beater gives an extremely unfavourable picture of the conduct on another occasion of Major Denis, who presided at the court-martial. ( Lead-beater Papers , i. 239.)
This was evidently the opinion of Bishop Percy, who was then in Dublin, and who mixed much in the Goverment circles. As early as May 26, he wrcte to his wife, that such multitudes of the rebels had been slaughtered, that it was believed that the kingdom would be quieter for many years. Two days later, he wrote that the rebels were everywhere dispersed, ‘with great slaughter and very little loss.’ ‘In a slaughter of 300 or 400, it seldom happens that the King's troops lose more than three or four individuals.’ (Bishop Percy's Letters, Brit. Mus.)
Gordon, pp. 81, 82.
Geo. Lambert (Beauparc), May 27, 1798.
Plowden, ii. 702, 703; Gordon, p 82
Musgrave, pp. 251-258; Gordon, p 83. See, too, on the many murders at Rathangan, a letter from Clare. ( Auckland Correspondence , iii. 437.)
See Gordon, pp. 83, 84. The account, however, of Gordon, must be compared with the letters (extremely hostile to Dundas) from Beresford and Clare in the Auckland Correspondence , iii. 432-438.
Auckland Correspondence , iii. 433, 440 See, too, Camden to Portland (private), May 31, 1798. Camden adds: ‘The feelings of the country are so exasperated, as scarcely to be satisfied with anything short of extirpation.’
Compare Gordon, pp 84-86; Plowden, ii. 706-709; Musgrave, pp 263, 264.
‘Sir James Stuart informs me that the South of Ireland is yet quiet, but the dissatisfaction remains, and no discoveries have been made from a real repentance, but have all been forced by severity.’ (Camden to Portland, June 2, 1798.) Borne discoveries, which were regarded as very important, were made at this time by a young man, who was said to be a confidential friend of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and he stated that 4,000 French were expected to land on the Cork coast in the course of this week. Cooke wrote that leaders of the United Irishmen had been arrested at Limerick, Cork, Kmsale, and West Meath, and that 1,500 pikes had been given up near Cork. (Cooke to Wickham, June 2, 1790.) Several persons were flogged, and some, it appears, hanged, about this time at Cork and Limerick. ( Saunders's Newsletter , June 12, 16, 1798.) Some small bodies of rebels appeared in arms in the south-western part of the county of Cork about June 19, but they were put down with little difficulty in a few days. (Gordon, pp. 163, 164.)
See Burdy's History of Ireland , p. 498.
Musgrave, p. 301.
Plowden, ii. 714-716.
Grattan's Life , iv. 377-382.
Holt's Memoirs , i. 20-24.
Hay's History of the Rebellion in Wexford (ed. 1803), pp. 12, 14. This writer is a violent partisan of the rebels. Some of the Wexford magistrates obtained during the rebellion, and in the weeks of martial law that preceded it, a reputation for extreme violence; but it is remarkable that, even in the fiercely partisan accounts of the rebel historians, several of them are spoken of with respect, and even affection. Lord Courtown, Mr. Turner, Mr. Carew, and Mr. Pounden (who was afterwards killed at the head of the yeomanry at Enniscorthy), evidently tried to carry out the disarming with moderation and humanity.
Ibid. p. 12.
Taylor's History of the Wexford Rebellion , pp. 10-13; Hay, pp. 21-28.
Musgrave, p. 319.
Gordon, p. 86; Hay, p 55 The statement of these writers was supported by some secret information. On Oct. 17, 1797, Higgins wrote an important letter, stating that the Ulster Committee had just proposed an immediate rising, but that the Leinster Committee refused its consent, stating that, though Dublin was ready, some of the other Leinster counties were not, and that Wexford, by the last returns, only contained 294 United Irishmen.
Memoirs of Miles Byrne , i 55, 56. Hay had based his assertion chiefly on the fact, that reports of the United Irish movement seized at Bond's house, when the leaders of the conspiracy were arrested, made scarcely any mention of Wexford. But Byrne says that the delegate from that county had been delayed, and had not arrived. It appears, however, true that scarcely anything had been done in Wexford to give the people the rudiments of military training, to appoint their commanders, or to form them into regiments.
Ibid. i. 7-10.
Taylor, p. 15.
Byrne, 1. 19-24.
Hay, p. 52.
Musgrave, pp. 320-323; Hay, pp. 52, 53; Gordon, pp. 86, 87; Taylor, p. 18.
Byrne, 1. 23.
Hay's Hist. of the Rebellion in Wexford , pp 53-56.
Hay's Hist. of the Rebellion in Wexford , p 64.
Musgrave, pp. 321-325.
This was on May 23. (Hay, pp. 73-78.)
Hay, pp. 78, 79.
Compare Taylor, p. 15; Hay, p. 57.
Hay says (p. 57), ‘in the beginning’ of April; but Musgrave, whose information is very precise, says it only arrived in the county on April 26, and consisted of only 300 men (p. 325). Long before this date, the county was permeated with sedition.
Newenham's State of Ireland , p. 273. Newenham, in fact, quotes this regiment as an example of the loyalty shown by large bodies of Catholics during the rebellion.
Hay, p 87.
Musgrave, p. 243.
Hay, pp. 86, 87.
Ibid. pp. 76, 87. See also Byrne's Memoirs , i. 35, 36. Byrne says he knew several of the murdered men.
Gordon, p. 222.
Gordon's Hist. of the Irish Rebellion , pp. 86-88. Musgrave says that, when the rebellion broke out, ‘there were no other troops in the county of Wexford but the North Cork Militia, consisting of but 300 men, and they did not arrive there till April 26. Their headquarters were at Wexford, where three companies of them were stationed; the remainder were quartered at Gorey, Enniscorthy, and Ferns. Two thousand troops properly cantoned in it would have awed the rebels into obedience, and have prevented the possibility of a rising.’ (P. 326.) Musgrave probably underrates the number of the North Cork Militia. Newenham ( State of Ireland , p 273) says they were 600, which seems to agree with Gordon's estimate.
Compare the accounts in Hay, Cloney, and Miles Byrne, with those in Musgrave. Musgrave admits that Father John's house was burnt, but states (supporting himself by depositions), that it was not until after that priest had taken arms, and he asserts that the yeomanry captain prevented his men from burning the chapel.
Gordon, pp. 90-92; Taylor, pp. 26-30; Hay, pp 87-89. See, too, the very curious journal of Father J. Murphy, printed by Musgrave, Appendix, p. 83. Hay positively says: ‘The yeomanry in the north of the county proceeded on the 27th against a quiet and defenceless populace; sallied forth in their neighbourhoods, burned numbers of houses, and put to death hundreds of persons who were unarmed, unoffending, and unresisting; so that those who had taken up arms had the greater chance of escape at that time.’ (P. 89.)
I have quoted Whitley Stokes's description of the condition of the peasantry at Oulart, vol vii. p. 168.
Cloney gives a vivid picture of the state of feeling at this time. ‘While the events which I have related were occurring on the 25th, 26th, and 27th, the people in my quarter of the country … were in the most terrorstruck and feverish anxiety, as reports were for some time industriously circulated that the Orangemen would turn out, and commit a general and indiscriminate massacre on the Roman Catholics…. The most peaceable and well-disposed fancied they saw themselves, their families, and their neighbours, involved in one common ruin, and that each approaching night might possibly be the last of their domestic happiness. No one slept in his own house. The very whistling of the birds seemed to report the approach of an enemy. The remembrance of the wailings of the women and the cries of the children awake in my mind, even at this period, feelings of deep horror.’ ( Personal Narrative of the Transactions in the County of Wexford , p. 14.)
See Byrne's Memoirs , i. 123, 162, 163, 266; Holt's Msmoirs , i. 43, 156.
There is, as usual, a great diversity in the accounts of the proceedings in Enniscorthy. Musgrave accuses the rebels of killing all the wounded, and committing many other atrocities, while Byrne expressly says that no houses were burned or pillaged after the town was taken, and that the insurgents abstained from imitating the cruelties of the yeomanry and soldiers.
See the graphic descriptions of the camp at Vinegar Hill, in Cloney's Personal Narrative , and in Miles Byrne's Memoirs .
Gordon, p. 117; Byrne, i. 66.
Byrne's Memoirs , i. 76, 77; Cloney's Personal Narrative , p. 24.
Gordon, p. 102; Burdy, p. 510; Cloney, p. 24; Hay, pp. 119, 120.
See the description in the Narrative of Charless Jackson , pp. 14, 15. Jackson, Cloney, and Hay were all present in Wexford when it was occupied by the rebels.
Hay, p. 121.
Hay, pp. 128-133.
Jackson's Personal Narrative , p. 35.
Compare the grudging admission in Taylor's History of the Rebellion in the County of Wexford , p 81, with the warm and striking testimony of Mrs Adams, in her most interesting account of her experiences, appended to Croker's Researches in the South of Ireland , pp. 347-385. This narrative was written, without any view to publication, by the daughter of a Protestant country gentleman, who lived close to Wexford, and it is one of the most instructive pictures of the state of the county of Wexford during the rebellion.
Plowden, ii. 750.
Hay, p. 144. It did not, however, continue, and the Protestants who were not in confinement generally thought it advisable to attend the Catholic service.
Croker, p. 364.
Taylor, pp. 79, 80; Hay, p. 168. See, too, the curious description of Jackson (pp. 22, 23), who was compelled to take part in one of the executions.
The reader will find some striking instances of this in Mrs. Adams's experience. This lady had an old and infirm father in the neighbourhood of Wexford to care for, and her brother (who lost his intellect from terror) was a prisoner in Wexford gaol. She says: ‘I shall ever have reason to love the poor Irish for the many proofs of heart they have shown during this disturbed season; particularly as they were all persuaded into a belief, that they were to possess the different estates of the gentlemen of the county, and that they had only to draw lots for their possessions.’ (Croker's Researches in the South of Ireland , p. 361.)
Hay makes the most atrocious accusations against the yeomen about Gorey. He says, they fell upon ‘the defenceless and unoffending populace, of whom they slew some hundreds;’ that numbers who remained in their houses were called out, and shot at their own doors; that even infirm and decrepit men were among the victims; and that just before the evacuation of the town, ‘eleven men, taken out of their beds within a mile's distance, were brought in and shot in the streets.’ ( Insurrection of the County of Wexford , pp. 133-135.) He describes, however, most of these massacres as the massacres of men who had assembled in bodies on the eminences, though (Hay says) without arms, and only for the purpose of seeing the attacks on houses &c. which were going on below Gordon, who lived clsoe to Gorey, and had better means than any other historian of observing what went on there, acknoledges that the yeomen shot some of their prisoners before evacuating the town, but he gives no othere, acknoledges that the yeomen shot some of their prisoners before evacuating the town, but he gives no other support to these statements. He says that the people in the neighbourhod of Gorey were the last, and least violent of all, in the county of Wexford in rising against the established authority, which he attributes largely to the humane and conciliatory conduct of the Stopford family to their inferiors. (Gordon, p. 104.)
Gordon, pp. 106-108. Gordon praises greatly the activity of Gowan, and gives no support to the rebel statements about his barbarity.
The attack on Newtown-barry is described with some difference of detail by Gordon (pp. 108, 109), Hay (pp. 137, 138), Musgrave (pp. 394, 395), Taylor (pp 44-46), Byrne (i. 86-89). Byrne has the authority of an eye-witness, for he was with the rebel army in the attack, but his account does not appear to have been written till more than fiftv years after, and was not published till 1863. He is especially anxious to contradict the statement of the other historians, that the rebels became generally intoxicated in New-town-barry, and that this led to their defeat. Colonel L'Estrange estimated the rebels at not less than 10,000 or 15,000, and says that some 500 were killed. He says that his own force was only about 350 men. (See his letters, June 1 and 2, I.S.P.O.)
Henry Alexander to Pelham, June 3, 1798. ( Pelham MSS. )
One of the Wexford rebels, before his execution, made a confession, which was formally attested, in which he said: ‘Every man that was a Protestant was called an Orangeman, and every one was to be killed, from the poorest man in the country. Before the rebellion, I never heard there was any hatred between Roman Catholics and Protestants; they always lived peaceably together. I always found the Protestants better masters and more indulgent landlords than my own religion.’ (Musgrave, Appendix, p. 100.) This statement, however, may be qualified by a passage in a letter written to the Duke of Richmond by Lady Lonisa Conolly, who was an exceedingly good judge of the state of Ireland. She said: ‘I still think that it [there-bellion] does not proceed from a religions cause, such numbers of the greatest and best Catholics are so unhappy about it, behave so well, and take such pains to discountenance anything of the kind. At Wexford there has, so far back as thirty-six years, to my knowledge, existed a violent Protestant and Catholic party; consequently these engines were set to work for the purpose of rebellion In other places that of electioneering parties, and so on; every means has been seized that could answer their design.’ (MS. letter, June 18, 1798.)
Numerous de positions by prisoners, who had been taken to Vinegar Hill but spared, will be found, in Musgrave's Appendix. See, too Gordon, pp. 139-142; Taylor, pp. 96-108; Hay, pp. 167, 168.
Gordon, pp. 139, 195, 206, 218.
Ibid. p. 140.
Gordon, pp. 141-143. Gordon soon after succeeded this clergyman as Rector of Killegny, and was therefore well acquainted with the circumstances of the parish. He says that there were signs that, if the rebellion had lasted, the immunity of the Protestants of this parish would not have lasted, and that a few of those who conformed to Catholicism during the rebellion, in order to save their lives, continued in that creed, ‘probably through fear of a second insurrection.’ It appears from one of the affidavits, that the rebels were sometimes contented if their prisoners consented to cross them selves, as this was considered a proof that at least they were not Orangemen. (Musgrave, Appendix, pp. 118, 119.)
Gordon, pp. 112, 113; Taylor, pp. 47, 48. Gordon was himself near this battle, and his son appears to have been engaged in it. He says: ‘A small occurrence after the battle, of which a son of mine was a witness, may help to illustrate the state of the country at that time. Two yeomen, coming to a brake or clump of bushes, and observing a small motion, as if some persons were hiding there, one of them fired into it, and the shot was answered by a most piteous and loud screech of a child. The other yeoman was then urged by his companion to fire; but he, being a gentleman and less ferocious, instead of firing, commanded the concealed persons to appear; when a poor woman and eight children, almost naked-one of whom was severely wounded—came trembling from the brake, where they had secreted themselves for safety.’ (P. 113.)
See Taylor, p. 49.
Compare Byrne's Memoirs . i. 97-101; Gordon, pp. 114-116; Hay, pp. 49-51. Byrne was present in the action, and his account differs in some respects from that of the other historians. He represents Walpole as having been killed in the second fight. All the other accounts place his death at the beginning of the confliot.
Gordon, Taylor, Byrne, Hay.
See the extracts from the ‘Journal of a Field Officer’ quoted in Maxwell's History of the Rebellion , pp. 112, 115. Byrne, however, gives reasons for thinking that an immediate march on Arklow would have been imprudent (i. 114).
This is stated by Taylor (pp. 51, 52) and Musgrave (p. 406); and the ‘Field Officer’ cited by Maxwell says: ‘Time was wasted in collecting and piking Protestants, which might have been employed with far greater advantage to the cause.’ On the other hand, nothing is said about these executions by Byrne, who was present in the expedition, or by Gordon, who was most intimately acquainted with Gorey. Hay says that, before the capture of Gorey, the military stationed there ‘plundered and burned many houses, and shot several stragglers who happened to fall in their way. This provoked the insurgents to vie with their opponents in this mode of warfare, and … enormities, in fact, were committed on both sides.’ (P. 146.) Byrne and Hay pretend that the troops intended to kill their prisoners in Gorey, and were only prevented by the rapidity with which they were driven through the town It seems to me quite impossible to pronounce with confidence on these points.
Gordon says: ‘To shoot all persons carrying flags of truce from the rebels, appears to have been a maxim with his Majesty's forces.’ (P. 118.)
Taylor, pp. 56, 57.
On the death of Mountjoy, see the account by an eye-witness in Taylor, pp. 57, 58. General Johnston, in the official bulletin, says he ‘fell early in the contest.’ Major Vesey says: ‘He was wounded and taken prisoner early. When we stormed their fort, we found his body mangled and butchered.’
Taylor, pp. 58, 59.
Many interesting particulars of this battle, from an eye-witness on the rebel side, will be found in Cloney's Personal Narrative ; and from an eye-witness on the loyalist side, in Taylor.
Report of General Johnston, inclosed by Camden to Portland, June 8, 1798.
Record Office. Hay declares that there was not only an indiscriminate massacre when New Ross was taken, but that on ‘the following day also, the few thatched houses that remained unburnt … were closely searched, and not a man discovered in them left alive. Some houses set on fire were so thronged, that the corpses of the suffocated within them could not fall to the ground, but continued crowded together in an upright posture, until they were taken out to be interred.’ (P. 155.) How far such stories were true, and how far they were inventions or exaggerations, intended to parallel the massacre of Scullabogue, it is impossible to say. Madden collected some stories about the capture of New Ross, from two old men who had been there, and their account went to show that there had been very general massacre, but that it had been immediately after the capture. He says, they agreed ‘that, after the battle was entirely over, as many were shot and suffocated in the burning cabins and houses from four o'clock in the afternoon till night, and were hanged the next day, as were killed in the fight.’ ( United Irishmen , iv. 445.)
Compare Gordon, pp. 121, 122; Taylor, pp. 64-70; Hay, pp. 156-159; Cloney, pp. 44, 45. Among modern books, the reader may consult the rebel historian Harwood's History of the Rebellion , p. 184. Taylor gives the names of ninety-five persons who were killed at Scullabogue, and he says there were others whose names he could not discover.
Elliot to Pelham, June 1, 1798. ( Pelham MSS. )
Camden to Pelham, June 3, 1798.
Elliot to Pelham, June 3, 1798.
Camden to Portland, June 5, 1798.
Camden to Pelham, June 6. Lord Clare, who was never disposed to panic, took an equally grave view. The day after Walpole's defeat, he wrote: ‘Our situation is critical in the extreme. We know that there has been a complete military organisation of the people in three-fourths of the kingdom. In the North, nothing will keep the rebels quiet but a conviction that, where treason has broken out, the rebellion is merely popish; but, even with this impression on their minds, we cannot be certain that their love of republicanism will not outweigh their inveteracy against popery. In the capital there is a rebel army organised; and if the garrison was forced out, to meet an invading army from this side of Wexford, they would probably, on their return, find the metropolis in possession of its proper rebel troops. In a word, such is the extent of treason in Ireland, that if any one district is left uncovered by troops, it will be immediately possessed by its own proper rebels…. I have long foreseen the mischief, and condemned the imbecility which has suffered it to extend itself.’ ( Auckland Correspondence, iv. 3. )
Camden to Portland, June 8, 1798.
Colonel Crawford, June 5. Two days later the same officer wrote to General Cradock, that before the attack on New Ross he had so ‘contemptible an opinion of the rebels as troops,’ that he thought the best plan would be to divide the army into small columns, and beat them in detail. ‘Bat,’ he says, ‘I have now totally changed my opinion. I never saw any troops attack with more enthusiasm and bravery than the rebels did on the 5th…. To insure success we must be in considerable force. Should we be defeated, a general insurrection would probably be the consequence. During the affair of the 5th mst., large bodies of people collected behind us in the county of Kilkenny, and certainly were waiting only the event of the attack made by the people of Wexford. In short, I do not think General Johnston's and General Loftus's corps, even wher united, sufficiently strong—not nearly so.’ (June 7, Record Office.)
Auckland Correspondence , iv. 9, 10, 13.
Castlereagh to Pelham.
See Howell's State Trials , xxvii. 412.
Cooke to Pelham, June 3, 1798.
Gamden to Portland, June 10, 1798. See, too, a number of very interesting letters on the situation, in the Auckland Correspondence , iv. 3-10.
‘Our Northern accounts are still very good; no stir there except on the right side. The people called Orangemen (whose principles have been totally misrepresented) keep the country in check, and will overpower the rebels, should they stir.’ (Beresford to Auckland, June 1; Auckland Correspondence, iii, 442.)
Historical Collections relating to Belfast , pp. 479-483; McSkimmin's History of Carrickfergus , p. 97.
McNevin's Pieces of Irish History , p. 204.
Secret Committee , pp. 16, 17.
Tone's Memoirs , ii. 416.
See Mallet du Pan's Essai Historique sur la Destruction de la Ligue et de la Liberté Helvétique . There are some excellent chapters on this revolution in the Annual Register of 1798 See, too, Sybel.
The despatches will be found in full in the appendix of the Annual Register for 1798. See, too, Sybel, Histoire de l'Europe pendant la Révolution (French translation), v. 62-67, 150-152; and Adams's Life .
Dean Warburton to Cooke (Loughgilly), May 29, 1798.
Camden to Portland, June 2, 1798.
Cooke to Wickham, June 2, 1798.
I.S.P.O. This paper is only signed by initials. It is among those of the first days of June. So Beres-ford, on the last day of May, after describing the atrocities in Wexford, says: ‘Bad and shocking as this is, it has its horrid use; for now there is a flying off of many Protestant men who were united, and the North consider it as a religious war, and, by many letters this day, have resolved to be loyal’ ( Auckland Correspondence , iii. 439.)
Henry Alexander to Pelham, June 10, 1798. ( Pelham MSS .)
Bishop Percy to his wife, May 28, 29, 1798. (British Museum.)
Bishop Percy to his wife, June 8, 1798. On the illuminations at Belfast, see Saunders's Newsletter , June 8. Another remarkable letter on the state of Ulster is from Lord William Bentinck, who had resided in Armagh for two years. ‘The Dissenters,’ he wrote, ‘whom I knew to be the most disaffected a year and a half ago, are now ready to support the existing Government, and I believe with sincerity. I do not fancy that their opinions are much changed or their natural inclination to republicamsm extinguished, but their affection for their properties, which they conceive in danger from what they happily term a popish rebellion, has been the cause of their present inaction. They prefer a Protestant to a popish Establishment.’ (June 21, 1798, I.S.P.O.)
Sounders's Newsletter , June 14, 1798.
Musgrave, p. 194.
See Harwood, p. 203.
Nicholas Magean Castlereagh says: ‘It was upon his information that General Nugent was enabled so to dispose his force—at that time very much weakened by detaching to the South—as to attack the rebels in those points of assembly, and to gain those decisive advantages over them, before their strength was collected, which have completely repressed the insurrection in the North, at least for the present.’ (Castlereagh to Wickham, private, June 22, 1798.) Castlereagh mentions that the informer was in custody at his own desire, but refused to give evidence. This informer's name is also spelt Maguan, Magein, Magin, and Maginn. Pollock, in a letter dated July 13, 1798, mentions that Wickham said that after the trials, ‘a letter should be written by the Lord Lieutenant to the Treasury in England, stating the magnitude and importance of Magin's services, that by his means the rebels in Ulster were prevented taking the field.’ (I.S.P.O. Compare the Report of the Secret Committee of 1798, app xiv; and Madden's United Irishmen , i. 458, 459; iv. 54.) There is reason to believe that he made a stipulation, that no man should lose hislife on his evidence.
According to another account, two, but only one appears to have been brought into action.
See the accounts (differing in many details) in Musgrave, Gordon, McSkimmin, in the official bulletin ( Saunders's Newsletter , June 11), and in Teeling's Personal Narrative .
General Nugent to General Lake, June 18, 1798.
Musgrave, p. 184. Musgrave must always be read with suspicion when he treats of any question relating to Catholics; but I see no improbability in this statement, and it is corroborated by the ‘Field Officer’ quoted by Maxwell, who says: ‘The accounts of the bloody goings-on in Wexford had their full share in bringing the Northerners to their senses, as many of them made no scruple of declaring at the plaoe of execution.’ (Maxwell's History of the Rebellion , p. 217.)
Teeling, p. 250.
Musgrave declares that the rebels in the battle of Ballinahinch were ‘Protestant Dissenters, with few if any Roman Catholics, as 2,000 of them deserted the night before the battle, and inflamed the Presbyterians very much against them.’ (P. 557.) Teeling, who gives the best Catholic account of the battle, says that, in the night before, ‘a division of nearly 700 men, and more generally armed with muskets than the rest, marched off in one body with their leader;’ but he attributes this to their discontent at Monroe's refusal to make a midnight attack, and he makes no mention of any religious differences. ( Personal Narrative , pp. 255, 256.) The ‘Field Officer’ whose narrative is quoted by Maxwell, believed that there was both military dissension and religious jealousy. ( History of the Rebellion , p. 218.)
Printed bulletin.
See the report of General Nugent, June 13; and some interesting letters, describing the battle, sent by Bishop Percy to his wife. See, too, the accounts in Teeling's Personal Narrative , in Maxwell and in Musgrave. The fact that the property of Lord Moira was the centre of the rebellion in Ulster, was not forgotten by the opponents of that nobleman:
Castlereagh to Pelham, June 16, 1798. ( Pelham MSS .)
Castlereagh to Elliot, June 16, 1798. (Ibid.)
Bishop Percy, afterwards speaking of the barbarities in other parts of Ireland, adds: ‘Thank God, our rebels in this country, being chiefly Protestant Dissenters, were of very different complexion, and were guilty of no wanton cruelties. I have accounts on all hands that they treated our clergy, and others who fell into their hands, with great humanity, and according to the usual laws of war.’ (Oct. 27.) This was all the more remarkable if, as Bishop Percy said in other letters, the rebels in the North were only miscreants of the lowest kind. ‘All the more rational republicans,’ he said, ‘are disgusted with France for their ill treatment of America,’ and ‘are separating from the popish Defenders, who are only bent on mischief.’ (June 11, 13, 1798.) Musgrave and Gordon, however, state that a party from Saintfield attacked the house of a farmer named McKee (who had prosecuted some United Irishmen), and that, meeting a fierce resistance, they set fire to the house, and all within perished in the flames. (Musgrave, p. 555; Gordon, p. 160.)
Maxwell, pp. 217, 218.
Bishop Percy to his wife, Oct. 27, 1798. The Bishop says that the painter Robinson painted a picture of the battle of Ballinahinch, which contained many portraits of those who were engaged in it. It was raffled for, and won by Lord Hertford. Of the death of Monroe, we have three remarkable accounts: Maxwell, pp. 215, 216; Teeling, p. 260; Musgrave, p. 557. His name—like nearly every name in this part of my history—is spelt by contemporaries in several different ways.
Taylor, pp. 70-73; Hay, pp. 159-161; Cloney, pp. 44. 45.
‘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 scarcely 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 the advice I gave some time since been taken, the present mischief could 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 may, the good men of both parties will be inevitably ruined.’ (Taylor, p. 76)
See Gordon, p. 123. I must acknowledge myself quite unable to draw the character of this priest. Harwood sums up very well the Catholic version, when he describes him as ‘a man abundantly gifted by nature with all the qualities that the post required: of intrepid personal courage, indomitable firmness, a quick and true military eye, immense physical strength and power of enduring privation and fatigue, great tact for managing the rude masses he had to rule, and a generous, humane heart with it all.’ ( History of the Rebellion , p. 185.) Maxwell gives the loyalist version: ‘Like Murphy of Boulavogue, Roche was a man of ferocious character and vulgar habits; but, although drunken and illiterate, his huge stature and rough manners gave him a perfect ascendency over the savage mobs which, in rebel parlance, constituted an army…. He evinced neither talent nor activity. His chief exploit was an attack upon a gentleman's house, in which he was disgracefully repulsed; while in a new camp he formed within a mile of Ross, the time was passed in drunken revelry, diversified occasionally with a sermon from Father Philip, or the slaughter of some helpless wretch, accused of being an enemy to the people’ (Ibid. pp. 128, 129) Musgrave describes him as ‘an inhuman savage,’ but Gordon says that, although ‘Philip Roach was in appearance fierce and sanguinary,’ several persons who were in danger of being murdered on Vinegar Hill, owed their lives ‘to his boisterous interference.’ (P. 140.) He admits that he was often intoxicated, but adds, ‘for a charge of cruelty against him, I can find no foundation. On the contrary, I have heard many instances of his active humanity.’ (Appendix, p. 84.) Miles Byrne describes him as ‘a clergyman of the most elegant manners, a fine person, tall and handsome, humane and brave beyond description.’ ( Memoirs , i. 86.)
Taylor and Musgrave have printed some curious ‘protections,’ which were taken from the necks of captured or slain rebels.
Gordon, p. 124. Cloney, who was present at the attack, gives an interesting account of it. ( Personal Narrative , pp. 48-51.)
Gordon, Appendix, p. 85.
This statement, which has been made by Gordon and also by the rebel writers, is confirmed by the report of Captain Moore, in the Record Office.
See the report of General Needham to General Lake, June 10, 11, 1798; and also an interesting account of the battle by Captain Moore, in the Record Office. Some particulars, derived from those who were present, are also given in a letter from H. Alexander to Pelham, June 10. ( Pelham MSS .) See, too, the accounts in Taylor, Musgrave, and Gordon, and in the Memoirs of Miles Byrne, who was present in the battle. Byrne maintains that the retreat was wholly unnecessary, and that Arklow might with little difficulty have still been taken. Beresford wrote to Auckland a description of this battle. He says: ‘The Ancient Britons who made their escape, assured Needham that the priests who attend the army say mass almost every hour, and work up the people's mind to enthusiasm. There are two or three killed in every battle.’ ( Auckland Correspondence , iv. 15.) Father Michael Murphy's body appears to have been horribly mutilated after death by some Ancient Britons. (See Gordon, pp. 212, 213.)
Bishop Percy mentions that, on the night of Lady Camden's departure, he was walking with the Bishop of Clogher round Merrion Square, when it was almost dark. When they came opposite Lady Frances Beresford's house, they saw that lady standing on her balcony, and could not help hearing what a lady in the street below was calling to her at the full pitch of her voice. It was the whole story of the departure of Lady Camden. The two bishops, without revealing themselves, contrived to see the face of the indiscreet informant, and found that she was Lady Castlereagh (Bishop Percy to his wife, June 11, 1798.)
Camden to Pelham, June 11, 1798. (Pelham MSS. )
Camden to Portland, June 11, 1798 (most secret). On June 9, Lees wrote to Auckland: ‘We have not yet a single soldier from your side on this.’ ‘Most strange,’ wrote Beres-ford on the 14th, ‘not a man yet arrived in the South or at Dublin…. I hear some are at Carrickfergus.’ ( Auckland Correspondence , iv. 11,19.) These passages, and the letters in the text, have an important bearing on the question how far the rebellion was put down by Irish, and how far by English, efforts.
Castlereagh to Pelham, June 13; Castlereagh to Elliot, June 16 ( Pelham MSS ); Castlereagh to Wickham ( Castlereagh Correspondence , i. 219.)
J. W., June 6, 1798. In another letter he says: ‘The secular clergy of Ireland, particularly those of Dublin, have not been the instigators of rebellion; the regulars it is who lighted the brand, and among those the younger were the most active, from their attachment to French politics. This class of men are the political preceptors of country schoolmasters—a class of men who, the judges well know, have been the most successful agitators.’ (J. W., June 26, 1798.)
J. W., June 13, 1798.
J. W., June 12, 13, and also some undated letters, which were evidently written about the same time.
I take these sentences from a number of letters, which are chiefly undated.
Henry Alexander to Pelham, June 10, 1798. ( Pelham MSS )
F. H., June 13, 1798. See, too, Saunders's Newsletter , June 15. Sheridan even attributed the rebellion mainly to want of employment and want of bread. ( Parl. Hist . xxxiii. 1502.)
Saunders's Newsletter , June 16.
Part Hist . xxxiii. 1493-1512.
Saunders, June 28, 29.
See Musgrave, p. 559.
Gordon, pp. 133, 134. ‘So in-veterately rooted,’ he elsewhere says, ‘are the prejudices of religious antipathy in the minds of the lower classes of Irish Romanists, that in any civilisations however originating from causes unconnected with religion, not all the efforts of their gentry, or even priests, to the contrary, could (if I am not exceedingly mistaken) restrain them from converting it into a religious quarrel.’ (P. 285.)
Compare Gordon, pp. 133-137, with Byrne's Memoirs , i. 147-152.
Gordon, pp. 133-138. The reader should, however, compare this account with that (differing in some details) given by Miles Byrne, who took part in this campaign. (Byrne's Memoirs , i. 148-163.) Byrne naturally minimises the number of murders by the rebels. He says that a clerical magistrate named Owens, who had been conspicuous in putting pitched caps on rebels, was among the prisoners at Gorey, and was not further punished than by a pitched cap; and he palliates the misdeeds of the party, by accusing the yeomen of murdering the wounded who were left on the field. He says nothing about the burning of Tinne-hely, and represents rather more fighting as having taken place than appears from Gordon's narrative. He dishonestly calls Gordon ‘the Orange historian.’
Cloney gives a full account of the retreat, in which he took part. ( Personal Narrative , pp. 54-60.) Compare ‘The Journal of a Field Officer,’ in Maxwell, p. 141, and Hay, pp. 200, 201.
Compare the accounts of Musgrave, Gordon, Hay, and Byrne (who took part in the battle). Musgrave gives Lake's despatches in his Appendix.
Gordon, p. 145; Hay, p. 228; Cloney, p. 47. Taylor, who is a strongly loyal historian, mentions that the loyalist prisoners were, by mistake, slaughtered by the soldiers. (P. 119.) General Lake, in reporting the victory at Vinegar Hill, says: ‘The troops behaved excessively well in action, but their determination to destroy every one they think a rebel is beyond description, and wants much correction.’ ( Castlereagh Correspondence , i. 223.)
See, for many particulars about Edward Roche, Crofton Croker's notes to Holt's Memoirs , i. 65-69.
Hay, pp. 162, 163.
Musgrave has done the utmost in his power to blacken the Catholic priests in Wexford; but nothing can be stronger than the testimony in their favour, of Jackson, who was an Englishman, a Protestant, and a loyalist, and who was prisoner in Wexford during the whole siege. He says: ‘The conduct of the Roman Catholic clergy of Wexford cannot be too much commended. Dr. Caulfield, the titular Bishop of Leighlin and Ferns, Father Curran, Father Broe, and, indeed, the whole of the priests and friars of that town, on all occasions used their interest and exerted their abilities in the cause of humanity. Every Sunday, after mass, they addressed their audience, and implored them in the most earnest manner not to ill-treat their prisoners, and not to have upon their consciences the reflection of having shed innocent blood,’ (Jackson, Narrative , p. 54.) The same writer says: ‘From what I saw while I was in confinement, or could learn, I think myself bound to say that, in my opinion, such of the rebel chiefs as had been in respectable situations, detested the system of murder and robbery, which was as universally adopted by the upstart officers and unruly mob, over whom they had little more than a nominal command,’ (P. 43.)
Compare Gordon, pp. 149, 150; Jackson, pp. 24, 25.
Hay, p. 199.
Jackson, p. 50.
Gordon, pp. 147, 148. Musgrave, pp. 464-466. Musgrave says: ‘I have heard, from the concurrent testimony of different persons who resided at Wexford at this time, that nothing but the humane and active interference of Generals Keugh and Harvey prevented that indiscriminate slaughter of Protestants there, which took place in many other parts of the country, particularly at Vinegar Hill; but when they lost their authority, the bloody work began…. Some of the gentlemen confined in the prison ship, assured me that the rebel guards frequently inveighed against Keugh, and vowed vengeance against him because he would not indulge the people—that is, because he did his utmost to restrain their desire for carnage.’ (Pp. 465, 466.)
Jackson, p. 53.
Gordon, p. 147; Hay, pp. 142-145. I have mentioned the desire of the more respectable rebel leaders that the Protestant service should continue; but Barrington pretends that the rector was compelled to conform to Catholicism.
Taylor, p. 18; Hay, p. 126.
I have already quoted the very interesting diary of Mrs. Adams, published in Croker's Researches in the South of Ireland . A short fragment of the diary of another lady, who was in the town, is given by Musgrave.
J. W., June 13, 1798.
Hay, pp. 175, 176.
Saunders's Newsletter , June 19, 1798. This address appears to have been drawn up in February. See Cupple's Principles of the Orange Association (1799).
Faulkner's Journal , June 16, 1798.
Plowden, ii. 750, 751.
Hay, pp. 197, 198; Masgrave, pp 470, 471; Gordon, pp. 148, 149; Plowden, ii. 741, 742; Jackson's Personal Narrative , pp. 44-46.
Hay, pp. 204-207.
Hay, pp. 226, 227. See, too, Maxwell, pp. 141, 142, and Sir John Moore's despatches, describing the battle, in Musgrave, Appendix, pp. 156, 157.
This is the statement of Hay (pp. 207-313), and it is confirmed by better authority. Bishop Caulfield, in a private letter to Archbishop Troy, says: ‘I could not find that there were more than two or three of this town engaged in the massacres, for the townsmen had been that morning ordered out to camp near Enniscorthy, and a horde of miscreants, like so many bloodhounds, rushed in from the country, and swore they would burn the town if the prisoners were not given up to them.’ (Plowden, ii. 751.) Lord Kingsborough also, as we shall see, distinctly exculpated the townsmen from complicity in the massacre.
Musgrave (p. 485) and Taylor (p. 121) say that these letters were believed to mean ‘murder without sin,’ an interpretation which appears to me incredible. If the rebels wished to convey this sentiment, they could have done so much more clearly: they would not have used the invidious term ‘murder;’ and it is exceedingly improbable that a banner intended to convey such a meaning, should have been prepared beforehand. Hay says that this black flag had been carried by one particular corps through the whole rebellion, and a member of that corps told Crofton Croker that the letters signified only, ‘Marksmen, Wexford, Shilmalier.’ Shilmalier was the barony of Wexford, most famous for its marksmen, and also, as we have seen, that from which most of the actors in this tragedy seem to have come. (See a note to Holt's Memoirs , i. 89, 90.)
Taylor and Musgrave have accused Bishop Caulfield of having refused, when asked, to interfere to prevent the massacre; but the bishop published a pamphlet in which he most solemnly denied the charge, and declared that, as he was in his house at some considerable distance from the scene, he knew nothing of what was passing. ( Reply of the Rev. Dr. Caulfield, and of the R.C. Clergy of Wexford, to the Misrepresentations of Sir R. Musgrave (1801). The courageous interposition of Father Curran is undoubted; but there is a difference of statement about how far it was effectual. Caulfield, in his letter to Archbishop Troy, gives a vivid picture of the terror of the priests. (See Plowden, ii. 749-751, 761.)
Col. Le Hunte was one of these.
I have given the best account I can of this massacre; but the reader who will compare the original authorities, will find numerous inconsistencies and discrepancies among them. Jackson, who wrote his Personal Narrative , was actually kneeling on the bridge, waiting his turn to be piked, when the rescue came. Taylor was one of the forty-eight prisoners who were confined in the marketplace, and one of nineteen who were saved. ( Hist. of the Rebellion , p. 124.) Musgrave, who relates the story with his usual research, and his usual violent and evident partisanship, gives an account which, he says, he received from eye-witnesses, who were in a house close to the bridge. (Pp. 485-487.) Hay—who is quite as violent a partisan on one side as Musgrave on the other—was in the town, and (according to his own account) exerted himself greatly to prevent the massacre. His long and confused story differs in several respects from the others, and he pretends (p. 221) that only thirty-six persons were murdered This is inconsistent with the statements of the other writers, and the long period during which the tragedy was going on makes it very improbable. Gordon gives a list of ‘some of the persons massacred on the bridge of Wexford,’ which comprises fifty-three names. (Appendix, pp. 62, 63.) Bishop Caulfield, in a letter evidently not meant for publication, says the rebels called the prisoners out ‘by dozens’ to be executed. (Plowden, ii. 750.)
See an interesting letter written in 1799 by Captain Bourke, an officer of the North Cork Militia (who had been captured with Lord Kings-borough), describing the negotiation, and authenticated by Lord Kings-borough (then Lord Kingston) himself. (Hay's Hist. , Appendix, pp. xxviii-xxx.) It appears, from this letter, that Keugh was at first reluctant to surrender the government of Wexford, and that this step was taken on the motion of Hay.
Ibid. See, too, Musgrave, pp. 498, 499.
Record Office.
Annual Register , 1798. p. 128 Hay, pp. 242-244. In a letter to Castlereagh, Lake says: ‘You will see by the inclosed letter and address from Wexford, what an unpleasant situation I am led into by Lord Kings-borough.’ ( Castlereagh Correspond-ence , i. 223.)
See Bishop Caulfield's statement of his conduct. (Plowden, ii. 738, 739.)
Compare Plowden, ii. 763; Musgrave, p. 507; and the remarks of the ‘Field Officer’ in Maxwell, p. 141.
Barrington was at Wexford shortly after the rebellion, and saw the heads of the leaders outside the court house. He says: ‘The mutilated countenances of friends and relations in such a situation would, it may be imagined, give any man most horrifying sensations! The heads of Colclough and Harvey appeared black lumps, the features being utterly undistinguishable; that of Keogh was uppermost, but the air had made no impression on it whatever. His comely and respect-inspiring face (except the pale hue, scarcely to be called livid), was the same as in life. His eyes were not closed, his hair not much ruffled—in fact, it appeared to me rather as a head of chiselled marble, with glass eyes, than as the lifeless remains of a human creature. This circumstance I never could get any medical man to give the least explanation of.’ (Barrington's Personal Sketches , i. 276. 277.)
Interesting notices of Keugh will be found in Gordon, Taylor, Jackson, and Musgrave. Compare, too, the vivid sketch in Barrington's Personal Recollections , iii. 296-298. Keugh had an elder brother—an enthusiastic loyalist—who lived with him. When the rebellion broke out, and Matthew Keugh became a rebel leader, the loyalist brother was driven to such despair, that he blew out his own brains. In spelling the name of the Wexford governor, I have followed most of the Wexford writers, as well as Musgrave and Lord Castlereagh; but Barrington (who was related to him) calls him Keogh; and Taylor, Keughe.
A number of facts from different quarters about Grogan, have been brought together by Dr. Madden. ( United Irishmen , iv. 502-513.) Compare Musgrave, pp. 447, 448; Appendix, p. 135. Barrington, who had known Grogan intimately for several years, declares most emphatically that he was ‘no more a rebel than his brothers, who signalised themselves in battle as loyalists;’ and he speaks very strongly of the illegal constitution of the court-martial that tried him. ( Personal Recollections , iii. 298-300.) There is an elaborate examination, and a very severe condemnation, of this court-martial, in a privately printed law book, called Reports of Interesting Cases argued in Ireland (1824), by Radford Rowe. A long chapter is devoted to the Irish courts-martial.
Gordon, p. 187; see, too, Appendix, p. 85. Gordon relates the exclamation of one of the rebels: ‘I thank my God, that no person can prove me guilty of saving the life or property of anyone.’
‘In the local and short-lived insurrection in the county of Wexford, the tendency of affairs was so evident to Bagenal Harvey and other Protestant leaders, that they considered their doom as inevitable, and even some Romish commanders expressed apprehensions. Thus, Esmond Kyan, one of the most brave and generous among them, declared to Richard Dowse, a Protestant gentleman of the county of Wicklow, whom he had rescued from assassins, that his own life was irredeemably forfeited; for if the rebellion should succeed, his own party would murder him; and if it should not succeed, his fate must be death by martial law—which happened, according to his prediction. Even Philip Roche, whose character as a priest might be supposed to insure his safety with his own followers, made a similar declaration to Walter Greene, a Protestant gentleman of the county of Wexford, whose life he had protected.’ (Gordon's History , pp. 210, 211.)
See the list in Musgrave's Appendix, 160. These executions, however, extended over the whole period from June 21, 1798, to Dec. 18, 1800. Gordon states that nine leaders were hanged on June 25; three others on the 28th. Four only of these leaders were Protestants. (Pp. 180-184.)
See Hay, pp. 243, 247, &c.
Gordon, pp. 188, 197, 222. Hay fully agrees with Gordon in giving the first place in these atrocities to the ‘Hompesch Dragoons.’ (P. 247.) I may mention that, in 1770, Lord Chatham had suggested that, if Ireland was ever invaded by a powerful foreign army, witharms ready to be put into the hands of the Roman Catholics, the task of defending it should be largely entrusted to a subsidised force of German Protestants. (Thackeray's Life of Chatham, ii. 222.)
Compare Gordon, pp. 213, 214; Hay, p. 247. Gordon says he has ‘not been able to ascertain an instance to the contrary in the county of Wexford, though many beautiful young women were absolutely in the power of the rebels.’
See many statistics about chapel-burning in Madden, i. 349-351. Gordon says that hardly one chapel in the extent of several miles round Gorey escaped burning. (Pp. 199,200). Bishop Caulfield, in his pamphlet in reply to the misrepresentations of Sir B. Musgrave, said: ‘In the extent of nearly fifty miles from Bray to Wexford, almost every Roman Catholic chapel was laid in ashes.’ (P. ii.)
See the very emphatic statements of Lord Cornwallis. ( Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 357, 369.)
Gordon, pp. 197, 198.
Alexander to Pelham, June 10, 1798.
F. H., Aug. 22, 1798; March 18, 1801. In the former of these letters, Higgins describes an after-dinner conversation with several respectable priests. They deplored that the lower orders were not giving up their arms. Higgins asked why they did not follow Father Ryan's example. They said they had no orders, and they added, that they had at first strongly opposed unlawful oaths, ‘but some well-known leaders (which they allowed to be Keogh, McCormick, Byrne, Dease, and Hamill) went round to the several chapels, and informed the priests, if they should in any manner whatever presume to interfere, or to advise, or to admonish the people on political subjects, or against the means of their obtaining their rights, the different committees who collected for the support of their chapels, and for the maintenance of the priests, had so settled that they should not get as much as a single six-pence to support them, and let those who cannot be silent, go to the Government for support. Their having no revenue but the casual collections and charitable donations to exist on, [they] alleged that the threat forced compliance.’ (I.S.P.O.)
Dr. Caulfield's Reply to Sir R. Musgrace , p. 5.
Byrne's Memoirs , i. 204, 206. Byrne was one of the commanders of this expedition, and describes it at length.
Gordon says, by the rebels (p. 165); Byrne says, the troops set fire to the houses; but Father Murphy, to the barracks.
In the Hibernian Gazetteer (1789) it is stated, that Lord Castlecomer was said to clear 10,000l. a year from the coal-fields on his estate. See, too, Griffith's Geological and Mining Report of the Leinster Coal District (1814); and also Parl. Hist. xxxiv. 883.
Compare Byrne, i. 212; Gordon, p. 166; Cloney's Personal Narrative p. 82; Musgrave, pp. 532, 533. Musgrave, says nine prisoners were then put to death, and two others shortly after.
Byrne, ii. 223.
Ibid. p. 224.
Ibid. p. 225; Cloney's Personal Narrative , p. 83.
Or Kilconnell.
Byrne, i. 226; Cloney, p. 83.
See Sir Charles Asgill's report to Lord Castlereagh. June 27; Saunders's Newsletter , June 28; Madden, iv. 417. Miles Byrne, who took a prominent part in the battle, gives a totally different account of it, describing it as an unsuccessful attempt of Sir C. Asgill to cut off the retreat of the rebels; and declaring that in the fight the soldiers suffered most, though the English general ‘preferred a more safe and easy victory; running with his army through the districts adjoining Kilcomney, and, instead of pursuing and fighting with us in the field, murdering in cold blood the unarmed, inoffensive inhabitants, who never left their homes.’ He says: ‘The hired press of the English ascendency of that day, would have it that we abandoned ten pieces of artillery and quantities of baggage, and had thousands killed and wounded. We had no artillery to abandon, never having had any since we left Wexford on June 21; and, as to losses sustained, ours was far less than the enemy's’ (Pp. 228, 229.) I cannot understand where the rebels got their cannon from, and Byrne can hardly have been ignorant of whether there were or were not cannon in his army. On the other hand, Asgill, in his official despatch, expressly says that he took ten cannon, and he cannot have been mistaken. Compare also the account of this battle in Gordon, pp. 168, 169.
Compare Byrne, i. 229,230; Gordon, p. 185. Cloney, p. 86; Musgrave, p. 544. Musgrave gives an interesting description of the execution of Murphy at Tullow, but says that another priest of the same name fell in the battle.
See the very detailed account in Cloney, pp. 83-86; and compare Byrne, i. 229, and Gordon, p. 168.
See, on the indiscriminate slaughter often due to this cause, the Narrative of what passed at Killala , pp. 125, 126.
Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 355.
Gordon, pp. 156-158; Appendix, p. 90. Musgrave prints an affidavit truly describing this as a massacre of unarmed Protestants; but, as Gordon justly says,‘we are not informed in this affidavit that a considerable number of Romanists had that day been put to death in and about Gorey, some of whom were kinsmen of those who were most active afterwards in this massacre of the Protestants.’
The reader may find several interesting particulars about these men drawn from different sources, in Crofton Croker's notes to Holt's Memoir i. 54-61. Perry, according to Gordor had had his hair cut away and it roots burned by ‘Tom the devil'—th well-known sergeant of the Nortl Cork Militia—and his property wa destroyed by the yeomen. He then threw himself into the arms of the rebels. He was a Protestant; the others were Catholics.
See Lieutenant Gardiner's despatch, June 26 (I.S.P.O.), and the accounts in Gordon, Hay, and Musgrave.
The different accounts of this affair (which was called the battle of Ballyellis), have been brought together by Crofton Croker in his notes to Holt's Memoirs , the only really well-edited book relating to the rebellion (i. 78-86). Holt greatly magnifies the number of the soldiers, and pretends that 370 of them were slain.
Gordon, pp. 174, 175; Hay, pp. 261, 262. The number of killed and wounded is very variously stated.
Cooke to Wickham, July 17, 1798 (Record Office).
Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 356-357, 369, 372.
Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 362, 371.
Life of Wilberforce , ii. 327.
In aprivately printed book, called Essays by an Octogenarian (1851), by a gentleman named Roche, there are some interesting remarks about Lord Clare, based on personal knowledge. The writer says: ‘I could state many redeeming instances of persons, whose legal guilt could not be gainsaid, saved by him from the lash and halter, and not a few, I have the happiness to know, through the intercession of my own family…. In private life, moreover, I can affirm that he was a generous and indulgent landlord, a kind master, and an attached friend’ (ii. 114, 115). He mentions (p. 351) that, like Lord Thurlow, he was extremely addicted to profane swearing.
Lady Louisa Conolly wrote from the county of Kildare, just before the return of Camden to England: ‘The free quarters, whipping the people, and burning the houses, have just been stopped, which rejoices me, for although in some places, where these terrible sentences were executed with great caution by humane and deserving officers, the object did answer for discovering the pikes and arms, yet, upon the whole, it was a dangerous measure, in regard to the licentiousness it produced among the soldiers, the fury and madness it drove the insurgents to, and the luke-warmness that it threw upon the well-disposed persons, who found themselves equally aggrieved by the free quarters as the rebels are. So that it is a blessing we have it all stopped.’ (Lady L. Conolly to the Duke of Richmond, June 18, 1798. Bunbury MSS. )
Plowden, ii. 773.
Ibid. 782-784; 38 Geo. III. c. 55
Taylor.
Faullmer's Journal , Aug. 11, 1798. See, too, various facts relating to these rebels, collected by Crofton Croker in Holt's Memoirs , i. 57-61; in Byrne's Memoirs , i. 300, 301; and in Madden's United Irishmen .
Gordon, pp. 185, 186.
Cornvallis Correspondence , ii. 370.
Cooke to Wickham, July 21, 1798 (E.O.).
Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 366; Madden, iv. 562.
See the loyalist version of the proceedings of William Byrne in Musgrave, pp. 516, 524; Taylor, p. 159; and the rebel version in Byrne's Memoirs , i. 156-158; 323, 324.
Hay very emphatically asserts the innocence of Devereux (pp. 285, 286).
Hay, pp. 270, 275, 281.
Madden, iv. 231. In the I.S.P.O. there is a letter from Henry Sheares, from Cork, dated Sept. 12, 1797, proposing to the Government that Mr. O'Driscoll should put an end to the publication of the Cork Gazette , on condition that an impending prosecution was abandoned, and it is noted that the Government accepted the proposal.
See Stephen's History of Criminal Law , i. 422.
Faulkner's Journal , July 24, 1798.
McNally wrote immediately after the arrest: ‘Very few, I find, had a knowledge, or even an idea, that the Sheares were implicated as reported. The purport of the manifesto or proclamation said to be found on them, has astonished many who would have gone great lengths on the known principles of emancipation and reform, as well as independency, bat who shudder at the thought of execution I doubt very much if they had any confidential communication with Bond, Jackson, and Dixon. This I know, the two latter always spoke of them with great bitterness, owing to some money transactions; and Dixon had an execution against them, and sued them on it with great rigour.’ (J. W., May 23, 1798) In a letter written Dec. 25, 1796, J. W. mentions that the Sheares's had been driven out of Dublin by debt, and adds: ‘They have touched citizens B. B. Harvey and Dixon for a few hundreds.’
Beresford writes: ‘They conducted themselves with great decency on the trial, and with firmness, particularly the younger; … but this day, when they found no chance, their courage failed them, and I hear they sent offers of discoveries to Lord Cornwallis…. At the gallows, they both lost their spirits, and the younger, I hear, fell into fits.’ ( Beresford Correspondence , ii. 157, 158.) Alexander Knox says: ‘When the Sheares sent to entreat for mercy, it was I who conveyed the message from the Ordinary of Fewgate, and I was present at the consequent conversation between Lord Castlereagh and the Attorney-General.’ (Knox's Remains , iv. 32.) Alexander, writing to Pelham, says: ‘The Sheares died like poltroons; McCann and Byrne, the first with a firm and manly courage, the other. with a constitutional indifference.’ (Alexander to Pelham, July 26, 1798 Pelham MSS. ) Barrington has printed a piteous letter from Henry Sheares, imploring him to entreat the Chancellor in his favour, and Lord Clare seems to have, for a time, wished to respite him. Madden pretends that John Sheares showed courage to the end. See the accounts he has brought together (iv. 312, 313, 323-25). See, too, a curious anecdote in Mr. Fitzpatrick's Sham Sqwire , pp. 190-192, and also the contemporary account from a Cork newspaper in Reynolds's Life , ii. 210.
Commons Journals , Jan. 31, 1766. See, too, Faulkner's Journal , July 31, 1798. Some, at least, of the prisoners tried by the special commission, might never have been convicted, if Ireland had not obtained her legislative independence. In consequence of that independence, the English Act of William III., making two witnesses necessary in cases of treason, was not in operation in Ireland, and it had never been adopted by the Irish Parliament.
Howell's State Trials , vol. xxvii. Castlereagh afterwards recommended Reynolds to the English Government as a man ‘of respectable family and good character’ (Castlereagh to Wickham, Nov. 16, 1798, R O); and many years later he wrote to Reynolds: ‘The situation I held in Ireland during the rebellion best enabled me to judge of the motives which influenced your conduct; and I shall always feel it an act of mere justice to you to state, that your protecting assistance was afforded to the State long before you were known to any member of the Government; that it was afforded in the most useful manner, when the prevention of calamity could be your only motive for making the important communications received from you; that they were made without a suggestion of personal advantage to yourself; and…. had it not been for accidental circumstances, … his Majesty's Government in that country might have remamed to this day in ignorance of everything relating to you, but of the truly important services you were enabled to render to your country.’ (Reynolds's Life , i. 447.) Lord Carleton wrote to Reynolds: ‘From the opportunities which were afforded to me in 1798, for forming a judgment of your character and conduct, in assisting his Majesty's Government towards putting down the dangerous rebellion which took place at that period, I formed a judgment that in the whole of your conduct, and in the communications which were carried on on your part with the Government, and in the evidence which you gave upon the prosecutions of the rebels, you had behaved with consistency, integrity, honour, ability, and disinterestedness.’ (Ibid. ii. 100.)
Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 370-372, 374.
Ibid. p. 372.
He describes Bond as having shown admirable courage ‘He desired me to state, that he would not move out of the ranks to save his own life (this was within a few hours of his execution), but that he would act with those men now State prisoners; … and he added, that they could give the only information capable of saving this country from an aggravated civil war.’ The respite was only announced to Bond twenty minutes before the time appointed for his execution. ‘Your friend Neilson,’ writes Alexander, ‘stretching out his arm with his hand clenched, said, “I hold in my hand every muscle, sinew, nay, fibre of the internal organisation—nay. every ramification of the United Irishmen, and” (gradually opening his hand) “I will make it as plain as the palm of my hand, if our terms are complied with.“… The vivacity and earnestness of his manner struck me, not with an opinion of his sincerity, but of the impressive habit he must have acquired. I thought I read in his looks great fear of death, but shading itself under a pretended anxiety to save Bond, who appeared next to indifferent about his fate.’ See two long and interesting letters to Pelham, July 26, Aug. 4, 1798. ( Pelham MSS )
‘The Speaker was frantic against it [the respite of Bond], the popular cry of Dublin loud against it. The yeomen were to lay down their arms; all the loyalists felt themselves detested. Luckily, as soon as the Chancellor arrived, he expressed himself most warmly in favour of the measure, first in private, then in Parliament, and said that the Government would have been inexcusable if they had not entertained it. Public confidence revived.’ (Cooke to Pelham, Aug. 9, 1798. Pelham MSS .) Alexander notices, that Parnell was ‘stronger for non-conciliation’ even than the Speaker. Jonah Barrington made a bitter speech in Parliament, in which he said that ‘another class of men than loyalists seemed Government's first care.’ (Alexander to Pelham, July 26, Aug. 4, 1798.)
Corncallis Correspondence , ii. 376; Castlereagh Correspondence , i. 248, 347-353. Compare, with these accounts, that drawn up in a strain of extreme bitterness by McNevin, Pieces of Irish History , pp. 142-161. See, too, the accounts by Emmet and by Sweetman, in Madden's United Irishmen , iii. 58-59, and that of O'Connor in his Letter to Lord Castlereagh , published in 1799.
Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 423.
Cooke to Pelham, Aug. 9, 1798.
C. Colclough, Aug. 12, 1798. ( Pelham MSS. ) About this time, a woman came to some yeomanry at Enniscorthy, promising to point out where some of the plate, plundered in the rebellion, was concealed. Five of them agreed to accompany her to a wood in the neighbourhood. They never returned; and their bodies were soon after found unburied, pierced and mangled with pikes. ( Faulkner's Journal , Aug. 7, 1798.)
F. H., Aug. 22, 1798. (I.S.P.O.)
D'Auvergne, Prince de Bouillon, to Dundas, July 1798.
J. Judkin Fitzgerald (Clonmel), July 30.
Castlereagh to Wickham, Aug. 4. See, too, Cooke to Wickham, Aug. 7. What a curious memoir,’ he says, ‘does Lord Castlereagh transmit! It unfolds the true spirit of our Jacobins.’ Cornwallis, on the other hand, in returning it to the authors, described it as containing ‘many gross misstatements of facts.’ ( Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 381.)
See Emmet's statement (Madden, iii. 56). The memoir of the three United Irishmen will be found in the Castlereagh Correspondence , i. 353-372. Cornwallis was quite satisfied with the results of the examination. ( Correspondence , ii. 384.)
Saunders's Newsletter , June 28, 1798
Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 379, 380.
Faulkner's Journal , Aug. 2, 1798; Auckland Correspondence , iv. 53.
Tone's Memoirs , ii. 454-458, 462, 473, 474, 476, 479.
See Guillon, La France et l'Irlands pendant la Révolution , pp. 331-334.
Las Cases, Mémoires de Sainte-Hélène , ii. 335 (ed. 1823).
7 vendém. an xiii (Sept. 29, 1804).
This letter is in the French Archives de la Marine, and has been printed by Guillon, La France st l'Irlande pendant la Récolution , pp. 359-361.
Tone's Memoirs , ii. 505-509.
Guillon, pp. 368, 369. The orders of the Directory appear only to have been issued on July 30 (12 thermidor, an vi).
Byrne's Memoirs , iii. 54-57.
The bishop is careful to remark, that Mrs. Stock had four other sons.
See his Narrative of what passed at Killala during the French Invasion , by an eye-witness. Bishop Stock also wrote a private journal, which has been printed by Maxwell in his History of the Rebellion of 1798; and two long letters on the same subject, which will be found in the Auckland Correspondence . In addition to his writings and to the Government despatches, the chief original documents relating to Humbert's expedition are: an Impartial Relation of the Military Operations in consequence of the Landing of the French Troops , by an officer who served under Lord Cornwallis (1799)—a pamphlet which contains, among other things, an excellent military map; Notice Historique sur la Descente des Français , par L. O. Fontaine (adjutant-general of Humbert); and The Last Speech and Dying Words of Martin McLoughlin . A book called Aventures de Guerre au Temps de la République , by Moreau de Jonnès, purports to give the account of an eye-witness, but it is full of errors. This expedition, as well as that of Bantry Bay, has recently been investigated by M. Guillon, with a research that leaves little or nothing to be added.
Stock's Narrative , p 60. Miles Byrne gives several particulars about the later life of O'Keon, or, as he calls him, O'Kean. ( Memoirs , iii. 64-66.)
N'avez-vous pas enduré constamment les supplices et la mort, parce qu'on vous regardait comme nos amis!’ (Guillon, p. 375.)
A Narrative of what passed at Killala , p. 24. See, too, on the assiduity and success with which this rumour was spread through Mayo, Musgrave, p. 566.
See Musgrave, pp. 560, 561.
Narrative of what passed at Killala , pp. 59, 80, 81; Maxwell, p. 259.
This is the estimate of General Hutchinson ( Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 410); Cooke states that Lake's secretary, who was in the battle, said ‘he saw no peasantry;’ and Cornwallis reported to Portland on Sept. 1, that he had good reason to believe that the French ‘have as yet been joined by a very inconsiderable portion of the inhabitants, and those (with very few exceptions) of the lowest order, No material disaffection has shown itself in other parts of the kingdom.’ (Ibid. p. 397.) See, too, p. 402, and Stock's Narrative , pp. 21, 22.
Impartial Relation of the Military Operations in Ireland, in consequence of the Landing of French Troops under General Humbert , by an officer under the command of Lord Cornwallis (1799), pp 5, 6-12.
Miss Edgeworth, who lived not very far from the scene of the rebellion, and who had good means of information, has described forcibly the character of the recruits, and the disgust expressed by the French. ( Life of R. L. Edgeworth , ii. 214, 215.)
Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 402. See a curious pamphlet, published at Cork, called The Last Speech and Dying Words of Martin McLouahlin . It is evidently the work of some one who was intimately acquainted with the campaign; but it is equally evident, that it was not the composition of an uneducated peasant. It gives a vivid picture of the alleged ill treatment of the Irish. Fontaine notices that they were employed to draw a waggon with ammunition, as there were no horses. ( Notice de la Descente des Français , p. 58.)
Impartial Narrative , pp. 12, 13.
Ibid. p. 14.
See Humbert's despatch, Guillon, p. 384.
Fontaine asserts that there was, in addition, a reserve force in Castlebar itself. (P. 16.) Compare General Hutchinson's statement, Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 410.
Gordon, p. 237.
Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 410.
Ibid. p. 391.
Ibid. p. 392.
I.S.P.O.
Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 394, 395.
Guillon, pp. 387, 388.
See Martin McLoughlin, pp. 6, 7.
Narrative , pp. 24, 25.
Stock's Narrative , pp. 81-88, 98. It appears from Bishop Stock, that there were some Orangemen in Connaught. The bishop had much opposed the extension of the society to this province.
Stock's Narrative , p. 86. In his private journal, the bishop mentions that he overheard another French officer say to his commander: ‘Do you know what I would do with these Irish devils, if I had a body to form out of them? I would pick out onethird of them, and, by the Lord, I would shoot the rest.’ (Maxwell, p. 259.)
See the full account in Bishop Stock's Narrative . The bishop says: ‘Whatever could be effected by vigilance, resolution, and conduct, for the safety of a place confided to them, was, to a surprising degree, effected for the district of Killala by these three French officers, without the support of a single soldier of their own country, and that for the long space of twenty-three days, from the first of September to the day of the battle.’ (P. 52.)
Cooke reports that Humbert afterwards ‘said, 200 of the Longford and Kilkenny [Militia] at one time joined them, but they all deserted from them, except about 60.’ ( Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 402.)
Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 402. See, too, Musgrave, p. 603.
Faulkner's Journal , Sept. 6, 1798.
Compare the Impartial Relation , pp. 20, 27; Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 401.
Guillon, p. 395.
Martin McLoughlin (p. 18). Musgrave states that many Irish deserted from the French to Lake in the course of the pursuit, and that Lake recommended them to mercy—a fact sufficiently unusual to be commemorated. (Musgrave, p. 609.)
Guillon, p. 396.
Stock's Narrative , p. 97.
Compare the accounts in the Impartial Relation , in Guiillon, and in Gordon. The letters in the Cornwallis and Castlereagh Correspondences throw very little light on the details. Fontaine says, the Irish escaped with the exception of 300, who defended themselves to the last, and were all cut to pieces; and he adds, that two brothers named Macdonald performed prodigies of valour. (Fontaine, p 41.) Musgrave pretends that the French, on surrendering, loaded their Irish allies with reproaches Maxwell quotes the following passage from the manuscript ‘Journal of a Field Officer:’ ‘After the action, the regiment was marched to Carrick-on-Shannon, where, in the court house, there were collected a couple of hundred rebel prisoners, taken in arms. An order arrived from Lord Cornwallis, directing a certain number of them to be hanged without further ceremony, and bits of paper were rolled up, the word “death” being written on the number ordered, and, with these in his hat. the adjutant, Captain Kay (on whom devolved the management of this wretched lottery), entered the court house, and the drawing began. As fast as a wretch drew the fatal ticket, he was handed out, and hanged at the door. I am not sure of the exact number thus dealt with, but seventeen were actually banged. It was a dreadful duty to devolve upon any regiment; but somehow or other, men's minds had grown as hard as the nether millstone.’ (Maxwell, pp 243, 244.)
Madden gives, from an old magazine, a report of Matthew Tone's defence, from which he appears to have pretended that he had only come to Ireland because he was a French soldier, and had no sympathy with Irish treason. His brother's journals sufficiently prove the falsehood of the plea (See Madden's United Irishmen , ii. 112-116.)
Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 401, 402.
Gordon, pp. 244-247.
Gordon p. 248. Bee, too, a letter of Captain Urquhart, who seems to have commanded at Castlebar. (Sept. 12, I.S.P.O.) He says, the conduct of the troops was most exemplary.
Stock's Narrative , pp. 70-72, 88, 89, 97, 98.
Ibid. pp. 100-114.
Stock's Narrative , p. 123.
Ibid. pp. 123-127.
Ibid. pp. 39, 123.
Ibid. p. 27.
Stock's Narrative , p. 136.
Ibid. pp. 138, 139 In the Irish State Paper Office, there is a letter from the Rev. Robert Andrews, of Castlebar, describing the capture of Killala, and based on information received from Dean Thompson, who was a prisoner in that town. It fully corroborates the account of Bishop Stock. He speaks of the ‘immense carnage’ among the rebels, and the release of the prisoner, and says: ‘I have the pleasure to add, that not one of the prisoners suffered, owing to the gallantry of the French officers there, who remained faithful to the few devoted Protestants. Their lives were repeatedly threatened. No prisoners except the chiefs were taken.’ (Sent. 23, 1798.)
This was in a letter to Talleyrand, 24 vendémiaire, an vi (Oct. 15, 1797), giving the names of the Irish he knew personally at Paris. He calls Tandy, a ‘respectable vieillard, connu par son patriotisme depuis 30 ans.’ (French Foreign Office.)
Tone's Memoirs , ii. 460, 461, 467. Compare Castlereagh Correspondence , i. 406.
The same names reproduce themselves with a most perplexing frequency in the Irish rebellion. George Orr must not be confused with Samuel Orr (the brother of William Orr, who was hanged), who took part in the rebellion, or with Joseph Orr, of Derry, who is mentioned in Tone's biography. His name is given in full in Murphy's statement in the I.S.P.O.
Deposition of John Powell Murphy before R. Ford , Nov. 2, 1798, I.S.P.O. Aherne's name is spelt Akerne or Akeone in this deposition; but there is a full biography of him in the I.S.P.O. in which his name is spelt as in the text.
Castlereagh Correspondence , i. 405-411. Wickham, in sending this account to Castlereagh (Oct. 25, 1798) says, that it comes from ‘a person of the name of O., respecting whom I have often written to your lordship. He was on board the “Anacreon,” on her late expedition to Ireland.’ (See also a paper of Secret Information , pp. 397-399.) In the I.S.P.O. there are letters about the Tandy expedition, endorsed ‘G.O.,’ especially one dated Liverpool, Oct 21, 1799, giving a detailed account of it.
Exammation of Peter Perry, Bow Street officer, Nov. 5, 1799 (I.S.P.O.). There are several particulars about Blackwell in a note to the Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 284. He had saved, during the Reign of terror, the lives of a Somersetshire gentleman (a colonel in the army) and of his daughter, who were then in France; and he married the daughter. Orr says, that Blackwell, during the voyage, ‘compelled Tandy to give him first the rank of adjutant-general, and next that of general of brigade,’ and that he ‘had Tandy like a child in leading strings.’ ( Castlereagh Correspondence , i. 406.)
See the reports of the postmaster, in Musgrave, Appendix, No xxi.
The very graphic description of his state in the Castlereagh Correspondence (i. 407), is fully confirmed by the account which Blackwell gave the Bow Street officer, of the landing at Rutland. ‘Tandy was so drunk on that occasion, that he [Blackwell] was obliged to have him brought on board on men's shoulders.’ ‘Tandy was always drunk, and incapable of acting.’ (Examination of Peter Perry.)
Murphy says ‘When they landed in Ireland, Examinant and George Orr (who had long determined to leave the party as soon as they could) endeavoured to escape, for which Blackwell would have killed Examinant, if Tandy had not prevent him.’ They arrived in England, Oct. 21, 1798. ( Deposition of John Ponell Murphy , Nov. 2, 1798.)
Annual Reqister , 1798, pp. 101, 102; 1799, p 274; 1800, pp. 74, 75. Adolphus, vii 236, 237, 242.
See, on these men, Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 284. Morres was a relation of Lord Frankfort, and had been in the Austrian service. Corbett was one of the undergraduates of Trinity College, who had been expelled for treason at the visitation of Lord Clare in February 1798.
An interesting account of William Corbett's very brilliant career in the French service will be found in Byrne's Memoirs , iii. 38-47.
Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 142, 143. In another letter, Cornwallis says. ‘Considering the incapacity of this old man to do further mischief, the mode by which he came into our hands, his long subsequent confinement, and, lastly, the streams of blood which have flowed in this island for these last three years, I am induced to request that your Grace will submit the above proposition [for his release and banishment] to his Majesty's favourable consideration.’ (Ibid. p. 338. See, too, pp. 352, 353.)
Ibid. p. 355; Annual Register , 1802, p. 369.
The despatches of Sir John Warren describing the action, will be found in the Annual Register , 1798, pp. 144-146. M. Guillon has examined the documents on the French side ( La France et l'Irlande , pp. 408, 409). See, too, the account in Wolfe Tone's Memoirs , by Tone's son. The ‘Hoche’ is described in the French accounts as having 74, in Sir J. Warren's despatch as having 84, guns, and there are some other small discrepancies.
It is stated in Tone's Memoirs that be was recognised by Sir George Hill, at a breakfast party at Lord Cavan's (ii. 524, 525), but the story is differently told by Sir George Hill. He wrote to Cooke: ‘Until this moment, such has been the stormy weather, that for two days no boat has been on shore form the “Hoche.”’ This morning, some hundreds of the prisoners are just landed. The first man who stepped out of the boat, habited as an officer, was T. W. Tone. He recognised and addressed me instantly, with as much sang-froid as you might expect from his character. We have not yet ascertained any other Hibernian to be of this party…. Tone is sent off to Derry under a strong escort. He called himself General Smith.’ (Nov. 3, I.S.P.O.) See, too, Faulkner's Journal , Nov. 10, 1798.
There are two singularly heartless letters on the subject in the Irish State Paper Office, one from Lord Cavan to Cooke (Nov. 7), and the other from Sir G. Hill to Cooke (Nov. 15, 1798).
The report of the court-martial, and of the proceedings before the King's Bench, will be found in the State Trials , xxvii. 614-626. See, too, the account by Wolfe Tone's son in Tone's Memoirs . Mr. Dicey has made some striking remarks on this conflict between ordinary and martial law. ( Lectures on the Constitution p. 303.)
In the census of 1801, the population of Great Britain was estimated at 10,942,646. The population of Ireland is more doubtful, for the first census (which was a very imperfect one) was only taken in 1813, when it was estimated at 5,937,852. In 1821 it was found to be 6,801,827. Earlier estimates are somewhat conjectural, being based chiefly on the returns of honses; but allowing for the abnormally rapid increase of population in the last decade of the century, they do not greatly disagree. Parker Bush calculated the population in 1788, at about 4,000,000. A calculation based on a return of houses, made to the Irish Parliament early in 1792, placed it at 4,206,612. Whitley Stokes, in an able pamphlet published in 1799, thought it then somewhat exceeded 4,500,000. Gordon, after a careful examination, concluded that in 1798 it was ‘much nearer to five than to four millions.’ Newenham, in his work on Irish population, which was published in 1805, believed it to have risen at that date to 5,395,436.
Compare Guillon, p. 413: and Stock's Narrative , pp. 144-148.
Holt's Memoirs , i. 144.
Holt's Memoirs , i. 219.
Holt's Memoirs , i. 198, 210, 220, 221.
Croker's preface to Holt's Memoirs , p. xx. Castlereagh Correspondence , ii. 186.
Bishop Percy's letter to his wife, July 9, 1798. Faulkner's Journal , July 10, 1798. Kirwan's sermon is in the volume of his sermons, printed in 1814.
Faulkner's Journal , Oct. 6, 1798.
Ibid. Aug. 9, 1798.
Ibid. Oct. 6, 1798.
Saunders's Newsletter , July 4, 1798.
See Faulkner's Journal , Aug. 11, Oct 18, 1798.
See the graphic description in Faulkner's Journal , Nov. 6, 1798.
Bishop Percy to his wife, Aug. 7, 1798. Mr. Fitzpatrick notices the riots that took place about this time at Astley's Circus, on account of this tune. ( Ireland before the Union , p. 83.)
Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 369.
Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 419-422. See, too, a debate in the House of Commons about a man named Fenton, who had most deliberately shot a protected rebel. ( Faulkner's Journal , Aug. 16, 1798.)
He wrote to Castlereagh. ‘The ends of justice would have been completely answered by a disapprobation of the sentence, was the case perfectly clear; and the warmest advocate for discipline must have been satisfied with the farther step of dissolving the court-martial; but to add, that no member who had sat on that court-martial should be chosen for the future ones, is very severe…. How long is it, my dear Lord C., since we ordered an exclusive armament of supplementary yeomen in the North, and of Mr. Beresford's corps in Dublin? How many months have elapsed since we could not decidedly trust any bodies of men, but those who are now so highly disapproved of? That the violence of some of the partisans of the Protestant interest should be repressed, I believe you know, I sincerely think; but that a condemnation of them should take place will infinitely hurt the English interest in Ireland…. The great question of union will be hurt by this measure, as, however unjustly , it will indispose, I fear, a very important party to whatever seems to be a favourite measure of Government.’ ( Castlereagh Correspondence , i. 425, 426.) Lord Enniskillen seems to have shown more moderation under Cornwallis's censure, than his advisers. See Auckland Correspondence , iv. 67; Cornwallis Correspondence , iii. 193.
See the dates of these acts, in Madden, i. 349, 350.
A. Brownrigg (Gorey) to Colonel Blaquiere, Jan. 17, 1799, I.S.P.O.; compare Plowden, ii. 785, 786.
Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 414, 415.
R. Griffith to Pelham, Sept. 6, 1798. ( Pelham MSS .)
‘Only a proportion of the captains, and none of the subalterns, of Irish militia, are gentlemen, and everyone knows what a brute the uneducated son of an Irish farmer or middleman is…. The captains cheat the men; both they and the subalterns make themselves hated and despised by them…. In short, if you except the field officers, and a certain small number of officers of lower rank, you may say of the Irish militia, that there is neither honour amongst the officers, nor subordination and discipline in the regiments…. But, notwithstanding all this, I should be very happy to command, on any occasion, a regiment composed of Irish militia soldiers , put into a good old skeleton regiment of the line. I know the Irish nation, and well know the Irish army, and I am convinced, that with good officers and discipline, and a little experience, it would be as fine an army and as loyal as any the King or his ancestors ever had,’ (Colonel Crawford to Wickham, Nov. 19, 1798, R.O.)
Miss Edgeworth has given a vivid description of these ‘middlemen who re-let the lands, and live upon the produce, not only in idleness, but in insolent idleness. This kind of half-gentry, or mock-gentry, seemed to consider it as the most indisputable privilege of a gentleman not to pay his debts. They were ever ready to meet civil law with military brag-of-war. Whenever a swaggering debtor of this species was pressed for payment, he … ended by offering to give, instead of the value of his bond or promise, “the satisfaction of a gentleman, at any hour or place.”’ Thus they put their promptitude to hazard their worthless lives, in place of all merit…. It certainly was not easy to do business with those whose best resource was to settle accounts by wager of battle.’ ( Life of R. L. Edgeworth , ii. 120, 121. See, too, a striking passage on the power acquired by this class, pp. 184, 185.)
Castlereagh Correspondence , i 341-343.
Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 406.
Cornwallis Correspondence , ii. 413-415, 418. Compare the sentiments of one of the most promment members of that ‘small party.’ ‘Be assured,’ Beresford wrote to Auckland, ‘that the whole body of the lower order of Roman Catholics of this country are totally inimical to the English Government; that they are under the influence of the lowest and worst class of their priesthood; that all the extravagant and horrid tenets of that rehgion are as deeply engraven in their hearts as they were a century ago, or three centuries ago, and that they are as barbarous, ignorant, and ferocious as they were then; and if ministers imagine they can treat with such men, just as they would with the people of Yorkshire if they rebelled, they will find themselves mistaken. Again, the Dissenters are another set of enemies to British Government. They are greatly under the influence of their clergy also, and are taught from their cradles to be republicans; but their religion—which is as fierce as their politics—forbids them to unite with the Catholics; and to that, in a great measure, is owing that we were not all destroyed in this rebellion; for I believe, that if the Wexford people had not broken out so early into horrid acts of massacre, as they did, the North would have risen, and who knows what the event might have been? … The Church of England men are all loyal subjects to the King, and true to the British connection, but their minds at present are inflamed to a great degree of animosity against the papists; and this is one reason why the latter so reluctantly submit to any acts of lenity held out by the Government.’ ( Beresford Correspondence , ii. 169, 170.)