to enjoy the glow of social mirth with him, till a few hours before the perpetration of that bloody scene, which he had for some time meditated." The work of death at Prosperous was interrupted by intelligence conveyed to the insurgents, that at Clane, three miles off, their friends had been defeated-for although partly surprised, that little garrison succeeded in beating off their assailants. Clane was occupied by a company of the Armagh militia and some yeomanry cavalry. Early on the morning of the 24th, a large body of armed rebels stole into the street. Fortunately there was just time to beat to arms, although such of the soldiers as were at single billets in the town, were attacked as they issued from the houses where they had been quartered, and several of them killed and wounded before they could join their comrades. The guard, however, with great gallantry held the rebels in check, until their comrades hastily turned out and formed. A few well-directed volleys routed the rebels, and they were driven with considerable loss from the town; but deeming pursuit imprudent, the royalists returned, and again formed in the street. At five in the morning the rebels made a second attempt, and, supported by a column of pikemen and musketeers, a party, mounted on the horses and furnished with the arms of the Ancient Britons, whom they had cut off at Prosperous, charged boldly into Clane. A rolling volley from the royalists brought down half the party, and dispersed the rest. They retired at a gallop upon the rebel column, which, from previous success and superior numbers, cut a strange but formidable appearance. "As they An affair highly honourable to the royalists resulted. were not strong enough to attack so numerous a party, and thinking it dishonourable to retreat, the captain, Griffiths, in concurrence with the militia officers, resolved to take post on an elevated spot near the Commons, where they could not be surrounded or outflanked; and there they waited for the enemy, who began a smart fire on them, but without effect, as the elevation was too great. Our troops, having returned the fire, killed and wounded a considerable number of them, on which they fled in great dismay, and were charged by the captain and his sixteen yeomen, who cut down many of those whose heads were ornamented with the helmets of the Ancient Britons, or the hats of the Cork regiment." A disorderly flight succeeded-the rebels totally disbanding, and throwing away their own ruder weapon, the pike, with the fire-arms and sabres they had captured in the morning, and held in but brief possession. On re-entering Clane, Captain Griffiths was privately informed by a soldier named Philip Mite,* that his own treacherous lieutenant had actually commanded at the rebel surprise of Prosperous. Having been * The detestation of the lower Irish to an informer is proverbial; and no matter how black the crime, those who assist in bringing the offender to justice are held up ordered to march to Naas, at the moment when the troop were mounting, Esmond, in full accoutrements, joined it. The rash confidence that his treason was unsuspected, proved ruinous to the unhappy man. He was arrested, forwarded to Dublin, tried, convicted, and hanged on Carlisle bridge, on the 14th of June. The insurrectionary occurrences at Ballymore Eustace and Dunlavin, simultaneously with those we have described, offer fearful pictures of the atrocious spirit with which a civil war is carried through. To the former town, a strong detachment of dragoons and militia, under the command of Captian Beevor, had proceeded to enforce a surrender of arms. An immense quantity were consequently given up-and under a belief that the peasantry had renounced their rebellious intentions, Captain Beevor, who was living at free quarters, determined to relieve the peasantry from the burden of supporting the troops,-and, retaining only forty men, sent off the remainder of his garrison. This act was more creditable to his humanity than his prudence. On the night of the general insurrection, he was roused at midnight by an outcry, and two men instantly sprang into his bed-room, one discharging a pistol without effect. Him the Captain shot. While reaching for a second pistol, the other assassin closed to prevent it. A struggle ensued, and the captain had well nigh been forced out of the room to the staircase, where several pikemen were waiting to despatch him. In this perilous situation, by a desperate effort of strength, Captain Beevor overpowered the ruffian, and dragged him back into the bedchamber. There, a cowardly or treacherous yeoman was standing with a drawn sword, an idle looker-on, and never attempted to assist his officer. Lieutenant Patrickson, however, rushed into the apartment, and ran the rebel through. Thirty dragoons had, in the meantime, got together and joined their captain-the other poor fellows being cut off, and killed or wounded in the attempt. Although the rebels fired several houses, and, under cover of the smoke, persevered for two hours in their attack upon the barrack, they were eventually repulsed by the small and gallant band, and driven from the town after sustaining a heavy loss.* to execration for life. The following anecdote will shew how the people cherished their feeling on the subject: "Nine years after (in 1807), I marched into Naas, and while sitting at the window of the Hotel, I heard this conversation-several men and women were on the spot, when one came hastily up and announced that Phil. Mite's mother had just been drowned in the Liffey-there was an immediate rejoinder of The devil's cure to h.m! what better could he expect after hanging the fine gentleman?'-here one of the party caught a glimpse of my uniform, and they made off."-MS. Journ. of a Field Officer. * "Next morning they took a rebel prisoner, who gave the following information, as to their number and their mode of attack :-The soldiers were quartered in eight different houses, each of which was to be attacked at the same moment by the signal of a gun fired in the churchyard. The number of the assailants were 800. They lost three captains, and near 100 men. Captain Beevor's servant was shot in his bed. He, Lieutenant Patrickson, Cornet Maxwell, and all the privates of the dragoons and the militia, displayed singular spirit and intrepidity against so great & superiority of numbers."-Musgrave's Memoirs. The insurrection in the vicinity of Dunlavin produced a sad and terrible example of the extent to which stern necessity will urge men's actions, when civil relations are overturned, and the only alternative is the sword. When the rising took place in the neighbourhood of Dunlavin, the Wicklow light company and a cavalry troop of yeomanry garrisoned the place. The rebels were advancing in force, and the royalists marched boldly out to meet them. Numbers prevailed— and after losing a few men, the little garrison fell back and reoccupied the town. A double danger was impending. Without, the rebels, in twenty-fold numbers were threatening an instant attack; within, the disaffected prisoners in custody, in gross amount exceeded the garrison. Now, mark the horrors attendant upon civil war—and thus Musgrave narrates the transaction : "The officers having conferred for some time, were of opinion, that some of the yeomen who had been disarmed, and were at that time in prison for being notorious traitors, should be shot. Nineteen therefore of the Saunders-grove corps, and nine of the Narromore, were immediately led out and suffered death. "It may be said, in excuse for this act of severe and summary justice, that they would have joined the numerous bodies of rebels who were moving round, and at that time threatened the town. At the same time they discharged the greater part of the prisoners, in consideration of their former good characters." Gracious God! what a picture of the times! Eight-and-twenty men led out of prison, "unannealed and unforgiven," and coolly shot to death by those whom they had once known in social intercourse! A horrible alternative!-and yet who will deny that martial law and existing circumstances might not possibly have justified the act? Although but one plea-a doubtful one, I think, can be offered to extenuate it. The man who differs from another politically-no matter how wild and how false his opinions may be-may claim a charitable construction; no matter how imprudent, he may be honest: but he who bands himself with men professing principles opposite to his own-swears fealty to a cause he secretly opposes-avows publicly to support, what in private he is bent on overturning-the first may be an enthusiast or fool-the latter, of necessity a villain without the pale of pity. Circumstances might have required, and martial law justi fied the act-but who can now contemplate the instant execution of eight-and-twenty fellow-men, and not shudder at the horrors of civil war? CHAPTER VI. CRUELTIES COMMITTED ON BOTH SIDES-ATTACK ON MONASTEREVEN-MURDERS BY THE REBELS, AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES-AFFAIR OF OLD KILCULLEN-SUBSEQUENT DISPERSION OF THE REBELS NEAR NAAS. THE terrible occurrence at Dunlavin, where so many unhappy men were hurried from existence, was probably the most savage of the barbarous necessities forced upon the royalists, during the brief continuation of the insurrection. The character of the transaction appears additionally revolting, because it was the result of deliberation; and, although heated by a recent conflict, still common humanity might have suggested some alternative less horrible, than the wholesale execution of unresisting men. Uncompromising severity does not always produce the intended effect. On some, example may strike terror-in others it will excite undying hatred, and foster the worst spirit of the human heart-a thirst for vengeance. Of this truth, a retrospect of the events of these calamitous days gives evidence enough; and it is difficult now to determine to which side the excess of cruelty should be awarded. Assassination on one side, was met upon the other with military executions the royalist extenuating the act under a plea of necessity, while the rebel proclaimed that his murders were committed only from revenge. ; When admitting that a similar savageness of purpose might in many cases be charged against both sides, there, all comparison must cease. No matter what the acts might be, the causes which produced them were totally dissimilar. The royalist took arms for the protection of home and altar, which the fanaticism of Popery, or the accursed doctrines of the French revolutionists, were alike bent upon overturning. Allegiance to his king, and the maintenance of social order and an established government, urged the former to come forward; thousands perilled life and property from the purest motives-and, when the insurrection was suppressed, sheathed the sword, drawn in the support of a matchless constitution, unstained by any act save those which resistance to rebellion had imperatively demanded. Those who have led a soldier's life, and seen service in the field, know that men become the creatures of circumstances. Let the gentlest spirit—and such are frequently united to the boldest heart-one that would not tread upon a worm or harm a sparrow-let him crown a defended breach, and he will use the bayonet unscrupulously. The feelings are influenced by the times; and if the royalist were sanguinary and unsparing, he could point to the atrocities of the insurgents, and bring forward established facts, so truculent and unwarranted, as to place those who could commit them almost without the pale of mercy. Making every allowance for the political colouring given to his history of these times by Musgrave, and recollecting that he felt and F wrote as a partisan, Sir Richard Musgrave narrates two well-authenticated instances of unprovoked cruelty among the many that marked the rebel outbreak in Kildare, which will sufficiently exhibit to the reader the ferocious spirit of the insurgents from the moment they flew to arms: "The following horrid circumstances," says the historian, “attended the murder of George Crawford and his grandchild, a girl only fourteen years of age. He had formerly served in the 5th Dragoons, retired on a pension, and was a permanent serjeant in Captain Taylor's corps of yeomen cavalry. He, his wife, and granddaughter, were stopped by a party of the rebels, as they were endeavouring to escape, and were reproached with the appellation of heretics, because they were of the Protestant religion. One of them struck his wife with a musket, and another gave her a stab of a pike in the back, with an intent of murdering her. Her husband, having endeavoured to save her, was knocked down, and received several blows of a firelock, which disabled him from making his escape. While they were disputing whether they should kill them, his wife stole behind a hedge, and concealed herself. They then massacred her husband with pikes; and her granddaughter, having thrown herself on his body to protect him, received so many wounds that she instantly expired. These circumstances of atrocity have been verified by affidavit, sworn by Crawford's widow, the 20th day of August, 1798. The fidelity of a large dog, belonging to this poor man, deserves to be recorded-as he attacked these sanguinary monsters, and fought most bravely in defence of his master, till he fell by his side, perforated with pikes." The second murder occurred on the same night. About eleven o'clock, the Limerick mail was stopped by a numerous banditti-and a gentleman was slaughtered under circumstances which elicited a lively sympathy. The sufferer was Lieutenant William Giffard, of the 82nd regiment, son to Captain John Giffard of the Dublin regiment. "The savages having shot one of the horses so as effectually to prevent the coach from proceeding, demanded of Lieutenant Giffard who and what he was to which he answered, without hesitation, that he was an officer, proceeding to Chatham, in obedience to orders he had received. They demanded whether he was a Protestant; and being answered in the affirmative, they held a moment's consultation, and then told him that they wanted officers, that if he would take an oath to be true to them, and join them in an attack to be made next morning upon Monastereven, they would give him a command, but that otherwise he must die. To this the gallant youth replied, "That he had already sworn allegiance to the king, that he would never offend God Almighty by a breach of that oath, nor would he disgrace himself by turning a deserter and joining the king's enemies; that he could not suppose a body of men would be so cruel, as to murder an individual who had never injured them, and who was merely passing through them to a country from whence, possibly, he never might return; but if they insisted on their proposal, he must die, for he never would consent to it.' This heroic answer, which would have kindled sentiments of humanity in any breasts but |