phans of the soldiers who had fallen in the encounter, increased the general consternation. These, clapping their hands, ran about the streets quite frantic, mixing their piteous moanings with the plaintive cries of their children, and uttering their bitterest maledictions against the yeomen, whom they charged with having run away, and left their husbands to destruction! Letters were dispatched to Duncannon Fort and to Waterford with these disastrous accounts, and requesting reinforcements.

Those of the North Cork militia then in the town, vowed vengeance against the prisoners confined in the jail, particularly against Messrs. Harvey, Fitzgerald, and Colclough, so lately taken up; and so explicitly and without reserve were these intentions manifested, that I myself heard a sergeant and others of the regiment declare that they could not die easy if they should not have the satisfaction of putting the prisoners in the jail of Wexford to death, particularly the three gentlemen last mentioned. Nor was this monstrous design harbored only by the common soldiers; some of the officers declared the same intentions. I communicated all to the jailer, who informed me that he had himself heard the guards on the jail express their hostile intentions. He was so alarmed and apprehensive of their putting their threats into execution, that he contrived means to get them out, then locked the door, and determined to defend his charge at the risk of his life. He then, with a humanity and presence of mind that would have become a better station, communicated his apprehensions to all the prisoners, whom he advised to remain close in their cells, so as to avoid being shot in case of an actual attack. He armed the three gentlemen, and formed so judicious a plan of defence, that in the event of their being overpowered, their lives could

not be had at a cheap rate. Of this scene I was myself an eye-witness, having permission from the high sheriff to pay every attention to my friend and relation, Mr. Fitzgerald. The latter gentleman gave me his watch, pocket-book, and every thing valuable about him; and we took leave, as if we expected never to see each other more. Several of the North Cork came to the jail door, but were refused admittance. At last a party of them came with a woman, or one who feigned a female voice, begging admittance; and the door being opened, the soldiers instantly rushed forward to get in, but were prevented by a half-door that remained still shut. The whole door was then closed, and it jammed in a soldier's arm, who desisted not from his design, until his bay onet, with which he attempted to stab the jailer several times, was wrested from him. A number of soldiers went round the jail several times, as if to reconnoitre, and were overheard threatening the prisoners with certain destruction, if they could but get in: and I verily believe that, had it not been for the indefatigable exertions of the jailer, the prisoners would have been all massacred; and dreadful it is to think what consequences must have ensued! The alarms of the three gentlemen already named were so much. increased by these circumstances, as well as by other reports, that they made every disposition of their properties, as if on the point of death.

The rising of the people in the county of Wexford, took place in the direction from Carnew to Oulart, for fear, as they alleged, of being whipped, burned, or exterminated by the Orangemen; hearing of the numbers of people that were put to death, unarmed and unoffending, through the country-the deliberate massacre and shooting of eight-and-twenty prisoners in the ball-alley of Carnew, without trial, and

some under sentence of transportation, who stopped there on their way to Geneva; among these was a Mr. William Young, a Protestant, who was ordered to be transported by a military tribunal. At Dunlavin, thirty-four men were shot without trial, and among them the informer, on whose evidence they were arrested. Strange to tell, officers presided to sanction these proceedings! A man escaped by feigning to be killed; he was one out of eighteen of the corps of Captain Saunders, of Saunders-grove, Baltinglass. These reports, together with all the dreadful accounts from the county of Kildare, roused their minds to the utmost pitch of alarm, indignation, and fury. They were forming from the evening of the 26th during the whole of the night, in two bodies. One assembled on Kilthomas-hill, against whom marched from Carnew, on the morning of the 27th, a body of yeomen cavalry and infantry, who proceeded boldly up the hill, where the insurgents possessed a strong and commanding situation, if they knew how to take advantage of it; but they were panic-struck, and fled at the approach of the military, who pursued them with great slaughter. They spared no man they met, and burned at least one hundred houses in the course of a march of seven miles.

The Rev. Michael Murphy had been so alarmed on hearing of the rising of the people, that he fled into the town of Gorey early on Whitsunday; on his arrival not finding Mr. Kenny, with whom he had lodged there, he was induced to return for him and his family, for which purpose, not being able to procure a driver, he himself led a horse and car, and pursued a by-road, to get, if possible, unobserved into Ballecanow, by which means he did not meet some yeomen and others, that had gone on the high

road to Gorey, after they had torn up the altar, broken the windows, and otherwise damaged the Roman Catholic chapel; uttering the most violent threats against the priest and his flock, which specimens were very unlikely to remove the dreadful reports of the intended extermination of the Catholics. ́ These depredations had so much weight on the Rev. Michael Murphy as to induce him to alter his original intentions not to fly to such men for protection, and he was then led on by the multitude to Kilthomashill; the Rev. John Murphy had, from similar unforeseen occurrences, joined the insurgents. These two clergymen had been remarkable for their exhortations and exertions against the system of United Irishmen, until they were thus whirled into this political vortex, which, from all the information I have been able to collect, they undertook under the apprehension of extermination.

The Rev. John Murphy was acting coadjutor of the parish of Monageer; and, impressed with horror at the desolation around him, took up arms with the people, representing to them that they had better die courageously in the field, than to be butchered in their houses. The insurgents in this quarter now began their career by imitating the example that had been set before them. They commenced burning the houses of those who were most obnoxious to them. Every gentleman's house in the country was summoned to surrender their arms, and where any resistance was offered, the house was attacked, plundered, and burnt, and many of the inhabitants killed in the conflict. The Camolin cavalry were the first that attacked these insurgents. In the action, Lieutenant Bookey and some privates lost their livesthe rest retreated to Gorey. On the 27th of May, Captain Hawtrey White led out two troops of horse

from Gorey, determined to revenge the death of their companions. They came in sight of the insurgents on the north side of the hill of Oulart; but they appeared in such force that they thought it not prudent to attack them, but returned to Gorey, burning the houses of suspected persons, and putting every straggler to death on their way. Numbers were called to their doors and shot, while many more met the like fate within their houses, and some even that were asleep.

Thus it appears that the insurrection broke out at first in a line from west to east, pretty nearly across the middle of the county, unsupported by the inhabitants either north or south of that direction. These were the tracts whose natives appeared most peaceably inclined, and who thought to avoid joining in the insurrection. The yeomanry of the north of the country proceeded on the 27th against a quiet and defenceless populace; sallied forth in their neighborhoods, 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. I cannot avoid mentioning a circumstance, though not a singular one, that took place amidst these calamities. Mr. William Hore, of Harperstown, on his return home from Wexford, was induced to set fire to the house of Miles Redmond, of Harvey's Town, a lime-burner. This occasioned his subsequent confinement, and afterwards his death on the bridge of Wexford. He had offered to build him a better house, which Mrs. Hore, his widow, notwithstanding her irretrievable loss, has since actually performed.

Such was the state of the northern part of the county, which continued, during the whole of Whitsunday, ignorant of the state of the south.