Road. Captain Ormsby had been stationed there with twenty loyal Armagh militia. Mr. Clinch, a Catholic gentleman in the district, in apparent loyalty had raised a company of local infantry to support him. These men were all traitors. Their intention was to destroy Ormsby and his Protestants on the appointed day, and then march into Dublin, with Clinch at their head. The Catholic corps attended their own chapels. To throw Ormsby the more off his guard, the Rathcool priest addressed them on the 20th of May, the Sunday after Lord Edward's arrest, in two eminently loyal sermons, in Ormsby's presence, although he discovered afterwards that this priest had been the instigator of the plot.

Notice happily had been sent to all the officers in the environs of Dublin to be on the alert. A secret friend told Ormsby what was prepared for him. The corps was paraded and disarmed. Clinch and the priest were sent to Dublin, where the former was a few days later tried and hanged; the latter was transported to Botany Bay.1 As at Rathcool so everywhere such of the troops as were known to be loyal were marked for destruction; but the warning placed them on the alert; and the people finding the surprise fail, waited for the issue of the expected rising in Dublin. Would Dublin venture to rise? -that was the question. On the night of the 23d patrols went round the country within a radius of twelve miles to gather arms and warn the people to stay at home. The week preceding, Sir Richard Musgrave had watched the beacon-fires night after night on the distant hill-sides from his window in the

1 Musgrave's History of the Irish Rebellion.

city. That evening the patrols found in the cabins none but women, children, and old men. Every man who could shoulder a pike was off to the rendezvous. In Dublin itself strong bodies of troops were posted along the river and on the bridges. At daybreak notices were seen upon the walls from General Lake informing the people that they must keep within doors from nightfall to sunrise. By the side of the order of the Commander-in-Chief was an order from Mr. Fleming, the Lord Mayor,1 to every individual to surrender his arms, and to every householder to hang a list upon his door of the persons residing under his roof, under penalty of being sent to the fleet for disobedience. Dublin, in the face of these precautions, preferred to be prudent. Dusky bodies of armed men, several thousand strong, assembled at various points outside the walls on either side of the river, waiting to hear that their friends were up, and that their aid was needed. At noon, when no signal was given, they melted sullenly away. A gathering at Rathfarnham was dispersed by Lord Roden's dragoons. On the north, at Dunboyne and Dunshaughlin, the genuine spirit showed itself. At Dunshaughlin the Protestant clergyman and his family were murdered. At Dunboyne a Protestant revenue officer and three Protestant policemen were murdered. At Ratoath and Westfieldstown small parties of soldiers were surprised successfully and cut in pieces. About Swords Protestant houses were set on fire. But for the most part within reach of Lake's garrison the insurrection missed fire. Martial law had

1 Fleming was among those who were marked for murder. His servant had drawn the balls from his pistols, and was to have admitted the assassins.

been proclaimed; those who were caught in breach of the law were carried before courts, where justice was dealt out summarily and surely, and for some days in conspicuous portions of the city dead bodies swinging from cross-beams were preaching to the patriot incendiaries the meaning of armed rebellion.

In the outer circle, at a longer radius from the metropolis, where the detachments were more thinly scattered, events assumed a darker aspect. General Lake had been able to carry out the disarmament only where he had received the active support of the country gentlemen. The hostility of the Fitzgeralds to the Government, the open treason of one member of the family, and the refusal of its head to coöperate in enforcing order, had reinforced the disaffection of the county of Kildare with the elements of feudal allegiance, which ought to have been on the side of the Crown. The inhabitants had not only been left in possession of their pikes, but they were led to believe that their natural chief was with them, and that the cause of the rebellion was the cause of the Duke of Leinster.

On the eastern side of the country, where it approaches or touches the county of Dublin, were three towns within a few miles of each other. Naas, once a frontier garrison of the Pale, was now a thriving borough, on the Great Waterford Road. North of Naas, on the Grand Canal, was Clane, or Cluain, little more than a village, which had grown up as an appendage to a Franciscan abbey; and two miles from Clane was a place called Prosperous, whose name indicated that it had once been a scene of enterprise and industry. The opening of the Canal and

the abolition of the restrictions on trade had restored life to it. A Mr. Brewer, an enterprising Englishman, had established a large manufactory there, and was finding employment and comfort for a growing population. As commanding the canal and the roads, these towns were important military stations. Lord Gosford held Naas, with a garrison of 200 men. Captain Griffiths was at Clane, with a corps of local Yeomanry and a party of Armagh Militia. Captain Swayne was at Prosperous, with a detachment of the North Cork Militia and twenty-three of Wynn's Ancient Britons - dragoons. Among the officers of the Clane Yeomanry was Doctor Esmonde, a gentleman of old Catholic family, brother of Sir Thomas Esmonde, of Wexford, who had affected loyalty, like Mr. Clinch at Rathcool, for the better service of his country and her cause. He had seduced the majority of his corps. He was in accurate correspondence with the insurgent leaders in the neighborhood. It was arranged that on the preconcerted signal, the nonarrival of the mail from Dublin on the night of the 23d, Naas, Clane, and Prosperous were to be attacked at the same moment. Esmonde and the disaffected Yeomen were to assist, and the officers and the loyal part of the soldiers were to be destroyed. Surprise was an essential part of the scheme. At the two latter places many of the soldiers were billeted in private houses. If off their guard they might be found divided, and could then be dealt with easily. Swayne had been directed to collect the arms of the people at Prosperous. On Sunday, the 20th of May, he took his North Cork men to the Catholic chapel. Father Higgins, the priest, like his brother at Rathcool, addressed his congregation on the duty of submission to

the authorities, and Dr. Esmonde, who had ridden over from Clane in the morning to support his brother officer, spoke to them as a Catholic in the same tone. A number of peasants, in apparent obedience, surrendered their pikes. In the priest's presence they expressed regret for having been betrayed into the conspiracy, and promised to have no more to do with it. To avoid recognition by his comrades, Esmonde undertook the attack at Prosperous, leaving his own. captain half-deserted to be destroyed by others. On the afternoon of the 23d, when the hour was drawing near, he paid Swayne another visit, and dined with him at the hotel in the town. Father Higgins was again present, and he and Esmonde told Swayne that the people were really penitent. Very many of them wished to give up their arms, but they dared not bring them in the day, for fear of being recognized by their confederates. They would have brought them at night and have them laid down in the street, but they were afraid of the sentinels. Swayne, credulous and good-natured, suspected nothing. He ordered the sentinels, if they saw men moving in the street after dark, to take no notice of them.

The mails left Dublin that night as usual. They were all stopped on the roads by the country people, according to the general instructions, and the call to arms went out. At two in the morning, when sleep was deepest, before the first streaks of dawn had begun to show, Esmonde, with his Clane Yeomen and an unknown multitude of ruffians, chiefly armed with pikes, came into Prosperous. The sentinels gave no alarm, and were killed, and then at once, before a note of warning had been raised, the rebel bands flung themselves with a wild yell upon the barracks. The