had returned from Arklow, and were now attempting to escape again thither, were left exposed to the pursuit of the enraged enemy, the officer attempted to rally the yeomen on the road, to cover, if possible, the flight of these unfortunate people; but the yeomen galloped away full speed to Arklow in spite of his remonstrances, and the refugees were slaughtered along the road to the number of thirty-seven men, beside a few who were left for dead, but afterwards recovered. No women or children were injured, because the rebels, who professed to act on a plan of retaliation, found on inquiry that no women or children of their party had been hurt. This was owing to the humanity of a young gentleman of seventeen years of age in the yeoman cavalry, who had by his remonstrances restrained his associates from violence with respect to the fair sex. In the action of this day, which will be long remembered in Gorey under the title of Bloody Friday, only three of the yeoman infantry were killed, and none of the cavalry. The rebels having accomplished their purpose of revenge, their only motive for deviating from their course to visit Gorey, resumed, after a short repast, their march to the Wicklow mountains.

CHAP. IV.

Ulster Antrim-Saintfield-Ballinahinch-Ballyna scarty-Scollogh gap-Gore's bridge-CastlecomerKilcomny-Hacketstown-Perry-Ballyellis-Ballyraheen Ballygullin - Clonard - Incursion-Dis persion.

MOUNTAINS now, and other devious recesses, since their expulsion from Enniscorthy and Wexford, were the only retreats of the rebels, of whom those who remained in arms, endeavoured by rapid movements from one strong position to another to elude the king's forces, and thus to protract the war until the arrival of their foreign allies. In the time of the operations already related, by which the rebels of the county of Wexford were reduced to this situation, occurrences had elsewhere taken place, some of which are to be noticed. The province of Ulster, where insurrection had been most of all dreaded, and where from the spirit of the inhabitants it would,

*Their expectation of foreign succour was expressed in the following verse of one of the songs, which they were accustomed to sing at this time.

Up the rocky mountain and down the boggy glyn,
We'll keep them in agitation until the French come in.

if extensive, have been most of all formidableremained undisturbed, excepting two districts, where, as the insurgents were unsupported, they were soon suppressed. Neither, from the principles of the northern people, better educated, and possessing more of the purity of true religion, were the insurgents of this quarter deliberately guilty, except in one instance, of the plunder, devastation, and murder of the southern.

One of these insurrections was in the county of Antrim, in the neighbourhood of the town of that name, on the 7th of June. A meeting of magistrates being appointed to be held on that day in Antrim, for the prevention of rebellion, the insurgents, with design of seizing the persons of these, attacked the town at two o'clock in the afternoon, and soon overpowering the troops within it, very nearly gained possession. Majorgeneral Nugent, who commanded in that district, having received intelligence of the intendedrising, and the immediate object of it, had ordered a body of troops to march to Antrim, who arrived too late to prevent the rebels from the execution of their design in the attack of the town. They then attacked the insurgents in the town, but their van-guard, consisting of cavalry, being repulsed with the loss of twentythree men killed and wounded, of whom three were officers, colonel Durham, who commanded the troops, brought the artillery to batter the

town, which obliged the insurgents to abandon it, together with a six-pounder which they had brought with them, and two curricle guns which they had taken from the king's army. They were pursued toward Shane's-castle and Randalstown, with slaughter, and perhaps may have lost in all near two hundred. In this engagement colonel Lumley, of the 22d regiment of dragoons, and lieutenant Murphy, were wounded; cornet Dunn was killed; and Lord O'Neil was mortally wounded.* A small body also assaulted the town of Larne, but received a repulse from the garrison in the barrack, consisting of detachment of the Tay fencibles, under a subaltern officer. Feeble attempts were also made at Ballymena and Ballycastle. The main body afterward retired to Donnegar-hill, where, disgusted with their want of success and other circumstances, the greater part broke or surrendered their arms, and almost all of them dispersed, to which they were exhorted by a magistrate, named M'Cleverty, who had been taken prisoner by them.

On the day succeeding that of the rising in the county of Antrim, a partial insurrection com

* Lord O'Neil had ridden into the town to attend the meeting of the magistrates, not knowing that the rebels were in possession of it. He shot one who had seized the bridle of his horse, after which he was dragged from his saddle, and so wounded with pikes that he died in a few days.

menced in that of Down-a body of insurgents making their appearance near Saintfield, under the command of an inhabitant of Newtownards, a Dr. Jackson. In their progress through the country they set fire to the house of a man named Mackee, who had been an informer of treasonable meetings: eleven persons perished in the flames and circumstances of cruelty were shewn not inferior to those of the burning at Scullabogue. Electing for their general, Henry Munro, a shop-keeper of Lisburn, they placed themselves, on the 9th, in ambuscade, in the neighbourhood of Saintfield, awaiting the approach of a body of troops under colonel Stapleton, consisting of York fensibles and yeoman cavalry. The ambuscade so far succeeded, that the royal troops were for some time in danger of total defeat-losing about sixty of their number, among whom were captain Chetwynd, lieutenant Unitt, and ensign Sparks, and also the Rev. Mr. Mortimer, vicar of Portaferry, who had volunteered. The infantry, however, on whom the cavalry had been driven back in confusion, rallying with a cool intrepidity not common in those times, dislodged and dispersed the rebels, and after a stay of two hours on the field of battle, retreated to Belfast.

Little discouraged by this defeat, in which their loss was very small, the rebels reassembled, and took post at Ballynahinch, on the Wind