confusion, gallantly repulsed the insurgents. In a second attempt which was made, six rebels, mounted on horses of the Ancient Britons, and dressed in their clothes, entered the town with a design to impose themselves on the yeoman as friends. One of them, however, having made a cut at captain Jephson with a sword, was instantly shot, and his companions obliged to fly with many wounds. About half past three in the morning, captain Griffith, having been informed at his seat that a body of rebels had attacked the guard of Clane, arrived in the town. He there found that the steady valour of part of his troop had so far checked the enemy, as to give time for about forty of the Armagh corps to turn out; that the yeoman and militia had not fired above three rounds when the insurgents were dispersed; and that they were hotly pursuing them and burning such houses on the common as they suspected to afford them shelter. Six prisoners were taken; one of whom was executed at Clane, the other five on the same day at Naas. About five o'clock intelligence was brought him of the defeat of the troops at Prosperous. The captain had hardly time to draw up his men, when a party of rebels, mounted on the horses, and well furnished with the arms and accoutrements of the Ancient Britons, made a charge into the town. One volley brought six or seven of them to the ground. The remainder made a precipitate flight, and took shelter behind a strong body of infantry which was advancing against the town from Prosperous. The little army of captain Griffith, not being strong enough to march against this numerous body, whose appearance was rendered formidable by the scarlet clothing and arms of the military massacred at Prosperous, retreated to an elevated ground near the common, where they could not be surrounded or outflanked. There the insurgents quickly commenced a smart firing upon them, which, however, the height of the ground rendered ineffective; while they returned a galling fire that killed and wounded considerable numbers, and at length compelled them to disperse in the utmost confusion. They were pursued with slaughter, and in their flight dropped great quantities of pikes and other arms. On captain Griffith's return to Clane, he was secretly informed that Dr. Esmond, a lieutenant of his corps, who had attended the muster with alacrity, in order to resist

the rebels there, had led the insurgents in the attack upon Prosperous. The captain having been ordered to march to Naas, prudently took no notice of this intelligence until he arrived there; when, drawing up his men in front of the goal, he immediately committed the lieutenant. He was afterwards conveyed to Dublin, where he was tried and executed as a traitor. He was brother to sir Thomas Esmond, of a very ancient popish family in the county of Wexford. He was a man remarkable for the beauty of his countenance, the handsomeness, of his figure, the highly convivial qualities of his disposition, and the greatest knowledge of his profession; to which he added humanity and honour in his conduct in private life.

On the tenth of May, captain Beevor had been ordered to Ballymore-Eustace, with detachments of the ninth dragoons, and of the Tyrone, Antrim, and Armagh militia, in order to compel the United Irishmen in that quarter to surrender their arms, by living among them at free-quarters. As the captain in this service had about three thousand stand of arms of various descriptions surrendered to him; and as, on the twentythird of May, four sergeants of United Irishmen marched in with their complement of men, eleven to each, and surrendering their arms, received protections, he imagined that he had com. pletely effected the object of his mission; and accordingly sent off one hundred and twenty of his men, retaining only about forty, in order to lighten the burdens of the people who were obliged to maintain them.

The imprudence of this step, however, was quickly felt. The soldiers were quartered in eight different houses, which a body of rebels, to the amount of eight hundred, attacked early in the morning of the twenty-fourth, one hundred men surrounding each house. About one o'clock, captain Beevor was awakened by the cry of a person, that the rebels would have his blood. He instantly got out of bed, when he perceived two men rush into the apartment, the one armed with a pistol, the other with a pike. As the former fired at and missed him, the captain seized a pistol which lay by his bedside and shot him through the body. He instantly received a slight wound in the shoulder from the pike of the other; but as he was

reaching for a second pistol, the pikeman closed with him, and seizing him in his arms, carried him towards the top of the stairs, where a number of rebels were ready to receive him on their pikes. By a violent effort of strength, however, the captain succeeded in getting himself extricated, when he dragged his adversary into a room where he was run through the body by lieutenant Patrickson. Meantime the dragoons, who were rallying round the captain's quarters, attacked and killed many of the insurgents, who maintained a desperate conflict for nearly two hours. In other parts of the town, the enemy had set fire to several houses in which the soldiers were quartered; killed seven dragoons and wounded three: the Tyrone militia also had four killed and two wounded. But captain Beevor, with twelve dragoons, sallied out and routed them in every direction, with the loss of three of their captains and a considerable number of men. Amongst the losses of the military was lieutenant M'Farland of the Tyrone militia, who was shot through the body.

At seven in the morning of the twenty-fourth, general Dundas, having received information that a body of rebels had assembled the proceeding night at a place called the Rath of Gilltown, and that their intention was to attack Kilcullen that day, ordered forty of the ninth dragoons and the Romneys, and twenty two of the suffolk fencibles, to march against them. The general, putting himself at the head of the cavalry, found three hundred of the enemy strongly entrenched in the church-yard, whom he immediately attacked, without waiting till the infantry came up, though the ground was broken and uneven, and though many of the rebels, armed with long pikes, had formed themselves into a strong phalanx in a road close by the church-yard, in which not more than six of the dragoons could charge in front. The charge, however, was made with great spirit; but the horse were instantaneously repulsed. Thrice they were urged by the general to renew the charge, and as often were they furiously driven back, with the loss of captains. Erskine and Cooks and twenty-two privates who were killed; besides ten so desperately wounded that most of them expired soon after. The general, after this defeat, retired with his shattered force to the village of Kilcullen-bridge, where he halted for some

time. But the victors, determined to follow up the successful blow they had struck, though they were conscious they could not force the strong and narrow pass of Kilcullen-bridge, took a circuitous route, in which their number was increased to several thousands, and took a position between Kilcullen and Naas, in order to intercept the general in his retreat. In this extremity he resolutely put himself at the head of twenty-seven of the suffolk fencible infantry, with his cavalry in the rear, and boldly marched up to the rebels, by whom the attack was vigorously begun ; but who were broken by three destructive and well-directed vollies from the infantry; after which the cavalry charged, put them completely to the route, and pursued them with so terrible a slaughter, that their loss is stated to have amounted to about three hundred men. After this decided advantage, the general marched to Naas, in order to concentrate his forces as near as possible to the metropolis, being justly apprehensive that the enemy meditated to make an attack upon it in great force.

About two o'clock on the twenty-third, general Wilford, who commanded at Kildare, received an order from general Dundas to march with his whole force to his assistance at Kilcullen. On leaving the town, he sent orders to captain Wilson at Monastereven, to follow him; and, on his arrival at Kildare, to set fire to the camp equipage lodged there. From the execution of this mandate, however, he was diverted by the solici tations of Mr. O'Reilly, who represented to him the danger of setting fire to the town by such a step. No sooner had the military left the town, than the market bell was rung by the inhabitants as a signal for a general rising; and about two thousand rebels, led by one Roger McGarry, marched into the town, and seized all the officer's baggage, the camp equipage, and an immense quantity of pikes, fire-arms, &c. which had been surrendered a few days before. Most of the protestant inhabitants, apprehensive of being massacred, fled with precipitation to Naas and Monastereven, leaving behind them their property, which, together with their houses, was destroyed and plundered by the rebels.

Early in the succeeding morning, M'Garry, with about twelve hundred insurgents, marched against Monastereven, the

garrison of which consisted of about one hundred men composed of yeomanry infantry and cavalry. As soon as intelligence was received of the approach of the enemy, the garrison made circuits through the circumjacent country, that the inhabitants might have an opportunity of retreating into the town. During these excursions they met with numerous parties of rebels, hastening to join their leaders, with whom they had frequent skirmishes. In one of these conflicts they liberated a small party of the Ancient Britons, who had been taken prisoners: one of their own troop was wounded in the action. About four o'clock in the morning of the twenty-fourth, the garrison was attacked by the rebels, who, however, were re pulsed with slaughter, carrying with them their dead and wounded, though not before they had set fire to the town. Nine loyalists, two of whom were volunteers, were slain,

The neighbourhood of Rathangan, on the twenty-fourth was in a state of insurrection, and the town itself was taken possession of on the twenty-sixth by the rebels. They retained it until the twenty-ninth, when they were dislodged with slaughter by colonel Longfield, with the city of Cork militia, a detachment of dragoons, and two field-pieces.

Of the intended surprise of Carlow, the garrison was apprised, both by an intercepted letter, and by the intelligence of lieutenant Roe, of the North Cork militia, who had seen the peasants assemble in the evening of the 24th of May. The garrison, consisting of a body of the 9th dragoons, the light company of the North Cork militia, under captain Heard, some of the Louth militia, under lieutenant Ogle, the yeomen infantry of Carlow, under captains Burton and Eustace, sir Charles Burton's yeomen cavalry, and about forty volunteers; the whole about four hundred and fifty in number, under the command of colonel Mahone of the 9th dragoons, was judiciously placed at various posts for the reception of the assailants. The plan of assault was ill-contrived or ill-executed. Different parties were appointed to enter the town at different avenues; but only one attempted an entrance; the rest being deterred by the incessant firing of the troops. This body of rebels, amounting to a thousand or fifteen hundred, assembled at the house of sir Edward Crosbie, a mile and a half from Carlow, and