stance I shall mention, as it has been already made public in the newspapers, and has given cause for a debate in parliament. Thomas Fitzgerald, high sheriff of Tipperary, seized at Clonmel, a gentleman of the name of Wright, against whom no grounds of suspicion could be conjectured by his neighbours, caused five hundred lashes to be inflicted on him in the severest manner, and confined him several days without permitting his wounds to be dressed, so that his recovery from such a state of torture and laceration could hardly be expected. In a trial at law, after the rebellion, on an action of damages brought by Wright against this magistrate, the innocence of the plaintiff appeared so manifest, even at a time when prejudices ran amazingly high against persons accused of disloyalty, that the defendant was condemned to pay five hundred pounds to his prosecutor. Many other actions of damage on similar grounds would have been commenced, if the parliament had not put a stop to such proceedings, by an act of indemnity, for all errors committed by magistrates from supposed zeal for the public service. A letter written in the French language, found in the pocket of Wright, was hastily considered as a proof of guilt, though the letter was of a perfectly innocent nature. This magistrate, however, whose want of knowledge of the French language confirmed, or seemed to

confirm, him in so lamentable an error and outrage, seems to have had great merit in the prevention of rebellion in that county by his unremitted activity and boisterous exertions; though these unfortunately were too often illdirected, as, among other instances, against a Mr. Scott, a respectable gentleman, who was in the most imminent danger of falling an innocent victim to the precipitancy or mis-information of this officer of justice,

These disorders, unavoidable in such a state of affairs, increased with the alarm of the approaching insurrection, which the chiefs of the union, seeing its force declining, and in danger of being destroyed by the vigorous measures of government, appointed to commence on the twenty-third of May, without waiting for French auxiliaries, lest, before that aid should arrive, their system should be so disorganized as to be incapable of any promising effort. Among the precautions taken on this occasion by the members of government, who were fully informed of the intended revolt, was the augmentation of the several companies of armed yeomen, by the addition of supplementary men, mostly infantry, and without uniform. These yeomen had begun to be embodied in October, in the year 1796, in a kind of independent companies, each composed commonly of about fifty men, mostly cavalry, with a much smaller body

of infantry attached to them, and each generally commanded by a captain and two lieutenants. The infantry were armed like those of the regular army, but the cavalry were furnished with only one pistol and a sword each, excepting a few who had carbines. In the formation of the companies or corpse of yeomen, to appoint the far greater part of them cavalry was an error, as the event clearly proved; for in the rebellion which ensued, the yeomen infantry, supported by regular troops, fought steadily against the foe; while the horsemen, from the nature of the country, uneven with hills, and every where intersected with ditches-their want of proper subordination and discipline, and the facility of escape, were of little use except for patroles or expresses, though their horses were superior to those of the regular cavalry in the traversing of ditches and fields. If these troops had been habituated to dismount and engage on foot with carabines, their service might have been of considerable effect; but, as the matter was, they could hardly ever be brought to a charge on the rebels, or to make a retreat with regularity.

The cause of this error in the institution of armed yeomen, of the appointment of mostly horsemen instead of infantry, so little efficacious for the end proposed, and so oppressive to individuals of the poorer sort, who were obliged to furnish horses at their own expence, and main

men.

tain them without much assistance of pay, was by some supposed to be the jealousy of government, who suspected a general disaffection of the people, 'and feared to give sanction to such a military establishment, as, like the old volunteers, might become a dangerous engine of popular demands, under the influence of designing But the protestants of Ireland in general are too apprehensive of the hostile determination of the Romanists against them, ever fully to coalesce with that body in an armed opposition to government; so that, with few exceptions, if the real sentiments of this description of people had been known, administration might have reposed the fullest confidence in them. In that case the difference of pay to cavalry and footmen might have been saved, and the rebellion probably stifled in its commencemen, or at least much more speedily suppressed.

A necessary precaution was the arresting of several principals of the conspiracy. Among the persons apprehended at this critical time, was Lord Edward Fitzgerald, who had escaped the arrest made at Oliver Bond's house, on the twelfth of the preceding March. This gentleman had served in his majesty's army, where he had been highly esteemed for his courage and military conduct, his honour, humanity, and candour; but because he avowed his approbation of the revolution in France, his name was

expunged from the military list, as a person unworthy to bear a commission in the British army. Perhaps his expressions were stronger than propriety admitted; and, perhaps, on the other hand, this procedure of administration was imprudent, since it was nearly followed by disastrous consequences, and since on men of candour and frankness, dependance can be much more safely placed, than on those who express unqualified approbation of the ruling partysuch men being generally ready to act the same part on the opposite side, with change of cir

cumstances.

Lord Edward, who was brother to the duke of Leinster, and married to a French lady of the royal blood of the Capets, a daughter of the last duke of Orleans, was eminently qualified for the excitement and direction of revolutionary commotions, being a man of daring courage, a most active spirit, considerable abilities of mind, and being of a family highly respected for its ancient greatness by the lower classes of the Irish. In consequence of a proclamation issued on the eleventh of May, accompanied with a promise of a thousand pounds reward for his apprehension, he was seized on the nineteenth, in the house of Nicholas Murphy, a merchant in Thomas-street, Dublin, by William Bellingham Swan, a most active magistrate, town-major Sirr, and captain Ryan, a yeoman officer, a gentleman possessed