XLII.

of humanity, the lord chancellor declared in par- CHAP. liament, that recourse to military violence had been extorted. Mr. Pelham, the secretary, is asserted also to have been humanely reluctant. Strong measures were dictated by the lord chancellor, and such I believe to have been necessary, but carried vastly too far by inferior agents.

violences.

Various were the violent acts of these men. Pri-Irregular soners arrested on suspicion were frequently strang- 1798. led almost to death, or, as the action was termed, half-hanged, by such men as serjeants in the militia, in some instances only for amusement. On the heads of many, who were selected as objects of outrage, were fixed caps of linen, or strong brown paper, smeared with pitch on the inside, which often adhered so firmly as not to be disengaged without a laceration of the hair, and even skin. To crop the hair of prisoners as closely to the head as possible was a common practice, and to cut away a piece of the ear was not unusual. From insults, which might be represented as the effects of excessive zeal, an established character of loyalty could not always be a safeguard. On the arrival of a detachment of troops in any part of the country where, as often happened, the inhabitants were unknown to the officers and soldiers, private malice was apt to convey in whispers false intelligence, marking individuals, sometimes the best members of society, as proper objects of military outrage. Also, since green had been adopted from the shamrock, as a national colour, by republicans, and short hair de

༞

nounced

CHAP. nounced as a mark of revolutionary sentiments, any XLII. who happened, howsoever innocently, to bear

Espionage.

a symbol of either kind, were liable to insult. Striped handkerchiefs, and other articles of female attire, with a mixture of green, had been in use before these unfortunate inquietudes, and had been retained inadvertently afterwards by many loyal subjects. Short unpowdered hair had been affected in Britain by persons considered as republicans; yet the same was also worn by many royalists for convenience; and so convenient has it been found, that it has been generally adopted since the rebellion, even by those who had made it a pretence for the commission or instigation of barbarous outrage. The term croppy, however, in Ireland came suddenly into general use to signify an enemy to the established government, without regard to the length or form of the hair. To avoid this imaginary badge of disaffection was not always in men's power, as a practice had been introduced by some malevolent persons of seizing and forcibly cropping, particularly in Dublin, those whom they thought proper to be so treated, when they found opportunity,

The system of secret accusation and espionage, necessarily adopted, but not sufficiently limited, by government, made ample room for the exertions of private malice and malignancy of disposition. Magistrates and military officers were empowered to receive informations, to keep the names of the

informers

XLII.

informers profoundly secret, and to proceed against CHAP. the accused according to their own discretion. To suppose that any magistrate should so abuse a sacred trust as to feign informations for the indulgence of private spite would be invidious; but some gentlemen, vested with this dangerous power, were led into most grievous errors by false informers, whose names, notwithstanding, have never been divulged. Among numerous instances one was remarkable, or became by accident more public. Thomas Fitzgerald, high sheriff of Tipperary, seized at Clonmel, a gentleman named Wright, caused five hundred lashes to be inflicted on him in the severest manner, and confined him so long without permitting his wounds to be dressed, that his recovery from a hideous state of laceration was almost miraculous. No cause of suspicion against this gentleman's loyalty could be conjectured by his neighbours; and, in a trial at law, after the rebellion, an action of damages brought by Wright against this magistrate, the innocence of the plaintiff appeared so manifest, even at a time when prejudices against persons accused of disloyalty ran high to a degree scarcely credible to men unacquainted with such a state of affairs, 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 total stop to such proceedings by an act of indemnity for all er

CHA P. rors committed from supposed zeal for the public

XLII.

Caption of Lord Ed

service.

As the time for insurrection fixed by the conward Fitz- spirators, of which the government was fully ingerald. formed, at length approached, the arresting of

Arrest of

Sheares.

1798.

Lord Edward Fitzgerald was an object of great importance, since the military skill, capacity, and courage of this gentleman, who had contrived the whole plan of attack, were truly formidable. He had escaped the arrest at Bond's, on the twelfth of the preceding March, and a proclamation had been issued with an offer of a thousand pounds reward for his apprehension. On the nineteenth of May he was seized in Dublin, in the house of Nicholas Murphy, a dealer in feathers, in Thomas-street, by justice Swan, town-major Sirr, and captain Ryan, a yeoman; but his lordship made so desperate a resistance with only a dagger, that Swan was dangerously wounded, and Ryan mortally. As the guardaccompanying the captors was small, a rescue would have been effected, if a body of troops had not come to their assistance. Such rescue, however, might have been of little consequence, as lord Edward had been disabled by a pistol shot in the shoulder from major Sirr, of which he died in the castle of Dublin a fortnight after.

On the nineteenth and twenty-first of the same month, other arrests of conspirators were made, particularly of Henry and John Sheares. In the house of Henry, in Baggot-street, in the hand-writing of

John,

XLII.

John, was found a proclamation, intended to be CHAP. published after the capital should have been in the possession of the insurgents. In this manifesto, which had not been quite finished, very sanguinary sentiments were expressed, incongruous, as I have reason to believe, with the natural disposition of these gentlemen: but to sacrifice the feelings of humanity to expedience may be a maxim with revolutionists: and, in fact, the severe measures, to which government, for the preservation of its existence, had been obliged to have recourse, and which had been carried by ignorant or designing actors far beyond the original design, must have naturally excited a cruel spirit of revenge in the mal-content faction. Yet the former members of the directory had intended to avoid bloodshed as much as possible; to seize as hostages men of property; and, on the accomplishment of a revolution, to banish those who should prove disaffected to the new government, allowing to their wives and children a maintenance out of their properties.

surrection,

The night of the twenty-third of May had been Plan of infixed for the time of insurrection. The plan was to commence with an attack on the camp of Lehaunstown or Laughlinstown, seven miles to the south of Dublin. Another party was to seize the artillery stationed at Chapelizod, two miles to the west of the same, in an hour after. Later by an hour and a half was to be the simultaneous entrance of the two parties into the metropolis to co-operate