CHAP. were in defiance, which gave the appearance of a

XLIV.

Massacres at

Vinegar

hill.

force prepared for battle, and intimidated the royal troops from sudden onset, while his infantry were retreating at full speed. Himself was the hindmost in flight from the hill. He overtook his infantry, and marched to the post of Three-rocks, without loss

of a man.

Vinegar-hill, the great object of attack, had, with the town of Enniscorthy at its foot, and the country far around, been now above three weeks in possession of the rebels since the twenty-eighth of May. During all that time the face of affairs had. been hideous beyond description. From the first moment of disturbance, the common people on both sides, in this country, had rendered the commotion a religious quarrel. But at Enniscorthy, where men of rancorous bigotry and murderous dispositions had gained influence, or acted unrestrained, the spirit of intolerance was chiefly manifested, and was felt on all sides through a space of several miles. Horrors and incessant apprehensions of death attended the hapless protestants, who had not escaped from the devoted ground. They were every where seized. A few were assassinated on the spot where they were caught, but most of them dragged to Vinegar-hill, where, after a sham trial, often without any form of trial, they were shot, or transfixed with pikes; many lashed, or otherwise barbarously treated, before the final execution. To state with indubitable accuracy the number butchered in this fatal spot, I cannot pretend. It is be

XLIV.

lieved on good grounds to have fallen little, if at CHAP all, short of four hundred. Much greater still would it have been, if individual humanity or friendship had not, in many instances, interposed to arrest the hand of murder. Philip Roche saved the lives of many. Even in his distant post at Lacken he rescued some, by sending for them under pretence of accusation and trial, and then dismissing them with protections.

Exception of Killeg

The exception of the protestants of Killegny, a parish five miles to the south-west of Enniscorthy, "y. of which I am at present the incumbent, is considerably remarkable. Here not a protestant was killed, nor a house burned. Surrounded on all sides before they heard of danger, the protestants of this parish had found escape impossible. They were admitted as converts to the Roman catholic worship by the rev. Thomas Rogers, the parish priest, a man of comparatively superior education, who gave them privately to understand, that he expected no more than an apparent conformity to please the multitude, and seems to have exerted his influence for their protection. Philip Roche interposed in their favour whenever opportunity occurred. Much may be attributable also to the respect of the lower catholics for Mr. Fitzhenry, a gentleman of their own religion, resident among them, whose disapprobation they might not, even in such lawless times, entirely contemn. Nor ought I to omit that the peasantry here had not been previously irritated by floggings or other violences: nor that Robert Shap

land

CHAP. land Carew, esquire, their landlord, had immedi XLIV. ately before the insurrection, made an impressive

Attack of

Vinegar

21, 1798.

speech to the assembled people, describing the evil consequences which rebellion and acts of atrocity would draw upon themselves. The reverend Samuel Francis, my predecessor, was, with his family, once forced to attend service in the catholic chapel, and remained afterwards unmolested; but would have been in danger of starving, if he had not been supplied with provisions by the priest and Mr. Fitzhenry. To the forbearance of the catholics in this, was contrasted their behaviour in the bordering parishes, above all in Killan, where a spirit more atrocious was displayed than even at Enniscorthy, Here a ruthless mob was employed in collecting the protestants of both sexes with intention to burn them alive in the parish church, or, in their own phrase, to make an orange pye of them, when their design was prevented by a body of brave yeomen from Kiledmond in the county of Carlow.

On the twenty-first of June, at seven in the morning, hill, June a royal force of at least thirteen thousand effective men, with a formidable train of artillery, was to commence an attack, from all quarters at once, on the great station of Vinegar-hill, where probably were posted twenty thousand of the rebels; but these were almost destitute of ammunition. An onset with pikes, in the night, on one of the surrounding armies, had been strenuously, but in vain, advised by some chiefs in this multitude, who chose rather to await without a plan the fortune of the

day,

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day. The town of Enniscorthy was attacked, at the CHAP. stated time, by the army from Ross, while showers of bullets and shells were poured against the hill from the artillery. After the expenditure of their scanty ammunition, in a contest of an hour and a half, the insurgents fled toward Wexford, through the space which had been destined for the station of Needham's army. This general, from causes not satisfactorily explained, arrived not at his post till above two hours after the appointed time, when the routed bands had effected their escape. The commonly entertained opinion is, that the chief commander had designedly so managed as to leave this gap for the enemy's retreat. The full execution of the original or ostensible plan might have urged their despair to a dangerous effort. They might have forced their way on some side with slaughter, or sustained a tremendous havoc in the attempt. To oblige the whole multitude to surrender, and thus put an end to the rebellion, was supposed to have been Lake's design; and this would have been certainly far the wisest measure, if it had been practicable: but the general might have been with reason apprehensive, that his disorderly troops could not be restrained from the massacre of the unfortunate people, when they should once have thrown down their arms. Except in Johnson's army, in which by the attack of Enniscorthy, the number of killed, wounded, and missing, amounted to ninetythree, the loss of the royal forces was quite inconsiderable; nor was that of the rebels much greater;

for,

XLIV.

CHAP. for, though some hundreds were killed, who were found straggling from the main body after the battle; these were mostly men who had been reluctantly compelled to follow the rebel host, and had now taken the opportunity of escape: among them were many protestants who had been detained in captivity.

Battle of

Horetown.

1798.

On the same day as Enniscorthy, was possession June 20, also of Wexford obtained by the royal troops. General Moore, at the head of about twelve hundred men, had, in the evening of the twentieth, in his march toward the former, been intercepted by an army of five or six thousand, led from Three-rocks by Philip Roche, at Goff's bridge near the church of Horetown. The forces of Moore, in loose array, or disposed in small parties over a wide extent of ground, and the gunmen of the rebels, only five hundred and sixty in number, maintained a contest, with considerable slaughter, during four hours. From the nature of the ground, the manœuvres of the soldiery, and their own inattention to the commands of their leaders, the pikemen came not into action; and as their store of powder was at length exhausted, the whole body of insurgents retreated in good order to Three-rocks. Except at Arklow, the royal troops fought better here than

in

any other engagement in this rebellion; yet, such military skill and resolution had an undisciplined and unorganzied mob acquired in the short space of three weeks, that the combat was long doubtful. Joined by two regiments under lord Dalhousie, the

army