Catholics discovered the companionship of heretics to be sacrilege, and deserted, and the remnant of the once so dangerous Jacobin combination fought and lost their last battle in Lord Moira's park, on the 13th. Five hundred insurgents were killed, and the Presbyterians of Ulster, whose wrongs at bottom were more cruel than those of any other section of the Irish nation, fell back into the place which befitted the descendants of the defenders of Derry, the worst rewarded but the most loyal to the connection between the two islands of all branches of the Irish community. This happy consequence could not have been anticipated when Lord Nugent reported the loss of Newtown Ardes, and Lord Camden felt deeply indignant at the want of support from England. The Irish Protestant gentry were suspected of desiring to exterminate the Catholics. Innocent before the agitation for Emancipation commenced of the faintest emotion of animosity against them, the Irish gentry were being fast taught that in extermination lay their only hope of preserving their own lives. On them, so long as the Presbyterians held aloof, the weight had fallen of encountering the rebellion. They were called on to defend Ireland. They were doing their duty gallantly, and were abused and maligned for doing it. Well-intending, but with a profound ignorance of the nature of the Irish people, Mr. Pitt and Dundas had excited hopes which they were unable to realise. The Catholics had seen their expected ascendency taken from them when it was almost their own. In revenge they had conspired an insurrection which was following step for step the pattern of 1641. The Irish gentry, after CHAP. J. 1798. June 13. X. 1798. June 11. BOOK braving assassination for seven years, were now set upon with the ferocious instincts of Phelim O'Neil and Roger Moore. They forgot the share of their own foolish Parliament in provoking the crisis. They saw only that England was the immediate cause of it, and that England was now leaving them to defend themselves and their families from murder, and to preserve Ireland to the British connection. The war was in consequence becoming savage. When a small minority are contending with the overwhelming numbers of an enemy which is aiming at their annihilation, war is always savage. A hundred men fighting against a thousand cannot afford to make prisoners. Those who find no quarter give no quarter. The Irish Yeomanry were accused of confounding the innocent with the guilty. When the innocent will take no part against the guilty, when eyewitnesses will give no evidence against murderers, when juries will not convict, when an entire population-to the very groom and valet of the magistrate who is marked for assassination-are in league either to assist at his death or to conceal the actors in it, at such a time it is impossible that the gradations of crime should be accurately measured by men so harassed, so excited, so cruelly judged, so unjustly dealt with, and that severity should never be in excess. After hearing of the loss of Newtown Ardes, Camden felt that unless the state of Ireland was to become a disgrace to the civilised world the Cabinet must be compelled to exert themselves. He sent over his private secretary, Mr. Elliott, to explain the circumstances of a situation which might resolve itself any day into some appalling catastrophe. A letter of which Elliott was the bearer shows how honourably and CHAP. how profoundly Camden felt his own responsibilities: Unless a fresh force is sent immediately you may be assured the country will be lost, and will not be gained again to his Majesty's Crown except by a re-conquest. I cannot conceive from what circumstances his Majesty's Ministers can have imagined that this rebellion can be easily crushed. Mr. Elliott will communicate to you the religious frenzy which agitates the rebels in Wexford: that they are headed by their priests, that they halt every half-mile to pray, that they are taught to consider that they are fighting for their religion, that their enthusiasm is most alarming. He will inform your Grace how viclently agitated Protestant feeling is in Ireland at this moment, and with how rapid strides the war is becoming one of the most cruel and bloody that has ever disgraced or been imposed upon a country. He will explain to your Grace how impolitic and unwise it would be to refuse the offer of Protestants to enter into Yeomanry and other corps, and yet how dangerous any encouragement to the Orange spirit is while the army is composed of Catholics, as the militia almost generally is. Neither present and most imminent danger, nor further embarrassment, can be removed but by an immediate landing of very large bodies of troops from England. Every portion of the kingdom is infected with the poison of disaffection. If the rebels, assisted by the French, possess themselves of it, the immediate danger to England will be obvious. The rebel force at Wexford is too strong to be attacked at present. The North has risen. Dublin is in immediate danger of insurrection, and the troops cannot be moved.'1 Equally interesting and equally instructive is a letter from Lord Castlereagh to Mr. Wickham, written on the following day. The Cabinet had not waited for Elliott, and had roused themselves at last. The mail, on the evening of the 11th, brought word that 1 Camden to Portland, June 11. Abridged.' S. P. O. I. 1798. June 11. BOOK X. 1798. June 12. the Guards were on their way, and that other regiments were preparing to follow. The intelligence,' Castlereagh said, 'is most welcome. It is of importance that the authority of England should decide this contest, as well with a view to British influence in Ireland as to make it unnecessary for the Government to lend itself too much to a party in this country—a party highly exasperated by the religious persecution to which the Protestants in Wexford have been exposed. In that county it is perfectly a religious frenzy. The priests lead the rebels to battle. As they march they kneel and pray, and show the most desperate resolution in their attacks. The enclosed certificate is curious,' as marking the complexion of the rebellion in that quarter. They put such Protestants as are reported to be Orangemen to death, saving others on condition of their embracing the Catholic faith. It is a Jacobinical conspiracy throughout the country, pursuing its objects with Popish instruments, the heated bigotry of their sect being better suited to the purpose of the Republican leaders than the cold reasoning disaffection of the Northern Presbyterians. The number of the insurgents is immense so great as to make it prudent to assemble in very considerable force before an attempt is made to penetrate that very difficult and enclosed county. The conduct of the militia and Yeomanry has exceeded our most sanguine expectations. A very few of the Yeomanry have been corrupted, but in no instance have the militia failed to show the most determined spirit.'" 1 I recommend to your protection, for Christ's sake, the bearer hereof, who has voluntarily embraced the Roman Catholic religion, and received the sacraments thereof, who is no Orangeman.—— Lachen, June 1. 26 'RAYMOND ROCHE, P.P.' 'Castlereagh to Wickham, June 12. Abridged.' S. P. O. SECTION IX. I. 1798. June 12. SOME days had yet to elapse before the troops could CHAP. arrive, and the Protestants of Wexford were meanwhile at the mercy of the insurgents. The reverse at New Ross put an end to the good humour which at first had prevailed in the city. Scenes of blood now became frequent. Each day bands of rebels paraded the streets with drums and bagpipes, recovering heretics to the faith, and piking and shooting those who refused to be converted; Protestant prisoners being told off to be the executioners of their fellows, as a preparation for their own deaths. The desire to convert was perfectly sincere-no less determined the resolution to punish the obstinate unbelievers. The Catholic clergy in the town did not encourage ferocity; the Catholic bishop, so far as was consistent with his own security, opposed the bloody method of working conviction. One priest, in a scene to be presently described, succeeded in preventing murder by risking boldly his own life. What one could do others might have done, had they been equally brave, and the reproach cast upon their order by the doings of Father John and his companions might have been redeemed or washed away. It was, perhaps, too much to expect. The bishops and clergy of the Catholic Church would have been more than mortal had they not desired the success of a rebellion which would have restored Ireland to the faith, and they did not care to come to an open |