on Kilthomas hill, were soon dispersed by the fire of two or three hundred yeomen. They killed 150 in the pursuit, and burned a hundred cabins, and two Roman catholic chapels, in a march of seven miles. At Oulart, Father Murphy commanded; A detachment of the North Cork Militia, under Lieut. Col. Tooke, dispersed the rebels at first, and pursued them up a hill. When they arrived nearly at the summit, about three hundred of the fugitives rallied, turned round upon their breathless pursuers, and with the loss of only three killed and six wounded on their side, they slew the whole detachment, except the lieut. colonel, a serjeant, and three privates.

Flushed with success, while the country round was in state of terror and distress, not casily described, the rebels, headed by their priestly chief, marched next day to Camolin. In their progress they multiplied their numbers. Here they found a quantity of fire arms (800 in number) which had been sent by Earl Mountmorris for his yeoman's use. This was a formidable accession to their strength. They next proceeded to Ferns, and afterwards followed the fugitive loyalists to Enniscorthy. They appeared before this place at one o'clock in the afternoon; about 7000 stroug, of whom 800 were provided with fire arms, the remainder carrying pikes. After a furious but irregular assault, the garrison, consisting of three hundred yeomen and volunteers, were compelled to retire, and they retreated towards Wexford, ac

companied by most of the loyal people in the place. Enniscorthy was in flames: the rebels, for want of unanimity in their councils, undecided how to act. At length they resolved to attack Wexford, already a scene of terror and confusion from the arrival of the fugitives, and the perception of flames and smoke extending in a line from Wexford to Enniscorthy. Three gentlemen of the county, Beauchamp Bagenal Harvey, John Henry Colclough and Henry Fitzgerald, were then in prison, arrested upon private information. The two latter, at the instance of some officers, undertook to address in person the insurgents at Enniscorthy, and persuade them to disperse. The rebels had taken post at Vinegar Hill, an eminence at whose foot stands the town of Enniscorthy, where they had formed what they called a camp, and whence they daily garrisoned the town by an officer's guard. Here they were found, by the two gentlemen, and they soon formed the resolution of retaining Fitzgerald as a leader, and marching to Wexford. Colclough they dismissed to carry the information of their resolves.

To detail the spoliations and excesses committed alternately by the rebels and king's troops, would be an irksome, and not a very necessary labour. General Fawcett, who commanded in this district, advanced to Tagmon, but hearing that his van-guard of eighty eight men had been surprised and destroyed, under Three Rocks by the rebels, he retreated to Duncannon. It was

now resolved, in a council of war, to evacuate the town, having no adequate force to maintain it against the rebels in consequence of the retreat of General Fawcett. Harvey (one of those already mentioned as being in prison) at the request of the officers, wrote a letter of intreaty to the rebels to act with humanity; and two gentlemen of the name of Richards, members of a yeomen company, undertook the dangerous task of delivering this letter, and announcing to the insurgents the surrendry of the place. The retreat immediately commenced, but in a very disorderly way. Every one went whither he thought the safest, and allthe troops evacuated the town before the inhabitants were apprised of it, so that many of them were left to the mercy of the rebels, who entered in a tumultuary manner, and could scarcely be prevented from acts of cruelty and spoliation. Great numbers of the inhabitants took refuge in the ships that were in the harbour, hoping to escape to England: but all returned, except two, when summoned by boats from the insurgents, and relanded their passengers.

Alternate success on the part of the king's troops and the rebels now took place in various skirmishes. The former prevailed at Ballycannoo and at Newtownbarry: the latter defeated a small force under Colonel Walpole (a relation of Lord Camden, and described as more fond of dress than tactics, being mounted on a beautiful white charger, in full uniform and plumage) and took

three pieces of artillery. They next advanced to New Ross, in two bodies, one under the command of Edward Roche, on the north, and another still more formidable under the command of Mr. Harvey, penetrated to the south west. The conquest of New Ross would have opened the communication with the disaffected in the counties of Waterford and Kilkenny, in which many thousands were supposed ready to rise in arms at the appearance of their successful confederates. The possession of the town was obstinately contested for ten hours: sometimes the rebels prevailed: but intent on plunder, and intoxicated, they were again repulsed: then they rallied, regained their former ground, again devoted themselves to plunder, were again driven back, and finally the king's troops retained possession of the place. Lord Mountjoy, who commanded the Dublin Militia, fell early in the day.

The fugitive rebels who fled from this contest, shewed that they were dastardly enough to wreak upon helpless persons that savage ferocity of character which, but for want of courage, they would have inflicted upon their armed opponents. In the dwelling house and barn of Mr. King of Scullabogue, at the foot of Carrickburn mountain, a number of loyalists of both sexes, among whom were at least seven catholics, were confined, collected from the neighbouring country as hostages for the safety of such rebels as should become prisoners to the royalists. Urging that the

bearer of their flag of truce had been shot, that the prisoners of their party had been massacred at Dunlavin and Carnew, by the royal troops, and that a similar scene was now acted in Ross, they forced the guard, shot thirty-seven confined in the dwelling house, and setting fire to the barn caused all who were within it to perish in the flames. About one hundred persons were thus cruelly massacred in cold blood by these unrelenting savages.

After some days of comparative inactivity, the rebels marched northward, with a view to co-ope rate with the insurgents of Wicklow in an attack upon Acklow. This post, it is said, they might have seized any day, through the negligence and misconduct of government, except that on which they attempted it, when fortunately a reinforcement of royal troops, under Colonel Skerret, arrived in the garrison. Had this not been the case, and the rebels had been successful they might have continued their course to the immediate vicinity of the capital, where numerous bodies of the disaffected were remaining only till such a signal should give them courage to avow themselves. Luckily, however, they were defeated, before Acklow, with the loss of three or four hundred men, and immediately retreated back to Gorey. "The importance of this repulse," says Mr. Gordon, "6 can be fully appreciated only by those who know in what state the country then was, the general indiscipline then prevalent in the royal