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towards Dublin, perhaps with design to regain the Wicklow mountains. Being hotly pursued by captain Gordon of the Dumfries light dragoons, with a body of cavalry followed by infantry, they were finally dispersed, with some slaughter, at Bally boghil, near Swords, in the county of Dublin, whence they severally endea voured, by devious ways, to reach their homes, or places of concealment.

CHAP. V.

Dublin-Executions-Wexford-Executions-Grogan

-Harvey-Colclough-Father Murphy-Father John

Redmond-Prosecution-Cornwallis-ProtectionsAmnesty Act-Surrender of Conspirators-O'Connor's Letter-Prosecutions checked-Babes of the WoodHolt and Hacket-Devastations-Huntley's Highlanders-Skerrett-Robberies—Damages-Compensations-Retrospect-Griffith-Coercion-ViolencesReligious Animosity-Ingenuity of Peasants-Exaggerated Accounts-Population-Strength of the Irish Government-Espionage continued.

WHILE a bloody and desolating civil war (which I consider as terminated in the final dispersion of the Wexfordian rebels) had been raging in the county of Wexford, and occasionally afflicting the county of Wicklow, and petty rebellions had been elsewhere formed, the capital, vigilantly guarded by a large military force, enjoyed a peace not otherwise interrupted than by alarms of plots within and hostilities without. The chief part of this military force consisted of its own citizens, formed into yeoman companies, whose conduct on this occasion merits the highest praise. Fortunately the grand and royal canals, the former on the southern, the latter on the northern side, surrounded the city;

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and, being fifty feet broad and twelve deep, formed a fortification of the nature of a wet ditch, the numerous bridges of which were palisaded, and guarded both night and day.

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Trials and executions, which every where followed the suppression or discovery of conspiracies, had early commenced in the capital. Among many others, a rebel officer, a protestant named Bacon, a reputable taylor, an inhabitant of Great Ship-street, being apprehended disguised in female apparel, proceeding in a chaise to the country to join his men, or, as some say (with great probability) to conceal himself from both rebels and loyalists till the storm should subside, was executed on the 2d of June near Carlislebridge. On the 14th was executed, on the same scaffolding, lieutenant Esmond, found guilty of being leader in the attack on Prosperous, already related. On the 12th of July, Henry and John Sheares were brought to trial, condemned, and soon after put to death. The trial of John M'Cann, who had been secretary to the provincial committee of Leinster, followed on the 17th; that of Michael William Byrne, delegate from the county committee of Wicklow; and that of Oliver Bond, on the 23d. The two former were executed; but the third was reprieved, as a judicious, and indeed necessary system of mercy had been adopted since the arrival of the marquis Cornwallis, as lord lieutenant of Ireland.

While a few trials for treason were held by jury in the metropolis, by the more summary mode of court-martial were great numbers tried in other places, particularly the town and county of Wexford. On the possession of the former by his majesty's forces, on the 21st of June, immediate search was made for the ostensible chiefs of the rebels, most of whom had sought places of concealment. Some surrendered in confidence of an imaginary capitulation. Matthew Keugh, as I have already mentioned, made no attempt to escape, hoping mercy on account of his having been formerly in danger among the rebels, and for the services which he had rendered in their evacuation of the town. no mercy on such accounts was, in those times, to be found.-On the 25th, nine of these leaders were executed, among whom were Keugh and Philip Roche. The bridge was the general scene of execution, as it had been of massacre. The head, after death, by hanging, separated from the body, which was commonly thrown into the river, as had been the bodies of the massacred protestants, was fixed aloft on the court-house.

But

Among the persons who suffered for treason on the bridge, were Beauchamp Bagenal Harvey, Cornelius Grogan, and John Henry Colclough, Grogan, a man of an estate in land of eight thousand pounds a year, and much accumulated wealth, but of a timid spirit, had unfortunately

fallen into the hands of the insurgents, and so far misconceived the state of affairs as to imagine his property more secure under the protection of the United Irish than of the existing government: Unhappy misconception! The success of the rebels would have involved the destruction of both his property and life. He, however, through fear of the loss at least of the former, had consented to take the United oath, and to promise to act as commissary to the rebel army.* Yet, such is the inconsistency of human nature, this man, whose only guilt, with regard to treason, had been caused by his timidity, met his fate with courage, when he found death inevitable. Harvey betrayed more fear of death at the place of execution, though he was well known to have been a man of personal courage, having exposed his life with intrepidity in duels. This gentleman was possessed of a landed property of between two and three thousand pounds a year, and had in many respects borne an amiable character, particularly that of a most humane landlord-a character unfortunately not very common in Ireland! Seduced, like some other men of benevolent hearts, by the fallacious hope that

* See Appendix, No. 4. That Mr. Grogan should have been deceived into a belief of the universal success of the rebels, is not to be accounted surprising, when those who were about him, gave him confidently that information, and he had no means of knowing the truth.

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