reply, "I am commanding officer, and damn the croppies." After his departure to Newtown-barry, this gentleman never returned to Clonnegall, in consequence of which the town remained under the command of that truly respectable officer, lieutenant Justice, who preserved so strict an attention to discipline, that, though Clonnegall is in the immediate vicinity of Carnew, it was defended with such intrepidity as never to fall into the hands of the enemy. In the action at Newtown-barry, two cart loads of ammunition, &c. were taken.

"Hills of a commanding prospect were always chosen by the rebels for their stations or posts. These posts they termed camps, though they were destitute of tents, except a few for their chiefs; and the people remained in the open air in vast multitudes, men and women promiscuously, some lying covered with blankets at night, and some without other covering than the clothes which they wore in the day. This mode of warfare was favoured by an uninterrupted continuance of dry and warm weather, to such a length of time as is very unusual in Ireland in that season, or any season of the year. This was regarded by the rebels as a particular interposition of Providence in their favour; and some among them are said to have declared, in a prophetic tone, that not a drop of rain was to fall until they should be masters of all Ireland. On the other hand, the same was considered by the fugitive loyalists as a merciful favour of Heaven, since bad weather must have miserably augmented their distress, and have caused many to perish. In these encampments or stations, among such crowds of riotous undisciplined men, under no regular authority, the greatest disorder must be supposed to have prevailed. Often when a rebel was in a sound sleep in the night, he was robbed by some associate of his gun, or some other article at that time valuable: to sleep flat on the belly, with the hat and shoes tied under the breast, for the prevention of stealth, was a custom with many. They were in nothing more irregular than in the cooking of provisions, many of them cutting pieces at random out of cattle scarcely dead, without waiting to flay them, and roasting those pieces on the points of their pikes, together with the parts of the hide which belonged to them. The heads of the cattle were seldom eaten, but generally left to rot on the surface of the

ground; and so were often large parts of the carcases, after many pieces had been cut from them: which practice might in a short time have caused a pestilence.

"The station which the rebels chose, when they bent their force towards Gorey, was the hill of Corrigrua, seven miles towards the south-west from that town. A body of above a thousand, some say four thousand, detached from this post, took possession of the little village of Ballycannow, four miles from Gorey, to the south, on the evening of the first of June, and were advancing to fix their station on the hill of Ballymanaan, mid-way between the above-named village and town, when they were met near the village by the garrison of Gorey, who had marched to stop their progress. Having returned home the preceding day with my family from Arklow, I happened to be at that time on the road near Gorey, when a man on the top of a house cried out to me that all the country to the south was in a blaze; for straggling parties of the rebels attending the motions of the main body, had as usual set fire to many houses. I had hardly got a view of the conflagration, when I heard a discharge of musketry, which continued some time without intermission. Since I have learned the particulars of this engagement, I consider it, though small and unnoticed, as one of the most brilliant of the croppy war.

"The little army which had marched from Gorey on this occasion, consisted of twenty of the Antrim militia, under lieutenant Elliot, who directed the movements of the whole; twenty of the North-Cork; about fifty yeomen infantry, including supplementary men; and three troops of yeoman cavalry, the last of whom, I mean all the cavalry, were useless in battle. As the rebels had not procured accurate intelligence, and as troops from Dublin had been some days expected, the cloud of dust, excited by the little army of Gorey, caused them to imagine that a formidable force was coming against them. Under this persuasion, they disposed not themselves to the best advantage, for they might easily have surrounded and destroyed the little band opposed to them. They attempted it however in a disorderly manner; but so regular and steady a fire was maintained by the militia, particularly the Antrim, that the half-disciplined supplementals of the yeomen, encouraged thereby, behaved with equal

steadiness; and such was the effect, that the rebels were totally routed, and fled in the utmost confusion in all directions. The yeomen cavalry, notwithstanding repeated orders from lieutenant Elliot, delayed too long, through mistake of one of their officers, to pursue the runaways, otherwise a great slaughter might have been made. The victorious band advancing, fired some houses in Ballycannow, and spread such a terror, that no attempt was made against them from the post of Corrigrua; so that they returned safely to Gorey, with above a hundred captive horses and other spoil.

"In this engagement, and all others in the beginning of the rebellion, the rebels elevated their guns too much for execution, so that only three loyalists were wounded, none killed. The number of slain on the opposite side was probably about sixty, perhaps near a hundred. Many fine horses, which the routed party was obliged to leave behind, were by them killed or maimed, that they might be rendered useless. The hardiness and agility of the labouring classes of the Irish were on this, and other occasions in the course of the rebellion, very remarkable. Their swift ess of foot, and activity in passing over brooks and ditches, were such that they could not always in crossing the fields be overtaken by horsemen; and with so much strength of constitution were they found to be endued, that to kill them was difficult, many, after a multitude of stabs, not expiring till their necks were cut across. In fact, the number of persons who in the various battles, massacres, and skirmishes of this war, were shot through the body, and recovered of their wounds, has greatly surprised me. A small occurrence after the battle, of which a son of mine was a witness, may help to illustrate the state of the country at that time:-Two yeomen coming to a brake or clump of bushes, and observing a small motion as if some persons were hiding there, one of them fired into it, and the shot was answered by a most piteous and loud screech of a child. The other yeoman was then urged by his companion to fire; but he being a gentleman, and less ferocious, instead of firing, commanded the concealed persons to appear when a poor woman and eight children, almost naked, one of whom was severely wounded, came trembling from the brake, where they had secreted themselves for safety.

"Disappointed by the defeat at Ballycannow, of taking post on Ballymanaan-hill on the first of June, and of advancing thence to Gorey on the second, the rebel army on Corrigruahill remained in that station till the fourth. Meantime the long and anxiously expected army under major-general Loftus arrived in Gorey. The sight of fifteen hundred fine troops, with five pieces of artillery, filled every loyal breast with confidence, insomuch that not a doubt was entertained of the immediate and total dispersion of the rebels. The plan was to march the army in two divisions, by two different roads, to the post of Corrigrua, and to attack the enemy with combined forces, in which attack they expected the co-operation of some other troops. But while this arrangement was made, on the fourth of June, by the army, the rebels were preparing to quit Corrigrua, and to march to Gorey; for by a letter from Gorey to a priest named Philip Roche, then in bed in the house of Richard Donovan, Esq. of Ballymore, at the foot of the abovementioned hill, information was received by the rebel chiefs, about one o'clock in the morning, of the intended motions of the army. The publicity of the adopted plan of operations, by which the disaffected in the town were enabled to give this information to the enemy, was probably occasioned by the imprudence of colonel Walpole, who claimed an independent and discretionary command. Intelligence of the plan of the rebels march was carried to the army with the most eager dispatch, by a respectable farmer called Thomas Dowling, who made application to several officers, all of whom despised his information, and some threatened him with imprisonment if he should not cease his nonsense. The army began its march in two divisions, according to the above plan, about the same time that the rebels began theirs in one body. The latter were met nearly mid-way between Gorey and Corrigrua by the division under colonel Walpole-a gentleman much more fit for the place of a courtier than that of a military leader. As no scouts nor flanking parties were employed by this commander, he knew nothing of the approach of the enemy until he actually saw them, at the distance of a few yards, advancing on him in a place called Tubberneering. Walpole seems not to have been deficient in courage. The action

commenced in a confused manner. The rebels poured a tremenduous fire from the fields on both sides of the road, and he received a ball through the head in a few minutes. His troops fled in the utmost disorder, leaving their cannon, consisting of two six-pounders and a smaller piece, in the hands of the enemy. They were pursued as far as Gorey, in their flight through which, they were galled by a fire of guns from some of the houses, where some rebels had taken their station. The unfortunate loyalists of Gorey, who a few minutes before had thought themselves perfectly secure, fled, as many as could escape, to Arklow with the routed army, leaving all their effects behind.

"While Walpole's division was engaged with the enemy, general Loftus, marching by a different road, that of Ballycannow, and hearing the noise of battle, detached seventy men, the grenadier company of the Antrim militia, across the fields to its assistance. This body was intercepted by the rebels, who were in pursuit of the routed army, and almost all killed or taken; and as near forty men of Walpole's division were lost, the detriment on the whole amount was considerable. Meanwhile the general, ignorant of the colonel's fate, and unable to bring his artillery across the fields, continued his march along the highway, and coming round by a long circuit to the field of battle, was at last made acquainted with the event. He then followed the march of the rebels towards Gorey, and coming within view of them, found them posted on Gorey-hill, a commanding eminence, at the foot of which the town is built. Convinced that he could neither attack them in their post with any prospect of success, nor pass by them into the town without great hazzard, he retreated to Carnew, and in his retreat was saluted with a fire of the artillery of the rebels from the top of the hill, whither they had, by strength of men, drawn the cannon taken from Walpole's troops, beside some pieces brought from Wexford. Thinking Carnew an unsafe post, though the gentlemen of that neighbourhood thought, and still think, quite otherwise, as he was there at the head of twelve hundred effective men, he abandoned that part of the country to the rebels, and retreated nine miles farther, to the town of Tullow, in the county of Carlow."