Having now gained a considerable quantity of ammunition, and little discouraged by the defeat at Saintfield, the rebels re-assembled and took post at Ballynahinch, on the Windmill-hill, and at the house and in the demesne of lord Moira. On the twelfth of June general Nugent marched against them from Belfast, with a detachment of the 22d dragoons, the Monaghan militia, and some yeomen cavalry and infantry; and was joined by colonel Stewart with his party from Downpatrick, making in all near fifteen hundred men. After a few discharges of artillery the rebels were driven from the hill, and obliged to join their friends at lord Moira's, with the loss of a colonel who was taken and hanged. General Nugent then took possession of the hill, and both armies spent the night in preparations for battle, which began on the morning of the thirteenth, when the town was set on fire by the king's troops. The action was maintained with little or no execution, the rebel cannon being small, and the shells from the royal army bursting in the air. At length the Monaghan militia, with two field-pieces, posted at the great gate, were attacked with such determined courage by the rebel pikemen, that they were obliged to fall back on the Hillsborough cavalry, who also retired in great confusion. The troops afterwards found means to rally, while the Argyleshire fencibles were making their attack on another quarter. The rebels, confused and distracted, retreated up the hill, and making a resolute stand at its summit, at a kind of fortification, de fended that post for a considerable time, but were at length compelled to give way in all directions, with the loss of their cannon and about two hundred men in killed and wounded. The loss of the king's army in this engagement may have amounted to about forty, of whom two were officers, captain Evatt. killed and lieutenant Ellis. wounded. The main body of rebels retreated to the mountains of Sleeve Croob, where they soon after separated and returned to their several homes. Some of their leaders were soon after apprehended and executed, and thus terminated this short and partial but active and vigorous insurrection. On the eleventh of June the rebels made an attack upon the town of Portaferry, but were repulsed by a small party of yeomanry, under the command of captain Matthews, assisted by the fire of a revenue cruiser, commanded by captain Hopkins, with the loss of forty men. "On the subsiding of this local rebellion in the north-eastern quarter of Ireland, another local rebellion, much inferior in vigour, and very easily suppres sed, commenced in the opposite south-western quarter, in the county of Cork. Accompanied with the same kind of violent acts as elsewhere in the south, and exhibiting nothing extraordinary or peculiar, it requires little notice. The principal action, and the only one which governmenth as thought proper to communicate to the public, took place near the village of Ballynascarty, where, on the nineteenth of June, two hundred and twenty men of the Westmeath regiment of militia, with two six-pounders, under the command of their lieutenant-colonel, sir Hugh O'Reilly, were attacked on their march from Cloghnakilty to Bandon by a body of between three and four hundred men, armed almost all with pikes. This was only a part of the rebel force, here placed in ambush in a very advantageous position. The attack was made from a height on the left of the column, so unexpectedly and rapidly, that the troops had scarcely time to form; but the assailants were quickly repulsed with some loss, and retreated to the height. Here, if the soldiers had pursued them, from which they were with great difficulty restrained, they would probably have been surrounded and slaughtered like the North-Cork detachment at Oulart. While the officers were endeavouring to form the men again, a body of rebels were making a motion to seize the cannon, and another body made its appearance on the high grounds in its rear; but, at the critical moment, a hundred men of the Caithness legion, under the command of major Innes, who on their march to Cloghnakilty had heard the report of the guns, came to their assistance, and by a brisk fire put the assailants to flight on one side, after which those who were on the heights behind retired on receiving a few discharges of the artillery. The loss of the rebels in this action may perhaps have amounted to be tween fifty and a hundred men; that of the royal troops, by the commander's account, only to a sergeant and a private." During all this time the metropolis remained perfectly tranquil, except in cases of alarm within and accounts of hostilities in the country. Soon after the rebellion broke out, a number of gentlemen, appre hended as rebel leaders, in the city, were tried and executed, among whom were Henry and John Sheares. Lord Cornwallis, who had been appointed lord lieutenant, made his entrance into Dublin on the twentieth of June, which was soon after left by lord Camden, who retired to England. On the tenth of July a proclamation was published in the Dublin Gazette, offering a general pardon and protection to the insurgents, in case of their surrendering and returning to their allegiance. This proclamation produced an agreement between government and the chiefs of the United Irish, by which the latter and all others who should avail themselves of the offer, including Mr Oliver Bond, then under sentence of death, were to give every information concerning their transactions, and to quit the kingdom, on condition of being pardoned. The agreement was signed on the twenty-ninth of July by seventy-three persons, and six of the principal leaders, among whom were Dr M'Nevin, Thomas Addis Emmett, Arthur O'Connor, and Samuel Neilson, who gave details on oath in |