were then remaining in it, and these without a leader. How very differently different men may be excited to act by their natural feelings, when under no external controul, on the sudden appear ance of danger, was forcibly shewn on this occasion. About half of the rebel warriors fled with precipitation at the approach of the cavalry; while the rest of them, stripping to their shirts, that they might be more expedite for the business, ran full speed to charge the cavalry with their pikes: but the latter avoided the attack, and retreated to Arklow with expedition.. Immediately after this, the country about Gorcy was completely evacuated by the rebels, to the no small joy of many loyalist families, who, by the sudden and unexpected victory over Walpole, had been prevented from escaping, and on whom the enemy had been living at free quarter.

The army, at last, under major-general Needham, moved from Arklow to Gorey, on the 19th of June, and thence toward Enniscorthy on the 20th, according to a concerted plan, conducted by lieutenant-general Lake, that the great station of the rebels at Vinegar-hill should be surrounded by his majesty's forces, and attacked in all points at once. For this purpose, different armies moved at the same time from different quarters-one under lieutenant-general Dundas; another under major-generals Sir James Duff and Loftus; that already mentioned from Arklow; and a fourth

from Ross, under major-generals Johnson and Eustace-who were to make the attack on the town of Enniscorthy. The march of the army from Ross was a kind of surprise to the bands of Philip Roche on Lacken hill, who fled in the utmost confusion, leaving their tents and a great quantity of plunder behind; and separating into two bodies, one of which took its way to Wexford, the other to Vinegar-hill, where the Wexfordian insurgents were concentrating their force.

This now famous eminence, rather infamous as a scene of religious butchery, had, with the town of Enniscorthy at its foot, and the country far around, been in possession of the rebels above three weeks from the 28th of May. During all this time the face of affairs had been indescribably hideous. Horrors and incessant apprehensions of death attended the hapless protestants who had not effected their escape from the devoted ground: they were every where seized: a few put to death where they were discovered, but most of them dragged to Vinegar-hill, where, after a sham trial, often without any form of trial, they were shot, or transfixed with pikes; many lashed, or otherwise barbarously treated before the final execution. To state with indubitable accuracy the exact number of men thus butchered in this fatal spot I will not pretend to say; but it appears from unquestionable documents to have fallen little short of four hundred.

The bloody list of sacrifices immolated to the spirit of religious or civil rancour, far more especially the former, would have still been longer, if individual humanity or friendship had not in some instances interposed to arrest the hand of murder. This interposition came some→ times from a quarter whence it was least expected. Thus Philip Roche was in appearance fierce and sanguinary; yet several persons now living owe their lives to his boisterous interference. An instance may serve in some small degree to illustrate the tumultuous transactions of these calamitous times.

Two protestants, in a respectable situation in life, brothers, of the name of Robinson, inhabitants of the parish of Killegny, being seized and carried to Vinegar-hill, some of their Roman catholic tenants, anxious for their safety, galloped at full speed to Roche's quarters at Lacken, and begged his assistance. He immediately sent an express with orders to bring the two Robinsons to Lacken, pretending to have charges of a criminal nature against them, for which they should be tried. The miscreants on Vinegar-hill, who were preparing to butcher these men, though they were advanced in years, and unimpeachable with any other crime than that of protestantism, on receipt of Roche's orders relinquished their prey, not doubting that death awaited them at Lacken. But Roche, whose

object was to snatch these innocent men from the jaws of the blood-hounds, immediately on their arrival at his quarters, gave them written, protections, and sent them to their homes, where they were soon after in danger of being hanged by the king's troops, who were too ready to pronounce disloyal all such as had been spared I by the rebel parties.

A few persons, after being supposed to be slain outright, recovered so far as to attempt an escape, but were apprehended in the attempt; and finally dispatched. The recovery of Charles Davis of Enniscorthy, a glazier, was extraordinary. After having remained four days concealed in the sink of a privy, during which time he had no other sustenance than the raw body of a cock, which had by accident alighted on the seat, he fled from this loathsome abode, but was taken at some distance from the town, brought to Vinegar-hill, shot through the body and one of his arms, violently struck in several parts of the head with thrusts of a pike, which, however, penetrated not into the brain, and thrown into a grave on his back, with a heap of earth and stones over him. His faithful dog having scraped away the covering from his face, and cleansed it by licking the blood, he returned to life after an interment of twelve hours, dreaming that pikemen were proceeding to stab him, and pronouncing the name of

Father Roche, by whose interposition he hoped to be released. Some superstitious persons. hearing the name, and imagining the man to have been revivified by the favour of Heaven, in order that he might receive salvation from the priest, by becoming a catholic, before his final departure, took him from the grave to a house, and treated him with such kind attention that he recovered, and is now living in apparently perfect health.

The exception of the protestants of Killegny,a parish five miles to the south-west of Enniscorthy, of which I am at present the incumbent, from the general slaughter of such as fell into the hands of the rebels in this part of the country, is somewhat remarkable, not one protestant of this parish having been killed in the rebellion, nor a house burned. These people, surrounded on all sides before they were aware, found flight impracticable. Their preservation, beside secondary causes, appears chiefly ascribable to their temporising conformity with the Romish worship, and to the very laudable conduct of the parish priest, Father Thomas Rogers, who, without any hint of a wish for their actual conversion, encouraged the belief of it among his bigotted flock. A few indeed of the poorer sort of protestants in this parish remain to this day conformists, probably through fear