and undesignedly bearing the imaginary badge. Various other violent acts were committed, so far as to cut away pieces of men's ears, even sometimes the whole ear, or à part of the nose: nor could the stanchest loyalists be certain always of exemption from insult by being clear of all imaginary marks of disloyalty; for on the arrival of a detachment of the army in any part of the country where the inhabitants were unknown to the officers and soldiers, which was almost always the case, private malice was apt to convey in whispers false intelligence, marking individuals, perhaps the best members of society, as proper objects of military outrage.

That those who were most active to commit these outrages, or to instigate others to the commission of them, were not the best friends of government, I have good reason to suppose. Their conduct, whatever may have been their motives, was evidently adapted to augment the number and rage the malecontents, which, in concurrence with other circumstances, might have produced very fatal effects: besides, that in the hour of danger, when the great insurrection took place, and government stood in need of the most vigorous exertions of its friends, most of these agitators of insult stood aloof, and the rest, so far as my experience and information extends, were very shy in their movements against the rebels, and cautious of their personal safety; a conduct

which implied either a defect of courage or of loyalty. The following instance of this mode of proceeding touches the extreme. A young gentle man of a robust frame and healthy constitu tion, a furious declaimer against croppies, and a private instigator of military insult, fled at the commencement of the insurrection to a town twenty miles distant from the lines of the rebels, where he remained very quiet until the rebellion was totally suppressed: he then returned to his habitation, and with becoming modesty resumed his former language of ostentatious loyalty, to getlier with a flaming suit of military uniform, and a martial air...

By the system of secret accusation and espio nage, necessarily adopted, with other extraor dinary measures, in this dangerous crisis, govern ment unavoidably made ample room for the exertions of private malice. Magistrates and military officers were empowered to receive informations, to keep the names of the informers profoundly secret, and to proceed against the accused according to discretion. I shall not suppose that any magistrate could have pretended to receive information, which he had not received, for the indulgence of his private spite against any individual; but some of the gentlemen invested with these new powers were led into grievous errors by false informers, whose names notwithstanding have never been divulged. One in

stance I shall mention, as it has been already made public in the newspapers, and has given cause for a debate in parliament. Thomas Fitzgerald, high sheriff of Tipperary, seized at Clonmel, a gentleman of the name of Wright, against whom no grounds of suspicion could be conjectured by his neighbours, caused five hundred lashes to be inflicted on him in the severest manner, and confined him several days without permitting his wounds to be dressed, so that his recovery from such a state of torture and laceration could hardly be expected. In a trial at law, after the rebellion, on an action of damages brought by Wright against this magistrate, the innocence of the plaintiff appeared so manifest, even at a time when prejudices ran amazingly high against persons accused of disloyalty, that the defendant was condemned to pay five hundred pounds to his prosecutor. Many other actions of damage on similar grounds would have been commenced, if the parliament had not put a stop to such proceedings, by an act of indemnity, for all errors committed by magistrates from supposed zeal for the public service. A letter written in the French language, found in the pocket of Wright, was hastily considered as a proof of guilt, though the letter was of a perfectly innocent nature. This magistrate, however, whose want of knowledge of the French language confirmed, or seemed to

confirm, him in so lamentable an error and outrage, seems to have had great merit in the prevention of rebellion in that county by his unremitted activity and boisterous exertions; though these unfortunately were too often illdirected, as, among other instances, against a Mr. Scott, a respectable gentleman, who was in the most imminent danger of falling an innocent victim to the precipitancy or mis-information of this officer of justice.

These disorders, unavoidable in such a state of affairs, increased with the alarm of the approaching insurrection, which the chiefs of the union, seeing its force declining, and in danger of being destroyed by the vigorous measures of government, appointed to commence on the twenty-third of May, without waiting for French auxiliaries, lest, before that aid should arrive, their system should be so disorganized as to be incapable of any promising effort. Among the precautions taken on this occasion by the members of government, who were fully in, formed of the intended revolt, was the augmentation of the several companies of armed yeomen, by the addition of supplementary men, mostly infantry, and without uniform. These yeomen had begun to be embodied in October, in the year 1796, in a kind of independent companies, each composed commonly of about fifty men, mostly cavalry, with a much smaller body

of infantry attached to them, and each generally commanded by a captain and two lieutenants. The infantry were armed like those of the regu lar army, but the cavalry were furnished with only one pistol and a sword each, excepting a few who had carbines. In the formation of the companies or corpse of yeomen, to appoint the far greater part of them cavalry was an error, as the event clearly proved; for in the rebellion which ensued, the yeomen infantry, supported by regular troops, fought steadily against the foe; while the horsemen, from the nature of the country, uneven with hills, and every where intersected with ditches-their want of proper subordination and discipline, and the facility of escape, were of little use except for patroles or expresses, though their horses were superior to those of the regular cavalry in the traversing of ditches and fields. If these troops had been habituated to dismount and engage on foot with carabines, their service might have been of considerable effect; but, as the matter was, they could hardly ever be brought to a charge on the rebels, or to make a retreat with regularity.

The cause of this error in the institution of armed yeomen, of the appointment of mostly horsemen instead of infantry, so little efficacious for the end proposed, and so oppressive to individuals of the poorer sort, who were obliged to furnish horses at their own expence, and main