ten wounded, most of them mortally. Retiring to Kilcullen bridge, he attacked the enemy, who had followed him thither, with twenty-seven Suffolk infantry in front, who, in three destructive discharges of musketry, discomfited and disA persed the rebels.

In my relation of this affair I by no means intend any censure on the general; nor, if I were not indispensably bound to strict impartiality and truth, would I mention any circumstance, which might be wrested into a sinister sense against one whom I consider as an excellent officer and a worthy man. A mistaken opinion of the force of cavalry against pikemen seems tohave been almost universal until experience brought conviction.

War being now openly commenced by the conspirators, government necessarily proceeded to the strongest measure of coercion. The lord lieutenant issued a proclamation on the 24th, giving notice, that orders were conveyed to all his majesty's general officers in Ireland to punish according to martial law, by death or otherwise, as their judgment should approve, all persons acting, or in any manner assisting, in the rebellion. This proclamation was notified the same day to both houses of parliament, by a message from his excellency, who received in consequence addresses of thanks and approbation from both, The effects of this procedure, the necessity of which marked the calamitous condition of the

country, were quickly felt by great numbers of the lower, and some of the higher classes of the people. An instance of its fatality to the latter immediately occurred on the sanguinary repulse of the rebels at Carlow.

Of the intended surprise of this town, forty miles south-westward from Dublin, the garrison was apprised, both by an intercepted letter, and by the intelligence of lieutenant Roe, of the NorthCork militia, who had observed the peasants as sembling in the vicinity late in the evening of the 24th of May. The garrison, consisting of a body of the ninth dragoons, the light company of the North-Cork militia, under captain Heard, some of the Louth militia, under lieutenant Ogle, the yeoman infantry of Carlow under captains. Burton and Eustace, Sir Charles Burton's yeoman cavalry, and about forty volunteers-the whole about four hundred and fifty in number, under the command of colonel Mahon, of the ninth dragoons, was judiciously distributed at various posts for the reception of the assailants. The plan of assault was ill contrived, or ill executed. Different parties were appointed to enter the town at different avenues; but only one, that which arrived soonest, attempted an entrance, the rest being deterred by the incessant firing of the troops. This body, perhaps amounting to. a thousand or fifteen hundred, assembling at the house of Sir Edward Crosbie, a mile and a half

distant from Carlow, marched into the town at two o'clock of the morning of the 25th of May, with so little precaution as to alarm the garrison at a quarter of a mile's distance, by the discharge of a gun, in the execution of a man who scrupled to accompany them in their enterprise. Shouting as they rushed into Tullow street, with that vain confidence, which is commonly followed by disappointment, that the town was their own, they received so destructive a fire from the garrison, that they recoiled and endeavoured to retreat; but finding their flight intercepted, numbers took refuge in the houses, where they found a miserable exit, these being immediately fired by the soldiery. About eight houses were consumed in this conflagration, and for some days the roasted remains of unhappy men were falling down the chimnies in which they had perished. As about half this column of assailants had arrived within the town, and few escaped from that situation, their loss can hardly be estimated at less than four hundred; while not a man was even wounded on the side of the loyalists.

After the defeat, executions commenced, as elsewhere in this calamitous period, and about two hundred in a short time were hanged or shot, according to martial law. Among the earliest victims were Sir Edward Crosbie, and one Heydon, a yeoman of Sir Charles Burton's troop. The latter is believed to have been the

leader of the rebel column; to have conducted the assailants into the town, and on their ill success to have abandoned them. He had certainly in that crisis taken his place as a yeoman, and joined in the slaughter of the assailants. Sir Edward, at whose house the rebel column had assembled, but who certainly had not accompanied them in their march, was condemned and hanged as an United Irishman. I can say nothing from my own knowledge of this unfortunate baronet, with whom I had never any acquaintance; but his friends have affirmed with truth, that he fell a sacrifice to the confusion which necessarily attends a trial by military law, in the rage of a rebellion; and that his innocence would be manifest if certain circumstances were made public, which they chose to withhold for a time through respect to administration, then dangerously situated. The whole of his guilt could only have consisted in his having given way to a tide of theoretic politics, which many speculative men had not sufficient clearness of judgment to correct, or duplicity to conceal, though they might utterly abhor the consequences of an attempt to reduce these theories to practice by force of arms.

Since the publication of my first edition, a pamphlet has appeared, stiled, "A Narrative of "the Apprehension, Trial, and Execution of Sir "Edward William Crosbie, Bart; in which the

"Innocence of Sir Edward, and the Iniquity of "the Proceedings against him are indubitably "and clearly proved." This publication records one atrocious instance, out of a multitude which occurred, of the abuse of power delegated by the members of administration to inferior actors in a time of lamentable distraction. Protestant loyalists, witnesses in favour of the accused, were forcibly prevented by the military from entering the court. Roman catholic prisoners were tortured by repeated floggings, to force them to give evidence against him, and appear to have been promised their lives upon no other condition than that of his conviction. Notwithstanding all these and other violent measures, no charge was proved against him; of which defect of evidence his judges were so sensible, that, in defiance of an act of parliament, a copy of the proceedings was withheld from his widow and family. The court was irregularly constituted and illegal, destitute of a judge advocate. The execution of the sentence was precipitate, at an unusual hour, and attended with atrocious circumstances, not warranted by the sentence, and reflecting indelible disgrace on the parties concerned. I refer the reader to the pamphlet itself. I insert some papers in the appendix, No. 7.

Sometimes one of those numerous little incidents, which occur in times of civil distraction,