fect in Ireland, fearing fuch cruelties in cafe of infurrection, and confirmed in this fear by papers found in the pockets of fome prifoners, containing fome of the old fanguinary doctrines of the Romish church, which authorifed the extermination of heretics, acted with a spirit ill fitted to allay religious hatred, or to prevent a proneness to rebel. How far the affurances, conveyed through Earl Mountnorris, of the loyalty, or peaceable intentions, of the Romanists inhabiting the county of Wexford, was the cause of that fatal fecurity in government, fatal to the lives and properties of thousands, on account of which this county was left in fo defenfelefs a condition, I am not authorifed to pronounce. Doubtlefs to excite fo violent an irritation by floggings, imprisonments, and a variety of infults, without fufficient means to enforce obedience, appears to have been an unfortunate miftake, as was that of the inftitution of yeoman cavalry inftead of infantry. I have not the leaft doubt that of the latter a force might have been raised within the county of Wexford fufficient to crush the rebellion in its commencement in this part of Ireland. Whether an infurrection would in the then exifting state of the kingdom have taken place in the county of Wexford, or, in cafe of its eruption, how much less formidable and fanguinary it would have been, if no acts of feverity had been committed by the foldiery, the yeomen, or their fup.. plementary affociates, without the direct autho rity rity of their fuperiors, or command of the magiftrates, is a queftion which I am not able pofitively to answer. In the neighbourhood of Gorey, if I am not mistaken, the terror of the whippings was in particular fo great, that the people would have been extremely glad to renounce for ever all notions of oppofition to government, if they could have been affured of permiffion to remain in a ftate of quietnefs. As an inftance of this terror I fhall relate the following fact. On the morning of the 23d of May, a labouring man, named Dennis M'Daniel, came to my houfe, with looks of the utmost confternation and dismay, and confeffed to me that he had taken the United Irishman's oath, and had paid for a pike with which he had not yet been furnished, nineteen pence halfpenny, to one Kilty a fmith, who had adminiftered the oath to him and many others. While I fent my eldest fon, who was a lieutenant of yeomanry, to arrest Kilty, I exhorted M'Daniel to furrender himfelf to a magiftrate and make his confeffion; but this he pofitively refufed, faying that he should in that cafe be lashed to make him produce a pike which he had not, and to confefs what he knew not. I then advifed him, as the only alternative, to remain quietly at home, promifing, that, if he fhould be arrefted on the information of others, I would reprefent his ease to the magiftrates. He took my advice, but the fear of arreft and lafhing had fo taken poffeffion of his thoughts, that he could neither eat nor fleep, and on the morning of the 25th, he fell on his face and expired in a little grove near my house. Whatever might have been the state of affairs with different management, the ftandard of rebellion, after an apparently paffive fubmiffion, was at laft hoifted between Gorey and Wexford, on the night of the 26th of May, by John Murphy, Romish priest of Boulavogue, commonly known by the denomination of Father John, as in the fouth of Ireland the title of father is commonly prefixed to the name of each prieft. This man, who was coadjutor, or affistant curate, of the parish priest, was a man of fhallow intellect, a fanatic in religion, and, from the latter circumftance, too well qualified to inflame the fuperftitious minds of the ignorant multitude. In an attempt to disperse a body of the infurgents, at the head of a part of his troop, Thomas Bookey, a brave young man, first lieutenant of the Camolin cavalry, was killed, as he incautioufly advanced before his men to harangue the rebels; and his house, about feven miles from Gorey, was burned. From this commencement of hoftility the commotion spread rapidly on all fides; and the collection of rebel parties was greatly promoted by the reports diffeminated of numbers of people fhot in the roads, at work in the fields, and even in their houfes, unarmed and unoffending, by ftraggling parties of yeomen. Influenced by these reports, which were not without fome foundation, great numbers took refuge with their friends in armis, infomuch that, on the following morning of Whit Sunday, Sunday, the 27th of May, two large bodies were collected, one on the hill of Oulart, nearly midway between Gorey and Wexford, about eleven miles to the fouth of the former; the other on Kilthomas hill, an inferior ridge of Slyeeve-Bwee mountain, about nine miles weftward of Gorey. Each, especially that of Oulart, where the number of combatants was less than at Kilthomas, was a confused multitude of both fexes and all ages.. Against the latter body of infurgents, confifting of two or three thousand men in arms, marched a body of yeomen on the fame morning between two and three hundred in number, infantry and cavalry, from the neighbouring town of Carnew, in the county of Wicklow. The infantry of this little army, or corps of Shillela yeomen, flanked at a confiderable diftance on the left by the cavalry, advanced intrepidly up the hill against the rebels, who were pofted on the fummit. The latter, if they had been fenfible of their advantage, and known how to improve it, might, as has appeared by subsequent events, have furrounded and deftroyed this little body of brave men; but they were ftruck with a panic, and fled, after a few discharges of mufketry from the yeomen, at too great a distance to make any confiderable execu. tion. About a hundred and fifty of the rebels were killed in the purfuit, and the yeomen, exafperated by the death of lieutenant Bookey, and other violent acts, burned two Romish chapels, and about a hundred cabins and farm-houses of Romanifts, in the course of seven miles march. The The event of battle was very different, on the fame day, on the hill of Oulart, where Father John commanded. A detachment of a hundred and ten chosen men of the North-Cork militia, under the command of lieutenant colonel Foote, marched from Wexford, and attacked the rebels on the fouthern fide of the hill. Such contempt of an enemy, as creates incaution, has often proved fatal. The rebels fled at the firft onset, and were pursued at full speed by the militia, whe were fo little apprehenfive of refiftance, that no rank or order was obferved. While the rebels were making their escape with precipitation toward the northern fide of the hill, they were admonished that a large body of cavalry had been seen that morning advancing against them in the oppofite direction, apparently with defign to intercept their flight, or co-operate with the militia in a double attack. As the Wexfordian infurgents as yet were totally unacquainted with warfare, the onset of cavalry was in the imaginations of many among them more terrible than that of infantry. They therefore ignorantly fuppofing the cavalry to be still in their neighbourhood, while Father John exclaimed that they muft either conquer or perish, turned against the militia, who were now arrived near the fummit, almoft breathlefs; and charging them with their pikes, killed almost in an inftant all of the detachment, except the lieutenant colonel, a ferjeant and three privates. If we may believe the accounts of fome of the infurgents engaged in this butchery, no more than |