was detained on a warrant of the Duke of Portland, on a new charge of high treason. Fortunately for himself, and fortunately too for Ireland, he remained during the next few weeks in prison, and could take no part in the rebellion. The Government were much dissatisfied at the acquittal of O'Connor. Wickham ascribed it mainly to the impression produced by a most scandalous letter which was brought under the notice of the court before the trial began, written by a clergyman named Arthur Young, who confessed that he had come in contact with three men who had been summoned as jurymen in the case, and had urged upon them the transcendent importance of hanging the prisoners. Pollock, who had O'Connor!" In an instant he May 23. A few days later he wrote to Cooke: 'I lament most exceedingly that the hopes I had raised as to the success of the trials should have been so 1 soon disappointed. I am persuaded, feeble as the instrument may appear, that unfortunate letter of Arthur Young's saved the lives of all the prisoners who escaped, and it was a miracle that it did not prove the salvation of Coigly.' (Cooke to Wickham, private, May 26, 1798. R.O.) See, for Young's letter, Gurney's report of the trial, pp. 47, 48. Lord Clare's comment on this is very characteristic, and, I think, very scandalous. I could never see any wisdom or good policy in prancing upon Candour in the face of rebels, and I can't but wish that your Attorney-General as well as ours was less fond of mounting this jaded pony. What business had he to set aside some of his best jurymen because Mr. Young chose to write a foolish rhapsody to one of them?' (Auckland Correspondence, iii. 438, 439.) been sent over on the part of the Irish Government, considered that Leary alone ought to have been acquitted, and he believed that the judge, when charging the jury, had been unconsciously influenced and intimidated by the presence and demeanour of the leading members of the Opposition in Lords and Commons who were ranged before him.1 O'Coigly had been much in Paris, and Wolfe Tone had formed a very unfavourable opinion of his character. The Government had long been well aware that he was steeped in treason, and a full year before his arrest McNally had informed them that he was in Ireland on a political mission, and had reported to them the tenour of his conversation.2 He met his fate with courage and resignation, but asserted his innocence to the last. He was hanged on Penningdon Heath on June 7. The 23rd of May, which was the day appointed for the insurrection, had arrived. The signal was to be the stopping of the mail coaches from Dublin; and although the programme was not fully carried out, those which were going to Belfast, to Athlone, to Limerick, and to Cork, were that night seized. Long before daybreak on the 24th, numerous rebel parties were in arms in the counties of Dublin, Kildare, and Meath. In Kildare, in spite of the stringent measures for disarming the people, the rising was especially formidable, and about 2.30 on the morning of the 24th a party of rebels vaguely estimated at 1,000 men, and commanded by a farmer named Michael Reynolds, whose house had lately been burnt by the soldiers, attempted to surprise and capture the important town of Naas. Lord Gosford, however, who commanded there, had been made aware of their intention, and a party of Armagh Militia with J. Pollock, May 23, 1798. 2 J. W., Feb. 5, 1797. Higgins had been watching O'Coigly shortly before the arrest. (F. H., Jan. 12, 1798.) a detachment of dragoon guards were ready to meet them. Three times the rebels dashed themselves desperately against the troops, who were stationed near the gaol, and three times they were repulsed. They then changed their tactics, took possession of almost every avenue into the town, fought the troops with great intrepidity for nearly three-quarters of an hour, but at last gave way, broke and fled, closely pursued by the cavalry. Hundreds of guns and pikes were brought in, either taken from the dead or cast away by the fugitives in their flight. Four prisoners only were taken, of whom three were hanged in the streets of Naas, while the fourth saved his life by giving valuable information. The loss on the King's side was variously estimated at from fourteen to thirty. Of the rebels, about thirty were believed to have been killed in the streets, and more than one hundred in the flight.' Nearly at the same time, and at a distance of but a few miles from Naas, 300 rebels attacked a small garrison of yeomen and militia at Clane. But though the loyalists were surprised and immensely outnumbered, their captain, Richard Griffith, speedily rallied them, dispersed the rebels by a well-directed fire and pursued them for some distance, killing many, and burning every house in which they took refuge. Six prisoners were taken; one was condemned at the drumhead and shot at Clane; 'the other five were hanged the same day with less ceremony by the soldiers in Naas.' About five in the morning, Griffith brought back his little body of soldiers, and he then learnt a terrible tragedy that had been enacted three miles from Clane. The small town of Prosperous, which was the centre of 1 Camden to Portland, May 24; Lord Gosford to General Lake, May 24, 1798; Gordon's VOL. IV. Hist. of the Rebellion, pp. 74, 75; Musgrave's Rebellions in Ireland (2nd ed.), pp. 233, 234. Y the cotton industry of Ireland, had been garrisoned by forty or fifty of the North Cork Militia under Captain Swayne, and by twenty of the Ancient Britons. In the deadest hour of the early morning the sentinels on guard were surprised and killed. Some soldiers were slaughtered in their beds in the houses in which they were billeted, while the barracks were surrounded and set on fire. Many of the men who were in them perished by the flames or by suffocation. Some sprang from the windows and were caught upon the pikes of the assailants. The remainder tried to cut their way through the enemy, but nearly all perished. A gentleman named Stamer, who was the principal proprietor of Prosperous, and an English gentleman named Brewer, who was a prominent manufacturer, were murdered in cold blood. Several of the party, it is said, were recognised as men who on the very day before the tragedy, had come forward to profess their loyalty, to express contrition for past offences, and to receive protections from Captain Swayne.1 Griffith foresaw that the party from Prosperous would soon attack him, and he at once drew out his small and gallant force in Clane. He had scarcely done so when a great disorderly body of insurgents poured in. their ragged clothes strangely variegated by the scarlet uniforms and glittering helmets taken from soldiers who had perished. The loyalists were vastly outnumbered. but Griffith drew up his force in an advantageous post in the corner of a field where they could not be outflanked, and awaited the attack. The rebels opened a heavy fire, but they were evidently totally unacquainted with the use of firearms, and Musgrave has printed a deposition of one of those who escaped from Prosperous. (Ap pendix xv. Deposition of Thomas Davis.) See, too, Gordon's Hist. of the Rebellion, pp. 72–74. 6 every ball flew high above its mark. A deadly volley from the militia and the yeomen, and a fierce charge, soon put them to flight: Many were killed. "The roads and fields,' writes Griffith, were instantly covered with pikes, pitchforks, sabres and some muskets. Five of the Ancient Britons, whose lives the insurgents had spared and put in the front of the battle on foot, armed only with pikes, deserted to us and gave us the horrid detail of the massacre at Prosperous. We pursued the rebels to near that town, but did not think it prudent to enter it lest we should be fired at from the houses. We therefore returned to Clane, got our men reported, and having put our wounded men on cars proceeded to Naas, whither we had received orders to march.' ous. Before, however, the march began, a very curious incident occurred. When the little force was first called together, many men were absent, and it was noticed that among them was Dr. Esmonde, the first lieutenant. A yeoman had strayed in and privately informed Captain Griffith that this very officer had actually commanded the rebels in the attack on ProsperDr. Esmonde was brother of Sir Thomas Esmonde, the head of a conspicuous Catholic family of Wexford. He had only the Sunday before accompanied Captain Swayne to the chapel at Prosperous to exhort the people to surrender their arms, and it is even said that the very night before his treachery he had dined with his intended victim. He had succeeded in seducing some of the yeomen under his command, and had gone off in the night to lead the rebels. The yeoman who gave the information had been of the party, but his mind misgave him, and he escaped in the darkness. Griffith had but just received this startling information, and his force was drawn out for leaving Clane, when Esmonde himself rode in, his hair dressed, his boots and breeches quite clean, and himself fully |