had just made a rapid march from Limerick with 600 men, proceeded with his force to receive the weapons. Unfortunately, a gun was fired from the rebel ranks. According to the most probable account, it was fired into the air by a rebel, who foolishly boasted that he would only deliver his gun empty. Instantly, a deadly volley was poured by the troops into the rebels, who fled in wild panic and disorder, fiercely pursued by Lord Jocelyn's Foxhunters. The officers lost all control over their men. In the vast and open plain, defence and escape were alike impossible; and although General Dundas, on hearing what had occurred, hastened to do all that was possible to arrest the slaughter, between 200 and 300 men were killed. The affair was plausibly, though untruly, represented as a deliberate plot to massacre defenceless men, who had been lured by the promise of pardon into the plain; and it contributed, perhaps, more than any other single cause, to check the disposition to surrender arms. Its bad effects must have been much aggravated by the language used in the House of Commons, where the clemency of Dundas was vehemently denounced, and where a vote of thanks was moved to Sir James Duff. An incident, which occurred at this time, illustrates vividly the extreme recklessness with which human life was now treated in Ireland. A very excellent Kildare Protestant clergyman, named Williamson, fell into the hands of the rebels. The intercession of a Catholic priest saved his life, and he was preserved as a prisoner. He was recaptured by the loyalists, who at once and without trial proceeded to hang him as a rebel. happened that his brother-in-law was an officer in the regiment, and by this chance alone his life was saved.1 It 1 Compare Gordon, pp. 84-86; Plowden, ii. 706-709; Musgrave, pp. 263, 264. If a French force of disciplined soldiers had arrived in Ireland at the beginning of the outbreak, or even if without that arrival the rebel plot for seizing Dublin and the Irish Executive had succeeded, the rebellion would very probably for a time at least have triumphed, and Ireland might have passed out of English rule. Neither of these things had happened, and the one remaining chance of the rebels lay in a simultaneous rising, extending over all parts of the island. Such a rising was part of the scheme of the original leaders, and if their plans had not been dislocated by their arrest, it might have taken place. As yet, however, the rebellion had only appeared in a small part of Leinster. Connaught was perfectly peaceful. In Munster, though some pikes were captured, and some slight disorders appeared near Cork and Limerick, there was no semblance of regular rebellion.1 Above all, Ulster, where the conspiracy had begun, where its organisation was most perfect, and where its outbreak was most dreaded, was absolutely passive, and remained so for a full fortnight after the rebellion began. The plan of 16 Sir James Stuart informs me that the South of Ireland is yet quiet, but the dissatisfaction remains, and no discoveries have been made from a real repentance, but have all been forced by severity.' (Camden to Portland, June 2, 1798.) Some discoveries, which were regarded as very important, were made at this time by a young man, who was said to be a confidential friend of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and he stated that 4,000 French were expected to land on the Cork coast in the course of this week. Cooke wrote that leaders of the United Irishmen had been arrested at Limerick, Cork, Kinsale, and West Meath, and that 1,500 pikes had been given up near Cork. (Cooke to Wickham, June 2, 1790.) Several persons were flogged, and some, it appears, hanged, about this time at Cork and Limerick. (Saunders's Newsletter, June 12, 16, 1798.) Some small bodies of rebels appeared in arms in the southwestern part of the county of Cork about June 19, but they were put down with little difficulty in a few days. (Gordon, pp. 163, 164.) the rebellion had been wholly frustrated. The expected capture of Dublin had failed. The desertion of the Catholic militia, which had been fully counted on, had not taken place, and the forces on the side of the Government had displayed an unexpected energy. The Irish yeomanry have been much and justly blamed by historians for their want of discipline, for their extreme recklessness in destroying both life and property, and for the violent religious passions they too frequently displayed. But if their faults were great, their merits were equally conspicuous. To their patriotic energy, to their ceaseless vigilance, to the courage with which they were always ready to encounter armed bodies, five or even ten times as numerous as themselves, the suppression of the rebellion was mainly due. But the flame had no sooner begun to burn low in the central counties, than it burst out with redoubled fierceness in Wicklow and Wexford, and soon acquired dimensions which taxed all the energies of the Government. Its In neither county was it fully expected. Wicklow was one of the most peaceful and most prosperous counties in Ireland. It possessed a large and very respectable resident gentry. The condition of its farmers and labourers was above the average, and it had always been singularly free from disturbance and outrage. proximity to Dublin, however, made it peculiarly open to the seductions of the United Irishmen, and it is said that, from an early period of the movement, a party among the Wicklow priests had favoured the conspiracy.1 The organisation spread so seriously, that some districts were proclaimed in November 1797.2 There was no branch of the Orange Society in the county of Wicklow, but the yeomanry force in this county is said to have 'See Burdy's History of Ireland, p. 498. taken a peculiarly sectarian character, for the strenuous and successful efforts of the United Irishmen to prevent the Catholics from enlisting in it, made it necessary to fill the ranks with Protestants of the lowest order. Having thus succeeded in making the armed force mainly Protestant, the conspirators industriously spread reports that the Orangemen were about to massacre the Catholics, and were supported and instigated by the Government. I have already noticed the maddening terror which such rumours produced, and a Catholic historian states, that in this county not once only, but on several occasions, the whole Catholic population for the extent of thirty miles deserted their homes, and slept in the open air, through the belief that the armed Protestants were about to sweep down upon them to massacre them, or at least to expel them from the county.' By these means a population with very little interest in political questions were scared into rebellion; the conspiracy took root and spread, and the methods of repression that were adopted soon completed the work. The burning of houses, often on the most frivolous grounds, the floggings of suspected individuals, the insults to women, and all the many acts of violence, plunder, brutality, and oppression, that inevitably follow when undisciplined forces, drawn mainly from the lowest classes of society, are suffered to live at free quarters upon a hostile population, lashed the people to madness. I have quoted from the autobiography of Holt the remarkable passage, in which that Wicklow rebel declared how foreign were political and legislative grievances from the motives that turned him into a rebel, and the persecution of those who fell under suspicion was by no means confined to the poor. We have seen a striking example of this in the treatment of Reynolds in the 1 Plowden, ii. 714-716. county of Kildare. Grattan himself lived in the county of Wicklow, but fortunately he was detained in England, during the worst period of martial law, by the postponement of the trial of O'Connor; his family, however, found themselves exposed to so many insults, and even dangers, that they took refuge in Wales.1 A great part of the Ancient Britons were quartered in the county of Wicklow, and these Welsh soldiers appear to have everywhere aroused a deeper hatred than any others who were employed in Ireland. Some time before the rebellion began, those who knew the people well perceived that a dangerous movement was on foot. A general indisposition to pay debts of any kind, or fulfil any engagements; a marked change in the manner of the people; mysterious meetings by night; vague but persistent rumours, pointing to some great coming change; signal fires appearing frequently upon the hills; busy strangers moving from cottage to cottage, all foreshadowed the storm. There was also a sudden cessation of drinking; a rapid and unnatural abatement of the usual turbulence at fairs or wakes, which, to those who knew Ireland well, was very ominous.2 The adjoining county of Wexford was also one of the most prosperous in Ireland. Land sold there at an unusually high price. It had a considerable and intelligent resident gentry, and in general the peasantry were comfortably situated, though there were some 1 Grattan's Life, iv. 377-382. 2 Holt's Memoirs, i. 20-24. 3 Hay's History of the Rebellion in Wexford (ed. 1803), pp. 12, 14. This writer is a violent partisan of the rebels. Some of the Wexford magistrates obtained during the rebellion, and in the weeks of martial law that preceded it, a reputation for ex 3 treme violence; but it is remarkable that, even in the fiercely partisan accounts of the rebel historians, several of them are spoken of with respect, and even affection. Lord Courtown, Mr. Turner, Mr. Carew, and Mr. Pounden (who was afterwards killed at the head of the yeomanry at Enniscorthy), evidently |