was gradually collected from different quarters, which almoft furrounded the rebel ftation. The 21ft of June was destined for the grand attack. A column, under general Johnson, began the fight by an affault upon the town of Enniscorthy, fituated upon the right bank of the Slaney, immediately under the hill, at the base of which that beautiful ftream flows in a winding channel. Three other columns, under the generals Dundas, Duff, and Needham, afcended the mountain in different directions. The rebels maintained their ground obftinately for an hour and a half; but, on perceiving the danger of being furrounded, they fled with great precipitation, part of them flying to the mountains of Wicklow, and part to the chain of hills feparating the counties of Carlow and Wexford. Being pursued with vigor, and no quarter given, they sustained immense loss; while of the king's troops the whole number of killed, wounded, and prifoners, was fomething less than a hundred, ---a surprising proof of the superiority of skill and discipline over mere unenlightened courage.

General Lake,

Wexford was evacuated the next day. in his public dispatch of that date, affirms, that general Moore had entered the place fo opportunely as to prevent it from being laid in afhes; and, which was ftill more interefting, the premeditated maffacre of the remaining prifoners--eighty-fix perfons having been murdered by them the preceding day, military mufic attending and playing a dead march, and their bodies, pierced with pikes, thrown over the bridge. Other horrible cruelties were also committed by the rebels on the Proteftants of that vicinity; and, previous to their retreat from New Rofs, it is faid, in particular, that pofitive orders were iffued by one of the rebel commanders, Murphy, a priest, to set fire to a large barn at Scollobogue, fome miles diftant, where a very confiderable number of their prisoners, including women and children, were confined, in order to prevent their

efcape

efcape-and all perished, amidst furrounding fhouts of favage exultation.

Harvey, the rebel general, who had expreffed fome difapprobation of these enormities, was divested of his command after the battle of Rofs; and their leaders were chofen from the moft barbarous and bigoted of their own fect. Having been fuffered to abfcond, this unhappy man, who saw and acknowledged his error when too late, fought to conceal himself in a cave upon one of the rocky islands which lie near the entrance of Wexford-harbour. But being discovered, he was immediately tried by a court-martial, and convicted; and with divers other perfons, executed June the 26th, on the bridge of Wexford. On the fame day a large body of the rebels, with the bloody bigot father Murphy at their head, who had escaped from Vinegar-hill, were defeated by general fir Charles Afgill, at Kilconnel,confiderably more than a thousand men being killed on the spot, with trifling lofs on the part of the king's troops. Murphy was foon after taken in his flight, and most deservedly hanged.

Whatever might be the fond and delufive hopes entertained by the comparatively very small number of rebel chieftains, who, uninfected by the contagion of religious phrenfy, had embraced the new doctrines of liberty, equality, and universal fraternization, it immediately appeared, upon the breaking-out of this fanguinary rebellion, how utterly unable they were to inspire the bulk of their ignorant, ferocious, and brutal followers with fentiments of common humanity, or to restrain them within the limits of law, equity, or juftice. The generality of the priests who appeared openly in this rebellion took the utmost pains to diffuse, as widely as poffible, the malignant fpirit of religi ous bigotry and inveterate animofity against the Proteftants, very few of whom were found in the ranks of the rebel army. Those who had been imprudent enough to enter were either obliged carefully to conceal their religion, or fubmit

to

to be re-baptized by the priests, who were continually preaching up, that, in deftroying heretics, they were per forming a duty to heaven. Murphy, one of the most popular and profligate of this class, in a sermon delivered by him after the defeat at Rofs, declared, "that those who were killed in that battle had fallen in confequence of their want of faith-that this general rifing of the Catholics was vifibly the work of God-that the Almighty had determined the heretics, after having reigned fo many years, fhould be now extirpated, and the true Catholic religion established." At the fuccefsful attack at Three-Rocks, previous to the furrender of Wexford, the fame Murphy marched at their head, telling them "not to fear; for if they took up the duft from the roads, and threw it at the king's troops, they would fall dead before them." Many of the priests pretended to give charms to prevent the balls of the soldiery from hurting them; and father Roche, one of the number (as was believed by these poor credulous wretches) did constantly catch the bullets that came from his majesty's army in his hand.* Such were the base materials with which the rafh and presumptuous leaders of this rebellion hoped to construct, in the room of the exifting government, a pure and perfect fabric of uncontaminated democracy! Certainly, a more crude, wild, and visionary project, never entered into the head or heart of man. It must not, however, be fuppofed, that the higher descriptions of Catholics, whether ecclefiaftical or civil, were in any degree implicated in this atrocious revolt, and much lefs that they approved of the mode of conducting it. On the contrary, the whole body of the Catholic prelacy, comprehending the twentytwo titular bishops and archbishops, with the lords Fingal, Southwell, Gormanstown, and Kenmare, fir Edward Bellew, fir Thomas Burke, &c. &c. figned and published a

paper,

* Vide Report of the Irish Houfe of Commons."-Alfo " Appendix to Jackson's Narrative."

paper, containing a very strong diffuafive from joining in the rebellion, and exhortation to all who were concerned in it to return to their allegiance,-declaring, that, by refufing to relinquish the treasonable plans in which they are engaged, they will not only fubject themselves to the lofs of life and property, but throw on the religion, of which they profefs to be advocates, the most indelible stain.”

After the great defeat at Enniscorthy, the rebels were never able to rally, or to appear again in any confiderable force in the fouthern parts of the kingdom. In the north, where general Nugent commanded, the infurrection became general throughout the counties of Down and Antrim. The town of Antrim was for a fhort time in the poffeffion of the rebels, but they were, on the 7th of June, driven out of that place after a sharp engagement and cannonade. In this action lord O'Neil received a dangerous wound, of which he afterwards died. On the 12th of the fame month their main force, amounting at moft to 6 or 7,000 men, was attacked and totally defeated at Ballynahinch. A party of the rebels also were repulfed at Carrickfergus; and, in a short time, the generality of the infurgents laid down their arms, and the tranquillity of Ulfter was reftored.*

Though

"The horrible cruelties," fays a certain writer, zealous in the cause of government," exercised by the great body of the rebels in Leinster, on the Proteftants, foon alarmed the few Diffenters, confederates of the Romish infurgents in the north. They immediately saw into the real design of their new allies; and withdrawing themselves from a confpiracy, which they clearly perceived would in its fuccefs be attended with their own deftruction, all projects of rebellion vanished in the province of Ulfter. Rebellion there was but partially entertained; it never had very numerous partizans; and the flame, thus feeble, was easily quenched, never to be re-kindled.The great strength of the rebellion lay in the province of Leinster. The whole mass of the Romish inhabitants of the counties of Wicklow, Wexford, Kildare, and Carlow, rofe at once. Many inhabitants of the adjacent counties, particularly of Meath and Dublin, of the fame religious perfuafion, joined them. Their number in arms at one time amounted to upwards of

50,000

of

Though no diffatisfaction was expreffed at the conduct of lord Camden, it was deemed proper by the English cabinet, that, in the existing circumstances, Ireland should be placed under the government of a military lord-lieutenant, who might, nevertheless, be of a temper less obdurate than the present viceroy ;-and an happy choice was made in the perfon of the marquis Cornwallis, who arrived in Dublin on the 20th of June; and under his aufpices the general system government immediately changed to that of moderation and lenity. Some severe examples were, however, deemed abfolutely neceffary; and a special commiffion was, in a hort time, opened in Dublin for the trial of the principal delinquents. At the bar of this court the brothers, John and Henry Sheares; M'Can, fecretary to the provincial meeting; and O'Byrne, a noted member of the United Affociation; were all tried and executed. Mr. Oliver Bond was likewife tried on the 23d of July, convicted and condemned; and in his fate the other confpirators now began to read and foresee their own.

The rebellion was by this time apparently crushed: the people were every-where returning to their allegiance, and delivering up their arms. Their hopes from France had been miferably disappointed, and nothing appeared before their eyes but individual destruction, without having effected any one purpose for which they had affociated. In thefe circumstances it was intimated, on the part of government, that if Mr. Bond would confent to give to administration all the information of which he was poffeffed, relative to the late confpiracy and rebellion, his fentence might be commuted for that of banishment. This propofition was

nobly

50,000 men. Confiding in this strength, they did not think it neceffary to conceal their designs of extirpating the Proteftants: -the excision of all heretics they, on the contrary, proclaimed to be their object and intention and evinced by their actions the fincerity of this declaration."

DUIGENAN's Reprefentation of the Political State of Ireland.