and that shells were thrown at his army with a precision which evinced the operation of some skilful managers. After some discharges of his six-pounder in return, the colonel observing his left flank exposed by the retreat of some of the Taghmon cavalry, the enemy making a motion to surround him, and no appearance of general Fawcet, retired in good order to Wexford, with the loss of lieutenant-colonel Watson killed, and two privates wounded.

The situation of Wexford, commanded by hills, rendered it indefensible against artillery, by a garrison of only six hundred men, when the increasing. number of the rebels at Threerocks amounted to fifteen thousand, beside a strong force left at Enniscorthy. A number of disaffected yeomen deserted to the enemy; many concealed rebels were with good reason suspected to be awaiting within the town an opportunity of co-operating with their associates without; and, to complete the distrust and depression of spirits of the rest of the garrison, the North-Cork militia, who had been stationed near the barrack, quitted their post about half after ten o'clock, directing their march to Duncannon; and were followed immediately, and soon overtaken, by Captain Cornock with his yeoman infantry, who retreated in like manner. *-These considerations

* In excuse of captain Cornock who is generally admitted to have behaved well in the defence of Enniscorthy, his friends

obliged colonel Maxwell to evacuate Wexford; and two deputies, counsellor Richards, and his brother, an apothecary, being sent to notify the evacuation to the rebels, to prevent them from acting as if the town had been taken by storm, the army retreated to the fort of Duncannon, twenty three miles distant, accompanied by such of the loyal inhabitants and refugees from other places as were apprized of the intended evacuation, and were willing and able to perform the march; but, as the troops may be said to have stolen away from the town, great numbers were left in the power of the rebels, merely by their ignorance of an intended retreat.

allege that, seeing the retreat of the North-Cork militia, he thought it a retreat of the whole garrison, and that he was confirmed in that mistake by the erroneous information of a Mr. Jones. But captain Snowe seems to intimate, that the re treat was begun at least as soon by captain Cornock's men as by his. His words are these: (p. 16.) "I was preparing to "march my men back to the barack, when the Scarawalsh "yeomanry, with their officers, and part of the North-Cork, "from the barrack, with an officer and 'serjeant major, ad"vanced to the barrier; the men of the North-Cork at the “barrier immediately joined them, and in spite of my utmost "endeavours, marched out along with them; some even "scaled the breast-work. Here I thought it my duty not to "abandon such a number of men. I therefore took charge "of them, and succeded in keeping them together on "the retreat, and preventing every species of depredation and "violence, not a single instance of which occured, except the "taking of some horses from the adjacent fields, to mount some "of the fainting and worn-out soldiers.”

I am sorry to have to add, that the troops in their progress, on this occasion, through the baronies of Forth and Bargy, are said to have proceeded in such disorder, that in case of pursuit, which was very strenuously advised by one of the chiefs, they might have been destroyed by the rebel army; while by the devastations committed in their way, by the burning of cabins, and shooting of peasants,* they augmented the number and rage of the insurgents-who took possession of Wexford without opposition. A great number of loyalists in the town, who had not escaped with the retreating army, endeavoured to crowd on board the vessels in the harbour, to take refuge in Britain; but of these only a few effected their purpose, for most of the vessels being manned by Romanists, when the town was observed to be in possession of the rebels, returned to the quays from the mouth of the harbour, and relanded their people.

While the southern parts of the county of Wexford were in this horrible state of commotion, the northern, about Gorey, were also frightfully agitated. The retreat, already mentioned, of the yeoman cavalry from Oulart, early on the morn

* I am informed by a respectable gentleman of Wexford, that the yeomen of the retreating army ought to be exempt from this censure; that they behaved to the satisfaction of colonel Colville, who commanded the retreat, and were by him placed in the front.

ing of the 27th of May, to Gorey, was followed by great numbers of people hastening to the town for protection, and carrying what they could of their effects with them; many, however, through terror and precipitation, leaving all behind. As Gorey, consisting only of one street' with a number of lanes, was garrisoned by no more than thirty of the North-Cork militia, under lieutenant Swayne, and a number of yeomen, assisted by an undisciplined crowd, some of whom were armed only with pikes, to abandon the town, and retreat to Arklow, nine miles to the north, in the county of Wicklow, was at first resolved; but afterwards to defend the town was determined, carts and waggons being drawn by way of ramparts across the avenues and the street-the undisciplined men placed at the windows to fire on the approaching enemy, and the disciplined arranged about the centre of the town. In the evening arrived a reinforcement of the Antrim militia, under lieutenant Elliot, an experienced and excellent officer; but as accounts of devastations and murders, received in the course of the day, seemed to indicate the approach of an army of rebels, the apprehensions of whom were rendered far more terrible by the news of the North-Cork militia slaughtered at Oulart, orders were issued to abandon the town, and retire to Arklow at five o'clock on the following morning, the 28th of May.

The Earl of Courtown, who had resolved to defend Gorey, if possible, and who, for want of an adequate force, was obliged to abandon it, had embodied a troop of yeoman cavalry in October, of the year 1796, and had added to it a body of infantry and a considerable number of supplementary men. In other parts of the country, where troops of this kind had been embodied, subscriptions had been raised, and a stock-purse formed, for the defraying of a variety of extraordinary expences; but not a farthing was contributed by the gentlemen in the neighbourhood of Gorey to assist the earl, on whom was thrown the whole expence, and who exerted himself with an uncommon assiduity and activity. As he had performed much in the providing of a force to obviate or suppress rebellion, so his treatment of the common people, by his affable manners, had been always such as was best adapted to produce content in the lower classes, and prevent a proneness to insurrection. I consider myself as bound in strictness of justice to society, thus far to represent the conduct of this nobleman, Doubtless, the people in the neighbourhood of Gorey were the last and least violent of all in the county of Wexford, in rising against the established authority; and certainly the behaviour of the Stopford family in that neighbourhood, toward their inferiors, had always been remarkably conciliating and humane.