defeat of Walpole, and the formidable assault of Ross. If, however, these Wexfordians had improved without delay the advantages for which they were in a considerably degree indebted, at first to the smallness and mismanagement, and afterwards to the mismanagement alone, of the troops or force opposed to them, they would doubtless have been joined by most at least of the Romanists of the neighbouring counties, and the consequences would, in all probability have been calamitous in the extreme to the south of Ireland at least. Of this we might be able to form some conception from the miseries occasioned by the short-lived rebellion, of which I have been treating, in the territories immediately affected by it. Of these miseries I have already treated so far as my plan allowed, and have observed that those, which loyalists underwent, arose not always from rebels alone. I shall only add at present, that the system of espionage, or the encouragement and reception of private information, with the utter concealment of the names of the informers, from the persons accused, which system had from a most lamentable necessity, been adopted by government before the rebellion, was, without any necessity that I can perceive, continued by some after its suppression. How far the supposition or imputation of disloyalty against persons possessed of any valuable effects, might have been profitable to needy or greedy dependants of any general officer, I mean not at present to examine. The disclosure of certain facts I defer to another opportunity. I shall here give only one instance of the consequences of this late espionage-an instance which could, I believe, have had no connexion with profit to the receivers of information, but which may serve to shew that even active loyalty could not secure a man against private malice, in the district of Gorey for a certain time:-Captain Atkins, of Emma-vale, near Arklow, who, at no small trouble and expence, had embodied and disciplined a troop of yeoman cavalry, and had exerted himself greatly in support of government, was, without any known cause, most disgracefully deprived of his command by a general officer, and dismissed from the service of his king and and country! This worthy gentleman strained every nerve to procure a court-martial to examine his conduct; and, after a length of time, succeeded, by the powerful interest of a nobleman, in spite of the most artful evasions. On his trial, captain Atkins (to whom, for the killing of the ravager Hacket, the public is more indebted than to some general officers) was most honourably acquitted, as no charge could be produced against him, CHAP. VI. French Invasion-Killala-Ballina-Castlebar-Battle Conclusion. - SUCH usage might seem calculated to convert Irish loyalists into rebels; but not even the extremity of maltreatment could produce this effect on protestants, who were convinced that their existence must terminate with that of the government, and who might rather choose, if dire necessity should so require, to die by the hands of the royal soldiery, which was the case with too many, than by those of their unfortunately bigotted countrymen. This attachment of the Irish protestants to the British government was little known in France, where the directory, and the nation in general, had been persuaded, by the commissioners of the united conspiracy, into a belief of so universal a disaffection in Ireland, that, on the appearance of a powerful armament from France on its coasts, the whole country would rise in arms to aid its efforts for the subversion of the British government in this island. The neglect of attempting, in this prepossession of mind, to send succours to the Irish insurgents, while the Wexfordian rebels were in force, is a proof that (most fortunately for the British empire) the government of France was then very feebly administered. If, according to the advice of lord Edward Fitzgerald, the French directory had sent a number of swift vessels to different parts of the coast, with officers, troops, arms, and ammunition, some of them very probably might have eluded the vigilance of the British cruisers, and landed the succours; which must, by inspiriting the rebels, have greatly augmented their force, independently of the actual accession of strength by the council of accomplished leaders, and the prowess of trained soldiers. What effects might thus have been produced, we may in some degree conjecture from the impression made on the kingdom by a contemptibly small body of French troops, landed after the complete suppression of the rebels, in a part of the island quite remote from the scene of rebel lion, and until then exhibiting no signs of disaffection. This was the ill-timed expedition of general Humbert, who, on the 22nd of August, two months after the dislodgment of the rebels from the county of Wexford, landed at the bay of Killala, in the county of Mayo, with a thousand and thirty private soldiers, and seventy officers, from three frigates, two of forty-four, and one of thirty-eight guns-which had sailed from Rochelle on the 4th of the same month, with design to invade the county of Donegal, in which they were frustrated by contrary winds. The garrison of Killala, consisting of only fifty men, of whom thirty were yeomen, the rest fensible soldiers of the prince of Wales's regiment, after a vain attempt to oppose the entrance of the French vanguard, between seven and eight o'clock in the evening, fled with precipitation, leaving two of their number dead, and their two officers prisoners (lieutenant Sills, of the fensibles, and captain Kirkwood, of the yeomen) together with nineteen privates. To compensate, as far as possible, by the vigour of his operations, for the smallness of his number, seems to have been an object with the French general. He sent on the next morning toward Balliná, a small town situate seven miles to the * In this name the accent is laid on the last syllable. |