Chapter LIII: And Last (6)

On the night preceding the 18th of May it was arranged that Lord Edward, the hero and hope of the movement, now on the eve of being declared openly, should resume his residence with Murphy in Thomas Street, and he set out, accordingly, under a strong escort of his followers. One of those affrays, of common occurrence in those days of terror--which this popular escort seemed destined to attract--resulted.

It is quite evident from this occurrence that his betrayal was already complete. Of Lord Edward’s intended movements Sirr, the Dublin town-major, had received certain information; and this officer was on the spot, ready prepared to stultify the plans of the conspirators. Sirr had with him a party for the purpose, and as either of two streets would have conducted Lord Edward to his destination, the town-major divided his myrmidons,--one section occupied Wading Street, the other was posted in Dirty Lane.

A similar precaution happened to be adopted by Lord Edward’s escort; there consequently ensued in both these streets a conflict between the parties. In the street affair John McCabe, a very active member of the United Irishmen, was seized and made a prisoner; he was afterwards tried, convicted, and executed. Lord Edward, by a miracle, was left free for the moment. Sirr, bearing the brunt of the struggle, found his opponents overstrong, and was nearly losing his life. In defending himself with a sword, which he had snatched from one of his assailants, he lost his footing and fell; and had not those with whom he was engaged in a hand-to-hand scuffle been much more occupied with their noble charge than with him, Sirr could hardly have escaped. A pistol or two was snapped at the fallen officer, and the group passed on with Lord Edward to Murphy’s.

The house was under surveillance. On the morning following, evidently the eve of the insurrection, the generalissimo of the United Irishmen’s uniform--dark green, faced with scarlet--was delivered by an old woman to Murphy. This ‘his already nervous host’ concealed under goat-skins in his warehouse. At noon a party of soldiers suddenly entered the street, and suspiciously halted before Moore’s house, the man who had formerly sheltered Lord Edward. Alarmed for the safety of his guest, the feather merchant conveyed him by a trap door to the roof of his warehouse, and in one of the valleys which ran between the houses.

Lord Edward remained for two or three hours, until the alarm had subsided, and the soldiers had left the street.

At the usual hour dinner was served, and Neilson, a constant and most imprudent visitor, was invited to join Murphy and his noble guest. The cloth ‘had not been many minutes removed, when Neilson, as if suddenly recollecting something, hurried out of the room and left the house; shortly after which, Mr. Murphy, seeing that his guest was not inclined to drink any wine, went downstairs. In a few minutes, however, returning, he found that his lordship had, in the interim, gone to his bedroom, and, on following him thither, saw him lying without his coat upon the bed. There had now elapsed, from the time of Neilson’s departure, not more than ten minutes, and it is asserted that he had, in going out, left the hall door open.’

At this moment Major Sirr, who had but just received an intimation from the Castle of the place where Lord Edward was concealed, proceeded in hackney-coaches to arrest him, attended by eight soldiers in coloured clothes, and accompanied by Captains Swan and Ryan. While Sirr was disposing the soldiers below to prevent any chance of escape, Swan hurried upstairs, entered the apartment, and, approaching the bed, told Lord Edward that he was a prisoner. Lord Edward jumped out of bed, and Swan, perceiving that he was determined on resistance, snapped, or, as others say, discharged a pistol ineffectually, and then closing with his antagonist, both rolled upon the bed. In the struggle which ensued Lord Edward stabbed his opponent on the hand and body repeatedly, when Ryan entered the chamber and rushed to the assistance of his companion, lunging at Lord Edward with a cane-sword, which, however, turned on the ribs, and only inflicted a flesh wound. All three fell on the floor together; in the _mêlée_ which followed Ryan received a mortal stab, and when Sirr entered he found Lord Edward on his feet endeavouring to reach the door, while Swan and Ryan held on desperately by the legs to prevent it. Threatened as he was with a fate similar to his companions, Sirr had no alternative but to fire, and aiming his pistol deliberately, he lodged the contents in Lord Edward’s right arm near the shoulder. The wound for a moment staggered him; but as he again rallied, and was pushing towards the door, Major Sirr called up the soldiers, and so desperate were the captive’s struggles that they found it necessary to lay their firelocks across him before he could be disarmed or bound so as to prevent further mischief. Clearly the powers would have preferred to take this unfortunate and embarrassing prisoner dead--the history of the affair makes this evident--three attempts all more or less deliberate had been made on the captive’s life in the short encounter.

An eminent surgeon was immediately brought to the assistance of the wounded men; Ryan’s injury was pronounced the most dangerous--he had commenced his share in the affray by attempting to run their captive through the body. Swan’s wounds, though numerous, were not severe, and on examination Dr. Adreen expressed an opinion that Lord Edward’s were not mortal. The surgeon’s communication elicited a brief but significant remark, ‘I am sorry, doctor, to hear it’!

On the arrival of a cavalry picket and the Rainsford Street guard the wounded men were removed, and Lord Edward was taken to the Castle in a sedan, and carried into the office of the Secretary of the War Department. On his arrest being communicated to Lord Camden, orders were given that the State surgeon should instantly examine and dress his wounds; while with a feeling honourable to his well-known humanity, the Viceroy transmitted by his own secretary a private message to the noble prisoner, giving him an assurance of receiving every indulgence consistent with personal safety. The message was conveyed by Mr. Watson, whose account of the melancholy interview is graphic and interesting. ‘I found Lord Edward leaning back on a couple of chairs, his arm extended, and supported by the surgeon, who was dressing the wound. His countenance was pallid, but serene; and when I told him, in a low voice, not to be overheard, my commission from the Lord Lieutenant, and that I was going to break the intelligence of what had occurred to Lady Edward, asking him, with every assurance of my fidelity and secrecy, whether there was any confidential communication he wished to be made to her ladyship, or whether I could undertake any other act of personal kindness in his service, he answered merely, but collectedly, “No, no, thank you--nothing, nothing--only break it to her tenderly.”’

After a delay of several hours, during which time his wounds had been carefully attended to, Lord Edward was removed to Newgate under a strong military guard, and placed in Lord Aid-borough’s room. As the carriage and escort passed from the Castle to the prison, the countenances and demeanour of the disaffected indicated how deeply they felt the loss of the leader on whom they had placed so much dependence. To attempt a rescue was determined, and, in full assurance that the effort would be made, the garrison remained under arms throughout the night.

On the 31st of May Captain Ryan died of his wounds, but it was considered, though the heat of the weather was against him, that Lord Edward would recover. Attended by a kind-hearted militia officer named Stone, and constantly visited by the State surgeon, there is no doubt that the severity attendant on his confinement as imputed to the authorities was exaggerated.

Lord Edward lingered to the 1st June, when his wounds assumed an unhealthy appearance and fever set in; the death of Captain Ryan had transpired, and the knowledge that his victim was no more added poignant sorrow to a mind already excited too seriously. It is said that the confusion and noise attending on the execution of a young man named Clinch increased this mental irritation. On the 2nd of June Lord Edward became delirious, and the attendance of a keeper from a mad-house was deemed necessary. On the 3rd reason returned, but his strength had sunk completely. The authorities gave a tardy consent for his brother and sister to visit him, a concession Lord Clare had seen fit to withhold until the last. Lady Louisa Conolly relates they saw he was cast for death--‘The two dear brothers frequently embraced each other, to the melting of a heart of stone; and yet God enabled both Henry and myself to remain quite composed. As every one left the room we told him we only were with him. He said, “That is very pleasant.” However, he remained silent, and I then brought in the subject of Lady Edward, and told him I had not left her until I saw her on board; and Henry told him of having met her on the road well. He said, “And the children, too? She is a charming woman,” and then became silent again. That expression about Lady Edward proved to me that his senses were much lulled, and that he did not feel his situation to be what it was; but, thank God! they were enough alive to receive pleasure from seeing his brother and me. Dear Henry, in particular, he looked at continually with an expression of pleasure.’

Immediately after Lord Henry and his sister had taken leave convulsions came on violently, and at two o’clock in the morning of the 4th, a gallant, generous, and enthusiastic spirit--would that it had been better directed I--parted.

After an inquest the body was interred in the cemetery of St. Werburgh, the funeral being conducted as privately as possible to prevent any exhibition of popular feeling, which, had it been more public, would have been certain to occur.

[[[ARREST OF THE BROTHERS SHEARES]]]

|The capture of Lord Edward on the eve of the rebellion was followed by the arrest of the brothers Sheares; and had the Government required documentary evidence to establish the ruthless spirit with which the ends of the conspiracy would have been carried out, a military memoir found in the writing-desk of the ill-directed young nobleman, and a sanguinary manifesto in the handwriting of John Sheares, and discovered in the house of his brother Henry, would have been amply sufficient. Lord Edward’s document was purely military, and, although highly mischievous, it was defensible; but the proclamation to be issued on the 24th of May betrayed a ferocity of intention which no circumstances could palliate. Every paragraph seemed traced in blood; and while the sanguinary course of action which it inculcated deprived the unhappy author of that sympathy which his fate might have otherwise obtained, those who would rescue his memory from the odium of savage purpose have wisely grounded its defence upon the only pardonable excuse--insanity.

[[[JOHN SHEARES’ BLOODTHIRSTY MANIFESTO]]]

|This explosive manifesto had been prepared in anticipation that the sanguinary programme laid down for the 23rd of May, the outbreak of the rebellion in the capital, had been successfully carried out to its reckless sequel:--

‘Irishmen, your country is free, and you are about to be avenged. That vile Government, which has so long and so cruelly oppressed you, is no more. Some of its most atrocious masters _have already paid the forfeit of their lives_, and the rest are in our hands. The national flag, the _sacred green_, is at this moment flying over the ruins of despotism!

‘As for those degenerate wretches who turn their swords against their native country, the national vengeance awaits them. _Let them find no quarter_, unless they shall prove their repentance by speedily exchanging the standard of slavery for that of freedom.

‘Under the conduct of your chosen leaders march with a steady step to victory. Heed not the glare of hired soldiery, or aristocratic yeomanry: they cannot stand the vigorous shock of freedom. Their trappings and their arms will soon be yours; and the detested Government of England, to which we vow eternal hatred, shall learn that the treasures it exhausts on its accoutred slaves for the purpose of butchering Irishmen shall but _further enable us to turn their swords on its devoted head_. Attack them in every direction by day and by night; avail the natural advantages of your country, which are and with which you are better acquainted than they. Where you cannot oppose them in full force constantly harass their rear and their flanks; cut off their provisions and magazines, and prevent them as much as possible from uniting their forces; let whatever moments you cannot devote to fighting for your country be passed in learning how to fight for it, or preparing the means of war--for war, war alone must occupy every mind and every hand in Ireland, until its long-oppressed soil be purged of all its enemies. Vengeance, Irishmen, vengeance on your oppressors. Remember that thousands of your dearest friends have perished by their merciless orders. Remember their burnings, their rackings, their torturings, their military massacres, and their legal murders. Remember Orr!’

[[[OUTBREAK OF THE REBELLION]]]

|The crisis hurried on rapidly. On the morning of the 21st, the Viceroy officially to the Lord Mayor, and the day following, through Lord Castlereagh, apprised the House of Commons, ‘that his Excellency had received information that the disaffected had been daring enough to form a plan for the purpose of possessing themselves, in the course of the present week, of the metropolis, of seizing the seat of Government, and those in authority within the city; that, in consequence of that information, he had directed every military precaution to be taken which seemed expedient; that he had made full communication to the magistrates for the direction of their efforts; and that he had not a doubt, by the measures which would be pursued, the designs of the rebellious would be effectually and entirely crushed.’

A spirited and dutiful answer was voted by the Commons. ‘The Speaker and all the members immediately waited on his Excellency with the address; and to show their zeal, and to increase the solemnity of the proceedings, they walked through the streets on foot, two and two, preceded by the Speaker, the sergeant-at-arms, and all the officers of the house.’

The 23rd of May, a day that must ever carry with it deplorable recollections, dawned upon a city destined before another sun should rise to undergo every horror that attends a civil war. A gloom overspread the countenances of the royalists. Enough had been communicated by the Executive to convince the most sceptical that the long portending thundercloud was on the eve of bursting--and still the moment of actual insurrection continued veiled in impenetrable mystery.

Evening came, and no positive information of revolutionary outbreak as yet had reached the Castle. A Government spy, late in the day, communicated authentic intelligence, that the picket of yeomanry cavalry at Rathfarnham would that night be surprised and cut off, and, consequently, instead of a sergeant’s party the whole troop mounted for patrol. After narrowly escaping an ambush, Lieutenant La Touche ascertained that the rebels had actually risen, and an express, carried by a trooper called Bennett, was immediately despatched to apprise the Lord Lieutenant of the insurrection. The duty--one of the many instances of the zeal and personal gallantry with which the Irish yeomanry evidenced their fealty and devotion to the Government--was truly perilous, for the rebels in great numbers were collecting in the road and adjacent fields in the vicinity of Dublin. In the city, particularly the suburbs, the yeoman saw a great number of rebels with pikes, in the gateways, alleys, and stable-lanes, waiting the beat of their drums and the approach of rebel columns from the country which they were expecting; and as he passed they frequently cried out, animating each other, ‘Come on, boys! who’s afraid?’

Immediately the garrison and yeomanry drums beat to arms, and the latter hurried to their alarm-posts. The North Cork Militia were formed in Stephen’s Green, and the bridges of the canals, which stretch along the city north and south, were occupied by strong pickets. Those crossing the Liffey were also secured, and the communications completely interrupted.

For some nights previous to the 23rd of May beacon fires were seen on the Wicklow mountains, whose luminous appearance by night and whose smoke by day served as signals to the disaffected in the metropolis and in all the adjacent country. The same practice took place on all the mountains which extend from the Scalp in the county of Wicklow to Mount Leinster in the county of Wexford.

Where existed any necessity for this idle and unnecessary display, when all was organised and ready, and any striking exhibition must naturally add to the alarm which every prudential motive should have allayed? Why increase the fears and consequently the vigilance of the Executive? In secrecy of purpose lay success, and all was in favour of it could the authorities be lulled into a false and fatal security. The yeomanry corps, which in a few days afterwards were purified of traitors, at the moment of the outbreak abounded in United Irishmen, upon whom no shadow of suspicion had yet fallen. ‘It was discovered,’ says Sir Richard Musgrave in his narrative, ‘that near nine-tenths of the Roman Catholics in the yeomanry corps were United Irishmen, and had taken an oath to be true to the rebels in direct contradiction to their sworn allegiance, and yet many of them, after taking the United oath, had, by deliberate and pre-determined perjury, joined the yeomanry corps for the purpose of getting arms in their hands, learning the use of them, and turning them against the loyalists perhaps in the very moment of danger. In the subsequent development of the conspiracy there occurred direct evidence of the loyalist corps deliberately joining the rebels they were sworn to subdue at the critical juncture of the encounters.

The domestic servants of Dublin were deeply engaged in the conspiracy, and hence every action of their employers was revealed, and the safety of every house was compromised. Even the lamplighters lent their assistance, and darkness was prearranged to assist--as it would do most effectively--a sudden outburst, by neutralising the advantages which daylight secures to disciplined troops in a conflict with fierce and tumultuary assailants.

It has been already mentioned that the stoppage of the mail-coaches was to be the signal for a general rising. On the evening of the 23rd, at Santry, the Belfast mail was burned; the Limerick stopped on the Curragh of Kildare, and both guard and coachman murdered; the Athlone coach was destroyed at Lucan, and the Cork mail at Naas.

A number of petty affairs followed the instant outbreak of the rebellion, all characterised by the atrocities attending civil war. In these affairs the rebels were generally repulsed; but in a few they unhappily succeeded, and always by surprise, treachery, or the imprudence of the royalists. Of these we shall meet instances in the course of our illustrations. As regards the outbreak in the capital, naturally the capture of Dublin was the grand and primary object at which the conspirators unanimously aimed; and a simultaneous movement on the metropolis by the Kildare rebels was to have seconded the efforts of the disaffected within the city. Everything was in favour of success; and, as the garrison was almost drained of regular troops, and its safety entrusted to the yeomanry, that circumstance was not overlooked by the rebel leaders. In barracks soldiers cannot be easily surprised; a few taps from the drum, and a very few minutes are quite sufficient to place a regiment in battle order; but to collect irregulars, dispersed and distant from the alarm-posts they have been directed to assemble at, is a work of time, and equally difficult and precarious, as, in an attempt to reach the posts assigned, individuals and isolated parties are readily intercepted and overpowered.

This was the great design of the insurgents, and nothing could have been more easily effected when aided by the darkness of night and the intricacies of a city crowded with houses, and intersected by narrow lanes.

By an unaccountable oversight the canals, which covered two sides of Dublin, had been left open, when by stockading the bridges they could have easily been rendered defensible, and have thus placed an impassable obstruction to any bodies who might approach the city from Kildare. Before the royalists occupied the bridges numbers of insurgents from the country had crossed over, and it was computed that by one northern turnpike more than two thousand strangers had entered the city during the evening and succeeding night.

Of the chief plans propounded by the rebel leaders, the capture of the Castle with the high authorities it contained, the cutting off of the royalists in detached parties as they hurried to their respective alarm-posts at the beat to arms of rebel drums, with an attack on the jail of Newgate, the liberation of their friends the State prisoners there incarcerated, formed the grand objects of their midnight movement. The guiding spirit was evidently lacking, for the head had been cut off. On the plans of action there was a division of opinion among the existing leaders. John Sheares confined the intended operations of his followers to dealing with the Castle and disposing of the inmates. Neilson, it was arranged, should attack the jail. Accident interfered; neither plan had any success, and the leader found himself at midnight the inmate of the prison from which he had falsely calculated that he was going to liberate his imprisoned confederates.

Southwell C. McClure, a rebel colonel, who had been pardoned, gave evidence that Neilson had made preparations for his task, and taken elaborate preparations for the carrying out of his plan on Newgate and cutting off the loyalist auxiliaries in detail. He had assembled at a house in Church Lane, a noted rendezvous for rebels, fifteen colonels representing as many battalions; to each of these leaders he had produced a map of Dublin, and assigned to each the post which each colonel and his regiment was to occupy that night. In his attack upon Newgate he was to have been seconded by a large body of rebels, headed by Seagrave, who was to have secured possession of Mr. Halpin’s distillery, the windows of which flanked it, and they were to have kept up a constant fire on the front of the prison, while another party scaled the walls in a different quarter. Neilson’s preparations promised to prove formidable, and at ten o’clock this leader, having a body of rebels collected in some fields contiguous to-Eccles Street, proceeded to reconnoitre Newgate and point out the best points of attack to his supporters. Escalade, supported by a commanding fire of musketry, was the plan adopted, and from the manner in which the prison was domineered the attempt might have easily succeeded. In the most suspicious manner Neilson was always found doing compromising acts. His behaviour had helped to compromise Lord Edward’s security, and on this occasion he seems to have deliberately sacrificed his plans and his safety at the critical juncture, and thus compromised the entire scheme.

Some waste ground, then covered with heaps of market offal, and close to the prison, enabled a person to examine the building unperceived, and of this advantage Neilson, already well acquainted with the locality, had availed himself. In the darkness he trod upon a child, and the outcry brought its mother to the spot. The woman was drunk, an angry altercation followed, and no apology which Neilson could offer would conciliate the irritated poissarde. The noise naturally attracted attention; persons hastened to the spot, and among others Mr. Gregg, the jailor. Neilson, having already been in his custody, was perfectly familiar to Gregg. The latter immediately arrested him, a desperate resistance was offered, a pistol snapped, and a doubtful struggle ensued. Under a belief that Gregg’s assault on Neilson was occasioned by his resentment of the injury offered to her child, the fishwoman so far contributed by her clamour to mystify the affray that the line of posts which Neilson had established between Newgate and Eccles Street thought the noise only a squabble of drunken fishwomen, and waited in idle expectation for Neilson’s return and orders to advance, until the capture transpired in an hour or two, and the party took alarm and disbanded.

In a popular movement failure or success at first generally decides its fortunes. The attempt on the capital signally miscarried. The master-spirit was wanting at the hour of action, and he who might have given a fatal direction to efforts ill-directed and uncombined, was, with his abler associates, immured within the walls of a prison. Upon individuals alike wanting in courage and ability the hurried choice of revolutionary leadership had fallen. If Neilson’s imprudent visits to Lord Edward before the arrest subjected him to a charge of treachery afterwards, his conduct on the night he reconnoitred Newgate proves him to have been quite unfitted for command. That a man known to every turnkey should have personally examined a building in which he had been so long confined appeared, from its extreme rashness, almost to indicate indifference to the consequences of discovery.

[[[THE REBELLION OFFICIALLY PROCLAIMED]]]

|On the morning of the 24th two proclamations were issued--the one from General Lake, the other from Alderman Fleming. Both were stringent, but the circumstances of the times admitted of no temporising measures:--

‘Lieutenant-General Lake, commanding his Majesty’s forces in this kingdom, having received from his Excellency the Lord Lieutenant full powers to put down the rebellion, and to punish rebels in the most summary manner, according to martial law, does hereby give notice to all his Majesty’s subjects, that he is determined to exert the powers entrusted to him in the most vigorous manner for the immediate suppression of the same; and that all persons acting in the present rebellion, or in any way aiding or assisting therein, will be treated by him as rebels, and punished accordingly.

‘And Lieutenant-General Lake hereby requires all the inhabitants of the city of Dublin (the great officers of State, members of the houses of Parliament, privy councillors, magistrates, and military persons in uniform excepted) to remain within their respective dwellings from nine o’clock at night till five in the morning, under pain of punishment.’

The Lord Mayor’s proclamation was equally to the point and equally judicious:--

‘Whereas the circumstances of the present crisis demand every possible precaution; these are therefore to desire all persons who have registered arms forthwith to give in, in writing, an exact list or inventory of such arms at the town-clerk’s office, who will file and enter the same in books to be kept for that purpose. And all persons who have not registered these arms are hereby required forthwith to deliver up to me, or some other magistrate of this city, all arms and ammunition of every kind in their possession. And if, after this proclamation, any person having registered arms shall be found not to have given in a true list or inventory of such arms, or if any person who has not registered shall be found to have in their power or possession any arms or ammunition whatever, such person or persons will, on such arms being discovered, be forthwith sent on board his Majesty’s navy, as by law directed.

‘And I do hereby desire that all housekeepers do place upon the outside of their doors a list of persons in their respective houses, distinguishing such as are strangers from those who actually make part of their family; but as there may happen to be persons who, from pecuniary embarrassments, are obliged to conceal themselves, I do not require such names to be placed on the outside of the door, provided their names are sent to me. And I hereby call upon his Majesty’s subjects within the county of the city of Dublin immediately to comply with this regulation, as calculated for the public security; as those persons who shall wilfully neglect a regulation so easy and salutary, as well as persons giving false statements of the inmates of their houses, must, in the present crisis, abide the consequences of such neglect.’

[[[SURPRISE OF THE BARRACKS OF PROSPEROUS]]]

|The outbreaks in the immediate vicinity of Dublin come next in the order of alike the chronological sequence of events and of the illustrations. Slight affairs occurred on the night of the 23rd, and upon the following day. At Rathfarnham, Lucan, Lusk, Collan, and Baltinglass the royalists and rebels came in contact, and the latter were repulsed. At Dunboyne and Barretstown the escorts of some baggage (Reay and Suffolk Fencibles) were surprised. On the succeeding day Clane, Naas, Ballymore-Eustace, Kilcullen, and Prosperous were attacked, and with the exception of the latter, in every effort the rebels were unsuccessful.

Prosperous, a small but thriving town, then generally inhabited by persons manufacturing cottons, is seventeen miles from Dublin. It was garrisoned by a detachment of the North Cork Militia, some forty men under Captain Swayne, with a lieutenant and twenty of the Ancient British Cavalry. The infantry occupied a temporary barrack, half the cavalry were quartered in an opposite house, and the remainder in single billets. On the Sunday (20th) previous to the outbreak Swayne arrived in Prosperous with his detachment. He attended at the chapel with Dr. Esmond, a man of great local influence, and then implored the people there assembled to deliver up any arms which might be concealed, return to their allegiance, and receive the protection he was authorised to grant them. This exhortation proved ineffectual; some coercive measures--such as the seizure of cattle, then warranted by martial law--were resorted to; and on the 23rd it was intimated that fear had hitherto prevented the peasantry from bringing the concealed arms to the town, and that should they be permitted to enter after dark, unchallenged and unmolested, on the following night, pikes and firearms would be brought in and deposited in the streets.

It is difficult to decide whether the stupidity of Swayne or the treachery of Esmond were most to be condemned. A man individually may trifle with himself, but for him who turns right or left from the plain path which duty points to, and compromises the safety of those committed to his charge, there can be no extenuation. For Swayne’s folly there can be no apology--his pickets should have been doubled--a cart, a ladder drawn across the street, would have marked sufficiently where those who came to surrender arms might approach with full security. A step beyond it, if the challenge failed, the advanced sentry shot the intruder, and the garrison was at once alarmed. So much for Captain Swayne. His weakness was inexcusable--he died its victim--ignobly certainly, but still by the weapon of a foeman. Esmond met the doom he merited--a halter. Mus-grave’s account of the surprise is authentic:--

‘At two o’clock on Thursday morning, the 24th May, the two sentinels were surprised and killed; and both the barracks were assaulted while the soldiers were fast asleep. The barracks of the Cork company consisted of a hall, an apartment on each side, the same in the next storey, and underground offices. A party of the rebels rushed into Captain Swayne’s apartment, which was on the ground floor, and murdered him. Some soldiers, who slept in the opposite apartment, alarmed at the noise, came forth with their firelocks and expelled those ruffians from the barrack, after having killed two or three of them.

‘The house was at that time surrounded with a great number of rebels variously armed. A fierce conflict ensued between the assailants and the besieged; but it was soon put an end to by the following malignant device of the former. There was a great quantity of straw in the underground office, to which the rebels set fire, and, to increase the flame, introduced some faggots into it. The soldiers were soon in a state of suffocation; and the heat being so great that they could not endure it, they retreated to their comrades in the upper storey; but the flames and smoke soon reached them there, as the rebels continued to introduce lighted faggots into the apartments under them. Enveloped with thick smoke, and overcome with heat, some of them leaped out of the windows, but were immediately received on the pikes of the assailants, who gave a dreadful yell whenever that occurred.

‘At last the barrack being in a state of conflagration, the soldiers resolved to rush forward and fight their way through their assailants; but they, who were very numerous, formed a halfmoon round the front of the barrack, and received them on their pikes, so that but few of them escaped.5

Nothing could have been more detestable than the treachery of Esmond; though lieutenant in the Armagh Militia, he actually planned and led the rebel surprise of Prosperous. He wore the royal uniform, and yet was false to the monarch to whom he had sworn allegiance. When men of desperate fortunes swerve from the path of honour poverty may be pleaded to extenuate, though not excuse. Esmond had no plea to offer--he was wealthy, well born, and respected. He might have proved a rebel, but why play the traitor? When in the house of God loyalty was on his lips, while the heart was contemplating bloodshed. Even the tie a savage venerates could not turn him from his truculent design,--and, while he devoted him to death, he shared his victim’s hospitality--dined with Captain Swayne ‘at an inn on the 23rd of May, and continued to enjoy the glow of social mirth with him, till a few hours before the perpetration of that bloody scene which he had for some time meditated.’

The work of death at Prosperous was interrupted by intelligence conveyed to the insurgents, that at Clane, three miles off, their friends had been defeated--for although partly surprised, that little garrison succeeded in beating off their assailants.

[[[ATTACK ON THE GARRISON AT CLANE]]]

|Clane was occupied by a party of the Armagh Militia and some yeomanry cavalry. Early on the morning of the 24th a large body of armed rebels stole into the street. Fortunately there was just time to beat to arms, although such of the soldiers as were at single billets in the town were attacked as they issued from the houses where they had been quartered, and several of them killed and wounded before they could join their comrades. The guards, however, with great gallantry, held the rebels in check until their comrades hastily turned out and formed. A few well-directed volleys routed the rebels, and they were driven with considerable loss from the town; but deeming pursuit imprudent, the royalists returned, and again formed in the streets.

At five in the morning the rebels made a second attempt, reinforced by the exulting rebels who had returned from their bloody deeds at Prosperous; supported by a column of pikemen and musketeers, a party mounted on the horses and furnished with the arms of the slaughtered Ancient Britons, whom they had cut off at Prosperous, charged boldly into Clane. A rolling volley from the royalists brought down half the party and dispersed the rest. They retired at gallop from the rebel column, which, from previous success of superior numbers, cut a strange but formidable appearance.

An affair highly honourable to the royalists resulted. ‘As they were not strong enough to attack so numerous a party, and thinking it dishonourable to retreat, the captain, Griffiths, in concurrence with the militia officers, resolved to take post on an elevated spot near the commons, where they could not be surrounded or outflanked, and there they waited for the enemy, who began a smart fire on them, but without effect, as the elevation was too great. Our troops, having returned the fire, killed and wounded a considerable number of them, on which they fled in great dismay, and were charged by the captain and his sixteen yeomen, who cut down many of those whose heads were ornamented with the helmets of the Ancient Britons or the hats of the Cork regiment.’

A disorderly flight succeeded--the rebels totally disbanding, by throwing away their own ruder weapon the pike, with the firearms and sabres they had captured in the morning, and held in but brief possession.

On re-entering Clane, Captain Griffiths was privately informed by a soldier named Philip Mite, that his own treacherous lieutenant had actually carried out the surprise of Prosperous. Having been ordered to march to Naas, at the moment when the troop were mounting, Esmond, in full accoutrements, joined it. The rash confidence that his treason was unsuspected proved ruinous to the unhappy man. He was arrested, forwarded to Dublin, tried, convicted, and hanged on Carlisle Bridge on the 14th of June.

The insurrectionary occurrences at Ballymore-Eustace and Dunlavin simultaneously with those described, offer fearful pictures of the atrocious spirit with which a civil war is carried through.

[[[MURDER OF GEORGE CRAWFORD AND HIS GRAND-DAUGHTER]]]

|Uncompromising severity does not always produce the intended effect. On some example may strike terror, in others it will excite undying hatred, and foster the worst spirit of the human heart--thirst for vengeance. Of this truth a retrospect of the events of these calamitous days gives evidence enough, and it is difficult now to determine on which side the excess of cruelty should be awarded. Assassination on one side was met upon the other with military executions--the royalists extenuating the act under the plea of necessity, while the rebel proclaimed that his murders were committed only from revenge.

When admitting that a similar savageness of purpose might in many cases be charged against both sides, there all comparison must cease. No matter what the acts might be, the causes which produced them were totally dissimilar. The royalists took up arms for the protection of home and altar, which the fanaticism of Popery, or the accursed doctrines of the French revolutionists, were alike bent upon overturning. Allegiance to the king, and the maintenance of social order and an established government, urged the former to come forward; thousands perilled life and property from the purest motives; and when the insurrection was suppressed, sheathed the sword, drawn in the support of a matchless constitution, unstained by any act save those which resistance to rebellion had imperatively demanded. Those who have led a soldier’s life and seen service in the field know that men become the creatures of circumstances.

Let the gentlest spirit--and such are frequently united to the boldest heart--one that would not tread upon a worm or harm a sparrow, let him crown a defended breach, and he will use the bayonet unscrupulously. The feelings are influenced by the times; and if the royalists were sanguinary and unsparing, they could point to the atrocities of the insurgents, and bring forward established facts, so truculent and unwarranted, as to place those who committed them almost without the pale of mercy.

Making every allowance for the political colouring given to his history of the times, and recollecting that he felt and wrote as a partisan, Sir Richard Musgrave narrates two well-authenticated instances of unprovoked cruelty among the many that marked the rebel outbreak in Kildare, which will sufficiently exhibit the ferocious spirit of the insurgents from the moment they flew to arms.

‘The following horrid circumstances,’ relates the historian, ‘attended the murder of George Crawford and his grandchild, a girl of only fourteen years of age. He had formerly served in the 5th Dragoons, retired on a pension, and was permanent sergeant in Captain Taylor’s corps of yeoman cavalry. He, his wife, and grand-daughter were stopped by a party of the rebels, as they were endeavouring to escape, and were reproached with the appellation of heretics because they were of the Protestant religion. One of them struck his wife with a musket, and another gave her a stab of a pike in the back, with an intent of murdering her. The husband, having endeavoured to save her, was knocked down, and received several blows of a firelock, which disabled him from making his escape. While they were disputing whether they should kill them, his wife stole behind a hedge and concealed herself. They then massacred her husband with pikes; and her grand-daughter having thrown herself on his body to protect him, received so many wounds that she instantly expired.

These circumstances of atrocity have been verified by affidavit, sworn by Crawford’s widow, the 20th day of August 1798. The fidelity of a large dog, belonging to this poor man, deserves to be recorded, as he attacked those sanguinary monsters in defence of his master, till he fell by his side perforated with pikes.’

[[[STOPPAGE OF THE MAIL AND MURDER OF LIEUTENANT GIFFARD]]]

|‘The second murder occurred on the same night. About eleven o’clock the Limerick mail was stopped by a numerous banditti, and a gentleman was slaughtered under circumstances which elicited a lively sympathy. The sufferer was Lieutenant William Giffard, of the 82nd regiment, son of Captain John Giffard of the Dublin regiment.’ The savages having shot one of the horses so effectually to prevent the coach from proceeding, demanded of Lieutenant Giffard who and what he was, to which he answered, without hesitation, that he was an officer proceeding to Chatham in obedience to orders he had received. They demanded whether he was a Protestant; and being answered in the affirmative, they held a moment’s consultation, and then told him that they wanted officers, that if he would take an oath to be true to them, and join them in an attack to be made next morning upon Monastereven, they would give him a command, but that otherwise he must die. To this the gallant youth replied, ‘That he had already sworn allegiance to the king, that he would never offend God Almighty by a breach of that oath, nor would he disgrace himself by turning a deserter and joining the king’s enemies; that he could not suppose a body of men would be so cruel as to murder an individual who had never injured them, and who was merely passing through them to a country from whence possibly he never might return; but if they insisted on their proposal he must die, for he never would consent to it!’ This heroic answer, which would have kindled sentiments of humanity in any breasts but those of Irish rebels, had the contrary effect, and with the utmost fury they assaulted him. He had a case of pistols, which natural courage and love of life, though hopeless, prompted him to use with effect, and being uncommonly active he burst from them, vaulted over a six feet wall, and made towards a house where he saw a light and heard people talking. Alas! it afforded no refuge! It was the house of poor Crawford whom, with his grand-daughter, they had just piked. A band of barbarians returning from this exploit met Lieutenant Giffard. There he fell, covered with wounds and glory, and his mangled body was thrown into the same ditch with honest Crawford and his innocent grandchild.

‘Thus expired, at the age of seventeen, a gallant youth--the martyr to religion and honour--leaving a memory behind that will ever be respected by the virtuous and the brave.’

Shortly, in the course of his campaign, struggling to suppress the rebellion, Sir James Duffs movable column entered Kildare, when it passed close to the scene of slaughter, and poor Giffard’s body was removed from the ditch and interred with military honours.

[[[COURSE OF THE INSURRECTION]]]

|A course of cowardly assassination thus commenced was continued by the insurgents in their progress to attack Monastereven. Their numbers had increased to ten or twelve hundred men, and they were commanded by a ruffian called M’Garry. Such Protestants as they unfortunately met with were put to death, and a solitary dragoon, seized as he crossed the Curragh, was inhumanly murdered. About four in the morning they approached the town and made their preparations for attacking it.

On the 24th of May there was not a regular soldier in Monastereven; and an infantry company, with a troop of horse, both yeomanry, formed the little garrison. After a feint on the canal, and a movement by the high road, which was repulsed by a charge of the cavalry, they pushed boldly into the town, and a warm conflict took place in the main street. The well-sustained musketry of the infantry threw the head of the rebel column into confusion, when the cavalry charged home, and the rout was complete. Fifty bodies were found lifeless in the town; and as the horsemen followed the flying rebels vigorously, as many more were cut up in the pursuit. The repulse of this attack was most honourable to the defenders of Monastereven. The gallant action was achieved by loyalists alone, and of the brave men who fought and bled that day fourteen of the troop were Roman Catholics.

The outbreak of the 23rd of May was attended by many acts of cruelty inflicted upon isolated families, who, either from mistaken confidence or inability to reach a place of safety, exposed themselves to the fury of savages, whose natural truculence was often inflamed to madness by intoxication. Many individuals of great worth and respectability perished thus. Mr. Stamers, the chief proprietor of the town of Prosperous, was torn from the house of a lady where he had obtained a temporary shelter, and murdered in cold blood. Rathangan was, indeed, a scene of extensive butchery. Mr. Spencer and Mr. Moore were slaughtered there, although they had surrendered their arms on the assurance of being protected. They were murdered in the open street, and their wives had the horrible assurance that, with the shots they heard, the existence of their beloved partners had terminated. Thus Mr. Spencer, that worthy gentleman, ‘who was an active and intelligent magistrate, and as remarkable for the amiableness and affability of his manner as the benevolence of his heart, fell a sacrifice to the fanaticism of those savages, to whom he had been unremittingly a kind and generous benefactor. As his house, at the hall door of which he was so brutally murdered, was a short distance from the town, Mrs. Spencer, who was led to it in the midst of these monsters, had the anguish to see the mangled corpse of her husband lying at his door’ (Musgrave).

A number of other victims were immolated by these bloodthirsty savages, and, until relieved by Colonel Longfield on the morning of the 28th, Rathangan was a constant scene of atrocity, in which even woman forgot her sex and barbarously participated. The murders at Rathangan, while they exasperated the royalists to acts of desperate retaliation, operated against the perpetrators in another and unexpected way. The few Protestants in Leinster and the south, who had mixed themselves with the conspiracy, suddenly became alarmed, for the war had now assumed a religious rather than a revolutionary complexion. Suspicion once aroused finds abundant causes to confirm it; and while some Protestants quietly seceded from their fellow-traitors, not a few sought favour with the Government by a secret betrayal of their guilty companions.

Musgrave illustrates this point:--‘I shall mention here an incident which throws light on the spirit of the conspiracy and rebellion, and the secret designs of the great body of the rebels. One Dennis, an apothecary and a Protestant, was the county delegate and chief conductor of the plot in the King’s County, which was to have exploded in a few days; but the wanton massacre of Protestants at Prosperous and Rathangan having convinced him that their extirpation was the main object of the Romanists, though they had with singular dissimulation concealed it from him who was their leader, he repaired to Tullamore to General Dunn, who commanded the district, threw himself on the mercy of Government, exposed the whole plot, and betrayed the names of the captains, who were immediately arrested. He said to the general, “I see, sir, that it will soon be my own fate.”’ In the course of this history nothing will be more apparent than the incompetency, military and diplomatic, of many of the functionaries to whom extensive powers were confided. One while unnecessary severity was employed, and at another mistaken lenity marred every advantage which stringent measures might have effected. In military conduct the royalist commanders were too often found deficient, and almost in every instance, either to imprudence or imbecility, the insurgents were alone indebted for moments of doubtful and envanescent success. The affair at Old Kilcullen was about one of the worst military offences committed by an incompetent commander. Yeomanry officers always behaved with boldness, and frequently displayed both tact and talent when left to their own resources, while many from whose high military rank and standing something like ability might have been looked for, proved the truism of the adage, that as ‘the cowl does not make the monk,’ neither does an _aiguilette_ constitute a general. Learning that some three hundred well-appointed rebels had assembled at Old Kilcullen, and that they had entrenched themselves in the churchyard, General Dundas proceeded to dislodge them. His force consisted of only forty dragoons and some twenty Suffolk militiamen. The rebel position was on a height--one side protected by a high wall, the other secured by a double fence--a hedge with a dike in front. Would it be credited that an English general could be mad enough to assail three hundred men thus posted with forty dragoons? Mus-grave thus narrates the transaction, and his account has been considered by those engaged to be perfectly correct:--

General Dundas ordered the Romneys and the 9th Dragoons to charge the rebels, though it was uphill, though the ground was broken, and many of the rebels were in a road close to the churchyard in which not more than six of the cavalry could advance in front.

‘They, however, charged with great spirit, though their destruction was considered by all the spectators to be the certain and inevitable consequence of it; for what could cavalry do, thus broken and divided, against a firm phalanx of rebels armed with long pikes? Nevertheless they made three charges, but were repulsed in each; and at every repulse the general urged them to renew the attack.

‘It was with the utmost difficulty that Captain Cooks and Captain Erskine could prevail upon their men to renew the charge after the first defeat. In the last charge, Captain Cooks, to inspire his men with courage by example, advanced some yards before them; when his horse, having received many wounds, fell upon his knees; and while in that situation the body of that brave officer was perforated with pikes; and he, Captain Erskine, and twenty-two privates were killed on the spot, and ten so badly wounded that most of them died soon after.’

Shamefully discomfited, Dundas fell back on the village of Kilcullen bridge, and occupied a pass in every way defensible. So thought the successful peasants who had garrisoned the churchyard and deforced an English general. They prudently declined any attempt to force the bridge, forded the Liffey at Castlemartin, and took up a position between Naas and Kilcullen--thus cutting off General Dundas’s communication with the capital.

Nothing remained for the royalist commander but to drive them from these grounds and open his road to Naas. He advanced accordingly, found them in line three deep, and with his cavalry in hand, boldly attacked the position with half a company of the gallant Suffolks. Small as the party was, three rounds broke the rebels. The cavalry charged, and the same body which had so recently inflicted a severe repulse were scattered like a flock of sheep, leaving the ground covered with their dead and wounded. After a brief but bloody pursuit, Dundas marched on Naas, to concentrate his troops and assist in covering the capital.

[[[ATTACK ON NAAS]]]

‘If one can imagine such a thing as a tableau, or bird’s-eye view of the rebellion from the 23rd to the 30th of May (1790), the appearance it would present would be this. Seven or eight comparatively minor explosions, lighting up the atmosphere for a short space and then going gradually out, viz. one in Meath (Tara), one in Wicklow (Mount Kennedy), a good blaze in Carlow, and four or five in Kildare, which its being Lord Edward Fitzgerald’s own county accounts for--these were Naas, Prosperous, Kilcullen, and Rathangan. The eye should then be drawn to the mighty and absorbing eruption of Wexford; taking Vinegar Hill as its crater, it would observe two streams of lava pouring forth, one due west to Ross, one due north towards Wicklow, and a third, of somewhat less importance, north-west to Newtown Barry. I rather think the first shot was fired by my regiment at Naas, as Mick Reynolds, who led the rebels, was one of the promptest of the insurgent leaders.’--_The MS. Journal of a Field Officer_.

The garrison of Naas consisted of a hundred and fifty of the Armagh Militia, with two battalion guns, and seventy cavalry, consisting of small detachments of the Fourth Dragoons, Ancient Britons, and sixteen mounted yeomen. The whole were under the command of Colonel Lord Gosford.