THE INSURRECTION ELSEWHERE—FATE OF THE LEADING UNITED IRISHMEN.
On the 21st of June, the Marquis Cornwallis, whose name is so familiar
in American and East Indian history, arrived in Dublin, to assume the
supreme power, both civil and military. As his Chief Secretary, he
recommended Lord Castlereagh, who had acted in that capacity during the
latter part of Lord Camden's administration in consequence of Mr
Pelham's illness; and the Pitt-Portland administration appointed his
lordship accordingly, because, among other good and sufficient reasons,
"he was so unlike an Irishman."
While the new Viceroy came to Ireland still more resolute than his
predecessor to bring about the long-desired legislative union, it is
but justice to his memory to say, that he as resolutely resisted the
policy of torture and provocation pursued under Lord Camden. That
policy had, indeed, served its pernicious purpose, and it was now
possible for a new ruler to turn a new leaf; this Lord Cornwallis did
from the hour of his arrival, not without incurring the ill-concealed
displeasures of the Castle cabal. But his position gave him means of
protection which Sir Ralph Abercromby had not; he was known to enjoy
the personal confidence of the King; and those who did not hesitate
three months before to assail by every abusive epithet the humane
Scottish Baronet, hesitated long before criticising with equal freedom
the all-powerful Viceroy.
The sequel of the insurrection may be briefly related: next to Wexford,
the adjoining county of Wicklow, famous throughout the world for its
lakes and glens, maintained the chief brunt of the Leinster battle. The
brothers Byrne, of Ballymanus, with Holt, Hackett, and other local
leaders, were for months, from the difficult nature of the country,
enabled to defy those combined movements by which, as in a huge net,
Lord Lake had swept up the camps of Wexford. At Hacketstown, on the
25th of June, the Byrnes were repulsed with considerable loss, but at
Ballyellis, on the 30th, fortune and skill gave them and their Wexford
comrades a victory, resembling in many respects that of Clough. General
Needham, who had again established his head-quarters at Gorey, detached
Colonel Preston, with some troops of Ancient Britons, the 4th and 5th
dragoons, and three yeomanry corps, to attack the insurgents who were
observed in force in the neighbourhood of Monaseed. Aware of this
movement, the Byrnes prepared in the ravine of Ballyellis a well-laid
ambuscade, barricading with carts and trees the farther end of the
pass. Attacked by the royalists they retreated towards this pass, were
hotly pursued, and then turned on their pursuers. Two officers and
sixty men were killed in the trap, while the terrified rear-rank fled
for their lives to the shelter of their head-quarters. At Ballyraheene,
on the 2nd of July, the King's troops sustained another check in which
they lost two officers and ten men, but at Ballygullen, on the 4th, the
insurgents were surrounded between the forces of General Needham, Sir
James Duff, and the Marquis of Huntley. This was the last considerable
action in which the Wicklow and Wexford men were unitedly engaged. In
the dispersion which followed, "Billy Byrne of Ballymanus," the hero of
his county, paid the forfeit of his life; while his brother, Garrett,
subsequently surrendered, and was included in the Banishment Act.
Anthony Perry of Inch, and Father Kearns, leading a much diminished
band into Kildare, formed a junction with Aylmer and Reynolds of that
county, and marched into Meath, with a view of reaching and surprising
Athlone. The plan was boldly and well conceived, but their means of
execution were deplorably deficient. At Clonard they were repulsed by a
handful of troops well armed and posted; a combined movement always
possible in Meath, drove them from side to side during the midweek of
July, until at length, hunted down as they were, they broke up in twos
and threes to seek any means of escape. Father Kearns and Mr. Perry
were, however, arrested, and executed by martial law at Edenderry. Both
died bravely; the priest sustaining and exhorting his companion to the
last.
Still another band of the Wexford men, under Father John Murphy and
Walter Devereux, crossed the Barrow at Gore's bridge, and marched upon
Kilkenny. At Lowgrange they surprised an outpost; at Castlecomer, after
a sharp action, they took the town, which Sir Charles Asgill
endeavoured, but without success, to relieve. Thence they continued
their march towards Athy in Kildare, but being caught between two or
rather three fires, that of Major Mathews, from Maryboro', General
Dunne, from Athy, and Sir Charles Asgill, they retreated on old
Leighlin, as if seeking the shelter of the Carlow mountains. At
Killcomney Hill, however, they were forced into action under most
unfavourable circumstances, and utterly routed. One, Father Murphy,
fell in the engagement, the other, the precursor of the insurrection,
was captured three days afterward, and conveyed a prisoner to General
Duff's headquarters at Tullow. Here he was put on his trial before a
Military Commission composed of Sir James Duff, Lord Roden, Colonels
Eden and Foster, and Major Hall. Hall had the meanness to put to him,
prisoner as he was, several insulting questions, which at length the
high-spirited rebel answered with a blow. The Commission thought him
highly dangerous, and instantly ordered him to execution. His body was
burned, his head spiked on the market-house of Tullow, and his memory
gibbeted in all the loyal publications of the period. On his person,
before execution, were found a crucifix, a pix, and letters from many
Protestants, asking his protection; as to his reputation, the priest
who girded on the sword only when he found his altar overthrown and his
flock devoured by wolves, need not fear to look posterity in the face.
Of the other Leinster leaders, Walter Devereux, the last colleague of
Father Murphy, was arrested at Cork, on the eve of sailing for America,
tried and executed; Fitzgerald and Aylmer were spared on condition of
expatriation; months afterwards, Holt surrendered, was transported, and
returned after several years, to end his days where he began his
career; Dwyer alone maintained the life of a Rapparee for five long
years among the hills of Wicklow, where his adventures were often of
such a nature as to throw all fictitious conceptions of an outlaw's
life into commonplace by comparison. Except in the fastnesses
frequented by this extraordinary man, and in the wood of Killaughram,
in Wexford, where the outlaws, with the last stroke of national humour,
assumed the name of _The Babes in the Wood_, the Leinster insurrection
was utterly trodden out within two months from its first beginning, on
the 23rd of May. So weak against discipline, arms, munitions and money,
are all that mere naked valour and devotion can accomplish!
In Ulster, on the organization of which so much time and labour had
been expended for four or five years preceding, the rising was not more
general than in Leinster, and the actual struggle lasted only a week.
The two counties which moved _en masse_ were Down and Antrim, the
original chiefs of which, such as Thomas Russell and Samuel Neilson,
were unfortunately in prison. The next leader on whom the men of Antrim
relied, resigned his command on the very eve of the appointed day; this
disappointment and the arrest of the Rev. Steele Dickson in Down,
compelled a full fortnight's delay. On the 7th of June, however, the
more determined spirits resolved on action, and the first movement was
to seize the town of Antrim, which, if they could have held it, would
have given them command of the communications with Donegal and Down,
from both of which they might have expected important additions to
their ranks. The leader of this enterprise was Henry John McCracken, a
cotton manufacturer of Belfast, thirty two years of age, well educated,
accomplished and resolute, with whom was associated a brother of
William Orr, the proto-martyr of the Ulster Union. The town of Antrim
was occupied by the 22nd light dragoons, Colonel Lumley, and the local
yeomanry under Lord O'Neil. In the first assault the insurgents were
successful, Lord O'Neil, five officers, forty-seven rank and file
having fallen, and two guns being captured; but Lumley's dragoons had
hardly vanished out of sight, when a strong reinforcement from Blaris
camp arrived and renewed the action, changing premature exultation into
panic and confusion. Between two and three hundred of the rebels fell,
and McCracken and his staff, deserted by their hasty levies, were
arrested, wearied and hopeless, about a month later, wandering among
the Antrim hills. The leaders were tried at Belfast and executed.
In Down two actions were fought, one at Saintfield on the 7th of June,
under Dr. Jackson—where Colonel Stapleton was severely handled—and
another and more important one at Ballynahinch, under Henry Munro, on
the 13th, where Nugent, the district General, commanded in person.
Here, after a gallant defence, the men of Down were utterly routed;
their leader, alone and on foot, was captured some five or six miles
from the field, and executed two days afterwards before his own door at
Lisburn. He died with the utmost composure; his wife and mother looking
down, on the awful scene from the windows of his own house.
In Munster, with the exception of a trifling skirmish between the
West-Meath yeomanry under Sir Hugh O'Reilly, with whom were the
Caithness legion, under Major Innes, and a body of 300 or 400 ill-armed
peasants, who attacked them on the 19th of June, on the road from
Clonakilty to Bandon, there was no notable attempt at insurrection. But
in Connaught, very unexpectedly, as late as the end of August, the
flame extinguished in blood in Leinster and Ulster, again blazed up for
some days with portentous brightness. The counties of Mayo, Sligo,
Roscommon and Galway had been partially organized by those fugitives
from Orange oppression in the North, who, in the years '95, '96, and
'97, had been compelled to flee for their lives into Connaught, to the
number of several thousands. They brought with the tale of their
sufferings the secret of Defenderism; they first taught the peasantry
of the West, who, safe in their isolated situation and their
overwhelming numbers, were more familiar with poverty than with
persecution, what manner of men then held sway over all the rest of the
country, and how easily it would be for Irishmen once united and backed
by France, to establish under their own green flag, both religious and
civil liberty.
When, therefore, three French frigates cast anchor in Killalla Bay, on
the 22nd of August, they did not find the country wholly unprepared,
though far from being as ripe for revolt as they expected. These ships
had on board 1,000 men, with arms for 1,000 more, under command of
General Humbert, who had taken on himself, in the state of anarchy
which then prevailed in France, to sail from La Rochelle with this
handful of men, in aid of the insurrection. With Humbert were Mathew
Tone and Bartholomew Teeling; and immediately on his arrival he was
joined by Messrs. McDonnell, Moore, Bellew, Barrett, O'Dowd, and
O'Donnell of Mayo, Blake of Galway, Plunkett of Roscommon, and a few
other influential gentlemen of that Province—almost all Catholics.
Three days were spent at Killalla, which was easily taken, in landing
stores, enrolling recruits, and sending out parties of observation. On
the 4th, (Sunday,) Humbert entered Ballina without resistance, and on
the same night set out for Castlebar, the county town. By this time
intelligence of his landing was spread over the whole country, and both
Lord Lake and General Hutchinson had advanced to Castlebar, where they
had from 2,000 to 3,000 men under their command. The place could be
reached only by two routes from the north-west, by the Foxford road, or
a long deserted mountain road which led over the pass of Barnagee,
within sight of the town. Humbert, accustomed to the long marches and
difficult country of La Vendee, chose the unfrequented and therefore
unguarded route, and, to the consternation of the British generals,
descended through the pass of Barnagee, soon after sunrise, on the
morning of Monday, August 27th. His force consisted of 900 French
bayonets, and between 2,000 and 3,000 new recruits. The action, which
commenced at 7 o'clock, was short, sharp, and decisive; the yeomanry
and regulars broke and fled, some of them never drawing rein till they
reached Tuam, while others carried their fears and their falsehoods as
far inland as Athlone—more than sixty miles from the scene of action.
In this engagement, still remembered as "the races," the royalists
confessed to the loss, killed, wounded, or prisoners, of 18 officers,
and about 350 men, while the French commander estimated the killed
alone at 600. Fourteen British guns and five stand of colours were also
taken. A hot pursuit was continued for some distance by the native
troops under Mathew Tone, Teeling, and the Mayo officers; but Lord
Roden's famous corps of "Fox hunters" covered the retreat and checked
the pursuers at French Hill. Immediately after the battle a Provisional
Government was established at Castlebar, with Mr. Moore of Moore Hall,
as President; proclamations addressed to the inhabitants at large,
commissions to raise men, and _assignats_ payable by the future Irish
Republic, were issued in its name.
Meanwhile the whole of the royalist forces were now in movement toward
the capital of Mayo, as they had been toward Vinegar Hill two months
before. Sir John Moore and General Hunter marched from Wexford toward
the Shannon. General Taylor, with 2,500 men, advanced from Sligo
towards Castlebar; Colonel Maxwell was ordered from Enniskillen to
assume command at Sligo; General Nugent from Lisburn occupied
Enniskillen, and the Viceroy, leaving Dublin in person, advanced
rapidly through the midland counties to Kilbeggan, and ordered Lord
Lake and General Hutchinson, with such of their command as could be
depended on, to assume the aggressive from the direction of Tuam. Thus
Humbert and his allies found themselves surrounded on all sides—their
retreat cut off by sea, for their frigates had returned to France
immediately on their landing; three thousand men against not less than
thirty thousand, with at least as many more in reserve, ready to be
called into action at a day's notice.
The French general determined if possible to reach the mountains of
Leitrim, and open communications with Ulster, and the northern coast,
upon which he hoped soon to see succour arrive from France. With this
object he marched from Castlebar to Cooloney (35 miles), in one day;
here he sustained a check from Colonel Vereker's militia, which
necessitated a change of route; turning aside, he passed rapidly
through Dromahaine, Manor-Hamilton, and Ballintra, making for Granard,
from which accounts of a formidable popular outbreak had just reached
him. In three days and a half he had marched 110 miles, flinging half
his guns into the rivers that he crossed, lest they should fall into
the hands of his pursuers. At Ballinamuck, county Longford, on the
borders of Leitrim, he found himself fairly surrounded, on the morning
of the 8th of September; and here he prepared to make a last desperate
stand. The end could not be doubtful, the numbers against him being ten
to one; after an action of half an hour's duration, two hundred of the
French having thrown down their arms, the remainder surrendered, as
prisoners of war. For the rebels no terms were thought of, and the full
vengeance of the victors was reserved for them. Mr. Blake, who had
formerly been a British officer, was executed on the field; Mathew Tone
and Teeling were executed within the week in Dublin; Mr. Moore,
President of the Provisional Government, was sentenced to banishment by
the clemency of Lord Cornwallis, but died on shipboard; ninety of the
Longford and Kilkenny militia who had joined the French were hanged,
and the country generally given up to pillage and massacre. As an
evidence of the excessive thirst for blood, it may be mentioned that at
the re-capture of Killalla a few days later, four hundred persons were
killed, of whom fully one-half were non-combatants.
The disorganization of all government in France in the latter half of
'98, was illustrated not only by Humbert's unauthorized adventure, but
by a still weaker demonstration under General Reay and Napper Tandy,
about the same time. With a single armed brig these daring allies made
a descent, on the 17th of September, on Rathlin Island, well equipped
with eloquent proclamations, bearing the date "first year of Irish
liberty." From the postmaster of the island they ascertained Humbert's
fate, and immediately turned the prow of their solitary ship in the
opposite direction; Reay, to rise in after times to honour and power;
Tandy, to continue in old age the dashing career of his manhood, and to
expiate in exile the crime of preferring the country of his birth to
the general centralizing policy of the empire with which he was united.
Twelve days after the combat at Ballinamuck, while Humbert and his men
were on their way through England to France, a new French fleet, under
Admiral Bompart, consisting of one 74-gun ship, "the Hoche," eight
frigates, and two smaller vessels, sailed from Brest. On board this
fleet were embarked 3,000 men under General Hardi, the remnant of the
army once menacing England. In this fleet sailed Theobold Wolfe Tone,
true to his motto, _nil desperandum_, with two or three other refugees
of less celebrity. The troops of General Hardi, however, were destined
never to land. On the 12th of October, after tossing about for nearly a
month in the German ocean and the North Atlantic, they appeared off the
coast of Donegal, and stood in for Lough Swilly. But another fleet also
was on the horizon. Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren, with an equal
number of ships, but a much heavier armament, had been cruising on the
track of the French during the whole time they were at sea. After many
disappointments, the flag-ship and three of the frigates were at last
within range and the action began. Six hours' fighting laid the Hoche a
helpless log upon the water; nothing was left her but surrender; two of
the frigates shared the same fate on the same day; another was captured
on the 14th, and yet another on the 17th. The remainder of the fleet
escaped back to France.
The French officers landed in Donegal were received with courtesy by
the neighbouring gentry, among whom was the Earl of Cavan, who
entertained them at dinner. Here it was that Sir George Hill,
son-in-law to Commissioner Beresford, an old college friend of Tone's,
identified the founder of the United Irishmen under the uniform of a
French Adjutant-General. Stepping up to his old schoolmate he addressed
him by name, which Tone instantly acknowledged, inquiring politely for
Lady Hill, and other members of Sir George's family. He was instantly
arrested, ironed, and conveyed to Dublin under a strong guard. On the
10th of November he was tried by court-martial and sentenced to be
hanged: he begged only for a soldier's death—"to be shot by a platoon
of grenadiers." This favour was denied him, and the next morning he
attempted to commit suicide. The attempt did not immediately succeed;
but one week later—on the 19th of November—he died from the results of
his self-inflicted wound, with a compliment to the attendant physician
upon his lips. Truth compels us to say he died the death of a Pagan;
but it was a Pagan of the noblest and freest type of Grecian and Roman
times. Had it occurred in ancient days, beyond the Christian era, it
would have been a death every way admirable; as it was, that fatal
final act must always stand between Wolfe Tone and the Christian people
for whom he suffered, sternly forbidding them to invoke him in their
prayers, or to uphold him as an example to the young men of their
country. So closed the memorable year 1798, on the baffled and
dispersed United Irishmen. Of the chiefs imprisoned in March and May,
Lord Edward had died of his wounds and vexation; Oliver Bond of
apoplexy; the brothers Sheares, Father Quigley, and William Michael
Byrne on the gibbet. In July, on Samuel Nelson's motion, the remaining
prisoners in Newgate, Bridewell, and Kilmainham, agreed, in order to
stop the effusion of blood, to expatriate themselves to any country not
at war with England, and to reveal the general secrets of their system,
without inculpating individuals. These terms were accepted, as the
Castle party needed their evidence to enable them to promote the
cherished scheme of legislative Union. But that evidence delivered
before the Committees of Parliament by Emmet, McNevin, and O'Conor, did
not altogether serve the purposes of government. The patriotic
prisoners made it at once a protest against, and an exposition of, the
despotic policy under which their country had been goaded into
rebellion. For their firmness they were punished by three years'
confinement in Fort George, in the Scottish Highlands, where, however,
a gallant old soldier, Colonel Stuart, endeavoured to soften the hard
realities of a prison by all the kind attentions his instructions
permitted him to show these unfortunate gentlemen. At the peace of
Amiens, (1802), they were at last allowed the melancholy privilege of
expatriation. Russell and Dowdall were permitted to return to Ireland,
where they shared the fate of Robert Emmet in 1803; O'Conor, Corbet,
Allen, Ware, and others, cast their lot in France, where they all rose
to distinction; Emmet, McNevin, Sampson, and the family of Tone were
reunited in New York, where the many changes and distractions of a
great metropolitan community have not even yet obliterated the memories
of their virtues, their talents, and their accomplishments.
It is impossible to dismiss this celebrated group of men, whose
principles and conduct so greatly influenced their country's destiny,
without bearing explicit testimony to their heroic qualities as a
class. If ever a body of public men deserved the character of a
brotherhood of heroes, so far as disinterestedness, courage,
self-denial, truthfulness and glowing love of country constitute
heroism, these men deserved that character. The wisdom of their
conduct, and the intrinsic merit of their plans, are other questions.
As between their political system and that of Burke, Grattan and
O'Connell, there always will be, probably, among their countrymen, very
decided differences of opinion. That is but natural: but as to the
personal and political virtues of the United Irishmen there can be no
difference; the world has never seen a more sincere or more
self-sacrificing generation.