lieutenant Gardiner, and a body of yeomen under captain Hardy, being apprized of the approach of the insurgents, marched out to meet them; but on sight of the enemy, whose number appeared to be above three thousand, the troops retreated, lest they should be surrounded, and took refuge in the barrack. This, as the event soon proved, answered the purpose of a feint. The rebels, from joy of their imagined victory, raised a vehement shout, and rushing forward in the utmost confusion, were on the sudden arrival of captain Hume, with thirty of his yeomen, charged with such address and spirit as to be completely routed, with the loss of perhaps two hundred of their men; while not one of the loyalists was hurt, except a soldier who received a contusion on the arm; and lieutenant Gardiner, who was violently bruised by the stroke of a stone on the breast.

While the rebellion was thus checked in its extension south-westward of the capital, exertions were made, and arrangements to suppress it, on the northern and western sides. In consequence of these arrangements, on the evening of the 26th, a large body of rebels assembled on the hill of Tarah, in the county of Meath, situate eighteen miles northward of Dublin, was completely routed, with the slaughter, we are told, of three hundred and fifty of their men, found dead on the field of battle, together with their

H

leader in his uniform; with the loss of nine killed and sixteen wounded of the victorious party, which was composed of three companies of the regiment of Reay fencibles, with a field-piece of artillery, under the command of captain M'Lean; lord Fingal's troop of yeoman cavalry; those of captain Preston and Lower-Kells; and captain Molly's company of yeoman infantry, in all about four hundred. The position of this hill, insulated in a widely surrounding plain, is well adapted for defence against an attacking foe, but ill for escape from victorious cavalry, from whose pursuit they could be protected only by the inclosures of the fields, so that many doubtless were killed or wounded.

As this victory laid open the communication of the metropolis with the northern parts of the kingdom, so other successful movements produced the same effect on the western side. On the 29th, a little after eleven o'clock in the morning, a body of rebels, who had posted themselves in the village of Rathangan, on the grand canal, in the county of Kildare, situate twenty-nine miles westward of Dublin, had committed murders, and had fortified their post with barricadoes and chains across the streets, was dislodged, and about sixty of them slaughtered, by a party under the command of lieutenant-colonel Longfield, of the royal Cork militia, who advanced against the town with his

artillery in the front, his infantry supporting it behind, and his cavalry so placed as to support both. No loss was sustained by the king's troops, as the rebels gave way on the second discharge of the cannon.

Discouraged by defeats, many of the rebels began to wish for leave to retire in safety to their homes, and resume their peaceful occupations. Of this a remarkable instance occurred on the 28th, and another on the 31st of May. Lieutenant General Dundas, who had, in the afternoon of the 24th, defeated a rebel force near Kilcullen, and relieved that little town, received on the 28th, at his quarters at Naas, by Thomas Kelly, Esq. a magistrate, a message from a rebel chief named Perkins, who was then at the head of about two thousand men, posted' on an eminence called Knockawlin-hill, on the border of the Curragh of Kildare, a beautiful plain, used as a race-course, twenty-two miles south-westward of the metropolis. The purport of this message was, that Perkins' men should surrender their arms, on condition of their being permitted to retire unmolested to their habitations, and of the liberation of Perkins' brother from the jail of Naas. The general, having sent a messenger for advice to Dublin Castle, and received permission, assented to the terms, and, approaching the post of Knockawlin on the 31st, received the personal surrendry of Per

kins, and a few of his associates; the rest dispersing homewards in all directions with shouts of joy, and leaving thirteen cart-loads of pikes behind.

This disposition to surrender, which good policy would have encouraged among the insurgents, was blasted three days after by military ardour, which, when it eludes the salutary restraints of discipline, and is exerted against an unresisting object, ceases to be laudable. MajorGeneral Sir James Duff, who had made a rapid march from Limerick with six hundred men, to open the communication of the metropolis with that quarter, received intelligence of a large body of men assembled at a place called Gibbitrath, on the Curragh, for the purpose of surrendry, to which they had been admitted by general Dundas. Unfortunately, as the troops advanced near the insurgents to receive their surrendered weapons, one of the latter foolishly swearing that he would not deliver his gun otherwise than empty, discharged it with the muzzle upwards. The soldiers instantly, pretending to consider this as an act of hostility, fired on the unresisting multitude, who fled with the utmost precipitation, and were pursued with slaughter by a company of fencible cavalry, denominated lord Jocelyn's fox-hunters. Above two hundred of the insurgents fell upon this occasion, and a far greater number would have shared their fate,

if a retreat had not been sounded with all possible dispatch, agreeably to the instructions of general Dundas, who had sent an express from his quarters at Kilcullen, to prevent such an accident.*

* The following address from the corps of Athy loyal infantry is very honourable to that body, as well as to the general. "To lieutenant-general Dundas, &c. &c.

"Sir, the arrangements, which follow the termination of a "glorious war, being likely to deprive us of the man, whose "wise and humane conduct saved the lives of thousands, we "cannot suffer the opportunity to pass, without expressing to 6c our brave general the sentiments of gratitude with which our hearts are filled.

"Placed at the head of our district, during a period most ❝eventful and calamitous, your command has been distin"guished by the zeal of your conduct, and the humanity of your council, surrounded by armed bands of our misguided

་་

countrymen. You first subdued them by your sword, and "then disarmed them by your clemency. In you, sir, we have seen the brightest ornament of the soldier's characterhumanity, united with true courage. And when the unprejudiced historian shall write the events of the day, the "name of Dundas will be applauded by rising generations.

"Your kind partiality and attention to the Athy yeoman << infantry, raised on the spur of the moment, have induced "them to offer this (the only tribute in their power) to their "revered general. Wherever you go, you will carry with "you their invariable attachment, and the applauses of all ❝ true lovers of their country and of humanity.

"For the corps of Athy loyal yeoman infantry (141)

THO. I. RAWSON, Captain.

See Dublin evening post, No. 6781, in which is also an address from the principal inhabitants of the district to the same general, with the presentation of a piece of plate.