ill-natured persons to bestow on him the epithet of the late general Needham. The rebels after sustaining the fire of the artillery and small arms for an hour and a half, abandoned their station and fled where the passage lay open for them, which passage has been ludicrously termed Needham's gap, most of them directing their course toward Wexford. Some hundreds were killed, who were found straggling from the main body after the battle; but unfortunately almost all the real rebels escaped, and the killed were persons who had been forced away contrary to their inclinations, and who took this opportunity of escaping from the rebel army, but, as they could not be distinguished, found no mercy; some of them were loyal protestants, prisoners with the rebels.* As the flight was precipitate, they left behind them a great quantity of rich

* Doctor Hill, of Saint-John's, near Enniscorthy, a gentleman highly esteemed by all his acquaintances, was with his two brothers, within a hair's breadth of augmenting the number of slaughtered loyalists on this occasion. These three gentlemen, who had been prisoners with the rebels, and in the most imminent danger of their lives, ran for protection to the first whom they saw of the royal troops, and these happened to be Hessians. Three of these protectors immediately put their cocked pistols to the heads of the three gentlemen, when a pikeman, running at full speed past them to escape from other soldiers, diverted their attention for the moment: they thought proper to dispatch him first, but he led them such a chace saved the gentlemen,

cannon,

plunder, together with all their amounting to thirteen in number, of which three were six-pounders. The loss on the side of the king's forces was very inconsiderable,* though one officer, lieutenant Sandys of the Longford militia was killed, and four others slightly wounded, colonel King of the Sligo Regiment, colonel Vesey of the county of Dublin Regiment, lord Blaney, and lieutenant-colonel Cole.

Enniscorthy being thus recovered after having been above three weeks in the hands of the rebels, many loyalists in it were relieved from a dreadful state of terror and distress. Excesses, as must be expected in such a state of affairs, were committed by the soldiery, particularly by the Hessian troops, who co-operated with the British on this occasion, and made no distinction between loyalists and rebels. The most remarkable act of this kind was the firing of a house which had been used as an hospital by the rebels, where a number of men, fourteen at least, who by wounds and sickness were unable to escape from the flames, were burned to ashes. I merely mention the fact, which is too consonant with the spirit of civil and religious warfare. Different

* The loss in general Johnson's army alone, which suffered more than all the rest, amounted to twenty killed, sixty-seven wounded, and six missing.

readers will judge differently, according to their several feelings and prejudices.*

The town of Wexford was relieved on the same day with Enniscorthy. Brigadier-general Moore, according to the plan formed by general Lake, having made a movement toward that quarter from the side of Ross, on the 19th, with abody of twelve hundred troops, furnished with artillery; and having directed his march to Taghmon, in his intended way to Enniscorthy, on the 20th, was, on his way thither, between one and two o'clock in the afternoon, attacked by a large force of the enemy from Wexford, perhaps five or six thousand, near a place called Goff's bridge, not far from Horetown. After an action, which continued till near eight, the rebels were repulsed with considerable slaughter, not without some loss on the other side, though the only two officers mortally wounded were major Daniel, and lieutenant Green. This engagement, fought in loose array, or in scattered parties, over a wide extent of ground, was, if I have not misconceived it, on a comparison of several accounts from spectators of the scene, the best fought battle of the croppy war, with respect to manœuvres of the field on both sides. By the positions and evolutions of the soldiery, and

* I am informed by a surgeon, that the burning was acci dental; the bed-clothes being set on fire by the wadding of the soldiers' guns, who were shooting the patients in their beds,

their own want of subordination to their chiefs, the pikemen of the rebels were prevented from coming into action; while no more, I am credibly informed, than five hundred and sixty of their gun-men were engaged. Yet the combat was long doubtful. In the short space of three weeks, an undisciplined and unorganized mob had arrived at some degree of military skill, and acquired much resolution in battle-a lesson to governments to lose no time in taking the most efficacious means in their power to extinguish rebellion in its first blaze! I am assured, however, by respectable witnesses, that great numbers in this rebel army manifested much fear and reluctance in their march to the field of battle, frequently halting to kneel, and pray, and receive the benedictions of the clergy, till Father Roche at length lost all patience, and asked them with a hearty curse did they think that they had nothing to do but pray? And was it not time to think of fighting? The plan of Roche, who seems to have been intended by nature for a military man, is supposed to have been to surprise the town of Ross with one part of his army, while the other was engaged with general Moore; which plan was frustrated by the irregularity of his men.

the

Joined by two regiments under lord Dalhousie, army took post on the field of battle; and on the morning of the 21st was proceeding to

Taghmon, when captain M'Manus, of the Antrim, and lieutenant Hay, of the North-Cork militia, who had been prisoners with the rebels, arrived with proposals from the inhabitants of Wexford to surrender the town, and to return to their allegiance, provided that their lives and properties should be guaranteed by the commanding officer. To these proposals, which were forwarded to his superior commander, no answer was returned by general Moore; but, instead of proceeding to Taghmon, he immediately directed his march to Wexford, and stationed his army within a mile of that town.

The loyalists of Wexford, like those of Enniscorthy, had, since the place had fallen into the hands of the insurgents, been in a state of woe and incessant fear, Of a vast number of protestants assembled in this place, inhabitants of the town, and refugees and prisoners from several parts of the country, two hundred and sixty were confined in the goal, and other places of imprisonment; the rest were prisoners in their houses, under perpetual apprehensions of being shot, piked, or starved to death. Among the latter, was the Rev. John Elgee, rector of Wexford, whose life was saved by the gratitude of some of the lowest of the people, for the Christian charity which he had on all occasions manifested to unfortunate wretches committed to the public prison. The Rev. William East