of the rebellion at 150,000, at 200,000, and even at 300,000. It may be boldly asserted that this statement of a sudden surprise, immediately followed by a general and organised massacre, is utterly and absolutely untrue. As is almost always the case in a great popular rising, there were, in the first outbreak of the rebellion, some murders, but they were very few; and there was at this time nothing whatever of the nature of a massacre.1 The first intelligence of the outbreak appears to have been given by Lord Chichester, who wrote to the King from Belfast on October 24, describing the proceedings of the rebels and the measures he was taking for the defence of Carrickfergus. The Irish,' he wrote, 'in the northern parts of your Majesty's kingdom of Ireland, two nights last past, did rise with force, and have taken Charlimont, Dongannon, Tonragee, and the Newry with your Majesty's stores there-townes all of good consequence, and the farthest within forty miles of this place, and have slain only one man, and they are advancing near to these parts.' 2 Their leader, Sir Phelim O'Neil, had the reputation much more of a weak and incapable, than of a deliberately cruel man; and it is Carte says: There were not many murders (considering the nature of such an affair) committed in the first week of the insurrection. The main and strong view of the Irish was plunder.'Life of Ormond, i. 175. Temple, who is the main source of the more extravagant accounts of the rebellion, confesses that 'the Irish at the very first, for some few days after their breaking out, did not in most places murder many of them.'-Irish Rebellion, p. 44. A very careful examination of the evidence of murders in the first week of the rebellion will be 3 found in Warner's Hist. of the 3 Carte's Ormond, i. 176 a remarkable fact that on the 24th he issued a proclamation from Dungannon declaring that his rising was in no wise intended against the King, or 'for the hurt of any of his subjects, either of the English or Scotch nation; but only for the defence and liberty of ourselves and the Irish natives of this kingdom.' He at the same time ordered all persons, under pain of death, to return to their houses, promised that what damage had been done to them should be repaired, and denounced the penalty of death against any who committed outrages.1 It is impossible to say with confidence whether this proclamation represented the real sentiments of the leader, but it is at least certain that it did not represent those of the Irish in Ulster. The rebellion broke MSS., English Record Office. As Sir Phelim O'Neil was the commander of the Irish, his proceedings are especially important as illustrating the character of the rebellion. We have, however, some evidence of the nature of the rebellion in another part, in a letter written by the Lords of the Council to the Lord Lieutenant, Oct. 25. 'On Saturday, twelve of the clock at night, Lord Blaney came to town and brought us the ill news of the rebels seizing, with 200 men, his house at Castleblaney, in the co. of Monaghan, as also a house of the Earl of Essex, called Carrickmacross, with 200 men, and a house of Sir Henry Spotwood's in the same county, with 200 men; where, there being a little plantation of British, they plundered the town and burnt divers houses; and since it appears that they burnt divers other villages, robbed and spoiled many English, and none but Protestants, leaving the English Papists untouched, as Iwell as the Irish. On Sunday morning at 3 of the clock we had intelligence from Sir Arthur Terringham that the Irish in the town had that day also broken up the King's store of munition at Newry, where the store of arms hath been ever since the peace and plundered the English there and disarmed the garrison. And this, though too much, is all that we yet hear is done by them.' -Nalson's Collections, ii. 516. In this letter no mention whatever is made of any murders. No doubt, such might easily have happened without intelligence having yet come either to Dublin or to Belfast, yet this is not the kind of language that would have been used if the outbreak had begun, as a multitude of English historians allege, by a general massacre.' out in the counties which had so recently been confiscated, and before the first week elapsed, the English were everywhere driven from their homes, and their expulsion was soon accompanied by horrible barbarities. The Scotch, however, who formed the great majority of the Protestants in Ulster, were at first entirely unmolested. Partly because the rebels feared to attack them, and partly through hopes of a future alliance, it was agreed to pass them by; and during the weeks in which the power of the rebels in Ulster was most uncontrolled, this agreement seems to have been faithfully observed. But the English in the open country were [the 1 Carte says: "They Scotch] were so very powerful therein [in the six counties] that the Irish, out of fear of their numbers or for some other politick reason, spared those of that nation (making proclamation, on pain of death, that no Scotchman should be molested in body, goods, or lands), whilst they raged with so much cruelty against the English.' -Carte's Ormond, i. 178. According to Clogy: 'For a whole month's time or thereabouts they meddled not with the Scots, though they had driven out all the English that were in the fields or in unwalled villages, that had no resting-place; as thinking it too hazardous to engage two such potent nations at once.'-Life of Bedell, p. 173. Col. Mervyn fully corroborates this fact: In the infancy of the rebellion the rebels made open proclamations, upon pain of death, that no Scotchman should be stirred in body, goods, or lands, and that they should to this purpose write over the lyntels of their VOL. I. doors that they were Scotchmen, Scotch nation."-An Exact Re- E 6 deprived at once of all they possessed. The season was unusually inclement. The wretched fugitives often found every door closed against them, and perished in multitudes along the roads. Probably by far the greater number of those who were represented as massacred died in this manner from cold, and want, and hardship. The aspect in which the insurrection appeared to Protestants who were living in the midst of it appears very vividly in the Life of Bishop Bedell' by his sonin-law Clogy—a little book which ought to be read by all who desire to form a reasonable judgment on the subject. Clogy, though he uses much vague but highly coloured language about the bloody and ferocious character of the rebellion, speaks of no murders within his own knowledge, but he informs us that Bedell was the only Englishman in the whole county of Cavan who was not driven from his home, and that the corn, cattle, and other provisions were seized by the rebels. There was no people under heaven,' he writes, 'lived in a more flourishing state and condition for peace, and plenty of all things desirable in this life, when on a sudden we were turned out of house and hold, and stript of all outward enjoyments, and left naked and bare in the winter, and on the Sabbath day put to flight that had no place to flee to for refuge. The land that a little before was like the garden of Eden was speedily turned into a desolate wilderness.'1 At the same time there appears to have been no general attempt to destroy the fugitives, and in this county, at least, the Irish systematically gave quarter even to those who resisted them. The rebels were commanded by O'Reilly, and, as far as his influence extended, he showed a remarkable humanity and good sudden massacre of the Scots and English in Ulster.'-Const. Hist. iii. 391. The rebellion certainly did not begin with a massacre, and when its atrocities began the faith. Belturbet was compelled to surrender, a O'Reilly took 1,500 persons out of the town, and sent them with their goods towards Dublin under a convoy, which took care to plunder them by the way.' Robert Baily delivered up his castle, and all the Protestants under his command, on a capitulation which was faithfully observed. The castles of Balanenagh, of Keilagh, and of Crohan were compelled to surrender on honourable terms, which were scrupulously fulfilled. Such of the Protestants as placed themselves under the protection of O'Reilly were safely convoyed into the English quarters, and those who were stripped and in necessity were fed and clothed.1 Bedell, when the whole county was in the hands of the rebels, was suffered to receive and shelter multitudes of poor Protestants, among others, the Rector of Belturbet—who after the Restoration was made Bishop of Elphin-in the rooms and outhouses of his castle, and in his church.2 The fugitives were, indeed, after a time obliged to leave him; but though they passed through the midst of the rebels, not one miscarried, and not a thread of their garments was touched. After living for eight months in a country wholly occupied by the rebels, the family of Bedell, and among its members his biographer, were escorted, together with about 1,200 English who had been compelled by want of provisions to surrender, to the English garrison at Drogheda. The escort consisted of 2,000 rebels. The journey lasted seven days. The rebels,' says Clogy, 'offered us no violence—save in the night, when our men were weary with continual watching, they would steal away a good horse, and run off-but were very civil to us all the way, See all these cases in Carte, i. 173, 174 2 Clogy's Life of Bedell, pp. 180. 181. 3 This is expressly stated by the Bishop of Elphin in a letter to Ormond (May 4, 1682) which is preserved in the Carte Papers. See Prendergast's Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland, pp. 62, 63. |