The following fact proves that he was a man of humanity: The reverend Mr. Wilfon, minifter of the parifh of Mulranken, in which he lived, and fuch of his proteftant parishioners as could not make their efcape, were taken prifoners, and fent to Wexford gaol on the firft of June; but Mr. Harvey ordered them home, on their taking the united Irifhmen's oath.

From the following incidents we may infer, that, with the best military talents, and the warmeft zeal in the rebel caufe, his power could not have been of any duration. Mr. Solomon Richards affured me, that a prieft refufed to grant him a protection, the day after our troops evacuated Wexford; but on applying to B. Harvey, he gave him one, which afforded him liberty and fecurity till Mr. Harvey's power began to decline, and then no refpect was paid to it, and he was committed to prifon.

Matthew Green, an inhabitant of Wexford, who was hanged there for being a rebel captain, and for having been concerned in the murder of Murphy on the third of June, went on board the prifon-fhip, and faid, with an air of infolence, to Mr. Richards, "So, you would not take my advice in joining us, and in taking a command. See whether B. Harvey's advice or mine is beft, and whether he or I will be the greateft man in a day or two; but mark my words, that he and all the proteftant generals and prifoners will go, for we will have but one people. I doubt whether you can efcape with your life."

John Colclough, of Ballyteige, died with much decency and firmnefs. He was the only perfon of his name who was a papift, and who was publickly accufed of being a rebel. He was defcended from John Colclough, who became a convert to popery about the beginning of the 18th century, and who from his great bigotry was called the Saint. He left only one child, an infant fon, who he defired might be bred a proteftant; confcious, I fuppofe, that the religion

* Plate III, 9, 10.

religion which he profeffed, would have a tendency to make him a bad fubject of a proteftant state. With a loud voice, and much compofure, he exhorted the bye-ftanders to avoid the abfurd prejudices and opinions which had brought him to an untimely and ignominious death; and he expatiated on the extreme folly of endeavouring to overturn a regular and well- . established government; and he ended with these notable words, "From what I have seen these last three weeks, I am not forry for dying." Alluding, I fuppofe, to the maffacres.

Fanaticifm had made the lower clafs of people fo blind to their own intereft, and fo infenfible to danger, that fome of them were convicted in Wexford, foon after the king's troops arrived there, of ufing feditious language, and of endeavouring to feduce them; though fo many of their fellow-traitors had recently suffered capital punishment.

Some attempts of this kind were made on the Queen's regiment, the firft which entered the town on the twenty-first of June, though it confifted of Englishmen. Thomas Graham, an inhabitant of Wexford, was convicted of trying to feduce John Nailor of that regiment, while a fentry on his poft, a few days after the regiment had landed in Ireland. The failors continued fo difaffected, that they refufed, in the autumn of the year 1798, to convey goods from Dublin to Wexford for a Roman catholick merchant of that town, because he was notorious for his loyalty, though he had offered a very high price for the freight. This fpirit of difaffection and combination was investigated, and fully proved, before a committee of the house of commons.

Soon after the maffacres at Wexford, on the twentieth of June, the following fentences were carved on the rails of the portcullis of the bridge, the place where they were perpetrated; and they were legible in the month of June, 1799: "Sacred to the chriftian doctrine of sending orangemen to the meadows of eafe, June 1798: The holy hereticks that were flain.” VOL. II.

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The

The rebel column, which, after the defeat at Vine gar-hill, had retreated to the north of the county of Wexford, and the county of Wicklow, were joined by a large body belonging to the latter, headed by Garret Byrne, of Ballymanus, and his brother William, and continued to fpread defolation there, burning the houfes of proteftants, and murdering fuch of their occupiers as fell into their hands. The first achievement which they endeavoured to perform in this new scene of action, was an attempt to destroy Hacketftown. *

As numbers of the people of the country were feen, on the twenty-fourth of June, affembling on all the adjacent hills, no doubt for the purpose of joining the column which I have already mentioned, the garrifon, confifting but of forty of the Antrim militia, commanded by lieutenant Gardner, and fifty of the Hacketftown infantry, commanded by captain Hardy, fent intelligence of it to the officers commanding yeomen corps in the neighbourhood.

At fix o'clock on the morning of the twenty-fifth, captain Chamney, with thirty of his infantry, captain Hume, with thirty of the Talbot's-town cavalry, and lieutenant Braddell, with twenty-four of the Shillelah cavalry, reinforced the garriion, and marched with them a fhort diftance from the town, to meet the rebels, who were thought to be thirteen thoufand strong, and were commanded by generals Garret and William Byrne, meffieurs Perry, Mc. Mahon, Michael Reynolds, and Edward Fitzgerald. The garrifon had gone but a fhort diftance from the town, when the rebels began to file off on each fide, for the purpofe of furrounding them. In confequence of this, the Talbot's-town and Shillelah cavalry were obliged to retreat, for fear of being cut off, by the road to Clonmore, and could not afterwards return to affift in defending the town.

In the retreat, captain Hardy, a brave and intelligent officer and a moft amiable gentleman, and four

men,

There was an attack made on this town the twenty-fifth of May, by a numerous body of rebels; but they were repulfed by the yeomen and a small party of the Antrim militia.

men, were killed. The infantry, about one hundred and twenty in number, took post in the barrack, part of them having lined a breast-work which the captain had raised some days before in the rear of it. The remainder defended the front.

The reverend James Mc. Ghee collected nine proteftants, and with them occupied and refolved to: defend a houfe which commanded the main ftreet, and one fide of the barrack, which was thatched, and which thofe infide it could not defend. The ' family of Mr. Mc. Ghee, all the proteftant women of the town, and even the wife of general Byrne, (whom, it is faid, he wished to get rid of,) took refuge in it. Mr. Mc. Ghee barricaded the lower part of the house, placed four of his men in its rear to prevent it from being burnt, and the other five in the front, not only for its defence, but to cover the fide of the barrack which was expofed.

The town was foon furrounded by a prodigious number of pikemen, who fet fire to it in different quarters, and one thousand and fifty musketeers commenced a heavy fire on it. In about two hours the. whole town, except the barrack and two houses more, was in flames, which prefented a dreadful scene, the horrors of which were much heightened by the inceffant fire which the rebels maintained, and the very thick smoke in which the town was involved, and which entered even into the house, fo that its defenders could scarcely fee each other. About one o'clock the houfes fell in, and a wind having fprung up which dispersed the smoke, they were able again to fee the rebels; who finding that they could not fet fire to the barrack, which was ably defended by captain Chamney, without having burnt the house in which Mr. Mc. Ghee kept garrifon, they relinquished the former, and approached the latter in great numbers, and with dreadful yells, crying, "Liberty or Death!" Having their colours flying, and founding their bugle-horns, they pufhed cars before them with feather beds in them as breast-works, to cover their approach.

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approach. A well-directed fire from the house, for about twenty minutes, made them retreat, leaving behind them their cars, and twenty-eight men killed.

During the engagement, which lafted from fix in the morning, till half after three in the afternoon, the lofs of the proteftants was but eleven men killed and fifteen wounded. It was univerfally believed, that no lefs than five hundred of the rebels were killed. They carried off upwards of twenty car-loads of dead and wounded. When any of their men were fo badly wounded as to be unfit for fervice, they threw them into the flames, in which they alfo burned many of their killed. It was a common practice with the rebels to put their wounded men to death, left they might turn informers.

Next day great numbers of dead bodies were found in ditches; and immediately behind Mr. Mc. Ghee's garrison they found fifty dead men with their pikes, and thirty over whom a little clay had been thrown. That gallant party would have been unable to defend themfelves for want of ammunition, had not lieutenant Fenton, of the Talbot's-town cavalry, been providentially prevented from attending his duty by a contufion, occafioned by a fall from his horse, as he fat behind a pier between two windows making cartridges; and to the immortal honour of Mrs. Fenton, fhe continued to go about the houfe, and to fupply the befieged with refreshment during their laborious and perilous fervice; and when their stock of balls was exhaufted, fhe broke up her pewter plates, and caft bullets of them with her own hands, which her husband made up into cartridges.

The garrifon. were obliged to retreat to Tullow the evening of the action, for the following reafons: They were exhaufted with fatigue; their ammunition was expended; and all the houfes in the town, except three, were confumed, and the rebels returned and burned them. Thus circumftanced, had they waited for a fecond attack in the night, which the enemy meditated, it must have been fatal to the garrifon.

This