from the shot of their opponents; and when a man could not see the position of his associates, who might fly before he could perceive it, and leave him in the hands of those who never gave quarter, they would not trust one another-a circumstance favourable to the loyal party, since to withstand a well-conducted nocturnal pike-assault would be much more difficult than one in day."*

Nor was the difficulty of restraint confined to men who, in rank and religion, differed from the unruly masses over whom they had assumed command. The popularity of the peasant chief was just as unsteady as that of the Protestant aristocrat, and Harvey and Holt experienced the ingratitude of a barbarous mob, on whose conduct they could place no dependence, and in whose personal attachment not a moment's reliance could be reposed. The hopeless task of directing the movements of a band of insubordinary savagest will be found in many passages of Holt's eventful history-and even he, a man wearied of the world, and almost rendered dead to human sympathies, found that a convict's life was preferable to the leadership of the banditti he commanded. Thus he speaks :

“I then determined to give up the enterprise I had undertaken, and extricate myself as soon as possible from a connection with the scoundrel party I commanded. I found it impossible to keep them from crime, their whole mind now bent on robbery; and they were tired of a chief who restrained that propensity."

* Gordon.

"In a few minutes after, I heard the signal from our picquets that the enemy were advancing, but on calling to arms I had not more than two hundred men in a fit state to fight; there were upwards of five hundred lying on the ground in beastly intoxication, which produced such a panic in the rest, that they began to fly in all directions. I did what I could to rally them, and thus effected a retreat, leaving the drunkards to their fate, who were bayoneted on the ground."-Holt's Memoir.

CHAPTER XIX.

POLITICAL RETROSPECT OF ULSTER, FROM 1784 TO 1798.

THE Wexford insurrection had justly alarmed the government-but its sudden outbreak, partial success, and total suppression, passed like the dramatic action of a play; and a short month ended the painful history. To account for its violence while it lasted were easy. The fiery character of the southern peasantry-the facility with which their worst passions are evoked-abuse of power, placed for a brief season in unworthy hands, followed by the reaction that violence has always excited the besotted ignorance of the multitude-and the evil example of those, who, from their callings, should have tranquillized their flocks and nipped rebellion in the bud-excesses of the soldiery on the one hand, and ruthless outrages on the other, produced those sanguinary reprisals at the commencement of the contest, which became still more ferocious at its close. To the cabin, fired by the mercenary Hessian, might, possibly, be traced the infernal tragedy of Scullabogue; and men, innocent of treason, and lacerated through mere wantonness or bare suspicion, called down a fearful retaliation in the cruelties committed in the rebel camps, and perpetrated on the bridge of Wexford.

The Wexford explosion was but the forerunner of one infinitely more formidable. The disaffection, too general in the North, had been gradual and progressive-not the hasty ebullition of turbulent excitement, but the slow and determined antipathy with which republican feeling regarded monarchical institutions. From northern intelligence much more danger was to be apprehended than from the wild and evanescent outbursts of southern ferocity. The Wexford outbreak, like the bursting of a thunder-cloud, was fierce but transitory. The northern conspiracy had all the character of the gathering storm; and the matériel of its violence was the more to be dreaded, from the length of time it had been in steadily collecting.

For many years the political state of the North had been in constant agitation-White-boys and Right-boys-Hearts of Oak and Hearts of Steel-Defenders, Orangemen, and United Irishmen, all followed in rapid succession-and the statutory enactments of these troublous times give a silent but striking evidence of the fevered state in which the kingdom remained for five-and-twenty years before the outbreak of '98.

So early as the third of the reigning monarch (George III.), an Act was found necessary to indemnify loyal subjects in the suppression of riots, and the apprehension of all concerned. In the fifth of the same king, "An Act to prevent the future tumultuous risings of persons within the kingdom" passed. "The Chalking Act," to prevent

malicious cutting and wounding, followed-but its provisions, stringent as they might appear, were found inefficient. As the barbarous excesses committed by the White-boys continued to increase, the 15th & 16th of Geo. III. were enacted against them. It recites, that the Act previously passed had been insufficient for suppressing them; and it states, "That they assembled riotously, injured persons and property, compelled persons to quit their abodes, imposed oaths and declarations by menaces, sent threatening and incendiary letters, obstructed the export of corn, and destroyed the same.” This is an exact description of the proceedings of the Defenders subsequently. As their turbulence and ferocity continued to increase, and as they made a constant practice of houghing soldiers in a wanton and unprovoked manner, the Chalking Act was still farther extended, and amended by the 17th and 18th of Geo. III. c. 49.

One of the advantages conferred by the Volunteer Association was the suppression of White-boyism, but it was only for a time-for as the esprit of that celebrated body subsided, Defenderism increased. The system was brutal in the extreme,* and it produced, in due season, a sanguinary and dangerous reaction.

The Right-boys succeeded the White ones-and they directed their earlier hostility against the church rather than the state. In Ireland, tithes have been ever an obnoxious impost-and in whatever they might otherwise have disagreed, Protestant and Catholic were found generally united on one point, and unfriendly to their exaction. Many of the Irish clergy were neither conciliatory in their manners, nor moderate in their demands. The Catholic was averse to lend direct support to a church which he repudiated as heretical the Dissenter rejected the impost on conscience-sake-the Episcopalian, as often found reason for complaint, and frequently he fostered privately an opposition to a system, in some cases most arbitrary, and in all, open to exaction and abuse. Many of the Protestant gentlemen, hoping to exonerate their estates of tithes by the machinations and enormities of the Right-boys, secretly encouraged them-and others connived at their excesses till they began to oppose the payment of rents and the recovery of money by legal process-and then their former friends came forward in support of the law.†

In the South, this system of agrarian warfare soon spread beyond its original object; and although, supported by an Act Parliament (passed 1787), the tithe proprietors, lay and clerical, were forced to bend to the storm. The Protestant clergy in the county of Cork were so much intimidated by the menaces and insults which they received,

* "In December, 1784, a body of White-boys broke into the house of John Mason, a Protestant, in the county of Kilkenny, in the night, placed him naked on horseback, and having carried him in this manner five or six miles from his house, they cut off his ears, and in that state buried him up to his chin: they also robbed him of his firearms.

"This year they were so outrageous in the province of Leinster, particularly in the county of Kilkenny, that a denunciation was read against them in all the Popish chapels in the diocese of Ossory, on the 17th of November, 1784."-Musgrave. + Musgrave.

that many were obliged to fly to the city of Cork for protection. The malcontents proceeded from one act of violence to another, and established such a system of terror, that landlords were afraid to distrain for rent, or to sue, by civil process, for money due by note. They took arms from Protestants-levied money to buy ammunition-broke open gaols-set fire to hay and corn, and even to houses, especially those occupied by the army. At last they had the audacity to threaten the cities of Limerick and Cork, and the town of Ennis, the capital of Clare, with famine; and actually took measures to prevent farmers and fishermen from conveying supplies of provisions to the markets. They proceeded by such a regular system, that they established a kind of post-office, for communication, by which they transmitted their notices with celerity for the purpose of forming meetings, which were frequent and numerously attended. This spirit of riot and insurrection occasioned the passing of a law in the year 1787, drawn up by Lord Clare, entitled, "An Act to prevent tumultuous risings and assemblies, and for the more effectual punishment of persons guilty of outrage, riot, and illegal combination, and of administering and taking unlawful oaths." While the South of Ireland was distracted by these accursed associations, the North was convulsed by two confederacies, furiously opposed to each other, and termed Defenders and Peep-o'-day-boys.

"

The origin of the former body may be traced back to the summer of '84-and what afterwards proved a most formidable and extensive confederacy, arose from an accidental quarrel betwixt a Romanist and a Presbyterian. The latter being worsted, at a horse-race near Hamilton's Bawn, the contest was renewed-and by the aid of some Catholics who took his part, the Protestant was victorious. At this time, Defenderism seemed to arise solely from the pugnacious disposition of the people, and to be uninfluenced by religious feelings altogether. Both parties recruited and collected arms; "but Presbyterians and Papists mixed indiscriminately, and were marked for some time by the district to which they belonged, and not by any religious distinction. Each body assumed the singular appellation of 'fleet,' and was denominated from the parish or townland where the persons composing it resided."+

But the discordance of the parties was too great ever to admit any solid or permanent coalition. Whatever specious junction might be formed of the religious sects, deep distrust would lie beneath, and explode on the first commotion. Nor was the conduct of the Romanists, by their separate and secret consultations, the publications of some of their clergy, and the spirit of religious hostility betrayed by many of the lower classes, adapted to gain the confidence of the Protestants, or induce them to expect a cordial or sincere co-operation.

In a very short time sectarian hatred began to shew itself-the confederacy was dissolved, and the banner of religion unfurled—the Romanists still retaining their original title of Defenders-the Presbyterians assuming a new denomination, and calling themselves Peepo-day-boys.

The origin of this singular designation is thus accounted for :During the American war, when volunteering was in its meridian, some Presbyterians, who had revolutionary projects, invited the Roman Catholics to join them in arms, from the use of which they were prohibited by law.

"When the restoration of peace had defeated the hopes of the Presbyterians, they resolved to disarm the Roman Catholics, who, animated by the possession of arms and a knowledge of discipline, not only refused to surrender them, but proceeded to collect large quantities of them, and even boasted that they would not lay them down until they obtained a further extension of their privileges, in addition to those which were recently conceded. Such boasting alarmed the fears and roused the indignation of the Presbyterians, who proceeded in large bodies to disarm them, which produced mutual hostility." "*

It may be readily imagined that two bodies of opposite religionists, with such objects in view, would soon evince a malignity towards each other in act and feeling, which the influence of the more peaceable would be unable to restrain. No opportunity, indeed, was lost of exercising mutual hostilities-and scarcely a night passed but some scene of violence was enacted. In their domiciliary visits, under the pretext of seeking arms, the Presbyterians destroyed the property of the Catholics, and abused them inhumanly, while, on the other hand, secret assassination was too commonly resorted to by the Defenders. Unfortunately, the exertions of the executive to crush these mischievous confederacies, were marred by the secret countenance shewn by country gentlemen, to both sides, to forward the petty intrigues that distinguished the electioneering transactions of the time-and, though the fountain of justice was unpolluted,† the selfish and corrupt objects of men who should have tranquillized, and not inflamed the bad passions of their respective tenantry, rendered the intervention of the law inoperative, and converted sectarian dislike into implacable hostility.

While some influential land-holders thus pandered to the passions of the opposing parties, to forward their political intrigues, others, and with more mischievous effect, worked upon the credulity of the Romanists. Prophecies were promulgated about intended massacres to be committed by the Presbyterians; and it was said that, on a giver night, a wholesale slaughter would take place-that the rivers north of the Shannon would flow with blood-and the ground stink with unburied carcases-for that, from the cradle to the crutch, Catholics would be remorselessly sacrificed. These terrible forebodings worked upon the excitable imaginations of the multitude; and the harvest was abundantly productive in an undying hatred, and a ferocious yearning

**Musgrave.

"Some persons of both parties were frequently convicted and punished. Two Peep-o'-day-boys, at the spring assizes of 1788, at Armagh, were sentenced to be fined and imprisoned for ill-treating a Roman Catholic.

"Baron Power, in the year 1795, hanged three Defenders and two Peep-o'-day-boys. In the year 1797, government sent the Attorney-General to Armagh, to dispense justice equally to both parties. He tried alternately two of each party, and some of both were found guilty, and punished.”