1798.

Trial and execution

rebel chiefs.

concerning the conspiracy. Yet certain it is, that whatever might have been the original terms of the contract, and by whatever subscquent events the contractors might have been influenced or affected, the principal prisoners (15 in number) were not liberated, and a power was reserved or assumed by ministers to detain them in custody, at least during the continuance of the war with France. Oliver Bond died in the mean time in prison of an apoplexy.

The trials and executions of some of the principal of several leaders in the rebellion tended to prevent further attempts of individuals in that desperate cause. On the 12th of July, Henry and John Sheares were brought to trial, condemned, and soon after put to death. The trial of John M'Cann, who had been secretary to the provincial committee of Leinster, followed on the 17th; that of Michael William Byrne*, delegate from

* Of the execution of Byrne, Mr. O'Connor thus speaks in his letter to Lord Castlereagh. "On the 24th of July last, Mr. Dobbs and the sheriff entered my prison with a written paper, signed by seventy state-prisoners, purposing to give such information as was in their power of arms, ammunition, and schemes of warfare, (of which it is now manifest they knew little or nothing) and to consent to leave Ireland, provided the lives of Bond and Byrne (both under sentence of death) should be spared.' I refused to sign it, not only from a detestation of entering into any conditions with those, who composed the councils of Lord Cornwallis's administration, but because in the massacre of my unarmed countrymen still raging, I did not think that any object, which was not general, could warrant me, in whom such confidence was placed by so many millions of my countrymen, to enter into any such compact, and because the possibility of its being attributed to a desire to save my own life, in the peculiar

the county committee of Wicklow, and that of Oliver Bond, on the 23d. The two former were executed, the third was reprieved, as has been mentioned.

1798.

Ligetspe

radees in

fest the

country.

Some of the more desperate rebels, reinforced by de- Some strag serters from some regiments of Irish militia, remained in arms in the mountains of Wicklow, and the dwarf woods of Killaughram, near Euniscorthy. These desperate banditti, who had stiled themselves Babes of the Wood, compelled the neighbouring inhabitants to take refuge in towns. The woods were scoured by the army, and cleared of their predatory inhabitants, and tranquillity was restored to that part of the country. The party in the Wicklow mountains, whose range and haunts were much more extensive and difficult of access, continued under two chiefs of the names of Holt and Hacket, to annoy the country for a longer tine, and in a more formidable degree; issuing suddenly from their fastnesses to perpetrate burnings and massacres, and retiring before troops could arrive to intercept them. Harassed incessantly by the pursuit of the yeomen and soldiery, the numbers of the banditti

situation I stood in, was in my mind an insuperable objection, if there had been no other. Besides, it seemed, that to save the lives of Bond and Byrne, enough had signed their self-sacrifice to induce the ministers, already sated with blood, (as you and Lod Clare appeared to be when we met) to acquiesce; but in this I was deceived; a council sat on the fate of Byrne-he was executed. In this barter of blood, although you had lessened your quantum by half, yet you raised your demands for the price of the other, and proposed to those, who had signed the paper, that they should deliver up names."

1798. gradually diminished. Hacket was killed near Arklow. Holt surrendered for transportation to the Earl of Powerscourt; and these bands of robbers at length totally disappeared.

Royal mes

sage to par

liament.

Notwithstanding the disastrous state of the cour try, the parliament ceased not to sit from time to time, as exigencies required. On the 17th of July, Lord Castlereagh presented to the house of commons a message from his excellency, that his Majesty, ever disposed to exert as far as possible his royal prerogative of mercy, and to receive again under his royal protection those, who by the arts of wicked and designing men had been seduced from their allegiance, had signified his gracious intention of granting his general and free pardon for all offences committed on or before a certain day, upon such conditions, and with such exceptions, as might be compatible with the public safety; for carrying which benevolent purpose into execution, his Majesty has signified his gracious intention of sanctioning, in the usual form, by his royal signature, a bill for that purpose, previous to its being submitted to parliament for their concurrence. And that his Majesty had also directed his excellency to lay before them several important papers, relating to the rebellion. The message also recommended measures for ascertaining the losses of, and indemnifying the suffering loyalists; and pledged unceasingactivity and vigor against such, as should remain in arms against his Majesty's peace. This message was ordered to be entered on the journals, and to be re

ferred to a secret committee of thirteen, including the 1799. speaker and the law officers of the crown, before which the papers mentioned in the message were laid.

tainder,

andin

tion,

The attorney-general on the 17th of the month Acts of at brought forward a bill for the attainder of Lord amnesty, Edward Fitzgerald, Cornelius Grogan, and Beau- demnifica champ Bagenal Harvey deceased: for which purpose several witnesses were examined at the bar. Similar proceedings were also had in the house of lords. This act of severity, and supplementary vengeance upon the unoffending widow and orphan, appeared to many rather the posthumous issue of the late, than the genuine offspring of the present system. A bill of general amnesty was passed in the course of the session, with the exception of Mr. Napper Tandy, and about thirty others, chiefly fugitives in France. A bill was also passed for granting compensation to such of his Majesty's loyal subjects, as had sustained losses in their property, in consequence of the late rebellion, and commissioners were named for carrying it into effect.

moderation

by Lord

The system of moderation and mercy pursued by System of Lord Cornwallis was particularly seasonable at this introduced crisis, particularly in the county of Wexford. Ge Cornwallis, neral Hunter was indefatigable in his exertions to restore confidence to the people; in which he was aided by the judicious and zealous exertions of Major Fitzgerald, who by the special appointment of the British government, was sent over to Ireland to act under the commander in chief, in the laudable work of doing impartial justice and quieting the minds of his Majesty's subjects. The country people were

1798. generally deterred from applying for protection, as the yeomen continued with indiscriminate barbarity to fire the cabins and shoot every inhabitantthat moved out of them: the melancholy consequence of which had nearly brought on the extermination of an extensive and populous tract of the county of Wexford, called the Macomores. Applications, supported by affidavits, had been made to government, by different magistrates in Gorey and its vicinity, complaining, that this range of country was infested with constant meetings of rebels, who committed every species of outrage; the viceroy crediting the magistrates was justly indignant, that his clemency was abused; and orders were sent to the different generals and other commanding officers, contiguous to the devoted tract, to form a line along its extent on the western border, and at both ends, north and south, on the land side, so as to leave no resource to the wretched inhabitants, who were to be indiscriminately slaughtered by the soldiery, or driven into the sea. The execution of this severe and exemplary measure was fortunately entrusted to the discretion of General Hunter, who, through the honest exertions of Major Fitzgerald, discovered, in time, the inhuman tendency of the misrepresentation, that had produced these terrific orders. Whenever any of the inhabitants of this district attempted to stir out of it to obtain protection, the soldiery and yeomanry waited their return in ambush, and slaughtered every one they could overtake. They made incursions into the country, fired into the houses, and never failed to aim at every living creature, that