fended themselves bravely, showing the most determined resistance, when another boat boarded on the bow, and Sir Sidney himself headed the party. The two captains met, and science was called into action by both; but, at the second longe, Sir Sidney's sword passed through the Frenchman's body, and he fell. Before the captain could disengage his weapon a tall fellow raised himself on the dead bodies, and made a desperate thrust at him with a pike; but Tom parried it with admirable skill, and the next minute the man laid by the side of his commander; the remainder were driven below,

and the prize secured. The victory was complete; the captured vessels were towed to the station, and prizecrews put on board; after which, with a fair breeze, they steered out for the offing. Tom and his captain landed; and the party collected the waggons together, and overhauled the booty. Fry-de-devil and his band joined them; and, after every man had helped himself to what he pleased, the horses were shot and the waggons burned. The Guerillas returned to their mountains, and Sir Sidney, with his brave fellows, pulled off to the ship.

ROBERT EMMET AND HIS COTEMPORARIES.-NO. V.
A Peasant's Tale.-A Rebel Rendezvous.

THE County of Wicklow possesses so many beauties, so many cataracts, glens, hills, and dales, that it was impossible for one like me, who had lived only on poetry and romance, to feel any thing like ennui during my sojourn at Castle- Independent of external objects, however, there were others of a social nature, perhaps of a more attractive kind; and, while I enjoyed the pleasure of daily rambles through the most bewitching scenery, I spent my evenings where there were the feast of reason and the flow of soul.' Elmgrove, the residence of Mr. J

the Exile's father, was not more than three miles from my uncle's castle; and, as Malachy was often from home on business, I paid frequent visits to the house of my new acquaintance. Mr. J- was a venerable-looking man, of strong mind, and independent spirit. He had only two childrenthe Exile, and a lovely daughter, in both of whom his happiness was concentrated. Eliza J- was young, handsome, accomplished, and good. She was-every thing a man, who could write a sonnet, might love; and I had not been long in her society before I began to breathe thick and short, and betray other symptoms indicative of a mind diseased. In such cases young ladies are admirable physicians, at least in detecting the malady; and I flatter myself that Eliza early knew the cause of my sighing, absence of mind, and languishing

VOL. I.-No. 6.

looks, that express every thing, though they seem to mean nothing. She sang for me some of the sweet wild melodies of her country; played Italian music for me on the piano; and gave me her arm when we walked in her father's garden. You may be sure my visits were long and frequent; and, indeed, had there been no such attraction, I should have availed myself of the Exile's conversation. He had seen and learned much; was full of anecdote; and deeply read in the history of mankind. One Sunday evening he was amusing us with some particulars of his adventures in the county of Wexford, in the year Ninety Eight. At the battle of New Ross he was wounded, and must have been trampled to death, were it not for the humanity of a peasant, named Howlan, who carried him to a place of safety, and subsequently attended him till his recovery.

On his mentioning the name of Howlan, the old man seemed agreeably surprised; asked his son if it were not the person called the Hero of Oulard; and, being answered in the affirmative, told us that the brave fellow was now residing in the neighbourhood; upon which the Exile insisted on immediately seeing him, and requested me to accompany him.

After walking about a mile, we came to a neat thatched cabin, situated in a very sequestered valley. A river ran before it, and a few aged trees shaded the simple roof. The door

2 L

† A rebellious song, in which occurs the following stanza :—

I had a tyrant landlord base,

Who saw my heart to Erin yearned;
Ev'n with the ground my Cot did rase,
And fired my substance dearly earned.
Unmoved, remorseless, now he sees
My cottage falling, as it burns;

My wife for mercy on her kness,
From her with ruthless frown he turns.'

Alas! this picture exhibits but too faithfully the scenes that were then acted

Faith, and that's what I can soon do," says I, "for I know nobody." The word wasn't well out of my mouth, when he ran his sword into my arm, saying," That's a tickler to help your memory." "Thank your honour," says I;" but as you are not Yeo's, I hope you will act decent, and let a poor boy pass. My name is Howlan, and never did any man an injury." "Howlan!" cried the officer;

you are the very man we want. Have you not two brothers?" "Ay, and a father too," I answered, quite calmly, though I was in a terrible pickle, with the blood streaming down my arm.

I was then bid to drive down to my father's house, and they all kept quite close to me. The family were all in bed; and I, foolish enough, called up my poor father, then seventy years of age, and my two brothers. They came out into the lawn in their shirts, for they were so frightened they forgot to put on their clothes; and, if they hadn't, they could not, for want of

time.

My father said he had no arms; and when he protested, which was

*

the truth, that he was no united man, the sergeant knocked him down with a pistol, and some of the soldiers began kicking of him while he lay on the ground. My brothers, of course, (for what Christian would turn informer?) refused to confess any thing; and, accordingly, the eldest was taken and tied to a car, and a drummer-boy proceeded to flog him at a desperate rate, while one of the party, to give him light, set fire to the barn. As the flames mounted up to the skies, I could see my poor brother's back, hackled into a raw griskin, while the poor fellow refused to gratify his murderers with a single groan. My mother rushed out, and, falling on her knees, beseeched the villains to forbear; but one of the soldiers gave her a kick in the stomach, and stretched her on the pavement.'

Here I interrupted Howlan's horrid narrative by declaring my disbelief, thinking it impossible for any officer to permit such brutal conduct; but the Exile assured me that torture was then regularly resorted to, for the purpose of extorting confessions; and, to remove all scepticism, and to show the extent to which party hatred was then carried, related a disgusting anecdote of a young lady, the daughter of a magistrate, who, in the excess of her loyalty, actually stirred her wine with the fragment of a finger which had that day been separated by a blow of her father's sword from the hand of a rebel!† Denis smiled at my incredulity, and proceeded.

'Knowing how soldiers then treated

Englishmen would scarcely credit it that torture was at this time the common method resorted to by the magistracy for the purpose of discovering arms, &c. Yet such was the fact, attested by all the Protestants who have written histories or accounts of the Rebellion.

'On the morning of the 23d of May,' says Mr. Gordon, a Protestant clergyman, a labouring man, named Denis M'Daniel, came to my house with looks of the utmost consternation and dismay, and confessed to me that he had taken the United Irishman's oath, and had paid for a pike, with which he had not yet been furnished, nineteen pence halfpenny, to one Kilty, a smith, who had administered the oath to him and many others. While I sent my eldest son, who was a lieutenant of yeomanry, to arrest Kilty, I exhorted M'Daniel to surrender himself to a magistrate, and make his confession; but this he positively refused, saying, that he should, in that case, be lashed to make him produce a pike, which he had not, and to confess what he knew not. I then advised him, as the only alternative, to remain quietly at home, promising that, if he should be arrested on the information of others, I would represent his case to the magistrates. He took my advice; but the fear of arrest and lashing had so taken possession of his thoughts, that he could neither eat nor sleep; and on the morn-ing of the 25th he fell on his face, and expired in a little grove near my house.'

+ In Hay's History of the Insurrection of the County of Wexford,' it is stated that

young girls, I made signs to my sisters,
who had come to the door, to shut it,
and remain inside. They did so before
the soldiers could prevent them; and
one of them, having seen what I had
done, told the others, and in a minute
there were a dozen stabs in my body.
My eldest brother was then released,
and the other tied up in his place;
when my father, who had recovered,
rushed forward, and seized the drum-
mer's arm.
Poor man! the savages
had no pity on his tears, and he re-
ceived several stabs!'

Here Denis was overpowered with his feelings; and, after hastily wiping away one or two natural drops from his cheek, continued.

see the poor ould house in flames, the soldiers having set fire to it, to get my sisters out; but they were disappointed, as the girls had made their escape while they were hanging me.

*

To make a long story short,' continued Denis, my father, myself, and two brothers, were thrown into the cart, and marched off to Ferns. Next day my father died in the guard house; and, after a week's confinement, my brothers and I were turned out, with pitched caps upon our heads. We had now no house nor home; for, my father's life being the term of our lease, the landlord had seized on our little all, and so we went to sarvice, as did my sisters, my mother having died in a month after my father. My brothers were long before they recovered; and, for myself, I'll feel the effects of that bloody night to the day of my death.'

Denis having concluded, the Exile assured him that he had not forgotten his obligations to him, and should consider it his duty to make him comfortable for the remainder of his life. I expressed my gratitude also, and put a couple of guineas into the hands of a little boy, who had ran in before his mother.

The effect produced on me by the horrible narrative I had heard com

'I was now questioned about united men, and arms; and, as I also refused to make any discovery, they took and bound my hands behind me, and then, taking the halter from the mare's head, they placed it round my neck, and, raising the car up, hung me out of the back-band! They were too cruel to let me die a natural death, and so cut me down a few minutes afore I went to Paradise. I can't tell any thing about that time, but my ould mother tould me that my face was as black as a pot, and my tongue out a bandle long. The first thing I recollect, after being hanged, was to Hunter Gowan, a brutal magistrate, paraded the streets of Gorey, at the head of his corps of yeomanry, with a human finger stuck on the point of his sword. After the labour and fatigue of the day,' continues the historian, Mr. Gowan and his men retired to a public house to refresh themselves, and, like true blades of game, their punch was stirred about with the finger that had graced their ovation, in imitation of keen foxhunters, who whisk a bowl of punch with the brush of a fox before their boozing commences. This captain and magistrate, afterwards went to the house of Mr. Jones, where his daughters were, and, while taking a snack that was set before him, he bragged of having blooded his corps that day, and that they were as staunch blood-hounds as any in the world. The daughters begged of their father to show them the croppy finger; which he deliberately took from his pocket, and handed to them. Misses dandled it about with senseless exultation; at which a young lady in the room was so shocked, that she turned about to a window, holding her hand to her face, to avoid the horrid sight. Mr. Gowan, perceiving this, took the finger from his daughters, and archly dropped it into the disgusted lady's bosom. She instantly fainted; and thus the scene ended!!!'

It is said that the North Cork regiment were also the inventors-but they certainly were the introducers of pitch-cap torture into the county of Wexford. Any person having their hair cut short, (and therefore called a Croppy, by which appellation the soldiery designated an United Irishman,) on being pointed out by some loyal neighbour, was immediately seized and brought into a guard-house, where caps either of coarse linen, or strong brown paper, besmeared inside with pitch, were always kept ready for service. The unfortunate victim had one of these, well heated, compressed on his head; and, when judged of a proper degree of coolness, so that it could not easily be pulled off, the sufferer was turned out amidst the horrid acclamations of the merciless torturers; and to the view of vast numbers of people, who generally crowded about the guard-house door, attracted by the afflicted cries of the tormented.'-HAY'S History of the Insurrection of the County of Wexford.

ing what the boys are about. But I suppose it is bekase you haven't seen me at one of our meetings that you are shy of me; but, troth, you needn't.'

It now struck me that seditious practices were going on in the country, and, from what I had heard and seen, no doubt remained but that

Hay's History of the Insurrection in Wexford.