PART IV.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIV, Issue 44, 25 February 1887, Page 9

PART IV.

OUTBAOES BY THE PEOPLE. That the Rebellion of 1798 witnessed some deeds of cruelty and of outrage on the part of the people has never been denied by Irish Nationalists, nor has any attempt ever been made by them to palliate tfaose crimes. It is, however, manifestly unfair to parade before the world the deeds of violence committed by the people, and to omit all mention of those whi^h drove them to desperation and madness, That a system of tortt're and of murder, such as that described in the foregoing pages, could be practised upon a people without leading to acts of savage retaliation, of cruetly, and of horror, can only be believed by those who have but lightly studied human nature. We abhor the crimes which marked the history of 1798, whether committed by the yeomen or the people, and we do not propose in any way to palliate any of them. But we desire the truth to be known, and the truth is that every deed of atrocity committed by the people was an act of retaliation for atrocities practised upon them by, or at the instigation of, those in authoriry. No serious effort was made by those in command of the troops to save the people from outrage until the en I of the year 1798, when the Rebellion was practically over. On the contrary, as we have seen, Sir R. Abercromby was actually recalled from the chief command because he ventured to censure the license and barbarity of the soldiers. GENERAL ORDKKS OP ENGLISH COMMANDEBS. As an instance of the recognised military despotism of the day, the following extract from a proclamation of General Oerham in Belfast will be instruc'ive :—: — " And shall it be foanci hereafter that said traitor has been concealed by any per?on or persons, or by the knowledge or connivance of any person or persons of this town and its neighborhoo i, or that they, or any of them, have known the place of his concealment, and shall not have given notice thereof to the commandant of this town, such person's house will be burnt, ana the owner thereof luinged. " This is to give notice that, if any person is taken up by the patrols after 10 o'ebek, he will be fined five shillings, for the benefit of the poor. If the delinquent is not able to p.w five shillings, he will be brought, to a drum-head court-martial, and will receive one \undred lashes ! "James Derham, Colonel- Commandant." The following is a cipy of a general order issued by the officer in command in Cork, from the " Adjutant- General's office,"' on the 7th May, 1798: — " Whereas it hi 3 been reported to Lieutenant General Sir James Stewart that in some parts of the country where it has been necessary to station troops, at frt.e qu irters, for the restoration of public tranquility, that peneia' w':b c cnptions of money have been entered into by the inhabitants to purchase provision for the troops ; by which means the end proposed, of making the burthen fall as much as possible on the guilty v tnluely defeated by making it fall in a light proportfon on the wttole, anil thereby easing and protecting the guilty — it hasbeen tli.-jpTlit pnper to direct that, wherever that practice has been aadoptt t J , or ahull he attempted, the general offi "ers commanding divisions of the souuiern district shall immediately double, treble, and quadruple fh" numbei of soldiers so stationed ; and snail send out regular foi.igin;: parties to provide provisions for the troops, iv the quantities ny -itioned iv the former notice, bearing date the 27th day of April, 17ii8; and that they shall move them from station, through the distinct or bar my, until all arms are surrendered, and tranquility to be pe'fect'y restored — and until it is reported to the general officers, by tne gentlemen holding landed property, and those who are employed in '-ollerting the public rpvenues and tithes, that all rents, taxes art 7 titlies are completely paid up." General oid-rs of this character were frequent enough ; but not one single oid^r was issued to the soldiery Dy their commanders threatening any pains or penalties what, ver for deeds of outrage perpetrated upon the peoph 1 from date of the withdrawal of Sir R. Abercromby down to tlw 31st August, 1798. On the latter date, Lord Cornwall!" issued an >.Tder which showed clearly enongh what the character of the prov<C'iiion given to the people during all those months must have been. It ran as follow- :: — • "It is with gieat concern that Lord Cornwallis finds himself obliged to ca.ll on the general officers, and the commanding officers of regiments in particular, to assist him in putting a stop to the licentious conduct of tbe tioops, and in paving the wretched inhabi tants from being lobbed, and in the mobt shocking manner ill-treated by those to whom '^ey had a right to lock for.Matety and protection " The previous yiii nee of th' 1 commanding officers throughout Ireland, in the .je of the notorious conduct of their troops, convicts them of complicity iv every deed of horror committed upon the peasantry. General Okdeb^ of Rkbkl Commanders. In marked contrast was the action of tbose who commanded the rebel fori es. Whatever atrocit.es were emmitted by the people were in direct defiance of the oi lers of tho-<e in au hority amongst them, and no attempt V ever been succeH-fully made to hold the rebel leaders responsible. The first general proclamation to the rebel forces was couched in the following terms : — " Soldiers of Erin, remember your homes ; let the domestic hearth never be violated, uor the arms of the nation sullied by cruelty or rev> n^v. Bar in mind that the weak and the defenceless claim your piotection, and that retaliation is only the weapon of the Coward and the ykivr. Let this be engiaven on your hearts, and let it be proclaimed , -j the extremi'y ot our land thrit insult to female honour contempt of orders, pillage and desertion, shall be punished with death . ' The leaders of the rebel army in Wexford issued the following general orders : —

" Any person or persona mho shall take upon them to Mil or murder any person or prxstner, burn any house, or commit any plunder, without special written orders from the commander-in-ohief shall suffer death : — " By order #/ 14 B. B. Habvey, Commander-m-chief. " F. Bbbbn, Ade.-Gen. " Head- Quarters, Carriok-Byrne Camp, June 6, 1798." "At this eventful period, all Europe must admire, and posterity will read with astonishment, the heroic acts achieved by a people strangers to military tactics, and having few professional commanders. But what power can resist men fighting for liberty! "In the moment of triumph, my countrymen, let not your victories be tarnished with any wanton act of cruelty. Many of those unfortunate men now in prison were not our enemies from principle ; most of them, compelled by necessity, were obliged to oppose you. " To promote a union of brotherhood and affection among our countrymen of all religious persuasions has been our principal object. We have sworn in the most solemn manner — we have associated for this most laudable purpose, and no power on earth shall shake our resolution. " Edwabd Roche: Wexford, June 7, 1798." SCULLABOGOE. In spite, however, of these proclamations, certain deeds of atro city were committed, and the massacre on the bridge at Wexford, and the scene of Scullabogue, will never cease to call the blush of shame to the cheeks of Irishmen. The truth, however, of these horrible events robi them of much of their blackness, and shows the utter unfairness of casting upon the Irish people generally the shame for the deeds of a handful of murderous cowards. The massacre at Scullabogue of loyalist prisoners to the number of about one hundred, was the deed of a number of runaways from the Battle of Ross, where the rebel troops were defeated. They brought tidings, which were perfectly true, that the victorious troops were putting all the rebel prisoners to death, aud, in a spirit of savage retaliation, the loyalist prisoners in Scullabogue were similarly killed. The rebel leaders were in no way responsible for this deed, and the Commander-in-chief, Bagenal Harvey, immediately afterwards resigned his command, in a great degree owing to the horror and disgust which the news of this deed inspired in his breast. Persistent attempts have been made to attribute this died of horror to Catholic ferocity against Protestants Nothing could be more absurd, and, as a matter of fact fifteen or sixteen Catholics shared tlie same fate as the Protestants in Scullabogue. We repeat that we do not desire to palliate occurrences of this character ; but truth compels the assertion that they were no worse than mauy which resulted from the systematic course of oppression and cruelty pursued by the soldiery, and probably were not nearly as bad as certain massacres perpetrated upon the people in cold blood and apparently with the full approval of the officers in command. For example, the massacre on the gibbet- rath at Kildare exceedß in atrocity that of Bcullabogue. According to Sir Richard Musgrave, whnße testimony will not be regarded as that of a man partial to the rebel cause, 3000 rebels surrendered themselves and their arms to General Dundas on the 26th of May, and on the 3id June this multitude of unresisting men were suddenly attacked by the troops, and 350 of them slaughtered. Equally horrible was the burning of the hospital at Enniscorthy where between 80 and 100 wounded rebels were burned to death by the soldiery. There is no more reason why the massacre of Scullabogue, taking it at its worst, should be regarded as inflicting a permanent and general stigma of cruelty upon Irishmen than the awful atrocities c immitted in India during the Mutiny (such as the roasting of prisoners alive by the native troops under command of British officets), or the flogging of negroes with piano wires during the suppression of a rebellion some years ago in Jamaica, should be regarded as putting a similar stigma upon Englishmen generally and proving their incapacity for self-government. We have no desire, however, to pursue this matter further: Outrages were perpetrated on both sides in '98 that were very horrible ; but before apportioning the blame betweem the Government and the Orange faction, who between them deliberately goaded the people into insurrection, on the one side, and the tortured and maddened peasantry on the other, the impartial student of history should carefully consider both sides of the story. WAS THE BBBELLION A CATHOLIC ONE ? It remains to be considered whether the stitement of our enemies I is true that the Rebellion of 1798 was a Catholic rising. It it clear that, alike in origin and organisation, the so-called conspiracy of the United Irishmen was, on the contrary, essentially a Protestant one. Of the 162 leaders of the movement, whose names have been handed down to us, no fewer that 106 were Protestants, and only 56 were Catholics. The founders of the Society and the prominent leaders of the Rebellion were almost to a man Protestants. It is true that the rebel forces were chiefly made up of the Catholic peasantry, and that the yeomanry regiments were mostly Orangemen and Protestants ; but the question of religion had little or nothing to no with the business. X yen in the county of Wexford, which, according to Mr. Lecky, " nasthe only county where the rebellion was distinctly Catholic" its chief leaders were Protestant landlords, like Bagenal Harvey, of Bargy Castle, and Beauchamp Colclough, of Tintern Abbey. Lord Cornwallis, in a letter to the Duke of Portland, dated 28th June, 1798, speaks of " the folly which has been prevalent of regarding Catholicism as the foundation of the present Rebellion ;"' aud we do not believe that any reliable evidence whatever is forthcoming to prove that the question of religion had anything to do with the Rebellion whatever. (2b be concluded in our next.)