of Wexford, but in many other parts of the province of Leinster. For fome months previous to it, doctor Caulfield, the popifh bishop, and a number of priests, used frequently to meet, and dine at the houfe of Peter Redmond, at Ennifcorthy, where they held fecret conferences. By fuch profound diffimulation, covered over with the broad mantle of religion, the priests and their congregations lulled the government, and the magifrates, into a state of fupine and fatal fecurity; and prevented them from adopting fuch vigorous meafures, and falutary precautions, as were neceffary to prevent the execution of their nefarious defigns. They therefore formed their deftructive plans, with the filence and fecrefy of moles, and started forth, fuddenly, with the fury and fiercenefs of tygers. The delufive ftillness that preceded the infurrection in the county of Wexford, refembled a calm in one of the tropical regions, which is fuddenly fucceeded by a hurricane, that spreads univerfal defolation. * When this dreadful volcano burft forth, which has brought irreparable calamities, and indelible difgrace on that once-happy and opulent portion of the kingdom of Ireland, there were no other troops in the county of Wexford, but the North Cork militia, confifting of but three hundred men; and they did not arrive there till the twenty-fixth of April. Their head-quarters were in Wexford, where three companies of them were ftationed; the remainder were quartered at Gorey, Ennifcorthy, and Ferns. † Two thousand troops, properly cantoned in it, would have awed the rebels into obedience, and have prevented the poffibility of a rifing; but the folemnity and facredness of oaths, and the earneftnefs of proteftations, But, as we often fee, against some storm, + Plate II. 4. tions, banished all fufpicion on the part of the government, the magiftrates, and the loyal fubjects; though the fubverfion of the former, and the extirpation of the latter, had been fome months concerted. The following reafon is to be affigned for the zeal which the leaders of rebellion in the county of Wexford displayed in organizing and arming the people, and in practifing the arts of deception on the government: lord Edward Fitzgerald had laid a plan, that a few faft-failing French frigates, fhould come to Wexford, filled with arms and ammunition, with officers and Irifhmen, and perfons capable of drilling men.* In confequence of this, their expectations of their arrival were fuch, that the Wexford rebels miftook our frigates for French, when they appeared on their coaft. It was the intention of the Irish directory, that the infurrection fhould take place at one and the same time, all over Ireland; but the following circumftances difconcerted their fcheme, and prevented the accomplishment of it: The arreft of the representatives for the province of Leinfter, at Oliver Bond's, and afterwards of lord Edward Fitzgerald, the two Sheares, Neilfon, and fome other leaders; and as their fucceffors difagreed about the time of rifing, it is certain that it was not determined on till a fhort time before it was to take place in Dublin and its vicinity. It was not communicated to the Wexford leaders till the twenty-fifth of May, and it required fome time to apprize the different captains of it, that they might prepare their corps to act in concert. For these reasons, the general infurrection in that county did not take place till Whitfunday, the twentyfeventh of May, 1798. But the zeal of father John Murphy, † of Boulavogue chapel, in the parish of Kilcormcuk, was fo intemperate, Dd 2 Report of the fecret committee, Appendix, No. XVI. page 136. Mountnorris, with other priefts, Appendix, No. XVII. intemperate, that he began his military career at fix o'clock on Saturday evening the twenty-fixth of May and confidering the time of its duration, and the limits to which it was confined, we must allow that it was as destructive as that of Attila, Gengis Kan, or Tamerlane. His father was a petty farmer at Tincurry, in the parish of Ferns, where he was educated at a hedge-fchool, kept by a man of the name of Gun. It appears by his teftimonium and diploma, that he received holy orders at Seville in Spain, in the year 1785; and, I prefume, that he graduated there as a doctor of divinity, as he affumes that title in his journal, † which he dropped in his retreat from Vinegar-hill, and which was found by captain Hugh Moore of the 5th dragoons, aid-de-camp to general Needham. As one Webster, a proteftant neighbour of doctor Murphy, was returning from Gorey, he met him. near Boulavogue, about four o'clock on Saturday the twenty-fixth of May, and was faluted by him with great cordiality; and yet, in about three hours after, the doctor was at the head of a numerous party of rebels, who burned the houfes of Webster, and his brother, and many of his protestant neighbours. The doctor collected his forces by lighting a fire on a hill called Corrigrua, § which fignal was anfwered by another fire on an eminence contiguous: to his own houfe, at Boulavogue; foon after which father Murphy fet out on his crufade, at the head of a numerous band of followers. || These outrages, the first fymptoms of open rebellion, were communicated to the garrifon of Ennifcorthy, in the following manner: A party of these rebels attacked the houfe of the widow Piper, at Tincurry, four miles from that town, wounded her in a defperate manner, murdered her nephew, a young † Ibid. * Appendix, No. XVIII. 1. young man of the name of Candy, and wounded her daughter, a married woman far gone with child, having broke her arm. * Her other daughter, having narrowly escaped by leaping out of a window, mounted a horfe, galloped off to Ennifcorthy, and informed the garrifon quartered there of thefe atrocities, at feven o'clock in the evening. About the hour of eleven o'clock that night, the Ennifcorthy and Healthfield yeomen cavalry, commanded by captain Richards and captain Grogan, proceeded to Tincurry, to disperse the rebels; and on their arrival there, found all the circumftances of atrocity related by the poor female fugitive to be ftrictly true; and they were alfo informed by her mother, that the affaffins principally concerned in them, were one Fitzpatrick, and the Bulgers, a popifh family, her near neighbours, with whom the had always lived in the clofeft friendship; and that their enmity could have arisen from no other motive, but because fhe was of the proteftant religion, and that her two fons were in the fervice as yeomen. Soon after the yeomanry returned to Enniscorthy, they were alarmed a fecond time, by the arrival of a young man of the name of Webfter, who informed them that his father's houfe at Garrybrit, about five miles off, had been fet on fire by a party of rebels, and that he made his efcape after having rushed through the flames. On this intelligence, captains Richards and Grogan fet out a fecond time with their corps of cavalry, in purfeit of the rebels; and on their arrival at Garrybrit, found the house of the two Websters, brothers, John and Robert, in flames, and the two daughters of one of them, both handsome and young, having narrowly efcaped, were fitting in their fhifts, in an orchard near the house, fhivering with cold. Their father, a man of confiderable Thefe atrocities were proved at the fpring affizes of Wexford in 1801, on the trial of Patrick Bulger, one of the affaflins that perpetrated them; and, having been convicted of them, he was condemned to be hanged, and his body was ordered to be hung in chains on Vinegar-hill, derable fubftance, was in a moment reduced to pa verty. Captains Richards and Grogan faw all the protef tant houses, as far as their fight could extend, in a ftate of conflagration; and having received undoubted information that father Murphy was at the head of the rebels who were thus fpreading devaftation, they, in the first inftance, repaired to his house, where they difcovered that he, confcious that his nefarious conduct would provoke the vengeance of the magiftrates and the military, had concealed his furniture in a pit in an adjacent field, before he had fet out on his campaign; and all the rebels who attended him followed his example. They therefore fet fire to father Murphy's houfe, as a punishment for the atrocities which he and his followers had perpetrated. Some perfons have afferted that the yeomen were the aggreffors on this occafion, and that father Murphy would not have embarked in the rebellion, if he had not been provoked by the burning of his house and his chapel; but the facts which I have related are a fufficient refutation of this; and the affidavits of two rebel leaders of the names of Roffiter and Crawley,* remove all doubts on it. In juftice to captain Richards, I think it right to fay, that he would not fuffer any of his party to burn father Murphy's chapel, or to infult his vestments, which were found in the pitt near his houfe; but that, on the contrary, he infifted that nothing of the kind fhould be done, having faid, "Punish the man, but do not mock or infult his religion.' The yeomen cavalry, in their progrefs that night, overtook fome of the rebels in arms, whom they put to death, and burned fome of their houfes, which their inmates had deferted, and from which the fur niture had been removed and concealed. Appendix, No. XVIII. 3. They found there his teftimonium and diploma. Many |