Duncannon, twenty-three miles distant. Thither, on the 29th, an express had been despatched by the Mayor of Wexford, reporting their situation, and calling for immediate aid. General Fawcet replied, that he would himself march that same evening with the 13th regiment, part of the Meath militia, and sufficient artillery. Relying upon these assurances, the small parties of militia and yeomanry then in Wexford gallantly threw themselves upon the most trying services in advance. Some companies of the Donegal militia, not mustering above 200 men, marched immediately to a position between the rebel camp and Wexford; whilst others of the North Cork militia and the local yeomanry, with equal cheerfulness, undertook the defence of that town. Meantime, General Fawcet had consulted his personal comfort, by halting for the night, though aware of the dreadful emergency, at a station sixteen miles short of Wexford. A small detachment, however, with part of his artillery, he sent forward; and these were the next morning intercepted by the rebels, at Three Rocks, [such was the activity and such the information of general officers in those days!] and massacred almost to a man. Two officers, who escaped the slaughter, carried the intelligence to the advanced post of the Donegals; but they, so far from being disheartened, marched immediately against the rebel army, enormous as was the disproportion, with the purpose of recapturing the artillery. A singular contrast this to the conduct of General Fawcet, who retreated hastily to Duncannon upon the first intelligence of this disaster. Such a movement was so little anticipated by the gallant Donegals, that they continued to advance against the enemy, until the precision with which the captured artillery was served against themselves, and the non-appearance of the promised aid, warned them to retire. At Wexford they

found all in confusion and the hurry of retreat. The flight, as it may be called, of General Fawcet was now confirmed; and, as the local position of Wexford made it indefensible against artillery, the whole body of loyalists, except those whom insufficient warning threw into the rear, now fled from the wrath of the rebels to Duncannon. It is a shocking illustration of the thoughtless ferocity which characterized too many of the Orange troops, that, along the whole line of this retreat, they continued to burn the cabins of Roman Catholics, and often to massacre, in cold blood, the unoffending inhabitants, totally forgetful of the many hostages whom the insurgents now held in their power, and careless of the dreadful provocations which they were thus throwing out to the bloodiest reprisals.

Thus it was, and by such insufferable mismanagement, or base torpor, that on the 30th of May, not having raised their standard before the 26th, the rebels had already possessed themselves of the county of Wexford, in its whole southern division,- Ross and Duncannon, only excepted; of which the latter was not liable to capture by coup-de-main, and the other was saved by the procrastination of the rebels. The northern division of the county was overrun pretty much in the same hasty style, and through the same unpardonable blunders in point of caution, and previous concert of plans. Upon first turning their views to the north, the rebels had taken up a position. on the hill of Corrigrua, as a station from which they could march with advantage upon the town of Gorey, lying seven miles to the northward. On the 1st of June, a very brilliant affair had taken place between a mere handful of militia and yeomanry, from this town of Gorey, and a very strong detachment from the rebel camp. Many persons at the time regarded this as the best fought action in the whole war. The two parties had met about

two miles from Gorey; and it is pretty certain that, if the yeoman cavalry, (who were seldom of any real use,) could have been prevailed on to charge at the proper. time, the defeat would have been a most murderous one to the rebels. As it was, they' escaped with considerable loss of honor. But even this they retrieved within a few days, in a remarkable way, and with circumstances of still greater scandal to the military discretion in high quarters, than had attended the movements of General Fawcet in the south.

On the 4th of June, a little army of 1500 men, under the command of Major-General Loftus, had assembled at Gorey. The plan was-to march by two different roads upon the rebel encampment at Corrigrua; and this plan was adopted. Meantime, on that same night, the rebel army had put themselves in motion for Gorey; and of this counter-movement, full and timely information was given by a farmer at the royal head-quarters; but such was the obstinate infatuation, that no officer of rank would condescend to give him a hearing. The consequences may be imagined. Colonel Walpole, an Englishman, full of courage, but presumptuously disdainful of the enemy, led a division upon one of the two roads, having no scouts, nor taking any sort of precaution. He was suddenly surprised, and faced he refused to halt or to retire; was shot through the head; and a great part of the advanced detachment was slaughtered on the spot, and his artillery captured. General Loftus, advancing on the parallel road, heard the firing, and detached the grenadier company of the Antrim militia, to the aid of Walpole. These; to the amount of seventy men, were cut off almost to a man 1; and when the General, who could not cross over to the other road, through the enclosures, from the encumbrance of his artillery, had at length reached the scene of

action by a long circuit, he found himself in the following truly ludicrous position:-The rebels had pursued Colonel Walpole's division to Gorey, and possessed themselves of that place; the General had thus lost his head-quarters, without having seen the army whom he had suffered to slip past him in the dark. He marched back disconsolately to Gorey, took a look at the rebel posts which now occupied the town in strength, was saluted with a few rounds from his own cannon, and finally retreated out of the county.

I have related this movement of General Loftus, and the previous one of General Fawcet, more circumstantially than might have been proper, because they both forcibly illustrate the puerile imbecility with which the Royal cause was then conducted. Both foundered in one hour, through surprises against which each was amply forewarned. Fortunately for the Government, the affairs of the rebels were managed even worse. Two sole enterprises were undertaken by them after this, previously to their final and ruinous defeat at Vinegar Hill; both of the very utmost importance to their interests, and both sure of success if they had been pushed forward in time. The first was the attack upon Ross, undertaken on the 29th of May, the day after the capture of Enniscorthy; it must inevitably have succeeded, and would immediately have laid open to the rebels the important counties of Waterford and Kilkenny. Being delayed until the 5th of June, the assault was repulsed with prodigious slaughter. The other was the attack upon Arklow, in the north. On the capture of Gorey, on the night of June 4, as the immediate consequence of Colonel Walpole's defeat, had the rebels advanced upon Arklow, they would have found it for some days totally undefended; the whole garrison having retreated in panic, early in the morning of June 5,

to Wicklow. The capture of this important place would have laid open the whole road to the capital, would probably have caused a rising in that great city, and, in any event, would have indefinitely prolonged the war, and multiplied the distractions of Government. Merely from sloth, and the spirit of procrastination, however, the rebel army halted at Gorey until the 9th, and then advanced with what seemed the overpowering force of 27,000 men. It is a striking lesson upon the subject of procrastination, that, precisely on that morning of June 9, the attempt had first become hopeless. Until then the place had been positively emptied of all inhabitants whatsoever. Exactly on the 9th, the old garrison had been ordered back from Wicklow, and reinforced by a crack English regiment, (the Durham Fencibles,) on whom chiefly the defence on this day devolved; which was peculiarly arduous, from the vast numbers of the assailants, but brilliant and perfectly successful.

This obstinate and fiercely contested battle of Arklow was, by general consent, the hinge on which the rebellion turned. Nearly 30,000 men, all armed with pikes, and 5000 with muskets, and supported by some artillery, sufficiently well served to do considerable execution at a most important point in the line of defence, could not be defeated without a very trying struggle. And here again it is worthy of record, that General Needham, who commanded on this day, would have followed the example of Generals Fawcet and Loftus, and have ordered a retreat, had he not been opposed by Colonel Sherret of the Durham regiment. Such was the almost uniform imbecility, and the want of moral courage, on the part of the military leaders for it would be unjust to impute any defect in animal courage to the feeblest of these leaders. General Needham, for example, exposed his person without reserve