،، " and with the seeming sympathy with the Court religion, the Magistrates retired from the scene of action." As a General Election was then approaching, an invitation was sent from the City of Armagh, (Sir Richard Musgrave says,* it belonged to the Primate) to Mr. Pelham and Dr. Duigenan to offer themselves candidates for that City in the ensuing Parliament: a circumstance, which riveted in the minds of the mass of the people the firmest conviction, that the impunity of those fanatic exterminators of Armagh was the immediate effect of their favor at the source of civil and ecclesiastical power. Scarcely + Sir Richard Musgrave, in his Strictures upon the Historical Review (p. 153.) has gravely said, " Dr. Duigenan was, "I believe, an avowed friend to the Orangemen, as was "every loyal man in Ireland." Par nobile fratrum ! "Will any man, who knows Dr. Duigenan, suppose him capable " of supporting or favouring a Society sworn to exterminate "all the Catholics of Ireland." In the same page, that sapient panegyrist of Orangemen and of Dr. Patrick Duigenan, assures his readers, "that outrages were committed by the " lower orders of Orangemen I do not deny, but they were "excesses of mistaken zeal, or retaliation upon the rebel "party, for which, after the rebellion was put down, (risum "tencatis) the perpetrators were prosecuted by Government, " and many of them were convicted and punished." Was the malign imbecility even of Sir Richard Musgrave to be informed, that Lord Cornwallis was deputed by Mr. Pitt to check, as Lord Cambden had been to stimulate the ferocity of the Orangemen, for one and the same purpose-Legislative Union? Scarcely had the Orangemen been brought Orangeinto organization, than they were taken into the men paid by Gopay of Government. Although the exility of verntheir first wages did not satisfy their expecta- ment. tions, yet it was an earnest of encreasing emolument, and an unequivocal test of the highest approbation. No wonder* then, that the Orangemen persisted so long in their habits of outrage, and so confidently identified themselves with Government. In the Spring of 1796, a large number of delegates from the Orangemen met in the town of Armagh, and entered into several resolutions, which they published in print. One of them purported to be a recommendation to the gentlemen of fortune to open a subscription, declaring, that the two guineas per man allowed them * In the Spring of 1796, three Orangemen voluntarily made oath before a magistrate of Down and Armagh, that the Orangemen frequently met in Committees, amongst whom were some Members of Parliament, who gave them money, and promised they should not suffer for any act they might commit, and pledged themselves, they should be provided for under the auspices of Government. This Magistrate wrote to the Secretary of State, enquiring of him, how he should act in those critical times: that hitherto he had preserved peace on his large estate, but wished to know, how he should act in future: that if it were necessary for the preservation of the present system for him to connive at or encourage the Orangemen in their depredations, he said, as a man, he knew his duty: if it were not necessary, he hoped the Magistrates of the county at large would be made responsible, and be compelled to act against these depredators. Orangegerly enter the Yeoman men ea them by Government, was not sufficient to purchase clothes and accoutrements. In the ensuing Autumn, Government found an opportunity of providing for these Orangemen in the armed corps of Yeomanry, which they then greatly encouraged. The Orangemen greedily enlisted; and thus was government enabled to arm, and keep in pay these sworn Orangemen for all their original purposes, without being open to the ungracious charge of hiring and maintaining a body of sworn exterminators. The eager enlistment of the Orangemen in these corps, is an evidential link to the combi nation of engrafting Protestant ascendancy, ry corps, upon religious disunion, and Catholic depresand why. sion. The Catholics not being generally ad mitted into the Yeomanry corps, resented the rejection as an invidious distinction, tending to question their loyalty and sincerity in their country's cause. They applied to Mr. Pelham for leave to raise a Catholic corps of Yeomanry: they were told, that they might enter into the corps then raising by their Protestant country men. The shyness and reluctance experienced by the few, who first offered their services, deterred others from coming forward, The several Yeomanry corps (except that of the Lawyers) having been thus composed of the most active and prominent members of the Society of OrangeOrangemen, it would be redundant to attempt a detail of the spirit and principles of their action. In them had Government concentrated the physical force of the Society of Orangemen : and from them, as they were then constituted, did it look to an exuberant harvest of pliancy to all its various projects, from internal disunion to external union. In lieu of secretly hiring a self-constituted band of depredators, they now had in regular pay and command, the same instruments of their designs, under the advantage of being armed, trained and disciplined, and bearing the honorable distinction of the patriotic Defenders of their country. The ascendancy party greedily adopted the arming of that part of the population, on whose co-operation in their own views they could implicitly rely; and as determinately resisted its extension, because no other armed bodies could be raised without resorting to the great body of the people, which it was the system to keep unarmed and depressed. The persons then exercising the plenary powers of the State feared, lest arms put into the hands of others, than their own hirelings, should revive the spirit of the Irish Volunteers, who only laid down their arms, when their country had acquired a free constitution. After the French had been driven off Bantry by adverse winds, Sir Laurence Parsons moved an augmentation of the Yeomanry corps to 50,000* men: but was strenuously opposed by Mr. Pelham, Lord Castlereagh, and Mr. Beresford, who spoke from authority, alleging, that it would be a most mischievous and dangerous measure. In fact, all the Orangemen capable of service, having enlisted in some of the Yeomany corps, the party * Sir Richard Musgrave, in his Strictures, (p. 165) says, From the report of the Secret Committee of the Irish House, in 1797, that the first estimate laid before Parliament for 20,000 men, was filled up immediately. In the course of six months, above 37,000 were arrayed, and during the rebellion, the Yeomanry far exceeded 50,000, and might have been encreased to a much greater extent. His correctness as to numbers, cannot always be relied upon. In his same work, (p. 168) finding fault with the author of the Historical Review, for having asserted, that "little reliance was to be placed on the official accounts of the killed, wounded, and " missing in the several engagements and rencountres," he assures his readers, upon the authority of the office of the Adjutant General, as he says, that the whole of the troops of the line and militia, who were killed, or who died during the year 1798, amounted only to 1366 men. In these he may not have reckoned the Ancient Britons, whose losses alone would have amounted to the greater part of that dwindled reCertain however it is, that such anxiety was there in the Government to keep their losses from the knowledge of the public, that a reward was given of 61. to any military person, who should prove to his commanding officer, that a fellowsoldier had published or acknowledged before any one, not of his own corps, the death of a military person killed by the turn. rebels. 1 |