party did not chuse to put arms into the hands of others, who were not tied by the unconstitutional oaths of secrecy to the support of the Protestant ascendancy. All the atrocities therefore of the Yeomen cannot strictly be laid to the account of the Orange Society, as a body; for every Yeoman was not an Orangeman: by far the greatest part and the most mischievous of them were so, and the fostering arm of protection in their foulest deeds, was as visible to the Irish people in their sufferings, as was the monitory hand on the wall to the Babylonian Monarch in his revelry.

nished.

Little remarkable happened during the re- Orange maining part of the year 1796, or the greater atrocities part of the year 1797, that called the Society of spe Orangemen as a body into action. It would exceed the scope of this Introduction to detail minutely all the outrages known to have been committed in various parts by Orangemen. Even Sir Richard Musgrave's audacity has not ven-. tured to assert, they had ever been repressed or punished by Government, until after the rebellion had been put down, when the perpetrators were prosecuted by Government, and some of them were convicted and punished. When a single instance is submitted to the reader for illustration, it is not to be considered as a solitary case. The county of Westmeath, in the Winter of 1797, found

L

found itself in a state of greater tranquillity, than it had for the two preceding years. When, however, in the beginning of 1798, the Orange system was introduced with the Yeomanry, the case was reversed. In the begininng of May, 1798, a certain lieutenant of Yeomanry (afterwards cashiered for various peculations), an Orangeman, marched his corps, and surrounded the house of a farmer Duffy, in which his brother, who was the parish Priest, also dwelt: he entered and ransacked the house, taking out of it every thing valuable, particularly a sum of money he found in the Priest's bureau; and then set fire to it upon pretext of having discovered arms, by producing two poles, which farmer Duffy had for several years used in an eel fishery. This wanton act of atrocity condensed the whole of the lower orders, and worked them into a determination to seek their own revenge, as the law was shut against them. A body of nearly 3000 of them entered the town of Kilbeggan, which contained but a small garrison. Thirty-six of them, by forming into a square, and keeping up a sharp and well-directed fire, cleared the town, and dispersed the insurgents. They were afterwards pursued by a troop of the 7th dragoons, who had entered the town after their repulse, and nearly 300 of them were put to the sword. The town had been quiet for some hours, when six Orangemen (privates), without orders,

them two lads, of the name of Marshall, and marched them some paces from their father's house up to one Greham's, from whom they also brought away his two sons, who were young men. Then, in the presence of their respective parents and families, they ordered the four to kneel down, and instantly murdered them in the most barbarous manner. The following day, another party of Orangemen, of the same description, and equally unauthorized, set out with a proscribed list of their own fabrication, according to each man's private resentment or humour, and calling out the wretched victims, shot and bayoneted seven persons of the town, amongst whom was the very man, who, at the risk of his life, had on the preceding day stolen into Kilbeggan, and by apprizing the small garrison of the intended attack, had been the saviour of them all. *

* The times were then too turbulent to attempt legal redress. Yet, in the Spring of the next year, 1799, an honorable Baronet, who had himself witnessed these atrocious deeds of blood, supported Marshall in a prosecution for the loss of his two sons. The informations and bills of indictment were sent up to the Grand Jury. Several gentlemen of fortune and respectability proved the facts, and an Orange Grand Jury ignored the bills. The same Grand Jury in like manner returned ignoramus to the bills against the executioners of the proscribed list. Thus was it, that the perpetrators of Orange atrocities were convicted and punished after the rebellion was put down.

Orange

men encreased

and

The party, in which the political power of the country had concentered, now became more

than ever sensible, that by the union only of dreaded their opponents, could they be outweighed or by the people. crushed. Orange Societies had been established

in most of the principal towns of the kingdom. The people every where held them in abhorrence. They resented the Orangemen's insulting proscription of above four millions of their fellow-subjects as objects of distrust and enmity. They retained a lively sense of the atrocities of Armagh. They knew them sworn to secrecy, and were convinced of their oath of extermination. They were indignant at the aggravated provocation of Government encouraging them to assume the tone and function* of affording protection to the great population

of

* The excess, to which the Orangemen pushed their lust of controul over the proscribed cast, exceeds credibility. They imperiously arrogated to themselves the divine prerogative of judging, and acting upon their own anticipation of other men's intentions. Sir Richard Musgrave (Strictures upon the Historical Review, p. 228.) has published a string of nine resolutions or declarations, under the title of Rules and Regulations of the Boyne Society, commonly called Orangemen; the 8th of which is to the following effect :-" We are individually " bound to each other, not only to preserve the peace our"selves, but also to be active in preventing all others, of "whatever persuasion or denomination, (who may come " within our knowledge) that may have an intention to do an " ill or a wrong act."

of the country, whom they swore to exclude from their societies, as unworthy of course to unite with them in their boasted loyalty. Sensible of this popular impression, and staunch to their original spirit of deceit, five of the leading members of the Orange Society put forth in all the newspapers in 1797, a solemn manifesto of their order, by way of address to the public, disclaiming the imputations of their enemies, and speaking a language of refined loyalty.

TO THE LOYAL SUBJECTS OF IRELAND.

" From the various attempts that have been Orange" made to poison the public mind, and slander Inen's ad

" those who have had the spirit to adhere to their

king and constitution, and to maintain the "laws:

"We, the Protestants of Dublin, assuming the

name of Orangemen, feel ourselves called upon, " not to vindicate our principles, for we know " that our honour and loyalty bid defiance to "the shafts of malevolence and disaffection, but

openly to disavow these principles, and de"clare to the world the objects of our institu"tion.

"We have long observed with indignation "the efforts that have been made, to foment re" bellion in this kingdom, by the seditious, who

" have

dress.