66 rived at the Park. They saw Dr. Lindsey, who gave an anxious attention to what they had to communicate, and expressed himself perfectly satisfied that immediate steps should be taken to prevent the designs of the traitors. But what," said Wilcox, "is to be done? Marsden will pay no attention to us." Go to him," said the Doctor, "again, from me; tell him that I insisted on it; that I am perfectly satisfied your information is not to be despised. And I will myself go to the Lord Lieutenant, and let him know what I have heard. A single moment should not be lost. If there be any truth in your suspicions we cannot be too prompt in our precautions against impending danger. We have to deal with an enemy who combines the subtlety of the fox with the ferocity of the tiger, and I only say we shall deserve to suffer for it, if we permit him to take us by surprise." The gentlemen took their leave, and proceeded towards the Castle. When they arrived there, Marsden was at dinner and could not be seen. Captain Wilcox insisted upon seeing him; he said he came from the Private Secretary of the Lord Lieutenant, and that his business was of the last importance. Marsden rose from his dinner in no very pleasing mood, and Captain Wilcox soon perceived that no impression was to be made upon him. He was an obstinate, opinionative man, who had resolved in his own mind that there could be no such thing as active treason in the country, and felt the representations which were made to him either as a reproach to his negligence or a reflection upon his sagacity. So, sir," says he to the Captain, "you think we are all to be blown up, do you?" "I think," says Wilcox, you are upon the verge of an explosion: whether we are blown up or not will depend, under Providence, upon ourselves." "I feel obliged by the anxiety you show on this occasion, and am persuaded it proceeds from the best motives. But we are fully aware of the state of the country, and know it to be perfectly impossible that there could be any foundation for your apprehension. Go home, my good friend, and make your mind easy. If I were to make any such fuss as you desire, merely upon vague and idle rumours, which I have been too long in office not to have learned to despise, it would be 66 66 amusing to see how like fools we should all look when we awoke without finding our throats cut in the morning." Mr. Marsden," said the Captain, "I too, have seen some service, and I believe the government never have found that any information which I gave them was not to be relied on. Once again I solemnly declare that I never was more deeply convinced of anything than that danger this moment impends of which they are little aware, and that two hours may not elapse before the rebels are in possession of this Castle and the city is in a conflagration. For God's sake, attend to what I say. Nothing but the extraordinary circumstances in which I feel myself placed could have made me intrude upon you at such an hour, or, evince a pertinacity, which I perceive to be disagreeable, upon such a subject. But, if I am right, our all is at stake. If I am wrong, any preparations which may be made at my instance, although they may give rise to some ridicule, can cause no inconvenience." The Under Secretary was not to be moved. He again coldly signified his thanks to Captain Wilcox for the trouble he had taken, and, as far as he politely could, intimated his desire that the interview should terminate. The Captain accordingly took his leave, exceedingly chagrined and mortified by an obstinate self-sufficiency which he feared might prove the ruin of his country. "Well, Clarke," he said, "this is provoking. We must immediately go back to Dr. Lindsay, and tell him what has occurred. Perhaps what Mr. Marsden would not attend to from us, he may be induced to listen to when he hears it from his masters." "I protest, Wilcox," says Clarke, "I am not surprised that they are a little incredulous. The Government may well have been deceived, when I myself, who have been living amongst the very fellows who seem to be at the bottom of it, had not the slightest idea of what is about to take place, until I saw the villains dressed in their Sunday clothes as we passed out of Palmerstown this evening. Who could have believed that a set of drunken, talkative, open-hearted Irish men could have kept such a secret so profoundly?" "I was a little better acquainted than you were with the business of ninety-eight," said Wilcox, " and cannot therefore be so much sur prised that secresy and fidelity towards cach other, should characterise the people of this country when engaged in the concoction of treason. It is, in their minds, wholly unaccompanied by any sense of guilt or sin. On the contrary, they labour under an insane persuasion that they are engaged in a good work; and that in pulling down a Protestant Government, and extirpating heresy from the country, they are doing that which is positively meritorious, and which, like charity, will cover a multitude of sins. Now I do not suppose there is a man in the county of Dublin who has servants of the Roman Catholic persuasion more attached to him than mine are to me, and yet But, while he was speaking, the report of a musket rung in his ear; he started, and instinctively drew a pistol from his holster, and firing it at an individual who was in the act of taking from his shoulder a gun which he had just discharged, both he and his companion put spurs to their horses and galloped furiously in the direction of Kilmainham. When they had proceeded for some time, and felt that there was no pursuit, and that they were not threatened with any immediate danger, they slackened their pace, and Captain Wilcox, turning round to address Mr. Clarke, perceived, for the first time, that the shot which was fired at them had taken effect in the side of his head, and that his face was covered with blood. Fortunately, the wound was not mortal, nor even dangerous, although the appearance of his mangled friend was, at the moment, sufficiently frightful. He resolved immediately to return with him, and have the best advice and assistance that could be procured; and it was, we believe, Mr. Clarke himself who suggested, that, before they went any where else they should present themselves, in their present condition, to Mr. Marsden. "If he does not believe us now," says Wilcox, “he would not believe, even though one rose from the dead." The incredulous Under-Secretary was quietly sipping his wine, and amusing his company by an account of the foolish alarmists who had so unceremoniously intruded upon his hour of privacy and enjoyment, to disturb him with their idle tales, when his 66 And it door was assailed by the loud and vehement knocking of men who would not be denied. When it was opened, Captain Wilcox did not ask whether Mr. Marsden was at home, but desired the servant to tell his master that they must see him immediately; the summons was instantly obeyed; the UnderSecretary stood before them. Upon seeing the wounded man he exclaimed, "Mercy on me! Captain Wilcox, what's the matter?" Matter, Sir," rejoined the Captain, "it is too late now to ask what's the matter-the town is in insurrection, and its principal streets may, by this time, be in possession of the rebels." "Good God!" said Marsden, is it indeed so?-what is to be done?" Wilcox was far too generous to reproach him, at such a moment, for his incredulity. If he before was provoked by his obstinacy, he then pitied his consternation, and was determined to do all in his power to retrieve the almost fatal error which had been occasioned by his pertinacious self-sufficiency. Marsden was thoroughly frightened. That he saw. was his duty to do all that in him lay that the country should not suffer more from his terrors at night, than from his over-confidence in the morning. Having, therefore, seen that his friend was taken proper care of, he immediately applied himself to re-assure the faltering Secretary, and to devise the best means of meeting the formidable attack, which, he was persuaded had already commenced, and against which the city was so completely unprovided. "What are your means of defence, supposing the castle to be attacked?" he asked. "Oh, attacked! But do you think it will be attacked ?-do you think that the rebels dare attack the castle?" This was too much for WilCOX he however checked his indignation, and replied, with a severe gravity, "I think, Sir, you have already seen enough to remove any doubts respecting that. The question is not now, what they will dare, but what they can do; if they think, that by attacking the castle they can take it, you may depend upon it, it is not by boastful words they will be scared from their purpose. It is our duty, therefore, to suppose the worst, and to provide against it. If they should attack the castle, what are we to do?" Marsden stood aghast ! "What troops," said Wilcox, " are in readiness?" “I know of none," said the Secretary. How many stand of arms have you?" "Not one within reach." "How many round of ammunition ?" "Not a single one." Such was the condition of Dublincastle at the moment when Emmet and his partizans were already in arms. It must be unnecessary to inform the reader, that the party by whom Captain Wilcox and Mr. Clarke were fired at, was the same that had been despatched from Palmerstown for the purpose of intercepting them on their way to the castle. By some divergence from the usual rout, either on the part of these gentlemen, or of the assassins, they missed them as they went, and could not, therefore, prevent the fatal communication, but met them as they returned, and were determined upon a bloody vengeance. How narrowly the Captain and his friend escaped, has been seen. It should be added, that Wilcox's ball took effect in the hand of the individual at whom he fired, and whose presence of mind was such, that he threw away his gun, separated himself from his accomplices, and running to a distant part of the quay, pretended to be the victim of the very villany of which he was the perpetrator, and that it was against him the fury of the assassins was directed. He actually obtained surgical assistance from a loyal man, upon the audacious misrepresentation. sassins might not be cut off by any summary process of military vengeance, and that no one should suffer for his murder, until duly convicted by the laws of the land. There he lay in dust and gore as he had been taken from the pikes of the savages, whose first overt act of treason, with an atrocious propriety, was, to imbrue their hands in the blood of the mild and benignant representative of the majesty of the law; there he lay, still retaining in his countenance that expression of piteous and beseeching anguish, which could no more excite the sympathy of his merciless tormentors than it could soften the steel by which they pierced him to the heart. Beside him, in similar guise, lay his nephew, a young man of mild manners, and the kindest heart; while the screams of his daughter, Miss Wolfe, who narrowly escaped a similar fate, were heard, amid the noise and tumult by which she was surrounded; her's was indeed a voice of lamentation, which would have penetrated even a heart of stone. She had been saved, it is said, by the gallantry of some of the rebel chiefs; but her very preservation, after she had witnessed the inhuman butchery of her beloved parent, was sufficient to prove, that even the "tender mercies of the wicked are cruel." 66 It was now about half-past nine o'clock. The night was pitchy dark. Major (the present General) Shortal was taking his rounds in the Star fort in the Phoenix Park, to which he had been at that time but recently appointed, and which he still commands, when his The alarm had now become general, attention was arrested by firing in the and the loyalty of Dublin was instantly city. "What is that?" he said to the in arms; that is, in such arms as the in-person in attendance upon him. Firdividuals could procure for themselves. ing, your honour," was the reply. The The yeomanry, in great numbers, came Major paused, and listened again. to the castle, but they might as well "It is," he said, "and platoon firing have gone any where else; for there too. You may depend upon it there is was neither a head to direct them what something wrong." At that moment a to do, nor an arsenal from which they considerable number of persons apmight be furnished for the conflict. proached the fort, and desired to speak While they were thus assembled in with him. The Major advanced. They uncertainty and terror, the mangled told him the real state of the case; bodies of the Rev. A. Wolfe and Lord that the rebels were in arms-that the Kilwarden were brought in. Nothing Castle was about to be attackedcould exceed the horror or the anguish that they applied for arms and amwith which the piteous spectacle was munition, and could procure none—and regarded. There lay the venerable that, unless they were supplied by him judge, who never dispensed justice the consequences might be most deplorbut in mercy, and whose last words able. "You are aware, gentlemen," were a prayer, that his ruthless as- observed Shortal, that I cannot give any supply of ammunition from this place, without orders from the Govern ment. Have you any such orders?" "No," it was answered; "the Government have been taken completely by surprise. We have been left without orders or directions of any kind. For God's sake, Sir, do not stand upon ce remony on an occasion like this. Consent to supply us, or all may be lost." Shortal felt the situation in which he was placed as most critical. But he was a soldier and a man of sense; and was soon convinced that the emergency was such as to justify a departure from ordinary rules; still he was resolved to proceed with caution. "What you say, gentlemen," he observed, "is very strong. But how can I be sure that I am not this moment talking to some of the emissaries of the rebels? Is there any one amongst you whom I know?" "Yes, here I am," said the present Surgeon-General. "Is that Crampton?" asked Shortal. "The same," was the reply." Then," said the Major, "Crampton shall be the countersign." The men were immediately admitted, and the ammunition was procured. But by this time an effectual check had been given to the progress of the insurgents. They had assembled in great numbers, and were well supplied with weapons which might have rendered them very formidable. But they were under no sort of control or discipline; and many of them availed themselves of the implements of destruction which were placed in their hands, to pursue some project of individual plunder, instead of bending all their energies to the accomplishment of their common object. The leaders, too, were divided amongst themselves. From the moment they had received the information of the language used by Clarke to the workmen at Palmerstown the majority of them resolved that the insurrection should commence at nine o'clock. But there were some who pertinaciously maintained that they should still adhere to their original purpose, and not appear in arms until they were fully supported by their friends from the country. The opinion of the former prevailed; but not so completely as to give that hearty unity to their measures that could alone render them successful. Emmet did whatever could be done by personal valour and enthusiasm, to keep his followers together, and animate them to take the castle by a coup de main; but he soon found how little mere numbers availed against the discipline and the well-directed fire of the military; who, although but a handful of men, under the conduct of Lieutenant Brady, put the rebels to flight in all directions, and restored order and tranquillity. By the flashes of the musketry Emmet was to be seen flying from man to man, exhorting his people to maintain their ground, and recklessly exposing his own person in the thickest of the conflict; while Lieutenant Brady might be observed chewing tobacco, and giving his orders with a coolness and precision which was admirably seconded by the gallant fellows he commanded, and who threw in their fire with a steadiness and effect which speedily rendered the cause of the insurgents as desperate as their project was abominable. The morning had begun to dawn before Emmet could be induced to abandon the scene of action, when he and a few others retired into the county of Wicklow, where he remained for some time concealed. About the same hour Capt. Wilcox began to retrace his steps home. He had not seen or heard anything of his family since the evening before, when he left them in the midst of treason and surrounded by danger: and the reader may imagine with what trembling solicitude he approached the precincts of his residence, where his wife and children had been for so many hours defenceless and exposed, liable, at any moment, to fall victims to the sanguinary fury of the disappointed ruffians by whom he had himself been devoted to destruction. The quiet and soothing flow of the river, the balmy freshness of the breeze, and melodies poured from the emulous throats of thousands of the feathered tribe, who rendered the atmosphere vocal with living harmony, were all lost upon the anxious ear and the straining eye of the husband and the father, who, at every step, was fearful of encountering some sight or sound of woe, which might consign him, for the remainder of his days, to solitude and bereavement. But his mansion was unmolested. The |