hour, or twenty minutes, which gave Captain Snowe an opportunity of renewing the ammunition, of his own men, which was almost all expended, and of sending a fresh supply to the yeomenry; he was enabled to do this, from having a car on the bridge with him with his ammunition-chest on it: in the mean time, the houses all around, on each side of the river, began to blaze, and exhibited a most awful spectacle. The rebels took immediate advantage of this, to make a second and most desperate attack on the Duffrey-gate and through the Irish-street, and to send across the river to the Templeshannon side another body, much lower down than where they had attempted it before, in order to take the troops on both their flanks. Their numbers and impetuosity were so great on the Duffrey-gate and Irish-street, that all the corps of yeomenry and the loyalists were obliged to retreat fight ing into the very centre of the town, where they made a most ́determined stand:-and here they were opportunely and nobly supported by the fire of a detachment of one serjeant, one corporal, and fourteen privates, composed equally of the militia and yeomenry, under the command of serjeant Bennett of the Enniscorthy infantry. This detachment had been posted in the morning, in the windows of the court-house, which commanded the market-place, under the idea of what now really came to pass; and the execution from its fire amongst the crowd of rebels was dreadful--no shot missing. At this moment, Captain Cornock, wounded from the thrust of a pike along his neck, ran down to the bridge, to inform Captain Snowe of what was passing, and to request a reinforcement from the North-Cork, which was immediately complied with; Captain Snowe reserving no officer, and only one serjeant and sixteen rank and file with himself. This reinforcement had not been gone five minutes, when the rebels appeared in Templeshannon, at the opposite end of the street, fronting the party of the North-Cork, which had been drawn across that part of the bridge to oppose them; after

exchanging two or three shots, the party advanced rapidly through the streets with fixed bayonets and ported arms, finding nothing else for it, and apprehensive that a much larger body of rebels might come on: they met no opposition till they came to the brewery, when about forty men dashed in amongst them from a lane on their left, and an obstinate contest ensued hand to hand; but the NorthCork being all ready loaded, and their arms in the best order, succeeded in almost totally destroying this party of rebels, very few individuals saving themselves by flight: a small number of them only had fire-arms, but the pikemen, wonderfully tall, stout able fellows, fought with their pikes in the most furious and desperate manner, thrusting at the soldiers, who had much ado to parry with their bayonets after having fired, before they could load again-out of the sixteen men, two were killed and one wounded in this affair. Previous to the reinforcement under Captain Joshua Pounden coming over from the Duffrey-gate, the formidable attack in that quarter had been repulsed by the united militia and yeomenry, and the great column of rebels completely driven out of the town. This happy success enabled Captain Pounden to march his corps immediately over to Templeshannon, to the assistance of Captain Snowe and his small party.

NOTWITHSTANDING the many repulses the rebels had received, in this very severe action of more than three hour's continuance, yet they had not drawn off; they occupied all the hills about Enniscorthy, and were seen in thousands climbing up the steep wood below the bridge, to take post on the road leading to Wexford-they well knew that the troops, exhausted with the constant duty they had underwent for several days and nights previous to the action, and with the day's action itself, were in no condition to oppose fresh and repeated attacks that would be made on them in the night; they had no cannon, and were inclosed in a burning town, without the possibility of geting

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any kind of refreshment. From a conviction of the truth of this situation, a retreat to Wexford was proposed to Captain Snowe, by the river instead of the great road, the town being no longer tenable; to which he at last yielded, after giving his opinion, that he did not know how far he might be justified in doing so; but being told that if he did not, his retreat would be entirely cut off in less than ten minutes, he ordered the drum to beat. The militia, yeomenry and loyalists marched off together, through the burning streets, the houses on each side of which were some blazing, others a cake of red fire; they carried off with them such of their wounded as were at all able to move, the yeomen cavalry vying with each other which should give most assistance to these unfortunate sufferers, and equally so to the women and children, numbers of whom, inhabitants of Enniscor thy, followed the troops. Mo pursuit was attempted by the rebels, nor did they enter Enniscorthy for some time after the troops had evacuated it. In this day's action, Captain John Pounden, Lieutenant Carden, an old officer, and Lieutenant Hunt, fell; the latter at first only wounded, but afterwards murdered by the rebels, and about seventy of the troops, mostly yeomenry; several loyalists were also killed and wounded, on whose bravery too much praise cannot be bestowed. The rebels, by every subsequent account, lost five hundred men-they paid dear; for General Roche afterwards declared they were the flower of his army of fifteen thousand men, ten thousand of whom were armed with fire-arms and pikes, the remainder with such weapons as they could procure; however, their exact strength could not be ascertained, they were supposed by the troops in the action to be about ten thousand. Roche was mounted on a grey horse, wore a cocked hat, was dressed in scarlet, and had a draw sword in his hand. The troops made good their retreat, and marched into Wexford that night by nine o'clock, in perfect or der, both cavalry and infantry.

LETTER I..

FOXFORD, JULY 18, 1799.

"

MY DEAR FRIEND,

ON Sunday, the third of June 1798, one hundred and thirty of our regiment (the Armagh militia) commanded by Lieutenant-colonel Cope, marched into Gorey; and in the evening we were joined by different other detachments. We halted there all night, and next morning paraded to the number (yeomenry included) of about eleven hundred brave looking men. I could not suppose that the rebels would have opposed such a force; nor did we expect battle till we arrived at Vinegar-hill, which, I believe, may have been the cause of the insecurity of our commandingofficers, and which led to our defeat. The 4th of June four gracious King's birth-day-oh! may we never commemorate it with such an awful scene) our forces were divided, one part under the command of General Loftus, the other under that of Col. Walpole, our fighting general. General Loftus, took the main road, leading to Wexford. I was under the direction of the Jatter, who took a country road, which after a few miles traveling struck out on the former.

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BATTLE OF TUBBERNELNEEN,
NEAR GOREY.

WE marched about three miles, when Colonel Walpole rode along the line on march, and requested of the troops to be in readiness, as he expected an enemy very near; their picquets having appeared within a mile of us. We came to a beautiful situation by nature; the quicksets were very high on either hand, as also, a woody country, through which we were to proceed, in this place lay our enemy, to the amount of twelve thousand! They secreted their force behind hedges, to allure us into the ambuscadewhich unfortunately answered their hellish design.

Our cannon, consisting of two six-pounders, and a small field-piece of the Ancient British fencibles, were ordered to the front-the road became narrow, which prevented the great guns from acting agreeably to our wish then began a heavy fire of musquetry from each side of the road, and from behind the hedges on our army; which continued on both sides without intermission, for two hours': the cannon ceased, owing to the narrow pass, as also the horses being killed in the traces. We were ordered to take a field in front of their fire: here we disputed the ground for half an hour, when eleven brave fellows of our regiment fell on each side of me. I am now bound in gratitude to acknowledge the kindness of God to me-while loading my piece, the cartridge was taken out of my fingers by a ball, within four inches of my head, and my pantaloons torn across by another-but the issues of life were in the hands of a kind preserver. Col. Walpole received a ball in the thigh, and in a moment after another through the head; by which means this brave soldier fell a victim. A ball went through Colonel Cope's horse's ear, which grazed his cheek, and passed through his hat, while commanding the menseveral officers were wounded in like manner. In a little time their line broke, which we took for an omen of their defeat; but this was only to deceive us-for their two wings set up the war-hoop, and made for Gorey, to cut off our retreat, which had been ordered to be made. Eighteen of our men, with Colonel Cope and Ensign Collins, were left behind in the meadows-having learned that the body of our army were gone, we were determined to fight our way af ter them. It was truly painful, as we passed along, to behold our cannon on the road useless to us the pikemen with exultation leaping across them, displaying their emblems of disaffection over them, crying "Erin go bragh, the English cannon is ours"-also the groans of the wounded, whose Lodies torn and pierced by pikes, while yet living, rendered the scene altogether very awful! we not knowing but this would

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