“ 
592 
This average is taken exclufive of coals 
fold by weight, which may amount to 
2coo ton per annum, and of cinders, which 
may amount to 500c chaldron per annum. 
Auguf? 12, 1799. a BER G3 
ee 
For the Monthiy Magazine. 
EFFFCTS OF THE LATE REBELLION IN 
IRELAND ON THE CHARACTER AND 
FEELINGS CF THE IRISH. 
MONG the many calamities which 
A refult from rebellion and civil war, 
there is none perhaps more to be depre- 
cated than that ferocious and un eeling 
diipofition which frequent {cenes of blood 
neceffarily create even in the heft minds.— 
or is it merely the confli@ which takes 
place in the field, and which extinguithes 
in blood the caufe of civil diflention, that” 
tends moft effectually to barbarife the 
mind.—-It is rather thofe events which 
foiiow the fuccefs of one party and the de- 
feat of the cther—it is the work of the 
executioner—thofe fpestacles which it is 
thought neceflary to hold up te public 
view, in order to deter difafection from 
new attempts to dilturb the tranquillity 
of the ftate, or to mark the power of the 
government to put down and take ven- 
geance of its enemies. 
Sir, Thefe reflections were fuegefted by 
a fhort excuriion which I am juit returned 
from making through the counties of 
Dublin, Kildare, and Carlow; and in 
which, I am forry to fay, I found the vef. 
tiges of the late rebellion, not nrore vifible 
in the demolition and burning cf honfes 
and villages, than in the converfation, fen- 
timents, and character of the inhabitants. 
T had known thofe counties, and the dif 
pofition and manner of their people, long 
before the commencement of the rebellion; 
J had known them to be gentle, humane, 
and poffefled, perhaps, of more of the milk 
of human kindnef$ than the lower order 
of peopie in moft counttiés poffefs. I 
found them, if it be fair to give a general 
character of a people from the experience 
of an individual, with quite a new fet of 
feelings; they had become familiar with 
cruelty ; they could talk of torture and of 
death—rot the death of an individual, 
but the flauchter of thoufands ; with the 
fame apathy and lifilefnefs as they would 
have fpoken of any every-day incident.— 
Death and futerimg, indeed, feemed for’ 
them to have loft all their horror; and I 
‘have heard them relate the fall of hun- 
dreds of their townfmen with a degree of 
circumftantial and cool accuracy, which 
proved that they felt in the relation the 
-moft perfeCt indifference. It was at a 
time when the aflizes were holden in thefe 
Effects of the Irifh Rebellion, 
[Sept: 
counties that I happened to vifit them.— 
Some convictions had taken place, and the 
criminals were executed during my flay. 
—On former occafions of this kind an 
execution would have fet.the town and 
its vicinity in motion, and have excited 
_the lamentations and the curiofity of the 
peafantry for three miles round. Now 
the moft dreadful fentence which human 
laws can infliét was executed by the theriff 
and his officers with as little buftle and 
intereft as would have attended his giving 
pofiefiion.of a farm-houfe under an ejeét- 
ment. The unfortunate vidtim of offended 
juftice was drawn to his place of fuffering 
through a county-town, and {carcely at- 
traéted in his progrefs the attention of a 
fingle pafienzer; or excited in one inftance 
thofe expreffions of pity or of fympathy 
which are fo natural and fo common on 
fuch folemn occafions, in countries where 
the feelings of humanity have not been 
blunted by the frequency of icenes of ftill 
greater horror. 
~Tt has been the cuftom of thefe coun- 
ties fince the rebellion to exhibit to public 
view the heads of_fuch as have fuffered 
capital punifhment forthe part they took 
in thofe difturbances, by fixing them up in 
fome confpicuous fituation. On the goal 
of Athy are fixed: two of thoie heads— 
but they are placed at fuch agheight as 
not to fhock the paffenger by too near a 
view of humanity in this ftate of degra- 
dation and corruption. In Carlow, the 
front gate of the new prifon which they 
have ereCted there is not more than fifteen 
teet high, and at that fhort diftance from 
the travellers’ eye a few heads are exhibit- 
ed, forcing on him a view of death in its 
mott hideous form, familiarifing the mind 
of the paffing peafant to the moft horrid of 
all {pe@tacles: and blunting in him thofe 
feelings of commileration for human fuf- 
fering, on which muft always depend in a 
great meafure the virtues of the populace. 
—How far they tend to produce this effect 
may be learned by the following anecdote: 
While I was contemplating with horror 
this groupe of dreadful objects, jn all of 
which except one you might diftinétlly 
trace the features and mark the expreffion 
of the agonies of death; I afked a townf- 
boy, who was paffing, whether thefe heads 
had been all put up at the fame time; and 
on being told they were, I obferved it was, 
ftrange that one of them was nearly firip. 
ped of fiefh, while the others appeared yet 
perfe&t. He aniwered, “Sir, that head 
is the head of Mr. Keefe of Ballyva.— 
e was lying in a putrid fever when he 
was taken away by the military, and after 
afhort trial by a Court Martial was exe- 
; - cutede 
