A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

Autobiographic Sketches

T >> Thomas de Quincey >> Autobiographic Sketches




It may well be imagined in what terror the families of Killala heard
of a French invasion, and the necessity of immediately receiving a
republican army. As _sans culottes_, these men, all over Europe, had
the reputation of pursuing a ferocious marauding policy; in fact, they
were held little better than sanguinary brigands. In candor, it must
be admitted that their conduct at Killala belied these reports; though,
on the other hand, an obvious interest obliged them to a more pacific
demeanor in a land which they saluted as friendly, and designed to
raise into extensive insurrection. The French army, so much dreaded,
at length arrived. The general and his staff entered the palace; and
the first act of one officer, on coming into the dining room, was to
advance to the sideboard, sweep all the plate into a basket, and deliver
it to the bishop's butler, with a charge to carry it off to a place
of security. [1]

The French officers, with the detachment left under their orders by
the commander-in-chief, staid about one month at Killala. This period
allowed opportunities enough for observing individual differences of
character and the general tone of their manners. These opportunities
were not thrown away upon the bishop; he noticed with a critical eye,
and he recorded on the spot, whatever fell within his own experience.
Had he, however, happened to be a political or courtier bishop, his
record would, perhaps, have been suppressed; and, at any rate, it would
have been colored by prejudice. As it was, I believe it to have been
the honest testimony of an honest man; and, considering the minute
circumstantiality of its delineations, I do not believe that, throughout
the revolutionary war, any one document was made public which throws
so much light on the quality and composition of the French republican
armies. On this consideration I shall extract a few passages from the
bishop's personal sketches.

The commander-in-chief of the French armament is thus delineated by
the bishop:--

"Humbert, the leader of this singular body of men, was himself as
extraordinary a personage as any in his army. Of a good height and
shape, in the full vigor of life, prompt to decide, quick in execution,
apparently master of his art, you could not refuse him the praise of
a good officer, while his physiognomy forbade you to like him as a
man. His eye, which was small and sleepy, cast a sidelong glance of
insidiousness and even of cruelty; it was the eye of a cat preparing
to spring upon her prey. His education and manners were indicative of
a person sprung from the lower orders of society; though he knew how
to assume, when it was convenient, the deportment of a gentleman. For
learning, he had scarcely enough to enable him to write his name. His
passions were furious; and all his behavior seemed marked with the
character of roughness and insolence. A narrower observation of him,
however, seemed to discover that much of this roughness was the result
of art, being assumed with the view of extorting by terror a ready
compliance with his commands. Of this truth the bishop himself was one
of the first who had occasion to be made sensible."

The particular occasion here alluded to by the bishop arose out of the
first attempts to effect the disembarkation of the military stores and
equipments from the French shipping, as also to forward them when
landed. The case was one of extreme urgency; and proportionate
allowance must be made for the French general. Every moment might bring
the British cruisers in sight,--two important expeditions had already
been baffled in that way,--and the absolute certainty, known to all
parties alike, that delay, under these circumstances, was tantamount
to ruin; that upon a difference of ten or fifteen minutes, this way
or that, might happen to hinge the whole issue of the expedition: such
a consciousness gave unavoidably to every demur at this critical moment
the color of treachery. Neither boats, nor carts, nor horses could be
obtained; the owners most imprudently and selfishly retiring from that
service. Such being the extremity, the French general made the bishop
responsible for the execution of his orders; but the bishop had really
no means to enforce this commission, and failed. Upon that, General
Humbert threatened to send his lordship, together with his whole family,
prisoners of war to France, and assumed the air of a man violently
provoked. Here came the crisis for determining the bishop's weight
amongst his immediate flock, and his hold upon their affections. One
great bishop, not far off, would, on such a trial, have been exultingly
consigned to his fate: that I well know; for Lord Westport and I,
merely as his visitors, were attacked in the dusk so fiercely with
stones, that we were obliged to forbear going out unless in broad
daylight. Luckily the Bishop of Killala had shown himself a Christian
pastor, and now he reaped the fruits of his goodness. The public
selfishness gave way when the danger of the bishop was made known. The
boats, the carts, the horses were now liberally brought in from their
lurking-places; the artillery and stores were landed; and the drivers
of the carts, &c., were paid in drafts upon the Irish Directory, which
(if it were an aerial coin) served at least to mark an unwillingness
in the enemy to adopt violent modes of hostility, and ultimately
became available in the very character assigned to them by the French
general; not, indeed, as drafts upon the rebel, but as claims upon the
equity of the English government.

The officer left in command at Killala, when the presence of the
commander-in-chief was required elsewhere, bore the name of Charost.
He was a lieutenant colonel, aged forty-five years, the son of a
Parisian watchmaker. Having been sent over at an early age to the
unhappy Island of St. Domingo, with a view to some connections there
by which he hoped to profit, he had been fortunate enough to marry a
young woman who brought him a plantation for her dowry, which was
reputed to have yielded him a revenue of £2000 sterling per annum. But
this, of course, all went to wreck in one day, upon that mad decree
of the French convention which proclaimed liberty, without distinction,
without restrictions, and without gradations, to the unprepared and
ferocious negroes. [2] Even his wife and daughter would have perished
simultaneously with his property but for English protection, which
delivered them from the black sabre, and transferred them to Jamaica.
There, however, though safe, they were, as respected Colonel Charost,
unavoidably captives; and "his eyes would fill," says the bishop,"
when he told the family that he had not seen these dear relatives for
six years past, nor even had tidings of them for the last three years."
On his return to France, finding that to have been a watchmaker's son
was no longer a bar to the honors of the military profession, he had
entered the army, and had risen by merit to the rank which he now
held. "He had a plain, good understanding. He seemed careless or
doubtful of revealed religion, but said that he believed in God; was
inclined to think that there must be a future state; and was very sure
that, while he lived in this world, it was his duty to do all the good
to his fellow-creatures that he could. Yet what he did not exhibit in
his own conduct he appeared to respect in others; for he took care
that no noise or disturbance should be made in the castle (_i.e._,
the bishop's palace) on Sundays, while the family, and many Protestants
from the town, were assembled in the library at their devotions.

"Boudet, the next in command, was a captain of foot, twenty-eight years
old. His father, he said, was still living, though sixty-seven years
old when he was born. His height was six feet two inches. In person,
complexion, and gravity, he was no inadequate representation of the
Knight of La Mancha, whose example he followed in a recital of his own
prowess and wonderful exploits, delivered in measured language and an
imposing seriousness of aspect." The bishop represents him as vain and
irritable, but distinguished by good feeling and principle. Another
officer was Ponson, described as five feet six inches high, lively and
animated in excess, volatile, noisy, and chattering _à l'outrance_.
"He was hardy," says the bishop, "and patient to admiration of labor
and want of rest." And of this last quality the following wonderful
illustration is given: "A continued watching of _five days and nights
together_, when the rebels were growing desperate for prey and mischief,
_did not appear to sink his spirits in the smallest degree_."

Contrasting with the known rapacity of the French republican army in
_all_ its ranks the severest honesty of these particular officers, we
must come to the conclusion, either that they had been _selected_ for
their tried qualities of abstinence and self-control, or else that
the perilous tenure of their footing in Ireland had coerced them into
forbearance. Of this same Ponson, the last described, the bishop
declares that "he was strictly honest, and could not bear the absence
of this quality in others; so that his patience was pretty well tried
by his Irish allies. "At the same time, he expressed his contempt for
religion in a way which the bishop saw reason for ascribing to
vanity--"the miserable affectation of appearing worse than he really
was." One officer there was, named _Truc_, whose brutality recalled
the impression, so disadvantageous to French republicanism, which else
had been partially effaced by the manners and conduct of his comrades.
To him the bishop (and not the bishop only, but many of my own
informants, to whom Truc had been familiarly known) ascribes "a front
of brass, an incessant fraudful smile, manners altogether vulgar, and
in his dress and person a neglect of cleanliness, even beyond the
affected negligence of republicans."

Truc, however, happily, was not leader; and the principles or the
policy of his superiors prevailed. To them, not merely in their own
conduct, but also in their way of applying that influence which they
held over their most bigoted allies, the Protestants of Connaught were
under deep obligations. Speaking merely as to property, the honest
bishop renders the following justice to the enemy: "And here it would
be an act of great injustice to the excellent discipline constantly
maintained by these invaders while they remained in our town, not to
remark, that, with every temptation to plunder, which the time and the
number of valuable articles within their reach presented to them in
the bishop's palace, from a sideboard of plate and glasses, a hall
filled with hats, whips, and greatcoats, as well of the guests as of
the family, not a single particular of private property was found to
have been carried away, when the owners, after the first fright, came
to look for their effects, which was not for a day or two after the
landing." Even in matters of delicacy the same forbearance was exhibited:
"Beside the entire use of other apartments, during the stay of the
French in Killala, the attic story, containing a library and three bed
chambers, continued sacred to the bishop and his family. And so
scrupulous was the delicacy of the French not to disturb the female
part of the house, that not one of them was ever seen to go higher
than the middle floor, except on the evening of the success at
Castlebar, when two officers begged leave to carry to the family the
news of the battle; and seemed a little mortified that the news was
received with an air of dissatisfaction." These, however, were not the
weightiest instances of that eminent service which the French had it
in their power to render on this occasion. The royal army behaved ill
in every sense. Liable to continual panics in the field,--panics
which, but for the overwhelming force accumulated, and the discretion
of Lord Cornwallis, would have been fatal to the good cause,--the royal
forces erred as unthinkingly, in the abuse of any momentary triumph.
Forgetting that the rebels held many hostages in their hands, they
once recommenced the old system practised in Wexford and Kildare--of
hanging and shooting without trial, and without a thought of the
horrible reprisals that might be adopted. These reprisals, but for the
fortunate influence of the French commanders, and but for their great
energy in applying that influence according to the exigencies of time
and place, would have been made: it cost the whole weight of the French
power, their influence was stretched almost to breaking, before they
could accomplish their purpose of neutralizing the senseless cruelty
of the royalists, and of saving the trembling Protestants. Dreadful
were the anxieties of these moments; and I myself heard persons, at
a distance of nearly two years, declare that their lives hung at that
time by a thread; and that, but for the hasty approach of the lord
lieutenant by forced marches, that thread would have snapped. "We heard
with panic," said they, "of the madness which characterized the
proceedings of our _soi-disant_ friends; and, for any chance of safety,
unavoidably we looked only to our nominal enemies--the staff of the
French army."

One story was still current, and very frequently repeated, at the time
of my own residence upon the scene of these transactions. It would not
be fair to mention it, without saying, at the same time, that the
bishop, whose discretion was so much impeached by the affair, had the
candor to blame himself most heavily, and always applauded the rebel
for the lesson he had given him. The case was this: Day after day the
royal forces had been accumulating upon military posts in the
neighborhood of Killala, and could be descried from elevated stations
in that town. Stories travelled simultaneously to Killala, every hour,
of the atrocities which marked their advance; many, doubtless, being
fictions, either of blind hatred, or of that ferocious policy which
sought to make the rebels desperate, by tempting them into the last
extremities of guilt, but, unhappily, too much countenanced as to their
general outline, by excesses on the royal part, already proved, and
undeniable. The ferment and the anxiety increased every hour amongst
the rebel occupants of Killala. The French had no power to protect,
beyond the moral one of their influence as allies; and, in the very
crisis of this alarming situation, a rebel came to the bishop with the
news that the royal cavalry was at that moment advancing from Sligo,
and could be traced along the country by the line of blazing houses
which accompanied their march. The bishop doubted this, and expressed
his doubt. "Come with me," said the rebel. It was a matter of policy
to yield, and his lordship went. They ascended together the Needle
Tower Hill, from the summit of which the bishop now discovered that
the fierce rebel had spoken but too truly. A line of smoke and fire
ran over the country in the rear of a strong patrol detached from the
king's forces. The moment was critical; the rebel's eye expressed the
unsettled state of his feelings; and, at that instant, the imprudent
bishop utterred a sentiment which, to his dying day, he could not
forget. "They," said he, meaning the ruined houses, "are only wretched
cabins." The rebel mused, and for a few moments seemed in
self-conflict--a dreadful interval to the bishop, who became sensible
of his own extreme imprudence the very moment after the words had
escaped him. However, the man contented himself with saying, after a
pause, "A poor man's cabin is to him as dear as a palace." It is
probable that this retort was far from expressing the deep moral
indignation at his heart, though his readiness of mind failed to furnish
him with any other more stinging; and, in such cases, all depends upon
the first movement of vindictive feeling being broken. The bishop,
however, did not forget the lesson he had received; nor did he fail
to blame himself most heavily, not so much for his imprudence as for
his thoughtless adoption of a language expressing an aristocratic
hauteur that did not belong to his real character. There was, indeed,
at that moment no need that fresh fuel should be applied to the
irritation of the rebels; they had already declared their intention
of plundering the town; and, as they added, "in spite of the French,"
whom they now regarded, and openly denounced, as "abetters of the
Protestants," much more than as their own allies.

Justice, however, must be done to the rebels as well as to their
military associates. If they were disposed to plunder, they were found
generally to shrink from bloodshed and cruelty, and yet from no want
of energy or determination. "The peasantry never appeared to want
animal courage," says the bishop, "for they flocked together to meet
danger whenever it was expected. Had it pleased Heaven to be as liberal
to them of brains as of hands, it is not easy to say to what length
of mischief they might have proceeded; but they were all along
unprovided with leaders of any ability." This, I believe, was true;
and yet it would be doing poor justice to the Connaught rebels, nor
would it be drawing the moral truly as respects this aspect of the
rebellion, if their abstinence from mischief, in its worst form, were
to be explained out of this defect in their leaders. Nor is it possible
to suppose _that_ the bishop's meaning, though his words seem to tend
that way. For he himself elsewhere notices the absence of all wanton
bloodshed as a feature of this Connaught rebellion most honorable in
itself to the poor misguided rebels, and as distinguishing it very
remarkably from the greater insurrection so recently crushed in the
centre and the east. "It is a circumstance," says he, "worthy of
particular notice, that, during the whole time of this civil commotion,
not a single drop of blood was shed by the Connaught rebels, except
in the field of war. It is true, the example and influence of the
French went a great way to prevent sanguinary excesses. But it will
not be deemed fair to ascribe to this cause alone the forbearance of
which we were witnesses, when it is considered what a range of country
lay at the mercy of the rebels for several days after the French power
was known to be at an end."

To what, then, _are_ we to ascribe the forbearance of the Connaught
men, so singularly contrasted with the hideous excesses of their
brethren in the east? Solely to the different complexion (so, at least,
I was told) of the policy pursued by government. In Wexford, Kildare,
Meath, Dublin, &c., it had been judged advisable to adopt, as a sort
of precautionary policy, not for the punishment, but for the discovery
of rebellious purposes, measures of the direst severity; not merely
free quarterings of the soldiery, with liberty (or even an express
commission) to commit outrages and insults upon all who were suspected,
upon all who refused to countenance such measures, upon all who presumed
to question their justice, but even, under color of martial law, to
inflict croppings, and pitch cappings, half hangings, and the torture
of "picketings;" to say nothing of houses burned, and farms laid
waste--things which were done daily, and under military orders; the
purpose avowed being either vengeance for some known act of
insurrection, or the determination to extort confessions. Too often,
however, as may well be supposed, in such utter disorganization of
society, private malice, either personal or on account of old family
feuds, was the true principle at work. And many were thus driven, by
mere frenzy of just indignation, or, perhaps, by mere desperation,
into acts of rebellion which else they had not meditated. Now, in
Connaught, at this time, the same barbarous policy was no longer
pursued; and then it was seen, that, unless maddened by ill usage, the
peasantry were capable of great self-control. There was no repetition
of the Enniscorthy massacres; and it was impossible to explain honestly
_why_ there was none, without, at the same time, reflecting back upon
that atrocity some color of palliation.

These things considered, it must be granted that there was a spirit
of unjustifiable violence in the royal army on achieving their triumph.
It is shocking, however, to observe the effect of panic to irritate
the instincts of cruelty and sanguinary violence, even in the gentlest
minds. I remember well, on occasion of the memorable tumults in Bristol,
(autumn of 1831,) that I, for my part, could not read, without horror
and indignation, one statement, (made, I believe, officially at that
time,) which yet won the cordial approbation of some ladies who had
participated in the panic. I allude to that part of the report which
represents several of the dragoons as having dismounted, resigned the
care of their horses to persons in the street, and pursued the unhappy
fugitives, criminals, undoubtedly, but no longer dangerous, up stairs
and down stairs, to the last nook of their retreat. The worst criminals
could not be known and identified as such; and even in a case where
they could, vengeance so hellish and so unrelenting was not justified
by houses burned or by momentary panics raised. Scenes of the same
description were beheld upon the first triumph of the royal cause in
Connaught; and but for Lord Cornwallis, equally firm before his success
and moderate in its exercise, they would have prevailed more
extensively. The poor rebels were pursued with a needless ferocity on
the recapture of Killala. So hotly, indeed, did some of the conquerors
hang upon the footsteps of the fugitives, that both rushed almost
simultaneously--pursuers and pursued--into the terror-stricken houses
of Killala; and, in some instances, the ball meant for a rebel told
with mortal effect upon a royalist. Here, indeed, as in other cases
of this rebellion, in candor it should be mentioned, that the royal
army was composed chiefly of militia regiments. Not that militia, or
regiments composed chiefly of men who had but just before volunteered
for the line, have not often made unexceptionable soldiers; but in
this case there was no reasonable proportion of veterans, or men who
had seen any service. The Bishop of Killala was assured by an
intelligent officer of the king's army that the victors were within
a trifle of being beaten. I was myself told by a gentlemen who rode
as a volunteer on that day, that, to the best of his belief, it was
merely a mistaken order of the rebel chiefs causing a false application
of a select reserve at a very critical moment, which had saved his
own party from a ruinous defeat. It may be added, upon almost universal
testimony, that the recapture of Killala was abused, not only as
respected the defeated rebels, but also as respected the royalists of
that town. "The regiments that came to their assistance, being all
militia, seemed to think that they had a right to take the property
they had been the means of preserving, and to use it as their own
whenever they stood in need of it. Their rapacity differed in no respect
from that of the rebels, except that they seized upon things with less
of ceremony and excuse, and that his majesty's soldiers were
incomparably superior to the Irish traitors in dexterity at stealing.
In consequence, the town grew very weary of their guests, and were
glad to see them march off to other quarters."

The military operations in this brief campaign were discreditable, in
the last degree, to the energy, to the vigilance, and to the steadiness
of the Orange army. Humbert had been a leader against the royalists
of La Vendée, as well as on the Rhine; consequently he was an
ambidextrous enemy--fitted equally for partisan warfare, and for the
tactics of regular armies. Keenly alive to the necessity, under _his_
circumstances, of vigor and despatch, after occupying Killala on the
evening of the 22d August, (the day of his disembarkation,) where the
small garrison of 50 men (yeomen and fencibles) had made a tolerable
resistance, and after other trifling affairs, he had, on the 26th,
marched against Castlebar with about 800 of his own men, and perhaps
1200 to 1500 of the rebels. Here was the advanced post of the royal
army. General Lake (the Lord Lake of India) and Major General Hutchinson
(the Lord Hutchinson of Egypt) had assembled upon this point a
respectable force; some say upwards of 4000, others not more than 1100.
The disgraceful result is well known: the French, marching all night
over mountain roads, and through one pass which was thought impregnable,
if it had been occupied by a battalion instead of a captain's guard,
surprised Castlebar on the morning of the 27th. _Surprised_, I say,
for no word short of that can express the circumstances of the case.
About two o'clock in the morning, a courier had brought intelligence
of the French advance; but from some unaccountable obstinacy, at head
quarters, such as had proved fatal more than either once or twice in
the Wexford campaign, his news was disbelieved; yet, if disbelieved,
why therefore neglected? Neglected, however, it was; and at seven,
when the news proved to be true, the royal army was drawn out in hurry
and confusion to meet the enemy. The French, on their part, seeing our
strength, looked for no better result to themselves than summary
surrender; more especially as our artillery was well served, and soon
began to tell upon their ranks. Better hopes first arose, as they
afterwards declared, upon observing that many of the troops fired in
a disorderly way, without waiting for the word of command; upon this
they took new measures: in a few minutes a panic arose; General Lake
ordered a retreat; and then, in spite of all that could be done by the
indignant officers, the flight became irretrievable. The troops reached
Tuam, thirty miles distant, on that same day; and one small party of
mounted men actually pushed on to Athlone, which is above sixty miles
from the field of battle. Fourteen pieces of artillery were lost on
this occasion. However, it ought to be mentioned that some serious
grounds appeared afterwards for suspecting treachery; most of those
who had been reported "missing" having been afterwards observed in the
ranks of the enemy, where it is remarkable enough (or perhaps not so
remarkable, as simply implying how little they were trusted by their
new allies, and for that reason how naturally they were put forward
on the most dangerous services) that these deserters perished to a
man. Meantime, the new lord lieutenant, having his foot constantly in
the stirrup, marched from Dublin without a moment's delay. By means
of the grand canal, he made a forced march of fifty-six English miles
in two days; which brought him to Kilbeggan on the 27th. Very early
on the following morning, he received the unpleasant news from
Castlebar. Upon this he advanced to Athlone, meeting every indication
of a routed and panic-struck army. Lord Lake was retreating upon that
town, and thought himself _(it is said)_ so little secure, even at
this distance from the enemy, that the road from Tuam was covered with
strong patrols. On the other hand, in ludicrous contrast to these
demonstrations of alarm, (_supposing them to be related without
exaggeration,_) the French had never stirred from Castlebar. On the
4th of September, Lord Cornwallis was within fourteen miles of that
place. Humbert, however, had previously dislodged towards the county
of Longford. His motive for this movement was to cooperate with an
insurrection in that quarter, which had just then broken out in
strength. He was now, however, hemmed in by a large army of perhaps
25,000 men, advancing from all points; and a few moves were all that
remained of the game, played with whatever skill. Colonel Vereker,
with about 300 of the Limerick militia, first came up with him, and
skirmished very creditably (September 6) with part, or (as the colonel
always maintained) with the whole of the French army. Other affairs
of trivial importance followed; and at length, on the 8th of September,
General Humbert surrendered with his whole army, now reduced to 844
men, of whom 96 were officers; having lost since their landing at
Killala exactly 288 men. The rebels were not admitted to any terms;
they were pursued and cut down without mercy. However, it is pleasant
to know, that, from their agility in escaping, this cruel policy was
defeated: not much above 500 perished; and thus were secured to the
royal party the worst results of vengeance the fiercest, and of clemency
the most undistinguishing, without any one advantage of either. Some
districts, as Laggan and Eris, were treated with martial rigor; the
cabins being burned, and their unhappy tenants driven out into the
mountains for the winter. Rigor, therefore, there was; for the most
humane politicians, erroneously, as one must believe, fancied it
necessary for the army to leave behind some impressions of terror
amongst the insurgents. It is certain, however, that, under the counsels
of Lord Cornwallis, the standards of public severity were very much
lowered, as compared with the previous examples in Wexford.

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