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THREE:The state of Ireland continued to excite the greatest alarm from the prorogation of Parliament to the end of the year. The language of the speakers in the Association became more violent, and the harangues of the priests more inflammatory. In the counties of Tipperary and Limerick large bodies of men were accustomed to assemble on Sundays, and to parade in military order, carrying banners. These bands were regularly organised and admirably commanded. The Irish Government, from time to time, reported the progress of this formidable organisation. In one place as many as 700 "cavalry" would assemble, with thousands of infantry, and go through military evolutions. These were surrounded by thousands of the peasantry. Amongst the persons thus paraded were some of the most abandoned characters in the country, men who had notoriously been concerned in the perpetration of murder, and for the apprehension of whom large rewards had been offered in vain by the Government. These demonstrations, as might be expected, excited the greatest alarm among the Protestants of the south, as well as the peaceably disposed Roman Catholics. One ominous circumstance connected with them was the fact that the dissuasions of the priests against the meetings in military array were disregarded. Mr. Lawless, an active member of the Association, marched northward at the head of 10,000 Roman Catholics. In the county of Monaghan, the Orangemen, apprised of their approach, took possession of the town of Ballyhay in large numbers, prepared to encounter the southern invaders of Ulster. As the Orangemen were well armed, and excited to the utmost, a bloody battle would have ensued, had not Lawless beaten a timely retreat. Getting out of his carriage, and mounting a swift horse, he galloped off, amidst the indignant shouts of his followers.While this was going on, the town of San Sebastian was stormed by the British. Sir Thomas Graham conducted the assault, which was led on by the brigade of General Robinson, bravely supported by a detachment of Portuguese under Major Snodgrass. The place was captured; the French were driven through it to the castle standing on a height, in which they found refuge. Seven hundred prisoners were taken. The British lost two thousand men in the assault��a loss which would have been far greater had a mine, containing one thousand two hundred pounds of gunpowder, exploded, but which was fortunately prevented by the falling in of a saucisson. Many less would have fallen, however, had General Graham allowed shells to be thrown into the town, which he would not, on account of the inhabitants. But the French had not only prepared this great mine, but exploded various other appliances for setting the town on fire. In fact they showed no care for the people or the town. When driven to the castle, after a murderous street fight��in which they picked off our men from behind walls and windows, killing Sir Richard Fletcher, the commanding engineer, and wounding Generals Robinson, Leith, and Oswald, besides slaughtering heaps of our men��they continued to fire down the streets, killing great numbers of the inhabitants besides our soldiers. Yet, after all, they charged Lord Wellington with not only throwing shells into the town, but with[61] setting it on fire, and plundering it. His lordship indignantly repelled these accusations in his letter to his brother, Sir Henry Wellesley. He declares that he himself had been obliged to hasten to his headquarters at Lezaco, on the morning of the 31st of August, but that he saw the town on fire in various places before our soldiers entered it; in fact, the French had set it on fire in six different places, and had their mine exploded scarcely a fragment of the town would have been left, or a single inhabitant alive. The lenity shown to the town by Wellington and Graham, who acted for him, was not used towards their calumniators in the castle. It was stoutly bombarded, and being soon almost battered to pieces about the ears of the defenders, the French surrendered on the 8th of September, two thousand five hundred in number; but the siege of both town and fort had cost the allies four thousand men in killed and wounded. Had the town been, as the French represented, bombarded like the castle, some thousands of English and Portuguese lives would have been spared, but at the expense of the inhabitants.

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