of Kilbrue, a gentleman of threescore and six, were among those who underwent the torture.  When these were the proceedings of the tribunals in peaceable cities, we may imagine what must have been the excesses of the soldiery in the open country.  In the south, Sir William St. Leger directed a series of murderous raids upon the peasantry of Cork, which at length produced their natural effect.  Lord Muskerry and other leading recusants, who had offered their services to maintain the peace of the province, were driven by an insulting refusal to combine for their own protection.  The 1,100 indictments of Lord Cork soon swelled their ranks, and the capture of the ancient city of Cashel, by Philip O’Dwyer, announced the insurrection of the south.  Waterford soon after opened its gates to Colonel Edmund Butler; Wexford declared for the Catholic cause, and Kilkenny surrendered to Lord Mountgarret.  In Wicklow, Coote’s troopers committed murders such as had not been equalled since the days of the pagan Northmen.  Little children were carried aloft writhing on the pikes of these barbarians, whose worthy commander confessed that ‘he liked such frolics.’  Neither age nor sex was spared, and an ecclesiastic was especially certain of instant death.  Fathers Higgins and White of Naas, in Kildare, were given up by Coote to these ‘lambs,’ though, each had been granted a safe-conduct by his superior officer, Lord Ormond.  And these murders were taking place at the very time when the Franciscans and Jesuits of Cashel were protecting Dr. Pullen, the Protestant chancellor of that cathedral and other Protestant prisoners; while also the castle of Cloughouter, in Cavan, the residence of Bishop Bedell, was crowded with Protestant fugitives, all of whom were carefully guarded by the chivalrous Philip O’Reilly.

In Ulster, by the end of April, there were 19,000 troops, regulars and volunteers, in the garrison or in the field.  Newry was taken by Monroe and Chichester.  Magennis was obliged to abandon Down, and McMahon Monaghan; Sir Phelim was driven to burn Armagh and Dungannon and to take his last stand at Charlemont.  In a severe action with Sir Robert and Sir William Stewart, he had displayed his usual courage with better than his usual fortune, which, perhaps, we may attribute to the presence with him of Sir Alexander McDonnell, brother to Lord Antrim, the famous Colkitto of the Irish and Scottish wars.  But the severest defeat which the confederates had was in the heart of Leinster, at the hamlet of Kilrush, within four miles of Athy.  Lord Ormond, returning from a second reinforcement of Naas and other Kildare forts, at the head, by English account, of 4,000 men, found on April 13 the Catholics of the midland counties, under Lords Mountgarrett, Ikerrin, and Dunboyne, Sir Morgan Cavenagh, Rory O’Moore, and Hugh O’Byrne, drawn up, by his report 8,000 strong, to dispute his passage.  With Ormond were the Lord Dillon, Lord Brabazon, Sir Richard Grenville, Sir Charles Coote,