Page:A letter to the Right Hon. Chichester Fortescue, M.P. on the state of Ireland.djvu/21

 moment supposed myself in a country exposed to the usages of war, and suffering from the incursions of an enemy. On the following morning the most alarming accounts of Thrashers and Whiteboys have met my ears of men who had assembled with weapons of destruction for the purpose of compelling people to swear not to submit to the payment of tithes. I have been informed of these oppressed people having, in the ebullition of their rage, murdered both proctors and collectors, wreaking their vengeance with every mark of the most savage barbarity.

In 1831 the tithe war, which had been hitherto a species of guerilla warfare, marking every winter with a stain of blood, broke out in a more aggravated form. If I remember right, it began by the seizure, in the parish of Graigue, of the cow of the priest who was the religious teacher of the people, in the name and in pursuance of the claim of the clergyman of the Established Church, whose teachings the people refused to hear.

Many fierce encounters dyed the fields of Ireland with blood.

At Newtown Barry, in the county of Wexford, the peasantry having assembled to rescue some cattle impounded by a tithe proctor, the yeomanry fired upon them, killing twelve persons.

At Carrickshock a fearful slaughter took place. A number of process-servers, guarded by a strong body of police, having proceeded to execute the law, the surrounding hills were crowned with bonfires, and an immense multitude of the peasantry, armed with scythes and pitchforks, marched boldly to the