[59]. A jingle is a species of jaunting-car used in the environs of Dublin by gentry that have no other mode of travelling.
Captain Ferns’ royal troop now held another council of war, to determine on ulterior operations; and, though the rebel army in the church-yard might have been only a funeral, it was unanimously agreed that an important check had been given to the rebels of Rathfarnan; yet that prudence was as necessary an ingredient in the art of war as intrepidity; and that it might be risking the advantage of what had been done, if they made any attempt on the yellow house, or the captain’s Bourdeaux, as they might be overpowered by a host of pot-valiant rebels, and thereby his Majesty be deprived of their future services.
They therefore finally decided to retire upon Dublin at a sling-trot—publish a bulletin of the battle in Captain Giffard’s Dublin Journal—wait upon Lords Camden and Castlereagh, and Mr. Cooke, with a detail of the expedition and casualties,—and, finally, celebrate the action by a dinner, when the usual beverage, with the anthem of “God save the King,” might unite in doing national honour both to the liquor and to his Majesty, the latter being always considered quite lonesome by the corporators of Dublin, unless garnished by the former accompaniment.
This was all carried into effect. Lieutenant H——, the walking gallows, (ante) was especially invited; and the second metropolis of the British empire had thus the honour of achieving the first victory over the rebellious subjects of his Majesty in the celebrated insurrection of 1798.
FLOGGING THE WINE-COOPERS.
Account of the flagellation undergone by the two coopers—Their application to the author for redress—Tit for tat, or giving back the compliment—Major Connor, and his disinclination for attorneys—His brother, Arthur Connor.
An anecdote, amongst many of the same genus, which I witnessed myself, about the same period, is particularly illustrative of the state of things in the Irish metropolis at the celebrated epocha of 1798.
Two wine-coopers of a Mr. Thomas White, an eminent wine-merchant, in Clare Street, had been bottling wine at my house in Merrion Square. I had known them long to be honest, quiet, and industrious persons: going to their dinner, they returned, to my surprise, with their coats and waistcoats hanging loose on their arms, and their shirts quite bloody behind. They told their pitiful story with peculiar simplicity:—that as they were passing quietly by Major Connor’s barrack, at Shelburn House, Stephen’s Green, a fellow who owed one of them a grudge for beating him and his brother at Donnybrook, had told Major Connor that “he heard we were black rebels, and knew well where many a pike was hid in vaults and cellars in the city, if we chose to discover of them; on which the Major, please your honour, Counsellor, without stop or stay, or the least ceremony in life, ordered the soldiers to strip us to our buffs, and then tied us to the butt-end of a great cannon, and—what did he do then, Counsellor dear, to two honest poor coopers, but he ordered the soldiers to give us fifty cracks a-piece with the devil’s cat-o’-nine-tails, as he called it; though, by my sowl, I believe there were twenty tails to it—which the Major said he always kept saftening in brine, to wallop such villains as we were, Counsellor dear! Well, every whack went thorough my carcase, sure enough; and I gave tongue, because I couldn’t help it: so, when he had his will of us, he ordered us to put on our shirts, and swore us to come back in eight days more for the remaining fifty cracks, unless we brought fifty pikes in the place of them. Ah, the devil a pike ever we had, Counsellor dear, and what’ll we do, Counsellor, what’ll we do?”