A number of petty affairs followed the instant outbreak of the rebellion, all characterised by the atrocities attending civil war. In these affairs the rebels were generally repulsed; but in a few they unhappily succeeded, and always by surprise, treachery, or the imprudence of the royalists. Of these we shall meet instances in the course of our illustrations. As regards the outbreak in the capital, naturally the capture of Dublin was the grand and primary object at which the conspirators unanimously aimed; and a simultaneous movement on the metropolis by the Kildare rebels was to have seconded the efforts of the disaffected within the city. Everything was in favour of success; and, as the garrison was almost drained of regular troops, and its safety entrusted to the yeomanry, that circumstance was not overlooked by the rebel leaders. In barracks soldiers cannot be easily surprised; a few taps from the drum, and a very few minutes are quite sufficient to place a regiment in battle order; but to collect irregulars, dispersed and distant from the alarm-posts they have been directed to assemble at, is a work of time, and equally difficult and precarious, as, in an attempt to reach the posts assigned, individuals and isolated parties are readily intercepted and overpowered.
This was the great design of the insurgents, and nothing could have been more easily effected when aided by the darkness of night and the intricacies of a city crowded with houses, and intersected by narrow lanes.
By an unaccountable oversight the canals, which covered two sides of Dublin, had been left open, when by stockading the bridges they could have easily been rendered defensible, and have thus placed an impassable obstruction to any bodies who might approach the city from Kildare. Before the royalists occupied the bridges numbers of insurgents from the country had crossed over, and it was computed that by one northern turnpike more than two thousand strangers had entered the city during the evening and succeeding night.
Of the chief plans propounded by the rebel leaders, the capture of the Castle with the high authorities it contained, the cutting off of the royalists in detached parties as they hurried to their respective alarm-posts at the beat to arms of rebel drums, with an attack on the jail of Newgate, the liberation of their friends the State prisoners there incarcerated, formed the grand objects of their midnight movement. The guiding spirit was evidently lacking, for the head had been cut off. On the plans of action there was a division of opinion among the existing leaders. John Sheares confined the intended operations of his followers to dealing with the Castle and disposing of the inmates. Neilson, it was arranged, should attack the jail. Accident interfered; neither plan had any success, and the leader found himself at midnight the inmate of the prison from which he had falsely calculated that he was going to liberate his imprisoned confederates.
Southwell C. McClure, a rebel colonel, who had been pardoned, gave evidence that Neilson had made preparations for his task, and taken elaborate preparations for the carrying out of his plan on Newgate and cutting off the loyalist auxiliaries in detail. He had assembled at a house in Church Lane, a noted rendezvous for rebels, fifteen colonels representing as many battalions; to each of these leaders he had produced a map of Dublin, and assigned to each the post which each colonel and his regiment was to occupy that night. In his attack upon Newgate he was to have been seconded by a large body of rebels, headed by Seagrave, who was to have secured possession of Mr. Halpin’s distillery, the windows of which flanked it, and they were to have kept up a constant fire on the front of the prison, while another party scaled the walls in a different quarter. Neilson’s preparations promised to prove formidable, and at ten o’clock this leader, having a body of rebels collected in some fields contiguous to-Eccles Street, proceeded to reconnoitre Newgate and point out the best points of attack to his supporters. Escalade, supported by a commanding fire of musketry, was the plan adopted, and from the manner in which the prison was domineered the attempt might have easily succeeded. In the most suspicious manner Neilson was always found doing compromising acts. His behaviour had helped to compromise Lord Edward’s security, and on this occasion he seems to have deliberately sacrificed his plans and his safety at the critical juncture, and thus compromised the entire scheme.
Some waste ground, then covered with heaps of market offal, and close to the prison, enabled a person to examine the building unperceived, and of this advantage Neilson, already well acquainted with the locality, had availed himself. In the darkness he trod upon a child, and the outcry brought its mother to the spot. The woman was drunk, an angry altercation followed, and no apology which Neilson could offer would conciliate the irritated poissarde. The noise naturally attracted attention; persons hastened to the spot, and among others Mr. Gregg, the jailor. Neilson, having already been in his custody, was perfectly familiar to Gregg. The latter immediately arrested him, a desperate resistance was offered, a pistol snapped, and a doubtful struggle ensued. Under a belief that Gregg’s assault on Neilson was occasioned by his resentment of the injury offered to her child, the fishwoman so far contributed by her clamour to mystify the affray that the line of posts which Neilson had established between Newgate and Eccles Street thought the noise only a squabble of drunken fishwomen, and waited in idle expectation for Neilson’s return and orders to advance, until the capture transpired in an hour or two, and the party took alarm and disbanded.
In a popular movement failure or success at first generally decides its fortunes. The attempt on the capital signally miscarried. The master-spirit was wanting at the hour of action, and he who might have given a fatal direction to efforts ill-directed and uncombined, was, with his abler associates, immured within the walls of a prison. Upon individuals alike wanting in courage and ability the hurried choice of revolutionary leadership had fallen. If Neilson’s imprudent visits to Lord Edward before the arrest subjected him to a charge of treachery afterwards, his conduct on the night he reconnoitred Newgate proves him to have been quite unfitted for command. That a man known to every turnkey should have personally examined a building in which he had been so long confined appeared, from its extreme rashness, almost to indicate indifference to the consequences of discovery.
THE REBELLION OFFICIALLY PROCLAIMED
On the morning of the 24th two proclamations were issued—the one from General Lake, the other from Alderman Fleming. Both were stringent, but the circumstances of the times admitted of no temporising measures:—
‘Lieutenant-General Lake, commanding his Majesty’s forces in this kingdom, having received from his Excellency the Lord Lieutenant full powers to put down the rebellion, and to punish rebels in the most summary manner, according to martial law, does hereby give notice to all his Majesty’s subjects, that he is determined to exert the powers entrusted to him in the most vigorous manner for the immediate suppression of the same; and that all persons acting in the present rebellion, or in any way aiding or assisting therein, will be treated by him as rebels, and punished accordingly.