Wexford was a scene of unexampled horror, where were enacted the most sanguinary barbarities in emulation of the bloodthirsty atrocities of the reign of terror; nor can it be an excuse that the monsters avowedly imitated those terrorising scenes which were made luridly familiar by the annals of the French Revolution.
The plunder of houses and the incarceration of their innocent victims after the unfortunate defeat of the Meath detachment at the Three Rocks, which determined Colonel Maxwell’s fatal retreat from Wexford, immediately occupied the insurgents.
While the rabble were engaged in collecting numbers of ill-fated Protestants for future slaughter, the leaders went through the mockery of establishing a provisional government, and, in imitation of the French Jacobins, a grand national committee, a council of elders, and a council of five hundred were to be organised forthwith, while the dwelling-house of a wealthy merchant was put into requisition as a senate-house, wherein the different estates were to legislate for the young republic.
If it were necessary to prove the fallacy that any possibility exists of retaining influence over a sanguinary and superstitious mob by any means but acting on their ignorance or pandering to the worst passions of brutal dispositions, the rebel occupation of Wexford would afford an ample evidence, and the president of the council and the governor of the town, in their own sad stories, tell that the baser the materiel of the mob, the briefer is the authority of those who undertake the direction of its movements. Every day during the rebel occupation of the town and adjacent encampments, fresh victims continued to be brought in by the savage pikemen. In Wexford a small sloop, the town jail, and subsequently the market-house, were filled with unhappy sufferers. A reign of terror had commenced, the rabble power had become predominant, and all persons of superior rank or a different faith were denounced by wretches who associated crime with religion and slaughtered in the name of God. The chiefs themselves, particularly those few among them who had been educated in the Protestant religion, were in perpetual danger of death or violence from an ungovernable multitude, whom they had unwisely hoped to command.
With such feelings and dispositions it will be a subject of regret, but not surprise, that now the ferocity of the rabble resisted all control and blood alone could appease it. The death decree of the wretched prisoners went forth, and the fearful story of the massacre is recorded by one who miraculously escaped the fate of his less fortunate companions. It is a fearful record of butchery, and, alas! the statement is not over-coloured. The leading monster of these executions was Thomas Dixon, a relative of the priest, and he may well be described as a fiend in human form.
On the 19th of June the Protestants in Wexford received the heart-rending intelligence that all the prisoners were to be murdered the next day. That night also, one of them, while sitting alone in silent sorrow, heard the death-bell toll as loud as ever she heard it, and much more awfully. On the following morning, the never-to-be-forgotten 20th of June, Thomas Dixon rode to the gaol-door and swore that not a prisoner should be alive against sun-set. He then rode into the street repeating the same, with horrid imprecations, adding ‘that not a soul should be left to tell the tale.’ Good God! how shall I proceed? neither tongue nor pen can describe the dismal aspect of that melancholy day,—a day in which the sun did not so much as glimmer through the frowning heavens. The town-bell rang, and the drums beat to arms to assemble the rebels for the purpose of joining those at Three Rocks to march against General Moore’s brigade. In the evening Dixon assembled the murdering band, and immediately hoisted that harbinger of destruction, the Black Flag, which had on one side a bloody cross, and on the other the initials M.W.S., that is, ‘murder without sin,’ signifying that it was no sin to murder a Protestant. Having paraded for some time to give more solemnity to the scene, the Protestants who were confined in the gaol and prison ship were led forth to the slaughter, and conducted to the bridge under a strong guard of merciless ruffians, piked to death, with every circumstance of barbarous cruelty, and then flung into the river to leave room for more! While this work of blood was going on, a rebel captain ran to the Popish bishop and entreated of him ‘for the mercy of Jesus’ to come and save the prisoners. The bishop coolly replied that ‘it was no affair of his.’ All this time the sanguinary pikemen continued butchering the poor victims on the bridge; some they perforated in places not mortal, to prolong and increase their torture, others they would raise aloft on their pikes, and while the miserable victim writhed in extreme agony, his blood streaming down the handles of their pikes, they exulted round him with savage joy. In the midst of this terrific scene General Edward Roche galloped up in great haste and commanded the drums to beat to arms, declaring that Vinegar Hill was nearly surrounded by the king’s troops, and that all should repair to camp, as reinforcements were wanting. This express had a wonderful effect; the assassins instantly closed the bloody scene and fled in all directions. Some of the rebel guard returned soon after and conveyed the prisoners back to gaol. But that sanguinary monster, Thomas Dixon, returning, he soon evinced that his thirst for blood was not yet satiated by ordering out the remainder of the prisoners from the gaol and prison ship, the greater part of whom were tortured to death in like manner as the former. He then proceeded to the market-house, and having fixed his vulture eye on others, dragged them to the fatal bridge for execution. After butchering these, a lot of ten more was brought forth and barbarously murdered. The third time they took out eighteen, and were massacring them when Dick Monk rode into town from Vinegar Hill, with his shoes and stockings off, and shouted, ‘D—n your souls, you vagabonds, why don’t you go out and meet the enemy that are coming in, and not be murdering in cold blood?’ Some Protestant women followed him and asked him, ‘What news?’ He replied, ‘Bad news, indeed; the king’s forces are encamped round Vinegar Hill.’ He then rode towards the convent. Shortly after, Priest Collin was seen running towards the bridge. There were six of the poor Protestants killed out of the last party that were taken down before he arrived, and it was with great difficulty he prevailed on them to spare the rest. After using all the arguments he could, without effect, he at length took off his hat and desired them to kneel down and pray for the souls of the poor prisoners before they put them to death. They did so, and having got them in the attitude of devotion, he said, ‘Now pray to God to have mercy on your souls, and teach you to show that kindness towards them which you expect from Him in the hour of death and in the day of judgment!’ This had the desired effect; he led them off the bridge without opposition, and they were sent back to confinement. The massacre of that day ceased about eight o’clock in the evening. Out of forty-eight prisoners who had been confined in the market-house, nineteen only escaped.
Nor were these dreadful cruelties confined to the town alone. In their camps, and on their marches and retreats, the same execrable barbarities were constantly committed. No exaggeration can be imputed to those who escaped death, and afterwards described the sufferings they had undergone; for the dying confessions of many who were actors in those scenes of blood, and afterwards paid the penalty of crime, corroborated the statements of those who had been their prisoners, and confirmed their truth.