and extended with great rapidity to outflank the
royalist line.

In war, the man first frightened is first beaten.
The militia wavered along its whole length, then
fell back, leaving the cannon unprotected. The
regular troops fled pell-mell to the town. A few
of the Longford men were rallied, and fired
from stone wall to stone wall to check the
advance of the enemy, and afterwards on the
Bridge of Castlebar, to protect a curricle gun,
there still steadily served by the artillerymen.
This party of brave men suffered severely, for
they were galled by a cross fire from two roads
and from the houses on either side. The men
often fell back and were rallied by their officers.
At length, nearly all the artillerymen being shot,
the gun became silent, and a body of French
hussars dashed forward at the charge, but were
repulsed. The staunch men retreated, having
lost two officers and half their number.

The French were as brave, and still more
daring. Ten of their hussars hung on the rear
of the fugitives, and, capturing a gun, were
about to turn it on the runaways, when a large
number of Lord Roden' s "fox-hunters" charged
back, killed five, and drove off the rest. The
place where these hussars were buried is still
called French Hill. The carbineers fled with
such extravagant haste that they achieved the
sixty-three miles between Castlebar and Athlone
in twenty-seven hours. The French took fourteen
guns. The Royalists lost fifty-three men, thirty-
four were wounded, and two hundred and
seventy-nine were taken prisoners. Fifty-three
men of the Longford militia deserted to the enemy,
and, reversing their coats, were marched
into Killala amid the cheers of the delighted
rebels.

A more disgraceful defeat than that of the
Royalists at Castlebar not even Walcheren or
Bergeu-op-Zoom exhibited. The rebels stormed
into the town, mad with delight; but, thanks to
the French, they committed no cruelties, eager
as they generally were for Protestant blood.
Almost the only victim was a lion of a Highlander
who would not leave his post at the door of
the town jail. He shot down five Frenchmen,
and, while he was loading for the sixth time,
a grenadier, beating out his brains,flung him
down the steps with the sentry-box upon him.

The garrison of Killala was now ordered to
the front, and only three French officers, Charost
Boudet, and Ponson, left to drill and keep in
order two hundred armed rebels. Charost was
the son of a watchmaker of Paris, and had been
a planter at St Domingo. He was a vigorous
portly man, with a pleasing expression of face,
and great good nature. Boudet was a tall,
thin bragging Normnn, argumentative and
irascible, Ponson a little merry Navarrese,
brave, watchful, and indefatigable. These men
did their best to protect the threatened
Protestants, giving them arms, and keeping up
a nightly patrol. The mutinous rebels becoming
infuriated at the distribution of arms, they were
given up to guards appointed for each district
of the town and neighbourhood.

General Humbert, writing to Charost, and
ordering him either to bury the powder which
had been left behind, or to throw it into the
sea, ninety barrels were hidden under a hotbed
in the garden, and the rest placed in a vault in
a haggard under the corn-stand. On three
occasions fires broke out near the powder, and
it was only by the great precautions of the
excellent bishop that it was eventually saved.

The rebel officers were generally great
scoundrels, and kept the Protestants of Killala in
perpetual alarm by their insolence and threats.
The worst of them was a drunken fellow named
Bellew, brother of the titular Roman Catholic
Bishop of Killala. He had fought well among
the Russians, and had been desperately wounded
at the siege of Ismail. He was quartered at
the house of a merchant, from whom he extorted
money and clothes, and was in the habit of
tearing down slips of the wall-paper to light
his pipe, and was tyrannical and unbearable.
Another of these swaggerers was named O'Donnel,
a young farmer and custom-house officer, who
vexed the bishop by his vulgar forwardness;
but who always did his best to keep the peace
and to restrain the insurgents. This man was
afterwards shot by the English when they
retook Killala, and Bellew was hanged.

In the mean time, the French had already
lost all hope, and were disgusted with their
allies, whom they beat and neglected, everywhere
taking to themselves the best food and
the best quarters. Only three drunken and
degraded priests had yet joined the French,
who had lost favour with the people by openly
deriding both their piety and their superstition.
None of the gentry had joined them, except
two or three lost men, sottish and reprobate.
The French also especially offended the peasants
by resolutely preventing as much as possible the
robbery or murder of Protestants.

The game was now nearly played out. Humbert
turned from Sligo. Marching by Drumahair
towards Leitrim, the French general, nearly
at his last move, left behind three guns, and
threw five more into the river. He was now
making for Longford, where the people had
risen, but the staunchest of bull-dogs were
close upon his heels. The French rear guard
was incessantly pressed by General Lake's
cavalry, behind whom were mounted the light
infantry. Humbert, at bay, halted from time to
time, and grappled with his leading assailants.
Half a mile from Ballynamuck, Sarazin, the
second in command, at last surrendered with all
the rear guard.

The Earl of Roden and Colonel Crawford,
then sounding a trumpet, rode up to the French
advance guard, and desired them to surrender,
to save any more effusion of blood. Humbert
requiring half an hour to think over it, and still
retreating, Lord Roden ordered the advance;
the first and second French brigade then
surrendered to about three hundred of our .
cavalry. Humbert rallied his grenadiers and
chasseurs, and made prisoners Lord Roden and
twenty of his dragoons, who were taking some