RECRUITING AT CASTLEBAR.
Further particulars respecting George Robert Fitzgerald—His band of myrmidons—Proposal made to the author—He accedes to it, and commences the “recruiting service”—Hospitality at an Irish inn—Practical joking—The author’s success in enlisting George Robert’s outlaws—Serjeant Hearn and Corporal O’Mealy—Fair day at Castlebar—A speech, succeeded by “beating orders”—Mutiny among the new levies—The utility of hanks of yarn—An inglorious retreat, and renunciation, by the author, of the honours of a military life.
There were few men who flourished in my early days that excited more general or stronger interest than Mr. George Robert Fitzgerald, of Turlow, the principal object of the preceding sketch. He was born to an ample fortune, educated in the best society, had read much, travelled, and been distinguished at foreign courts: he was closely allied to one of the most popular and also to one of the most eminent personages of his own country; being brother-in-law to Mr. Thomas Conolly of Castletown, and nephew to the splendid,learned, and ambitious Earl of Bristol, Bishop of Derry:—yet, so powerfully did some demon seize upon his mind, and—let us hope—disorder his intellect, that though its starting was thus brilliant, his life presented one continuous series of outrage, and his death was a death of ignominy.
I have neither space nor inclination to become his general biographer;—in truth, he has never, to my knowledge, had any true one.[20]Both his friends and enemies are now all nearlyhors de combat. I know but two contemporaries capable of drawing his portrait; and in the words of one of these I have recited an anecdote not unworthy of being recorded.—I always conceive that a writer characterising the nearly exhausted generation of which he has been a contemporary, resembles a general who dates dispatches from the field of battle, wherein he details the actions and merits of his friends or enemies, while the subjects of the bulletin lie gasping or quite dead before him—andhe himself only awaiting the fatal bullet which, even while he writes, may send him to his comrades. This is my own case!
20.I have read, in biographical books, George Robert Fitzgerald described as a great, coarse, violent Irishman, of ferocious appearance and savage manners. His person and manners were totally the reverse of this: a more polished and elegant gentleman was not to be met with. His person was very slight and juvenile, his countenance extremely mild and insinuating; and, knowing that he had aturnfor single combat, I always fancied him toogenteelto kill any man except with thesmall-sword.
20.I have read, in biographical books, George Robert Fitzgerald described as a great, coarse, violent Irishman, of ferocious appearance and savage manners. His person and manners were totally the reverse of this: a more polished and elegant gentleman was not to be met with. His person was very slight and juvenile, his countenance extremely mild and insinuating; and, knowing that he had aturnfor single combat, I always fancied him toogenteelto kill any man except with thesmall-sword.
The singular life, and miserable death of Mr. Fitzgerald form an historic episode which the plan and character of this work will neither admit of my detailing nor altogether passing over. The consideration of his career and catastrophe arouses in the memory acts and incidents long since erased from ordinary recollection, and thus, like a mirror, reflects the manners of the age wherein he lived.
While George Robert Fitzgerald was undergoing a part of his sentence in Newgate, Dublin,[21]his brother, Charles Lionel, got possession of the house and demesne of Turlow, near Castlebar, County Mayo—one of the most lawless places then in Ireland. George Robert, as hinted in the former sketch, had armed and organised a band of desperadoes, who knew no will but his, and had no desire but his pleasure. All men were in awe of them, and the regular army alone was then held sufficient to curb their outrages. When their leader was convicted and imprisoned their spirit was somewhat depressed; but idleness and vice were by habit so deeply engrafted in their minds,that peaceable or honest means of livelihood were scouted by them. They were at length proclaimed outlaws; the military chased them; and ultimately, a sort of treaty took place, which, like our modern diplomatic negotiations, exhibited only one party endeavouring to outwit the other. The desperadoes agreed to give up all their wild courses on a promise of pardon; a great proportion declared they would “take on” for a musket; and as the army had no objection to receive robbers and murderers to fight for their king, country, and religion, their offer was accepted.
21.Having been tried and convicted of a mostunparalleledseries of assaults upon, and imprisonment of, his own father, he was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment; but, as we have before stated, was pardoned (in six months), to the disgrace of the government.
21.Having been tried and convicted of a mostunparalleledseries of assaults upon, and imprisonment of, his own father, he was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment; but, as we have before stated, was pardoned (in six months), to the disgrace of the government.
About this time my military propensities were not totally extinguished, but susceptible of being rekindled by proper stimuli—and Dean Coote, brother to Sir Eyre Coote, then Commander-in-chief in India, sent to my father, and made him what my family considered a magnificent offer—namely, that one of his sons should forthwith receive a captain’s commission in the East India Company’s service, on recruiting a hundred men for that service, and for each of which recruits, if the number were completed, twenty guineas should be paid on their being handed over to the depôt in Dublin.
In acknowledgment of this flattering offer my father immediately nominated me. I now almost fancied myself a nabob, or something better, helping to plunder and dethrone a few of the native princes—then quite plentiful, and considered fairgame by the Honourable Company’s servants, civil and military. I with joy accepted the proposition—fully expecting, in four or five years, to return loaded with lacks of rupeés, and carats of diamonds, and enabled to realise all my visions of ulterior happiness. The Dean also sent me the “beating order” and instructions, with a letter of introduction, and a strong recommendation to Mr. Lionel Fitzgerald, then residing at Turlow, requesting he would aid me in enlisting his brother’s outlaws for the Company’s service, of whom above eighty had promised to accept the king’s money on terms of pardon. All now went on prosperously; the tenants of Cullenagh brought in every shilling they could rap or run, to set the young captain a-spinning; and in a week I was on my road, through frost and snow, to the county of Mayo: my father’s old huntsman, Matthew Querns, was selected to attend me as being mostsensible, at least among the domestics of the family.
Matthew was attired in his best field clothing—namely, a green plush coat, scarlet-laced waistcoat of old times, buckskin breeches, and a black leather hunting cap. He carried my portmanteau, with my volunteer broad-sword buckled to it, behind him, and his own hunting horn was strapped by a belt about his middle:—this he sounded at every inn door, as he said, to make usrespectable.
I was mounted on a largewhitehorse called Friday, after Robinson Crusoe’sblackboy. Acase of huge holster pistols jogged before me, and my cavalry coat-case behind, containing my toilet, flints, a bullet mould, my flute, my beating order, with—to amuse leisure hours—a song-book, and the Sentimental Journey (then in high vogue, being totally new both in style and subject). Thus caparisoned and equipped, the late Matthew Querns and the present Sir Jonah Barrington, set out, fifty years ago, for the purpose of enlisting robbers and outlaws in Mayo, to plunder gentoos in the Carnatic, and establish the Christian religion on the plains of Hindostan.
At that period of my life, cold or fatigue was nothing when I had an object in view; and at the end of the third day’s trotting we arrived, through deep snow, bog roads, and after some tumbles (miserably tired), at a little cabin at Hallymount, near the plains of Kilcommon, where many a bloody battle had been fought in former times;—and as the ground was too rocky to dig graves, thousands of human skeletons had been covered up with stones—of which there is no scarcity in any, particularly that part of Ireland. Our reception was curious; and as affording an excellent idea of the species of inns and innkeepers then prevalent in Ireland, I shall sketch one of the oddest imaginable places of “entertainment for man and horse,”—which notification was written in large letters over the door,—and the house certainly did not belie it.
The landlord was a fat, red-nosed, pot-bellied, jovial fellow, the very emblem of goodnature and hospitality; he greeted me cordially before he knew any thing about me, and said I should have the best his house afforded, together with a hearty welcome (the welcome of an innkeeper, indeed, is generally very sincere). He also told Matthew that he never suffered his bin of oats in the stable to be closed, always leaving it to gentlemen’s beasts to eat at their own discretion—as he’d engage they would stop of themselves when they had got enough; and the more they eat at one meal, the less they would eat the next—so he should be no loser.
The inn consisted of cabins on the ground-floor only, and a very good hard dry floor it certainly was. The furniture was in character: but my bed (if I were to judge from its bulk and softness) had the best feathers of five hundred geese at least in it: the curtains had obviously once been the property of some greater personage than an innkeeper, as the marks of embroidery remained (on crimson silk), which had been carefully picked out—I suppose to sell the silver. My host begged I would not trouble myself as to dinner, as he knew what was good for me after so bad a journey. He protested that, so far as poultry, game, and lobsters went, no man in Mayo could beat him; and that he had a vessel of Powldoody oysters, which was sent him by SquireFrancis Macnamara, of Doolan, for old acquaintance sake.
I promptly asked for a bottle of his best wine; but he told me he never sold asinglebottle to a gentleman, and hoped I would have no objection to two. Of course I acquiesced, though intending to dine alone and only to drink the half of one. I was therefore surprised to see shortly a spruce young maid-servant lay out the table for six persons, with every thing in good order:—and on dinner coming in, my landlord introduced his old wife, two smart pretty daughters, and his son, by no means a “promising boy.” He uncorked both bottles at once, and no persons ever fared more sumptuously. The wine, he said, was the finest old claret, of the “real smuggling” by Sir Neil O’Donnel’s own cutter called Paddy Whack, from the Isle of Man;—and Sir Neil (a baronet of Newport) never sent a bad hogshead to any of hiscustomers: his honour’s brandy, likewise, was not a jot worse than his claret, and always tasted best of a cold morning.
We had got deep into our second bottle, of which the ladies took a glass each, while the young gentleman drank a bumper of brandy, when my host, who knew every body and every thing local, gave me the life, adventures, and character, of almost each person of note in that county, including numerous anecdotes of George Robert, which originated in, and were confined tothe neighbourhood. He laughed so heartily at his own stories, that it was impossible not to join him. Tea and hot cakes followed; a roast goose, brandy punch, and old ale, made the supper, and I retired to bed hearty and careless.
Next morning I was roused rather early by a very unexpected guest, namely, a hen, which having got into my room, layed a couple of eggs at once on my coat, which lay beside me; and then, as hens accustom themselves to do, (and it is no bad practice,) she gave as loud and protracted a notice of heraccouchementas her voice could furnish.
I immediately rose, brought out my two eggs to our breakfast-table, and was expressing my surprise at the circumstance, when Miss Betty Jennings winked, and whispered me that it was a standing joke of her father’s.—The breakfast was nearly as good as the dinner had been the previous day; and on procuring my bill, I found I was charged eighteen pence for dinner, eighteen pence for claret, tenpence for my horses, sixpence for my breakfast, and nothing for the rest, though Matthew Querns had got dead drunk, my horses were nearly bursting, and I was little better myself. My host told me, when a guest who would drink with him had a bottle of claret, he always indulged in one himself; and that if I had drunk two, he should have thought it mighty uncivil if he had not done the same. I left his house with an impressionthat he was the most extraordinary innkeeper I had ever met with, and really bade adieu to himself and his daughters with regret.[22]
22.Both Mr. Jenning’s daughters were pretty and pleasant girls. I observed Miss Betty mending silk stockings, which was rather odd at the plains of Kilcommon. I told her I fancied she was kind-hearted, and had an uncommon degree of sense for her years, and she firmly believed me. I made her a present of the “Sentimental Journey,” which I had in my coat-case. I construed the French for her (except two words): and on my return she told me it had taught her whatsentimentwas; that she found she had a great deal of sentiment herself, but did not know the name of it before; and that she would always keep the book in kind remembrance of the donor.
22.Both Mr. Jenning’s daughters were pretty and pleasant girls. I observed Miss Betty mending silk stockings, which was rather odd at the plains of Kilcommon. I told her I fancied she was kind-hearted, and had an uncommon degree of sense for her years, and she firmly believed me. I made her a present of the “Sentimental Journey,” which I had in my coat-case. I construed the French for her (except two words): and on my return she told me it had taught her whatsentimentwas; that she found she had a great deal of sentiment herself, but did not know the name of it before; and that she would always keep the book in kind remembrance of the donor.
Arriving in the course of the day at Turlow, I found that the whole family were at Castle Magarret; but Mr. Fitzgerald had got a letter about me, and all was ready for my reception. I found I was left to the care of one Hughy Hearn, who had been a serjeant of the band, but had changed sides and come over to Mr. Lionel at Turlow, after losing one of his arms in some skirmish for George Robert. I did not know who Hughy was at the time, or I should have kept aloof from him.
“Mr. Hearn,” said I, next day, “have you a gun in the house? I should like to go out.”
“I have, captain,” said he.
“Have you powder and shot?” said I.
“No powder,” said Hughy. “I fired all I had left of it last night at a man whom I saw skulking about the road after nightfall.”
“Did you hit him?” asked I, rather alarmed.
“I can’t say,” replied Hughy: “there was only one bulletin it, and it’s not so easy to shoot a man with a single bullet when the night is very dark—and I’m hard set to aim with one arm, though I dare say I all as one asscratchthim, for he cried out, ‘Oh! bad luck to you, Hughy!’ and ran down the cross lane before I could get the other double to slap after him.”
I immediately set about recruiting the outlaws with the utmost activity and success. I appointed Hughy Hearn, who had but one arm, my drill-serjeant, and a monstrous athletic ruffian of the name of O’Mealy, my corporal, major, and inspector of recruits. I found no difficulty whatsoever in prevailing on them to take my money, clap up my cockade, get drunk, beat the towns-people, and swear “true allegiance to King George, Sir Eyre Coote, and myself.” This was the oath I administered to them, as they all seemed zealous to come with me; but I took care not to tell themwhere.
The kindness and hospitality I meanwhile received at Turlow, from Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald, was extremely gratifying: nobody could be more interesting than the latter. There I met two remarkable persons of that country—George Lyster, whose finger was broken by George Robert Fitzgerald, as previously mentioned, and a little, decrepid sharp-witted dog, called George Elliston,who afterward challenged me, and threatened Counsellor Saurin, because we did not succeed in a bad cause of his in the King’s Bench, wherein we had taken his briefs without fees, as a matter of kindness to a pretended sufferer.
In less than a fortnight I had enlisted between fifty and sixty able, good-looking outlaws; and as my money was running low, I determined to march off my first batch of fifty men, three serjeants, and three corporals, for Dublin, and having placed them in depôt there, to return and make up my number with a replenished purse.
To give my march the greater éclat, I chose a market-day of Castlebar whereon to parade and address my company. There happened to be also a fair of linen yarn, and the street was crowded with cars laden with hanks of yarn of different sizes and colours. Having drawn up my men, I ordered each one to get a bumper of whisky; after which, taking off their hats, they gave three cheers for King George, Sir Eyre Coote, and Captain Barrington. I then made them a speech from the top of a car. I told them we were going to a place where the halfpennys were made of gold; where plunder was permitted by the Honourable Company, and the officers taught their men how to avail themselves of this permission; where robbery and murder were not hanging matters, as in Ireland; where women were married at nine years’old, and every soldier had as many wives as he could keep from starving, with a right to rob the rich, in order to support a barrack full of them.
In short, I expatiated on all the pleasures and comforts I purposed for them; and received in return three more cheers—though neither so long or loud as I could have wished; and I perceived a good deal of whispering among my soldiers which I could not account for, save by the pain they might feel in taking leave of their fellow-robbers, as was natural enough. I was, however, soon undeceived, when, on ordering them to march, one said aloud, as if he spoke for the rest, “Marchis it? march, then,for fat?”
Observing their reluctance to quit Castlebar, I felt my young, slight, and giddy self swell with all the pride and importance of a martinet; I almost fancied myself a giant, and my big recruits mere pigmies. “Here, serjeant,” said I arrogantly to Hughy Hearn, “draw up thosemutineers: fall in—fall in!” but nobody fell in, and Serjeant Hearn himself fellback. “Serjeant,” pursued I, “this moment arrest Corporal O’Mealy, he’s the ringleader.”
“He won’tletme, captain,” replied Serjeant Hearn.
“’Tis your captain’s command!” exclaimed I.
“He says your honour’s no captain at all,” said Hughy Hearn; “only a slip of acrimp, nothingelse but a gaoler’s son, that wants to sell the boys likenegers, all as one as Hart and the green linnets in Dublin city.”
My choler could no longer be restrained:—I drew my broadsword, and vowed I would divide the head of the first man that refused to march. “I’ll teach these mutineers to obey his majesty’s commission and officer,” said I.
Corporal O’Mealy and two others then took off their hats, and coming up to me, said with great good-humour and civility, “Well, captain dear, you’ll forgive and forget a joke from your own boys, so you will. Sure ’twas nothin else but a parting joke for the fair, your honour! Arrah! put up that sliver of yours: sure it looks nasty in the fair, to be drawing your falchion on your own recruits, captain.”
I had no suspicion; and the hanger was scarce secure in its scabbard, when some of my soldiers came behind me, and others in front, and I was completely surrounded. “I’ll show you all that I am a captain, and a true captain,” continued I. “Here, serjeant! bring me my beating orders.”
“Beating—Ough! isthatwhat you’d be at?” said Corporal O’Mealy, who now assumed the command. “Ough! if it’s ‘beating’ you want, by my sowl you’ll be easily satisfied without Hughy Hearn’s orders.”
I could stand it no longer: I could not run away if I wished; a crowd was collecting around me,and so I sprang at the smallest of the recruits, whom I thought I could master, and seized him by the throat; but a smart crack given with a hank of linen yarn by some hand behind soon made me quit my prey; another crack from another quarter quickly followed. I turned round to see my executioners, when I was suddenly wheeled back by the application of a third hank. Thiscracking, like afeu de joie, increased every moment, and was accompanied with vociferous laughs. In short, they pounded me almost to a jelly with hanks of linen yarn, which lay ready to their hands on all the cars around us. At length, stooping down between two cars, I had the pleasure of seeing the whole of my recruits, drawn up by O’Mealy—for it appeared he was theirreal captain—march regularly by me, every fellow in turn saluting any part of me he thought proper with a hank of yarn;—and with a shout I still remember of “A George! a George! long life to our colonel!” they quitted the fair—as I learned, to take forcible possession of a house and farm from which one of them had been ejected—which feat I afterward heard they regularly performed that very night, with the addition ofroastingthe new proprietor in his own kitchen.
Though I had no bones broken, some of my flesh took pretty much the colour and consistence of what cooks call aspic jelly. I was placed on a low garron, and returned to Turlow at night, sick,sore, and sorry. There I pretended I was onlyfatigued, and had taken cold; and after experiencing the kind hospitality of Mrs. Fitzgerald—then a most interesting young lady—on the fourth day, at an early hour of a frosty morning, old Matthew Querns and I mounted our horses, without my having obtained any thing more for my trouble, and money spent in the recruiting service, than a sound beating. A return carriage of Lord Altamont’s having overtaken me on the road, I entered it, and was set down at the little inn at Hallymount, where I remained some days with Mr. Jennings and family, recovering from my bruises, and sighing over the wreck of my fondly anticipated glories as a renowned colonel at the head of my regiment, plundering a pagoda and picking precious stones out of an idol. But, alas! having lost all the remaining cash out of my pocket during the scuffle at Castlebar, instead of alacofrupees, I found myself labouring under a completelackofguineas, and was compelled to borrow sufficient from Candy, the innkeeper at Ballynasloe, to carry me home by easy stages. Thus did my military ardour receive its definitive cooling: no ice-house ever chilled champaign more effectually. I, however, got quite enough of hospitality at Turlow, and quite enough of thrashing at Castlebar, to engraft the whole circumstances on my memory.
This journey gave me an opportunity of inspecting all the scenes of Mr. George Robert Fitzgerald’sexploits. The cave in which he confined his father, showed to me by Hughy Hearn, was concealed by bushes, and wrought under one of the old Danish moats, peculiar, I believe, to Ireland. Yet, in the perpetration of that act of brutality, almost of parricide, he kept up the singular inconsistency of his character. Over the entrance to the subterraneous prison of his parent a specimen of classic elegance is exhibited by this inscription graven on a stone:
Intus ager dulces—vivoqueSedilia Saxo—Nympharumque domus.
Intus ager dulces—vivoqueSedilia Saxo—Nympharumque domus.
Intus ager dulces—vivoqueSedilia Saxo—Nympharumque domus.
Intus ager dulces—vivoque
Sedilia Saxo—Nympharumque domus.