Note 68 — No. XI.

Line 17.—[“One night after nine o’clock, a party of Soldiers saw a light in a house by the road-side—they went and ordered it to be extinguished immediately: the people of the house begged that the light might be suffered to remain because there was a child belonging to the family in convulsion fits, who must expire for want of help if the people were to be without fire and candle; but this request HAD NO EFFECT.” Lord Moira’s Speech in the House of Lords, November 22, 1797. This statement was, however, satisfactorily disproved. The incident forms a feature in the accompanying engraving. Notwithstanding official denials, it has long been admitted that the conduct of the Soldiery in Ireland was simply infamous. Billeting on Catholics and reputed malcontents of the better class appears to have been invariably as an unlimited licence for robbery, devastation, ravishment, and, in case of resistance, murder. Sir Ralph Abercromby, on assuming the command of the army in Ireland, declared, in general orders, that their habits and discipline were such as to render them “formidable to everybody but the enemy”. The just severity of this phrase was confirmed by the subsequent experience of Lord Cornwallis.—Ed.]