488 PONSONBY. preparation of depôts f o r arms and ammunition. These measures were accelerated i n proportion t o the expedients resorted t o for their prevention. The volunteer squads i n the metropolis had been for some time suppressed, and a corps o f yeomanry established b y law. The United Irishmen, and their more prominent leaders, were now denounced; suspicion was punished a s crime. The scenes which succeeded cannot now be detailed; never will they b e erased from the bosoms o f those who witnessed them, o r from the memory o f their posterity: but the future historian alone can safely and faithfully pourtray them. The dreadful event had arrived which Mr. Pon sonby and his parliamentary friends had prophesied for years, a s the result o f the long and prevailing system; and for which a hopeful scion o f the house o f Beresford publicly expressed his wish i n the House o f Commons. Open rebellion stalked abroad i n a l l i t s borrors; and i n i t s course, full the fifty thousand lives, loyal a s well a s dis loyal, which the grave president o f a grave assembly fixed, i n the privy council, a s the price o f preserving the Protes tant ascendancy, were expended. But the partisans o f government, far from admitting the prevailing measures a s i n any degree the cause o f the evil, attributed i t i n chief t o the inflammatory speeches o f the Opposition. Mr. Curran, now retired from parliament, and Mr. Ponsonby, who had, i n their professional capacity, acted for the defendants upon some state trials, were insidiously pointed a t a s secret abettors o f treason; and Mr. Grattan was obliged t o f l y from h i s residence a t Tennahinch, t o avoid assassination b y the Orange guerillas, who scoured and marauded i n his neighbourhood. Lord Camden and his secretary, now convinced o f what had been predicted, privately retired from the tempest they had raised; and Lord Cornwallis arrived a s viceroy; and, partly b y the seizure o f the rebel directory, partly b y the sword, but chiefly b y a system o f lenience and amnesty, terminated the conflict. But, t o remedy these horrors, while the nation still lay bleeding and exhausted after the perilous
