Greeting to all on these list Well what a feed back, had a irish meeting last night and discussed this issue. As the artical had not been printed they hada reading of the artical. it created a very good responce not like some person in victoria who shall remain faceless as you must be when you jump in feet first before you jump into a shit bucket. The possitive coments thank you, western austalia. I like to point out that this was simple a 90% rehash of maning clarke work Who i read or am in the process of reading front to back The figures and the proof reading have been checked and done by a professional secretary. Who pointed out the grammer problems but as i was bound by copy right i had no choice. Maybe some of the doubters should get a copy a read it i believe the condition where true to a point. So are you ready for the next one find it below, i hold my breath for the fead back it should be a good one. it is intersting to not that this went out to 3 list but only the Y-IRL list had the great nerve to reply well done i like it. The Irish uprising in the Colony of New South Wales In April 1798 a convict working in a gang at Toongabbe threw down his hoe and gave three cheers for liberty. He was taken promptly before a magistrate, sentenced, tied up in a field where he had been working, and severely flogged. Swift justice you think read on. In September 1800, having received information that certain seditious assemblies had been held in different parts of the colony to the great danger of his Majesty?s government and the public peace, Hunter decided to hold an inquiry. The Irish, to the despair of their Protestant inquisitors, proved evasive, equivocal and Jesuitical, and not prepared to inform on each other, or to be treacherous to their sacred oath to be a friend to each other till death. Richard Atkins and Samuel Marsden ordered one of their number, Galvin, to be flogged until he revealed where the pikes of the conspirators were concealed. They flogged him on the back till he was raw; they flogged him on the bottom; they flogged him again on the back. When he still refused to inform, Even Marsden admitted that Galvin would die rather than reveal anything. But Marsden as a Magistrate had stooped to the temptation that the truth could be flogged out of a man, just as in other quarters he had stooped to the idea that souls could be flogged to damnation. At this, keep in mind that this Marsden person was the assistant Chaplain, an ordained priest. The man who wanted to be known as the dispenser of love became identified with one of the most severe punishments in the early history of the colony. To restore order and recall these deluded Irish to their senses, some where sentenced to one thousand lashes, some to five hundred, some two hundred and some to transportation to Norfolk Island. To the Irish the floggings to extract confessions and the one thousand lashes, were more evidence of that barbarity and savagery which the Anglo-Saxon was all too ready to use to maintain the Protestant ascendancy against the Catholic tyranny and Jacobin anarchy. (1) New South Wales had contributed its first page to that book on the melancholy history of the Irish. (2) On 4 March 1804 an Irishman, William Johnston, who had been transported for his part in the rebellion of 1798, moved from house to house on Castle Hill urging his compatriots to join him in a bid for liberty. As he gathered his supporters, sometimes by cheering his men, sometimes by threatening those who refused to join his band to blow their brain out and set fire to their houses above their heads, and gathered arms by threatening to run through with the bayonet all who did not surrender their weapons, he told his followers of plans for a armed rebellion, in which the password, oddly enough for a people renowned for their savagery towards those who denied their leader, was ?St Peter?. In this way, by persuasion, charm, blarney and compulsion, Johnston gathered together a group of three hundred and thirty three men armed them at Castle Hill with rifles, improvised pikes and cutlasses, and planned to raise another three hundred at the Hawkesbury from where he proposed to march on Sydney and Parramatta using the catch-cry of liberty. His Supporters were inspired by no social or religious programme, either for convicts, ex-convicts or settlers, but united by a desire to hurt or take revenge on the Anglo-Saxon for all the outrageous cruelty and abominations against the Irish. One of Johnson?s followers, Poor, an Irishman, showed a paper with the proposal for rebellion to Keo, while they were thatching at Castle Hill. Keo who already suffered much on account of the rebellion in Ireland, took fright and ran to Captain Abbott in Parramatta on 3 March 1804 to inform against his fellow-countrymen. In the meantime, blandly unaware of such treachery, the followers of William Johnston were making their way along the road from (3) Castle Hill to Parramatta shouting liberty, and death to tyrants, or sending up their petitions to the holy mother of god to pray for them in their hour of their death. At 11.30 on Sunday night a express messenger from Captain Abbott arrived at Government House with the news that the convicts in government services at Castle Hill and the convicts assigned to settlers were in a state of insurrection, and had already committed many daring outrages. The alarm was immediately sounded in Sydney; the military and the inhabitants were put under arms, and all horses were held in requisition. At 12.30 on the Monday there was further alarming news of outrages at Castle Hill. King then set out for Parramatta, pausing at the house of Major Johnston to order him to take command of the company to be despatched against the rebels. King had arrived at Parramatta by 4 am, and Johnston an hour later. On the same day Governor King issued a proclamation declaring that every person who was seen in a state of rebellious opposition to the peace and tranquillity of the colony, and did not give himself up within twenty-four hours, would be tried by a court martial. Johnston after a hasty refreshment, set out with quarter-master Layback and twenty five non-commissioned officers and privates along the Castle Hill road, and reached Toongabbe, where he heard that the insurgents were making for the Hawkesbury. He promptly set out in pursuit. When they came up with the insurgents at 11.30 on that Monday morning at Vinegar Hill, seven miles out of Toongabbe Johnston and Layback who had ridden ahead, advanced to within pistol shot of the rebel and called on them to surrender and take advantage of the mercy offered them in the proclamation. When they refused, Johnston asked to talk to their leaders, who with that incredible folly which characterised the Irish in their dealings with the English, met Johnston and Laycock halfway. Johnston presented a pistol at Philip Cunningham?s head and Laycock presented his at William Johnston?s head; both were driven into the detachment, while the man who had shouted for liberty offered no resistance. In the meantime, the detachment of twenty-five soldiers had arrived on the scene. When Johnston ordered them to charge, they cut the insurgents to pieces. Within minutes nine of them lay dead, Cunningham, lay wounded, and the rest were in flight for the Hawkesbury. After Johnston caught up with them at 9 p.m. on the same night, retributions began. After taking the opinion of the officers about him, he directed Cunningham to be hanged on the staircase of the public store, which he had boasted in his march that he was going to plunder. On the 7 March King announced that the principal leaders of the deluded and infatuated people had, through the arts and designs of some hidden characters, been induced to commit acts of rebellion, forgiven thereby the comforts and real liberty they enjoyed, and had given themselves up. He appealed to the rest to surrender. The trials began next day. Only leaders where tried, because in the official pattern of thinking the rank and file where deluded but not wicked men. Three hundred of the latter, who gave themselves up, were sent back to their work with a caution and a reprimand. With the zeal which he always used to serve the interest of the Protestant ascendancy, Marsden helped prepare the (4) case for the prosecution. After a brief trial some were sentenced to death, some to a flogging, and some to transportation to one of the outer settlements of New South Wales. Hume, Hill and Place, were immediately hanged at Parramatta, all acknowledging the justice of their sentence and hoping for that mercy from God which they had not received from man. Johnston, Harrington and Neale were hanged at Castle Hill on the following morning, after Johnston, as Hume before him, had given much important information and confessed his belief that the men engaged in the tumult were the victims of a very few contrivers and abettors of horrors. Brannon and Hogan were hanged at Sydney on Saturday, 10th march, after Bure and McCormack had been reprieved. Five were flogged on 8 and 9 March when, according to Irish Catholic tradition, the Reverend Mr Dixon was forced to witness the scene, and placed his hand on the bleeding backs till he swooned away. Thirty odd were sent to Coal River, which King decided to use as a penal settlement for the Irish. At the same time he announced that the name of the settlement was to be changed from Coal River to Newcastle. On the 9th March, King published his thanks to his Majesty?s loyal subjects in the colony , singling out the loyal association in Sydney, Captain Abbott, Major Johnston, Lieutenants David and Brabyn, Quarter-master Laycock, the twenty five soldiers, and the officers from the Calcutta, for a special mention. In August King decided to withhold the salary from the Catholic priest, Dixon, for very improper conduct, as he believed seditious meetings had taken place in consequence of the indulgence and protection Dixon had received, In retrospect King pinned the responsibility or part of it on Catholic teaching, or the machination of the priest, rather than the other source or Irish delusion, the right of men, or just being Irish. Behind the words of abuse, the members of the Protestant ascendancy in New South Wales never paused to sort out the muddle in their own mind on the origins of the revolt, blaming indiscriminately the Irish, the Priest, the church of Rome, the ideas of 1798. Some hinted at an evil-minded Machinator behind the rebellion; others wrote of it as the work of a few designed men. (5) The Protestant Ascendancy was simply that the two essential conditions of civilisation, the Protestant religion and the British constitution, were menaced by the deluded, ignorant wretched men. To the members of the Protestant ascendancy the blood spilt on Vinegar Hill was part of their long agony in raising the Irish from savagery to Civilisation. (6) This material was taken in full from book 1, by Manning Clark, A History of Australia published in 1986 by the Melbourne University Press. Reference (1) page 156. (2) page 157. (3) page 171. (4) page 172. (5) page 173. (6) page 174. This article was written with the permission of the copy write holder, The Melbourne University Press, on behalf of Manning Clark the author. It is intersting to note that major Johnston met his match in Gov. Blight (from mutiny on the bounty fame) in the Rum rebalion the histoty books vary in their opion. The main thing was in his court martial back in England Major Johston was sentenced to be cashiered. Regard from not so sunny south australia. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience http://launch.yahoo.com