ATTEMPTED RESCUE OF SMITH O'BRIEN.

New Zealander, Volume 4, Issue 310, 19 May 1849, Page 2 (Supplement)

ATTEMPTED RESCUE OF SMITH O'BRIEN.

Accounts from Clonmel of Thursday last state that, the police having received information that a movement was in contemplation to rescue Smith OBrien, the authorities took immediate Heps to disconcert the designs of the insurgents. We learn from the correspondent of the Times that at midnight on the Bth inst. f the en» tire constabulary foice turned out from the town of Clonmel, together with the 64th regiment and the "Diagoons, and marched off under the directions of Mr. W. Ryan, R. M., ",and Colonel Stretton of the G4th; the constabulary under the command of C»ptain Colcough, County Inspector, and suh Inspectors Fo berry and Gernon. They proceeded to a place called the Mile Tiee, and thence to the Wilderness, a sort of wood, about a mile and a half from Clonmel, where they came in view of a body of men numbering from 15 jO to 2000, nearly all of whom were armed with guns pikes, pitchforks, &c. Tl ey were drilling in a large field divided into two bodies, and each under a sepante commander. When they saw the military and police they all separated and ran. The constabulary pursued and arretted seventeen men, some of whom were a'med. They were not of the lowest class, but eompiised tradesmen, many from Clonmel. The entiie body, it is s^id, was under the leadership o> a student named O'Leary, preparing for the bar. A man named Miles, and another named Walsh, of Clonmel, were amongst those arrested. They were brought into jail by the constabulary at about thiee o'clock in the morning. In the pursuit, one of the fellows in trying to escape jumped off a high projecting rock in the Wilderness, and was nearly killed. " The military and police (says the writer, in conr tinuation.) are all on the alert here now, as it is clear that another season of insurrection and robbery is again about to set in. There is nothing more mad than for :'"•■• robtla to think of succeeding in rescuing the con-

viced tiaitors. The jail is well guarded and impregnable. I have not been able to get the names of the seventeen insurgents who have been arrested. It is generally believed that Thomas Devin Rcilly is at the head of this movement, though of course there is no certain foundation for the belief. Many of the fellovrs who met last night are said to be from Mullinahone and the other scenes of the former Quixotic rebellion. " Tipperary, Thursday, Nov. 9.— Since I wrote you this morning, the seventeen prisoners who were captured lait night have undergone an examination before Mr. W. Ryan, the Resident Magistrate, and been fully committed. They represent several of the trades of the town, and the supposition is, that those persons were delegated as a council from the main body of the people who are stated to have been in the distance. The man who leaped from the projecting rock is very seriously hurt'; his name is England, a stonemason by trade, belonging to this town. From the nature of the several reports which have reached town during this day, it is very certain that a well organiied and extensive plan exists in this neighbourhood and the adjacent localities, having for its object the rescue of Mr. OBrien and his[co-traitors, either fiom the jail, in which I consider it would be impossible for any mob to succeed, or else during his journey from here to the railway station at Thurles,'on his way to Dublin. The route to Thurles would be through the heart of those districts which were the scenes of the former attempt at rebellion— the distance about twenty-three miles. It is said that the plan determined on is, or was, to attack the jail at dead of night ; that the plan of attack I was well arranged; that barricades were to have been thrown up in all the street! and avenues leading to the jail, and that while those kept off the troops, the jail was to be stormed and the prisoners liberated : this ii I the information current in circles well informed, and I have reason to believe that it is not far from correct. The authorities appear to have information of the whole plan, and are prepared to meet the emergency, should it ever arrive. It is quite certain that insurrectionary movements are now in progress, and that on a large and dangerous icale."— Edinburgh Advertiser.

The state of Ireland is thus described by the Dublin Correspondent of the Times— The question which each man aski hii neighbour is — " How is this to end ?" Every week sees hundreds of hitherto comfortable farmers and their families flying to America, carrying with them vestiges of the spoil of which they have deprived the landlord. The markets are glutted with all kinds of provisions, at fearfully unremunerating prices to the producer ; but there is no money amoDgst the indigent poor to pay even the lowest price, and thus they starve in the midst of plenty. The producer, however, has made up his mind to cheat the landlord out of his rent, and escape to America ; and he can always meet some mealmonger or usurer— indeed, ia Ireland, they are generally both —to take a " bargain" off his hands. The landlord or his agent arrives, and, where he expected to find stacks of corn, finds nothing but stacks of straw j whilst the wife and children of the delinquent have been left him as a legacy, to be bribed into an abandonment of the tenancy, or to retain adverse possession for a twelve, month, until legally expelled by a tedious and expen. sive process of law. This is literally a current history of Ireland. In the week before last, one house in Li» verpool is said to have received not less than ;£9OOO, in separate sums of £l each, as head-money for so many separate families emigrating to America. It is J thus that the bone and sinew of the country are rapidly waiting away. AH the small farmeri are becoming paupers and burdens on the land ; and all the large ones are becoming ' Levanters,' as, in faihionable parlance, fraudulent runaways are styled. Other classes, too, of a more respectable and independent kind, are preparing to quit the country. I have met with numerous instances of gentlemen farmers, who used to follow the houads, who kept large establishments, with a number of domestic retainers, and gave employment nearly all the year round to the labouring poor of their several districts, alio cursing the country and preparing to quit it. These persons carry with them, when they go, from £500 to £1000 each, and thus some estimate may be formed of the money drain in Ireland at present, where even food and provisions of all kinds can only be disposed of by being given in charity. These are the circumstances under which the winter campaign opens, and it puzzles the most sagacious to imapine the probable results. Should such a state of th.ugs continue much longer, there is little doubt that the ' Green Isle,' as it is called, will increase in ver. daicy, as, in the absence of capital and labour, its nelds must become pasture land and its little hills slieep-walkß. That the depopulation of the country is giingon rapidly, both by mortality and emigration, is a tact so indispuiable, that a love of native land is now almost an unheard-of sentiment, and among»t the rural popula ijn, only those remain who are unable to go.