measures of government, appointed to commence on the twenty-third of May, without waiting for French auxiliaries, lest, before that aid should arrive, their system should be so disorganized as to be incapable of any promising effort. Among the precautions, taken on this occasion, by the members of government, who were fully informed of the intended revolt, was the augmentation of the regulars, and yeomanry, to thirty five thousand men.

These yeomen had begun to be embodied in October, in the yeat 1796, in a kind of independant companies, each composed of about fifty men, mostly cavalry, with a much smaller body of infantry attached to them, and each generally commanded by a captain, and two lieutenants. The infantry were armed like those of the regular army, but the cavalry were furnished with only one pistol and a sword each, excepting a few who had carbines. In the formation of the companies or corpse of yeomen, to appoint the far greater part of them cavalry, was an error, as the event clearly proved; for in the insurrection which ensued, the yeoman infantry supported by regular troops, fought steadily against the foe: while

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the horsemen, from the nature of the country, uneven with hills, and every where intersected with ditches their want of proper subordination and discipline, and the facility of escape, were of little use except for patroles or expresses, though their horses were superior to those of the regular cavalry in the traversing of ditches and fields. If these troops had been habituated to dismount, and engage on foot, with carbines, their service might have been of considerable effect; but, as the matter was, they could hardly ever be brought to a charge on the Irish, or to make a retreat with regu larity.

The cause of this error in the institution of armed yeomen, of the appointment of mostly horsemen instead of infantry, so little efficacious for the end proposed, and so oppressive to individuals of the poorer sort, who were obliged to furnish horses at their own expence, and maintain them without much assistance of pay, was by some supposed to be the jealousy of government, who suspected a general disaffection of the people, and feared to give sanction to such a military establishment, as, like the old volunteers, might become a dangerous engine of popular demands, under the influ

ence of patriotic men. But the protestants of Ireland in general are too apprehensive of the of the hostile determination of the catholics against them, ever fully to coalesce with that body against government; so that, with few exceptions, if the real sentiments of this description of people had been known, administration might have reposed the fullest confidence in them. In that case the difference of pay to cavalry and foot-men, might have been saved, and the insurrection probably stifled in its commencement, or at least much more speedily suppressed.

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A necessary precaution, was, the arresting of several principals of the conspiracy. Among the persons apprehended at this critical time, was Lord Edward Fitzgerald, who had escaped the arrest made at Oliver Bond's house, on the twelfth of March. This nobleman had served in his majesty's army, where he had been highly esteemed for his courage and military conduct, his honour, humanity, and candor ;

He was eminently qualified for the excitement and direction of revolutionary commotions, being a man of daring courage, a most active spirit, considerable abilities of mind, and being of a family highly respected for its

ancient greatness. In consequence of a proclamation issued on the eleventh of May, accompanied with a promise of a thousand pounds reward for his apprehension, he was seized on the nineteenth, in the house of Nicholas Murphy, a merchant in Thomas-street, Dublin, by William Bellingham Swan, a most active magistrate, town-major Sirr, and captain Ryan, with a company of soldiers.

But his Lordship made so desperate a defence, with no other arms than a dagger, that Swan was wounded, and Ryan, and two of his Company, died of their wounds eleven days after. Lord Edward himself, expired in great agony, on the third of the following month, from the effects of this furious conflict, as he had been wounded in the shoulder by the shat of a pistol from major Sirr.

On the nineteenth and twenty-first of May, several other arrests were made, and among the arrested, were Henry and John Sheares, bro'thers, natives of Cork, men of great abilities, and lawyers, who made a visit to Paris in 1792,* where they had imbibed very deeply revolutionary ideas; had, on their return to Ireland, been active in the united conspiracy, and had,

as there is good reason to believe, at last been raised to the fatal eminence of the Directorial Committee. From their belief of his being an United Irishman-a belief doubtless impressed by some dextrous management on his part, and the hope of his co-operation in the businessthey confided the secret of the time and plan of the insurrection to Captain Armstrong, of the King's County militia, who had procured an introduction to them through the medium of Mr. Patrick Byrne, bookseller of Grafton street, Dublin. The intelligence occasionally received by this officer, who had procured his introduction for the service of government, was regularly conveyed to the Lord Lieutenant. In the house of Henry Sheares, at the time of his arrest, and in the hand-writing of John, was found a manifesto evidently intended for publication after the capital should be in session of the conspirators. In this were expressed sentiments, contrary, as there is every reason to believe, to the natural disposition of these gentlemen; but, in the poet's phrase, "to shut the gates of mercy on mankind,'

Gray's Elegy in a Country Church-yard.

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