came "whose names the Viceroy dared not place on paper." With the help of these men Carhampton was able to arrest many of the Connaught leaders; and legal trials being from the nature of the case impossible, he trusted to Parliament for an Act of Indemnity, and sent them by scores to serve in the fleet. Thus, amidst the shrieks of patriots and threats of prosecution, he succeeded in restoring some outward show of order.1

The spirit, however, was repressed in one district only to break out in others under the auspices of the new organization in which Defenders and United Irishmen were now combining. The Committee of Public Welfare, which had undertaken the direction of Irish disaffection, consisted of five members continually changing, whose names were known only to themselves, and to those through whom their orders were immediately transmitted. They had no fixed place of meeting. They assembled once a month, sometimes at Belfast, sometimes at Dublin, to hear reports, draw resolutions, and issue commands. Below the General Committee were the County Committees. Below the County Committees were Baronial Com

1 "Among the secret informations are several curious accounts of the organization of the Defenders. Their central lodge was at Armagh, with lodges affiliated through the four provinces. They were all Catholics, yet all Jacobins or Fifth 'Monarchy men, believing that 'all men were equal, and that there was no King but the Almighty.' The immediate object was a union between Ireland and France. The Cavan Catechism'

ran:

"The French Defenders will uphold the cause;

The Irish Defenders will pull down the British laws.'"' 'Another catechism was found on a man who was hanged at Carrick : -"Are you concerned? - I am. To what? - To the National Convention. What do you design by that cause? - To quell all nations, dethrone all kings, and plant the true religion that was lost at the Reformation. Who sent you? - Simon Peter, the Head of the Church."" - Irish MSS. 1795. S. P. O.

mittees. Below the Baronial Committees were the Elementary Societies, each containing eighteen members and no more, one or more of whom were to be found in every town in Ireland, and at last in every village. Each eighteen had its four officers, changed every fortnight, and elected by lot. Each single member contributed a shilling a month or more according to his means. They appeared under the most innocent disguises, as book clubs, parochial charity clubs, or trading societies; and so rapidly the infection spread through the poisoned atmosphere, that before the end of the summer of 1795 Lord Camden was informed that more than a million mem

bers were already sworn.1 The militia were now everywhere enrolled to overawe them; but the militia being themselves chiefly Catholics, were objects of assiduous and generally sucessful seduction. The weavers and tradesmen of Dublin "were indefatigable" in their attempts on the loyalty of the Irish in the regiments of the line; and so energetic was the propagandism, that in August the more sanguine leaders believed that they were ready for revolt, and a plot was laid which resembled singularly the precedent of 1641. The day selected was the ominous 24th of August. Dublin Castle was to be surprised. The two regiments on duty there, the 104th and 111th, were gained over. The signal was to be an attack on the guard on Essex Bridge and the seizure of the colors. Camden was to be killed by the first means that came to hand. Fitzgibbon was to be hanged in state in St. Stephen's Green; the Protes

1 This must have been an enormous exaggeration. The population of Ireland at this time was estimated at 4,100,000, of whom three milions were Catholics. The number, however, did at last reach half a million, and included almost every able-bodied Catholic in Ireland.

tants, according to the ambitious instincts of the Catholics, who were already outrunning the guidance of the Union leaders, were to be driven out of the island or destroyed. The purpose was betrayed by secret informers, who were never wanting in Ireland. Half a dozen of the conspirators were arrested, one of them a private in the Guards. The incriminated regiments mutinied. The most guilty deserted, disappeared in the city lanes, and were heard of no more. Similiar disaffection showed itself in a regiment at Cork, but was promptly quelled. In September Lord Camden made a progress in force through the South, to overawe the rising rebellion by a display of power and justice.

One of the O'Connors had been convicted of administering the United oath to a soldier in the garrison at Naas. O'Connor was hanged while Camden was in the town; and to produce an effect his head was struck off and set up on a pole over the door of the gaol.1

It availed nothing. Insurrection did not gather to a head, but the elements of it were everywhere. Magistrates were waylaid, witnesses were murdered, constables who had been too busy beaten, piked, or brained. The militia could not be trusted. The regular army was scarcely in a better condition; and though its numbers were increased on paper, was so feeble as to tempt rebellion. The best troops had been sent abroad. Their places had been supplied by invalids and Fencible regiments, and even of these, instead of the 20,000 voted by Parliament, there were but 10,000 in all Ireland. The country gentlemen, so forward ten years back in volunteer1 "Camden to the Duke of Portland, September 9, 1795."

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ing to overawe the English, were hanging back and hedging" against the day of evil. "Since the Roman Catholics were allowed to vote," Camden bitterly said, "the gentry canvass for their support at the expense of the tranquillity of the kingdom." Feudal notions were passing away. The rights of man were growing up instead of them; and the people having seen England more than once yield to intimidation, were encouraged to persevere in agitation by experience of its success.

"1

At the end of September there was a second alarm. The Castle was warned that an order had gone out for every Defender and United Irishman to rise on a specified night under pain of instant death. Often, doubtless, such stories were invented to mislead and harass. The present informer was telling nothing but the truth. Tone's friend, Russell, excited, perhaps, by the oath at MacArt's fort, had urged a universal insurrection immediately after harvest. He had been hardly restrained by his more prudent companions,2 and Keogh wrote to America to Tone to hasten his movements.3

The Cabinet, when post after post brought in these gloomy reports, regretted, it is likely, the King's obstinacy, which had brought the trouble in their day, which but for him they might have passed on to their successors. Portland confessed inability to suggest a method by which the spirit which had been let loose could be rechained.

"Were the country gentlemen," he wrote, "or rather were the great landed proprietors-an event

1 "Camden to Portland, September 25, 1795." —S. P. O.

to Wolfe Tone, September 21, 1795." - Printed in Tone's

8" Keogh to Wolfe Tone, September 3."— Ibid.

impossible to take place to reside on their estates, were the parochial clergy more numerous or more generally resident, were the gentlemen more active, the provincial magistracy better filled, the duties of it discharged with impartiality, and the police establishment made general through Ireland; were the wages of the laborers better regulated and paid in specie; were the lands so occupied as to give the landlord an influence over the farmer, and the farmer an interest in the good will of the proprietor of the estate, then much might be done for the improvement of the kingdom and the happiness of its inhabitants." 1

Admirable Duke of Portland, sitting in his chair with his hands folded and mourning over what he called impossibilities, never remembering, even in his dreams, that it was the business of him and the other Ministers of the Crown to make these "impossibilities" into facts, that the secret of all Ireland's disorders was the shameful and scandalous forgetfulness of duty on the part of every person in the empire connected with the management of it, from the sovereigns who had quartered their mistresses on the Irish revenue to the lowest customs officer, who contrived to be sick in his bed when the Kerry smuggler landed his cargo.

1 "Portland to Camden, October 13."-S. P. O.