and in general to act as officer of the revolutionary staff. They were required to inform themselves of, and report the state of the rebel regiments within their respective districts, of the number of mills, the roads, rivers, bridges, and fords, the military positions, the capacity of the towns and villages to receive troops, to communicate to the executive every movement of the enemy (meaning the King's troops), to announce the first appearance of their allies (meaning the French), and immediately to collect their forces."

pro

Besides these, a military committee was specially appointed. Its labours were two-fold; one was to prepare a plan for a general insurrection unsupported by foreign aid; the other, to devise the best means of co-operation with a French army, in the event of the mised descent being effected on the coast of Ireland. On this event the Directory calculated with such certainty in 1797, that a general order "to be ready" was issued through the provincial committees. Those who had the means to obtain them, were exhorted to procure firearms and ammunition-pikes were to be provided by the lower orders— and throughout three provinces the order was promptly obeyed. The organization of Connaught was fortunately still imperfect, and at the outbreak of the insurrection, the western counties were, happily for themselves, quite unprepared for action.

Having described the systems, military and political, the next preparatory notice should be directed to the persons who planned and matured a confederacy, which, for the extent to which it reached and the Langer it occasioned, stands in British history without a parallel.

* Muzgrate's Memois. Report of the Secret Committes.

CHAPTER II.

BRIEF NOTICES OF THE LEADERS OF THE UNITER IRISHMEN.

THE issue of the American contest-the institution of the Irish Volunteers-the overthrow of the French monarchy-the victories of the republican armies abroad, and the spread of infidel and revolutionary doctrines at home-to all these the system of the United Irishmen may be traced. That numbers of those who joined the union at its first formation, were actuated by pure and patriotic notions, cannot be denied ;* but that the majority were actuated by the desire of overturning monarchy, while ostensibly seeking for reform, is equally true. To the false principles of these times local causes were not wanting to increase the general dissaffection. The northern manufacturers were ill-disposed towards the aristocracy-and many who had acquired fortunes by trade, were jealous of the preponderating influence which landed property conferred upon the owners of hereditary estates. For electioneering purposes the people were courted by some, and corrupted by others. "The virulence of opposition, in vilifying and degrading administration, and in asserting that the legislative power was more corrupt than the executive, made the people believe that a reform of parliament was necessary, and gave the republicans a specious pretext for adopting it, as an engine to overturn the constitution; and the silly timidity of the members of administration, in complimenting their accusers, gave an incredible weight to their assertions in the public mind." Nor was violence of political expression confined to parliamentary discussion;t the pulpit was desecrated by inflammatory appeals to human passions, which every feeling of a Christian minister imperiously required him to protest against.‡

I

"In making war on the United Irishmen of Dublin, I attack a society, whose first establishment and principles, in their spirit and general tendency, I approved of; of which, but for some trifling accident-some lucky or unlucky circumstances, in their formation, I should myself have been a member, or proposed as such. take liberties with a body of men, some few individuals of whom, that I have lived in a degree of intimacy with-men of considerable talents, and I believe, of much private worth-I feel a personal, and even affectionate regard for; a body, to the great majority of whom, as individuals, I attribute perfectly good intentions towards their country, and even its constitution, so far as the majority have taken the troubie or used the means to understand it."-Joseph Pollock.

"On the 31st of January, 1793, an address of thanks to Lord Westmoreland was moved and carried in the House of Commons, for having issued this proclamation. In the debate on it, Lord Edward Fitzgerald arose, and said aloud, in an angry tone, I give my most hearty disapprobation to this; for I do think, that the Lord-Lieutenant, and the majority of this house, are the worst men in the kingdom.' The house had serious thoughts of expelling him; but with singular pusillanimity, pardoned him on making a slight excuse."-Musgrave's Memoirs.

"On the 25th of June, 1795, the Reverend Mr. Birch, a Presbyterian minister, preached a sermon to a numerous body of dissenters at Saintfield. in which he re

But a still more fatal inroad was made upon the morals of the people-speculative politics led to speculative religion. Banefu doctrines regarding government, were followed up by artful efforts to shake the religious convictions of the lower orders.* Virulent publications issued from the press, distracting the unsteady, and maddening the disaffected; and the loyalty of the subject and the faith of the believer were equally assailed, by the infamous admirers of those who figured in the reign of terror. The institutions which men venerated, the blessed hope of a hereafter, were equally contemned-and the overthrow of the throne, it would appear, was to be accompanied with the destruction of the altar.

The actual establishment of the United Irish society was accomplished by the Catholic committee, who, for political purposes, were anxious to enlist as many Protestant supporters as they could, and accordingly their agents were judiciously selected by those by whom the end, and not the means, were regarded. One was a man of much talent and unsteady character-the other a gentleman by birth, specious in manner and artful in address. Both were needy menboth Protestants-both mercenaries. Tone, with an unprovided family, had failed totally through sheer idleness at the bar; and Jones had damaged his fortunes by wild electioneering. Both, in Shakespear's parlance, were

"Weary with disaster, tagg'd with fortune;"

and, hence, the better suited to become able, unscrupulous, and, consequently, the more efficient agents.

Theobald Wolf Tone was the son of a coach-maker. He was designed and had prepared himself for the bar; but, from his own confessions, the instability of his character was unsuited to the profession he had selected. After having been engaged as second in a duel between two students, in which one of them was killed, he eloped with a young lady who possessed considerable personal beauty, but no fortune. The consequences of an imprudent marriage became too soon apparent, and, slighted by his wife's family, he was obliged to throw himself upon his father for support. The old man was himself in embarrassed circumstances; Tone brought the additional expenses of the maintenance of a wife and child upon a household already impoverished; and the earlier indiscretions of his life rendered the later portion of a necessitous career, a succession of desperate efforts to sur

commended the uniting persons of every religious persuasion in one family, or brotherhood, in the bonds of philanthropy. He denominated kings butchers and scourges of the human race, who revel on the spoils of thousands, whom they have made fatherless, widows, and orphans, until the judgment of the Almighty shall some down on those monsters, and cause them who use the sword to perish by the sword."-Ibid.

* "A large impression of Paine's Age of Reason was struck off in Belfast, and distributed gratis among the United Societies. Bundles of them were thrown into meeting-house yards on Sundays, before the congregations assembled; and small parcels were left on the sides of public roads, to contaminate the minds of those whe found them."-lina.

HISTORY OF THE

mount the pressure of poverty, and attain a position, which less talent and more prudence could have easily secured for him.

Tone appears to have been one of those mercurial characters who expend a life in popular excitement and idle speculation. When resident in the Middle Temple, after leaving a wife, (for whom he professed a romantic affection,) dependent on an indigent father-in-law, it might have been expected that a dear and double tie would have incited him to expiate the follies of "wild youth," and employ the talents and the energies of manhood in useful and profitable exertions. But his own revelations place his character in any but an amiable light. His time was wasted in unproductive labour, or utopian projects; and after two years sojourn at the Temple, when a gleam of prosperity broke upon his lowering fortunes, which would have enabled a prudent man to take up a professional position and ultimately led to independence, he returned to his native land, to prove that wild excitement alone was germane to a disposition to which graver and dignified pursuits were perfectly unsuited.

After becoming an agent to the Catholic committee, and a principal originator of the United Irish Society, he continued their paid servant, and an active and violent demagogue, until the arrest of Jackson. His connection with the French envoy obliged him at once to leave the country. He proceeded to America-and thence, early in 1796, visited France, and became an accredited agent between the French Directory and the United Irishmen.

The other employé of the Catholic committee, and an original founder of the Union, was William Todd Jones. family and small means, and these he had heavily embarrassed. He was a man of good With the recklessness of a man of broken fortune, he plunged deeply into the tide of revolutionary principles, and advocated the cause of

* I wrote several articles for the European Magazine, mostly critical reviews of new publications. My reviews were poor performances enough; however, they were in general as good as those of my brother critics; and in two years I received, Ι suppose, about 501. sterling for my writings, which was my main object; for, as to literary fame, I had then no great ambition to attain it."

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"I likewise in conjunction with two of my friends, named Jebb and Radcliff, wrote a burlesque novel, but we could not find a bookseller who would risk the printing it, though we offered the copyright gratis to several.

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"As I foresaw by this time that I should never be Lord Chancellor, and as my mind was naturally active, a scheme occurred to me, to the maturing of which I devoted some time and study." This was a proposal to the minister to establish a military colony in the South Seas. "I drew up a memorial on the subject, which I addressed to Mr. Pitt." The memorial remaining unattended to, Tone observes naïvely, that on some future opportunity he would make the minister repent it. But the most unamiable of his confessions, is his own declaration that from an unpleasant letter from his father, disclosing the embarrassment of the old man's affairs, he had resolved to desert his family. "J determined," he proceeds, "to enlist as a soldier

in the India Company's service; to quit Europe for ever, and leave my wife and child to the mercy of her family:" and with this resolution he actually repaired to the India-House-offered himself as a volunteer, and was only prevented from effecting his intention, by being too late to obtain a shiv. It seems difficult to reconcile professions of ardent love with deliberate desertion.

reform with more eloquence and judgment than most of his associates. As a writer, he was both an able and an artful supporter of Catholic rights. To Tone, in birth, position, and address, Jones was infinitely superior; and had his abilities assumed another bias, he might have held a very different position in after-life. A singular fatality, it would appear, attended one leaders of the United Irishmen-and, with a few exceptions, a troublous career ended in exile and poverty, by suicide* or on the scaffold.

As among the military leaders that amiable and unfortunate enthusiast, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, stood forward with imposing superiority, so both in character and talent, Thomas Addis Emmet was unapproached by any of the individuals in private or professional life who had arrayed themselves against the Government, and advocated revolutionary principles. He was the second son of Doctor Emmet, the state physican. His elder brother, Temple,+ after a brief but brilliant career at the Irish bar, died in 1788. The third and younger brother was Robert, and he, poor fellow ! lived to attain a melancholy and mischievous celebrity.

Addis Emmit was intended to have followed the profession of his father, and for four years (1783 to 86) studied physic at the university of Edinburgh. The death of his brother, Temple, induced him, however, to exchange medicine for law, and in 1790 he was called to the Irish bar.

In his political principles Emmet was a determined republican, and the following passages from Tone's memoir sufficiently prove the extent to which his revolutionary opinions reached :-" In recording the names of the members of the Club, I find I have strangely omitted that of a man whom, as well for his talents as his principles, I esteem as much as any, far more than most of them, I mean Thomas Addis Emmet, a barrister. He is a man completely after my own heart; of a great and comprehensive mind; of the warmest and sincerest affection for his friends; and of a firm and steady adherence to his principles, to which he has sacrificed much, as I know, and would, I am sure, if necessary sacrifice his life. His opinions and mine square exactly. In classing the men I most esteem, I would place him beside Russell, at the head of the list."

*The author was intimately acquainted with Mr. Jones, and dined in his company on the evening when the fatal accident occurred. His carriage had come to the door, and when Mr. Jones stepped in, the horses suddenly started off before the coachman could seize the reins. The avenue gate was closed-the vehicle stopped suddenly-Mr. Jones was thrown violently forward, struck against the wooden upright between the front glasses, and died from a concussion of the brain. An excellent memory, with great conversational powers, made one who had taken a leading part in the transactions of a stormy period of Irish history, a very amusing and instructive companion.

† Mr. Grattan in his "Life and Times," &c. rather over-eulogizes his talents and acquirements. " Temple Emmet, before he came to the bar, knew more law than any of the Judges on the bench; and if he had been placed on one side, and the whole bench opposed to him, he could have been examined against them, and would have surpassed them all; he would have answered better both in law and divinity than any Judge or any Bishop in the land." If true, this complimentary notice is not very flattering to "the reverend signors" who wore ermine and lawn sleeves in 1770.