56 IRISH GRATITUDE AND IRISH" TOOLS."

One Ferris, head of this committee, and the only Protestant on it, being horror-stricken, gave information of the plot, and Dunn and Carty were hanged. While Dunn was in prison, Lord Carhampton went to see him and said :- Considering the kindness I had shown you, I did not imagine you would be concerned in an attempt on my life!" To his Lordship's astonishment, Dunn replied without hesitation that he "thought it a good act! "But even so, why shoot a poor innocent postillion?" "To do the thing completely!" A whitesmith, arrested in Dublin in June, '98, on the charge of being a United Irishman, deposed that he had been seduced and made a United Irishman on May 1, '97, and belonged to a society of twelve, of which a slater was secretary. He had hoped to rise to the rank of an officer in a superior committee which regulated his, but which he had never seen. But he saw among their rules, set out in a printed paper, that no blackmouth, or blackbean should ever rise. He afterwards discovered that these appellations were used to denote Protestants, and as such he had been reported by the secretary. The "Union Star," published in Belfast in the place of the "Morning Star," which had been suppressed, and circulated privately but extensively, actually gave lists of public men marked out for popular vengeance. In a report prepared for the French Republican Directory in June, '97, Killybegs in the County Donegal was mentioned as a good place for debarcation, with a diversion in Sligo-10,000 United Irishmen to fall on Enniskillen. Tyrone, Monaghan, and Fermanagh were amongst the least affected to the

cause.

That loyal centres may maintain their reputation for loyalty, it is not enough, in times like these, that individuals, or even organised bodies, should content themselves with loyal protestations. It behoves all good men and true to exert themselves diligently to

IRISH GRATITUDE AND IRISH "TOOLS."

57

strengthen weak-kneed neighbours, and to watch all symptoms of tampering. It behoves them to keep their eyes open to the signs of the times around them -not to be led by panic into wild surmises, but cautiously to note, and privately to compare notes. Above all, to be guided in their own demeanour by sage and experienced advice, and never individually or collectively to give a handle to the enemy.

XI.

CONCLUSION.

THE Irish Revolutionists of "'98" spared no pains in concentrating various forces for the attainment of their object. They plotted with the French; they plotted with the Dutch. It is a curious coincidence during the present Irish crisis, that whilst prominent chiefs of the Land League have been known to be engaged in some secret "game" in Paris, an Irishman (Aylward) has also been found in the counsels of those Dutchmen who have recently given such serious trouble to England in the Transvaal.

On the 8th of July, 1797, a Dutch naval expedition was in readiness to sail from Holland for the invasion of Ireland, and Wolfe Tone embarked in Admiral Winter's ships. But, somehow, the winds and the waves have always befriended England when invasion has threatened the shores of these isles. The expedition was kept in port by contrary gales; and a month later, Tone writes :

"This morning arrived on the Vryheit,' Lowry of the Co. Down Executive Committee, and John Tennant, of Belfast. I am in no degree delighted at the intelligence they bring. The persecution in Ireland is at its height; and the people there, seeing no prospect of succour, which has been so long promised to them, are beginning to lose confidence in themselves and their chiefs, whom they almost suspect of deceiving them. They ground their suspicion on the great crisis of the mutiny (in the British fleet at the Ncre) being suffered to pass without the French Government making the smallest attempt to profit by it."

De Winter advised the relinquishment of the project of invasion. It is evident from the papers of the

At

secret societies which afterwards fell into the hands of the Government, that the United Irishmen were mak ing preparations for an insurrection to co-operate with the invaders on their arrival. On June 17th, one of the Co. Down colonels had called his captains together, told them it was the determination of the National Committee to make a rising in the ensuing week, and desired them to go home and cause the men to prepare their arms. He afterwards told them that the unwillingness of the Co. Antrim (all but 10,000 men) retarded the general rising, and that France could not be there for six weeks, if then. a Co. Down meeting in Belfast, on July 10, it was announced that 75,000 men were in the Texal coming to Ireland. On July 29th, at a battalion meeting, it was agreed to act if the French would land. At another meeting on the 31st, fears were expressed that the Catholics and Dissenters were becoming two separate parties. At a meeting in Dungannon of the Provisional Committee, it was stated that two members of the Executive had met the Leinster delegates in Dublin, and had found Leinster in tolerable organization; also Connaught and Munster.

But at this time, the prospects of the disaffected were materially altered by the destruction of the Dutch fleet off Camperdown by Admiral Duncan. During the latter part of '97, distrust began to arise between the Catholics and Presbyterians. The old Catholics, who were not in the conspiracy, presented loyal addresses, and professed to throw the blame on the Northern Presbyterians. From this time the zeal of the United Irishmen of Ulster considerably cooled, and the spirit of rebellion was propagated more actively among the Catholics. Nothing could be more indicative of the implacability of the Irish revolutionists than their demeanour towards Lord Moira. His was one of that class of minds which is so common amongst advanced Liberals at the present day. He brought forward the state of Ireland both in the Irish and in the

English Houses of Lords, blaming the rigour of the coercion measures. But his speeches gave so little satisfaction to the malcontents, that it was agreed at Saintfield that he was 66 as great a villain as the Lord Lieutenant, and a deeper designing one !" Such is the reward of paltering with disaffection!

The result of the frequent meetings and consultations of an immense number of little committees in every part of the island was soon visible in the increase of public agitation, and in the nightly insurrections of the peasantry. One Reynolds, a Kildare silk manufacturer, influential among the Roman Catholics, having joined the United Irishmen, and reached a high position in the order, on discovering soon after he had reached this position that the conspirators, instead of intending to reform the abuses of the State and abolish religious distinctions, meditated the subversion of the Constitution and the massacre of the leading members of Government, and such as should oppose their designs, took an early opportunity of giving information, whereby Oliver Bond, Emmett, and others were arrested, and warrants issued against Lord Edward Fitzgerald, &c. This was a great blow to the United Irishmen, who, though they proceeded to elect a new directory, had lost their best leaders. Those chosen to fill their places were hasty in their plans, and rash and unguarded in their conduct. The arrests destroyed the unity of action, as well as the confidence of the revolutionists. Those who remained did the best to sustain their cause, but the Ministers, by the discoveries already made, and by the information daily brought in by spies and informers, being sufficiently well acquainted with the danger, were prepared for it; and if they allowed some leading conspirators to go at large, it was because they thought the rebellion would be more effectually stifled by letting it break out before the blow was struck. The respectable Roman Catholics grew alarmed at the rebellious spirit spreading among the peasantry. Although many of the