"were enabled, from reflection or inquiry, to offer for your ad"vantage and the general good. Still actuated by the same "principle of zeal and fidelity, they deem it their duty to caution "you against the immense quantity of bank-notes, which go2 "vernment is fabricating without bounds. We need not tell you "that the value of any bank-note rests upon the credit of him "who issues it. And in our opinion the issuer of this paper is "a bankrupt who, in all likelihood, must shortly shut up and run away. The present convenience of circulation will be "but poor amends for the subsequent beggary and ruin it will "bring on the holders; for you know that it will be waste-paper, "and must stop some where, as soon as there is a burst, and "that the possessor (God help him) will be robbed of so much property as he has taken it for."

To these were added solicitations and exhortations to the army to revolt from their allegiance. Attempts of this kind had been made so early as the year seventeen hundred and ninety-two, but had been generally abortive. One of them, dated the twenty-seventh of March, seventeen hundred and ninetyeight, and signed shamroc, runs as follows:

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My countrymen, what can you say when you hear of scenes "of blood acting on the spot where your native hamlets once "stood, but now no more: their owners, your friends, either "sent to seek repose in the grave by the hands of these villan"ous Orange murderers, or immured in the damp and dreary "dungeons of the bastiles of this country: pining in chill despondency, waiting for a trial seldom obtained, and when "obtained, acquitted, after years of dreary solitary confine ment!! Some hurried on board prison-ships-some actually transported to the settlements on the coast of Africa-others "sent to serve in the West Indies, certain victims to the climate, or left to rot, chained in the hold of a filthy coasting vessel! * Your wives despoiled to gratify the insatiable lust of these " ravishers!-And these scenes, my countrymen, suffered to go unpunished by those in power, whom you protect; to whose “frowns your array adds terror; to whom you give your support for unless you please, they vanish; without your protection these despots fall-these desolators, that each day refine on such bloody deeds, would perish, and your country be free.

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no,

"My brave countrymen ! do not let the world call us dastards: let us shew the world we are men, and, above all, that we are Irishmen. Let every man among you feel the injuries "your country, yourselves, have suffered; the insults you have "received, the stripes that have been dealt with an unmerciful "hand on those brave comrades who dared to think and feel "for their country-If you do, the glorious work will be complete, and in the union of the citizen and his brave fellow"soldier, the world (hitherto taught to look down upon us with "contempt) will see that we can emancipate our country; we "will convince surrounding nations that Irish soldiers have "avowed and adopted a maxim they will maintain, or perish"namely, that every man should be a soldier in defence of his "liberty, but none to take away the liberty of others."

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CHAPTER IV.

SINCE the failure of the French expedition to Bantry, which we have already mentioned, the directory had continued to keep up the spirits of their party with assurances of speedy assistance from the same power. To expedite the departure of this second armament, Mr. Lewins, a confidential agent of the Union, was dispatched to Paris with the most pressing solicitations. Leaving London in March, seventeen hundred and ninetyseven, he passed through Hamburgh, and arrived about the end of May in Paris, where he remained as ambassador from the Irish Republic to the French Directory. In the summer of the same year, alarmed lest a premature insurrection in the north, before the arrival of the troops from France, should be forced by the vigorous conduct of government in Ulster, they sent Doctor William James M'Nevin, an active member and secretary of the ruling power, in June, with orders to press forward the French preparations with redoubled ardour. The difficulty of procuring a passport at Hamburgh, induced this gentleman to deliver a memorial to an agent of the French republic whom he met there, and by whom it was forwarded to the directory at Paris, where he himself, having been permitted to continue his journey, afterwards delivered a second. In the former of these memorials, the firm resolutions of the Irish revolutionists, and their great anxiety lest the measures of government should disconcert their projects were conspicuous. In it were also made a statement of the situation of the United Irish and of the condition of the kingdom at large, for the reception

of their allies; a promise of reimbursing the French republic for the expence she might incur, not only in fitting out the armament now demanded, but also what she had incurred for the former which miscarried; and a demand of a body of troops not exceeding ten thousand men, nor falling short of five thousand, together with forty thousand stand of arms, and a proportionate supply of artillery, ammunition, engineers, and experienced officers, for the use and instruction of the insurgents. The second memorial endeavoured to prevail on the French not to delay in sending off these succors, when the minds of the Irish were so favourably disposed towards them. The agent was also authorized to negociate a loan of half a million, or at least three hundred thousand pounds, with France or Spain, in which, however, he failed. The assistance of a military force was nevertheless conceded.

Though the Irish were so solicitous to obtain a supply of well disciplined troops and experienced officers, yet they were justly afraid of introducing too great a body of foreign troops into the kingdom, who might at a future period contribute to impose on them a yoke still heavier than that which they intended to remove. But the French, on the other hand, wished to send so great an army as might not only insure the success of the enterprise, but as might enable them to retain possession of Ireland as a conquest. They insisted, at any rate, on sending fifteen thousand men, who were accordingly embarked on board a Dutch fleet at the Texel, under the command of general Daendels.

On the receipt of this intelligence by the Irish, great preparations were made for their reception; and it was announced to the different societies that the fleet was on the point of sailing. Notwithstanding the troops on board this fleet had been disembarked, from fear of the Britsh navy, which was then superior in strength; yet they were again forced, at the instance of the French directory, to put to sea, contrary to the judgment of the Dutch admiral, which led to the decicive victory of the gallant admiral Duncan, a Scotsman, off Camperdown, with a squadron of British ships under his command. The expence of these armaments was to have been defrayed by ecclesiastical and other lands, designed for confiscation by the revolutionists.

. Even after this second disappointment of foreign succours, the heads of the conspiracy sedulously encouraged hopes of fresh assistance; and they in fact received a promise from France that in April an invasion should take place in their favour: but notwithstanding the rebellion broke out in the May following, the French government failed in fulfilling this promise.

In the month of February, seventeen hundred and ninetyeight, instructions were issued by the military committee to the adjutant-generals, directing them to hold themselves in readiness for open warfare against government, and to the several regiments concerning their arms and appointments. To extend the organization, to increase the quantity of military stores, and to consolidate more and more the strength of the conspiracy, continued to be the principal care of its heads till the arrival of their allies should take place; and the system of terror which had been practised in the north, was adopted in the south. Arms were plundered during the night, individuals were sometimes assassinated, and outrage of every description put in practice.

Meantime government was labouring to disorganize the whole system; and to destroy the strength of the conspiracy before the arrival of their expected allies. For this end, some districts in the northern and midland counties were accordingly proclaimed; many persons suspected of treasonable designs were imprisoned; and other acts of power enforced to throw them into confusion. But the most severe wound inflicted on the union was the arrest of the thirteen members composing the provincial committee of Leinster, with other principals of the conspiracy, at the house of Oliver Bond, Bridge-street, Dublin, on the twelfth of March. This arrest was grounded on the information of Thos. Reynolds, a Roman catholic gentleman of a place called Kilkea Castle in the county of Kildare, colonel of an United Irish regiment, rebel treasurer for the county in which he resided, and provincial delegate for Leinster, who, deserting what he must have considered the cause of his country, had continued for some time to disclose, for the use of government, all he knew of the conspiracy. Intelligence being thus given that the Leinster delegates, thirteen in number, were to meet at Mr. Bond's on the twelfth of March, justice