XLI. in addition to the troops of the line and militia. CHA P. The yeomen were arranged in a kind of independent companies, each commonly composed of about fifty men, mostly cavalry, and each generally commanded by a captain and two lieutenants. The few infantry were armed like those of the regular army; but the cavalry were furnished with only one pistol and a sword each; except some who had carabines. This predilection for cavalry was erroneous, as was afterwards plainly proved by their inefficacy in the field, and as had been clearly foreseen by men who considered the condition of their arms, and the face of the country, uneven in general with hills, and every where intersected with ditches. This error seems to have arisen from the jealousy of administration, who may have suspected a general disaffection of the people, and have feared to give sanction to such a military establishment as, like the old volunteers, might become a dangerous engine of popular demands, under the influence of designing men. But if the real sentiments of the Irish protestants, who, with a very small exception, could never coalesce with the catholics in an armed opposition to government, had been fully known, the hardship of supplying horses at their own expence might have been spared to the poorer yeomen, the difference of pay to cavalry and foot soldiers saved to the public, and a force far more efficacious established for the immediate stifling, or speedy overthrow, of rebellion. The CHAP. The force of the royal army in Ireland was in XLI. danger of being put to trial, at the end of the same Attempt of vasion: 1796. French in- year, by an attempt of a French invasion at the bay of Bantry. In consequence of a representation of the state of affairs from an Irish emigrant, supposed to be counsellor Tone, to the French directory, a proposal was made of an armament from France for the political disruption of this island from the British government. After a consultation in the summer of 1796, the leaders of the Irish union notified by an agent, supposed to be Lord Edward Fitzgerald, their acceptance of the offer, on condition that the invading army should act as auxiliaries under the direction and pay of the society, which, on becoming possessed of the dominion, should be bound to reimburse the whole expences of the armament. Preparations were made for an expedition from Brest, but the exertions of the society to second the invasion were prevented by the receipt of two contrary pieces of intelligence from the French government; the one a message in November, promising the immediate sailing of the fleet; the other a letter, received a few days after the messenger's departure, and considered as authentic, representing the proposed expedition as deferred until the ensuing spring. Beside fifteen frigates, with sloops and transports, the whole designed to carry an army of twenty-five thousand men, the squadron destined for Ireland is stated as consisting of twenty-five ships of the line, including seven under admiral Richery, who had orders to form a junction as soon as possible. Hoche, XLI. the commander of the land forces, was one of the CHAP. ablest officers in the French service. Long delayed by various causes, the fleet at length set sail on the sixteenth of December. From the foggy state of the air some of the ships were disabled, and some destroyed, by striking against the rocks at the harbour's mouth; and on the next day the armament was dispersed by a tempest, which continued to blow, with more or less violence, during the whole time of the expedition. The chief admiral Bouvet, on the twenty-fourth, anchored in the bay of Bantry, with seventeen vessels, ten of which were ships of the line, and sent a boat to the shore with a reconnoitering party, who were immediately made prisoners by the peasants. The French officers were eager to land with what troops had arrived; but the admiral deterred by the hostile aspect of the country, would not consent until the general should come, who had been separated by a gale from this part of the fleet. After a delay of some days, the admiral, despairing of the general's arrival, returned to Brest; and all the divisions of the scattered navy regained that port, with the loss of two ships of the line and three frigates, one of which was captured, one run on shore in France, and three foundered. The fortune of this armament, frustrated only by troubled elements, while the Irish coast lay sixteen days exposed defenceless to its force, is a proof that the irresistible fleet of Britain is not an infallible guard against invasion. The time was truly critical. If the troops had been landed, XLI. CHAP landed, the consequence might have been fatal. The opponent army was in a disorderly state, in part disaffected, and said to have been ill-provided, particularly with respect to cannon, in a most extraordinary manner. The people in the south, abandoned to their own choice of conduct by the heads of the union, from the mistake already noticed, were loyal at the critical juncture; but, on an advance of the French forces into the country, pernicious arts on one side, and military disorders on the other, might soon have changed the scene. Violences of United Irish. 1797. With the increase of coercive operations disaffection had increased in Ulster, where, beside other acts which appeared to menace a design of insurrection, ten barrels of gunpowder had been stolen out of the royal stores in Belfast in the beginning of November 1796. The state of the country was very unquiet in that quarter at the end of this, and through great part of the following year. Roaming parties in the night seized the arms of those whom they regarded as adherents of government. To save the produce of the soil to their friends in prison, or to testify their esteem for men supposed not hostile to liberty, large bodies of men assembled in the day to dig out the potatoes and reap the corn of several individuals. Their marching sometimes with music, as if in military array, and the greatness of the numbers drawn together on these and other occasions, such as funerals and matches of foot-ball, gave cause to suspect that the real object of these meetings was to train men to a promptness XLI. in repairing to places of convention, to give con- CHAP. fidence to their own party, and to intimidate their opponents. Terror was employed to frustrate the operations of the law. Various modes of persecution were put in practice, and in a few instances assassination, against magistrates who exerted themselves to arrest members of the society, witnesses who appeared against them, and jurors who found them guilty; while pecuniary subscriptions were applied to the relief of the families of imprisoned members, the bribing of witnesses in trials, and the feeing of eminent lawyers. of adminis 1797. On the other side a plan of subjugation was pur- Severities sued by the agents of government. Many persons tration. in respectable circumstances were imprisoned, on secret information or suspicion, without benefit of trial. Many districts in the north were proclaimed, and numbers of the lower sort sent on board the royal navy. General Lake, chief in military command in the northern province, was, by a letter from the right honourable Thomas Pelham, secretary to the lord lieutenant, dated the third of March, 1797, authorized to use the troops for the prevention of disturbance according to his discretion. The general on the thirteenth issued a proclamation, commanding a surrendry of arms, and promising inviolable secrecy and rewards to informers. The troops were so disposed as to search all suspected places, and to prevent unlawful assemblies, especially after a certain hour in the night, when all persons found abroad without authority were liable to punVOL. II. ishment A A |