XLVI. CHAP. royal commander there, expressing a hope of the protestants that nothing would be done to the prisoners at Castlebar which might provoke reprisals. These ambassadors returned from their perilous journey on the evening of the twenty-first. The dean had found an opportunity of private conversation with general Trench, the result of which was a very polite letter to the bishop, "assuring him that his prisoners were, and should be, treated with all possible tenderness and humanity." This, publickly read to the multitude, and left in their hands, caused an irresolution, which fortunately continued till the arrival of the royal army on the twenty-third. "That during the whole time of this civil commotion not a drop of blood was shed by the Connaught rebels except in the field of war," is worthy of notice. The example and exertions of the French had great influence; but a wide range of country day at the mercy of the insurgent peasants for several days after the French power was known to be completely at an end. Here the minds of the people had not been exasperated by the tortures of the scourge, the conflagrations, and the various cruelties of malignant and affected zealots, practised in the southeastern parts. Treatment of the Gers, The three generous Frenchmen, who had been French offi-left by Humbert at Killala, were in danger of being massacred, after the storming of that post, from the shameful irregularity of the royal troops; but were afterwards treated in a manner honourable to the officers of these troops, to the Irish administration, and XLVI. and to the British government. By the first, leave CHAP. was given them to retain their swords, their effects, and their bed-chamber in the bishop's house. By the second they were forwarded immediately to London, and furnished with what money they wanted for their draft on Niou, the commissary of French prisoners. By the third they were ordered to be set at liberty, and sent home without exchange. Niou replied, that his government could not avail itself of so polite an offer, since these officers had done no more than what any Frenchman would have done in the same situation. This was a laudable declaration in favour of the humanity and politeness of the French military; and to emulate them in this respect would be honourable to the soldiery of any nation. Executions. Trials and executions proceeded as usual on the overthrow of rebellion. Roger Macguire, with dif- 1798. ficulty saved from death, was, after long imprisonment, transported to Botany-bay. Yet had the protestants of Killala been preserved from massacre by this man's embassy, with great personal danger, to Castlebar, where some gentlemen, if they had been permitted, would have hanged him, though they knew that by this would destruction have been brought on these protestants. So courageously prodigal of other men's lives are those who are most fearful for their own! Among numbers of chiefs and inferior insurgents put to death, particular compassion is due to two men, who, Irishmen by birth had been in the military service of France before XLVI. CHAP. the invasion, had come into Ireland in the French fleet, and had, as well as the best French officers, used the most active exertions to save the lives and properties of loyalists. These were Bartholomew Teeling and Matthew Tone, whose generous humanity, made evident at their trials, and steady fortitude under sentence and execution, command our esteem as well as pity. The saving of these men's lives would have given additional honour to the administration of Cornwallis. Tandy. The little army of Humbert had been intended only as a van-guard of a much more formidable force, which was soon to follow. Happily the French government was as tardy in seconding his opérations, as it had been those of the southern Irish rebels. The delay in the equipment of the second. fleet is ascribed to the want of money. In the interim a brig from France arrived at the little isle of Rutland, near the north-west coast of Donegal, on the sixteenth of September, and landed its crew. Among these was James Napper Tandy, already mentioned in this work, now bearing the title of general of brigade in the French service. Informed of the surrendry of Humbert's troops, and unable to excite, by their manifestoes, an insurrection in that quarter, they reimbarked and abandoned the shores of Ireland. Tandy was afterwards arrested at Hamburgh by some British agents. In this action neutrality was violated; and the influence of the emeror of Russia was obtained to intimidate the Hamburghers into an acquiescence in this violation, which exposed XLVI. exposed at the same time these citizens to the resent- CHA P. ment of the French. So mighty a bustle about an object so unimportant confirmed many in an opinion of a puerile weakness in the British ministry. Tandy was tried at Lifford, at the spring assizes for 1801: he pleaded guilty, was condemned, was pardoned as to life, emigrated to France, and died there soon after. Second 1798. The principal French armament at length appear-French exed on the eleventh of October, near the coast ofpedition. Donegal, consisting of one ship of the line, named the Hoche, and eight frigates, with four or five thousand soldiers. Prevented from landing, pursued, 'and, on the next day, overtaken, by the British fleet of Sir John Borlase Warren, the Gallic officers came reluctantly, but with desperate valour, to an engagement. The Hoche was captured, the frigates made sail to escape, but six were taken in the chase. Another squadron of three frigates, with two thousand men for land service, destined to co-operate with the former, anchored in the bay of Killala on the twenty-seventh of the same month; but, on the appearance of some hostile ships, set sail with precipitation homeward, and escaped pursuit. The leaders of this force had orders to send the bishop of Killala and his family prisoners to France, and, if they should meet with opposition in landing, to lay the town in ashes. The cause of this unmerited severity was an unfounded and absurd opinion entertained by the French administrators, that this prelate had betrayed the town to the royal troops, together 1i4 with CHAP. Theobald Tone. with a deposit of two hundred and eighty barrels of gun-powder buried near this palace by the invaders. Death of Matthew Tone already mentioned was brother to Theobald Wolfe Tone, who had rendered himself so remarkable by his activity and talents in the united system. The latter was found aboard the Hoche by admiral Warren, and tried by courtmartial in the capital. He rested his defence on his being a denizen of France, an officer in the service of that country, and pretended not to deny the charge against him, nor even to excuse his political conduct. Condemned, he requested the indulgence of being shot as a soldier, instead of being hanged as a felon; and, on the refusal of this request, cut his own throat in the prison. The operation being incompletely performed, hopes were entertained of his recovery. A motion was ably supported for a writ of habeas-corpus in his favour by John Philpot Curran, the famous barrister; and the plea was admitted on the ground that "courts-martial have no jurisdiction over subjects not in military service while the court of King's Bench is sitting." But from the condition of Tone, his removal from prison was deemed unsafe, and he died of his wound on the nineteenth of November. Exertions of From the mal-administration of the French com1798. monwealth, and some other fortunate circumstances, Cornwallis had found means to complete the overthrow of rebellion in a state of the country extremely perilous, a wide-spread disaffection, which men of the loyalist denomination were ready to exasperate into desperate efforts, and an army, with some ho nourable |