allowed their children to attend the Charter Schools re-asserting that Catholic soldiers had been forced to attend Protestant places of worship, and bidding the priests instruct them that under such circumstances they were bound to disobey their officers.1 Lord Camden had brought into Ireland, as he supposed, a serpent of healing. Dr. Hussey had proved a reptile of a more common type, and had turned on him and stung him. Under any circumstances the eve of a rebellion was not the moment to invite soldiers to mutiny. His official recognition by the Cabinet was an additional obligation to forbearance. With ingenious wickedness Dr. Hussey took advantage of the opportunity which the Government had allowed him to aggravate to the very utmost the danger which he had undertaken to counteract, and exhibited in a remarkable instance the value of the support which the English Cabinet was so eager to conciliate. In the Yeomanry the Castle possessed a force unassailable by the arts of priests. Coarser methods were therefore adopted to embarrass and weaken it. Countrymen who dared to enlist received warnings to withdraw, and refusing to obey, were assassinated. On the 1st of November the Government arsenal at Belfast was broken into and plundered. Informers stated that an organised system of murder was set on foot to terrify the Protestant clergy and magistrates into inactivity; 2 and whatever may have been their defects when contending in the open field, Irish 1 'Pastoral Letter by R.R. Dr. Hussey.'-Plowden, vol. iv. Appendix, 109. 2 The principle of the United Irishmen is to cure, by which is meant to assassinate all persons and CHAP. I. 1796. IX. 1796. BOOK conspirators have always been signally successful with the midnight pike and pistol. The state of Ulster became so alarming, owing to the compelled inaction of the Orangemen, that Carhampton went to Antrim, in November, to apply the methods which had been successful in Connaught.1 But the Cabinet were nervous and frightened; Portland expressed a hope that he would restore order without being driven to acts of severity.2 Lord Camden said that the Cabinet's wishes, coupled with their remarks on the Insurrection Act, made him most unwilling to resort to its powers; but how without severity he was to deal with murders, threats of murder, plundering and sacking houses, waylaying and wounding soldiers, he was for his part at a loss to comprehend.3 In spite of cruisers and coastguard officers muskets and powder continued to pour in. In December an American brig was seized on the coast of Antrim with 20,000 stand of arms on board, and a train of artillery. In significant defiance the confederate peasants assembled in thousands to dig the potatoes and cut and carry the corn of the arrested leaders, and their field-work the ostentatious appearance gave of military display.* 'Camden to Portland, Novem ber 1.' ber 5.' 'About eleven,' he writes, 'we saw an immense crowd coming Portland to Camden, Novem- along the hills, from the mountains 3 Camden to Portland, November 14.' S. P. O. 4 Sir George Hill describes one of these singular scenes, in a letter to Secretary Cooke. Having notice of an intended assembly for potatodigging, he took sixty soldiers with him and repaired to the spot, with the Sheriff and Lord Henry Murray. which separate the Maghera side from the Newtown side of the county of Derry. About a thousand came to the river which was between us. Five hundred forded it immediately; and as they came directly up to us, we imagined it might turn out a troublesome affair to them. We left the military at a distance, rode up, and ordered I. 1796. Throughout the island, or the greater part of the CHAP. island, the people were ready with arms concealed to rise and fall into the ranks assigned to them under local leaders already chosen. Happily for the peace of Ireland, they had been deprived at that particular moment of the central authority on which they relied for general direction of the men through whom was passing the correspondence with France, by the arrest of those on whom devolved the duty of giving the signal when the invaders were to be looked for. them not to proceed. The Sheriff read the proclamation. I spoke to them. They remonstrated with all imaginable cunning professions of peace and humility. Would we impede them in the charitable work of digging a forlorn woman's potatoes, whose husband was in gaol ? If we persisted to order it they would disperse; at the same time begged to be informed if they were at liberty to dig their own potatoes on their respective farms. I answered, and they dispersed. We withdrew a quarter of a mile with the soldiers. Then they galloped up again, their numbers being by this time trebled. We brought up the soldiers a second time, and gave them ten minutes to disperse, which alarmed me most was to observe BOOK 1796. SECTION V. THE story returns to Wolfe Tone, who was left embarking at Belfast for America, after devoting himself anew to the cause of his country at MacArt's fort. His companions on that remarkable occasion were now at Dublin, in Newgate. He himself, after a successful voyage across the Atlantic, arrived with his family at Philadelphia at the end of the summer of 1795. Here he found his friends Rowan and Napper Tandy. Here, too, he made acquaintance with M. Adet, the Minister of the French Republic; and whether it was from the aspect of a new country, the advice of Rowan, who had forsworn Irish politics, or the coolness of Adet, when he communicated to him his hopes and purposes, certain it was that Tone began to think that life might have better objects than making revolutions, and was making up his mind to a quiet residence in America. He bought a farm at Princeton, in New Jersey, where he settled his wife and children. He was accustoming his hand to axe and plough, and was sinking into useful industry, when he was roused by letters from Keogh and Neilson, which told him how fast Ireland was ripening, and pressed to lose not a moment in bringing France to their help. Tone's nature was easily set on fire. The Simms's sent him money. Taking his letters to Adet, and receiving in return introductions in cypher to M. de la Croix, the Minister for Foreign Affairs at Paris, he once more committed himself to the ocean, sailed for Havre, and landed there on the 2nd of February, 1796. Thence, in high spirits, lively, and jaunty as ever, he proceeded to Paris. Of all the United Irishmen, of all Irish rebels of whom the history of that country retains a record, Wolfe Tone is the least offensive. He tells no lies about himself. He never deals in inflated sentiment, unless when he confesses to have been drunk, or when drawing a programme for his society, at which perhaps he laughed in his sleeve. He hated England because he considered that England had slighted him, but he never conceals that he would have accepted gladly the most common-place employment if Pitt would have condescended to bestow it upon him. His frankness disarms indignation, for he paints himself as he really was, light, rollicking, ignorant, unread in everything except in Shakespeare, with a talent for ornamental writing, which he valued at no more than its worth, hating humbug and pretence, and plunging along the career of revolution with a careless impetuosity, more as if he was riding with the Kilkenny foxhounds than concerned in any serious purpose. On the 12th of February he was in Paris, the paradise of republican imagination. Fresh from the expenses of Philadelphia, he found himself in luxury which cost him next to nothing. He breakfasts and dines in the Maison Égalité, claret and Burgundy flowing like water; and the enjoyments once the privilege of the few, now, under the blessed auspices of the Revolution, being within reach of the humblest. He saunters in the Champs Élysées, and his eyes glisten in sympathy with the laughing crowds. At the theatre the band plays the 'Marseillaise.' The entire audience is on its feet to join in the Litany of Freedom. At the words 'Aux armes, Citoyens !' the CHAP. I. 1796. |