There can be no longer any necessity for withholding the fact that Mr. Keogh, one of "the chief Catholic leaders," was a member of the Society of United Irishmen as well as his friend Richard M'Cormick, the Secretary of the Catholic Committee, and the gentleman who preceded him in that office, Theobald Wolfe Tone. We carefully discriminate between those who were fortunate enough to escape unscathed in the struggle, and those who went down to the grave branded with the name of traitors; but while these persons, who were partakers of their sentiments, associates in their cause but not sharers in their unhappy fate, who concurred in the projects, the execution of which brought ruin on the agents employed in carrying them into effect, are held entitled to the Spartan privilege, the memories of the others may claim more indulgent consideration on account of that protection than might be otherwise accorded to their

errors.

Not many months before the flight of M'Cormick, John Keogh was called on to preside at a very important meeting of the United Irishmen of the higher class of Dublin leaders at a house on Usher's island; Keogh on taking the chair, called for a list of the members who were to attend. After some time, a gentleman, known to be an United Irishman, but whose name was not on the list, entered the room and took part in the proceedings. Keogh became uneasy; he beckoned to M'Cormick, and desired him to inquire why persons attended the meeting who had not been invited. The latter

made an inquiry, and brought back, word that the gentleman was the friend of one of those who had been invited, and was a very trustworthy person. Keogh was not satisfied. Another gentleman was brought in under similar circumstances. Keogh then whispered to M'Cormick, in the hearing of an intimate acquaintance who sat next to the latter, "Dick, men's lives are not safe with fellows who would act in this manner." And in the course of a few minutes he pleaded an engagement and quitted the meeting, and from that time never attended at one, but continued known to the chief men of the Society as an attached friend to their cause.

The dependence on French assistance proved fatal to the Union. This was the opinion of T. A. Emmet communicated to his brother barrister, the distinguished Charles Glidden Haines, in 1812, (both attending the Supreme Court at Washington,) when an outline of his early career and the progress of the struggle he had embarked in was given to that gentleman. Mr. Emmet informed him that, independently of the effective force they counted on in their Society, a plan had been concerted to effect the important object of bringing a considerable number of British ships, chiefly manned by Irishmen, into their ports. From the opinions he expressed on this subject, Haines concluded that had Ireland never relied at all on France, her prospects of success might have been better; the French, however, having once promised, it was reasonable to place reliance on that promise, and, as it turned out, the reliance thus placed, embarrassed everything.

With respect to the conduct of Napoleon, throughout their various communications, Emmet pronounced him the worst foe that Ireland ever had. The nature of those communications is well deserving of attention, and a rapid sketch of former applications of a similar kind may not be uninteresting or uninstructive.

From the period of the armament afforded by Louis XIV. to James II., when 6,000 French troops landed at Kinsale, under the command of Count Lauzun, the 14th March, 1689, no hostile attempt had been made on the coast of Ireland until the 21st February, 1760, when Commodore Thurot arrived in the Bay of Carrickfergus on a marauding expedition, with three vessels of war, the Belle Isle, of 44, the Blonde, of 32, and Terpsichore, of 24 guns, and landed between 700 and 800 at Kilroot point, about two miles east of Carrickfergus. The castle of Carrickfergus was taken by the enemy, after a slight resistance; the total amount of its force consisting only of 138 persons under arms.

On the 22nd of February, Thurot despatched an officer with a flag of truce to Belfast, demanding a supply of provisions, to the amount of £1,500 sterling, for his troops, and menacing both Belfast and Carrickfergus with destruction if his application was refused. An answer was returned, that the application would be complied with. On the 23rd a part of the provisions were sent; and on the 25th, news having reached the French general that the troops were marching against him from Belfast, he re-embarked his men, and immediately set sail. On the

28th, the French squadron was attacked and captured off the Isle of Man by the Eolus, Pallas, and Brilliant frigates, under the command of Captain Elliot, and Thurot was killed in the action.

Thurot was a grandson of an Irish officer of the name of Farrell, who had served in the army of James II., and had fled to France with his master, where he died. He left an only son, who was brought up at Boulogne by his mother's family, under their name. He married at Boulogne, and his son (Mons. Thurot) at an early age went to England, and forming some connexion with a smuggler at Anglesea, he occasionally went in command of his vessels. From Anglesea he proceeded to Carlingford, and transacted the business of his employer there for about a year. He then went to Ireland, lived for two years in the service of Lord B-, subsequently in the service of Lord Antrim, and once more, after a short time, took to the old smuggling business.

From 1748 till 1752 he traded between London and Boulogne, and was at length arrested at the latter place, on a charge of smuggling. After suffering imprisonment at Boulogne and Dunkirk, he was sent to Paris, underwent an examination as to the best means of stopping contraband trade, was liberated, got the command of a sloop of war, and of the small squadron which was captured by Captain Elliot.*

The news of the landing of the French caused the gentry of the counties Antrim, Down, and Armagh, to enrol their tenants and dependants in volunteer

* Vide Annual Register, 1760.

corps, and these, to the number of 5,352, were provided with arms, and marched to Carrickfergus, within four days of the capture of that place by the enemy.

On this occasion, the tenants of Lord Charlemont, armed and clothed at their own expense, took the field, and the appearance of these armed peasants, on their march to Carrickfergus, his lordship says, "was singular and formidable." This was not the first enrolment of the northerns in volunteer companies. In 1745, when the news of the rebellion in Scotland reached Belfast, several independent companies were formed.

In the preceding occurrences may be traced the events which made the possibility of obtaining foreign aid familiar to the northern malcontents, and likewise the necessity of banding together the people in military associations, obvious to those whose loyalty was animated by a detestation of "Popery and arbitrary power." It had long been the custom to attribute every popular movement in Ireland to the influence of French politics. The author from whose excellent history of Carrickfergus the preceding account of Thurot's attempt is chiefly taken, (Samuel M'Skimmin,) labours under the old delusion. He maintains, that the Defenders were in open communication with the French, and had made overtures to the government of that country for the invasion of Ireland.

There can be no doubt that it was the object of France to keep alive the fear of invasion both in England and in Ireland, to exhaust, by all possible