who now took the name of Orangemen were mainly, or exclusively, strong opponents of the admission of Catholics to Parliament, though some of them were of the school of Flood, and desired a parliamentary reform upon a Protestant basis. The society as organised by them, emphatically disclaimed all sympathy with outrage and all desire to persecute. It was intended to be a loyal society for the defence of Ulster and the kingdom against the United Irishmen and against the French, and also for maintaining the Constitution on an exclusively Protestant basis, but it included in its ranks all the most intolerant and fanatical Protestantism in the province, and it inherited from its earlier stage, traditions and habits of violence and outrage which its new leaders could not wholly repress, and which the anarchy of the time was well fitted to encourage.

A few extracts from the confidential letters of the generals commanding in the North will paint the situation, and show the ideas and tendencies that were prevailing. Lake, who commanded the province, strongly maintained that nothing but the extreme exertion of military law could cope with the evil. I much fear,' he wrote, 'these villains will not give us an opportunity of treating them in the summary way we all wish. You may rest assured they will not have much mercy if we can once begin.' If we had a large body of troops in this district with martial law proclaimed, I think we should very shortly have all the arms in the country, and put an immediate stop to the rebellion. I see no other way of entirely disarming the province, which certainly should be done instantly, and is not, I

here under Government. At a contested election he supported the popular candidate, contrary to the ministerial interest, which some of his great brethren repreVOL. IV.

sented in such colours to Government that he was dismissed.' (Pp. 236, 237.)

1 Lake to Pelham, March 25, 1797.

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fear, practicable without great force and such powers as I mention. The contagion spreads fast, and requires most desperate remedies. I think if they once knew military law was proclaimed, and that one or two of their large towns were threatened to be burnt unless arms of every kind were produced, it would have a great effect; and if they did not bring in their arms, it would be advisable the houses of some of the most disaffected should be set on fire. You may think me too violent, but I am convinced it will be mercy in the end. . . . Surely the "Northern Star" should be stopped. The mischief it does is beyond all imagination. May I be allowed to seize and burn the whole apparatus? Belfast ought to be proclaimed and punished most severely, as it is plain every act of sedition originates in this town. I have patrols going all night, and will do everything I can to thin the country of these rebellious scoundrels by sending them on board the tender.' He laments that complete martial law was not proclaimed. It is, he says, 'very necessary, I assure you, though I believe it will not be long before it is in force here, as, if my information is right, these villains do most undoubtedly meditate a rising, and that very shortly. . . . I cannot help wishing that we had full powers to destroy their houses, or try some of them by our law, if they did not bring in their arms. Nothing but terror will keep them in order.' 2

A much more instructive correspondence was at this time carried on between the Chief Secretary and Brigadier-General Knox, a man who, in addition to his military talents, had great family influence in the North, and a thorough knowledge of its social and political condition. He commanded at Dungannon,

Lake to Pelham, April 16,

Ibid. May 18, 1797.

where he seems to have been remarkably successful in pacifying the country. He furnished the Government with elaborate plans for the defence of Ulster against invasion, and he was much consulted on political matters by Pelham. He was evidently a man of a hot temper: quarrelling at one time with Lord Carhampton, and at another with Pelham himself, and he appears to have been of that stern Cromwellian type which flinches from no degree of violence that seems necessary to secure the country. A few extracts from his letters will show the new place which Orangism was beginning to take in Irish politics, and also the judgment of an honest and very able man about the state of feeling in Ulster, and the measures by which Ireland could be pacified.

In March, he wrote strongly objecting to the policy of general and indiscriminate disarming. 'In the counties of Down, Antrim, Derry, and parts of Donegal and Tyrone,' he wrote, 'the whole people are ill disposed; consequently it should be the object of Government to seize all their arms; but in the counties of Armagh, Cavan, Monaghan, Fermanagh, and part of Tyrone, through which my brigade is at present quartered, a proportion of the people are hostile to the United Irishmen-particularly those calling themselves Orangemen.' If, which was not the case, the troops were sufficiently numerous to make a general search, the measure would do more harm than good. 'On the first alarm the United Irishmen would conceal their arms, and the soldiery would find and seize the arms only of those who were well inclined, thereby leaving them to the mercy of their enemies. This actually happened near Omagh.' In one parish the Protestant inhabitants, though not embodied in yeomanry corps, associated to defend their property, and to keep the peace of their neighbourhood. Their arms, and theirs

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only, were seized by the military.' 'I have arranged,' he says, a plan to scour a district full of unregistered arms, or said to be so. . . . And this I do, not so much with a hope to succeed to any extent, as to increase the animosity between the Orangemen and the United Irishmen, or liberty men as they call themselves. Upon that animosity depends the safety of the centre counties of the North. Were the Orangemen disarmed or put down, or were they coalesced with the other party, the whole of Ulster would be as bad as Down and Antrim.' In respect to the county of Armagh, I hope no attempt may be made towards a genuine search and seizure of arms. Except in the wild country about the Fews mountains, it might do great mischief.'1

'The state of affairs,' he wrote some weeks later, 'I am sorry to say, has within these few days become very alarming. Disaffection has spread into districts that have hitherto been considered as loyal. The loyalists are under the impression of terror;' the minds of nearly all classes are wavering. Nothing but a large additional supply of English troops can secure the province.2 Mr. Verner informed me that he could enroll a considerable number of men as supplementary yeomen, to be attached to his corps without pay, if Government would give them arms. They would consist of staunch Orangemen, the only description of men in the North of Ireland that can be depended upon. reckons upon two or three hundred. May I encourage him to proceed?' 3

He

Other proposals of the same kind were pressed from other quarters on Pelham, and he wrote to Knox in great perplexity, begging his advice. It was urged that the Armagh Orangemen might be organised into a

1 Knox to Lake, March 18, 1797.

2 Knox to Pelham, April 11, 1797. 3 Ibid. April 19.

new fencible corps; that their loyalty was incontestable; that if they were not armed, they would be in much danger in case of an insurrection. 'At the same time,'

he continued, 'I am sure that you will see many difficulties in forming them into corps, which have the appearance of establishing religious distinctions.' On the whole, he concluded that the best line of conduct he could follow, was to leave the matter to the discretion of Knox. The object of suppressing the United Irishmen is so great, that one can hardly object to any means for gaining it. At the same time, party and religious distinctions have produced such consequences in the county of Armagh, that it will require infinite. prudence and dexterity in the management of such an undertaking.''

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Knox strongly encouraged the arming of the Orangemen, though he was by no means insensible to the objections to that course. 'If I am permitted,' he wrote, as I am inclined, to encourage the Orangemen, I think I shall be able to put down the United Irishmen in Armagh, Monaghan, Cavan, and part of Tyrone.' He sent to Pelham a series of resolutions, which had just been carried at Armagh, by the masters of the different Orange lodges of Ulster, showing that the society had now assumed the character of a legitimate political association. In these resolutions the Orangemen expressed warm loyalty to the Crown, detestation of rebels of all descriptions, and determination to support, at the risk of their lives, the existing constitution of Church and State, dwelling especially on the Protestant ascendency. They recommended the gentlemen of the country to remain on their estates, offered to form themselves into distinct corps under their guidance, and invited subscriptions for the necessary expenses.

1 Pelham to Knox, May 20, 23, 1797.