employment.' 'Not a single night,' wrote another informant, 'has past for this last week in the part of the barony of Raphoe which is near Letterkenny, unmarked by outrage. Every house, with a few exceptions, in the parishes of Ray and Leck, has been plundered of their arms and pewter; and what makes the matter more awful, no argument can induce anyone who has been robbed, to give the slightest hint that may lead to the discovery of the marauders. Nay, their conduct rather argues an easy satisfaction at the loss, than a wish to recover the arms and bring the ruffians to justice.' 2 From Strabane, which was in the adjoining county of Tyrone, a Scotch colonel writes, Unless speedy measures are adopted to separate the soldiery from the inhabitants, the most fatal consequences are to be apprehended, . . . scattered as they are through the houses of the inhabitants, who are completely organised to overthrow the Government of the country.' He states that the most assiduous efforts were being made to seduce the soldiers, that the area of disaffection was increasing with the greatest rapidity, and that, either through fear or through a desire to be on good terms with the people, the magistrates were shamefully supine. Through the system of terror, he says, which has in this country unbounded influence,'' the civil power is becoming totally destitute of energy.' United Irishmen, who demand arms, are never resisted. He had arrested some plunderers wearing, like the old Whiteboys, white shirts over their dress. It is most indispensably necessary,' he thinks, to proclaim the whole of the North of Ireland without loss of time.'3 A melancholy letter soon followed, written from Derry by the Earl of Cavan, describing the murder of the courageous magistrate in Donegal. Dr. Hamilton had been from home for some days on business, and on his return he stopped at the house of a clergyman named Waller, who, like himself, had been a fellow of Trinity College, and who was now the rector of a parish halfway between Derry and Letterkenny, and six miles from Raphoe. In the evening he was sitting playing cards with the family of 1 I.S.P.O. This letter was written on Feb. 1. 2 Feb. 26, 1797. Paper headed, 'State of the Barony of Raphoe.' CH. XXVIII. MURDER OF HAMILTON. 281 his host, when the house was attacked. Mrs. Waller was shot dead. Hamilton fled to the cellar, but the marauding party declared that they would burn the house, and kill everyone in it, unless he was given up. A man and two women servants dragged him from his place of concealment. He clung desperately to the staple of the hall-door lock, but the application of fire compelled him to loose his hold. He was thrust out, and in a moment murdered, and his body hideously mangled. Lord Cavan described the situation of the country as getting continually worse, and the few magistrates and resident gentry as so terrified by recent outrages and murders, that they had fled to the towns. There were nightly assemblies of rebels. The stacks and houses of obnoxious persons were burnt within a few miles of Derry. Lord Cavan firmly believed that a rebellion was ready to break out, and that nothing could prevent it except a reinforcement of troops and a proclamation of martial law. He urged also the necessity of 'emptying the gaols of their present crowded numbers, by sending them to the fleet, or disposing of them any way but by trial in this country, where no jury could be found to convict them, and by granting an amnesty to those who come forward and acknowledge their error.'1 It was stated in Parliament, that such was the audacity of the United Irishmen in the neighbourhood of Derry, that Lord Cavan, who commanded there, was obliged to order the garrison men to deposit their arms every night in the courthouse, to prevent them from being taken by force. Above 400 families had been robbed of their arms in that neighbourhood in one night.' This county had, indeed, for some time been perhaps the most disturbed in Ireland, and a letter of Camden Earl of Cavan to Pelham, March 3, 13, 1797. There is also a memorial from the Provost and Fellows of T.C.D. begging the Lord Lieutenant to provide for the family of Dr. Hamilton, and speaking in very warm terms of his character. A few more particulars about this murder will be found in the speech of Lord Clare in the debate in the House of Lords, Feb. 19, 1798, pp. 82, 83; and in a speech of Dr. Browne, the M.P. for Trinity College, Parl. Deb. xvii. 411. An Act of Parliament was passed enabling the King to give an annuity of 7001. a year to the family of Dr. Hamilton, and another Act authorised a grant of 300l. a year to the family of Mr. Knipe, a clergyman who had been murdered on account of his perfor mance of his magisterial duties in the county of Meath, 37 Geo. III. c. 62, 63. A short life of Hamilton is prefixed to an edition of his Letters concerning the Northern Coast of Antrim, which was published at Coleraine in 1839. 2 Irish Parl. Deb. xvii. 164. clearly indicates one cause of the evil. Several companies in the City of London own large tracts of ground in it; they have lately refused to renew leases, except at exorbitant fines or great increase of rent. The consequence has been, that the few gentlemen who resided there, and were disposed to improve their estates, have been driven from that county.' The great proprietors, Lord Waterford, Lord Londonderry, and Mr. Conolly, lived in other parts of Ireland, so that over a very large and wild district there was not a resident gentleman of 1,500l. a year.1 In the county of Armagh similar disturbances were rapidly extending. This county also had, for several months, been in a state of extreme turbulence, and some portions of it had been proclaimed under the Insurrection Act in the preceding December. Large armed parties were going about the country. Detachments of soldiers had been attacked by parties of 200 or 300 men. More soldiers, and a general disarming of the people, it was said, were imperatively required.3 The system of carrying away untried men to serve in the fleet, which had been first illegally practised by Lord Carhampton, then indemnified by the Irish Parliament, and then formally sanctioned in proclaimed districts by the Insurrection Act, gave a fiercer tinge to the disaffection of the North. Higgins, who was well informed about the proceedings of the seditious party in Dublin, mentions that many letters had been received from Belfast, and from the county of Down, expressing a belief that this system was about to be again largely practised, and that it would be resisted to the death, and adding that the arrival of a French expedition in the northern province was confidently expected. McNally nearly at the same time warned the Government, that, from daily intercourse with the leading men who informed the Catholic Committee in Dublin and the fraternity of reformers in Belfast,' he knew beyond all possibility of doubt that their real object was the establishment of a separate republic. The persecutions of the Catholics in the North were largely made use of. A song Camden to Portland, April 3, W. Sykes, March 3. (Newtown Hamilton.) 1797. 4 F. Higgins, March 14, 1797. CH. XXVIII. OPPOSITION TO ENLISTMENTS. 283 describing them was printed and widely circulated, and Counsellor Sampson was writing a history of the county of Armagh in which he would dilate upon the oppressions of the poor.' The letters of the same correspondent at this time, give several other particulars about the secret history of the conspiracy. I have mentioned the efforts of the leaders in the Catholic Committee, and generally of the United Irishmen, to prevent their followers from enlisting in the regiments which the Government was endeavouring to raise for the purpose of defending the country. This policy, however, was not adopted without much discussion and division. Some even of those who were looking forward most eagerly to a French invasion and an Irish republic, favoured the policy of enlisting. They dwelt on the possibility of the yeomanry force becoming a new volunteer army, and obtaining reform and emancipation by a menace of force; upon the importance of giving their partisans by every means arms and discipline; upon the danger of permitting a new armed Protestant ascendency to grow up. Many Catholics, according to McNally, actually enlisted under these motives, retaining their old aims and sentiments though wearing the British uniform. The majority of the leaders, however, took the other side. Looking forward to invasion and separation, they resolved if possible to paralyse resistance, and those amongst them who best knew their countrymen probably suspected, with good reason, that men who enlisted into a yeomanry regiment with the intention of playing the part of rebels and traitors, would be likely to play a very different part when they found themselves in the battlefield, commanded by loyal officers, with the British flag flying above their heads, and under the spell of military discipline and enthusiasm. Keogh, Braughall, Jackson, and several other leaders very strongly urged that every effort should be made to prevent the Catholics or United Irishmen from enlisting. In September 1796, McCormick went on a mission through Munster for the express purpose of preventing Catholic enlistment. To assist this object, letters were sent through the North 1 J. W., Feb. 4. The writer ends by asking for money. Sampson, who took a prominent part in the defence of the United Irishmen, and who was in a position to know a great deal about what passed in Ulster, afterwards published his memoirs, with accounts of the affairs of 1798, at New York. The book appears to me very mendacious and incredible. saying, that the Government intended to exclude both the Catholics and the Dissenters. Grattan desired above all things that the country should arm to resist invasion, and at his suggestion a paper was placed in a well-known coffee-house, in which those who were prepared to volunteer might write down their names. It was soon, however, found necessary to withdraw it. 'While Grattan's resolution,' wrote McNally, 'lay at the Old Exchange Coffee-house, a number of Catholics and Dissenters attended daily to prevent signatures.'1 McNally had specially good opportunities of learning the sentiments of Grattan, for he had himself accompanied his friend James Tandy to Tinnehinch to consult with him about a project of Tandy for raising volunteers. He found Grattan exceedingly alarmed both at the internal condition of the country, and at the prospect of invasion, and exceedingly anxious that a strong volunteer force should be speedily created. In order to set the example, he himself joined a small party of cavalry, which was formed for preserving the peace of his neighbourhood. McNally reported to the Government, that Grattan declared that the only wise and safe policy was to revive the old volunteers of 1778, with their old name, their old principles, and as far as possible their old leaders and organisation. Such a body, he thought, would carry with it a weight and a prestige that might repress disloyalty and anarchy, and it would secure the country against invasion.2 It will usually be found that men who have borne a conspicuous part in some great outburst of national enthusiasm, underrate the subsequent changes that pass over public sentiment, and imagine that under wholly different conditions the same enthusiasm may be reproduced. It is difficult to think that Grattan can have failed to see that, in the existing condition of Ireland, |