students were expelled, and among those who were examined was young Thomas Moore, who has left a graphic description of the scene. An informer wrote, that the leaders of the conspiracy believed that the expulsions from Trinity College would have the happiest effect on their cause, and that it was 'a master stroke to have thus committed the Government with the youth of the country.'"

Printed papers were now widely circulating, warning the people to be prepared, and telling them that the moment of deliverance was at hand, when all their troubles would be over. Itinerant pedlars were going to and fro, busily spreading the contagion. A translation of a tract by Volney, called The Torch,' was widely distributed. Women, paid by the United Irishmen, went through every town and village, singing seditious songs. There were handbills, exhorting the people to abstain from spirituous liquors, partly in order to starve the revenue but chiefly in order to diminish the danger of the betrayal of secret designs, and a marked diminution of drunkenness is said to have followed. Other handbills forbade the people to purchase the quit rents of the Crown, which were being sold to raise supplies, and recommended them to refuse all paper money in their commercial dealings. There were, at the same time, incessant efforts to seduce the soldiers, the militiamen, and the yeomen.3

It was a state of society in which no man knew whom he could trust, or what was the true extent of the danger, and panic and passion were steadily increasing. Camden was honest and humane, but weak, incapable, bewildered, and utterly desponding. 'Your Grace can hardly conceive,' he wrote, 'the timidity which prevails in many parts of the country, and the intemperance which is felt and expressed by the friends of Government in Dublin. It is as difficult to repress the zealous, as to give courage to the timid.' 'A jealousy of

See the preface to the Irish Melodies in the Collected Edition of Moore's Works; and also Camden to Portland, March 6, 1798. Many particulars about this visitation, and about the spread of disaffection in Trinity College, will be found in the recently published History of the Uni

versity of Dublin, by Dr. Stubbs, pp. 294-299.

Mag. [Magan], April 22, 1798. February, March, and April letters, I.S.P.O.; Memoirs of Miles Byrne, i. 13, 14; Report of the Secret Committee, Appendix, No. xxviii.

CH. XXVIII.

SPREAD OF THE CONSPIRACY.

451

English influence; a nonsensical and short-sighted pride of independence; religious differences; carelessness towards their inferiors, which, in the higher classes, is general; cruelty towards them, which is too frequent amongst some of them; the want of parochial communication; the non-residence of the clergy of the Established Church, and the influence acquired by a discontented and, frequently, a seditious priest, render this kingdom peculiarly adapted to receive the impressions it has done,' and the success of the French Revolution had kindled the discontent into a flame. The kingdom was becoming more and more disturbed. In Kildare, very lately, two magistrates were shot in broad daylight, and not one of the labourers who were standing near made a single effort to arrest the murderers. In the Queen's County, which had lately been very peaceful and prosperous, and which contained a large resident gentry, houses were now being continually broken open and plundered, and outrages and murders were multiplying. 'Add to this, most extravagant party prejudices. The eager Protestants, calling the present conspiracy a popish plot, and indulging in language and in conduct revolting to the Catholics, are encouraging the Orangemen, avowing themselves of their society, and averring that until the penal laws against the Catholics are again enacted, the country cannot be safe.' Grants of 251. a year to 200 students at Maynooth, had lately been carried by the Government, against the opinion of the Speaker and of several other of their usual supporters; yet it was noticed, with some bitterness, that when, soon after, there was a proposal before the Bank of Ireland, for granting a sum of money for the prosecution of the war, not one Roman Catholic among the Bank proprietors voted for it, and that the minority who opposed it consisted almost entirely of Roman Catholics. In a letter written a few weeks later, to announce and justify the proclamation of military law, Camden speaks of innumerable houses plundered of arms; attacks on villages in noonday; yeomen disarmed by night; loyalists driven in multitudes from their homes.2

We have seen that Abercromby, while acting in obedience to the Government, believed that there was no small measure of

1 Camden to Portland, March 6, 1798.

2 Ibid. March 30, 1798.

exaggeration in such descriptions of the country. Other accounts, however, which were even more highly coloured, came to England from the great placemen and borough owners, who were the real governors of Ireland, and they were no doubt intended to be laid before Pitt, if not before the King. Of these men, Beresford was perhaps the most powerful, and also the most violent. The country,' he wrote to Auckland, 'is in a desperate state; the seeds of rebellion are sown far and wide, and the Irish Directory have now so organised every part of the kingdom, that they can make them rise when they please. In Munster, Leinster, and Connaught, it is a popish plot; in Ulster, a Presbyterian plot; but in each case the end is the same-a separation from Great Britain, and a republican government. The popish and Presbyterian clergy are deep in the business, and the former have actually persuaded the people in Munster, that their salvation depends upon murdering and massacring every person who stands in their way; and they have established such a system of terror, that it is with the greatest difficulty any magistrate can be got to act, or any witness to come forward. They murder every man whom they suspect, in the slightest manner, to be inclined to give evidence against them.'

To such a state of society, Beresford contended that Lord Moira's system of conciliation, and Sir Ralph Abercromby's system of leniency, were utterly unsuited. The rebels show us how they think they can carry their point, viz. by terror; and that points out to us how to counteract them, and experience in the North confirms the fact. The people are persuaded that everything they have obtained has been given them through fear, and that it is fear of them alone, which prevents us from taking the same measures in the other three provinces which were taken in Ulster-that was forcing them to give up the arms they had plundered. . . by threatening to throw down or burn their houses and destroy their property; that stopped them at once, without the necessity of destroying more than a dozen houses. They had destroyed ten times as many, and had plundered innumerable others, and murdered many persons, and continued to do so until they found retaliation begin, when they stopped directly. They are now in Leinster, Munster, and Connaught, plundering and burning houses, murdering witnesses

CH. XXVII.

SENTIMENTS OF THE GENTRY.

453

and magistrates . . . and in the middle of the noonday, in the streets of towns, obliging, by force and threats, men to take their oaths and pay contributions for their plans. . . . They murder people merely for the purpose of keeping up their system of terror. We are thus deprived of witnesses; we see and know everything that is doing, but cannot bring legal evidence to convict these people. . . If in such circumstances we should use the power which the law gives us to counteract such outrages by the military—even if we did in some instances exceed the law-it is probable that a dozen acts of severity may have happened on our side-how many hundreds have been performed by the rebels? . . . How many of the military have been shot within six months, and not one of their murderers brought to punishment?'1

...

We have had much evidence, in the course of the present work, that the political sentiments of the main body of the Irish gentry differed widely from those of the great borough owners who controlled the Parliament; that they viewed with impatience and disgust the prevailing system of corrupt monopoly, and that up to the date of the outbreak of the war, and even up to the recall of Lord Fitzwilliam, they would have gladly accepted Grattan's policy of a moderate reform, and an abolition of the chief remaining religious disqualifications. Their sentiments, however, were now materially changed. A considerable but much diminished body still followed Grattan. Some were in sympathy with the United Irishmen, and looked forward either with hope or with acquiescence to a separate republic; others, panic-stricken by the turn which events had taken, both in France and Ireland, had lost all faith in reform, and had convinced themselves that there was no longer any prospect of a popular Government in Ireland, consistently with the maintenance of order and the security of property, while a few had begun to look forward to a legislative Union as the only possible solution. A curious incident, which has never been related, but which at this time greatly occupied the Government, throws some light upon this subject, and at the same time brings into

clearer relief the character and opinions of a remarkable man, with whom we have been already concerned.

Among the suspected persons in England was a gentleman named Bell, who was known to be on intimate terms with Arthur O'Connor. His letters were seized or intercepted, and the Duke of Portland was startled to find among them a correspondence from General Knox. The letters are not disclosed, but they showed that Knox was a warm friend both of Bell and of Arthur O'Connor; and it is evident from the description of them that he had written with perfect candour, and had expressed very fully his contempt for the men and the system of government that prevailed in Ireland. Knox, from his connections, his abilities, and his military command, was one of the most important persons in Ulster. He had been largely employed by the Government in drawing up plans for the defence of the province, and we have seen, from his letters to Pelham, how intimate he at one time was with the Chief Secretary, and how ready he was to counsel the most drastic measures of repression. Portland asked with dismay, whether this distinguished general was among the traitors?1

Camden wrote two letters on the subject, which appear to me very interesting and significant, and quite consistent with the letters of Knox, which the reader has already perused. He in the first place expressed, in the strongest terms, his perfect confidence in the integrity of Knox, and he desired that the discovery of the correspondence should be most carefully concealed, lest any breath of suspicion should attach to him. Knox, he said, was a very able and honest officer, of great influence in the North, and of the highest personal honour; but he was 'a man of speculative and capricious independency;' of a busy speculative mind;' indiscreet, and apt to communicate his ideas much too freely. Camden then adds some general remarks, which, when due allowance is made for the point of view from which he naturally wrote, are not a little instructive. I know that at the beginning of the French Revolution there was much free and theoretic speculation here, not only on general political topics, but particularly on the state and relative situation of Ireland, and I am confident

1 Portland to Camden, March 7, 1798.