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The Revolution in France was profoundly
stirring the whole of Europe. With hope and anxiety, and finally with
terror, the neighbouring countries were watching the progress of events,
as they rapidly passed from the attempted restoration of the States-General
and the fall of the Bastille to the foundation of the National Assembly,
the execution of Louis XVI, and the violence and convulsions of the Revolution.
Ireland, so lately stirred by the assertion of American Independence,
was again to be wrought up to a pitch of ardour by the explosion occurring
in France, which, in the words of Wolfe Tone, "had blown into the
elements a despotism rooted in fourteen centuries"; the attitude
of every man toward the French Revolution became the test of his political
creed. On the questions of Parliamentary Reform and Catholic liberties
the Dissenters of the north, especially those of Belfast, had stood in
the forefront as leaders; they now proclaimed themselves convinced republicans.
They read Tom Paine's Rights of Man with avidity, and they celebrated
the fall of the Bastille in 1789 with enthusiasm. While aristocratic political
clubs in London were sending addresses of congratulation to the Jacobin
Club in Paris and to the French Convention, asserting that "revolutions
will now become easy," the Society of United Irishmen was being formed
in Belfast with similar principles. Tone in Belfast in October, 1791,
and Napper Tandy in Dublin a month later, both republicans, organised
the first branches; but not all the members looked on the French Revolution,
as Tone did, as "the morning star of liberty to Ireland." The
Committee had no official alliance with the French till the August of
1796, though communications had been in progress long before; it was the
exasperation caused by the passing of the Insurrection Act of that year
that attracted them toward the more violent methods in progress in France.
Their original programme was more modest. "All we wanted," said
Arthur O'Connor, when he was examined before a Special Commission in the
spring of 1798 as to the origin of the Association, "was to create
a House of Commons which should represent the whole people of Ireland,
for which purpose we strove to dispel all religious distinction from our
political union; after we had destroyed your usurpation of our national
representation and had set up a real representation of the whole people
of Ireland we were convinced there was no evil which such a House of Commons
could not reach."[1]
[1] Pieces of Irish History (1807), p. 196, and Madden, United Irishmen
(1842), ii, 245 ; the examination of McNevin took place on August 7, 1798.
Later on, the aims of the Society widened. When the Chancellor put to
McNevin, another member of the Society examined by the Commission, the
question "Was not your object a separation from England?" his
reply was: "Certainly it became our object, when we became convinced
that liberty was not otherwise obtainable...; it is a measure we were
forced into; inasmuch as I am now, and always have been, of opinion that
if we were an independent republic and England ceased to be formidable
to us, our interest would require an intimate connection with her."
The articles of Association and Tests taken by the members were of the
same character. They aimed at an "impartial and adequate representation
of the Irish nation in Parliament" and the establishment of a "brotherhood
of affection and communion of rights" among Irishmen of all religious
persuasions. They called on the Government to concede their appeal for
reform and not to "drive the people into republicanism."[2]
Up to 1794 the chief object of the body was to break the oligarchy of
Fitzgibbon and the Beresfords and to restore the government of the country
to the constitutional sovereign and the representatives of the people.
[2] The Constitution of the United Irishmen in 1791, in Plowden, History,
ii, Appendix lxxxv, p. 171.
The horrors of the Parisian massacres of September, 1792, the reforms
granted in 1793, and the dangers of a war with France, for a time disquieted
a people whose views of the changes going on abroad were as yet unformed
and whose Government, led by Grattan and his party, was warmly in favour
of giving every support to England in the prosecution of hostilities with
France. But from 1795 or 1796 onward, a change of feeling turned the Society
from a small body in favour of reform into a formidable military organisation
demanding separation. The growing sympathy with France, encouraged by
the teachings of Tone, Hamilton Rowan, Emmet, McNevin, Arthur O'Connor,
and others, took root, especially in the North, and the Society of United
Irishmen spread with extraordinary rapidity. In 1796 the organisation
was reformed. The disbanded Volunteers poured into the branches, and in
a few weeks there were eighty societies in Belfast alone. A military organisation
was grafted on to the civil, the civil officers receiving military titles;
and a Directory was formed after the French pattern to direct their movements.
There were soon 72,200 men in the Ulster division and large numbers were
signing the Test in Leinster. The Belfast body rose from 2,000 to 99,411
men; and arms, including pikes, cannon, bayonets and guns were rapidly
collected. By the outbreak of the rebellion in 1798 the total number of
members amounted to 500,000 men, of whom 279,896 were armed.[3]
[3] Madden, United Irishmen (1842), i, 170.
Among the leaders was the younger brother of the Duke of Leinster, a youth
beloved by all for his frank and open nature, unselfishness of purpose,
and beauty of person, but whose rash confidence and impetuosity unfitted
him for the part he proposed to himself as the director of a rising against
the Government.[4] The Society began seriously to look to France to support
a rising with troops, and regulations were set on foot. Already in 1794
William Jackson had been arrested for bringing over proposals from the
French Directory, and Hamilton Rowan, Wolfe Tone, and Lord Edward FitzGerald
were in constant secret communication with the French Government. All
that was taking place was well known to the authorities, for the association
was riddled through and through with informers, many even of the prominent
members of the committee being in receipt of regular sums of money for
giving information to the Government at the very time that they were directing
the affairs of the Society. Thomas Reynolds, a silk manufacturer in Dublin,
on whose information several of the Leinster leaders were taken in March,
1798, and who subsequently gave evidence against them, was one of the
most trusted of their leaders. He was an intimate associate with Tone
and others up to the very outbreak of the rebellion. On his information
the members of the provincial committee at Oliver Bond's house, of whom
he was one, were arrested, and soon afterward, Thomas Addis Emmet, Dr.
W. J. McNevin, and Lord Edward FitzGerald. Even men who were employed
as professional advocates of the United Irishmen at their trials, and
who were thus admitted into the inner workings of the Society, were at
the same time receiving sums of money from the Government for the betrayal
of these secrets, and were playing a double part throughout. Counsellor
Leonard McNally, at whose house the meetings were held, and M'Gucken,
engaged as solicitor to the United Irishmen, were among those paid and
pensioned for their services. It is one of the worst features in Irish
secret societies that informers have never been wanting for rewards and
pay.[5]
[4] See the memorandum of a conversation with Lord Edward FitzGerald,
ibid., i, 171-177.
[5] Madden, op. cit., 205-214, 225-228; Memoirs of Theobald Wolfe Tone,
by his son (1827), i, 158-59; Lecky, Ireland in the Eighteenth Century,
iii, 466-472.
A variety of causes, among which the rise of the Orange Society was one
of the most important, led to the rapid expansion of the United Irishmen,
and brought the idea of armed intervention, assisted by France, into repute.
On September 21, 1795, the first Orange Lodge was formed in the obscure
village of Loughall. This association arose out of the earlier societies
known as "Protestant Boys," "Peep o' Day Boys," and
"Wreckers," whose activities in Armagh, Tyrone, and Down had
kept the country in a state of disturbance since 1784. Their object had
been the purely sectarian one of ejecting the Catholic peasantry in the
North from their lands and tenements, visiting them at night, breaking
up their furniture and insulting their persons.[6] They proposed to plant
colonies of Protestants on the farms of the ejected Catholics. They had
been resisted by the adherents of a Catholic Association called "the
Defenders," and the members of both organisations being drawn at
first from the lowest orders of the peasantry, fought and harassed each
other with impunity. The Catholics settled in the north had in many cases
passed into Ulster from other districts of Ireland to supply the place
of the Ulster tenants who had emigrated to America at the commencement
of the Civil War, either owing to penal laws against the Presbyterians,
and to lack of work, or on account of the clearances by their landlords
of lands that had hitherto been put down in tillage, now transformed into
pasture and grazing fields. The original owners who remained looked on
these immigrants from the south as interlopers and did their best to force
them to return to their own counties; by 1796 it was generally believed
that seven thousand Catholics had been burned or driven out of Armagh.
The ejected people wandered about committing outrages and indulging in
faction fights, or temporarily made their way to other parts of the country,
only to return in the periods of quiet.
[6] Sir Richard Musgrave, History of the Rebellion, p. 54.
During 1793-95 the North had seemed to be settling down, the good feeling
engendered by the united efforts of both religious parties for reform
and emancipation having had a healing effect on local feuds. But the disappointment
felt at the withdrawal of Lord Fitzwilliam and with him of all immediate
hopes of the bestowal of full Catholic rights led to a fresh outburst
of inflamed religious antipathies. The result on the Protestant side was
the revival of nearly extinct organisations under the new name of Orangemen.
They acted as a counterblast to the United Irishmen and to the Republicans.
Lord Gosford, who was appointed co-Governor of Armagh by the ascendency
party in order to spite Lord Charlemont, who had hitherto held the post,
reported, in an address to the magistrates of the county:—"It
is no secret that a persecution, accompanied by all the circumstances
of ferocious cruelty which have, in all ages, distinguished that dreadful
calamity, is now raging in this country...The only crime which the wretched
objects of this merciless persecution are charged with is a crime of easy
proof—it is simply a profession of the Roman Catholic faith. A lawless
banditti have constituted themselves judges of this species of delinquency,
and the sentence they pronounce is equally concise and terrible; nothing
less than a confiscation of all property and immediate banishment."[7]
[7] F. Hardy, Life of Lord Charlemont, ii, 35-36 ; and see the "Report
of the Committee on Orange Institutions," Edinburgh Review, January,
1836.
The Orange Society was formed to support the Protestant ascendancy; their
oath of allegiance made this even a condition of their defence of the
King and his heirs; and it seems well established that they were encouraged
by the Irish Government, who provided them with considerable sums of money.[8]
The effect of their treatment of the peasantry and of the shelter afforded
to their acts by the junto at the Castle stimulated the opposing societies
into greater activity; and where one Orange Lodge sprang up, ten branches
of the United Irishmen would immediately be established. A universal fear
spread through the country among the Catholics that they were to be exterminated,
and it was diligently whispered in the poorer districts that an oath to
this effect was to be administered to every member of the Orange Society.
Though Lord Castlereagh, during the examination of Arthur O'Connor, denied
that the Government had anything to do with the Orange Society or with
"the oath of extermination," he did not deny its existence.
It was, however, solemnly denied by the heads of the Orange Lodges. Whether
such an oath was taken or not, the effect of these two societies, formed
to oppose each other, was to throw the North into two opposite and violently
antagonistic camps, in which they have remained ever since. But it was
only gradually that the two parties adopted their later religious and
political distinctions.
[8] Examination of Arthur O'Connor, 1798, in Madden, United Irishmen(1858),
ii, 319.
The Society of United Irishmen had originally been formed by Presbyterians,
and it was the Presbyterians who at first most readily accepted the idea
of a republic in Ireland. They had watched with sympathy the founding
of the American Republic overseas, and they were ready to welcome similar
efforts in France. Wolfe Tone believed that Ulster would rise if a French
force were landed at Carrickfergus or in Carlingford Bay. The first conflict
between the two bodies, called from the spot near which it was fought,
the Battle of the Diamond (September 21, 1795), had little to do with
politics; it was a local attempt on the part of the Catholics to drive
out some new Protestant settlers who had taken their tenancies, and was
the climax to a series of outrages on both sides arising out of similar
causes. But the identification of the Orangemen with the ascendency party
and with William of Orange, the source to which the Catholics traced the
infliction of the Penal Code, gradually gave the Society a violently partisan
aspect, and their processions and celebrations, symbols and songs, which
are full of memories of terror to the Catholics, have served to accentuate
the political differences between the "Orange" and the "Green"
ever since. They came later to symbolise the distinction between loyalty
to the Crown and disaffection; they have certainly done much to increase
a disloyalty that was, at the time of the foundation of the first Orange
Lodge, practically non-existent among the Catholic population. Though,
in our own days, the celebrations are chiefly regarded as a popular demonstration
and have lost much of their acrimonious character, the narrowness of the
views they represent and the danger of inflaming partisan passion, should
make the continuance of such party demonstrations on either side impossible.
They should be discouraged by every right-thinking person.
The effect of this new cleavage, now fast being forced into lines of
religious animosity, is testified to by a letter from a speaker who had
addressed a meeting of nearly two thousand Presbyterians at Omagh on the
necessity of forming volunteer corps to resist the French. He says that
the strongest spirit of loyalty prevailed and hatred of the Roman Catholics
was very great; should one of them join any of the corps, they would never
unite with them. "This violent change," he continues, "has
been wrought within a year." He considered the change as being fraught
with the best consequences to the King and constitution. As a matter of
fact, in proportion as the United Irishmen allied themselves with France,
in the hope of establishing in Ireland an independent republic, the main
body of the Protestant Ulstermen was thrown on the opposite side. An independent
republic was one thing, but a republic gained by French arms and under
French auspices was quite another. France was then the most powerful and
dreaded enemy of Britain; her fleets were watching the English shores
and an opportunity was being anxiously awaited when a naval descent might
be attempted. The Orange party, making their choice between adherence
to England and adherence to France, chose the former, and they have ever
since maintained their position as convinced supporters of English rule,
while the opposite party became, on the whole, violently anti-British
and looked to France as the deliverers of Ireland.
This anti-British attitude was best represented in the character and
writings of Theobald Wolfe Tone I ike many of the insurrectionary leaders
he was a Protestant. He was born in Dublin on June 20, 1763, and educated
at an English school and at Dublin University, for which he had ever a
sincere affection. He then passed on to the Middle Temple as a student
of law, of which, after keeping eight terms, he says he knew "exactly
as much as he did of necromancy." He had, in fact, no taste for the
law, his earliest ambition being for a military life; but he threw himself
into politics, having "speedily made the great discovery" that
"the influence of England was the radical vice of our government,
and that Ireland would never be either free, prosperous, or happy, until
she was independent."[9] These views, to which he adhered through
life, he advanced in a pamphlet which attracted some public notice, Sir
Henry Cavendish remarking that "if the author of the work were serious
he ought to be hanged."
[9] Memoirs of Theobald Wolfe Tone, by his son (1827), i, 34, 64.
A political club established by Tone in Dublin numbered among its members
Dr. William Drennan, Joseph Pollock, Thomas Addis Emmet, Peter Burrowes,
John Stack, and Whitley Stokes, both the last-named being Fellows of Trinity
College and all of them, as well as Tone's close friend Russell, men of
cultivation and true lovers of their country. The Hon. George Knox, afterwards
Member of Parliament for Dungannon, though he differed from Tone in politics,
was also reckoned among his friends; and it is a testimony to the worth
of Tone's personal character that men of rectitude and high attainments
like these preserved for him a real esteem even when his political activities
and views far outran their own. Of Stokes, one of the most erudite of
a great family of scholars, Tone says that he was "the very best
man that he had ever known." The opinions of Tone were on a different
plane from those of the Whigs, with whom he hoped at first to unite. He
held the connexion with England to be in itself the root of the evil,
while they believed the connexion to be salutary, though the mode of its
exercise was often pernicious. Tone's first exertions were made on behalf
of the Catholics, who were, as a body, very slow to move on their own
behalf. His pamphlets were welcomed by a few of their leaders and by the
great body of the Belfast Protestant Volunteers, who were at this time
making considerable exertions on behalf of Catholic liberty, and who elected
him a member of their corps. He was shortly afterwards appointed to succeed
Richard Burke as agent and assistant secretary to the Catholic Association
on the suggestion of his friend John Keogh, and in that capacity he accompanied
the deputation to London in 1792; and he set himself resolutely to effect
the union between the leaders of the two religious parties which resulted
in the Acts of Relief of that and the following years.
Meanwhile, Ministers in Dublin were watching with anxiety the rapid growth
of the revolutionary spirit and the dissensions that were disturbing the
Northern counties. Measures to meet the emergency were brought forward
in swift succession. An Insurrection Act of a very stringent kind was
passed and it was followed by an Indemnity Bill to absolve magistrates
from the consequences of their acts if, in suppressing any disorder, they
exceeded their powers under the law. Such measures had been carried on
other occasions of a similar kind. They placed in the hands of the local
authorities almost unlimited powers without any check on their misuse,
and the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act soon afterwards left the whole
population at the mercy of the officials. All suspected persons could
be incarcerated without trial for lengthened periods; and even men of
position like the Hon. Valentine Lawless, afterwards Lord Cloncurry, passed
some years in the Tower without trial or any explanation given as to the
reasons for his imprisonment. On the other hand, under the law dealing
with "disorderly characters," which included all found out of
doors after prohibited hours and gave the magistrates summary powers to
send them to the fleet, hundreds of men were drafted off to the Navy without
warning or excuse.
The English Navy was manned very largely by Irishmen, many of whom had
been captured by these violent means; [10] and it was proved to be the
spread of revolutionary doctrines among the seamen which brought about
the mutiny of the Nore in 1797, thus rendering the fleet helpless at a
critical moment. Considering the hardships of their position and the neglect
and miseries to which such sailors were exposed at all times, the wonder
is that the men of the Navy so seldom showed signs of rebellion or disloyalty.
Even the English Government shrank from the almost unlimited powers over
a whole population now placed in the hands of the magistrates. Only the
existence of a widespread and dangerous rebellion could justify such powers
and in 1796, when these Acts were passed, there was no such rebellion
in the country, the disorders being purely local and confined to the North.
Grattan, who had approved the earlier measures, grew alarmed. "I
know not," he cried, "where you are leading me—from one
strong Bill to another—until I see a gulf before me at whose abyss
I recoil." Everything depended on the prudence and humanity with
which the new ordinances were used, but prudence and humanity were hardly
to be found in the system of repression now being resorted to. Despairing
of being of future use to his country, and deeply disapproving of the
appointment of General Lake to the Northern command, Grattan decided to
withdraw from Parliament, and he also threw up his post in a corps of
yeomanry which he had recently joined. In the terrible days that were
to follow, Grattan's great influence played no part.
[10] Tone believed that two-thirds of the Navy was composed of Irishmen,
but he probably overstates the number.
The current of popular feeling had, indeed, passed beyond the range of
the constitutional reforms advocated by Grattan and his party. In 1792
Lord Edward FitzGerald had met Paine in Paris and had become his devoted
admirer. "We breakfast, dine, and sup together," he writes;
"the more I see of his interior the more I like and respect him."
The ingenious and stirring mind of Paine attracted FitzGerald, though
it never attracted Tone; his Rights of Man, published in the previous
year as a reply to Burke's French Revolution, exactly harmonised with
FitzGerald's views. It became the accepted political manifesto of the
revolutionary party, and some of its phrases, such as, "Lay the axe
to the root, and teach Governments humanity: it is their sanguinary punishments
which corrupt mankind"; "Political liberty consists in the power
of doing whatever does not injure another...the law ought to prohibit
only actions hurtful to Society," were as applicable to Ireland as
they were in France.[11]
[11] Letter to his mother, October 30, 1792, in Moore's Memoirs of Lord
Edward FitzGerald (1897), p. 128.
In Paris Lord Edward met Pamela, known as the adopted daughter of Madame
le Genlis, and popularly believed to be the child of the Duke of Orleans,
whom he married, returning to Ireland in 1793 with his young bride.[12]
On his arrival, he realised how far his now avowed republican principles
separated him from Grattan and his friends of the constitutional party,
though he did not become a United Irishman until 1796, when he joined
about the same time as Arthur O'Connor, Thomas Addis Emmet, and McNevin,
who subsequently directed the movements of the Society. The growth of
republican sentiments, the unrest in the North, and the recurrence of
frightful scenes of outrage and increase of assassinations had alarmed
the Government, but though they were closely watching developments, it
cannot be said that they acted hastily. On April 24, 1794, Rev. William
Jackson, the intermediary who had brought over proposals from the French
authorities with plans of an invasion, was arrested, but he was not tried
until the following year, when he died in the dock of poison administered
by his own hand. Tone, Hamilton Rowan and Napper Tandy were deeply implicated
in his actions; and they fled to France or America accompanied by Reynolds,
the informer.
[12] The true parentage of Pamela has been much disputed. Her name is
entered in the marriage register as Stephanie Caroline Simms, daughter
of William Berkley and Mary Simms. She is said to be of Fago in the Island
of Newfoundland. See Dict. Nat. Biography; Moore's Memoirs of Lord Edward
FitzGerald (1897), 139, 389.
Tone sailed to Philadelphia, with the full knowledge of the Government,
taking his wife and children with him. He landed on August 1, 1795; but
finding the Americans, to a far larger extent than he had dreamed, "high-flying
aristocrats," devoted to order and authority, he speedily wearied
of them and began to regard his Philadelphian fellow-townsmen with "unqualified
dislike." Hoping to find more sympathy in France, he took leave of
his old friends Napper Tandy and Rowan—the latter a man of good
position and high principles—and sailed for Havre, arriving in Paris
on January 1, 1796. He found the French Ministers busied with plans for
an invasion of England by way of Ireland, and by means of letters of introduction
he got into communication with the French Executive. The account of Tone's
long-delayed hopes and of the heart-sickness that came over him as he
kicked his heels in Paris, waiting from month to month for the French
authorities to come to some decision, are graphically told in his Memoirs;
in spite of their garrulity and bombast and the sharp comments he makes
both upon his own and his countrymen's weaknesses, we feel that in practical
details, Tone was able to offer sound military advice to the French Government.
He insisted on the folly of sending small and ill-equipped expeditions,
or giving the command to men who were unknown, even by name, in Ireland;
he pointed out the best places to effect a landing, strongly advising
some place near Dublin or Belfast, and not, as actually occurred, in the
south-west of Ireland; he urged the strongest reasons for seizing the
moment to effect the crossing when the English fleet was unfit to sail,
being held up by the mutiny at the Nore; and he contested some French
military opinions founded upon ignorance of the country, in spite of his
very imperfect mastery of the French language, with good sense and skill.
For himself he asked nothing but to be associated with the expedition
in some military or official capacity. In case of success this would place
him in a position of some authority, and in the event of discomfiture
he believed the French uniform would secure him a military trial.
General Hoche recognised his ability and became his fast friend, consulting
him in all details relating to the expedition. Naval jealousies and the
incapacity of some of the officers employed delayed the embarkation, and
when the vessels at last set sail, wind and storm, the old allies of England,
separated the ships so that only a part of them reached the shelter of
Bantry Bay, where, in the absence of General Humbert, who arrived too
late, his second-in-command, General Grouchy, refused to land. Tone proposed
a wild scheme of advancing with the 6,500 men they had with them. "It
is altogether an enterprise truly unique," he comments; "we
have not one guinea; we have not a tent; we have not a horse to draw our
four pieces of artillery. The General-in-Chief marches on foot; we leave
all our baggage behind us."[13] But the landing could not be made;
and no sign of interest appeared on the shore, where the southern Irish
peasants, then popularly supposed to be in a state of rebellion against
the English Government, were engaged in boiling potatoes for the English
regiments as they hurried down to repel the French invasion.[14] After
six days in Bantry Bay, within five hundred yards of the shore, the disheartened
commanders ordered the return to Brest in the face of a furious gale.
"I do not wonder," writes Tone, "at Xerxes whipping the
sea; for I find myself to-night pretty much in the mood to commit some
such rational action!"[15]
[13] Memoirs of Theobald Wolfe Tone, ii, 143.
[14] General Smith to Pelham, December 30, 1796; Camden to Portland, January
3, 1797.
[15] Memoirs, ii, 145.
Though fresh French expeditions were planned from time to time and the
Irish Government was kept in a continued state of watchfulness, the descent
on Bantry proved to be the only attempt of importance; the premature death
of Hoche, and the attraction which Egypt and the East exercised over the
mind of Buonaparte, who was now fighting his way to power, diverted the
fleets prepared for Ireland to other projects, and Tone, watching events
impatiently from Paris, saw one hopeful plan after another come to nothing.
The ignorance of conditions and views in Ireland shown by the French authorities
is curiously illustrated by their enquiring of Tone whether Chancellor
Fitzgibbon would not join them if their soldiery effected a landing. Tone's
prophecy of a hundred thousand men ready to rise in the south on the arrival
of the French had vanished into thin air. Lord Camden's dispatch on the
dispersion of Hoche's fleet reported that "the general good disposition
throughout the South and West was so prevalent that, had the army landed,
their hope of assistance from the inhabitants would have been disappointed."
Dr. Hussey declared to Burke that "there were not five Catholics
in the kingdom worth £10 who would not spill their blood to resist
a French invasion." In the South, among the Catholic population,
revolutionary ideas had taken practically no root, the gentry being fervent
monarchists and the peasants taking no interest in affairs that had for
them no meaning.
The clergy, who dreaded the introduction of religious free-thought or
atheistic teaching such as they saw spreading in France, exhorted to loyalty,
and Dr. Moylan, the Catholic Bishop of Cork, issued an appeal to his diocese
to resist—an appeal that would undoubtedly have cost him his head
had the invasion succeeded. From the Counties of Kerry, Galway and Mayo
came reports of the readiness of the people to support their landlords
in opposition to the enemy, and the cities of Cork, Galway, and Limerick
vied with each other in proofs of their loyalty to the Government. The
yeomanry declared their readiness to march anywhere with General Hutchinson,
even without their arms. Only in and near Belfast was any spirit of disaffection
shown. Lord Camden, who had succeeded Lord Fitzwilliam as Viceroy, wrote
that the North was "ripe for revolt." It was said that "loyalty
was apparent everywhere, except in the North."[16] Yet even in the
North republicanism had not gone very deep and was confined almost entirely
to the Presbyterian youth of the towns. In the country districts there
was so little stir among the peasants that Neilson, the editor of the
Northern Star, had shortly before complained that the great mass of the
Catholics were "bigots to monarchy."[17]
[16] Beresford Correspondence, ii, 142, 145.
[17] Information given to the Government by Edward Smith (alias Bird).
In November, 1797, Lord Carhampton having resigned the command of the
army, Sir Ralph Abercromby was appointed to succeed him. He was a humane
man and a capable commander, a person, who, in Lord Camden's words, "thought
deeply and wisely" on the matters that came under his observation.
As that of a Scotsman with much foreign service behind him who came to
Ireland with an unprejudiced eye, his frequently repeated testimony to
the disposition to peace and quiet among the inhabitants is particularly
valuable. What he did find gravely amiss was the bad position of the troops.
He found them scattered all over the country in small parties guarding
the houses of the gentry and performing duties that of right belonged
to the magistrates and resident landlords. The want of control to which
this dispersion led had resulted in a military licence which the proprietors
used for their own purposes to harass and oppress the tenants.[18] Of
all this a capable officer would necessarily disapprove and Abercromby
exerted himself to the utmost to correct abuses, restore discipline, and
concentrate the loose bodies of soldiery in centres where they could be
kept under observation and control.
[18] Lord Dunfermline, Memoir of Sir Ralph Abercromby (1861), pp. 74-77.
But he found his efforts thwarted by the gentry and magistracy, and but
feebly supported by the central Government. Shortly before, General Lake,
who had the Northern Command, had issued a proclamation under the authority
of the Lord Lieutenant, superseding the ordinary law, and placing unlimited
powers in the hands of the military. Though acknowledged to be illegal,
the proclamation was held to be justified on the ground of necessity.
Addresses against the misuse made of the military authority and against
the excesses of the troops were sent up by the Northern counties and by
the city of Dublin, but were met by fresh proclamations making any assemblies
unlawful; and the instructions sent out by Abercromby were undermined
by the "unrelenting hostility to the people and ardent desire for
the most severe measures" which he found to be the prevailing tone
of Dublin Court conversation. Lord Camden was not the man to take a firm
stand. Personally amiable and with good intentions, which might have sufficed
in ordinary times to carry on the Government, he was too weak and wavering
to resist the influences around him and he was always ready to agree with
the last adviser. He had allowed himself to fall completely under the
power of the Court oligarchy, from whom Sir Ralph could expect no support,
and who seemed bent on stirring up, rather than quieting, any disaffection
that was abroad in the country.
In the South, the General could find few signs of any widespread disturbance.
After making a tour of inspection he wrote to the Duke of York that while
he admitted that dissatisfaction did exist, he ascribed it to the usual
causes, "the old grievances of tithes and oppressive rents."[19]
There were, in fact, no purely political movements in the South such as
were stirring in the North, though the local causes of unrest were always
present. "I have the satisfaction to assure your Excellency,"
he writes to Lord Camden from Cork, "that the country through which
I have passed is in a state of tranquillity. Of this I have had the fullest
assurance from every gentleman with whom I have conversed."[20] It
is necessary to emphasize this point, because it is commonly supposed
that the rising of "the '98" was the outcome of the disloyalty
of the Catholics of the South of Ireland. Exactly the reverse of this
appears to have been the case; the Catholics of the South were at the
moment giving reiterated expressions by word and act of their support
of the Government and desire to preserve the quiet of the country. But
a few months later, one part of the South was in a flame. Even then it
was in Leinster, not in Munster or Connacht, that the rebellion broke
out; chiefly, indeed, among the descendants of the old Norse and Norman
settlers of the loyal town and district of Wexford, where insurrections
in the past had been rare.
[19] Memoir of Sir Ralph Abercromby, p. 84, December 28, 1797.
[20] Ibid., p. 85.
It is therefore our duty to ask what it was that brought about this sudden
change of feeling, and by what means the peaceful inhabitants were goaded
into rebellion. The first cause was undoubtedly that pointed out by the
Commander-in-Chief, the dispersal of the troops all over the country without
proper command, the constant use of them by the country gentlemen to execute
the law, and the alarming relaxation of discipline to which this state
of things gave rise. "The best regiments in Europe," as Abercromby
said, "could not long stand such usage."[21] He speaks of "the
very disgraceful frequency of courts-martial and the many complaints of
irregularities in the conduct of the troops;...the licentiousness of the
army being such as to render it formidable to everyone but the enemy."[22]
Lord Moira, in the Irish House of Lords, supported Sir Ralph's report
of the excesses committed by the troops and the distracted state of the
country. Eventually Abercromby, conscious of the insubordination of the
army and the lack of support he was meeting with in stemming it, saw no
course open but to resign. Men who "for more than twelve months had
employed the army in measures which they durst not avow or sanction,"
were not the sort of authorities under which it was possible for an honest
officer to work, and he sent in his resignation on March 24. "The
late ridiculous farce," he writes, "acted by Lord Camden and
his Cabinet must strike everyone. They have declared the kingdom in rebellion,
when the orders of his Excellency might be carried over the whole kingdom
by an orderly dragoon, or a writ executed without any difficulty, a few
places in the mountains excepted."[23]
[21] Ibid., p. 86, Abercromby to Pelham, January 23, 1798.
[22] Ibid., p. 93 (order issued February 26, 1798).
[23] Ibid., p. 110, dated from Dublin Castle, April 23, 1798.
On Sir Ralph's retirement General Lake was appointed to his post. His
taking over of the command was followed by an immediate change of military
policy. Troops were placed at free-quarters over large districts in the
South "for the restoration of tranquillity," as Sir James Stuart
cynically remarked, and were guided in their actions by commands directed
to irritate and infuriate the people upon whom they lived; they were,
in fact, let loose upon a peaceful population and were encouraged to exercise
uncontrolled military violence toward them.[24] In three weeks from the
date of Lake's appointment and the issuing of the new orders the population
was in rebellion. The people who the year before had welcomed the British
troops and aided them to resist invasion were now driven by the behaviour
of the soldiery and yeomen, regulars and militia alike, composed of English,
Irish, and Hessians, into a fury of revenge. Lord Cornwallis, who was
sent over to succeed Lord Camden as Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland in June,
1798, found the worst spirit prevailing. He came unwillingly, for he considered
that the post he was to occupy "came up to his idea of perfect misery."
"The principal persons of this country," he writes soon after
his arrival, "and the members of both Houses of Parliament, are in
general averse to all acts of clemency...and would pursue measures that
could only terminate in the extirpation of the greater number of the inhabitants
and the utter destruction of the country. The words 'Papist' and 'Priest'
are ever in their mouths and by their unaccountable policy they would
drive four-fifths of the community into irreconcilable rebellion."[25]
Again, on July 13, he writes: "The importance (of the rebels' acts)
is purposely exaggerated by those who wish to urge Government to a continuance
of violent measures, or, according to a fashionable phrase of some men
of great consequence here, to keep Government up to their traces. I apprehend
that I am suspected of not being disposed to set my neck stoutly to the
collar."[26] "Even at my table," he adds, "where you
will suppose I do all I can to prevent it, (the conversation) always turns
on hanging, shooting, burning, etc., and if a priest has been put to death
the greatest joy is expressed by the whole company...There is no law in
town or country but martial law and you know enough of that to see all
the horrors of it."[27]
[24] The military order was issued at Cork on May 7, 1798, by Sir James
Stuart, ibid., pp. 122-123.
[25] Cornwallis to Portland, July 8, 1798, in Cornwallis Correspondence,
ii, 358, 360.
[26] Cornwallis to Major-General Ross, ibid., ii, 363.
[27] Cornwallis to the same, July 24, 1798, ibid., ii, 371.
It was this state of things that sent men by the thousand into the society
of the United Irishmen, in the hope of self-preservation. In four months
Dr. McNevin was able to organize 70,000 men in Leinster alone, and the
number of those who had subscribed to the Test was brought up to nearly
500,000 able-bodied men, of whom some 300,000 were regularly organized.
It was only the lack of competent military leaders and discipline that
prevented them from making themselves masters of the kingdom. Most of
the original leaders were now in the hands of the Government. In 1796-97
the republican journals in Belfast were suppressed, and the editors and
chief contributors, Tom Russell, Neilson, and Arthur O'Connor, were arrested.
The arrest of the Dublin Committee soon followed. Yet there was little
sign of undue harshness in their treatment; O'Connor was released but
he immediately went over to Paris to concert fresh plans in company with
a priest of the name of O'Coigley, or Quigley, who was captured on his
return and executed. Later, T. A. Emmet, McNevin, and O'Connor were reprieved
on their engagement to make statements before a secret committee, in which
they were not to be called upon to implicate any friends; and they, with
a large number of suspects and members of the Dublin Committee were, after
imprisonment in Dublin, sent to Fort George, near Inverness, where they
remained till 1801, when peace was proclaimed. Oliver Bond, a wealthy
Dublin merchant, who was regarded as the mainspring of the movement and
acted as its secretary, was arrested with fourteen members of the Leinster
Directory at his own house, where a meeting was being held, through the
treachery of Thomas Reynolds. Many efforts were made to save him, but
he was condemned to death for high treason. He died suddenly in prison.
The two Sheares, Henry and John, were captured a fortnight before the
rising on the information of their supposed friend, Armstrong. In spite
of the splendid advocacy of Curran,[28] supported by Plunket, in a trial
that lasted through the night, both brothers suffered death, with one
or two others of lesser note.
[28] Curran's speech on this occasion is preserved in W. H. Curran, Life
of John Philpot Curran (1819) ii, 69-113; many of his speeches in defence
of State prisoners were suppressed.
Lord Edward FitzGerald was still going about in Dublin and there seems
to have been a general desire to spare one so highly placed and so warmly
beloved. For a month he lay hidden in a house near the canal and even
Chancellor Fitzgibbon, now become Lord Clare, was anxious for his escape.
"For God's sake get this young man out of the country," he had
said to one of Lord Edward's nearest relatives a few days before the arrests
of March 12; "the ports shall be thrown open to you and no hindrance
whatever offered." Unfortunately, the young conspirator remained
in Dublin. On the evening before his arrest, on May 18, 1798, he took
refuge in the house of a man named Murphy in Thomas Street, though a reward
of £1,000 had been then offered for his person. The next day he
was followed to this house and his room was entered by Major Swan and
Major Sirr, as he was resting after dinner. Lord Edward surrendered after
a short struggle in which he, as well as his assailant, were wounded,
his host being also taken away to Newgate. On June 3 he succumbed to his
injuries, one of his captors, Captain Ryan, also dying of his wounds.
Murphy, who was confined for a long time in prison, describes Lord Edward
as one of the bravest of men; in height he was about five feet seven inches
and with a very interesting countenance—arched eyebrows, fine grey
eyes and high forehead, with thick brown hair, inclining to black.[29]
Aristocrat and Protestant as he was, he won an abiding place in the affections
of his countrymen. His friend, Lord Cloncurry, speaks of him as "brave
to a fault" and possessed of a strong religious belief which, combined
with his love of country and desire to relieve the sufferings of his fellow-countrymen,
impressed upon his patriotism a character of solemn enthusiasm that supplied
the place of commanding talent and well fitted him to influence men.[30]
[29] Murphy's narrative is given by Madden, United Irishmen (1842), i,
254-367.
[30] Personal Recollections of Lord Cloncurry (1849), pp. 153-154.
The capture of the leaders and the death of Lord Edward FitzGerald left
the insurgents without a recognised centre. In many cases they persuaded
or forced the gentry of their own neighbourhoods to act as their leaders;
and some respected and influential landlords, who had no love for rebellion,
but hoped by their influence to control their tenants, thus became involved
in the rising and suffered the dreadful consequences. In this way Protestant
gentlemen like Cornelius Grogan of Johnstown, an infirm old man, who was
forced on his horse with threats that he would be shot if he refused to
lead the tumultuous host that surrounded him; John Henry Colclough, who
had sat in four successive Parliaments as Member for Wexford and Enniscorthy;
and Beauchamp Bagenal Harvey, a liberal and patriotic Protestant gentleman,
became technically 'rebels' and were hanged together after a mere form
of trial on Wexford Bridge, their heads being spiked by order of General
Lake. Acts of barbarity were committed on both sides, and terrible deeds
of murder and revenge defaced the rising; in many cases, no quarter was
received or given; but it is well attested that in numerous instances
the insurgents behaved with great humanity, shielding and helping those
that were in their power and endeavouring to allay the spirit of cruelty
and plunder. Protestant clergymen testified to the respect with which
the young girls who were in their power were treated.[31] Similar humanity
cannot be found in the annals of the other side: the executions were merciless,
two hundred persons being executed at Carlow alone, including Sir Edward
Crosbie, against whom no charge whatever was proved. Any disposition to
accept terms of surrender from the rebels on promise of their lives by
the county magistrates was met by sharp reproval from Lord Castlereagh,
who was acting as Chief Secretary in the absence of Pelham, and who was
at a later date to act with Cornwallis in carrying the Union.
[31] Gordon, Rector of Killegny, History of Ireland (1803), 259-260.
The rebels had at first some successes; they took Wexford and burned Enniscorthy
after a desperate conflict. At New Ross, where Harvey had been the nominal
leader, the battle lasted ten hours, the main assault having been led
by a Wexford boy at the head of from two to three thousand pikemen; but
the town caught fire and the insurgents, who had been drinking, were killed
as they slept. At Vinegar Hill, where the longest resistance was made,
over ten thousand Irish were encamped under their chosen leader, a priest
named Father John Murphy of Boulavogue. The burning of their churches
and the cruelties inflicted on their people incited the priests to join
in the rising. General Lake attacked with about thirteen thousand men
in four separate columns, but the accidental delay of one of these bodies
under General Needham—Needham's Gap, as it came to be called—enabled
parties of those insurgents who survived the heavy fire of grape-shot
and musketry to escape; they wandered about the country in straggling
bands, and were abandoned to the tender mercies of the yeomanry. Among
the appalling deeds committed during two years of terror the worst was
perhaps the massacre of the loyalist prisoners at Scullabogue House after
the battle of New Ross. Some fugitive rebels from the town broke into
the house where the prisoners, mostly Protestants, were confined, and,
pretending that they had orders from Harvey, they murdered thirty-seven
of them in cold blood, setting fire to the barn in which over a hundred
others were locked up. This deed, which was wholly unauthorised by the
leaders and committed by a set of irresponsible runaway men, naturally
aroused the bitterest feeling, and partly explains the savage retaliation
of the Government troops.
It was only a matter of time for the regular army to crush the rebellion.
Ulster, where the United Irishmen had pressed for a peaceful solution
and the adoption of Ponsonby's Reform Bill, in 1797, had since that date
been dragooned into preparations for a rising; and a less formidable outbreak
in Antrim and Down was suppressed by the military. Too late to be of use,
after the rebellion was crushed, the last French attempt to effect a landing
on Irish shores was made by a small force under General Humbert, who,
impatient of the delays of his Government and spurred on by Wolfe Tone's
unceasing efforts, had collected a sum of money on his own account, raised
a small force and sailed without the sanction of his superiors for the
bay of Killala in Mayo, with two Irishmen, of whom one was Tone's brother,
as his guides. It was a foolhardy experiment, made more foolhardy by the
conduct of the General, who lost time drilling the countryfolk and enjoying
the hospitality of the Catholic Bishop of Killala instead of making an
immediate advance. Lake crossed the Shannon with considerable forces,
but these were routed at Castlebar by the French. Their flight was so
precipitate that the event became known as the Castlebar Races. Hundreds
of them joined the French, until the arrival of superior forces under
Lord Cornwallis brought the skirmishing of Humbert's army to an end. He
surrendered, on September 8, at Ballinamuck, and the French returned home.
Matthew Tone and Teeling were carried to Dublin in irons and executed.
Hearing of Humbert's adventure, the Directory had hurried off reinforcements
to support their General, and a small fast-sailing boat, the Anacreon,
under General Hardy, and with Napper Tandy and a body of United Irishmen
on board, reached the island of Raghlin off the coast of Antrim on September
16, where they heard of Humbert's surrender. Re-embarking in great haste,
they stood out for Norway. Napper Tandy, who had been boasting that thirty
thousand men would rise on his appearance [32] was delivered up to the
Government and sentenced to death, but through the intervention of the
French Government he was released.
[32] Memoirs of Theobald Wolfe Tone, ii, 339, and cf., ii, 272-275.
Wolfe Tone was a man of a different fibre. He had followed with the main
body of the French squadron in the Hoche with eight frigates carrying
some three thousand men and seventy-four guns. On October 11 they entered
Lough Swilly but they were closely followed by a squadron under Sir John
Borlase Warren, who engaged them; after a well-matched fight of some hours
the French tricolour went down. Thus ended the series of attempts made
by the French to land on Irish shores. It is to be remembered that these
incursions were not merely isolated efforts organized by Irishmen on behalf
of their own country; they were part of a deliberate effort of France
to invade England by way of Ireland, one incident in a desperate war in
which the whole of Europe was involved. It was in this light that they
were regarded both by France and England, and it was to this that they
owed their importance in the history of the time. Wolfe Tone, who fought
with intrepidity and desperation, "as if he were courting death"
was the only Irishman on board the Hoche. Being recognised by a former
friend, he was taken to Dublin and tried by court-martial. He appeared
in court in the French uniform of a Chef de Brigade and pleaded his French
commission as entitling him to the death of a soldier. Curran exerted
himself to the utmost on his behalf, and Lord Kilwarden, the Chief Justice,
made a vigorous attempt to take Tone out of the hands of the military
and have him tried by the Court of King's Bench, which was then sitting;
but Tone in spite of these efforts, was condemned to be hanged.[33] He
anticipated his fate by opening a vein in his neck, and, after lingering
in prison for some days in agony he expired. His own account of his main
aims was stated to have been "to subvert the tyranny of our execrable
Government, to break the connexion with England, the never-failing source
of our political evils, and to assert the independence of my country."[34]
[33] Memoirs of Theobald Wolfe Tone, ii, 362-365.
[34] Ibid., i, 64.
An aftermath of the rebellion of '98, and the only overt sign of disaffection
which followed the Union, was the brief rising of Robert Emmet, the son
of a Dublin Court physician and brother of Thomas Addis Emmet, who had
quitted a good position at the Irish Bar to follow the projects of the
insurgents. Brought up in the atmosphere of disaffection, young Robert
Emmet early showed similar tendencies. For his inflammatory speeches he
was expelled, with eighteen other young malcontents, from Trinity College,
and he had to take refuge abroad, where he carried on his schemes for
the separation of his country from England. His youthfulness—for
he was only twenty-four when he was executed—his love-story with
Sarah Curran,[35] his idealism and promise of talent, and the dignity
of his final speech from the dock have inscribed his name on the hearts
of his nation, and his portrait may still be found in many cottages side
by side with that of the Virgin. Though he aimed at complete separation
and intrigued with the Directory of Paris, his patriotism revolted from
the idea of seeing Ireland reduced to a dependency of France, and he hastened
his own plans to prevent the accomplishment of those which were being
matured abroad. The carelessness with which the Castle in Dublin was guarded
nearly placed it in his hands, and for two hours Dublin was at the mercy
of the insurgents. A victim of the rising was old Lord Kilwarden, the
humane judge who had tried to save Wolfe Tone; he was pulled out of his
carriage and murdered as he was entering the city from his house at Rathfarnham
to try to stop the rising. A man whose life Emmet had spared betrayed
his hiding-place and he was taken with several of his associates, most
of them leaders in the '98 rising; but the lives of most of the subordinates
were spared on their making a full confession. Robert Emmet suffered death.[36]
[35] Idealised in Thomas Moore's beautiful and pathetic song "She
is far from the land where her young hero sleeps." Sarah married
two years after her lover's death.
[36] For Emmet's Life see Madden, United Irishmen, and O'Donoghue's Life
; W. H. Curran's Life of P. J. Curran. A romance on the subject by Stephen
L. Gwynn embodies the historical material.
END OF CHAPTER XV
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