A Popular History of Ireland Part 39

It is true, Catholics were still excluded from the high offices of Lord Lieutenant, Lord Deputy, and Lord Chancellor. What was much more important, they were excluded from sitting in Parliament--from exercising legislative and judicial functions, Still the franchise, the juries, the professions, and the University, were important concessions. Their first fruits were Daniel O'Connell and Thomas Moore!

The Committee having met to return thanks to the parliamentary supporters of the bill, their own future operations came also under debate. Some members advised that they should add reform to their programme, as the remnant of the penal laws were not sufficient to interest and attract the people. Some would have gone much further than reform; some were well content to rest on their laurels. There were ultras, moderate men, and conservatives, even in the twelve. The latter were more numerous than Wolfe Tone liked or expected. That ardent revolutionist had, indeed, at bottom, a strong dislike of the Catholic religion; he united himself with that body because he needed a party; he remained with them because it gave him importance; but he chiefly valued the position as it enabled him to further an ulterior design--an Irish revolution and a republic on the French plan. The example of France had, however, grown by this time rather a terror than an attraction to more cautious men than Tone. Edward Byrne, Sir Thomas French, and other leading Catholics, were openly hostile to any imitation of it, and the dinner at Daly's, to celebrate the pa.s.sage of the act, was strongly anti-Gallican in spirit and sentiment. Keogh, McCormick, and McNevin, however, joined the United Irishmen, and the two latter were placed on the Directory.

Keogh withdrew, when, in 1795, that organization became a secret society.

The Bishops, who had cheered on, rather than partic.i.p.ated in the late struggle, were well satisfied with the new measure. They were, by education and conviction, conservatives. Dr. Plunkett of Meath, Dr. Egan of Waterford, Dr. Troy of Dublin, and Dr. Moylan of Cork, were the most remarkable for influence and ability at this period. Dr. Butler of Cashel, and his opponent, Dr.

Burke of Ossory, the head of the resolute old ultramontane minority, were both recently deceased. With the exception of Dr. James Butler, Bishop of Cloyne and Ross, who deserted his faith and order on becoming unexpectedly heir to an earldom, the Irish prelates of the reign of George III. were a most zealous and devoted body. Lord Dunboyne's fall was the only cause of a reproach within their own ranks. That unhappy prelate made, many years afterwards, a death-bed repentance, was reconciled to his church, and bequeathed a large part of his inherited wealth to sustain the new national college, the founding of which, ever since the outbreak of the French revolution, the far-seeing Burke was urging upon Pitt and all his Irish correspondents.

In 1794, the Irish Bishops, having applied for a "royal license" to establish academies and seminaries, were graciously received, and Lord Fitzwilliam's government the next session brought in the Act of Incorporation. It became law on the 5th of June, 1795, and the college was opened the following October with fifty students. Dr Hussey, afterwards Bishop of Waterford, the friend of Burke, who stood by his deathbed, was first President; some refugee French divines were appointed to professors.h.i.+ps; and the Irish Parliament voted the very handsome sum of 8,000 pounds a year to the new foundation.

Maynooth, whatever its after lot, was the creation in the first instance of the Irish Parliament. We have thus, in the third century after the reformation, after three great religious wars, after four confiscations, after the most ingenious, cruel, and unchristian methods of oppression and proselytism, had been tried and had failed, the grand spectacle of the Catholics of Ireland restored, if not fully, yet to the most precious of the civil and religious liberties of a people! So powerless against conscience is and ever must be coercion!

CHAPTER XII.

THE ERA OF INDEPENDENCE--EFFECTS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION IN IRELAND--SECESSION OF GRATTAN, CURRAN, AND THEIR FRIENDS, FROM PARLIAMENT, IN 1797.

The era of independence which we have desired to mark distinctly to the reader's mind, may be said to terminate in 1797, with the hopeless secession of Grattan and his friends from Parliament. Did the events within and without the House justify that extreme measure? We shall proceed to describe them as they arose, leaving the decision of the question to the judgment of the reader.

The session of 1793, which extended into July, was, besides the Catholic Relief Bill, productive of other important results. Under the plea of the spread of French principles, and the widespread organization of seditious a.s.sociations--a plea not wanting in evidence--an Arms Act was introduced and carried, prohibiting the importation of arms and gunpowder, and authorizing domiciliary visits, at any hour of the night or day, in search of such arms.

Within a month from the pa.s.sage of this bill, bravely but vainly opposed by Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and the opposition generally, the surviving Volunteer corps, in Dublin and its vicinity, were disbanded, their arms, artillery, and ammunition taken possession of either by force or negotiation, and the very wreck of that once powerful patriot army swept away. In its stead, by nearly the same majority, the militia were increased to 16,000 men, and the regulars from 12,000 to 17,000--thus placing at the absolute control of the Commander-in-Chief, and the chiefs of the oligarchy, a standing army of 33,000 men. At the same period, Lord Clare (he had been made an earl in 1792), introduced his Convention Act, against the a.s.semblage in convention of delegates purporting to represent the people. With Grattan only 27 of the Commons divided against this measure, well characterized as "the boldest step that ever yet was made to introduce military government." "If this bill had been law," Grattan added, "the independence of the Irish Parliament, the emanc.i.p.ation of the Catholics, and even the English revolution of 1688, could never have taken place!" The teller in favour of the Convention Act was Major Wellesley, member for Trim, twenty years later--Duke of Wellington! It became and still remains the law of Ireland.

Against this reactionary legislation we must credit the session of '93, besides the Catholic Relief Bill and the East India Trade Bill, with Mr. Grattan's Barren Lands Bill, exempting all newly reclaimed lands from the payment of t.i.thes for a period of seven years; Mr. Forbes's Pension Bill, limiting the pension list to 80,000 pounds sterling per annum, and fixing the permanent civil list at 250,000 pounds per annum; and the excellent measure of the same invaluable member, excluding from Parliament all persons holding offices of profit under the crown, except the usual ministerial officers, and those employed in the _revenue service_. This last salvo was forced into the bill by the oligarchical faction, for whose junior branches the revenue had long been a fruitful source of provision.

Parliament met next, on the 21st of January, '94, and held a short two-months' session. The most remarkable incidents of these two months were the rejection of Mr.

George Ponsonby's annual motion for parliamentary reform, and the striking position taken by Grattan, Curran, and all but seven or eight of their friends, in favour of the war against the French republic. Mr. Ponsonby proposed, in the spirit of Flood's plan ten years earlier, to unite to the boroughs four miles square of the adjoining country, thus creating a counterpoise to the territorial aristocracy on the one hand, and the patrons of boroughs on the other; he also proposed to extend the suffrage to every tradesman who had served five years' apprentices.h.i.+p, and gave each county _three_ instead of two members, leaving intact, of course, the forty-s.h.i.+lling freehold franchise. Not more than 44 members, however, divided in favour of the new project, while 142 voted against it! Had it pa.s.sed, the parliamentary history of the next six years could never have been written.

It was on this Reform bill, and on the debate on the address, that Grattan took occasion to declare his settled and unalterable hostility to those "French principles,"

then so fas.h.i.+onable with all who called themselves friends of freedom, in the three kingdoms. In the great social schism which had taken place in Europe, in consequence of the French revolution of 1789-'91, those kingdoms, the favourite seat of free inquiry and free discussion, could not hope to escape. The effects were visible in every circle, among every order of men; in all the churches, workshops, saloons, professions, into which men were divided. Among publicists, most of all, the shock was most severely felt; in England it separated Burke and Windham from Fox, Erskine, Sheridan, and Grey; in Ireland it separated Grattan and Curran from Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Arthur O'Conor, Addis Emmet, Wolfe Tone, and all those ardent, able, and honest men, who hailed the French, as the forerunner of a complete series of European republics, in which Ireland should s.h.i.+ne out, among the brightest and the best.

Grattan, who agreed with and revered Burke, looked upon the "anti-Jacobin war," as a just and necessary war. It was not in his nature to do anything by halves, and he therefore cordially supported the paragraph in the address pledging Ireland's support to that war. He was a const.i.tutionalist of the British, not of the French type.

In the subsequent Reform debate he declared that he would always and ever resist those who sought to remodel the Irish const.i.tution on a French original. He a.s.serted, moreover, that great mischief had been already done by the advocates of such a design, "It"--this design--"has thrown back for the present the chance of any rational improvement in the representation of the people," he cried, "and has betrayed a good reform _to the hopes of a shabby insurrection_." Proceeding in his own condensed, crystalline ant.i.thesis, he thus enlarged on his own opinions: "There are two characters equally enemies to the reform of Parliament, and equally enemies to the government--the leveller of the const.i.tution, and the friend of its abuses; they take different roads to arrive at the same end. The levellers propose to subvert the King and parliamentary const.i.tution by a rank and unqualified democracy--the friends of its abuses propose to support the King and buy the Parliament, and in the end to overset both, by a rank and avowed corruption.

They are both incendiaries; the one would destroy government to pay his court to liberty; the other would destroy liberty to pay his court to government; but the liberty of the one would be confusion, and the government of the other would be pollution."

We can well understand that this language pleased as little the United Irishmen as the Castle. It was known that in private he was accustomed to say, that, "the wonder was not that Mr. Sheares should die on the scaffold, but that Lord Clare was not there beside him." He stood in the midst of the ways, crying aloud, with the wisdom of his age and his genius, but there were few to heed his warnings. The sanguine innovator sneered or pitied; the truculent despot scowled or menaced; to the one his authority was an impediment, to the other his reputation was a reproach. It was a public situation as full of conflict as man ever occupied, and we are not astonished, on a nearer view, that it led, after three years hoping against hope, to the despairing secession of 1797.

A bright gleam of better things shot for an instant across the gloomy prospect, with which the year '94 closed for the country. Lord Westmoreland was recalled, and Lord Fitzwilliam, largely connected with Ireland by property, and one of the most just and liberal men in England, was to be his successor. The highest expectations were excited; the best men congratulated each other on the certain promise of better times close at hand; and the nation, ever ready to believe whatever it wished to believe, saw in prospect, the oligarchy restrained, the patriots triumphant, and the unfinished fabric of independence completed, and crowned with honour.

This new reign, though one of the shortest, was one of the most important Ireland ever saw. Lord Fitzwilliam, the nephew of Lord Rockingham, the first to acknowledge the const.i.tution of 1782, had married a Ponsonby; he was a Burke whig--one of those who, with the Duke of Portland, Earl Spencer, and Mr. Windham, had followed the "great Edmund," in his secession from the Fox-and-Sheridan majority of that party, in 1791. Pitt, anxious to conciliate these new allies, had brought them all into office in 1794--Earl Fitzwilliam being placed in the dignified position of President of the Council. When spoken of for the Viceroyalty he wrote to Grattan, bespeaking his support, and that of "his friends, the Ponsonbys;" this letter and some others brought Grattan to London, where he had two or three interviews with Pitt, the Duke of Portland, and Lord Fitzwilliam. Better still, he made a pilgrimage to Beaconsfield, and had the benefit of the last advice of the aged Burke. With Pitt he was disappointed and dissatisfied, but he still hoped and expected great good from the appointment of Lord Fitzwilliam to the office of Viceroy. It seems to have been fully understood that the new Lord Lieutenant would have very full powers to complete the gracious work of Catholic emanc.i.p.ation: with this express understanding, Mr. Grattan was pressed to accept the Chancellors.h.i.+p of the Exchequer, but steadily declined; he upheld in that position Sir Henry Parnell, an old personal, rather than political friend, one of a family of whom Ireland has reason to retain a grateful recollection. He was, however, with Ponsonby, Curran, and others of his friends in both Houses, added to the Privy Council, where they were free to shape the measures of the new administration. At the King's levee, on the 10th of December, when Lord Fitzwilliam was sworn in, the aged Burke, in deep mourning for his idolized son, attended; Grattan was so much spoken to by the King as to draw towards him particular attention; Mr. Pitt, the Duke of Portland, and other ministers, were present. All took and held the tone that complete emanc.i.p.ation was a thing settled: Burke congratulated Grattan on the event, and the new Viceroy was as jubilant and as confident as anybody, that the great controversy was at length to be finally closed under his auspices.

On the 4th of January, Lord Fitzwilliam reached Dublin; and on the 25th of March he was recalled. The history of these three months--of this short-lived attempt to govern Ireland on the advice of Grattan--is full of instruction.

The Viceroy had not for a moment concealed his intention of thoroughly reforming the Irish administration. On his arrival at the Castle, Mr. Cooke was removed from the Secretarys.h.i.+p, and Mr. Beresford from the Revenue Board.

Great was the consternation, and unscrupulous the intrigues of the dismissed. When the Parliament met at the end of January, Grattan a.s.sumed the leaders.h.i.+p of the House of Commons, and moved the address in answer to the speech from the throne. No opposition was offered--and it pa.s.sed without a division. Immediately, a bill granting the Catholics complete emanc.i.p.ation--rendering them eligible even to the office of Chancellor, withheld in 1829--was introduced by Grattan. Then the oligarchy found their voices. The old cry of "the Church in danger" was raised, delegations proceeded to London, and every agency of influence was brought to bear on the King and the English cabinet. From the tenor of his letters, Lord Fitzwilliam felt compelled in honour to tell Mr. Pitt, that he might choose between him and the Beresfords. He did choose--but not till the Irish Parliament, in the exuberance of its confidence and grat.i.tude, had voted the extraordinary subsidy of 20,000 men for the navy, and _a million, eight hundred thousand pounds, towards the expenses of the war with France!_ Then, the popular Viceroy was recalled amid the universal regrets of the people. The day of his departure from Dublin was a day of general mourning, except with the oligarchical clique, whose leaders he had so resolutely thrust aside. To them it was a day of insolent and unconcealed rejoicing; and, what is not at all uncommon under such circ.u.mstances, the infatuated partisans of the French revolution, rejoiced hardly less than the extremest Tories, at the sudden collapse of a government equally opposed to the politics of both.

Grattan, than whom no public man was ever more free from unjust suspicion of others, always remained under the conviction that Pitt had made merely a temporary use of Lord Fitzwilliam's popularity, in order to cheat the Irish out of the immense supplies they had voted; and all the doc.u.ments of the day, which have since seen the light, accord well with that view of the transaction.

Lord Fitzwilliam was immediately replaced by Lord Camden, whose Viceroyalty extended into the middle of the year 1798: a reign which embraced all that remains to us to narrate, of the Parliamentary politics of the era of Independence.

The sittings of Parliament were resumed during April, May, and June, but the complete emanc.i.p.ation bill was rejected three to one--155 to 55; the debates were now marked, on the part of Toler, Duigenan, Johnson, and others, with the most violent anti-Catholic spirit. All this tended to inflame still more the exasperated feeling which already prevailed in the country between Orangemen and Defenders. Thus it came, that the High Court of Parliament, which ought to have been the chief school of public wisdom--the calm correcting tribunal of public opinion--was made a princ.i.p.al engine in the dissemination of those prejudices and pa.s.sions, which drove honest men to despair of const.i.tutional redress, and swelled the ranks of the secret political societies, till they became co-extensive with the population.

The session of 1796 was even more hopeless than the immediately preceding one. A trade motion of Grattan's on the address commanded only 14 votes out of 140; in the next session his motion in favour of equal rights to persons of all religious creeds, obtained but 12 votes out of 160! From these figures it is clear that above a third of the members of the House no longer attended; that of those who did attend, the overwhelming and invariable majority--ten to one--were for all the measures of repression and coercion which marked these two sessions.

The Insurrection Act, giving power to the magistrates of any county to proclaim martial law; the Indemnity Act, protecting magistrates from the consequences of exercising "a vigour beyond the law;" the Riot Act, giving authority to disperse any number of persons by force of arms without notice; the Suspension of the _habeas corpus_ (against which only 7 members out of a House of 164 voted)--all were evidences to. Grattan, that the usefulness of the House of Commons, as then const.i.tuted, was, for the tune, lost or destroyed. It is quite clear that he came to this conviction slowly and reluctantly; that he struggled against it with manly fort.i.tude through three sessions; that he yielded to it at length, when there was no longer a possibility of resistance,--when to move or to divide the House, had become a wretched farce, humiliating to the country, and unworthy of his own earnest and enthusiastic patriotism.

Under these circ.u.mstances, the powerless leader and his devoted staff resolved to withdraw, formally and openly, from further attendance on the House of Commons. The deplorable state of the country, delivered over to an irresponsible magistracy and all the horrors of martial law; the spread among the patriotic rising generation of French principles; the scarcely concealed design of the Castle to goad the people into insurrection, in order to deprive them of their liberties; all admonished the faithful few that the walls of Parliament were no longer their sphere of usefulness. One last trial was, however, made in May, 1797, for a reform of Parliament. Mr. George Ponsonby moved his usual motion, and Curran, Hardy, Sir Lawrence Parsons, Charles Kendall Bushe, and others, ably supported him. The division was 30 to 117. It was on this debate, that Grattan, whose mournful manner contrasted so strongly with his usual enthusiasm, concluded a solemn exposition of the evils the administration were bringing on the country, by these affecting words:--"We have offered you our measure--you will reject it; we deprecate yours--you will persevere; having no hopes left to persuade or to dissuade, and having discharged our duty, we shall trouble you no more, _and after this day shall not attend the House of Commons_." The secession thus announced was accomplished; at the general election, two months later, Grattan and his colleague, Lord Henry Fitzgerald, refused to stand again for Dublin; Curran, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Arthur O'Conor, and others, followed his example. A few patriots, hoping against hope, were, however, returned, a sort of forlorn hope, to man the last redoubt of the Const.i.tution. Of these was William Conyngham Plunkett, member for Charlemont, Grattan's old borough, a const.i.tutionalist of the school of Edmund Burke, worthy to be named among the most ill.u.s.trious of his disciples.

In the same July, on the 7th of the month, on which the Irish elections were held, that celebrated Anglo-Irish statesman expired at Beaconsfield, in the sixty-seventh year of his age. His last thoughts--his last wishes, like his first--were with his native land. His regards continued fixed on the state of Ireland, while vision and faculty remained. His last efforts in writing and conversation were to plead for toleration, concession and conciliation towards Ireland. The magisterial gravity of Burke was not calculated to permit him to be generally popular with an impulsive people, but as years roll on, and education extends its dominion, his reputation rises and brightens above every other reputation of his age, British or Irish.

Of him no less truly than powerfully did Grattan say in the Imperial Parliament, in 1815: "He read everything, he saw everything, he foresaw everything. His knowledge of history amounted to a power of foretelling; and when he perceived the wild work that was doing in France, that great political physician, intelligent of symptoms, distinguished between the access of fever and the force of health; and what other men conceived to be the vigour of her const.i.tution, he knew to be no more than the paroxysm of her madness; and then, prophet-like, he denounced the destinies of France, and in his prophetic fury, admonished nations."

CHAPTER XIII.

THE UNITED IRISHMEN.

Half measures of justice may satisfy the generation which achieves them, but their successors will look with other eyes, as well on what has been won as on that which is withheld. The part in possession will appear to their youthful sense of abstract right and wrong far less precious than the part in expectancy, for it is in the nature of the young to look forward, as it is of the old to turn their regards to the past. The very recollection of their fathers will stimulate the new generation to emulate their example, and will render them averse to being bound by former compromises. So necessary is it for statesmen, when they yield to a just demand long withheld, to yield gracefully and to yield all that is fairly due.

The celebrated group known to us as "the United Irishmen,"

were the birth of a new generation, entering together on the public stage. With few exceptions, the leading characters were all born within a few years of each other: Neilson in 1761, Tone, Arthur O'Conor and Lord Edward Fitzgerald in '62, McNevin in '63, Sampson and Thomas Addis Emmet in '64, and Russell in '67. They had emerged into manhood while the drums of the Volunteers were beating victorious marches, when the public hopes ran high, and the language of patriotism was the familiar speech of every-day life.

In a settled state of society it would have been natural for the first minds of the new generation to carry their talents, gratefully and dutifully, into the service of the first reputations of the old; but Irish society, in the last years of the last century, was not in a settled condition; the fascination of French example, and the goading sense of national wrongs only half-righted, inflamed the younger generation with a pa.s.sionate thirst for speedy and summary justice on their oppressors. We must not look, therefore, to see the Tones and Emmets continuing in the const.i.tutional line of public conduct marked out by Burke in the one kingdom, and Grattan in the other. The new age was revolutionary, and the new men were filled with the spirit of the age. Their actions stand apart; they form an episode in the history of the century to which there may be parallels, but a chapter in the history of their own country original and alone.

The United Irish Society sprung up at Belfast in October, 1791. In that month, Theobold Wolf Tone, then in his 28th year, a native of Kildare, a member of the bar, and an excellent popular pamphleteer, on a visit to his friend Thomas Russell, in the northern capital, was introduced to Samuel Neilson, proprietor of the _Northern Star_ newspaper, and several other kindred spirits, all staunch reformers, or "something more." Twenty of these gentlemen meeting together, adopted a programme prepared by Tone, which contained these three simple propositions: that "English influence" was the great danger of Irish liberty; that a reform of Parliament could alone create a counterpoise to that influence; and that such a reform to be just should include Irishmen of all religious denominations. On Tone's return to Dublin, early in November, a branch society was formed on the Belfast basis. The Hon. Simon Butler, a leading barrister, was chosen Chairman, and Mr. Napper Tandy, an active middle-aged merchant, with strong republican principles, was Secretary.

The solemn declaration or oath, binding every member "to forward a brotherhood of affection, an ident.i.ty of interests, a communion of rights, and a union of power among Irishmen of all religious persuasions," was drawn up by the Dublin club, and became the universal bond of organization. Though the Belfast leaders had been long in the habit of meeting in "secret committee," to direct and control the popular movements in their vicinage, the new society was not, in its inception, nor for three years afterwards, a secret society. When that radical change was proposed, we find it resisted by a considerable minority, who felt themselves at length compelled to retire from an a.s.sociation, the proceedings of which they could no longer approve. In justice to those who remained, adopting secrecy as their only s.h.i.+eld, it must be said, that the freedom of the press and of public discussion had been repeatedly and frequently violated before they abandoned the original maxims and tactics of their body, which were all open, and above-board.

In 1792, Simon Butler, and Oliver Bond--a prosperous Dublin merchant of northern origin--was summoned to the bar of the House of Lords, condemned to six months'

imprisonment, and a fine of 500 pounds each, for having acted as Chairman and Secretary of one of the meetings, at which an address to the people, strongly reflecting on the corrupt const.i.tution of Parliament, was adopted.

In '94, Archibald Hamilton Rowan, one of the purest and most chivalrous characters of any age, was convicted, by a packed jury, of circulating the famous "Universal Emanc.i.p.ation" address of his friend, Dr. William Drennan, the poet-politician of the party. He was defended by Curran, in the still more famous speech in which occurs his apostrophe to "the genius of Universal Emanc.i.p.ation;"

but he atoned in the cells of Newgate, for circulating the dangerous doctrine which Drennan had broached, and Curran had immortalized.

The regular place of meeting of the Dublin society was the Tailors' Hall, in Back Lane, a s.p.a.cious building, called, from the number of great popular gatherings held in it, "the Back Lane Parliament." Here Tandy, in the uniform of his new National Guard, whose standard bore the harp without the crown, addressed his pa.s.sionate harangues to the applauding mult.i.tude; here Tone, whose _forte_, however, was not oratory, constantly attended; here, also, the leading Catholics, Keogh and McCormack, the "Gog" and "Magog," of Tone's extraordinary _Memoirs_, were occasionally present. And here, on the night of the 4th of May, 1794, the Dublin society found themselves suddenly a.s.sailed by the police, their papers seized, their officers who were present arrested, and their meeting dispersed. From that moment we may date the new and _secret_ organization of the brotherhood, though it was not in general operation till the middle of the following year.

This new organization, besides its secrecy, had other revolutionary characteristics. For "reform of Parliament"

was subst.i.tuted in the test, or oath, representation "of all the people of Ireland," and for pet.i.tions and publications, the enrolment of men, by baronies and counties, and the appointment of officers, from the least to the highest in rank, as in a regular army. The unit was a lodge of twelve members, with a chairman and secretary, who were also their corporal and sergeant; five of these lodges formed a company, and the officers of five such companies a baronial committee, from which again, in like manner, the county committees were formed.

Each of the provinces had its Directory, while in Dublin the supreme authority was established, in an "Executive Directory" of five members. The orders of the Executive were communicated to not more than one of the Provincial Directors, and by him to one of each County Committee, and so in a descending scale, till the rank and file were reached; an elaborate contrivance, but one which proved wholly insufficient to protect the secrets of the organization from the ubiquitous espionage of the government.

In May, 1795, the new organization lost the services of Wolfe Tone, who was compromised by a strange incident, to a very serious extent. The incident was the arrest and trial of the Rev. William Jackson, an Anglican clergyman, who had imbibed the opinions of Price and Priestley, and had been sent to Ireland by the French Republic, on a secret emba.s.sy. Betrayed by a friend and countryman, named c.o.c.kayne, the unhappy Jackson took poison in prison, and expired in the dock. Tone had been seen with Jackson, and through the influence of his friends, was alone protected from arrest. He was compelled, however, to quit the country, in order to preserve his personal liberty. He proceeded with his family to Belfast, where, before taking s.h.i.+pping for America, he renewed with his first a.s.sociates, their vows and projects, on the summit of "the Cave Hill," which looks down upon the rich valley of the Laggan, and the n.o.ble town and port at its outlet. Before quitting Dublin, he had solemnly promised Emmet and Russell, in the first instance, as he did his Belfast friends in the second, that he would make the United States his _route_ to France, where he would negotiate a formidable national alliance, for "the United Irishmen."

In the year in which Tone left the country, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, brother of the Duke of Leinster, and formerly a Major in the British Army, joined the society; in the next year--near its close--Thomas Addis Emmet, who had long been in the confidence of the promoters, joined, as did, about the same time, Arthur O'Conor, nephew of Lord Longueville, and ex-member for Phillipstown, and Dr.

William James McNevin, a Connaught Catholic, educated in Austria, then practising his profession with eminent success in Dublin. These were felt to be important accessions, and all four were called upon to act on "the Executive Directory," from time to time, during 1796 and 1797.

The coercive legislation carried through Parliament, session after session--the Orange persecutions in Armagh and elsewhere--the domiciliary visits--the military outrages in town and country--the free quarters, whipping and tortures--the total suppression of the public press --the bitter disappointment of Lord Fitzwilliam's recall--the annual failure of Ponsonby's motion for reform--finally, the despairing secession of Grattan and his friends from Parliament--had all tended to expand the system, which six years before was confined to a few dozen enthusiasts of Belfast and Dublin, into the dimensions of a national confederacy. By the close of this year, 500,000 men had taken the test, in every part of the country, and nearly 300,000 were reported as armed, either with firelocks or pikes. Of this total, 110,000 alone were returned for Ulster; about 60,000 for Leinster, and the remainder from Connaught and Munster. A fund, ludicrously small, 1,400 pounds sterling, remained in the hands of the Executive, after all the outlay which had taken place, in procuring arms, in extending the union, and in defending prisoners arrested as members of the society. Lord Edward Fitzgerald was chosen Commander-in-Chief; but the main reliance, for munitions, artillery, and officers, was placed upon the French Republic.

CHAPTER XIV.

NEGOTIATIONS WITH FRANCE AND HOLLAND--THE THREE EXPEDITIONS NEGOTIATED BY TONE AND LEWINES.