the consequences of conviction, witnesses prevaricated, jurors were afraid to do their duty, and the crimiual escaped.

In the spring of 1797, General Lake issued a proclamation, directing that all persons unauthorized to keep arms should surrender them forthwith to the proper authorities. It was declared that secret information where weapons were concealed should be liberally rewarded, and the full value of such arms as might be thus recovered should be given to the informant. That the quantity hidden throughout the kingdom was immense, may be conceived from the fact, that within the year, and in two provinces alone, Ulster and Leinster, 129,583 weapons of various descriptions were seized or surrendered. In this number there were 48,000 firelocks, 70,000 pikes, and 22 pieces of

cannon.

At this period, it is probable that the United Irishmen, in point of numbers and organization, were almost as formidable as at the moment of the insurrection. In the northern provincial meetings, particular inquiries were made of the delegates assembled, "whether they considered themselves as being sufficiently strong to disarm the military quartered in their respective districts," and with a few exceptions, the question received an affirmative reply. Although too successful in corrupting the soldiers, they appear to have made very erroneous calculations as to the number whose allegiance had been shaken. Many, both of the line and the militia, became pretended converts to republicanism, merely to obtain the money and entertainment offered liberally by the disaffected. Some regiments, however, became seriously tainted with disloyalty; but generally, the active measures to counteract seduction adopted by the commanding officers, defeated the attempt.*

While, with the confidence which strength and union give to those who meditate a revolutionary essay, the leaders of the disaffected waited with impatience the assistance promised them through their agents by the French Directory, we will rapidly examine the civil and military organization of that formidable confederacy, whose origin and progress we have summarily described.

"The association consisted of a multitude of societies, linked closely together, and ascending in gradation, like the component parts of a pyramid or cone, to a common apex or point of union."+ At its first formation, the inferior societies extended to thirty-six members, but subsequently they were limited to twelve; when any candidates above the latter number presented themselves, after initiation, they were directed to form a fresh society for themselves-an artful and effective means of adding to the strength of the order by persuading men to become revolutionary proselytes, who might otherwise, from political

"The practice became so common, so general, and so fatal to the military, that the following, among other regiments, offered rewards for discovering and prosecuting any persons concerned in it:-The 9th dragoons, the 1st fencible cavalry, the Angus-shire fencibles, the Kilkenny, Antrim, Longford, Tyrone, Wexford, and Waterford militias."-Musgrave's Memoirs.

+ Gordon's History.

indifference, have held back from joining the society. To each of these small lodges a secretary and treasurer were attached, and the five secretaries of five inferior lodges constituted what was termed a lower baronial committee.

These lower baronial committees sent a member to a superior body called the upper. There were again, in counties and great towns, superior committees, composed of delegates from the upper baronial. These were termed district or county committees. From these latter, a few members were selected to form the provincial directory, to whose superintendence the societies of every gradation were confided. By these provincial committees, the grand executive directory was chosen. The members of this controlling body being limited to five, and the election secret and by ballot, the name of the person on whom the appointment fell was concealed, even from those who had elected him, and the provincial secretaries alone possessed a knowledge of the chosen few who exercised an arbitrary and uncontrolled authority over the whole body of the union.*

The military organization+ was engrafted on the civil, and was constituted in the following manner:-"The secretary of each subordinate society, composed of twelve, was appointed their petty or non-commissioned officer. The delegate of five societies to a lower baronial committee was commonly appointed captain of a company, consisting of the five societies who had delegated him, and who made the number of sixty privates; and then the delegate of ten lower baronials to the upper or district committee was commonly appointed colonel of a battalion, which was thus composed of six hundred. The colonels of battalions in each county sent in the names of three persons to the executive directory of the union, one of whom was appointed by them adjutant-general of the county, whose duty it was to receive and communicate military orders from the executive to the colonels of battalions,

* "The adoption of military organization produced such an increase of robbery and assassination in the northern counties, as to induce a necessity of enforcing the insurrection law in them; and accordingly Down and Armagh were proclaimed in November, 1796, Derry and Donegal in February, 1797.

Regular returns were made by the baronial to the county, and by the county to the provincial committee, and by them to the executive, of the quantity of arms and ammunition in their possession; and of the sums of money in their treasurers' hands.

"For this, and the manner of making the returns, the reader is referred to the Report of the Secret Committee, Appendix, II. 21.

"They had a regular chain or gradation of officers, from a general down to a sergeant; and about the latter end of the year 1797, or beginning of 1798, they instituted the office of adjutant-general.-Vide Report of the Secret Committee, Appendix, XVII. 142.

They used unremitted endeavours, and spared no expense in defending the conspirators who were to be tried; for which purpose, a sub-committee attended regularly at every assizes to superintend the appropriation of the money collected for that purpose."-Musgrave's Memoirs.

+ The organization of the Union was intended to be a complete representative system. It underwent two important changes. In 1794 the Society having been forcibly dissolved, became a secret one the beginning of 1795. Its objects extended beyond reform and emancipation; and members, on admission, were required to take an oath.

and in general to act as officer of the revolutionary staff. They were required to inform themselves of, and report the state of the rebel regiments within their respective districts, of the number of mills, the roads, rivers, bridges, and fords, the military positions, the capacity of the towns and villages to receive troops, to communicate to the executive every movement of the enemy (meaning the King's troops), to announce the first appearance of their allies (meaning the French), and immediately to collect their forces."*

Besides these, a military committee was specially appointed. Its labours were two-fold; one was to prepare a plan for a general insur rection unsupported by foreign aid;-the other, to devise the best means of co-operation with a French army, in the event of the promised descent being effected on the coast of Ireland. On this event the Directory calculated with such certainty in 1797, that a general order to be ready" was issued through the provincial committees. Those who had the means to obtain them, were exhorted to procure firearms and ammunition-pikes were to be provided by the lower ordersand throughout three provinces the order was promptly obeyed. The organization of Connaught was fortunately still imperfect, and at the outbreak of the insurrection, the western counties were, happily for themselves, quite unprepared for action.

Having described the systems, military and political, the next preparatory notice should be directed to the persons who planned and matured a confederacy, which, for the extent to which it reached and the danger it occasioned, stands in British history without a parallel.

* Musgrave's Memoirs. Report of the Secret Committee.

CHAPTER II.

BRIEF NOTICES OF THE LEADERS OF THE UNITED IRISHMEN.

THE issue of the American contest-the institution of the Irish Volunteers the overthrow of the French monarchy-the victories of the republican armies abroad, and the spread of infidel and revolutionary doctrines at home-to all these the system of the United Irishmen may be traced. That numbers of those who joined the union at its first formation, were actuated by pure and patriotic notions, cannot be denied ;* but that the majority were actuated by the desire of overturning monarchy, while ostensibly seeking for reform, is equally true. To the false principles of these times local causes were not wanting to increase the general dissaffection. The northern manufacturers were ill-disposed towards the aristocracy-and many who had acquired fortunes by trade, were jealous of the preponderating influence which landed property conferred upon the owners of hereditary estates. For electioneering purposes the people were courted by some, and corrupted by others. "The virulence of opposition, in vilifying and degrading administration, and in asserting that the legislative power was more corrupt than the executive, made the people believe that a reform of parliament was necessary, and gave the republicans a specious pretext for adopting it, as an engine to overturn the constitution; and the silly timidity of the members of administration, in complimenting their accusers, gave an incredible weight to their assertions in the public mind." Nor was violence of political expression confined to parliamentary discussion;t the pulpit was desecrated by inflammatory appeals to human passions, which every feeling of a Christian minister imperiously required him to protest against.‡

*"In making war on the United Irishmen of Dublin, I attack a society, whose first establishment and principles, in their spirit and general tendency, I approved of; of which, but for some trifling accident-some lucky or unlucky circumstances, in their formation, I should myself have been a member, or proposed as such. I take liberties with a body of men, some few individuals of whom, that I have lived in a degree of intimacy with-men of considerable talents, and I believe, of much private worth-I feel a personal, and even affectionate regard for; a body, to the great majority of whom, as individuals, I attribute perfectly good intentions towards their country, and even its constitution, so far as the majority have taken the trouble or used the means to understand it."-Joseph Pollock.

"On the 31st of January, 1793, an address of thanks to Lord Westmoreland was moved and carried in the House of Commons, for having issued this proclamation. In the debate on it, Lord Edward Fitzgerald arose, and said aloud, in an angry tone, I give my most hearty disapprobation to this; for I do think, that the Lord-Lieutenant, and the majority of this house, are the worst men in the kingdom.' The house had serious thoughts of expelling him; but with singular pusillanimity, pardoned him on making a slight excuse."-Musgrave's Memoirs.

"On the 25th of June, 1795, the Reverend Mr. Birch, a Presbyterian minister, preached a sermon to a numerous body of dissenters at Saintfield, in which he re

But a still more fatal inroad was made upon the morals of the people-speculative politics led to speculative religion. Baneful doctrines regarding government, were followed up by artful efforts to shake the religious convictions of the lower orders.* Virulent publications issued from the press, distracting the unsteady, and maddening the disaffected; and the loyalty of the subject and the faith of the believer were equally assailed, by the infamous admirers of those who figured in the reign of terror. The institutions which men venerated, the blessed hope of a hereafter, were equally contemned-and the overthrow of the throne, it would appear, was to be accompanied with the destruction of the altar.

The actual establishment of the United Irish society was accomplished by the Catholic committee, who, for political purposes, were anxious to enlist as many Protestant supporters as they could, and accordingly their agents were judiciously selected by those by whom the end, and not the means, were regarded. One was a man of much talent and unsteady character-the other a gentleman by birth, specious in manner and artful in address. Both were needy menboth Protestants-both mercenaries. Tone, with an unprovided family, had failed totally through sheer idleness at the bar; and Jones had damaged his fortunes by wild electioneering. Both, in Shakespear's parlance, were

"Weary with disaster, tugg'd with fortune;"

and, hence, the better suited to become able, unscrupulous, and, consequently, the more efficient agents.

Theobald Wolf Tone was the son of a coach-maker. He was designed and had prepared himself for the bar; but, from his own confessions, the instability of his character was unsuited to the profession he had selected. After having been engaged as second in a duel between two students, in which one of them was killed, he eloped with a young lady who possessed considerable personal beauty, but no fortune. The consequences of an imprudent marriage became too soon apparent, and, slighted by his wife's family, he was obliged to throw himself upon his father for support. The old man was himself in embarrassed circumstances; Tone brought the additional expenses of the maintenance of a wife and child upon a household already impoverished; and the earlier indiscretions of his life rendered the later portion of a necessitous career, a succession of desperate efforts to sur

commended the uniting persons of every religious persuasion in one family, or brotherhood, in the bonds of philanthropy. He denominated kings butchers and scourges of the human race, who revel on the spoils of thousands, whom they have made fatherless, widows, and orphans, until the judgment of the Almighty shall come down on those monsters, and cause them who use the sword to perish by the sword."-Ibid.

"A large impression of Paine's Age of Reason was struck off in Belfast, and distributed gratis among the United Societies. Bundles of them were thrown into meeting-house yards on Sundays, before the congregations assembled; and small parcels were left on the sides of public roads, to contaminate the minds of those who found them."—Ibid.