completely on its guard, and the vigilance and activity of the ministry there unquestionably deserve commendation. Wearied out, at last, by the tardy proceedings of their allies, and perceiving that their opponents were increasing in strength, while their own party was visibly on the decline, towards the beginning of the year 1798, the faction, it appears, resolved upon a desperate effort. In the month of February a military committee was appointed by the executive council of the rebels; detailed instructions were issued to the adjutant-generals; and thanks were voted to the several colonels for their assiduity in embodying and organising the people. In the mean time, the Irish executive prepared a dispatch for the French directory, pressing, in the most earnest terms, for the promised succours; but it was found impossible to convey it thither. Though many of the united men were deprived by government of their arms, and though many deserted the cause, yet the zeal and impatience of the people in some districts, kept pace with the ardour of their leaders and the urgency of their affairs. In the months of February and March, many parts of Leinster and Munster were in the actual possession of the united Irishmen, and other parts were secretly under their control. The nocturnal insurrec tions were innumerable throughout the kingdom. In one instance an attack was made in the open day. The town of Cahir, in the county of Tipperary, was invested by a party of 800 men, chiefly cavalry. It was retained in their possession till a regular search was made for arms, and they were suffered to evacuate it in order and without molestation. The acts of murder and barbarity committed on these occasions, we are sorry to add,were numerous; and such was the terror generally excited, that the report of the committee of the commons states, that very many of the loyal inhabitants of the counties of Cork, Limerick, Tipperary, Kilkenny, Carlow, King's County, Queen's County, Kildare, and Wicklow, fled for safety to the garrison towns. The Irish government, justly alarmed, therefore, at the progress of the conspiracy, issued, on the 30th of March,1798, a proclamation, stating, that the traitorous conspiracy, which had for some time existed, had at length broken out into open acts of violence and rebellion; that, therefore, orders had been issued to the officers commanding his majesty's forces, to employ them with the utmost vigour and decision, for the immediate suppression thereof; to endeavour to recover the arms which had been plundered, and to disarm the rebels, and all persons disaffected to his majesty's government, by the most summary and effectual measures. Previous to the issuing of this proclamation, a generous and humane effort was made by the earl of Moira, supported by all those who were at once the friends of order and of liberty, to restore the tranquillity of the kingdom by measures of conciliation. On the 19th of February, 1798, lord Moira submitted a motion to this effect, to the consideration of the house of lords. In his speech, his lordship repeated nearly the same facts which he had stated in his place in the British house of peers.-He related that " many individuals had been toru from their families, and locked up for months in the closest confinement, without hearing by whom After proposing an address to the lord-lieutenant, to urge his excellency to pursue such conciliatory measures as might allay the apprehensions and extinguish the discontent unhappily prevalent in the country, his lordship proceeded to notice the two great points in debate, the concession of those immunt es which were still withheld from the catholics, and parlia mentary reform. On the first of these questions he declared, that his mind had long been decided, nor could he see the policy of refusing to give such a body of men a common interest with their countrymen. With respect to the other, he declared himself not a friend to parliamentary reform-not because he foresaw from it any of those ruinous consequences, on the certainty of which declaimers had rested their opposition, but because he thought it would not answer the expectations of those who brought it forward. If, hower, it should be found that the general voice of the people was desirous of the measure, and that it would be a means of tranquillising the public mind, he wished to give up his private opinion to the general good. whom they were accused, with what crime they were charged, or to what means they might recur to prove their innocence; that great numbers of houses had been burned, with the whole property of the wretched owners, upon the loosest suppo-ition of even petty transgressions; that torture, by which he meant picquetting and half-hangiug, had been used in more instances than one, in order to extort from the sufferer a charge against his neighbours." If he should be contradicted with respect to these facts, he professed himself prepared to "produce the affidavits of them," and declared his intention of moving "for the examination of the deponents at the bar." After charging the British cabinet with all the evils in Ireland, which his lordship considered as consequences of the perverse principles they had adopted for that country, his lordship proceeded, in strong terms, to recommend a conciliatory system. He allowed that conspiracies might exist, and that atrocities had been committed in the country;" but (said his lordship) have you not laws to repress these enormities? and, if your statutes are not sufficiently forcible for that purpose, why do you not The earl of Moira was answered apply to parliament for provisions by lord Glentworth, who remarkbetter calculated to repress the mised, that the motion appeared to chief? If there are delinquencies him to be calculated to dishearten there must be delinquents. Prove and dismay the loyal, and to anitheir guilt and punish them; but mate and invigorate the disloyal. do not, on a loose charge of partial The noble earl, he said, in his transgression, impose infiction on statement, seemed to mistake the the whole community. The state effect for the cause. The meaof society is dreadful indeed, when sures of which he complained were the safety of every man is at the the consequences, and not the mercy of a secret informer, when cause of dissatisfaction; governthe cupidity, the malevolence, or ment was certainly to blame, but the erroneous suspicions of an in- it was for not having resisted those dividual, are sufficient to destroy measures sooner. He then entered his neighbour." into a detail of the machinations of the united Irishmen, which corresponded, in a great measure, with what has been narrated in the preceding part of this chapter. He professed not to justify the burnings, &c. mentioned by the noble carl; at the same time, he thought examples were not unnecessar; ; but assured the noble earl, that government never gave orders for military outrage. He asserted, that durin the late negotiation, there were at Lisle Irish agents who saw the French directory more frequently than the embassy did, and dissuaded them from peace. He mentioned the licentiousness of certain newspapers, and observed, that in France the guillotine would have stopped the circulation of such papers long ago. The noble lord then enumerated several instances of murder perpetrated by the insurgents; and aptly compared their proceedings to those of the infatuated disciples of the Man of the Mountain. The ablest opponent of the earl of Moira was, however, the lordchancellor. He began with paying a just compliment to the character of the noble earl; but attributed to his residence out of his own country his ignorance of the actual state of it. He asserted, that the system of government had been a system of conciliation; that in no place had the experiment been so fairly tried as in Ireland; in none had it so completely failed. His lordship gave a masterly detail of the proceedings of the united men, to prove that their object was an overthrow of the government, and a dissolution of the British connexion. He did not justify the proceedings of the orange inen, but asserted that they were not enemies to their country. His lordship then proceeded to examine the facts alleged by lord Moira. He acknow leged that a blacksmith had been In the course of his speech, the in which he proposed to act. But if noble lords wanted such a catalogue, he could furnish them; he could relate to them not simply the burning of houses, but the murder, in cold blood, of their inhabitants he could give them an account of three men particularly, who, after having had their houses burned to the ground, were shot by the military, after having been for some time prisoners: and he could add to these accounts, the much more numerous instances of men torn from their family and country, and, without the form of a trial, transported for life. The earl of Moira made a very able reply, and again offered to substantiate his facts at the bar of the house. He admitted that a conspiracy did exist in the country against the government. But he "attributed that conspiracy to the severe and unconstitutional mea sures which government had adopt ed," and to "that most impolitic and lamentable measure, the recal of earl Fitzwilliam." The motion of earl Moira was negatived by a large majority. We have given a brief sketch of this interesting debate, because it involved some striking facts, which serve to illustrate the melancholy state of the kingdom at this juncture. We must, however, remark, that the whig party of Ireland, on this occasion, as well as on many others, certainly betrayed their ig norance of the dangerous machinations of the leaders of the conspiracy. We certainly greatly disapprove of what has been termed a vigour beyond the law;" we disapprove of every act of violence or punishment, not sanctioned by a legal verdict. That these acts might, in some degree, irritate and spread disaffection among such of the peo ple as were not in the secrets of the united Irishmen is probable; but it must be allowed, on the other hand, that no measures of conciliation were likely to have effect with the leaders of that society. For in the very day in which the earl of Moira introduced his motion to the house of lords, a resolution was passed by the united committees of Ulster and Leinster, and entered in their books, importing, "that they would pay no attention whatever to any attempt that might be made by either house of parliament, to divert the public mind from the grand ob. ject they had in view, as nothing short of the complete emancipation of their country would satisfy them." Hitherto the Irish government seems to have proceeded on a system not deficient in vigour, but it was a vigour ill directed, and little calculated to ensure the great objects, safety and success. Individuals had been punished, and many persons had suffered, both in their property and persons; but they were individuals of no rank or consequence, and probably little acquainted with the nature of the business in which they were engaged. The great authors and designers of the mischief still remained untouched, the union undissolved; the rebel directory still reposed in peace, issuing their mandates in secret security,"They rode in the whirlwind, and directed the storm." Accident, rather than policy, seems happily to have led the government to those discoveries which were of real importance, and to those effective measures which, fortunately for both kingdoms, completely defeated the mischievous intensions of so dangerous, because so able and powM 3 erful, erful, a band of conspirators. But before we proceed to this part of our narrative, it will be necessary to notice some transactions in England, which, though not immediately connected with the discovery, have a near relation to some of the principal members of the faction. It has been already related, that Mr. Arthur O'Connor, the nephew of lord Longueville, and a distinguished supporter of Earl Fitzwil liam's administration in the Irish parliament, soon after the recal of that nobleman, became an active member of the society of united Irishmen. He had been seated in parliament by the interest of his uncle: but upon that nobleman expressing his displeasure at some parts of his parliamentary conduct, had resigned. The splendid talents of Mr. O'Connor were a serious accession to the cause of the united men, and his courage was equal to his talents. A newspaper, called the Northern Star, had been long published in Belfast, under the direction chiefly of Mr. Samuel Neilson, a distinguished member of the society, and devoted to their the Irish directory, in conjunction with lord Edward Fitzgerald, Mr. Oliver Bond, a gentleman in a considerable commercial business in Dublin, Dr. M'Nevin, who had been actively concerned for the catholics during lord Fitzwilliam's administration, and coun sellor Emmett. Strong's picions, however, fell upon Mr. O'Connor; and his brother Roger O'Connor, esq. was apprehended and lodged in Cork gaol, on a charge of high treason, from which, however, he was liberated at the spring assizes, from a total want of evidence against him. Thus circumstanced, in the beginning of the year 1798, Mr. O'Connor came to England, with an intention, as it afterwards appeared, of proceeding to France, in conjunction with John Binns, an active member of the London corresponding society, James Coigley, an Irish priest, and a person of the name of Allen. Mr. O'Connor, in the latter end of February went to Margate, intending to hire a small vessel to convey them to France. Some circumstances in their conduct, however, exciting suspicion, they were all appreThis newspaper was sup- hended, and first committed pripressed by the interference of the soners to the Tower, and aftermilitary, the presses broken, and wards to Maidstone gaol. At the printing house destroyed. To Maidstone they were tried by a repair the loss, the united Irishmen special commission on the 21st had established in Dublin a news- and 2d of May, and all of them paper entitled The Press, but the acquitted, except Coigley, on intemperate language of this pub-, whom had been found a trealication soon subjected it to a pro- sonable and most absurd paper, secution; the publisher was im- purporting to be an address from prisoned, and the paper in danger the secret committee of Engof being suppressed. In this crisis land to the executive directory of Mr. O'Connor came boldly for France."Coigley was therefore ward, and announced himself as condemned and executed; and the proprietor and editor of the Mr. O'Connor and Binns, after obnox cus paper. Mr. O'Connor their acquittal, were detained on was, at this period (the latter end another charge of treason preferof 1797), elected a member of red against them. cause. 66 Ін |