A History of the Four Georges and of William IV Volume III Part 16

It is not necessary here to undertake a survey of the many grievances of which Ireland complained under the rule of Great Britain. One grievance which was especially felt during the reign of George the Third came from the persistent refusal of the Hanoverian Sovereign to listen {307} to any proposals for the relief of the Roman Catholics from the civil and religious disabilities under which they suffered.

The Catholics const.i.tuted five-sixths of the whole population of Ireland, and up to the time of the War of Independence in America no Catholic in Great Britain or Ireland could sit in Parliament, or vote for the election of a member of Parliament, or act as a barrister or solicitor, or sit on a bench of magistrates or on a grand jury, or hold land, or obtain legal security for a loan. No doubt the state of the penal laws as they then existed was mitigated when compared with that which had prevailed but a short time before, when an ordinary Catholic had hardly any right to do more than live in Ireland, and a Catholic priest had not even a legal right to live there. But up to the time when the growing principles of liberty manifested themselves in the overthrow of the feudal system in France the Catholics in Great Britain and Ireland were practically excluded from any approach to civil or religious liberty. Ireland had a Parliament, but it was a Parliament of Protestants, elected by Protestants, and it was in fact a mere department of the King's Administration. The American War of Independence suddenly awakened wild hopes in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of all oppressed nationalities, and the Irish Catholic population was among the first to be quickened by the new life and the new hope. The national idea was not, however, at first for a separation from England.

Ireland was then for the most part under the leaders.h.i.+p of Henry Grattan, a patriot, statesman, and orator--an orator whom Charles James Fox described as the "Irish Demosthenes," and whom Byron glorified as "with all that Demosthenes wanted endued, and his rival and victor in all he possessed."

Grattan's purpose was not separation from England or the setting up of an independent republic. An Ireland enjoying religious equality for all denominations and possessing a Parliament thoroughly independent of that sitting at Westminster would have satisfied all his patriotic ambition. In fact, what Grattan would have desired for Ireland is exactly such a system as is now possessed by one {308} of the provinces of Canada or Australia. When the alliance between France and independent America began to threaten Great Britain, and the English Government practically acknowledged its inability to provide for the defence of Ireland, Henry Grattan, with other Irish patriots of equal sincerity, and some of them of even higher social rank, started the Irish Volunteer movement, to be a bulwark of the country in case of foreign invasion. When the Irish patriots found themselves at the head of an army of disciplined volunteers they naturally claimed that the country which was able to defend herself should be allowed also an independent Parliament with which to make her domestic laws. They obtained their end, at least for the moment, and at least to all outward appearance, and Grattan was enabled to declare that for the first time he addressed a free Parliament in Ireland and to invoke the spirit of Swift to rejoice over the event. Catholic emanc.i.p.ation, however, had not yet been secured, although Grattan and those who worked with him did their best to carry it through the Parliament in Dublin. The obstinacy of King George still prevailed against every effort made by the more enlightened of his ministers. Pitt was in his brain and heart a friend of Catholic emanc.i.p.ation, but he had at last given way to the King's angry and bitter protests and complaints, and had made up his mind never again to trouble his Sovereign with futile recommendations. It so happened that a new Viceroy sent over to Ireland in 1794, Earl Fitzwilliam, became impressed with a sense of the justice of the claims for Catholic emanc.i.p.ation, and therefore gave spontaneous and honorable encouragement o the hopes of the Irish leaders. The result was that after three months' tenure of office he was suddenly recalled, and the expectations of the Irish leaders and the Irish people were cruelly disappointed.

From that moment it must have been clear to any keen observer in Ireland that the influence of Grattan and his friends could no longer control the action of Irish nationalists in general, and that the policy of Grattan would no longer satisfy the popular demands of Ireland. Short {309} as had been the Irish independent Parliament's term of existence, it had been long enough to satisfy most Irishmen that the control of the King's accepted advisers was almost as absolute in Dublin as in Westminster. To the younger and more ardent spirits among the Irish nationalists the setting up of a nominally independent Irish Parliament had always seemed but a poor achievement when compared with the change which their national ambition longed for and which the conditions of the hour to all appearance conspired to render attainable. These young men were now filled with all the pa.s.sion of the French Revolution; they had always longed for the creation of an independent Ireland; they insisted that Grattan's compromise had already proved a failure, and in France, the enemy of England, they found their new hopes for the emanc.i.p.ation of Ireland.

[Sidenote: 1791--The United Irishmen]

There were among the Irish rebels, as they were soon to declare themselves, many men of great abilities and of the purest patriotic purpose. Among the very foremost of these were Theobald Wolfe Tone and Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Both these men, like all the other leaders of the movement that followed, were Protestants, as Grattan was. Wolfe Tone was a young man of great capacity and promise, who began his public career as secretary to an a.s.sociation formed for the purpose of effecting the relief of the Roman Catholics from the civil and religious disabilities which oppressed them. This society, after awhile, was named the a.s.sociation of United Irishmen. The United Irishmen were at that time only united for the purpose of obtaining Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation. The a.s.sociation, as we shall soon see, when it failed of its first object became united for other and sterner purposes. Wolfe Tone was a young man of a brilliant Byronic sort of nature. There was much in his character and temperament which often recalls to the mind of the reader the generous impulse, the chivalric ardor, and the impetuous eccentricity of Byron. Tone, as a youth, was a careless student, or, indeed, to put it more distinctly, he only studied the subjects he cared about and was in the habit of neglecting his {310} collegiate tasks until the hour arrived when it became absolutely necessary that he should master them enough at least to pa.s.s muster for each emergency. He was a keen and close student of any subject which had genuine interest for him, but such subjects were seldom those which had anything to do with his academical career. He studied law after a fas.h.i.+on in one of the London Inns of Court, and he was called to the Bar in due course; but he had no inclination whatever for the business of an advocate, and his mind was soon drawn away from the pursuit of a legal career. He had a taste for literature and a longing for travel and military adventure in especial, and for a time he lived a pleasant, free and easy, Bohemian sort of life, if we may use the term Bohemian in describing days that existed long before Henri Murger had given the word its modern application.

[Sidenote: 1763-89--Theobald Wolfe Tone]

One of the many odd, original ideas which floated like bubbles across Wolfe Tone's fancy was a scheme for founding a sort of military colony in some island in the South Seas, to act as a check upon the designs and enterprises of Spain against the British Empire. Tone took his idea so seriously that he wrote to William Pitt, the Prime Minister, describing and explaining his project and asking for Government help in order to make it a reality. As will be easily understood, Pitt took no notice of the proposal, having probably a good many more suggestions made to him every day as to the best defences of England than he could possibly consider in a week. It is somewhat curious, however, to find that Wolfe Tone should at one period of his life have formed the idea of helping England to defend herself against her enemies. Some historians have gone so far as to opine that if Pitt could have seen his way to take Tone's proposition seriously, and to patronize the young man, the world might never have heard of the insurrection of "Ninety-Eight." But no one who gives any fair consideration to the whole career and character of Tone can have any doubt that Tone's pa.s.sionate patriotism would have made him the champion of his own country, no matter what prospects the patronage of an {311} English minister might have offered to his ambition. At the time when Tone was scheming out his project for the island in the South Seas the leaders in the national movement in Ireland still believed that the just claims of their people were destined to receive satisfaction from the wisdom and justice of the English Sovereign. When it became apparent that Catholic Emanc.i.p.ation was not to be obtained through George the Third and through Pitt, then Wolfe Tone made up his mind that there was no hope for Ireland but in absolute independence, and that that independence was only to be won by the help of Napoleon Bonaparte and of France. In the mean time Tone had taken a step which brilliant, gifted, generous, and impecunious young men usually take at the opening of their career--he had made a sudden marriage. Matilda Witherington was only sixteen when Tone persuaded her to accept him as her husband and to share his perilous career. Romance itself hardly contains any story of a marriage more imprudent and yet more richly rewarded by love. Tone adored his young wife and she adored him. Love came in at their door and, though poverty entered there too, love never flew out at the window. The whole story of Wolfe Tone's public career may be read in the letters which, during their various periods of long separation, no difficulties and no dangers ever prevented him from writing to his wife. When he made up his mind to consecrate himself to the national cause of Ireland, and, if necessary, to die for it, he set forth his purpose to his wife, and she never tried to dissuade him from it. It is told of her that at one critical period of his fortunes she concealed from him the fact that she expected to become a mother, lest the knowledge might chill his patriotic enthusiasm or make him unhappy in his enterprise.

Tone went out to America and got into council with the representative of the French Republic there; then he returned to Europe, and he entered into communication with Carnot and with Napoleon Bonaparte. To these and to others he imparted his plans for a naval and military expedition from France to approach the coast of Ireland, to {312} land troops there, and to make the beginning of a great Irish rebellion, which must distract the attention and exhaust the resources of England and place her at the feet of all-conquering France. Tone felt certain that if an adequate number of French troops were landed on the western or southern sh.o.r.e of Ireland the whole ma.s.s of the population there would rally to the side of the invaders, and England would have to let Ireland go or waste herself in a hopeless struggle. Tone insisted in all his arguments and expositions that Ireland must be free and independent, and that no idea of conquering and annexing her must enter into the minds of the French statesmen and soldiers. Napoleon and Carnot approved of Tone's schemes as a whole, but Tone could not help seeing that Napoleon cared nothing whatever about the independence or prosperity of Ireland, and only took up with the whole scheme as a convenient project for the embarra.s.sment and the distraction of England. Tone received a commission in the army of the French Republic, and became the soul and the inspiration of the policy which at fitful moments, when his mind was not otherwise employed, Napoleon was inclined to carry out on the Irish sh.o.r.es.

[Sidenote: 1763-98--Lord Edward Fitzgerald]

Lord Edward Fitzgerald was a son of the great ducal house of Leinster.

He was born in the same year as Wolfe Tone; he was to die in the same year. It was his evil fortune to have to fight for the cause of King George against the uprising of the patriotic colonists of North America. He afterwards became filled with the ideas of the French Revolution, and got into trouble more than once by expressing his sentiments too freely while yet he wore the uniform of the British army. In Paris he became acquainted with Thomas Paine and was greatly taken with the theories and charmed with the ways of the revolutionary thinker, and in the company of Paine and congenial a.s.sociates he took part in Republican celebrations which became talked of in England and led to his dismissal from the army. Lord Edward Fitzgerald had a strong love of adventure and exploration, and had contrived to combine with his military career in the New {313} World a number of episodes almost any one of which might have supplied the materials for a romance. He was a man of a thoroughly lovable nature, gallant, high-spirited, generous. Like Wolfe Tone, he had made a romantic marriage. His wife was the famous Pamela, the beautiful girl who was ward to Madame de Genlis, and commonly believed to be the daughter of the Duke of Orleans, Philippe Egalite. Louis Philippe, afterwards King of France, was one of the witnesses at the marriage ceremony. Lord Edward was perfectly happy with his young and beautiful wife until the political events came on which gave the sudden and tragic turn to his life. He was a member of the Irish Parliament for many years, and had on several occasions supported the policy which was advocated by Grattan. He too, however, soon made up his mind, as Wolfe Tone had done, that there was nothing to be expected from the Sovereign and his ministers, and he became an active member of the Society of United Irishmen when that a.s.sociation ceased to be a const.i.tutional body and set its heart on armed rebellion. Lord Edward went over to France and worked hard there for the purpose of obtaining armed a.s.sistance for the Irish cause, but he returned to Ireland to work up the rebellious movement there while Tone remained in France to influence as well as he could the policy of Napoleon and Carnot.

Among the other distinguished Irishmen who worked at home or in France--sometimes at home and sometimes in France--to promote the rebellion were Arthur O'Connor and Thomas Addis Emmet. Arthur O'Connor came of a great Irish family; Thomas Addis Emmet, after the failure of the rebellious movement, escaped to the United States and made a great position for himself as an advocate in New York. A younger brother of Thomas Emmet also took part in the organization of "Ninety-Eight," but the fate of Robert Emmet will have a place to itself in this chapter of our history.

One fact has to be mentioned, and must be kept constantly in mind when we are studying the grim story of "Ninety-Eight." Every step taken by the rebel leaders {314} was almost instantly made known to the English Government. The spy, the hired informer, was then, as he has always been, in the very thick of the Irish national movement. Some of the informers in "Ninety-Eight" were of a different cla.s.s from that of the ordinary police spy; and it has been made quite certain by subsequent discoveries that Wolfe Tone and Fitzgerald, Arthur O'Connor and the Emmets were in the closest friendly a.s.sociation with men whom they believed to be as genuine Irish patriots as themselves, but who were all the time in the pay of Pitt, and were keeping him well informed of every plan and project and movement of their leaders. As political morals were then and are perhaps even now, it would be absurd to find fault with Pitt because he made use of the services of spies and informers to get at the plans of a number of men who proposed to invite a foreign enemy of England to invade the Irish sh.o.r.es, and were doing all they could to secure by armed rebellion the independence of Ireland. The wonder that will now occur to every reasonable mind is that the Irish leaders should have failed to guess that whatever money would do would be done by the English Government, as it would have been done by any other Government under similar conditions, to get at a knowledge of their designs and to counteract them. At all events, it is quite certain that while Tone and Fitzgerald and their comrades were playing their gallant, desperate game, the British Minister was quietly looking over their shoulders and studying their cards.

[Sidenote: 1797--A French fleet in Bantry Bay]

Napoleon Bonaparte, meanwhile, seems to have been but half-hearted about the scheme for the invasion of Ireland. He had many other schemes in his mind, some of which probably appeared more easy of accomplishment, and at all events promised a more immediate result than the proposed flank attack on the power of England. It is certain that Wolfe Tone had long intervals of depression and despondency, against which it needed all the buoyancy of his temperament to sustain him. At last a naval expedition was resolved on and despatched. In the late December of 1796 a small French fleet, with about 14,000 troops {315} on board, under the command of General Hoche, made for the southwestern sh.o.r.es of Ireland. Tone was on board one of the war vessels in his capacity as a French officer serving under General Hoche. The weather proved utterly unfavorable to the expedition. The war vessels were constantly parting company. The admiral's vessel, together with several others, was lost to sight on the very first night, and the heart of Tone grew sick as he saw that with every fresh outburst of the tempest the chances even of effecting a landing grew less and less.

Most of the vessels entered Bantry Bay and lay helplessly at anchor there, but there was no landing. Tone's despondency and powerless rage as he foresaw the failure of his project might have been still deeper if he could have known how utterly unprepared the authorities of Dublin Castle were for any sort of invasion. Tone had observed already, as the expedition made its way from Brest, that they had not seen a single English vessel of war anywhere on the sea or around the Irish coasts.

But he could have had no idea of the manner in which the British Government had intrusted the keeping of the island to the protection of the winds and of the fates. A letter written from Dublin by Elizabeth Moira Hastings, widow of the first Earl of Moira, throws a curious light on the state of things which existed among the governing authorities at the time of the invasion, and amazingly ill.u.s.trates the odd rumors and wild conjectures which were floating about at the time.

Writing to a friend in a different part of Ireland on January 19, 1797, Lady Moira says:

"Our escape has been miraculous: the French fleet left Brest . . .

mistook the Durseys for Mizen Head, and therefore did not make their entrance into Bantry Bay till the 24th, on which very day the storm arose and prevented the greater part of their fleet getting into the Bay, driving the greatest part of them out to sea. You will observe that it was on the 19th Lord Malmesbury had orders to quit Paris. He undoubtedly had purchased intelligence at a high price, being duped in that inquiry by the manoeuvres of the Directory, and gave false information {316} to England. Had the French landed on the 18th or 19th, which they might have done, had they not mistaken the Durseys, we should have had the French now governing in this metropolis. All agree that there never was an expedition so completely planned, and in some points so curiously furnished--the most beautiful ladies of easy virtue from Paris were collected and made a part of the freight. Hoche's mistress accompanied him, and his carriage was on board 'La Ville d'Orient,' taken by the 'Druid.' The hussars taken on board that vessel were those who guarded the scaffold at the execution of the unfortunate Lewis--they are clothed in scarlet jackets trimmed with gold and fur, and wear each the butcher's steel, on which they whet their knives, to whet their swords with. It is reported that Hoche and Reilly (one of the admirals) are gone off to America with seven hundred thousand pounds in specie that was on board their vessel to pay the troops. Others think the vessel has sunk, for neither of these personages or the frigate 'La Fraternite,' which they were on board, has been seen since they quitted Brest by any of the French vessels.

What a fortunate person Mr. Pitt is! and what a benefit is good luck to its possessor! The troops are all marching back to their old quarters; Cork and its environs indignant at Government for leaving them again to the entire care of Providence. . . . It is a general belief among all parties that the French will revisit Ireland, and at no distant period--probably the next dark nights. If the storms now prevented them they have learned how possible the attempt is, and how can such a coast be guarded? There has been much show of spirit and loyalty, and yet I thank G.o.d they did not land!"

The words of Wolfe Tone, taken from his journal, may be accepted as the epitaph of the first French expedition. "It was hard," says Tone, "after having forced my way thus far, to be obliged to turn back; but it is my fate, and I must submit. . . . Well, England has not had such an escape since the Spanish Armada; and that expedition, like ours, was defeated by the weather; the elements fight against us, and courage is of no avail."

{317}

[Sidenote: 1797--The French and Dutch to aid Ireland]

The French did return, as Lady Moira had predicted. They returned more than once, but there was a long interval between the first and the second visitation, and there were negotiations between the French and the Dutch Republic--the Batavian Republic, as it was called--which had been forming an alliance with France. Neither the French Republic nor the Batavian felt any particular interest in the Irish movement, or cared very much whether Ireland obtained her national independence or had to live without it. France, of course, was willing to make use of Ireland as a vantage-ground from which to hara.s.s Great Britain, and the Batavian Republic, which had for some time been lapsing out of European notice, was eager to distinguish herself and to play a conspicuous political part once again. The idea at first was that Holland should furnish the naval expedition and France contribute the troops--5000 Frenchmen, under the command of General Hoche, who were to land in Ireland and form the centre and rallying point for the United Irishmen.

The Batavian Republic, however, did not seem anxious to give all the military glory of the affair to France, and some excuses were made on the ground that the discipline of the Dutch navy was somewhat too severe for the soldiers of France to put up with. General Hoche seems to have acted with great disinterestedness and moderation under trying conditions. He saw that the Dutch were anxious to make a name for themselves once more, and he feared that if he were to press for the embarkation of the French soldiers it might lead to the abandonment of the whole expedition. Longing as he was for the chance to distinguish himself in any attack upon England, he controlled his eagerness and consented that the Dutch should have the undertaking all to themselves.

Poor Wolfe Tone had to wait and look on all this time, eating his own heart, according to the Homeric phrase. He has left us in his journal a description of his feelings as he saw the days go by without any movement being made to hara.s.s the English enemy, and of his own emotions when what might have seemed the heaven-sent chance of the mutiny at the {318} Nore broke out in the English fleet and no advantage could be taken of it to forward the chances of the expedition from the Texel. For now again the skies and the winds had come to the defence of England, and the Dutch fleet was kept to its anchorage in its own waters. Various plans of warfare were schemed out by the Batavian Republic, with the hope of putting the English naval authorities on a wrong scent, but all these schemes were suddenly defeated by the orders given to the Dutch admiral to put to sea at once. He did put to sea, and was encountered by Admiral Duncan, and the result was the great victory of Camperdown, won by the English over the Dutch after splendid fighting on both sides. Admiral Duncan thereby became Lord Camperdown and the Batavian Republic dropped all ideas of a naval expedition against England. Meanwhile the gallant General Hoche had died, and Wolfe Tone lost a true friend, with whom, from the beginning of their acquaintance, he had been in thorough sympathy.

[Sidenote: 1798--The brink of an Irish rebellion]

All this time the condition of things in Ireland was becoming desperate. After the appearance of the fleet in Bantry Bay, and the hopes which it created on the one side and the alarms on the other, the ruling powers in Dublin Castle, and indeed at Westminster, had no other idea but that of crus.h.i.+ng out the rebellious spirit of the Irish people by Coercion Acts and by military law. The national sentiment of Ireland counted for nothing with them. It may be safely laid down as an axiom in political history that the men who are not able to take account of the force of what they would call a mere national sentiment in public affairs are not and never can be fit to carry on the great work of government. Ireland was overrun by militia regiments, sent over from England and Scotland, who had no sympathy whatever with the Irish people, and regarded them simply as revolted slaves to be scourged back into submission or shot down if they persevered in refusing to submit. Other forces representing law and order were found in the yeomanry, who were chiefly Orangemen and officered by Orangemen, and who regarded the Catholic peasantry as their born enemies. A state of tumult raged {319} through the greater part of the unhappy island, and there cannot be the slightest doubt that the floggings, hangings, and shootings inflicted by the militia and by the yeomen were in many cases done not so much in punishment as in antic.i.p.ation of rebellious movements on the part of the Catholics. In the mean time preparations were unquestionably going on in many Irish counties, more especially in Ulster, for an outbreak of rebellion. The organization of United Irishmen was adding to its numbers of sworn-in members every day, and the making of pikes was a busy manufacture all over many of the counties. Grattan and some of his friends made many efforts in the Irish House of Commons to induce the Government to devise some means for the pacification of Ireland other than Coercion Acts, the scourge, the bullet, and the gallows. Finding their efforts wholly in vain, Grattan, Arthur O'Connor, Lord Edward Fitzgerald and his brother, and many other men of high character and position withdrew from the Dublin Parliament altogether, and left to the Government the whole responsibility for the results of its policy. It is always to be regretted that a man like Grattan should ever recede from his position as a const.i.tutional patriot in the a.s.sembly where alone his counsels can have any practical weight; but of Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Arthur O'Connor the same is not to be said, for these men and many of their friends had made up their minds that the time had come when only in armed rebellion there remained any hope for Ireland. In the English Parliament some efforts were made by Charles James Fox and by Whitbread to obtain an inquiry into the real cause of the troubles in Ireland, but the attempts were ineffectual, and the authorities at Dublin Castle were allowed to carry out their own peculiar policy without control or check of any kind.

Once again the fates were suddenly unpropitious to the Irish national movement. The force which was intended for Ireland was suddenly ordered to form a part of the expedition which Bonaparte was leading against Egypt. Thereupon the chiefs of the United Irishmen began to see {320} that there was not much hope to be founded on any help to come from France, and it was decided that Ireland should enter into open armed rebellion under the command of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. It was confidently believed that all but a small number of the Irish counties would rise to arms at once under such leaders.h.i.+p, and the Irish leaders little knew how completely the Government was supplied with the knowledge of all the Irish national plans and movements.

Indeed, there seems only too much reason to believe that the policy of Pitt had long been to force the Irish into premature rebellion by the persistent application of the system of coercion, represented by what were called "free quarters"--in other words, the billeting of soldiers indiscriminately among the houses of the peasantry, thereby leaving the wives and daughters of Irish Catholics at the mercy of a hostile soldiery--by the burning of houses, the shooting down of almost defenceless crowds, and the flogging and hanging of men and women.

Certain it is that many of the British officers high in command protested loudly against such a policy, and that some of them positively refused to carry it out, and preferred to incur any rebuke rather than be the instruments of such indiscriminate oppression. Pitt and the authorities at Dublin Castle probably reasoned with themselves that since the rebellion was certain to come it was better to press it on prematurely, so that it might be easily crushed, rather than leave it to take its own time and put its plans into execution when they should have arrived at a formidable maturity.

[Sidenote: 1798--Father John Murphy and Miles Byrne]

The rebellion broke out in the early part of 1798. It had some brilliant temporary successes in Wexford County and in other counties.

In one part of Wexford the movement was literally forced upon the people by the outrageous conduct of the militia and the yeomanry. One of the local Irish priests, Father John Murphy, had used all his efforts up to the last in the cause of order, and had been most energetic in persuading the people to give up their pikes and other weapons to the local authorities. After the people had surrendered their arms the scourging, {321} shooting, and hanging went on just the same as before, and Father John Murphy and numbers of his paris.h.i.+oners were forced to take refuge in the woods. Then for the first time Father Murphy became a rebel. More than that, he became all at once an insurgent general. He put himself at the head of the despairing peasantry, and he suddenly developed a decided talent for the work of an insurgent chief. His people were armed for the most part only with pitchforks and with spades. Their pikes had nearly all been surrendered; only some few of the farming cla.s.s had guns; and there was, of course, no sort of heavy artillery. Father Murphy showed his people how to barricade with carts the road through which a body of cavalry were expected to pa.s.s, and at the right moment, just when the cavalry found themselves unexpectedly obstructed, the insurgents suddenly attacked them with pitchforks and spades, won a complete victory, and utterly routed their opponents. By this success the rebels became possessed of a considerable number of carbines, and were put in heart for further enterprises. Father John Murphy won several other victories, and for the hour was master of a large part of Wexford. One of those who took service under him was a young man, Miles Byrne, scarcely eighteen years of age, who afterwards rose to high distinction in the French army under Napoleon, and maintained his position and repute under the Restoration, and might have been seen up to the year 1863, a white-headed, white-bearded veteran, sunning himself in the gardens of the Tuileries. Father Murphy, however, was not able long to hold out. The want of weapons, the want of money and of all other resources, and no doubt the want of military experience, put him and his men at a hopeless disadvantage, and he was defeated in the end, and was executed in the early summer of 1798.

While the rebellion lasted there were, no doubt, many excesses on both sides. The rebels sometimes could not be prevented by their leaders from fearful retaliations on those at whose hands they had seen their kindred suffer. The gallant Miles Byrne himself has told us in his memoirs {322} how in certain instances he found it impossible to check the rage of his followers until their fury had found some satisfaction in what they believed to be the wild justice of revenge. No one, however, who has studied the history of the times even as it is told by loyalist narrators will feel surprised that the policy which had forced on the outbreak of the rebellion should have driven the rebels into retaliation on the few occasions when they had the upper hand and found their enemies at their mercy. It has never been denied that the excesses committed by the rebels were but the spasmodic outbreaks of the pa.s.sion of retaliation, and that the Irish leaders everywhere did all they could to keep their followers within the bounds of legitimate warfare. It is not necessary to follow out in detail the story of the rebellion. With no material help from abroad there could have been but one end to it, and the end soon came. A peasantry armed with pikes could hardly hold their own for very long even against the militia imported from Great Britain, the Orange yeomanry, and the Hessian troops hired from Germany, to say nothing of the regular English soldiers, who were armed and trained to war. Even the militiamen and the yeomanry had better weapons than the pikemen who followed their Irish leaders to the death. Before the rebellion was wholly crushed Lord Edward Fitzgerald was dead. The plans arranged by the leaders of the movement had appointed a certain day for the rising to begin; the outbreak in Wexford, as has already been shown, was entirely unpremeditated, and merely forced on by events; and, as might have been expected, the plans were betrayed to the authorities of Dublin Castle.

Some of the leaders were instantly arrested, and Lord Edward had to fly and conceal himself. His hiding-place was soon discovered, and he was arrested in Thomas Street, Dublin, on May 19, 1798. Lord Edward at first refused to surrender, and fought desperately for his life. He wounded some of his a.s.sailants, and received himself a bullet in his body. He was then carried to prison, where he died sixteen days after.

"Fitly might the stranger lingering here," as Byron says of another hero, {323} "pray for that gallant spirit's bright repose." Even George the Third himself might have felt some regret for the state of laws which had turned Edward Fitzgerald into an enemy.

[Sidenote: 1798--Ireland invaded by General Humbert]

Suddenly another attempt to help Ireland and hara.s.s England was made from the French side of the English Channel. Bonaparte was away on his Egyptian expedition, and the Directory in his absence did not wish to forego all idea of sending a force to Ireland, but were evidently not very strong on the subject and did not seem quite to know how to set about such a business. For awhile they kept two or three small bodies of troops ready at certain ports within easy reach of the English sh.o.r.es, and a number of vessels at each port waiting for sudden orders.

General Humbert, an adventurous soldier of fortune, who had courage enough but not much wisdom, grew impatient at the long delay of the Directory, and thought he could not do better to force the hand of the Directory than to start an expedition himself. Accordingly he took command of a force of about a thousand men in number which had been placed at his disposal for an undefined date, and with three or four s.h.i.+ps to convey his men he made for the Irish sh.o.r.es. He landed at Killala Bay, in the province of Connaught, and he made his way inland as far as the county of Longford. The Irish peasantry rallied round him in considerable numbers, and were received by him as part of the army and invested with the French uniform. He began his march with a sudden and complete victory over a body of English troops considerably outnumbering his own force, but whom he managed cleverly to surprise, and among whom a regular panic seems to have set in. Humbert's scheme was, however, hopeless. The part of the country through which he was marching was thinly populated, and large bodies of English troops, under experienced commanders, were approaching him from all sides. By the time he had reached the county of Longford he found himself faced, or indeed all but surrounded, by the royal troops under the command of Lord Cornwallis. There was nothing for Humbert but to {324} surrender, and he and his French followers were treated as prisoners of war after a final and brilliant fight and sent back to France. The Irish insurgents who had fought under his leaders.h.i.+p dispersed and fled after the surrender, well knowing that they would not be included in its terms and treated as prisoners of war, and they were pursued by the royal troops and most of them were killed. Matthew Tone, a brother of Wolfe Tone, was one of those who had fought under Humbert. He was made prisoner, taken to Dublin, and executed there within a few days. Thus ended the second expedition from France for the relief of Ireland.

Wolfe Tone meanwhile was waiting in France, hoping against hope. He had as yet known nothing of the fortunes and failure of Humbert's expedition. Some extracts from a letter written to his wife about this time have a melancholy interest.

"Touching money matters, I have not yet received a sou, and last night I was obliged to give my last five guineas to my countrymen here. I can s.h.i.+ft better than they can. I hope to receive a month's pay to-day, but it will not be possible to remit you any part of it; you must therefore carry on the war as best you can for three or four months, and before that is out we will see further. . . . I am mortified at not being able to send you a remittance, but you know it is not my fault.

"We embark about 3000 men, with 13 pieces of artillery, and I judge about 20,000 stand of arms. We are enough, I trust, to do the business, if we arrive safe.

"With regard to myself, I have had every reason to be satisfied; I stand fair with the General and my _camarades_; I am in excellent health and spirits; I have great confidence in the success of our enterprise; and, come what may, at least I will do what is right. The time is so short that I must finish this; I will, if possible, write to you again, but if we should unexpectedly sail my next will be, I hope, from Ireland."

[Sidenote: 1798--The capture of Wolfe Tone]

The embarking to which Tone referred was that of an expedition which the Directory had at last resolved to {325} despatch from Brest for the Irish sh.o.r.e. By a somewhat touching coincidence Tone found himself on board a war-vessel called the "Hoche," which was under the command of the admiral of the little fleet. This expedition consisted of one sail of the line and eight frigates, with 3000 French soldiers. It sailed on September 30, 1798; but the destinies were against it, as they had been against its predecessors, and contrary winds compelled the admiral to make a wide sweep out of what would otherwise have been its natural course. It was not until October 10 that the little fleet, then reduced to four vessels--the others had been scattered--reached the sh.o.r.e of Lough Sw.i.l.l.y, on the northwest coast of Ireland, and was there encountered by a fleet of six English sail of the line and two frigates. The admiral of the French fleet saw that there was no chance whatever of his fighting his way through such an opposition, and he made up his mind to offer the best resistance he could for the honor of the French flag. He promptly gave signals for the lighter vessels, which would have been of little practical service in such a struggle, to make the safest retreat they could, and with his own vessel resolved rather perhaps to do and die than to do or die. A boat came from one of the frigates to take his final instructions, and he and all the French officers, naval and military, who were on board the "Hoche"

strongly urged Wolfe Tone to go to the frigate in the boat and thus save his life. They pointed out to him that if they were captured they must be treated as prisoners of war, but that no mercy would be shown to him, a subject of King George, taken in French uniform. Wolfe Tone peremptorily declined to accept the General's advice. It should never be said of him, he declared, that he saved his life and left Frenchmen to fight and die in the cause of his country. A fierce naval battle took place, and the French admiral fought until he was overpowered, and had no course left to him but to surrender. The French officers who had survived the fight were all taken to Letterkenny, Tone among the number. Tone was in French uniform, and might have pa.s.sed unrecognized as a French officer but that {326} an Ulster magnate, Sir George Hill, who had known him in earlier days, became at once aware of his ident.i.ty, and addressed him by name. Tone calmly and civilly replied to the greeting, and courteously asked after the health of the wife of his discoverer. Then all was over so far as Tone was concerned. He was conveyed to Dublin and tried by court-martial as a rebel and a traitor to George the Third. He defended himself in a speech of remarkable eloquence--that is, if he can be said to have defended himself when his whole speech was a frank avowal of his purpose to fight for the independence of Ireland. He declared that he thoroughly understood the consequences of his failure, and was prepared to abide by them. "Was.h.i.+ngton," he said, "succeeded, and Kosciusko failed;" and he only insisted that in his case, as in that of Kosciusko, failure brought with it no dishonor. The one sole appeal which he made was that he might be allowed to die a soldier's death--that he might be shot and not hanged. Tone was found guilty, of course; there was no choice left to the court-martial on that question, and his appeal as to the mode of his death was refused by the Lord-Lieutenant. John Philpot Curran, the great advocate, made a motion in the King's Bench to the effect that Tone should be removed from the custody of the Provost-Marshal and tried before a civil tribunal, on the ground that Tone was not in the English army, and that, as the civil courts were sitting, there was no warrant for the interference of martial law. The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Kilwarden, a man whose public spirit and whose devotion to law and justice would have done honor to any bench, ruled in favor of Curran's appeal, and ordered that Tone be removed from the custody of the Provost-Marshal. When the Provost-Marshal declined to obey the order the Chief Justice directed that the Provost-Marshal be taken into custody, and that he, along with Tone, be brought before the Court. The decision came too late so far as Tone was concerned.

Bather than endure the ignominy of a public execution by the gallows, which he believed to be awaiting him, he had found means to open a vein in his throat. {327} "You see I am but a poor anatomist," he said with a quiet smile to the surgeon who was brought to his bedside. He lingered in a half-unconscious state for a few days and then died. His death was the closing event of the Irish insurrection of 1798.

[Sidenote: 1778-1803--Robert Emmet]

There was, however, a sort of afterbirth of the struggle of "Ninety-Eight" in the attempt hazarded by Robert Emmet, to which we have already made antic.i.p.atory allusion. Robert Emmet, the brother of Thomas Addis Emmet, was a young Irishman of great abilities and of generous, unselfish, imprudent enthusiasm. He could not bring himself to believe that the hopes of Irish independence were buried even in the graves of Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Wolfe Tone. He had no trust whatever in any a.s.sistance to be given from France, but he set himself to organize a movement which should be Irish only and should find its whole organization and its battle-field on the soil of Ireland. He found numbers of brave and ardent young men to a.s.sist him, and he planned out another rising, which was to begin with a seizure of Dublin Castle and a holding of the capital as a centre and a citadel of the new movement for Irish independence. Emmet's pa.s.sion for national independence had been strengthened by the pa.s.sing of the Act of Union.

The Act of Union had long been a project in the mind of Pitt, and indeed it was the opinion of many observers then, and of some historical students from that time to the present, that Pitt had forced on the Irish rebellion in order to give an excuse for the absolute extinction of the Irish Parliament and the centralization of the system of government in the Parliament sitting at Westminster. It is, at all events, quite certain that Pitt accomplished his scheme for a legislative union between Great Britain and Ireland by a wholesale system of bribery, the bribery taking the form of peerages, of high-salaried appointments, of liberal pensions, and even of sums of ready money. All that was really national in the Irish Parliament fought to the last against Pitt's Act of Union, but the Act was carried, and it came into operation on January 1, 1801. The Act itself and the methods by which {328} it was pa.s.sed only gave to Robert Emmet a fresh stimulus to prepare his plans for the independence of Ireland.

We need not follow in detail the story of these plans and the attempt to put them into execution. Robert Emmet's projects were, no doubt, all well known to the authorities of Dublin Castle before any attempt could be made to carry them out. In any case their chances of success seem to have depended very much upon the simultaneous action of a great number of persons in a great number of different places, and the history of every secret revolutionary movement tells us of the almost insuperable difficulty there is in getting all the actors of such a drama to appear upon the stage at the same moment and at the right moment. Emmet's plan broke down, and it ended not even in a general rising of the nationalists of Dublin, but in a mere street riot, the most sad and shocking event in which was the murder of the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Kilwarden. While Emmet, in another part of the city, was vainly striving to retrieve the disorder into which the excesses of some of his followers had broken up the plan of attack, Lord Kilwarden's carriage was stopped by a body of undisciplined and infuriated rioters, and one man thrust a pike into Kilwarden's body.

Emmet himself came too late upon the scene to rescue the Chief Justice, and from that moment he gave up all hope of anything like orderly action on the part of the insurgents, and indeed his whole effort was to get his followers to disperse and to stop any rising in the adjacent counties. Kilwarden died soon after he had received his wound, but not before he had uttered the n.o.ble injunction that no man should suffer for his death without full and lawful trial. Seldom has even the a.s.sa.s.sin's hand stricken a worse blow than that which killed Lord Kilwarden. In an age when corrupt judges and partial judges were not uncommon, Kilwarden was upright, honorable and just. The fiercest nationalist of the day lamented his death. He had again and again stood before the Crown officials and interposed the s.h.i.+eld of law between them and the victims whom they strove by any process to bring to death. Emmet made his way into Wicklow with {329} the main purpose of stopping the intended outbreak of insurrection there, as he saw now that no such attempts could, under the conditions, end in anything but useless bloodshed. His friends urged him to make his escape to France, and he might easily have escaped but that he went back to Dublin with the hope of seeing once again Sarah Curran, the youngest daughter of the great advocate, with whom he was devotedly in love. He was recognized, arrested, and sent to trial before Lord Norbury, a judge who bore a very different sort of reputation from that which honored Lord Kilwarden. Emmet made a brilliant and touching speech, not in defence of himself against the charge of trying to create a rebellion, for he avowed his purpose and glorified it, but in vindication of his cause and in utter denial of the accusation commonly brought against him that he intended to make his country the subject of France.

[Sidenote: 1803--The execution of Robert Emmet] He was found guilty, sentenced to death, and executed on the morning after his trial.

Thomas Moore, the Irish poet, who was a college friend of Emmet's, has embalmed his memory in three beautiful songs, "She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps," she being of course Sarah Curran, to whom Emmet addressed his last written words; "Oh, breathe not his name," and "When he who adores thee," an appeal to Ireland to remember him who had at least "the pride of thus dying for thee." Was.h.i.+ngton Irving, the American author, devoted a touching essay, called "The Broken Heart,"

to the story of Robert Emmet and his blighted pa.s.sion. The lovers of romance may be somewhat disconcerted to hear that Sarah Curran married after her young hero's death; but she remained single many years, and there is no reason to suppose that she ever forgot or disclaimed her affection for Robert Emmet. Wolfe Tone's wife married again some sixteen years after the husband of her youth had pa.s.sed away. Her grave is to be seen in a cemetery close to Was.h.i.+ngton, in the United States, the land in which Wolfe Tone's widow pa.s.sed all the later years of her life.

With the failure and the death of Robert Emmet closed the last rebellious rising in Ireland which belongs to the {330} history of the Georges. Pitt's Act of Union is still in force, but it would be idle to say that it is anything more than in force. The union between England and Scotland, to which Pitt's supporters so often triumphantly appealed, was made under conditions and on terms totally different from those which had to do with the union between England and Ireland.

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