Edward Roche, had endeavoured to keep order, but on June 20th a ruffian named Dixon collected some hundred pikemen from the country round, took possession of the gaol, and induced his half-intoxicated followers to drag the prisoners in batches to the bridge, and there shoot or pike them. Probably nearly a hundred had perished before a courageous priest, Father Currin, assisted by Edward Roche, succeeded in stopping the massacre.

Keough was aware that three English armies were advancing on Wexford, and, judging the situation desperate, he released Lord Kingsborough, the most important of the prisoners, begging him to obtain such terms as might be possible for the insurgents themselves, and the preservation of the town and its inhabitants from the brutality of the soldiers. Lord Kingsborough appears to have done what he could, but General Lake declared that he would "enter into no negotiations, and consider no terms." Nothing was finally decided, but on June 22nd some yeomen and a detachment of regulars marched in and quietly took possession of the town.

The camp at Three Rocks, whither the main body of the Wexford insurgents had betaken themselves previous to the surrender of the town, now broke up, the leader, Father Philip Roche, having been captured and hanged.

End of the Insurrection: Fate of the Leaders.-Although isolated bodies of insurgents still held out, and resistance only ceased gradually, yet the insurrection might be regarded as over. Most of the surviving leaders fell into the hands of the Government, and almost all who did so perished on the scaffold. Father John Murphy, Keough, Bagenal Harvey, and great numbers of others suffered death; on Wexford Bridge alone sixty-five were hanged. Of the rank and file of the insurgents who were executed, and of the number of persons, some of whom had had no part in the insurrection, who were butchered by the soldiers, no estimate can be formed.

Towards the leaders of the United Irishmen who had been arrested before the outbreak of the rebellion greater lenity was shown. Some, as the two Sheares, Father Quigley and one or two others, were executed, but the lives of some of the most prominent, as Thomas Addis Emmet, McNevin and Arthur O'Connor were spared. These, after undergoing a long imprisonment, finished their lives in exile.

CHAPTER XXI

THE FRENCH EXPEDITIONS

WE have seen with what confidence the United Irishmen counted on obtaining the aid of France for their projected insurrection.

In the year following the expedition of 1796, General Hoche died, and his death deprived Ireland of a strong advocate of her cause. Napoleon Buonaparte, now the most powerful man in France, had no great belief in projects for the invasion of Ireland. Tone and Lewines, the agents of the United Irishmen, succeeded, however, in inducing the French Government to order the preparation of several small expeditions, which were to land at or about the same time at various points on the Irish coast.

Humbert's Expedition. As usual there were delays, and it was not till the August of 1798, when the Irish rebellion had been already crushed, that even the first of the projected expeditions set sail. It consisted of only three frigates, carrying a force of 1,036 fighting men, and arms and equipment for a much larger number. The General, Humbert, was skilful and experienced, and the troops for the most part veterans who had served in several campaigns, but it was evident that so slender a force could achieve nothing without powerful support.

When Humbert landed his men at Killala in Co. Mayo (August 22nd), and urged the inhabitants and the neighbouring peasantry to join him and strike a blow for the liberty of their country, comparatively few responded to the call. Had the French appeared while the flame of rebellion still burned, or had their numbers been sufficiently great to afford what appeared to be a reasonable hope of success, there is little doubt that their reception would have been different. But the people must have seen that from a mere handful of men, cut off from their base of supply by the ocean, not much could be expected. On the other hand, what the vengeance of the British would be on any Irishman who joined or helped the insurrection they had good reason to know.

The English Commanders, Lake and Hutchinson, lost no time in assembling their forces. These were sufficiently numerous, certainly double those of their enemies, but they consisted mainly of militia, and

their military quality was, as soon appeared, very poor. Humbert marched from Killala to meet the English, and the two armies encountered each other near Castlebar. The engagement, which has ever since been known as "the Races of Castlebar," lasted scarcely five minutes. On the British side the artillery alone attempted resistance. The others broke before the charge of the French and fled in wild confusion, strewing the roads with the muskets which, for the most part, they had not even discharged. Well might a historian of our own day (Lecky) ask himself : “What would have happened, if, at any time within the two preceding years, 12,000 or 15,000 French soldiers like those of Humbert had been landed !"

The success of the invaders could not be other than temporary. Ireland was full of British soldiers, many of them regular troops, of very different quality from the fugitives of Castlebar. No other French expedition came to support Humbert, and on September 8th he surrendered to Lord Cornwallis at Ballinamuck (Co. Longford). The French were treated as prisoners of war, but to their Irish allies no quarter was given. On September 23rd the little town of Killala was stormed, and the last embers of the insurrection were quenched in blood.

Bompart's Expedition: Capture and Death of Wolfe Tone: His Character. A few days only after Hoche's surrender another French expedition sailed for Ireland. There was one large battleship, the Hoche, and eight frigates, under Admiral Bompart. Amongst the officers who embarked on the Hoche was Theobald Wolfe Tone.

On reaching the Irish coast close to the entrance to Lough Swilly, the French were attacked by a British squadron consisting of seven ships of war. The Hoche made a desperate resistance, and only surrendered when almost sinking. Some of the frigates succeeded in escaping and made their way back to France (October 12th).

The prisoners were landed, and the captured Frenchmen received the honourable treatment due to prisoners of war, but this was not given to Wolfe Tone. He was conveyed to Dublin, tried by court-martial, and sentenced to be hanged. He begged that this degradation might be spared him and that he might be accorded a soldier's death. Finding his request refused, he contrived to conceal a small knife, and with it inflicted on his throat a wound of which a few days afterwards he died (November 19th).

Of all the men with whose names the Irish Rebellion of 1798 is associated, Wolfe Tone is the one of whose abilities, as judged by his own writing, by the opinions of his contemporaries, and most of all by the impression made by him on the personages of distinction with whom he came in contact, we are inclined to form the highest estimate.

He

seems to have been a man of keen perception, great capacity for contriving a practicable scheme, and immense energy in carrying it out. Nor is it fair to regard the failure of the invasions attempted by Hoche, Humbert, and Bompart as the measures of Tone's incapacity to estimate the facts of the situation. The chances of success he doubtless overstated, but this success he promised only for expeditions of effective size and sent at a proper time; that is, at least, while the insurrection was in progress, if not before it had actually begun. When these conditions were in no respect fulfilled, for the disastrous results which followed he cannot be held in any degree responsible.

PRINCIPAL DATES

A.D.

Humbert's Expedition. "The Races of
Castlebar"

(August) 1798

Bompart's Expedition. Death of Wolfe Tone (October) 1798
(Consulate established in France)

1799

CHAPTER XXII

THE UNION.-PART I

The Project of a Legislative Union not Favoured in Ireland: Attitude of the Catholics.-It had already been mentioned (Chap. XV) that, for several years previous to the '98 Insurrection, the project of a legislative union between England and Ireland had been present to the mind of Pitt, and that this was well known to the authorities at Dublin Castle, though carefully concealed from the country at large.

It appears to have been generally believed, in the earlier part of the eighteenth century, that the Irish Parliament would regard a scheme for the merging of its existence in that of the Westminster assembly with favour. In 1703, and again in 1707, the Irish Houses actually petitioned for a Union, which the English Government absolutely refused to even consider.

A few generations later the ideas of the English colonists appear to have changed, or to be changing, and amongst the gentry over the country the project of a Union was viewed with no favour. In 1784 we find the Lord Lieutenant (Rutland) declaring that anyone who suggested a Union would be tarred and feathered; while, then and later, other Irish officials advised the authorities in London not even to mention a scheme which would be so ill received in Ireland.

It may be that Pitt believed that, in the closing decade of the century, Irish public opinion had, in regard to this matter, undergone a change; that the general unrest in the country, and finally the Rebellion, might have caused the Protestants to desire a closer connection with England, for the sake of their own safety; while the Catholics, who were now clamouring for the removal of their remaining disabilities, might see in the proposed legislative union a means of attaining their object. At all events, he resolved, after the suppression of the Insurrection, to proceed with his scheme without delay.

On the support, or at least acquiescence of the Catholics, the English Minister relied much. He was aware that from the leaders of the Patriot Party in Parliament he had nothing to expect but the most determined opposition. The Protestant country gentry everywhere, and the Orange Lodges of Ulster, were known to be most unfavourable. The amount of support on which he could count amongst members of