326 IRELAND. 



tious and disaffected took advantage to promote their designs, and 

 increase the numbers of their adherents. 



About the beginning of the year 1791, the society which has since 

 become so notorious under the name of United Irishmen was insti- 

 tuted ; the ostensible principles of which were parliamentary reform, 

 and what they chose to term catholic emancipation, or a full restora- 

 tion of the catholics to all the privileges of Irish subjects. This so- 

 ciety is said to have owed its origin to a person whose life has since 

 paid the forfeit of his treasonable intrigues, Mr. Theobald Wolfe 

 Tone, and its constitution certainly evinced much ability and politi- 

 cal knowledge. The real views of the authors and leaders, which, 

 latterly at least, appear to have been no less than to effect a total se- 

 paration of the country from Great Britain, and the erection of a re- 

 public, after the plan and under the protection of France, were pro- 

 bably scarcely mistrusted by the great body of the members. The 

 first and principal article expressed that " the society was constitut- 

 ed for the purpose of forwarding a brotherhood of affection, a com- 

 munity of rights, and an union of power among Irishmen of every 

 religious persuasion ; and thereby to obtain a complete reform in the 

 legislature, founded on the principles of civil, political, and religious 

 liberty." For several years this society, from the secrecy and cir- 

 cumspection with which its affairs were conducted, attracted but lit- 

 tle the attention of government. But the violence of party disputes 

 which followed on the recal of earl Fitzwilliam, considerably increas- 

 ed the number of its adherents, and added to them several persons of 

 abilities and influence, in particular Mr. Arthur O'Connor, who had 

 distinguished himself by his able support of eai^l Fitzwilliam's admi- 

 nistration in the house of commons ; Dr. M'Nevin, who had been 

 chairman of the committee for enforcing the claims set forth in the 

 catholic petition ; and Mr. Oliver Bond, an opulent citizen of Dublin, 

 who had been an active supporter of the same principles. From the 

 confession of these very persons, it appears, however, that when they 

 joined this society, the views of its leaders were no longer confined 

 to parliamentary or constitutional relief of any kind ; since in the 

 year 1795, through the medium of Mr. Tone, and other Irish refu- 

 gees who had fled to France, a regular communication was opened 

 between the French directory and the United Irishmen ; and in the 

 course of the summer of 1796, lord Edward Fitzgerald proceeded to 

 Switzerland, and had an interview, near the French frontier, with ge- 

 neral Hoche, when it is believed the whole plan of an invasion was 

 finally adjusted. An attempt to carry it into execution was*made in 

 the December following, when the French fleet took the opportunity 

 afforded by a thick fog to elude the vigilance of admiral Colpoys, by 

 •whom they had been for several months blocked up in Brest, and set 

 sail for Ireland. But the fleet was dispersed by violent storms : a 

 part of it, however, consisting of eight two-deckers, and nine other 

 vessels of different classes, anchored, on the 24th, in Bantry bay. 

 The violence of the weather preventing any attempt to effect a land- 

 ing, they quitted the coast on the 27th in the evening; but an officer 

 and seven men were driven on shore in a boat belonging to one of the 

 French ships. This officer, upon examination, stated that the fleet, 

 when it left Brest, consisted of about fifty sail, and that it had on 

 board twenty-five thousand men, commanded by general Hoche. A 

 considerable degree of alarm was excited in Ireland by the appear- 

 ance of this armament ; but the people in general, in this part of the 



