341 
IREL 
clamatioji, commanding a general furrender of arms in 
his diftriiil; and the troops were direfted to fearch all fuf- 
peSted places, and to prevent unlawful affemblies, elpe- 
cially after a certain hour in the night. This was followed, 
in May, by a proclamation from the lord-lieutenant, de¬ 
claring that, as the civil power had been found ineffica¬ 
cious, orders had been fent to the military officers to ufe 
their exertions.for the fuppreffion of treafon; and offering 
a pardon to"all, except men guilty of certain fpecified 
crimes, who ffiould furrender to the magiilrates, and take 
the oath of allegiance, before the 24th of June. The mi¬ 
litary were directed to aft without waiting for any autho¬ 
rity from the civil power; and the removal of this reftraint 
was produftive of fuch effefts as might be expefted from 
undifciplined troops, with inexperienced officers. Con¬ 
flagration and plunder involved many innocent perfons in 
abjeft mifery. The houfes of thofe who produced not the 
arms fuppofed to be in their poffeffion, were burned or 
pillaged, and many were tortured to force a difcovery. 
In the wealthy town of Belfaft, in particular, where mi¬ 
litary licence was rudely exercifed, the deftruftion of pro¬ 
perty Was prodigious; and men of undoubted loyalty have 
declared, that the conduft of fome of the troops in Uliler 
feemed calculated to excite a rebellion, if none had been 
intended. 
According to private information, however, a general 
inl'urreflion was intended to take place in Ulfter before 
the end of June: but, by the vigorous meafures purfued 
to prevent it, the plan was fruftrated. A trifling com¬ 
motion only took place near the mountains in the county 
of Down. The inferior focieties of the United Iriffi in 
the north difcontinued their meetings; the term of fur¬ 
render and pardon was by proclamation prolonged to the 
24th of July; and order was fo far reftored, that the in¬ 
terference of the military was difpenfed with,“and the-ad- 
miniftration of juftice again committed to the civil power. 
The leaders of the union, nofwithftanding this failure in 
the north, were zealoufly extending their fyftem in the 
fouthern and vveftern parts of the ifland. Their organi¬ 
zation, new-modelled in Auguft 1797, had affumed a mi¬ 
litary form. The following general outline will afford 
fome idea of the conflitution of this affociation. It con- 
filled of a multitude of focieties, clofely linked together, 
and afcending in gradation to a common point of union. 
The loweft or fimple focieties were each compofed at 
mod of twelve men, as near neighbours as poffible, fub- 
jcrft to the infpeftion of one another. Five fectetaries, 
defied by five fimple focieties, formed a lower baronial 
committee, which had the immediate fuperintendence of 
thefe focieties. Ten delegates, cliofen in like manner 
from ten lower, compofed an upper baronial committee, 
and directed the bufinefs of thofe ten lower committees. 
With the fame fuperintendence oyer their conftituent af¬ 
lemblies, delegates from the upper baronial committees, 
one from each, formed county committees in the coun¬ 
try, and in populous towns diftridt committees ; the pro¬ 
vincial committees, one for each of the four provinces, 
were compofed of two, and in fome cafes three, delegates 
from each of'"the diftrict and county committees. The 
fupreme diredlion of the whole machine was veiled in an 
executive directory of five perfons, unknown to all except 
, the four fecretaries of the provincial committees; being 
defied by ballot in thefe committees, the fecretaries of 
which alone examined the ballots, and notified the elec¬ 
tion to none but the perfons on whom it fell. The orders 
of this fecret direfling power were conveyed through the 
whole body by channels not eafily difcoverable. Its man¬ 
dates were carried by one of its members or.-ly, to onfi 
member of each provincial committee; by the latSer they 
were communicated to the fecretaries of the diitrifl and 
county committees in the province, by thefe to the upper 
baronial committees, and thus downward through "the 
lower baronial to the fimple focieties. 
The military was engrafted on the civil organization. 
The fecretary of each of the fimple focieties was its ferjeant 
or corporal. The delegate of five fimple focieties to a 
Vol. XI. No. 758. 
AND, 
lower baronial committee, was commonly captain ovef 
thefe five, that is, of a company of fixty men ; and the 
delegate of ten lower baronial committees to an upper or 
diftrifl committee, was generally colonel of fix hundred 
men, compofed of the fifty fimple focieties under the fu¬ 
perintendence of this upper committee. Out of three 
perfons nominated by the colonels of each county to the 
diredory, one was appointed by that body to ad as adju¬ 
tant-general. To complete the fcheme, a military com¬ 
mittee was appointed by the diredory, but not before the 
beginning of 1798, to devife plans for the diredion of the 
national force in unaided rebellion, or co-opera'tion with 
a foreign army. All the members of the union were or¬ 
dered to furnifli themfelves with mufkets or pikes, accord¬ 
ing to their ability. To form a fund' for defraying fhc 
expences of this plan, monthly fubfcriptions were col- 
leded in the feveral focieties, and treafurers appointed for 
their colledion and dilburfement. 
In May 1797, the number of men enrolled in Ulfter 
only, as members of this fociety, amounted to near 100,000. 
Its principal ftrength then lay in that province, and in the 
metropolis, witli the neighbouring counties of Kildare, 
Meath, Weftmeath, and King’s County. Emiffaries were 
difpatched to other parts of the kingdom, to engage their 
inhabitants in the emifie; and, to roufc the numerous Ca¬ 
tholics to fecond their views, the leaders of the union in¬ 
vented and induftrioufly propagated reports of intended 
maflacres by troops of proteftants and Orange-men, who 
were afferted to have vowed to wade knee-deep, or, if 
opportunity (hould be given, to ride faddle-deep, in the 
biood of catholics. Though fome pains were taken to 
refute fuch calumnies' by the Orange affociation, which 
had by this time fpread over the north and into Leinfter, 
particularly the metropolis, where perfons of high rank 
had become members, yet their pacific proteftations gained 
no credit with the lower claffes of catholics, whofe alarm 
and bigotry were heightened by a palloral letter from 
Dr, Hulley, the Romiffi bifhop of Waterford; an intem¬ 
perate publication, in which he treated the proteftants 
with great infolence, as a contemptible feci, whofe prepon¬ 
derance would foon be at an end, charging them with 
practices of which they were innocent, and exhorting the 
Romifii clergy to interdift the children of their parilhion- 
ers from mixing with proteftants in places of education. 
Two committees of United Irifhmen had been arrefted 
at Belfaft ; and, on the 19th of April, 1797, a fecret com¬ 
mittee of the houfe of commons was ordered to examine 
their papers. The report of this committee was pubiiffied 
for the purpofe of undeceiving thofe members of the,Iriffi 
union, who, though really loyal, had been feduced into 
the confederacy by the idea, that its ultimate objeft was 
parliamentary reform. On the 15th of May a motion for 
a temperate reform, including a political equalization of 
catholics with proteftants, was made by Mr. Ponfonby. 
Conceffion in thefe two points was recommended as a 
meafure calculated to overthrow the Iriffi union by re¬ 
moving the fubjefts of difeontent, by which its conduct¬ 
ors had been enabled to work with fuch effeft on the 
minds of the people. The motion was negatived by a 
majority of fix to one; on which Grattan, whofe efforts in 
this caufe had been unremitted, delpairing of fuccefs, re- 
folved on a total feceffion from parliament. 
Attempts had been made in other places againft the 
fyftem of coercion. Sheriffs and other officers legally qua¬ 
lified had been requefted to call public meetings in coun¬ 
ties, towns, and diftrifls, to take into confideration the 
propriety of preparing addrefles to the king for the remcr- 
val of his minifters. The affemblies'were prevented by 
the refufal of the officers, or by threats of military vio¬ 
lence ; and, where the inhabitants aflually affembled, they 
were difperfed by the troops. But this was not the extent 
of the oppreffion which the Iriffi had on this occafion to 
complain of. The earl of Moira, who, in March and 
November 1797, ineffeflually moved in thf Britiffi houfe 
of lords, “That an humble addrefs ffiould be prefenied 
to the king, praying him to interpofe his paternal au- 
4 S thority 
