"We are assured," says a Brussels print, "that in case the French republicans shall be able to make a successful descent upon Ireland, the Belgic youth will be employed in that country under General Kilmaine, who, being a native of it, will there have the command of the united French and Irish forces." Citizen Macdonagh was to have a high command in the corps of Irish Marines. He held the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in France.
By the end of 1798 the army of England and its expedition were alike dissolved, and the Directory wished to give Kilmaine command of the forces assembled for the war in Egypt; but for the present his career finished with the military examination of the coasts of France and Holland.
In 1799 the Directory appointed him generalissimo of the army of Helvetia, as they chose to designate Switzerland; thus reviving the ancient name of the people whom Julius Cæsar conquered. The French troops already occupied Lombardy on one side, and the Rhenish provinces on the other; thus they never doubted their ability to conquer the Swiss and remodel the Helvetic constitution. Kilmaine accepted the command with satisfaction, but his failing health compelled him to give up his bâton to Massena; and with a sorrow which he could not conceal, he saw that army march which penetrated into the heart of the Swiss mountains, and imposed on their hardy inhabitants a constitution in which Bonaparte, under the plausible title of Mediator, secured the co-operation of the valiant descendants of the Helvetii in his further schemes of conquest and ambition.
In a feeble condition Kilmaine returned to Paris, where his domestic sorrows and chagrins added to the poignancy of his bodily sufferings, for his constitution was now completely broken up.
Struck by a deadly malady, he died on the 15th of December, 1799, in the forty-ninth year of his age, at the very moment when the triumphant elevation of Bonaparte was opening up to his comrades a long and brilliant career of military glory. He was interred with all the honours due to his rank and bravery, and a noble monument was erected to his memory.
AND THE IRISH IN SPAIN.
Ireland, says a popular Scottish writer, can boast not only of having transplanted more of her sons to the soil of Spain than either of the sister kingdoms, but of having acquired by the deeds of her exiles a degree of renown to which the others cannot aspire.