Tone, of course, was an ardent Democrat, and these views of his, being speedily known, injured beyond any possibility of repair his prospects of success at the Bar—but brought him into close touch with two bodies of men who were each in their own way, struggling to be free—and nerved by the fight in France “to do or die” for liberty. These were the Catholics of Ireland, and the Dissenters of the North.
Russell’s stay in Belfast had brought him into close touch with the leaders of advanced thought in the northern city, whose programme of freedom embraced freedom not for themselves only but for the Catholics still enslaved by the Penal Laws. On the occasion of some Volunteer celebration in Belfast a resolution in favour of Catholic Emancipation was to be put forward, and Russell undertook to get Tone to draw it up. The commission was willingly accepted, and though the resolution was eventually not put to the meeting in the form Tone had given it, the circumstance had the result of setting him thinking more seriously than he had yet done on the state of Ireland. “I soon formed my theory, and on that theory I have invariably acted ever since!”
What was that theory which was to give a new impetus to Irish nationality, which was to be upheld at the cost of so much bloodshed and suffering, which was to be a dogma as living and peremptory in 1916 as in 1798—and in defence of which Patrick Pearse and his men were to face the guns of General Maxwell, as proudly as Wolfe Tone took command of the battery of the Hoche, in the glorious fight she put up, one little vessel against a whole fleet, on an October morning one hundred and eighteen years earlier. Here it is in Wolfe Tone’s own words: “To subvert the tyranny of our execrable Government, to break the connection with England, the never-failing source of all our political evils, and to assert the independence of my country—these were my objects. To unite the whole people of Ireland, to abolish the memory of all past dissensions, and to substitute the common name of Irishman in place of the denominations of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter—these were my means.”[[58]]
[58]. “Autobiography,” pp. 50, 51. Pearse held “all Irish Nationalism to be explicit in these words. Davis was to make explicit certain things here implicit, Lalor certain other things; Mitchel was to thunder the whole in words of apocalyptic wrath and splendour. But the Credo is here: ‘I believe in One Irish Nation and that Free.’”—(“Ghosts,” p. 16.)
Considering the Protestants hopeless, Tone first directed his efforts to an attempt to unite the Catholics and Dissenters. He accordingly sat down and wrote a pamphlet,[[59]] over the signature of a “Northern Whig,” in which he sought “to convince the Dissenters that they and the Catholics had but one common interest and one common enemy; that the depression and slavery of Ireland was produced and perpetuated by the divisions existing between them, and that, consequently, to assert the independence of their country, and their own individual liberties, it was necessary to forget all former feuds, to consolidate the entire strength of the whole nation, and to form for the future but one people.”[[60]]
[59]. “Argument on behalf of the Catholics of Ireland.”
[60]. “Autobiography,” p. 50.
The pamphlet had an immense success and its results a very decisive influence on the Tones’ fortunes. On the one hand, the Catholics, who under the capable leadership of John Keogh, were developing a new “forward” policy, sought out this champion of theirs and loaded him with attentions. Through John Keogh, Tone made the acquaintance of the principal Catholic leaders in Dublin, Richard MacCormick, John Sweetman, Edward Byrne, Thomas Braughall. During the winter of 1791 the Catholic leaders, who were for the most part men of great wealth, got into the fashion of giving splendid dinners to their political friends, and Tone was invariably a guest at these functions. Eventually he was offered, through the influence of Keogh, the position of assistant secretary to the Catholic Committee, with a salary of £200 a year. In those days one could live very comfortably on £200 a year, and poor Matilda Tone, who must have known many an anxious moment up to this, must have looked on it as affluence. Tone earned his salary well; and the astonishing success of the Catholic Convention was largely due to his energy and splendid power of organisation. In his efforts on behalf of the Catholics, and in his fidelity to their cause, Tone was greatly stimulated by his wife’s sympathy. He pays her, in this connection, one of the noblest compliments a wife ever received: “In these sentiments I was encouraged and confirmed by the incomparable spirit of my wife, to whose patient suffering under adversity, for we had often been reduced, and were now well accustomed to difficulties, I know not how to render justice. Women, in general, I am sorry to say, are mercenary, and, especially if they have children, they are ready to make all sacrifices to their establishment. But my dearest love had bolder and juster views. On every occasion of my life I consulted her; we had no secrets one from the other, and I unvaryingly found her think and act with energy and courage, combined with the greatest courage and discretion. If ever I succeed in life or arrive at anything like station or eminence I shall consider it as due to her counsels and her example.”[[61]]
[61]. “Autobiography,” p. 66.
The pamphlet had made an equally favourable impression on the Dissenters of the North, and especially on the advanced thinkers of Belfast. Its author was elected an honorary member of the first “or green” company of the Belfast Volunteers (an honour never before accorded to any one except Henry Flood) and invited to spend a few days in Belfast to make the personal acquaintance of the republican leaders there. He set off for the North about the beginning of October, accompanied by his friend Russell, who had left the army and happened to be in Dublin on his private affairs.