Then suddenly all was changed. One day Matilda came into the little study, where her husband dreamed his time away, waiting for the legal formalities attending the purchase of his plantation to be completed, and in her hand was a bundle of letters from Ireland. John Keogh had written; Tom Russell had written; the two Simmses had written—and each of them in the same strain, telling Tone that the public mind in Ireland was advancing towards republicanism faster than even he could believe, and pressing him in the strongest manner to fulfil the engagement he had made with them at his departure, and to move heaven and earth to force his way to the French Government in order to supplicate their assistance. Wm. Simms, at the end of a most friendly and affectionate letter, desired Tone to draw upon him for £200 sterling.
Tone immediately handed the letters to his wife and sister and desired their opinion which he foresaw would be that he should immediately, if possible, set out for France. “My wife, especially, whose courage and whose zeal for my honour and interests were not in the least abated by all her past sufferings, supplicated me to let no consideration of her or our children stand for a moment in the way of my engagements to our friends and my duty to my country, adding, that she would answer for our family during my absence, and that the same Providence which had so often, as it were, miraculously preserved us would, she was confident, not desert us now. My sister joined her in those entreaties, and it may well be supposed I required no great supplication to induce me to make one more attempt in a cause to which I had been so long devoted.”
It was Tone’s way never to lose time about any business he might have on hand; and accordingly, the very next morning he set off from Princeton for Philadelphia to see Minister Adet. He now found Adet as eager to forward his design, as he had formerly found him lukewarm. The Minister promised him letters for the French Government recommending him in the strongest manner, and offered him money for his expenses. Tone gratefully accepted the letters but declined the monetary assistance. He next sent a messenger to Ireland in the person of the young brother, Arthur, who had in the meantime turned up at Princeton, and charged him to tell only Neilson, Simms and Russell in Belfast, and Keogh and MacCormick in Dublin, that he was sailing for France as soon as he could get a vessel. Everybody else in Ireland—especially his father and mother—was to be left under the impression that he was farming in Princeton. Tone then settled up his financial affairs; allowed himself one day’s holiday in Philadelphia with his old friends Reynolds, Hamilton Rowan and Napper Tandy (who had recently arrived there). By December the 13th—that is to say exactly within a fortnight from his departure—he was back in Princeton with Hamilton Rowan to take leave of his family.
He has given us a graphic account of the last night in the American home. “We supped together in high spirits, and Rowan retiring immediately after, my wife, sister and I sat together till very late, engaged in that kind of animated and enthusiastic conversation which our characters and the nature of the enterprise I was embarked in may be supposed to give rise to. The courage and firmness of the women supported me, and them, too, beyond my expectations; we had neither tears nor lamentations, but, on the contrary, the most ardent hope, and the most steady resolution. At length, at four the next morning, I embraced them for the last time, and we parted with a steadiness that astonished me.”
But Tone had not yet gauged the depths of his wife’s heroic devotion to him—and to Ireland. It was only when he had reached New York and was on the eve of embarkation—too late to have his determination weakened by any anxiety for her condition—that she told him of the little life that stirred beneath her heart.
We have but a scanty record of the life of Matilda and Mary Tone and the children during the months when Theobald (having landed at Havre de Grace on February 1st, 1796) was making his way by the mere force of his will and personality to the cabinets of the most powerful ministers in France. But our thoughts are turned to them constantly. We know how as Tone came home from interviews with De La Croix, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, or the American Minister, Monroe, or Carnot, or Hoche, he was concerned above all for what his “dearest love” would think of how he had comported himself. “I mention these little circumstances because I know they will be interesting to her whom I prize above my life ten thousand times. There are about six persons in the world who will read these detached memorandums with pleasure; to every one else they would appear sad stuff. But they are only for the women of my family, for the boys if ever we meet again, and for my friend, P.P.” When he sees Lodoïska, wife of J. B. Loubet, and records her heroism when her husband was a fugitive from the vengeance of Robespierre, he wishes his dearest love could see her, too. “I think she would behave as well in similar circumstances. Her courage and her affection have been tried in some, very nearly as critical.” When in a fit of self-examination he seeks out his own motives, he finds it difficult to decide whether it is his country or his wife he must put first. “I hope (but I am not sure) my country is my first object, at least she is my second. If there be one before her, as I rather believe there is, it is my dearest life and love, the light of my eyes and spirit of my existence. I wish more than for anything on earth to place her in a splendid situation. There is none so elevated that she would not adorn, and that she does not deserve, and I believe that not I only, but every one who knows her, will agree as to that. Truth is truth! She is my first object. But would I sacrifice the interests of Ireland to her elevation? No, that I would not, and if I would, she would despise me, and if she were to despise me, I would go hang myself like Judas. Well there is no regulator for the human heart like the certainty of possessing the affections of an amiable woman, and, if so, what unspeakable good fortune is mine.”
He compares French women and English women in point of charm and attractiveness—and awards the palm to the French. But both of them must yield to Irish women. “Give me Ireland for women to make wives and mothers of.... The more I see of this wide world, the more I prize the inestimable blessing I possess in my wife’s affection, her virtues, her courage, her goodness of heart, her sweetness of temper, and besides she is very pretty, a circumstance which does not lessen her value in my eyes. What is she doing just now, and what would I give to be with her, and the little fanfans for half-an-hour.” But one would need a whole book for Tone’s charming love-making to his wife.
In May, 1796, Tone wrote to Matilda desiring her to come to France. She sold out their little property in America, turned the proceeds into louis d’or, and set off with Mary and the children. On the voyage they met two men who were to be intimately connected with their fate. One was a Scotchman, Mr. Wilson, of Dullatur; the other, a young Swiss merchant called Giacque. M. Giacque fell deeply in love with Mary Tone, and his love being returned, the first letter Theobald received from his wife, announcing their safe arrival in Hamburg, contained also a request for his consent to Mary’s marriage.
Tone received that letter after his return from the unfortunate expedition to Bantry Bay. The prospect of seeing his dear ones again consoled him for the terrible disappointment of the expedition. But alas! There was news in the letter which disturbed him deeply. Mrs. Tone’s health had suffered gravely from all she had undergone. For this reason her husband considered it unwise for her to undertake the journey from Hamburg in the depth of winter. He, therefore, instructed her to stay in Hamburg for the present, more especially as Mary and her husband were likely to set up house there, pending the arrangements he would be able to make for her.