She had need of all her woman’s resources to comfort him as one after another his dearest hopes were blighted. There was first the death of Hoche; then the defeat of the Dutch fleet at Camperdown, and the consequent abandonment of the Dutch expedition to Ireland. Then there was the rise to supreme military power in France of Bonaparte, whom Thomas Addis Emmet later pronounced to be “the greatest enemy the Irish people ever had.”
When Bonaparte, on the eve of the Irish Insurrection, sailed to Egypt with the army which had been ostensibly collected for an attack on England through Ireland, Tone gave up all hope. It was in this frame of mind he joined Hardy’s expedition which sailed (in the wake of Humbert’s failure, and the fiasco of Napper Tandy’s descent on Rutland Island) from the Bay of Cameret on September 20th, 1798. William Tone relates that “at the period of this expedition he was hopeless of its success, and in the deepest despondency at the prospect of Irish affairs. Such was the wretched indiscretion of the [French] Government, that before his departure he read himself, in the Bien Informé, a Paris newspaper, a detailed account of the whole armament, where his own name was mentioned in full letters with the circumstance of his being on board the Hoche. There was therefore no hope of secrecy. He had all along deprecated the idea of these attempts on a small scale. But he had also declared repeatedly that if the Government sent only a corporal’s guard, he felt it his duty to go along with them.... His resolution was, however, deliberately and inflexibly taken, in case he fell into the hands of the enemy, never to suffer the indignity of a public execution.” Of this resolution of her husband’s, Matilda Tone was fully informed. For he spoke of it quite plainly in her presence on the occasion of a dinner-party given at their house in Paris a few days before the departure of the expedition.
And so she let him go from her—knowing full well that she would never see him again. How truly had he judged of her—and of himself—when he wrote the words: “She is my first object. But would I sacrifice the interest 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.”
His body was lying under the green sod in Bodenstown Churchyard when his last message to her was delivered. How did she ever bear to read the lines he penned in his prison cell, when even now at this distance of time, we who knew him not at all can hardly see them for our tears?
“Provost Prison—Dublin Barracks,
“Le 20 Brumaire, an 7 (10 Nov.’98).
“Dearest Love,—The hour is at last come when we must part. As no words can express what I feel for you and our children, I shall not attempt it; complaint of any kind would be beneath your courage and mine; be assured I will die as I have lived, and that you will have no cause to blush for me.”
“I have written on your behalf to the French Government, to the Minister of Marine, to General Kilmaine and to Mr. Shee. With the latter I wish you especially to advise. In Ireland I have written to your brother Harry, and to those of my friends who are about to go into exile, and who, I am sure, will not abandon you.
“Adieu, dearest love: I find it impossible to finish this letter. Give my love to Mary; and above all things, remember that you are now the only parent of our dearest children, and that the best proof you can give of your affection for me will be to preserve yourself for their education. God Almighty bless you all.