The combination of the Romanist of the south and the dissenter of the north was rapidly effected. Their mutual hatreds were compromised, for the sake of their common hostility to Church and State. Upwards of 100,000 men in arms were promised by the north; millions, to be hereafter armed, were offered by the south; agents were despatched to urge French expeditions; correspondences were held with America for aid; the whole machinery of rebellion was in full employment, and a civil war was already contemplated by a group of villains, incapable of any one of the impulses of honourable men.
It is memorable that, in the subsequent convulsion, not one of those men of blood displayed the solitary virtue of the ruffian—courage. They lived in subterfuge, and they died in shame. Some of them perished by the rope, not one of them fell by the sword. The leaders begged their lives, betrayed their dupes, acknowledged their delinquencies, and finished their days beyond the Atlantic, inflaming the hostility of America, libelling the government by which their lives were spared, and exemplifying the notorious impossibility of reforming a rebel but by the scaffold.
Attempts have been made, of late years, to raise those men into the reputation of heroism; they might as justly have been raised into the reputation of loyalty. No sophistry can stand against the facts. Not one of them took the common hazards of the field: they left the wretched peasantry to fight, and satisfied themselves with harangues. Even the poetic painting of Moore cannot throw a halo round the head of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. This hero walked the country in woman's clothes, to be arrested in his bed, and perish in a prison. Tone cut his throat. Irishmen are naturally brave; but it is no dishonour to the nation to know that treason degrades the qualities of nature, and that conscience sinks the man of nerve into the poltroon.
It was among the singular instances of good fortune which saved Ireland in her crisis, that Lord Castlereagh assumed the duties of Irish Secretary. Uniting mildness of address with known determination, he was a favourite in the House of Commons, which in those days was proud of its character alike for manners and intrepidity. His indefatigable vigilance, and even the natural vigour of his time of life, rendered him adequate to services and labours which might have broken down the powers of an older man, and which must have been declined by the feeble health of his predecessor, Pelham, who still actually retained the office. Even his family connexion with the Viceroy may have given him a larger share than usual of the immediate confidence of government.
Under all circumstances, he was the fittest man for the time. He protected the country in the most difficult period of its existence. There was but one more service to secure Ireland against ruinous change—the rescue of her councils from the dominion of the mob; and it was his eminent fortune to effect it, by the Union.
There is the most ample evidence, that neither parliamentary reform nor Catholic emancipation were the true objects of the United Irishmen. The one was a lure to the malcontents of the north, the other to the malcontents of the south. But the secret council of the conspiracy—determined to dupe the one, as it despised the other—had resolved on a democracy, which, in its day of triumph, following the steps of France, would, in all probability, have declared itself infidel, and abolished all religion by acclamation. Party in the north pronounced its alliance with France, by commemorating, with French pageantry, the anniversary of the Revolution. The remnants of the old volunteer corps were collected at this menacing festival, which lasted for some days, and exhibited all the pomp and all the insolence of Paris. Emblematic figures were borne on carriages drawn by horses, with republican devices and inscriptions. On one of those carriages was a figure of Hibernia, with one hand and foot in shackles, and a volunteer presenting to her a figure of Liberty, with the motto, "The releasement of the prisoners from the Bastille." On another was the motto,—"Our Gallic brethren were born July 14th, 1789. Alas! we are still in embryo." Another inscription was—"Superstitious jealousy the cause of the Irish Bastille; let us unite and destroy it." The portrait of Franklin was exhibited among them, with this inscription,—"Where Liberty is, there is my country." Gunpowder and arms were put in store, pikes were forged, and treasonous addresses were privately distributed throughout the country.
It is to be observed, that those acts occurred before the accession of Lord Castlereagh to office: their existence was the result of that most miserable of all policies—the sufferance of treason, in the hope that it may die of sufferance. If he had guided the Irish councils in 1792 instead of in 1794, the growing treason would have either shrunk from his energy, or been trampled out by his decision.
It has been the custom of party writers to charge the secretary with rashness, and even with insolence. The answer is in the fact, that, until the year in which the revolt became imminent, his conduct was limited to vigilant precaution—to sustaining the public spirit—to resisting the demands of faction in the House—and to giving the loyal that first and best creator of national courage—the proof that, if they did not betray themselves, they would not be betrayed by their government.
In 1798, the rebellion was ripe. The conspirators had been fully forewarned of their peril by the vigour of public measures. But, disgusted by the delays of France,—conscious that every hour was drawing detection closer round them; and still more, in that final frenzy which Providence suffers to take possession of men abusing its gifts of understanding,—they at last resolved on raising the flag of rebellion. A return of the rebel force was made by Lord Edward Fitzgerald, stating the number of armed men in Ulster, Leinster, and Munster, at 279,896! and the 23d of May was named as the day of the general insurrection.
Government now began to act. On the 12th of March, it arrested the whole body of the delegates of Leinster, assembled in committee in the metropolis. The seizure of their papers gave the details of the treason. Warrants were instantly issued for the arrest of the remaining leaders, Emmett, M'Nevin, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and others. We hasten on. A second committee was formed; and again broken up by the activity of the government. The French agency was next extinguished, by the arrest of O'Connor, the priest Quigley, and others, on the point of leaving England for France. Seizures of arms were made, the yeomanry were put on duty, the loyalists were formed into corps, armed, and disciplined.