[523] Mr. Froude, with the letter before him which he found, could adopt hardly any other impression. Mr. Macdonough, in Irish Graves in England, follows Froude, and speaks of O'Leary's 'traitorous conduct.' He, however, errs in assigning 1811, instead of 1802, as the date of his death. See Evening Telegraph, February 6, 1888.
[524] The omitted matter is merely a compliment.
[525] Plowden's Ireland since the Union, i. 6. (Dublin, 1811.)
[526] Mr. Lecky, who examined the State Papers, tells us that seven years later, i.e. 1791, 'The chief members of the Irish Government made it their deliberate object to revive the religious animosities which had so greatly subsided, to raise the standard of Protestant ascendancy, and to organise through the country an opposition to concession.'
[527] Vol. vi. 369.
[528] Vide Lecky, iv. 491.
[529] 'If 30,000 men under the denomination of French troops landed in Ireland,' writes O'Leary, '15,000 Protestants from France, Germany, Switzerland, &c., would make up half the number. Neither are you to confide in their promises of protection.'—O'Leary's Tract, p. [104].
[530] Dean Lee, the grandnephew of Dr. Carpenter, tells me that a smart apostate priest had been deputed to frame the new oath.
[531] Annual Register, xxi. 208. See also a fine panegyric on O'Leary, published in the Irish Quarterly Review, vii. 686.
[532] This is, no doubt, M. Perrin, of whom some particulars will be found, infra, p. [246].