General Henry Luttrell, Lord Carhampton, had been sent into the west to suppress those of the Defenders who were creating disturbances on that side of the country. The gaols were full of persons awaiting their trial. Carhampton preceded the judges of assize with his troops, and, without any form of trial or under any warrant, drew out the prisoners and sent them on board a tender, which sailed along the coast to receive them, and shipped them on board the British fleet for compulsory naval service. The local magistrates followed his example, arresting and transporting without a pretence of legality. Upwards of a thousand persons were the victims of this aristocratic press-gang. When Parliament met in January, 1796, one of the first acts of the Government was to bring in an Indemnity Bill for the protection of those "justices of the peace and other officers and persons" who had "apprehended suspected persons without due authority, and had sent suspected persons out of the kingdom for his majesty's service, and had also seized arms, and entered houses, and done divers other acts not justifiable by law." *

Having effectually protected Carhampton and his imitators from the consequences of their high-handed illegality, and deprived all persons of any remedy against them, the next step was to arm the executive with the tremendous powers of a fresh Coercion Act. An Insurrection Bill was brought in. It provided that all persons convicted of administering unlawful oaths for seditious purposes should suffer death as felons; all persons taking *36 Geo. III., c. 6.

such oaths should be transported; that all persons should be compelled to register the arms in their possession under penalties of fine and imprisonment; that magistrates might break into and enter houses to search for arms, might apprehend strangers and examine them on oath, and commit them to the house of correction till they could find sureties for their good behaviour. It gave power to the viceroy to proclaim counties which the magistrates reported to him were in a state of disturbance. In a proclaimed county the inhabitants were commanded to keep within doors between sunset and sunrise, under pain of being brought before the justices, who were thereupon empowered, unless they were satisfied with the reasons given for such person being abroad, at once to send him to serve on board the British navy. The magistrates were also empowered to break open houses to see if the occupiers were out of doors at unlawful times. Persons who could not prove that they either had means of their own, or "industriously followed some lawful trade or employment," were liable to the same penalties.*

#

This "bloody code," as Curran called it, passed into law with little opposition. Even Grattan's effort to obtain the insertion of a special reference to the insurgent Orangemen and a clause to enable the ruined peasants and weavers of Armagh to obtain compensation from the county was summarily rejected. Lord Edward Fitzgerald was the only person who had the courage to vote against the Government.

* 36 Geo. III., c. 20.

The United Irishmen now rapidly increased in number. The ignorant Defenders of Kildare, Meath, Westmeath, Longford, Leitrim, and Roscommon were swept into their ranks. The persecuted Roman Catholics of Armagh, Down, and Louth, hopeless of protection from the law, turned to this daring association for redress. The disappointed Roman Catholics of the middle classes in Dublin were infected with the same spirit. Even some of the advanced and ardent reformers in Parliament itself, having lost all hope of constitutional reform, took the desperate and fatal resolution of appealing to force and the enemies of England, in the vain expectation of being able to establish a new order of things. "The friends of liberty were gradually, but with a timid step, advancing towards Republicanism."

CHAPTER XVI.

FRANCE AT ENGLAND'S BACK DOOR." A.D. 1796.

MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR, the member for Philipstown, a borough belonging to his uncle, Lord Longueville; and Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the member for Kildare County, joined the society in the early part of the year 1796. Lord Edward Fitzgerald was brother to the Duke of Leinster. He had served with distinction under Lord Rawdon in the American war, and at the conclusion of peace had entered the Irish Parliament. He had attached himself to the Opposition, was an ardent supporter of reform, and a strong opponent of the coercive system in governing Ireland. He was in Paris in the autumn of 1792, before war had broken out between France and England, when he made himself conspicuous at a banquet given by the English in that city to celebrate the triumph of the French arms against the invaders, by adopting the prefix of "citizen," and drinking the toast of "a speedy abolition of all hereditary and feudal distinctions;" in consequence of which the English Government dismissed him from the army along with Lord Semple and Captain Gawler,

who had also shown sympathy with the French Republic. Shortly afterwards he was married at Paris, to Paméla, the beautiful daughter of Philip Egalité and Madame de Genlis; and returned to Dublin, with his wife, to attend to his Parliamentary duties. Frank, open, and chivalrous, of simple habits, unaffected, intensely affectionate, and of a tenderly compassionate disposition, Lord Edward was a man of most lovable nature. The numerous loving letters which remain, written by him to his mother, of whom he was extremely fond, display a touching picture of warm-hearted domestic simplicity—a devoted husband, dividing his time between his wife, his babies, and his flowers. No better proof could be found of the despair which all liberal politicians felt for the future of Ireland, than the fact that such a man, with such surroundings, should have convinced himself that it was his paramount duty to plunge into a dark conspiracy for the overthrow of the English Government.

The enterprise was not so hopeless as it seems to us now looking back upon its failure near a century ago. England was engaged in a desperate conflict with France. Her military efforts in the Low Countries had been the reverse of successful; and she could ill spare troops for service in Ireland. Moreover there was good reason to believe that there was considerable disaffection in the Irish militia, and even in the regular army. If the French had succeeded in landing an expeditionary force upon the island, and a general rising had been effected, the course of history might have been very different. No one knew better than Lord Edward that an undis