until the end of '97, the United Irish system had made very little progress in Connaught. In the general report of their organization to the provincial committee assembled at Dungannon in the autumn of that year, it was stated that the system was gradually progressive then in Mayo and Sligo, and that many of the Northerns who had emigrated from Ulster in the spring of '98, to escape, as they pretended, the persecutions they were exposed to for conscience' sake by the Orange party in the North, had given a fresh stimulus to the disaffection of the Western peasantry, which hitherto, like a half-ignited fire, seemed uncertain whether it would tardily kindle into life, or become extinct altogether. These Northern emigrants were hospitably received. With their fellow Romanists, the story of religious persecution was sufficient to secure a welcome and with the Protestant landholders, their superior intelligence and industrious habits formed a striking contrast to the ignorance and idleness of the Connaught peasantry, and their advent was considered, from acquirements and example, as likely to be attended by local improvement and the establishment of a linen manufacture. In consequence of these favourable opinions, several hundred families were permitted to become settlers on the Western coast, and for a time their general conduct was orderly and industrious. But before long suspicion arose that their emigration from the North was not altogether occasioned by the religious rancour of the Protestants, and that they had, in a great degree, provoked it. It was discovered that they speculated in politics-obtained newspapers --and in secret meetings discussed their contents. They also promulgated a number of strange and alarming prophecies, which they pretended had been delivered by ancient Irish bards, foretelling wars and calamities which were about to take place immediately, and declaring that the most terrible cruelties would be inflicted by the Protestants on the Romanists, until the rivers would run blood, and the unburied dead should occasion a general pestilence. The credulity of the lower Irish is proverbial. No rumour, however monstrous, will be refused credence, and the wildest creations of a distempered mind will be received as the outbreakings of inspiration. On an excitable and superstitious peasantry, these prophecies had, therefore, due effect-and considering Protestants to be deadly enemies, they banded together for mutual protection-they bound themselves by solemn ties to overturn the constitution, and extirpate those who held any doctrines save those of the Church of Rome; and so secretly was the conspiracy hatched, that many thousands were thus united before a discovery of these treasonable proceedings was effected. Emissaries were engaged to propagate their seditious doctrines-money levied to defend the conspirators on trial, and maintain the families of those who were obliged to abscond from the country-and, in short, every preliminary means was used to assist their brethren elsewhere, and take an efficient part in the general insurrection, which it was known was on the eve of bursting out. As the conspiracy in Connaught was almost entirely confined to the Roman Catholics, the bond of union there was cemented by a religious tie which could not be employed but very cautiously in Leinster or the North, from so many Protestants being members of the confederacy. This was the institution of a mystic order, professedly religious, called "The Carmelites," but secretly devised for the better and more extensive spread of treason. "They provided funds for the support of the wives and children of those men who were severed from their country and the sweets of domestic life; powerful exertions were made to recover some from banishment, and to procure others the protection of more friendly states. "These exertions were not always unsuccessful, nor could they escape the observation of a vigilant government, and consequently its censure. Another subject of disquiet to men in power was the difficulty they sometimes encountered in procuring convictions for political offences. The spy and informer were guarded with the most watchful attention. Their informations were considered secret as the inquisitorial tribunal, and yet these informations were often communicated to confidential individuals; which enabled the committee intrusted with the prisoners' defence to defeat the informer's treachery, and rescue the intended victim from the snare of death."* Its directors were chiefly mendicant friars, a low and degraded order of the Catholic Church. As the advantages of belonging to the Carmelite Society were great, and the price of obtaining admission into a body whose members were insured eternal beatitude was a trifle, numbers of the dark-minded peasants joined this ridiculous association. "At their initiation they received a square piece of brown cloth, with the letters IHS inscribed on it, meaning Jesus Hominum Salvator, which was hung round the neck with a string, and lying on the shoulder next to the skin, was, from its situation, called a scapular. The price of it on initiation was, to the poorer class, one shilling; to those who could afford it, higher in proportion to their ability. This distinguishing badge of the order having received the priest's benediction, was supposed to contain the virtue of preserving the disciple, not only from outward dangers and injuries, but also from the attacks of the ghostly enemy. They ascribed to these scapulars the power of protecting a house in which one of them happened to be from being consumed by fire, or of extinguishing one on fire, if thrown into the flames, while the sacred extinguisher would remain perfectly safe from the power of the fire, like the three Hebrews in the Babylonian furnace. "The ignorance and credulity of the popish multitude were imposed on by the following device: the cloth of which these scapulars was originally made, being composed of the Asbestos, possesses a quality to resist fire; and on receiving the priest's benediction, they were com * Teeling. mitted to the flames, where, to the astonishment of the beholders, they were found to preserve themselves safe and entire; and having undergone this fiery ordeal, the supernatural power which produced it was ascribed to the priest's benediction. To such an extent was this disgusting system carried, that at last the wearing of a scapular became the test by which true believers were to be distinguished. Bags of these holy emblems were sold publicly in fair and market, and "a shop was opened soon after the landing of the French, where all the sons of Erin, with their pikes in their hands, were supplied with scapulars at a regulated price." + The system of terrorism was also incessantly persevered in general murders were announced-and the people continued not to sleep in their own houses to avoid surprise. The strangest means by which these imaginary massacres were to be effected, were invented, promulgated, and believed-and the peasantry in many places actually remained night after night in the open fields, as the only means of escaping the devilish devices of the destroyers. Such was the state of Mayo and Connaught generally, when, on the 22nd of August, '98, three French frigates, with English colours flying, entered Killalla Bay. No suspicion was occasioned by their appearance, and under the belief that they were British cruisers, several gentlemen from the town visited the strangers, and when declared prisoners, first discovered their mistake. Killalla was then a bishop's see, being one of those suppressed on the passing of the Reform Bill. On the day when the French appeared in the bay, the lord bishop was holding his annual visitation, and the clergy of the diocese were collected in the castle, as the seehouse was popularly called. The strange vessels, however, excited no alarm-dinner passed quietly-the guests were preparing to departwhen that intention was accelerated by the arrival of a breathless messenger, to inform the company and their host, that the French had actually landed, and an advanced guard of three hundred men were marching on the town. Killalla was feebly garrisoned by a party of the Prince of Wales' fencibles and a few yeomanry, the whole not exceeding fifty or sixty men-but still they offered a bold resistance, until, with the loss of a few killed and wounded, they were finally driven into the castle, and obliged to surrender. Humbert, after summoning the bishop to his presence, and having announced that he came from the great nation to give the Irish liberty, and sever the yoke of England which had so long oppressed them, proceeded to put into requisition his lordship's * Musgrave. + Gordon. "A few days before the French landed, a report was industriously circulated, that the Protestants had entered into a conspiracy to massacre the Roman Catholics, and they would not spare man, woman, or child. It was said, that for this purpose a large quantity of combustible stuff had been introduced by the Orangemen, who made a kind of black candles of it; that they were of such a quality, that they could not be extinguished when once lighted, and that in whatever house they should be burnt, they would produce the destruction of every person in it."—Musgrave. horses, sheep, and cows, intimating, at the same time, that the Irish directory, to be established immediately in Connaught, would pay the full value of the same. The French officers gave the following account of the expedition: "About eighteen days before 1,500 men, some of whom had served under Bonaparte in Italy, the rest had been of the army of the Rhine, embarked on board three frigates at Rochelle, and of a very dark night, eluded (beyond their expectation) the vigilance of the English fleet, which was close behind them. Two of them had forty-four guns, eighteen-pounders, the other thirty-eight guns, twelve-pounders. They said, also, that they brought nine pieces of cannon, and arms for 100,000 men; but this was a French gasconade, as they had arms only for 5,500 men, and but two four-pounders. The meager persons, and the wan and sallow countenances of these troops, whose numbers did not exceed 1,060 rank and file, and seventy officers, strongly indicated the severe hardships which they must have undergone. "They hoisted a green flag in front of the castle with the Irish words, Erin go braugh!' inscribed on it, which signifies, in English, Ireland for ever,' and they invited the people to join them, having assured them that they would enjoy freedom and happiness by doing so. "The first day they passed in landing arms and ammunition; the second, in clothing and arming the natives, of whom great multitudes flocked to their standard, and in granting commissions to Irish officers."* Compared with the other armaments destined for the invasion of Ireland, Humbert's was by far the smallest. The grand army, termed "The Reserve," which was commanded by General Kilmaine, amounted in round numbers to 10,000; and a second, lying in the harbour of Brest, under General Hardy, had 3,000 men on board. Neither, however, attempted to put to sea-and although Kilmaine never appeared in person, his proclamations were abundantly distributed.† * Bishop Stock's Narrative. "Health and Fraternity to the People of Ireland! "The great nation has sent me to you with a band of heroes, to deliver you from the hands of tyrants. Fly to our standards, and share with us the glory of subduing the world. We will teach you the art of war, and to despise the low pursuits of toil and industry; you shall live on the spoils of war, and the labours of others. The acquisition of wealth is the acquisition of misery, and the enjoyment of ease is inglorious. We have made all the nations we have conquered happy, by arresting their property, by applying it to the common cause, and consecrating it to the champions of liberty! Property is a common right, belonging to the valour that seizes it. We have already destroyed the unaspiring tranquillity of Switzerland! and the wealth, and the power, and the bigotry of Italy are no more! If then the justice of France has thus extended its reforming vengeance to unoffending nations, consider with how much more rigour it will visit you, if you shall slight its benignity. Fly to our standard, and we will free you from spiritual as well as temporal subjection; we will free you from the fetters of religion, and the frauds of priestcraft. Religion is a bondage intolerable to free minds; we have banished it from our own country, and put down that grand impostor the pope, whose wealth we have sacrificed on the altar of reason. Fly to our standard, and we will break your connection with England, we will save you the mortification of seeing yourselves under an invidious government, and exalt you into the rank of those countries which now enjoy |