of insurrection and assassination in direct terms, and containing a description of those persons by name (particularly magistrates, and such as had served on juries) who were to be held out to the party as objects of assassination, on account of their active loyalty, or a conscientious discharge of their duty.

Towards the end of the same year, a newspaper, called the Press, was established, latterly published in the name of Mr. A. O'Connor as proprietor thereof, who has admitted before your committee, that he was for more than a year a member of the executive directory of the Irish union, and who, as it appears to your committee frora various channels of information, was a most active and confidential leader of their treason in its principal departments, both at home and abroad, which conveyed periodical exhortations to all manner of outrage and insubordination. Every species of misrepresention and sophistry was made use of to vilify the govern ment, to extend the union, to shake the connexion with Great Britain, to induce the people to look to French assistance, to exaggerate the force and numbers of the disaffected, and systematically to degrade the administration of justice in all its departments. This paper, conducted on principles still more licentious than the Northern Star (which had contributed so largely to the extension of treason in the north), was distributed throughout all parts of the kingdom, and, from the activity of its partisans, had immediately a more extensive circulation than any paper long esta blished.

The measures thus adopted by the party completely succeeded in detaching the minds of the lower classes from their usual habits and

pursuits, insomuch, that in the course of the autumn and winter of 1797 the peasantry in the midland and southern counties were sworn, and ripe for insurrection. Pikes were fabricated in such numbers, that in the single county of Kildare, in consequence of the measures adopted by government, twelve thousand have been surren dered; and your committee have every reason to believe that a still greater proportion was retained, and that the preparation of arms in other counties by the disaffected was nearly as extensive as the orga→ nisation itself, will appear as well from the numbers seised in different parts of the kingdom, amounting in the whole to above 129,000 of different descriptions, as from the fact, that wherever the insurrection broke out the mass of the people were universally armed either with muskets or pikes.

While they were thus maturing their design, and secretly acquiring the strength and consistency of a revolutionary army, they omitted no artifice by which they could hope either to weaken or embarrass the government of the country. So early as the year 1792 the seduction of the soldiery made a part of their system. They imagined that the season was now arrived for its accomplishment, and no means which wicked subtilty could suggest were left unemployed. Printed papers were industriously circulated a mongst the privates and non-commissioned officers, urging them to insubordination and revolt, and holding out the most tempting of fers of preferment to such as should desert their colours. The atrocious crimes to which they were incited will best appear by reference to the proceedings of the general courts-martial hereunto annexed,

before

before whom the culprits were tried, prior to the breaking out of the rebellion, and to the trial of Henry and John Sheares before a special commission lately held.

Their attempts to frustrate the administration of justice have already been mentioned. It will be proper to state some farther particulars. From several authentic reports of their own proceedings it appears, that considerable sums of money were subscribed for the purpose of defending such of their associates as should be brought to trial. That they had itinerant committees, who went circuit as regularly as the judges. That a bar of lawyers were retained to undertake the cause of all persons in the gross committed for state offences. Entries of money appear in their proceedings as paid to procure, as well as to buy off, witnesses. In many cases to gaolers for being guilty of breaches of trust, and even to under-sheriffs for returning partial pannels; hand-bills to intimidate jurors were circulated; and every species of indecent management practised in the courts, to exclude from the jury-box persons unconnected with their party.

In the hope of diminishing the resources of the state, instructions were given to the people to abstain from the consumption of exciseable articles, which are productive to the revenue, and every endeavour made to depreciate the value of government securities in the estimation of the public, to stop the raising of the supplies of the year by the sale of the quit-rents, and to prevent the circulation of Bank paper.

Before your committee proceed to state the traitorous correspondence carried on by the leading members of the conspiracy with the enemy, they think it necessary

to advert to a new organisation of the society which took place in August 1797, the reasons for which change will best appear by an inspection of the printed paper at that time circulated, as an instruction to the body: and your committee beg leave to refer to the examination upon oath, before the secret committee of the house of lords, of Dr. M'Nevin, who states himself to have been a member of their executive directory for the detailed application of this new system to military purposes.

The evidence of the same person, together with that of two other members of the executive, namely, Tr. Emmet and Mr. Arthur O'Connor, delivered upon oath before the said secret committee of the lords, and who, as well as the said Dr. M' Nevin, have been examined since before your committee, has completely developed the connexion of the party with the French directory. From their testimony, it appears, that so early as the year 1796, the party, despairing of carrying their plans into execution through the medium of a democratic reform, avowedly directed their efforts to revolution; and having received an intimation from one of the society, and whom your committee have very good reason to know to be Mr. Theobald Wolfe Tone, already mentioned, (a fugitive from this country on account of his treasonable conduct,) then at Paris, that the state of the country had been represented to the government of France in such a light as to induce them to resolve on sending a force to Ireland for the purpose of enabling it to separate itself from Great Britain; an extraordinary meeting of the executive of the union was convened to take the proposal into consideration.

This meeting was held in the summer of 1796, and the result of their deliberations was to accept of the assistance thus held out to them by the French directory.

In consequence of this determination an agent was dispatched to the directory to acquaint them with it. He was instructed to state the dispositions of the people, and the arrangements of the union for their reception; and received fresh assurances from the French government that the armament should be sent as speedily as it could be prepared. The agent above alluded to appears to your committee, from various channels of information, to have been the late lord Edward Fitzgerald, who, accompanied by the said Mr. Arthur O'Connor, proceeded by Hamburgh to Switzerland, and had an interview near the French frontier with general Hoche, who afterwards had the command of the expedition against Ireland, on which occasion every thing was settled between the parties with a view to the descent. The reason the persons employed on this mission did not pass into France was, lest the Irish government should gain intelligence of the fact, and cause them to be apprehended on their return.

About October, 1796, an accredited messenger from the French republic arrived, who said he came to be informed of the state of the country, and to communicate to the leaders of the united Irishmen the intention of the French to invade Ireland speedily with fifteen thousand men, and a great quantity of arms and ammunition, which attempt so announced was accordingly made in the month of December following, when the French fleet, with a large body of troops on board, arrived in Pantry-bay.

Your committee do not think it necessary to advert to the early and frequent communications of a treasonable nature that took place between the disaffected who had fled from this country to France, and the leaders of the party here; it is sufficient to set forth the leading attempts of the union to prevail upon the French directory to send a force to their assistance. It is necessary however to observe, that although previous to the summer of 1796 no formal and authorised communication appears to have taken place between the Irish executive and the French government, yet the trial of Dr. Jackson, convicted of high treason in the year 1795, proves that even then the enemy had agents in this kingdom who were addressed to the most active members of the Irish union for information and assistance; and the treasonable statement respecting the interior situation of Ireland then drawn up, to be transmitted to France, appeared on the trial to have been the joint production of Theobald Wolfe Tone, heretofore mentioned as the framer of the original constitution of united Irishmen, assisted by Archibald Hamilton Rowan, esq. who frequently appeared in their publications as the chairman of the society, to which treason, Lewins, whom your committee from various channels of information are enabled to state to be now their resident agent at Paris, appears to have been privy.

From the period of the failure of this expedition, the disaffected either actually did expect, or, with a view of keeping up the spirits of their party, pretended to expect the immediate return of the enemy; and assurances to this effect were industriously circulated in all their societies. However, in the spring of

said to be received from Lewins, the Irish agent at Paris, and shown by lord Edward Fitzgerald to John Cormick, a colonel in the rebel army, who fled from justice on the breaking out of the rebellion, and who made a voluntary confession, upon his apprehension in Guernsey, before sir Hugh Dalrymple. This letter, although written apparently on money business, which is the eloak generally made use of by the party to conceal their real views, is perfectly intelligible when connected with, and explained by, the memoir presented by Dr. M'Ne vin, the Irish agent, to the French directory. The letter states, that the trustees, that is, the directory, would not advance the five thousand pounds, that is, the smaller number of troops asked for in M Nevin's memoir; saying, they would make no payment short of the entire sum, that is, the larger force which they always declared their intention of sending; and that this payment could not be made in less than four months from that time.

The demands of the party by their first agent went to a force not exceeding ten thousand, nor less than five thousand men, with forty thousand stand of arms, and a proportionate supply of artillery, am munition, engineers, experienced officers, &c.

A still larger supply of arms was solicited by the second messenger, on account, as he stated it, of the growing number of their adherents, and of the disarming of the north, in which province above ten thousand stand of arms, and as many pikes, had been surrendered to the king's troops.

It appears that an attempt was made about the same time to procure the assistance of such Irish of ficers, then in foreign service, at

might be prevailed upon, by receiving high rank, to engage in the service of the union; and that a negotiation was actually set on foot for this purpose; but it has been stated, that from the over-caution of the agent who was employed in conducting this transaction, nothing in consequence of it was effected.

A second memoir was presented by this confidential agent upon his arrival at Paris, in which he urged such arguments as he conceived most likely to induce the directory not to postpone the invasion. He endeavoured to demonstrate, that so favourable a disposition, as then existed in the Irish mind, was in no future contingency to be expected; and he artfully represented, that the delusions held out by reform might cease from delay, and thus render more difficult to France, and the true republicans of this country, their endeavours to separate the two kingdoms, and to establish a republic in Ireland.

Previous to this mission from Ireland a confidential person was sent over by the French directory to collect information respecting the state of Ireland. Failing to obtain the necessary passports in London to pass into Ireland, he wrote over to request that one of the party might meet him in London. Å person was accordingly sent over, whom your committee know, from various channels of information, to have been the late lord Edward Fitzgerald; and who, it is to be presumed, did not fail to furnish the French agent with every necessary intelligence.

The directory gave the Irish agents sent to Paris the strongest assurances of support, and did accordingly, during the summer, make preparations of a very exten