ed and portentous condition of
home and foreign politics, the society could not long retain this
character. The futility of seeking a redress of the national grievances
by parliamentary means was becoming apparent to every understanding. The
system of outrage and injustice towards the Catholics, unabating in its
severity, continued to exasperate the actual sufferers and to offend all
men of humane feelings and enlightened principles; and, at the same
time, the electric influence of the American War of Independence and the
French Revolution was operating powerfully in every heart, evoking there
the aspiration for Irish freedom, and inspiring a belief in its possible
attainment. In the midst of such exciting circumstances the society
could not continue to stand on its original basis. In the year 1794,
after a debate among the members, followed by the withdrawal of the more
moderate or timid among them from its ranks, it assumed the form and
character of a secret revolutionary organization; and Tone, Thomas Addis
Emmet, Samuel Neilson, Thomas Russell, James Napper Tandy, with a number
of other patriotic gentlemen in Belfast, Dublin, and other parts
of the country, soon found themselves in the full swing of an
insurrectionary movement, plotting and planning for the complete
overthrow of British power in Ireland. Thenceforward, for some time, the
organization went on rapidly extending through the province of Ulster,
in the first instance, and subsequently over most of the midland and
southern counties.

[Illustration: THEOBALD WOLFE TONE. _From a Portrait by his
Daughter-in-law, Mrs. Sampson Tone._]

Such was the state of affairs when, in the early part of 1794, an
emissary from the French government arrived in Ireland, to ascertain to
what extent the Irish people were likely to co-operate with France in a
war against England. This individual was the Rev. William Jackson, an
Irish Protestant clergyman, who had for some years been resident in
France, and had become thoroughly imbued with Democratic and Republican
principles. Unfortunately, he was not one of the most prudent of envoys.
He revealed his mission to an acquaintance of his, an English attorney,
named Cockayne, who repaid his confidence by betraying his secrets to
the government. Cockayne was immediately employed as a spy upon
Jackson's further proceedings, in which capacity he accompanied his
unsuspecting victim to Ireland, and acquired cognizance of most of his