, who had
recently succeeded Lord Camden, and held double offices of
Lord-Lieutenant and Commander-in-chief. Yielding to the inevitable,
Humbert surrendered at discretion, and he and his men were received with
due courtesy as prisoners of war. The account given by the bishop of
Killala who was kept prisoner while that town was occupied by the
French, will be found to be extremely well worth reading.

The last scene of the drama brings Wolfe Tone appropriately back upon
the gloomy stage. When General Humbert sailed for Killala a much larger
French force under General Hardi had remained behind at Brest. In
September this second detachment sailed, Wolfe Tone being on board the
principal vessel called the _Hoche_. Outside Lough Swilly they were
overtaken by an English squadron, and a desperate struggle ensued. The
smaller French vessels escaped, but the _Hoche_ was so riddled with shot
and shell as to be forced to surrender, and was towed by the victors
into Lough Swilly. Here the French officers including Wolfe Tone were
hospitably entertained at dinner by Lord Cavan. While at table Tone was
recognized by an old school friend, and was at once arrested and sent
prisoner to Dublin. A court martial followed, and despite his own plea
to be regarded as a French officer, and therefore, if condemned shot, he
was sentenced to be hung. In despair he tried to kill himself in prison,
but the wound though fatal, was not immediately so, and the sentence
would have been carried rigorously out but for the intervention of
Curran, who moved for a writ of Habeas Corpus on the plea that as the
courts of law were then sitting in Dublin, a court martial had no
jurisdiction. The plea was a mere technicality, but it produced the
required delay, and Wolfe Tone died quietly in prison.

LIV.

THE UNION.

By the month of August the last sparks of the rebellion of '98 had been
quenched. Martial law prevailed everywhere. The terror which the rising
had awakened was finding its vent in violent actions and still more
violent language, and Lord Cornwallis, the Lord-Lieutenant, was one of
the few who ventured to say that enough blood had been shed, and that
the hour for mercy had struck. The ferocity with which the end of the
contest had been waged by the rebels had aroused a feeling of
corresponding, or more than corresponding ferocity on the other side.
That men who a few months before had trembled to see all whom they loved
best exposed to the